Preschool Storytime: Firefighters

Our Preschool Explorers is back for the fall and my first storytime of the season was about firefighters. A couple of summers ago, we did a firefighter storytime and invited the local fire department to come down, which was really fun. They were super happy to do it, so don't hesitate to reach out. This time around was a more casual affair since it was just part of our normal storytime schedule.

Here's what I did:

Opening Song: My Hands Say Hello

Book: Fire! Fuego! Brave Bomberos by Susan Middleton Elya, illustrated by Dan Santat (Bloomsbury, 2012). This brightly illustrated book shows a team of firefighters responding to a local house fire and sprinkles Spanish words in with the text. Before I started, I went over two Spanish words that happen a lot in the text: bomberos (firefighters) and fuego (fire). I wanted to share this one because it's a great adventure story and I wanted to include some diversity in my storytime. A lot of firefighter books are along the same lines as this one: the process of firefighters responding to a call, so why not choose a diverse book?

Song: Hurry, Hurry, Drive the Fire Truck




This is a great action song to get everyone up and moving a little bit. I also love that we use our imagination. After reading a book about firefighters putting out a fire, we used our imagination to pretend that we were putting out a fire. Since a kitty gets rescued in Fire! Fuego! Brave Bomberos, we added that to the end of our song, climbing the ladder one more time and then holding out our arms for the kitty cat.

Book: A Visit to the Fire Station by B.A. Hoena (Pebble Plus, 2004). I love Pebble Plus books for adding nonfiction to preschool storytime. The large trim size and clear, colorful photos make this series nice for sharing with groups, while the easy text is straightforward enough to share with young children. I chose this one because I wanted to include a book with real photos.

Action Rhyme: Five Brave Firefighters

Five brave firefighters (stand up, hold up five fingers)
Sleeping in a row (hold hands against cheek like sleeping)
Ring goes the bell (librarian rings bell)
And down one goes! (sink to the ground)

Source: adapted from Storytime with Miss Tara and Friends

Book: Fire Truck by Peter Sis (Greenwillow Books, 1998). I have a soft spot for Peter Sis, since I did my illustrator project on him way back in library school. This imaginative story is illustrated almost exclusively in black and white and red. Young Matt loves fire trucks so much that he turns into one and races around his house having adventures until he smells some pancakes and goes to have his breakfast. Again, a lot of firefighter books are pretty similar, so I chose this one because it's something a little different.

Felt Action: Build a fire station. We have a felt set of "things you'd see at a fire station", which includes fire trucks, fire fighters, ladders, fire extinguishers, etc. I passed those out and had the kids bring up their piece when I called it. I almost always do an activity like this to end storytime if I have a set that fits my theme because it's good practice for kids to listen and follow instructions. Plus, having them approach the felt board gets them used to approaching an adult who's not their parent (school readiness!). And also most of them are fascinated with the felt board and love to interact with it. :)

Play Stations:

I didn't have anything that specifically related to firefighters today, so I just put out blocks, cars & trucks, our color boxes, and let them manipulate the fire station stuff on the felt board.

Some Writer!: The Story of E.B. White

Some Writer!: The Story of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet. Grades 4-8. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, October 2016. 160 pages. Review copy provided by publisher.

You guys. Melissa Sweet is my GIRL. And she has outdone herself this time.

Booktalk:

Do any of you know a certain spider named Charlotte?

What about a mouse named Stuart? Or a swan named Louis? If you know any of these classic children's book characters, you have author E.B. White to thank.

E.B. White (his actual first name is Elwyn) grew up loving words and loving nature and animals. Ever since he was a young boy, Elwyn wrote and wrote and wrote. He wrote poems and articles. He wrote a guidebook to his family's favorite vacation spot at the lake. And yes, he wrote books. He wrote books that are now beloved and read by millions of children.

This biography of E.B. White tells about his childhood and his path to becoming a famous writer. My favorite thing about this book are the beautiful illustrations. I like how the author and illustrator weaves together photographs, diary pages, and bits of Elwyn's writing with her own original illustrations. I love the colors she uses to bring Elwyn to life in the pages of this book.

If you are a writer or if you are a reader who loves books like Charlotte's Web or Stuart Little, pick up this book.

My thoughts:

This book is just a beauty. It feels like a beautiful scrapbook of E.B. White's life. Newspaper clippings, letters, photos, illustrations done in Sweet's signature mixed media style. The rainbow of colors and the care that Sweet takes to depict nature scenes emphasize Elwyn's love of nature and animals.

I don't know what else to say except that this is a book for the writers out there. It's a love letter to writing and to a man whose life was devoted to writing in many different forms.

