American Library Association Youth Media Awards

I'm not going to lie.  The youth media awards day is one of my favorite librarian days of the year. The fact that it fell on a snow day this year and that I could watch them live was absolutely a bonus.  I am always way too busy at school and have to settle for the press release as soon as I get a chance.  Right or wrong, I generally evaluate my successes or failures at collection development in part at least on how many of these titles that I own.  I eagerly prepare a book order to gather the ones that I don't have. And, I prepare to book talk the titles at my next available opportunity.

I have already shared my thoughts on Brown Girl Dreaming here. Certainly glad I found the time to read such an honored book: National Book Award; Coretta Scott King Authpr Award; Newbery Honor Award, and Robert F. Sibert Honor Award. I loved this book and am sharing it with as many kids, especially aspiring writers as I can.

I have this year's Newbery The Crossover by Kwame Alexander.  I will be adding it to my to do list. The seventh graders will definitely be hearing about it in the next book talk. We just talked about a number of Coretta Scott King books as we prepared for Black History Month.  It will be lovely to add this title to the mix.

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming has intrigued me since I read the first review.  Now that it's an award winner times two: Robert F. Sibert Honor and YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction, I will really have to get after it.  Currently it is checked out; a good sign.

I didn't do so very well in the Printz category.  I bought, read, loved, and book talked And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard. I am drawn to all things Emily Dickinson related.  Certainly, I've noted before, the boarding school books intrigue me!

These are some of the titles I got right in the last year.  I am sure anxious to get into several of today's winners.  I love that ALA gives me so much food for thought each year!

Don't Underestimate Laura Ingalls Wilder

I guess I am hardly unique in my fascination with Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I was excited to read in this article at the NPR that the demand for the unvarnished version of her life story Pioneer Girl has far exceeded expectations! I cuddled in several nights over the winter break to read the book and am fascinated.  Until I study the pictures and explore all the footnotes, a considerable amount of time passes.  I have wanted to talk about it here, but was trying to finish the book first.  Then school happened, and lately the beautiful book is just looking lovely as a coffee table decoration.  I love hearing Laura Ingalls Wilder's unedited voice.  I love having access to the drafts and some of her drawings that accompanied them in this work.  I think it is cool (yes, I typed cool) to have met Laura as a little girl with her polished little girl voice and now to read the adult voice.  It may be summer until I get to really touch it again, because it needs to be savored, but Laura Ingalls Wilder fans, give it a look!

What Schools Should Do...

On occasion, more often lately, when we are frustrated with state mandated testing and new teacher effectiveness hoops and SLO’s and on and on, my educator friends and I say, kind of jokingly, that we should just open our own school.  We’d have most of the curricular bases covered.  The article A Project in Learning by Jordan Shapiro covers a school that was formed in just that way.  45 years ago three frustrated teachers set out to form their own public school.  Parents and teachers together formed curriculum and functioned as the school’s administration. Certainly PDE could not have that:

“Unfortunately, Pennsylvania was unhappy with this rogue institution because it did not adhere to state standards. But Allender, Fox, and Bailey believed in choosing the right curriculum for each individual student. They would not squeeze individuals into a mold designed in Harrisburg. They took their inspiration from the writings of the education reformer John Dewey, refusing to test students because they did not believe assessments should be comparative: Individuals should always make cumulative progress, but not be measured against their peers. Not surprisingly, the state eventually pressured the school to close its doors.”

But the doors did not stay closed.  After intensive discussion, the school reopened as a private school intent on “ teaching children a way of being in the world. “ How about that?  I was exploring a book this morning - Educating Angels: Teaching for the Pursuit of Happiness by Tony Armstrong PhD. In it he suggests that instead of growing workers, schools should be teaching toward helping every student to pursue happiness.  The school highlighted in Shapiro’s article seems to do just that. Shapiro writes, “The conversation about education should not be all about the Common Core, testing, charter schools, and technology integration. We also need to ask: How do we raise a generation of children who use their academic skills in ways that reflect and reinforce the values that we believe should ground our society in the future?” When my colleagues and I dream of a different school this school is the stuff of our dreams.