School Age Storytime: St. Patrick's Day and Finding Treasure in Unexpected Ways

 

Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato: An Irish Folktale by Tomie De Paola. (Discussed meaning of folktale, compared retelling to game of "telephone.") Ireland's laziest man happens upon a Leprechaun and is given a potato that grows to huge proportions and creates humorous problems. 

That's What Leprechauns Do by Eve Bunting (Delightful illustrations from Caldecott medalist Emily Arnold McCully accompany a playful text written in a lilting Irish style about three leprechauns' mischief-making on their way to place the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.)

Speaking of looking for gold...

The Book of Gold by Bob Staake (Single name = author & illustrator.  Young Isaac Gutenberg isn't a curious boy . . . that is, until he meets an old shopkeeper who tells him about The Book of Gold. This special book, hidden somewhere in the world, holds all the answers to every question and turns to solid gold when opened. Isaac is determined to find the book and spends his whole life searching for it...discovering many other things along the way.

Another book celebrating the magic of discovery:

The Pink Refrigerator by Tim Egan ("Try to do as little as possible.” This was Dodsworth’s motto, until, one morning, on his daily trip to the junkyard, he discovers a pink refrigerator...)

Last, a book with no words...but a special kind of magic!

Chalk by Bill Thomson  (A rainy day. Three kids in a park. A dinosaur spring rider. A bag of chalk. The kids begin to draw...and then...magic! The children draw the sun, butterflies, and a dinosaur that amazingly come to life. Children will never feel the same about the playground after they experience this astounding wordless picture book and the power of the imagination.)

No time for:

If… by Sarah Perry (Imagine if cats could fly, leaves were fish, mice were hair, caterpillars were toothpaste, toes were teeth, or frogs ate rainbows…then imagine what else you can imagine!)  

Imagine a Day/Night/Place/World books by Sarah Thompson  (mind-bending images & poems)

Other books celebrating books, reading, and libraries: 
http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Books%20%26%20Reading

School Age Storytime: Black History Month

 

Opened by asking if the recognized the man on the cover of 

Martin's Big Words by Doreen Rappaport and talked about the Caldecott Medal on the cover, then read the book.

Sang: We Shall Overcome 

Asked if they knew who Ruby Bridges was then read:

I am Ruby Bridges by Ruby Bridges -- a first person account of her first days in school.

Talked about how this wasn't so long ago (their grandparent's time and how some white children left the school rather than go to school with black kids) and the crazy idea that skin color or national origin made some people think other people shouldn't have the same rights...

Read: Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles - Joe and John Henry do everything together, from shooting marbles to shelling butterbeans. But when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed and the town pool is opened to blacks and whites alike, the two boys discover that the workers have filled in the pool with tar. Based on the author's own childhood growing up in rural Alabama and Mississippi. 

Read: Sit-In How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney It was February 1, 1960.

They didn't need menus. Their order was simple.
A doughnut and coffee, with cream on the side.
This picture book celebration of the 50th anniversary of the momentous Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in, shows how four college students staged a peaceful protest that became a defining moment in the struggle for racial equality and the growing civil rights movement.
Andrea Davis Pinkney uses poetic, powerful prose to tell the story of these four young men, who followed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words of peaceful protest and dared to sit at the whites only Woolworth's lunch counter. 

Read: This is the Dream by Diane Z. Shore & Jessica Alexander

Inspiring text shows "before" and "after" the civil rights laws

Read: Be A King: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's Dream and You by Carole Boston Weatherford. Words to live by...

Closed with: This Little Light of Mine illustrated by E.B. Lewis

Lyrics & more ideas at: http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Black%20History%20Month

3/10/23 Nicole's class postponed from February

Read Across America - Celebrating Reading, Libraries, and Librarians - 2nd grade

 

Opened by asking fiction or non-fiction?

Library Lil by Suzanne Williams
A formidable librarian makes readers not only out of the once resistant residents of her small town, but out of a tough-talking, television-watching motorcycle gang as well in this modern tall tale! 

Asked the same question again for:

Librarian on the Roof! by M.G. King

When RoseAleta Laurell begins her new job at the Dr. Eugene Clark Library in Lockhart, Texas, she is surprised that the children of the town think the library is for adults. She vows to raise the money for a children's section and spends a week living and working on the library roof, even surviving a dangerous storm. With the help of the entire town, RoseAleta raises over $39,000 from within the community and across the country.

Followed with another book based on a true story:

Nour's Secret Library by Wafa' Tarnowska 
Forced to take shelter when their Syrian city is plagued with bombings, young Nour and her cousin begin to bravely build a secret underground library. Based on the author’s own life experience and inspired by a true story, Nour’s Secret Library is about the power of books to heal, transport and create safe spaces during difficult times. 

Finished with the imagination-starter:

If by Sarah Perry
Take a fantastical journey through an inspiring world where anything can happen: leaves turn into fish, cats fly with wings, humans have tails, frogs eat rainbows, and dreams become visible. 

First published in 1995, Sarah Perry’s delightful picture book of “surreal possibilities” was the Getty’s first children’s title. Twenty-five years later it remains a visual feast that children of all ages enjoy.  

Booktalked:

Sector 7 by David Wiesner (a cloud takes a boy on a magical journey to the cloud factory in this wordless  book by this incredible author/illustrator)

Imagine a Day/Night/Place/World books by Sarah Thompson  (mind-bending images & poems)

Chalk by Bill Thomson (another magical wordless book)

More Than Anything Else by Marie Bradby (A fictionalized story about the life of young Booker T. Washington. Living in a West Virginia settlement after emancipation, nine-year-old Booker travels by lantern light to the salt works, where he labors from dawn till dusk. Although his stomach rumbles, his real hunger is his intense desire to learn to read.... )

Applemondo's Dreams and Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair by Patricia Polacco (celebrations of imagination and the power of books & reading by this great author-illustrator) 

Mr. Hogan's class Bedm 3/2/2023