March Madness - Picture Books Compete

 March Madness

in the Library - bring it!

The little branch where Piper and I spend most of our time is on a 3 week story time break.  Although we miss many friendly faces we have books to order, collections to weed, reports to write, and grants to submit in order to keep our future story times alive and well.

But a clever librarian and her sidekick, aka side-dog, aka Piper, want to be sure everyone keeps reading and books keep circulating.  (Yes, an eye to my department statistics is always good.) Hence we decided to participate in our very first March Madness - Picture Books Compete.  This type of book competition appears to be growing in popularity in libraries and well...we're in Connecticut!  We bleed blue!  UCONN women - need I say more?   

Fortunately we own many preschool picture books in multiple copies for lapsit programs.  I selected 16 titles to compete.  I honestly paid no attention when setting up the brackets. This was good - because now that a couple of my favorites have been knocked-out I see how I could have manipulated some of the outcomes!  I strongly suggest: do not mess with the bracket line up.  Ask a teen volunteer to set them up if you are inclined to seek preferential outcomes.  Really.  I mean it.  This is a competition! There will be upsets!

I kept two sets of the books in the library and made all the others available to check out.  We tipped off our March Madness on the last night of Prime Time with Piper & Mrs Breen winter session - so lots of families took home books. Built in fans - love it!

Each Monday night I tally the scores and see which teams books advance to the next round. 

In round one 82 people (young and old) read and scored the books.  

  

Our scoring sheets have three categories, with a rating of 1 to 8 (with 8 being the highest score). 

They look somewhat like this:

Book title ___________________________

Please read the book

Circle the score for the book in each category

1 is the lowest, 8 is the highest

Story              1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8

Illustrations   1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8

Characters     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8

 Erin Simmons - a talented Connecticut Librarian was my source for this score sheet.  Thank you Erin! 

Here are the results from Round One:

The population in our community is wonderfully diverse and they are learning about March Madness and brackets with this book competition.  We do explain that it is based on a college basketball competition.  Our teen volunteers represent a mini United Nations and it has been interesting to watch them learn about March Madness!  

Okay now - the results from round two take us to our final four.  This was painful and exciting.  I would never have knowingly placed Sam Who Never Forgets in a semi-final against Dear Zoo.  I would prefer to see these two books as the final game!  Yet this is what happens in tournaments!

The voting/scoring picked up it's pace once the final four were announced.  Almost all of the staff participated this week  Excitement is growing. 

In the final four Sam Who Never Forgets (the top scoring book throughout) competes against the always popular Dear Zoo

And the longtime stand-out book, whose mouse are you? will meet-up with the surprise semi-finalist Yes, please, No, Thank you.  Read 'em and score!  You can leave your votes in the comments!  Or come by the library - everything is on the Chidren's Desk!

On Monday night, March 23rd,  we will announce the two books that will advance to the finals. Yikes!!

This program has people talking about books.  Thinking about books.  Looking at illustrations with the simple question - do we like that?  While I've been busy with house-keeping in my little branch, this has been my joy.  Truly. 

Flannel Friday inspires all of us to bring it.  If you'd like to learn more visit the official blog 

Visit the FF Pinterest page - you'll love it.

Kathryn, Fun With Friends at Storytime, is hosting the round-up this week.  Take a look!

P.S. (Piper Script) I love Dear Zoo and so does Cole!  

I Went Walking in West Hartford

Will you walk with me?

A long time ago I made a set of animals for my flannel board to go with Sue William's lovely book:   

Years later at the suggestion of my friend/librarian/former blogger, Kari Ann St.Jean, I added black felt to the back of these laminated animals and now, they are better than new.  

I went walking, right here in West Hartford, and what did I see?

...I saw a cow following me. 

I went walking, right here in West Hartford, and what did I see? I saw a cat following me.

I went walking, right here in West Hartford, and what did I see?

a horse...a pig....a duck

and a dog following me

I love this set and it has served me well for more than 25 years.  It also inspired the Dinosaur bucket of I went walking - always a hit at the library.