Readalikes: 

Readers may be interested in other books about writers and wordsmiths that Melissa Sweet has illustrated: A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams and The Right Word: Roget and his Thesaurus, both written by Jen Bryant.

Readers who are writers may also be interested in these beautifully-crafted memoirs, which celebrate the beauty and craft of writing:

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle

How I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson

Or readers who are writers might enjoy books about the craft of writing like Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly by Gail Carson Levine.

Reading Wildly: Nonfiction

Hey! It's been awhile since I posted about our Reading Wildly meetings! Part of that is because SUMMER (we don't usually have time to sit down and have meetings during summer) and part of that is because we've been short-staffed and going crazy for the past couple of months. We've done several months of Reader's Choice and share-with-each-other-when-you-can.

But now it's September and we're back! We met last week to share nonfiction titles and to talk a little bit about Becky Spratford's Call to Action: Get Out There and Read Something You Are "Afraid" Of. This felt like the perfect piece to get us back in our groove of Reading Wildly meetings because this is exactly what we try to do with Reading Wildly every month. When we choose our genres for the year, I ask my staff to think about what books they do Not normally gravitate to, what genres or topics they get asked about that make them nervous.

If you are thinking about ways to improve your own reader's advisory skills or  about working with your staff to improve your team's skills, read that post above. It is definitely a call to action that deserves an answer!

And while you're at it, I want you to think about helping a patron with a reader's advisory question about any genre and what your reaction would be if that patron said "Great, which of these books feature people of color?" And then tell me that you don't think librarians should need to read diversely.

Ahem. Nonfiction.

Here are the books that were shared this month:

• Fighting Fire!: Ten of the Deadliest Fires in American History and How We Fought Them by Michael L. Cooper
• Head's Up Philosophy by Marcus Weeks
• I am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World (Young Reader's Edition) by Malala Yousafzai
• Last of the Giants: The Rise and Fall of Earth's Most Dominant Species by Jeff Campbell
• Lift Your Light a Little Higher: The Story of Stephen Bishop: Slave-Explorer by Heather Henson, illustrated by Bryan Collier
• Saved by the Boats: The Heroic Sea Evacuation of September 11 by Julie Gassman, illustrated by Steve Moors
• Some Writer!: The Story of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet
• Ugly by Robert Hoge
• World War II (Blast Back series) by Nancy Ohlin, illustrated by Adam Larkum

I am really super excited about October because we will be welcoming the wonderful RA librarian and trainer Becky Spratford to our library to hold some RA workshops for our Staff Day. And also we will be reading thrillers. This is in direct response to some teens who were looking for April Henry readalikes and I came up empty from my own personal experience. I'll be filling that void this month!

Some Light

Light at the End of the Tunnel 2 by Rebecca Swift

I think maybe I've come out of my tunnel. 

I wrote previously about being overwhelmed, first on the ALSC Blog back in December and more recently here this summer. 

I almost hate to say it because it feels like I'm going to jinx something, but these past couple of weeks I have been feeling better. I had honestly been wondering if I was ever going to wake up without dreading going to work. 

And then one morning.... I did. 

I woke up actually optimistic and excited to go to the library and do the job that, yes, I still love. 

A big part of that is that we are finally back to full staff (our new normal of full staff, that is). We filled a part-time position that had been vacant almost four months due to Circumstances. And I think what was really weighing me down was the Not Knowing. 

I am a planner. I like to know what's going to happen. I like to be able to think about the months ahead and know that we're going to be able to handle what's coming. Now that we're at the staffing level we're going to be at for the foreseeable future, I finally feel like we can begin to move forward. 

I've also accepted our new level of programming (much less than what we could previously offer). And as we train up our new staff person, we'll see where we're able to go from here. 

I don't know what the future holds. But I know that for now I am feeling okay, which is much better than I have felt for the past several months. And I'm just going to hold on to that and do the job I love. (And maybe blog a little more frequently...)

The Girl Who Drank the Moon

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (Grades 5-9). Algonquin Young Readers, August 2016. 400 pages. Review copy provided by my local library.

Booktalk:

(This booktalk is adapted from the publisher's copy on GoodReads. It said exactly what I wanted to say but more concisely and I think it makes a great booktalk!)

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave the youngest baby in the town as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest, hoping that will protect their village from her evils. But what they don't know is that the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise swamp monster Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon named Fyrian.

Xan rescues the abandoned children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, feeding the babies starlight on the journey.

But one year, Xan mistakenly feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, Luna, as her own. To keep Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her.

When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule, but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her, even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she has always known.

