'Twas the Night Before YMA 2021 version

I still have all the feels of the night before the Youth Media Awards and so many other ones, too.  

Newbery

The closest I came to my typical quarter long Newbery project was my after school Newbery Navigators club.  A handful of dedicated readers read a bunch of books.  One loves Echo Mountain.  Another Mananaland. Every single one of them When Stars Are Scattered.  We read Clean Getaway aloud so of course we'd be thrilled to see Scoob and G'ma get some love. Over the summer, 4th grade teacher Mr. C swore that he didn't have to read another 2021 book because he already read the winner, We Dream of Space. Maybe this is the year for nonfiction and we'll be placing a sticker on All Thirteen or The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh (too old?). 

Caldecott

My 2nd and 3rd graders were on the "Caldecott Committee." What a year for picture books!  We read and scored as many as we could but I'm afraid that I still missed a bunch.  The third graders LOVED A New Green Day and the second graders couldn't get enough of Lift.

I force the kids to make one choice, but not me. This is a good thing. There's no way I could pick my favorite. I love We are Water Protectors, Outside In, Hike, In a Jar, The Old Truck....honestly, I love them all.

  

And because this year I have a fixed schedule, I'll be celebrating all week long.  I bought gelt (gold coins) and gold Hershey's kisses (without almonds) as my treat and hope that is festive enough for our "party day." I also found a gold backdrop for photo ops and some gold balloons.  Happy Youth Media Day.

Sibert

I was fortunate enough to run into 4th grade ELA teacher, Mrs. Roe, in the stairwell in November.  We chatted for about five minutes and came up with a Sibert Smackdown plan.  She would read books aloud and I would read others over Flipgrid.  4th graders read over a dozen Sibert Smackdown contenders. Considering that I didn't think they would read any, this is amazing!

With all but one class voting, the top two winners are Crossings and Your Place in the Universe.

If you can't sleep tonight or woke up early and want to watch a little preview before the announcements, feel free to check out their flipgrids: https://flipgrid.com/ff7c379e

Geisel

Ugh. I love Geisel.  I've met some amazing people through the Geisel project including Stephen Savage, Anna Kang and Chris Weyant, Jonathan Fenske (who always makes me lol).  Even though I have only read a few of the Geisel contenders, Egg or Eyeball is my favorite with Baloney and Friends and Mo and his squished jelly doughnut as close seconds.

And that's my wrap.  Tomorrow will be nothing like any other year but I'm hopeful it will still be exciting. I'll be celebrating all week and really putting my acting skills to test.  Find me on Friday afternoon to see if I'm as surprised at the announcements as I am tomorrow.  But now it's time for me to hit my pillow.  See you on the other side.

#NYLibrarySpotlightDay

"Woke up. Got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head...

...I read the news today, oh boy..."

-Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart's Club Band

Happy #NYLibrarySpotlight Day.

Woke up. Got out of bed. Did NOT drag anything across my head. Yoga. Coffee...and...and the news? Well, oh boy is right.

Today was a good day for this New York school librarian.

I got up early in a panic thinking I had to get an email out to a teacher by 6:50.  Oops. Am I on Texas time?  It was SEVEN 50. Bonus hour to get things done.

Before 9, three first graders were in front of me eager to learn how to access SORA. Once they got their logins and a reminder to use their public library card, too, the world of books was exponentially opened up to them. Good feeling.

Answer and send emails.  

Read a picture book about the coronavirus.  There are a lot out there but what makes this one special is that it can be translated into 25 languages. Forward to my faculty and staff and the HS Spanish teachers.  One Spanish teacher immediately replies, "I love it."  Win. 

(CES Parents reading this: I have a whole folder of books like this on my resource page.)

It's almost time for the daily 10:30 read aloud. This week Grace Lin is reading her Newbery honor book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, via Facebook Live. I know my students would probably not watch on their own so I offer it up as a meet with me. Look at them, especially the one in the bottom left with his arms up. They. Are. Listening. It is always a challenge getting these things going, though. Every day. Today was unusually difficult so I finally pulled it up on my laptop and projected it on my school computer.  Crisis diverted. (CES Parents: So far the read alouds have been middle grade but next week they will be all picture books.  Meet code: 56reads.)

