Storybird

Last week at Staff Day I had a chance to introduce a few staff to Storybird, but I love it so much I wanted everyone to know about it!

Storybird is a storytelling Web 2.0 experience accessible to the youngest kids. On Storybird, you can create your own stories using tons of great pictures from amazing artists. You just click and drag images onto your storyboard, and type in your text. You can make them as long or as short as you like, and if you want, you can post them to the site for everyone to see. You can read other people's Storybirds too!

You can make a story without logging in, but if you create an account you can do the coolest thing: send an email invitation to someone else you know, who can then add their own parts to your story! The Storybirds are saved online at the site.

I created a story with my 5 year old nephew in Chicago. I started a story, then emailed the invite to my sister. She got it opened up, showed my nephew how to click and drag and start a new page, and typed in what he dictated. They did a few pages--he did all the clicking and adding--and sent it back to me! We each took a few turns and had a great time.

I think it's an awesome experience, totally age-appropriate to older preschoolers and up. It's very fun, satisfying, and builds language skills like crazy!

It will always be free to make and save a Storybird, but premium, paid features are on the way, including printing your completed stories.

Tomas Rivera Award

I am so late to the party, since Hispanic American Heritage Month ended on Thursday, but here's the winners of this year's Tomas Rivera Award. This award is specifically for authors and illustrators who write about and show the Mexican-American experience in their works.

Amie's Storytime Links!

Amie Richter shared the following links at the last Storytime Practicum, and agreed to let me post them here so everyone has access! Thanks Amie for gathering these resources and sharing them with us.

Storytime Theme Ideas

Perry Public Library Storytime Themes
The Association of Children's Librarians of Northern California Storytime Ideas
Pre-K Fun
Susan M. Dailey's Favorite Sites
Wilma Flanagan's It's Storytime
StoryPlace Pre-school Library

Printables and Activities

Making Learning Fun
Harper Collins Children's I Can Read
VRAC Coloriages (character coloring pages)
DLTK's Crafts for Kids Coloring Pages
Kiwi Magazine KiwiKids

Holidays, Songs, Book Sites

Holiday Insights Holidays
Kididdles Songs
Guys Read Good boy books
AR Bookfinder Accelerated Reader List

Where the Wild Things Are

So are you going to the movie, or keeping your book experience unsullied by film?

Alyson gave us her take back in June, when we also posted some links to interviews and blogs, including Terrible Yellow Eyes, with awesome Wild Thing tribute art!

And here's a blog that has gathered some cute Wild Things craft/art ideas.

Here's a fresh interview from Newsweek last week with both Jonze and Sendak.

One snippet from it to get you started!

What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?
Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate.

A New Storytime Song

Hee hee.

Thanks to Bridget, who sent me the link to Jim Dale's Cellphone Song.

New Pooh

Are you cheering or jeering over the new Winnie the Pooh adventure? Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, the first authorized sequel to the original Milne books, is being released today!

The author is David Benedictus, who made 2 adaptations of the original books for audio. They are illustrated by Mark Burgess, a children's book illustrator, working in what looks very much like the Shepard style.

"The first Pooh book in 80 years?" you say. "What was all the Disney stuff, chopped liver?" Disney bought the television, film, and merchandising rights in 1961, but the Milne estate retained the rights to sequels. I'm not really clear myself on the difference, but my guess is that all those Disney books are considered "merchandising" of the various film and TV characters.

And speaking of characters, the new book will introduce a new friend to the Wood: Lottie the Otter. Are we ready for this? :)

Banned Books Week

Did you have a good Banned Books Week?

Did you get a chance to see Ellen Hopkins' Manifesto poster? It's very moving, especially if you consider her struggles with challenges to her own books which deal explicitly with tough issues. (see: Crank, Glass, Tricks, eg)

However, Joe posted a great link over on the Professional Development blog that I'm stealing for here! The Wall Street Journal writes, Finding Censorship Where There is None, and asks, "Why do parents' public petitions constitute censorship, while librarians' hidden verdicts do not?"

Are you ready? Here's a response to the WSJ article, from the blog Creative Anomalies. They tackle why the parents' petitions to remove books are considered censorship: "Parents may determine what their own children read, but they do not now and never have had the ability to make the choice for any other parent."

But the CA post doesn't address that "hidden verdict" issue. The truth is that some librarians, being human beings and all, do have biases and sometimes do use selection policies consciously or unconsciously to keep certain books out of their collections. And yes, WSJ, when that happens, they are censors too. But the truth is also that many librarians are actively working to put all kinds of books ONTO their shelves, while working within constraints of budget and space and also respond to their specific community's needs.

If you've never read the classic "Not Censorship but Selection" by Lester Asheim, or if (like me) you haven't read it for years, it's worth the time. He says,

The aim of the selector is to promote reading, not to inhibit it; to multiply the points of view which will find expression, not limit them; to be a channel for communication, not a bar against it. In a sense, perhaps, it could be said that the librarian is interfering with the freedom to read whenever he fails to make some book available. But viewed realistically, the librarian is promoting the freedom to read by making as accessible as possible as many things as he can, and his selection is more likely to be in the direction of stimulating controversy and introducing innovation than in suppressing the new and perpetuating the stereotype.

Happy Banned Books Week!