If you like magical fantasy stories with unforgettable characters, stories that are sometimes serious and sometimes funny - the Perfectly Tiny Dragon in this story is hilarious - pick up this book.

My thoughts:

I had been hearing major buzz about this book and it was for good reason. This book is awesome. It has that feel of a classic fantasy story about witches and forests and magic, but it's also a fresh approach that interweaves science and critical thinking and legend and being kept down by The Man. 

It's a review cliche to say that it's a story about the power of stories, but IT IS and this book approaches the power of stories in a way that's new to me. There's a lot of power here in WHO is telling the stories and the tale gives us a macro view of that while the characters are very much only seeing what's in front of them.
The writing is rich and dark and complicated, but not in a way that bogs down the story. In a way that begs for a reread.

I am sure that the Newbery Committee will be taking a close look at this one.

Readalikes:

Readers who like a rich, epic fantasy story might also enjoy Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire. I think the tone of these books is similar and Xan reminded me a little bit of Baba Yaga.

Readers who enjoy the dark forest setting and the strong female characters might enjoy West of the Moon by Margi Preus, which is not fantasy but is based in fairy tales and features a feisty young heroine.

Series I Love: All Four Stars

I am NOT a big series reader. As a youth services librarian, I usually feel like reading the first book in a series is good enough. I get to know what the book is like and who I would hand it to. No need to read the rest of the books when there are so many more first books to read. Plus, it's hard for me to keep track of characters and plots for months or a year while waiting for the next book to come out.

So it's a special series that grabs my attention enough that I keep reading subsequent books. There are a few, and I want to write about them. I wrote about The Thickety a few months ago and today I want to make sure you know about:

All Four Stars by Tara Dairman

Gr. 4-7. Putnam. Review copies provided by publisher.

Booktalk: 

Gladys Gatsby loves to cook. It's her favorite hobby. She loves trying out new recipes, watching cooking shows, reading cookbooks... Unfortunately, Gladys has an incident with a creme brulee blowtorch, accidentally burning down her kitchen curtains and her parents ban her from the kitchen. Gladys isn't sure what to do with herself after that happens. Imagine if your parents banned you from video games or playing basketball or whatever it is you like to do in your spare time. 

When Gladys’s new teacher assigns them an essay about their future, Gladys pours her soul into her essay about becoming a restaurant critic, winning the class contest and the chance to submit her essay to the New York newspaper offering 500 dollars to the winner. But when Gladys’s essay arrives at the newspaper office, a tired intern mistakes it for a job application and sends it to the Dining Section. At first, when Gladys is contacted by the food editor about writing a review for the paper, she’s convinced it’s a prank. But it’s not a prank. And Gladys has a chance at her dream job… if only she can figure out a way to get into the city and eat at this restaurant and take notes to review it without her parents finding out.

This is a book for anyone who appreciates loves reading about - or eating! - good food!

Books in the series: 

1. All Four Stars by Tara Dairman (2014). 288 pages. 

2. The Stars of Summer by Tara Dairman (2015). 336 pages. 

3. Stars So Sweet by Tara Dairman (July 2016). 278 pages. 

Why I Love Them:

I am a person who loves watching cooking shows and reading foodie memoirs and such. I like to try my hand in the kitchen every now and then. This series, with its blend of humor and middle grade adventure and foodie descriptions is right up my alley. 

Gladys is a likeably flawed character; she's a girl very much trying to find her way in the world. Because she spends a lot of time by herself in the kitchen, she doesn't have very many friends. She is a smart girl with a sophisticated palette and doesn't feel like she has a ton in common with most of her peers. But she tries. And it's rewarding to read about a plucky young girl following her dream and figuring out a way to make this job happen. 

This is a sweet, fun series that is just delightful to pick up and each new story is like visiting with my friend again. 

Check out other Series I Love:  

• The Thickety by J.A. White

How our Walk-Around Log has Changed Desk Time

What is your job when you're working the public service desk?

That seems like an obvious question. Your job on the public service desk is to serve the public. But I know that it gets a little more complicated when you have a ton of tasks to get done and very little off-desk time to do it. Between customers, you'll often find your librarians completing other work.

I wanted something more for our desks. As a former Barnes & Noble bookseller, it was drilled into me to put the book in the customer's hand and I always walk customers back to the shelf. I always told my staff that they're not tied to the desk; I want them to be up and walking around.

Enter the walk-around log:

And yes, here's a link to a similar file I created for a walk around log. Feel free to download and edit to fit your needs.

Confession time: our walk-around log originated as a way to deal with some security issues we were having in our building. We exist in an old, sprawling building, and we cannot see everything in our Teen Room or our Children's Room from the desks.