But we didn't stop at Dinosaurs...we added a supply of bugs for our bucket.  Take a look! I went walking, outside and around the library, and what did I see...whoa!

And then we have the Zoo animals in the bucket - that gets really loud in the library!

I went to the zoo and what did I see?  

I also created an "I went swimming and what did I see?" set of animals for the bucket.  Perfect for summer story times.  You'll have to wait for that photo!  

Alas the snow is melting in Connecticut and taking a walk in the sunshine will soon be a reality.  We'll tell Sue Williams story on the flannel board in story time and the little ones will guess the animals, and make their sounds.  I'll ask if anyone ever saw a cow on their West Hartford street. Sometimes they say yes!  I love it.   Imagination, creativity, books and storytelling - they rock our world.  

Amen ~ Piper & Jane

We "heart" Flannel Friday

I've looked at clouds from all sides now....

Charles G. Shaw's simply perfect book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk will forever mark the beginning of my library career.  I had missed this gem, published in 1947, until my very first library job.  I have never flannelized it because whenever I've worked in public librarianship I have made sure to purchase multiple copies for parallel reading.  That was exactly how the inimitable Nancy DeSalvo, Head of Children's Services in Farmington CT, used the book and how I use it to this day.  Multiples.  You just don't need to mess with a good thing. I tip my hat to Nancy.

Nancy's book

I have created additional clouds to extend the book into that tactile, flannel board exploration place.  Love that place.  The book invites you to play - so we do.  I have a basket of clouds and the little ones are encouraged to come up and place a cloud on the flannel board.  And then we guess.  I do cover the bright red flannel board with navy blue for this.  I'm a believer in the dark blue/white (or black/white)contrast for focusing on shapes and identifying them.  It really makes the soft cloud lines appear sharper.  

So here's what I have for today, our Flannel Friday Birthday celebration!    

Piper and I added the FF clouds just for this occasion

Indeed, we "heart" Flannel Friday!

Here's a YouTube link to It Looked Like Spilt Milk

If you'd like the templates for the clouds in the book - you will find them here

StoryTime Katie posted this book in flannels - take a look

Thank you for visiting Piper Loves the Library.  If you would like more information about the incredibly supportive, generous and talented group known as Flannel Friday visit the official blog.  You'll love it.  

P.S. (Piper Script): sometimes I bark at clouds.

Old Mother Goose visits Flannel Friday

Nursery Rhymes - books & flannel

 

 

Light years ago I sat on the floor in the Hartford Convention Center with a group of librarians singing and laughing and learning Mother Goose on the Loose with Betsy Diamont Cohen. Shorty thereafter I brought this program to our town libraries and the rest, they say, is history.  The foundation of rhyming, singing and playing with flannels combined with confidence-building-repetition create a magical mix.  Kids love to know what's going to happen and they figure this pattern out in a few weeks.  Everyone puts the instruments away as we chant "bells away, bells away, put your bells away today".  Everyone cuddles when we sing Twinkle Twinkle and everyone stops when the "drum says STOP"  Magic!  Because it sure as heck isn't my singing voice!  

I am a giant fan of this program and enjoy training new staff members.  Mother Goose on the Loose is jam-packed in our town.  Our families love it.  And Piper doesn't even attend!  She is always sure that she is the "Big Attraction" so we won't burst the Piper bubble!  

Here is my Humpty Dumpty - he's been on the floor more than the flannel board - but heck...that's what he was made for!  

 

The fact that he's sideways is totally bizarre and I can't fix him.

Neither can all the king's soldiers nor all the king's men.

This would normally drive me nuts but I am going to move on. Yep, I am...moving on.

Moving on - each child has the opportunity to come up to the flannel board and knock Humpty right off of his wall.  Oh My Goodness - they adore it.

Here are the Dickey Birds and this rhyme is almost creepy - they love it and follow along cult like!  The little ones, the non-talkers, move their pointer fingers around when they see me.  This is how they identify me - the lady with the two birds!  Oh the sacrifices I make!!

