LAST POST!

This will be my last post as the Librarian for Oak Grove School.

I want to thank all the parents who encouraged your kids to read, and all the teachers who taught them how.

It has been a wonderful run, and I will miss everybody. Lots!

Books Wanted

Last call to donate books for the summer vacation book give away.

Books for children in grades k-8 are needed, as long as they are in reasonably good shape.  They can be brought to the office or directly to the library. I can even make out an estimate of value for tax purposes on school letterhead if you would like that.

The book give away will be next Tuesday for grades 5, 6,  and on Friday for grades 2 and 3. K, 1, 2, and Jack's class will all happen the final week of school.

Thanks, in advance, for your donations.

DCF Readers

DCF Readers and authors Linda Urban and Tanya Lee Stone

On Tuesday a small group of DCF readers went up to Randolph, Vermont to hear two authors who are on next year's Dorothy Canfield Fisher list speak about their books and their writing and then we went out for very large and very delicious ice cream cones at the Scoop Shop in Walpole. Yum. 

This year, FIRST TIME EVER i n my 29 years at Oak Grove School, there were TWO students who read all 30 books on the list and received a gift basket of assorted candy plus a DCF book from next year's list. Go Nico and Jonah!

New student pieces

Watch for newly published student pieces. Today's featured author is Kyleigh, a 5th grader,  who wrote about some interesting facts she found on wolves. To get to her page click on her name on the right of this page. More to follow tomorrow. Keep checking back!

Last Circulation Day

The last day for checking books out of the library this year will be on Friday May 23, so if you are still considering taking a few more books out to read with your kids at home, there's still time!

If you are a parent or community member and still have outstanding books, please return them soon.

Thanks!

COLLECTING

It's not too early to start thinking about summer reading. Studies show consistently that the more reading one does, the better reader one becomes. In the spirit of keeping kids reading over the summer, I have put together an end-of-year book giveaway program. Students in all grades get to choose and keep a book for their own private library.

If you have any gently used books that your  children have outgrown, I would be happy to put them  in the end-of-year book giveaway. Please make sure, however, that the books are in decent shape.

You can drop them off at the school library, or even the front office. I will also be happy to write up an estimate of the value of your donation on school letterhead for tax purposes if that would be helpful.

Thanks so much, in advance!

2014 DCF Winner

And the winner is...

WONDER

BY

P.J. PALACIO

I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.  

This is how the book, Wonder, by P.J. Palacio opens, and these are the words that August Pullman uses to describe his face. Born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school all August wants is to be treated as an ordinary kid, but his new 5th grade classmates at Beecher Prep, can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face.

This book is an extraordinary read. One student at Oak Grove said it was the "...best book he EVER read". Chosen as the Vermont Reads book by the Vermont Humanities Council, I'll bet many other are agreeing with our student.

Try it for yourself!

Red Clover Winner!

For the past 10 weeks students in grades K-3 (and a small selection of 4th graders) have been reading books on this year's Vermont children's' choice list, aka The Red Clover books. Each year there are 10 new picture books to read and discuss and then the students get to vote on their favorite story.

The hands-down winner at Oak Grove this year was the World's Greatest Lion by Ralph Helfer. It is based on the true story of a lion cub that was rescued in Zambia after a close brush with death, and came to live on Ralph Helfer's Africa USA dance. There he was trained and ended up being featured in several Hollywood movies.

Turns out that our Oak Grove students are right in step with everyone else, because Vermont kids from all around the state voted The World's Greatest Lion as this year's Red Clover Winner.

Give this heart-tugging story a read and then another one. There's lots to look at and lots to wonder about. I'm sure Zamba's movies can be found on netflix or other movie sources and more information about Zamba and Ralph Helfer can be found online. This is a story that sticks with you.

Student Stories

     Students in my last 6 week skills block chose to write narratives. Some had their own ideas and others used a very cool writing tool called STORYMATIC. This is a box of situation and character cards. Students pulled two or three cards from each of the two categories and had to come up with a story that made use of all the cards.
     These stories can be accessed by clicking on the students names on the right side of this page. Work from other sessions is also posted on their pages, with the newest being on top.. Feel free to read that as well.
     Students in the last session were: Carter, Emma, Erick, Jonah, Margaret, Nick, Wyatt, Zola.
     Enjoy!

NEW DCF list

The new DCF list for 2014/2015 has been posted on the Dorothy Canfield Fisher page. To view the list and to get a complete set of annotations click on https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B55N8oQex0aJQXh5dTR2YlRKNDQ/edit

We have ALL these books in the library. So if you want to get a head start on next year, come on in!

Free Reading Online

Check out the Useful Sites tab on the right of this page. I have started to collect free reading and reading games sites. Check back often as I hope to add more on a regular basis, and if you have some you'd like to add, let me know!