I try and take a brief break to watch Governor Cuomo's press conference.  Today was no exception. My son baked a loaf of sandwich bread last night and I ate the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich I ever had. I'm not kidding.

A belated book birthday party is better than no party at all, right? So for my 6th grade Dewey Duty lunch we celebrated Lauren Wolk's Echo Mountain. I just received the e-galley on Monday but lucky for me, I couldn't sleep that night so I got a bunch of it read before the release yesterday.  So far, amazing. Gripping. Can you really go wrong with Lauren Wolk?  I pulled out a cupcake, we read the first two chapters together and everyone was hooked.  Juliann was randomly picked to receive a copy compliments of me via Northshire Bookstore. She was SO excited! To this date, this is the 10th book I have given away. Money well spent that normally would have gone to coffee, gas, doughnuts,  theatre, Montreal, concerts...

Back to bookstores, Grace Lin gave us three tips today. Buy books and audiot books from: bookshop.org and libro.fm (to support indie bookstores) and check out her podcast, https://www.kidsaskauthors.com/. The podcast sounds awesome! Kids come up with questions for book creators and they answer. Great questions to remember for author/illustrator Skypes and school visits.

Faculty meeting. More emails. Plan. Walk. 

Facetime with a friend. Wait. She's key to this entire day. I would not have had it without her. 

In 2006 Val and I met at a party. She was a 3rd grade teacher, NOT a librarian. We just met. I was on maternity leave and ready for something new. She told me to become a school librarian. Seriously. I heeded her, a stranger's, advice. I did not know her AT ALL. Six months later I quit my job and enrolled full time.  The theme for National Library Week is "Find Your Place at the Library." Thanks, Val, for changing my life by helping me find my place and giving me today. 🧡📚😍

#NYLibrarySpotlightDay #NYLibraryWeek #NationalLibraryWeek #LibrariesTransform #SchoolLibraryMonth

We are over THE MOON with the #ALAyma selections!

I can't remember being this excited and screaming this much in school, ever.  Watching the Youth Media Awards with about 175 students (4th grade, 5th grade and one first grade class) is an experience that will stick with me for a very long.  Maybe one day I will give it up to watch it live at ALA Midwinter, but right now being in school with my students where you can go from hearing a pin drop, to pounding feet drum rolls to ecstatic screams and leaps is not something I can give up just yet.

Early Morning Wake Up

Beep beep beep.  Well, really the background noise of NPR is my old school clock radio going off.  I had to get up extra early to pick up our #ALAyma cake.

Yes, for the second year in a row Newbery is spelled incorrectly

So I'm downstairs making coffee when my husband leaps out of bed and calls down to me groggily, "Put on NPR! There's a story on Caldecott and Newbery!"  Thank you, husband, Kevin and NPR's Lynn Neary!

8:10 AM

After working through a bit of a glitch in our network, we are finally live into the room where it happens. By 8:30 Mrs. Pryde's class showed up in their Dr. Seuss hats.  They all grabbed a Geisel contender to read through while waiting for their award announcement.  

A couple of huge "Pig in a Wig" fans

This is PRE-Announcement!  Little did he know he was holding an honor book!

Fifth grade came in and then fourth. By 8:45, the old gym/auditorium was filled with excited children, biting fingernails. crossing all limbs for good luck, and just plain nervous for "their book to be announced."

Sibert

Congratulations to Giant Squid!  We had a couple of groups choose that book for their Sibert Smackdown project and they were thrilled when it was announced for the Sibert Honor! Honestly, because the illustrations in this book are phenomenal, we wouldn't have been surprised if it was also been recognized for Caldecott.  Which brings us to...

Caldecott

THE Caldecott winning book was on our Sibert list so we had another pair of girls thrilled when they heard the announcement!  As adults we get attached to these books and think of them as "ours" so imagine what it is like when you are 9 or 10 years old and a national organization agrees with you! One of the reasons why these girls said this book should win Sibert was because of the artwork. They were onto something.  I explained to them what the original art looks like when I saw it at the Society of Illustrators in NYC.  It is mind blowing!

Geisel

Sadly, none of our favorite-favorite Geisel books won, although Go, Otto, Go was liked by many. After everyone left, Mrs. Pryde read the winning book, We Are Growing, aloud to her class. 

