Wild about Back to School Books! It's Monday, What Are You Reading? August 25, 2014

 It's Monday! What are you Reading is a meme began by Sheila at Book Journeys as a way to share what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and what is in store for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading. I first learned about it from Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki of Unleashing Readers and have become a regular linked up blog. Thanks #PLN


Tomorrow the school bell will ring and the kiddos will flood the building again. Tears will flow. The first day of school is difficult for both parents and children. Tomorrow will be my youngest grandson's first day of preschool. He has been ready for two years-a born student! I predict the tears will be his mother's. She is a terrific mom. I only wish I could be his school librarian. I feel great knowing he is in the capable hands of a good librarian friend of mine.

We practiced school this week by reading these perfect first week of school books. I will be sharing these with my preschoolers this week too.

Mr. Bones is our library watch dog. He likes to help me out with library lessons and he enjoys sitting with Kinder and Pre-K students who are chosen by teachers as "librarian of the week'' He is WILD about books.











These are some books I will be reading to older students as part of library orientation.

 

 Learning to care for a library book and how to use your 

library manners are both important lessons to learn.

Learning about book care is easy using "What Happened to Marion's Book?" 

This is one of my favorite book care books because the children love Marion and can relate to Marion's many book mishaps. The teacher's guide includes band-aid bookmarks and Marion finger puppet templates. Mr. Bones shows the students all the poor damaged books that end up in the BOOK HOSPITAL. 

Once again, our school will be setting up book boxes outside of the classrooms for students to read while waiting for their teachers to open up classrooms. This has been a very successful idea mostly for the younger students. All you need is a box and some fun and interesting books and kids are hooked.

 Have the best reading week ever and happy first week of school to those starting this week.

First Day of School Books, It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you Reading is a meme began by Sheila at Book Journeys as a way to share what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and what is in store for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading. I first learned about it from Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki of Unleashing Readers and have become a regular linked up blog. Thanks #PLN

It's getting closer, and closer, and closer....the first day of school is just around the corner so it was time for me to pull out some of my first day of school books for some re-reads.  

Chu's First Day of School by Neil Gaiman

It's Chu's first day of school and he is nervous. Will he make friends? Look at that adorable face, of course he will!



Curious George's First Day of School by Margret Rey

George is worried about his first day of school and things don't go so well but since it's our sweet friend George we know by the end of the day it will be a success. 
 

Franklin's First Day of School by Paulette Bourgeois

Franklin is nervous about starting school but soon his fears are eased. School might not be so bad after all. 



 

Little Critter: First Day of School by Mercer Mayer

Little Critter is a bundle of nerves with so many things to take care of before he heads out to his first day of school. Clothes to pick out, lunch to pack, a backpack to pack up. A lift a flap book format.


The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier

The first page of The Night Gardener was a fantastic book talk in itself. The setting is so well described that you can actually feel the atmosphere and that cliff hanger of a line "And they were riding to their deaths" will have kids begging to check it out. I recognize a brilliant book hook when I see it. I just hope it gives me nightmares.

Join fellow book lovers on Twitter during the #vbcbooks (Virtual Book Club) chat Monday, Aug. 11that 9 p.m. This will be a special DOUBLE book chat discussing Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes (so awesome} and The Night Gardener. Johnathan Auxier will be joining the chat to answer your deepest, darkest questions.

Thank you for taking time to stop by. Happy reading.


















 

Ninja Power! Picture book style

The Three Ninja Pigs and Ninja Red Riding Hood by Corey Rosen Schwartz and illustrated by Dan Santat are companion books that are a MUST have in any collection. The rhyme structure is  perfect, the action fun, the reaction from kids-priceless! Corey is also the type of author that likes to connect with teachers/librarians. Corey has generously sent me bookmarks for The Three Ninja Pigs and stickers, coloring page, teacher's guides, and an F &G of Ninja Red Riding Hood. You can connect with Corey on Twitter at @CoreyPBNinja or visit the Corey Rosen Schwartz blog or like her PB Ninja Facebook page.

Take a listen to this Let's Get Busy podcast with Dan Santat, illustrator of The Three Ninja Pigs and Ninja Red Riding Hood. Librarian Matthew Winner interviews Dan about all his amazing books.

Look at all these magnificent resources that Corey provides for The Three Ninja Pigs. She is an author that "gets" teachers.

• Teacher Guide (Grades Pre-K-1)
• Teacher Guide (Grades 2-3)
• •  Coloring Page

I love the back beat of this video for Ninja Red Riding Hood.

And look! Corey has shared a Ninja Red Riding Hood Activity Guide.

I want to be Ninja Red Riding Hood for this year's Literature Parade. I hope I can pull it off without dislocating anything.

You might also enjoy this fractured fairy tale by Corey  Goldi Rocks and the Three Bears

A Wild and Woolie Reading Week. It's Monday, What Are You Reading, August 4, 2014

It's Monday! What are you Reading is a meme began by Sheila at Book Journeys as a way to share what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and what is in store for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading. I first learned about it from Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki of Unleashing Readers and have become a regular linked up blog. Thanks #PLN

This is a two week catch up post. I went on two wild and woolie road trips. The first with a couple of carloads of librarian friends to Houston to attend the Scholastic Reading Conference which was wonderful, fun, and delicious. The second was a birthday trip for my mom and that we called the Momma Jan Road Trip 2014 to Salado, Texas to visit my sister.

 
My mom is a devotee of the reality show Junk Gypsy so we took a side trip to Round Top, Texas where she met a couple of the Junk Gypsy ladies. My mom is so awesome.





Last week I read one YA Fic book-Graduation Day by Joelle Charbonneau finishing off The Testing trilogy. I really enjoyed the series and loved how Charbonneau ended the story in such a meaningful way. 












This week, I was cataloging a lot of new books to prep for the new school year so I took some time to read as many as I could.  Have you read any of these?

 My library hold for The Fault in Our Stars finally came available. I received the E book version which is very hard on my poor old weak eyes but I read until it felt like my eyes were bleeding. That is the sign of a great book. In fact, I looked away from my Ipad for a minute and could only see see black lines across the wall for a long time. Excellent storyline.

I also read 123 versus ABC that I received from author/illustrator Mike Bolt. Even the package it came in was  illustrated as well as the end papers. 

Now my grand-kids think all our books should have these cute little drawings.

I am currently reading Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith which I got for a bargain at Half-Price books- $4.98 with a coupon and teacher discount. Wow, I have been blushing a lot reading it but it really captures the teenage boy mentality well. I can so visualize this as it becomes a movie in the next year or so.







It's been a wonderful week for reading. Now I wonder what I will read next. Offer me some suggestions and thanks for stopping by, it's been fun.