Graphic Novels

 Some people think that graphic novels are just comic books. Well, they ARE comics, but a great graphic novel is also a really great read with pictures that totally support the text. The can be funny stories, mysteries, tales of friendship, adventure, history, mythology...

We have a pretty good selection here in the library. Check out the 741.5 section and see what's there.

Here are a few of my top pix:

Retells in graphic novel format stories from Greek mythology about the exploits of Aphrodite, including her birth from the sea foam and her role in the Trojan War. We have other books in this amazing series.



 In Kansas in the year 1937, eleven-year-old Jack Clark faces his share of ordinary challenges: local bullies, his father's failed expectations, a little sister with an eye for trouble. But he also has to deal with the effects of the Dust Bowl, including rising tensions in his small town and the spread of a shadowy illness.

 Two roller-skating best friends--one tiny, one tall--share three comical adventures involving outrageously bright socks, an impromptu trek to the Andes, and a most unlikely marvelous companion.

    From sixth grade through tenth, Raina copes with a variety of dental problems that affect her appearance and how she feels about herself. This book won the DCF award several years ago and is a GREAT read!

MORE!!!

The give-away cart is getting very full. There are lots of well-loved titles and books with tons of interesting information, biographies, a few picture books, some chapter books. Stop by during conference time or school sing and take a book or two away with you. The cart is right outside the library.

Parrots Over Puerto Rico

 

Parrots Over Puerto Rico

by Susan Roth and Cindy Trumbore

collages by Susan Roth

The first thing you notice about this book is that there is no title on the cover. It is a bold display of three bright parrots, a collage of cut paper so textured you can practically feel the feathers, almost imagine the birds flying off the page.

When you open the book, the orientation is lengthwise, giving an impression of height and depth, perfect for the setting of this story of near extinction. You can sit with the parrots in the treetops, soar with them in the blue green sky, get a bird's eye view of village life in 5000 BCE.

This book chronicles the birds' demise, from their original habitat, to them being hunted for food, given as gifts to royalty, battling against red-tailed hawks, and then fighting for survival against other predators brought to the island by settlers. They lost their homes to people who needed the trees to build their own dwellings and kept being edged out bit by bit. In 5000 BCE there were hundreds of thousands of them. By 1967 only 24 remained.

This is their story as well as the story of bringing them back, and a short history of Puerto Rico, to boot, all in one gorgeous, small, readable and engrossing book. There is an afterward about the Puerto Rican Parrot Recovery Program, a timeline of Puerto Rican History and the parrots, an extensive bibliography, and pictures you could look at forever.

What more could you want in a book? Available in the library!

DCF Voting Coming Soon!

Students in grades 4-6 have been reading books from the 2013/14 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Childrens Choice Award list. These books are available from the school library and the public library as well as bookstores. You can get this year's list by clicking on the bibliography link on the right (annotations are also available from this link). AND you can get next year's list too! It's not too early to start reading those books, and not too late to read this year's.

Any student who reads 5 or more books from the list is eligible to vote. They can read online (many of the books are available on the District Follett Shelf), can hear audio versions of the book, or can be read to at home (many titles make GREAT family read-alouds).

Voting will be during the week of April.

Some of MY personal favorites are:

The One and Only Ivan

Shadow and Bone

One for the Murphys

Same Sun Here

May B

Little Dog Lost

Bomb

Temple Grandin

Fourmile

Liar and Spy

Book Suggestions and donations

If you have a title that you think would be good for the Oak Grove Library to have, please let me know. Donations are also accepted, with many thanks. Books that are copies of ones we already have will be put in the end of year give away.

You can contact me at andra_horton@wsesu.org or drop books off in the front office.

Thanks, in advance!

Seed Dreams

 

Snow you say? A foot or so? Why let it get you down? There's always room to dream about a warm and fertile garden, seeds and shoots, and flowers and fruit. Here are a few books to stir those dreams up. All available at the school library. 

 

A Seed is Sleepy by Dianna Hutts Aston: beautiful drawings to linger over, as well as information about the life cycle of plants.

 

The Gardening Book by Jane Bull: tons of information on what can grow in your vegetable garden and how to do it

 

It's our garden – from seeds to harvest in a school garden: a picture book featuring students, teachers, volunteers and community members as they harvest a garden on the grounds of a an elementary school.
 

  Packet of Seeds by Deborah Hopkinson: When a pioneer family moves west the mother misses home so much that she will not even name the new baby until her daughter thinks of just the right thing to cheer her up.

 

And then it's Spring by Julie Fogliano: Simple text reveals the anticipation of a boy who, having planted seeds while everything around is brown, fears that something has gone wrong until, at last, the world turns green.