So I created a log for each desk and made it a requirement of my staff to do a lap of the room at least hourly while they are on desk. I know how easy it is to get involved with a project you're doing on desk, particularly during those periods when we may go a few hours between patrons, and tune out to what is going on around you. That's not good customer service and that's not keeping the library secure.

When you take a few minutes to walk around your department:

• You know who's in there. You know if there's someone back in the stacks. If you're paying attention, you become aware of any potential problems hopefully before they become actual problems. 
• Patrons know you're there. They know that you see them. If it's a situation where they were thinking of doing something inappropriate, they may now rethink because they know you're not just zoned in on your computer screen. 
• You can make sure your space is welcoming. You can make sure there are pencils, you can pick up the blocks, you can check the battery charge on the iPad stations, you can refill displays. You can take a few seconds to spruce up your room. 
• (This is an important one!) You can offer help to folks who might not ask for it. Based on my years of customer service, I can tell you that there are some people who will not ask for help. But if you approach people proactively, often they do actually have a question. Or if they think of one they will be more likely to approach you or seek you out. It doesn't have to be pushy. When I do my laps, I try to approach everyone browsing in the department and say something like "Is there anything I can help you find today? No? Well, if you have any questions, you just let me know."
• You're being healthy! It's healthy to get up and move periodically! Get that blood flowing! Get your steps in! 

Keeping up with our walk-around logs did help solve the security issues we were facing. It's also increased the number of reference questions we're answering. It also gives us a place to record any little notes we want to make, if there are any issues going on that I need to know about or future desk staff need to be aware of. 

I started out with consumable paper logs that I collected each morning to make sure my staff were remembering to do it. They did great and once I was confident that this was part of our new desk routine, I laminated a log for each desk and provided sharp point dry-erase markers to keep our logs. 

This is something that has worked well for us. What do you do to ensure your staff is providing good customer service at your public desks? 

If I Was Your Girl

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo (Grades 7+). Flatiron Books, May 2016. Review copy provided by my local library.

Amanda is starting over. She's moved to a small town in Tennessee to live with her dad and fly under the radar as she completes her senior year of high school. She dreams of getting into NYU and leaving the South for good. She doesn't plan on making friends or going to football games or bringing any attention to herself whatsoever.

If the other kids at her high school knew the truth about her, Amanda's pretty sure she knows how it would go. If everyone knew that she was assigned male at birth and had only recently transitioned to female, she's pretty sure everyone would freak out. So she keeps her secret. And stays under the radar.

But it's not that simple. This is, after all, Amanda's first chance to really live the way she was meant to live. To live without being bullied, to live as her true self. And she finds herself making friends and going to football games and falling in love... knowing that as easy as anything it could all fall to pieces around her.

This is a powerful and important book. I know that Amanda's story is going to stick with me for a long time. At its heart, it's a book about first love, a book about finally finding the place where you fit in and you feel free. It's a book about being the new kid, albeit with a complication that most new kids may not have to worry about. It's also a book about a girl connecting with her father, the father who she never really related to, a father who is imperfect but trying to accept this new situation.

The author of this book is a trans woman and pieces of the story are based on her own experiences. Meredith Russo is able to incorporate some "teachable moments" (for lack of a better term) in a way that seems organic to the story. For example, when she eventually confides in a friend, Amanda is very clear about a few types of questions NOT to task (don't ask about genitals - it's none of your business, etc.).

I appreciate that Russo leaves us with two notes - a note to cisgender readers explaining that this book about a trans experience does not stand for ALL trans experiences and particularly outlining some points where she stretched reality to make the story work more smoothly. And she includes a note to trans readers, reaching out to let them know they are not alone.

This is Meredith Russo's first novel and I hope to see much more from her.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves realistic, contemporary fiction. I would also recommend it to folks interested in reading about the trans experience. This is an important book for us to have on library shelves and to display and to share with teens.

Readalikes:

Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen by Jazz Jennings. In her memoir, Jazz shares her story of growing up as a transgender teen.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills. Elizabeth was assigned female at birth, but she has always known she is a boy. When she gets the opportunity to do her own late night radio show, she decides to take the plunge and host the show as her true self, Gabe.

Keep an Eye Out

I have been enjoying some great upcoming books and, though they're not due out for a little while, I want to make sure that you have them on your radar.

Falling Over Sideways by Jordan Sonnenblick (Grades 5-9.) Scholastic, September 27, 2016.

