'Twas the Night Before...

#ALAYMA20

I am surprised I slept so well last night. 

While dozens of librarians are coming to final decisions this weekend, I am holding my breath that the books my students have read, critiqued, passionately debated and genuinely loved are the same books as those of the committees. Considering the spinning going through my brain right now, I may not be as well rested tomorrow morning.

When I first started my months-long award predicting projects many years ago, I would be disappointed when our favorites would not align with those of the committees. How could they not make the same decisions for Newbery as my fifth graders? After my students booed one year because the winner was not at the top of any of their lists, we had to have a full on lesson on sportsmanship.  These days, I remind myself and my students that each committee is made up of a set number of librarians and those gold and silver decisions are based solely on who is "in the room where it happens." Were different people in the room, the outcome could be entirely different. Some years we may agree wholeheartedly and unanimously (ie 2015 for Newbery, 2018 for Caldecott); some years not so much. As I write this, I wonder what kind of year 2020 will be.

But does it really matter if we agree? For months my students have fallen in love with reading "Newbery books" after checking in and out what I deem to be distinguished literature. They have boisterously entered the library searching for yet another "Newbery" book, perhaps the winner or perhaps not.  They have kindly argued on behalf of their book deserving a gold medal in the classroom, the hallway, and at home. My fourth grade nonfiction fans have hugged their books and designed t-shirts with the hopes that on Monday they will be wearing a winner. First graders and their teachers have consistently given 4-5 stars to the beautiful Caldecott contenders we have read aloud this month of "Caldec-ary." If we were committee members, we might have to award ten or more honors across the board.

If you, like me, may not be able to sleep tonight, and you don't want to start another episode of ____ on Neflix, you can scroll down for some Sibert contender recommendations and 2019 middle grade/Newbery contender book trailers.  Maybe, just maybe, there's a winner or two or three in there.

SIBERT SMACKDOWN

Sibert Smackdown Day 1: November 4, 2020

We read and read, determined our favorites, recorded our persuasive paragraphs via Flipgrid and finally designed t-shirts to wear to the Youth Media Awards.  Flipgrid videos that made me ooze with pride are here 👇

Newbery

Need more distractions? Check out some of these awesome book trailers:

The Year We Fell from Space by Amy Sarig King

Ruby in the Sky by Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo






Born to Fly by Steve Sheinkin (We love this for Newbery and Sibert)




The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman (This book won our Consensus Club.)





My Jasper June by Laurel Snyder



Beverly Right Here by Kate DiCamillo (So awesome that Jess got to meet Kate this fall!)



A Time Traveler's Theory of Relativity by Nicole Valentine


Just a few other books we had lots of love for this season:

Here's the link for the awards: http://ala.unikron.com/ As I hit "publish" there are 11 hours to go.  See you on the upside!

Flexible schedule, ISO of Geisel and what's up for the weekend!

I'm completely exhausted.  I should really be in bed right now.

It felt like a long week.  Not bad just non-stop and here's why.  I am one of the fortunate librarians with amazing administrative support so I can run a completely flexible schedule.  This is how I can run a 10 week Newbery unit with fifth graders and how I can start a Mock Geisel project with first graders (more on that later!).  And do month long author studies with kindergarteners.  But it doesn't come without a slight price and that's happening right now with what I call, "Library Boot Camp." For about 10 sessions per grade, I run library orientation.  It builds each year for each grade it is very different.  In kindergarten, we spend time familiarizing ourselves with the library, the rules, taking care of books and the computers.  By second grade, we are learning how to navigate the online catalog.  In third we explore all the databases we have and by fourth and fifth we are really sharpening our research skills so we can dive right in when the projects begin.  Needless to say, it's a crazy time of year, but it's so worth it.

I also don't do the same thing every year.  I take our author, or a theme (last year in first grade it was "Scaredy Squirrel" and this year we are all about Sarah Weeks) and base the boot camp activities on that theme.  Fourth grade boot camp was all about PIE.  For example, look up "pie" in World Book.  Fifth grade was all about HONEY.  Look up "honey" in Grolier.  And since we are all about collaboration this year, the kids are spending a lot of time working together, already in the first two weeks of school.

First graders exploring Pebble Go in Boot Camp.

5th graders reading Sarah Weeks's "Glamourpuss" to answer a boot camp question on theme.

More 5th graders reading a picture book by Sarah Weeks

And MORE fifth graders with a Sarah Weeks book

All of the fifth grade teachers read HONEY as a read aloud this week.  Everyone finished yesterday!  Mrs. Harris loved it!

If you have a flexibly scheduled library and cover your library skills a different way, I would love to hear about it.  As for now, I will keep my boot camps going and one day look forward to a nice long nap.

So, an exciting thing happened to me this week.  I got published as a "Guest Blogger" on the ALSC blog.  And in honor of that, I wore my ALSC bracelets today to school.  I'm searching far and wide for some collaborators, a book list, anything related to the Geisel award.  I've gotten a few bites, but I was really hoping for more.  Maybe more people will read the blog over the weekend.

Here's the link to my post:

http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2015/09/iso-mock-geisel-award-help/ 

No rest for the weary--My 9 year old son, Zack, and I are headed to the Princeton Library's Children's Book Festival tomorrow (http://bookfestival.princetonlibrary.org/) We're going to meet his friend from sleepaway camp and hang out with a lot of our friends.  Zack is especially excited to introduce his friend to Jarrett Krosoczka, who will we travel miles to see.  Zack even has a big "Lunch Lady" poster that Jarrett sketched for him framed and hanging in his room.

Sarah is supposed to be there so I hope to see her and have time to tell her how pumped the school is about her May visit.  Jerry White (The Thickety) will be there as well as many others.  My kind of slice (all puns intended) of heaven right there. But I should really get some sleep so I can be up and ready to go tomorrow!