NEWBERY

THIS is what we've all been waiting for.  What I have lost sleep over for the past week.  What I work so hard on for 12 months of the year.  It's my summer reading (and spring, winter and fall) all colliding in one day, one hour, one five minute presentation.

Will the books that I have put in the hands of my students win an award?  Will the books that they have fallen for get honored?  Will the "adult committee's" choices meet "the real committee's" (ours) choices?  Did we Skype with any winners? Did any of our book group books win?  

The answer to all of these questions is YES!

Honor Books

Freedom Over Me by Ashley Bryan

Look at Sean when he heard the announcement!  You don't realize how attached a student is to a book until it wins a prize!

Inquistor's Tale: Or, the Three Magical Children and their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz

OMG!  OMG! This was a book group book! The boys blew us away with their Reader's Theatre! They won every debate they were in ("4-0" as one boy put it) and we had the privilege of Skyping with Adam and being mesmerized by his storytelling less than a week ago!

Mr. Chevrier, our Director of Curriculum and Instruction, with his book group

Back in November they were leaping! Mr. Chevrier told me that he has read some great books in book groups with kids but he thinks this might have been his favorite.

Skyping with Adam last Wednesday, January 18

The big question now is "Where do you put the sticker?"

Can you tell that Adam was attempting a leap with us, too?!

When we "met" Adam he told us that he "likes scaring children."  That's true! I gave A Tale Dark and Grim to a student a few years ago and she returned it to me saying, "I can't read this. It's keeping me up at night."  We loved hearing how Adam got into writing and how he came up with the ideas for The Inquisitor's Tale.  He and his wife were in France and while his wife was doing her research on the middle ages he was "learning stories."  We learned that writing in slippers is essential (he even showed us the ones he had on then) and that the book took him six years to write.  Well, we are all glad he persevered.  Mazel Tov, Adam!

Winners all around!

Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

I knew this book was a winner the moment I read it.

This is what I wrote in a copy of "Wolf Hollow" that I gave to Mrs. Warland as a thank you gift

Our new principal, Mr. Derby, read it with his book group.  This was an email I got from him one morning before the sun went up:

He fell asleep reading it on the couch and woke up at 3 am to finish.

 I had to find Lauren so we could Skype and lucky us, I did!  The kids wanted to know why she named Betty "Betty." "Betty" is an ordinary name so Lauren thought it was a bit ironic to name the not-so-sweet girl, "Betty."  Mr. Derby's favorite character is Aunt Lil so he was determined to talk to Lauren about her.  "I have to have someone in there who is a sour note."  The last thing I wrote down in my notes from her Skype is this:

You have no idea what's waiting for you.

-Lauren Wolk, January 11, 2017

That couldn't be truer for Lauren right now.

Mr. Derby with his book group after the YMA announcements

And the winner of the 2017 John Newbery Award is...

THE GIRL WHO DRANK THE MOON BY KELLY BARNHILL

Yes, I am crazy.  Yes, I am loud.  Yes, I am insane.  But how could you not be when everyone else is screaming and jumping because their book won!  Look at Mr. Reischer!  Look at Ashlyn (the one I am hugging).  Look at all of them!  I love this video so much.  It just sums up how excited we are about books and reading!

Back in October when I was soliciting swag for our Newbery Nook, Trevor from Algonquin Young Readers, sent me a whole bunch of "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" posters. Everyone from the book group got one. I hear many of them hung them up in their bedrooms. Cool.

During our Animoto party in December, Ashlyn and Liam brought in book related treats:

We were thrilled to Skype with Kelly on January 6.  We loved her so much.  I tried to take a few notes but everything she said was quotable so it was hard to keep up:

When the kids asked her why a certain character dies, she said, 

"Life is like a story.  It has a beginning, middle and end."

All kids want to know if there is going to be a sequel.  Kelly prefers stand alone novels because then

"...the rest of the story is written in the heart of the reader."

What is your writing process like?

"When I get stuck, I do a lot of pushups so I get a lot of arm muscles."

And finally she told us...

"The writer doesn't make the story, the reader does."

Well, Kelly, we are glad you made something so we could make the story!  Congratulations!  We are beyond the moon happy for you!

Epilogue

And although none of our kids read Representative John Lewis's March: Book Three and may not know who he is, we can't speak about the day without acknowledging, congratulating and thanking him for all he has contributed to our country, the civil rights movement and now children's and young adult literature.