This is classic Sonnenblick! You know when Truvy says that laughter through tears is her favorite emotion? This book has it in spades. It's both heartbreaking and hilarious. Claire is having a rough eighth grade year. Her best dancing friends have gotten moved up to a higher level class she's not ready for. She keeps getting picked on by her nemesis, the first-chair saxophone player in band. And then something happens that blows all that stuff away. Claire's dad has a stroke. She's the one to call 911, to save his life, but it doesn't feel like a big accomplishment since his life is not at all what it used to be. He can't really talk, has trouble feeding himself, and no one knows if he'll really get better. For all readers who have read and loved Sonnenblick's Notes from the Midnight Driver or Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, do not miss this book. 

Some Writer!: The Story of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet (Grades 4 and up). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, October 4, 2016. 

I am a huge fan of Melissa Sweet's work and this is my favorite book she's done, which is SAYING SOMETHING. Her whimsical, colorful art pairs naturally with the story of E.B. White's life, a life steeped in literature and thought and nature. This book is a gorgeous masterpiece perfect for the Reader in your life.

Loving Vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case by Patricia Hruby Powell (Grades 6 & up). Chronicle Books, January 2017. 

At its heart, this is a love story. It's the story of Millie and Richard, who meet and fall in love, only the laws of their time made it illegal for them to be married, to be a family. This "documentary novel" tells a true story of the landmark civil rights case Loving Vs. Virginia, in which Mildred and Richard Loving fought fiercely for their right to love each other and to legally be a family. Prose poems narrated from alternating points of view (Mildred's and Richard's) delve into what the two must have been feeling. Scaffold this title with Selina Alko and Sean Qualls's beautiful picture book The Case for Loving.

California Dreamin': Cass Elliot Before The Mamas and the Papas by Penelope Bagieu (Grades 9 and up). First Second, March 2017. 

This is early, early warning, but if you have teens or adults who love 60s music, this is one to press into their hands. I have LOVED The Mamas and the Papas since I was in middle school and this biography of leading lady Mama Cass was so interesting and poignant to me. Also, if you're not familiar with The Mamas and the Papas, you should check out some of their music, especially if you're a Beatles fan. :) 

One of my favorites: 

Series I Love: Anna Wang

Here's another series that I love: Anna Wang. I was so sad to learn that the author passed away earlier this year and there will be no more Anna Wang books.

The Year of the Book by Andrea Cheng

Grades 3-6. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. Review copies provided by my public library. 

Booktalk:

Anna Wang wishes that she didn’t have to go to school. Not only does school take time away from Anna’s favorite activity - reading - but Anna’s having friendship problems this year. She HAD a best friend last year: Laura.  But suddenly everything is different this year. Laura’s started hanging out with a girl who’s kind of a mean girl and now Anna doesn’t have anyone to play with at recess or talk to during the day.

But even though Anna doesn’t have friends, that doesn’t mean that she’s alone. Anna always had a book by her side and that makes her feel a little less lonely. She can go on adventures in the wilderness with My Side of the Mountain or travel through time and space with A Wrinkle in Time. Anna reads SO MANY books this year, that that’s why this book is called The Year of the Book!

But even in this year of the book, reading isn’t everything and Anna will have to figure out her friends at school. Will Anna find a new best friend? Will Laura get sick of hanging out with mean girls and give Anna another chance?

I loved this book because Anna reads so many great books during her “year of the book” and I thought it was really neat to see what she thought about all these books. Since I love to read just like Anna, I have something in common with her.

This is also a great book for anyone who’s ever sometimes had trouble with friends (which is probably all of us!) or anyone who likes to read books that are character-driven, so books with a character you really get to know and love.

Books in the Series:

1. The Year of the Book (2012, 146 pages)

2. The Year of the Baby (2013, 176 pages)

3. The Year of the Fortune Cookie (2014, 176 pages) 

4. The Year of the Three Sisters (2015, 160 pages)

Why I Love Them:

Girl, Anna Wang knows angst like no elementary schooler knows angst. But in a good way. In the first book, we get to know Anna who is having trouble with friends and is feeling lonely a lot of the time. I found Anna to be so delightfully realistic - having those moods sometimes where you don't want to do ANY of the things you should be doing, but you can't really think of anything you WANT to do either? Yup. 

Plus, Anna is a reader. I am also a reader. It was delightful to read about the books that Anna was discovering and reminded me of when I discovered those books as a child. This is definitely a series that speaks to kids who are readers. 

And, while Anna struggles somewhat with her cultural identity, that's not the entire focus of the book. Anna goes to Chinese school, her family adopts a baby from China in the second book, and Anna welcomes a Chinese exchange student in the last book. Although I wouldn't call this a series about Anna's identity as a Chinese-American kid, details of her life are definitely there and feel realistic. 

Add it to the list: another series I enjoyed!