And now, there's Old Mother Goose.  I always thought I would remake her, flannel purest that I am, but no-sirree.  It never happened.  She's on the Flannel Board to welcome everyone as they come in. We all ready-our-wings and chant "Old Mother Goose when she wanted to wander would fly through the air on her very fine gander"  We do that 2x.  We do everything 2x!  And then we move right into Goosey Goosey Gander...

And here's how I store these precious gems that keep on giving - recycled Realia bags.  Love me a good free-cycle!

All of the bags go into storage tubs - waterproofing is big in old New England buildings.  My program room along with flannels, puppets, crafts, instruments and multiple copy books are all in the basement.  Here's one of the four tubs!

Thanks for visiting Piper Loves the Library.  She's snoozin' so we'll just keep this post to ourselves!  If you'd like to learn about this tremendously supportive and talented group - check out the blog!  Flannel Friday is here to inspire and help.  

brown girl dreaming ~ deserves all of her medals

Color Your World

(this is what happened while I was trying to find the words for a diversity post)

Children's Book Awards and a Grant Opportunity

Working on a grant proposal, thinking outcomes, facing deadlines, finding all the right words for all the right places, (thank you Meghan Trainor), is both challenging and time consuming. I'm looking at the serious subject of race, discovering the value of home and family, looking for ways to encourage young girls to find their voice and learning what defines them. Yet the more I research and uncover the more unsure I am of my skill to lead a group of tweens in this weighty discussion. The spectrum of racist behavior is more than my heart can handle.  I'm looking at the Civil Rights Movement in the United States for historical background for Jacqueline Woodson's amazing fictionalized memoir ~ Brown Girl Dreaming. I have a miracle of a book for book discussion, a good program idea to partner it with but maybe this is going to hurt too much.  I attended school in the 50's, 60's and 70's.  Black and white kids were bused into my school.  Maybe this proposal is too personal. I just don't know.  

(Now let's step away from that.  Here's the post I planned on writing!)

For the past two months I've been mentally writing a blog post regarding the positive steps made by publishers with regard to more diversity in children's picture books. I truly believed that the stories were being written, being submitted, but publishers needed to hear our cry.  Publish them! We, the people, we-the libraries, we-the schools and we-the parents on FB on Twitter, on Youtube needed to shout - #WeNeedDiverseBooks.  And alleluia, the publishers heard us!  

Here's an interesting article from the UW - Madison's CCBC

Diversity remains an important topic for all of us working with children in a variety of settings. Selecting diverse songs, books, flannels and props is my part, "our part" as storytellers, programmers and librarians for children. 
  

When I first found my beautiful dark skinned little girl puppet, Tanika, I practiced her voice again and again before she debuted in story time. I had to be comfortable with her. Comfort, respect and creating a genuine little girl was important.  She was shipped from Colorado, so her back story is that I adopted her from Colorado.  

I drew on the childhood of my niece Vivian, she is biracial, to find Tanika's voice and personality.  The story time kids loved Tanika even before she arrived.  I had informed our families that Piper and I were adopting a little girl, Tanika, from Colorado. And we all waited and waited.  I wanted everyone to love Tanika as much as I do.  She's been with me for a number of years but she is forever three.  She loves hearts, her hair with bows and barrettes, and purple is her favorite color.  My intention was to create casual diversity.  Tanika's skin color is not the issue.  She is part of my family, our library family, and a great pal to all the kids in story time. 

This is what I see as doing our part.  I can not wave a wand over the library and create a perfectly diverse staff, ( I don't even know what that would be), but I can make my story time room diverse each day to meet the needs of the diverse families attending.  This is "our part"

When selecting books for the branch I take the time to be sure that casual diversity leads the way in picture books.  It is here - in the picture books and the board books where I can make a huge difference for my community.  Children want to see themselves in the library books.  We now have well written books, meaningful stories, beautifully illustrated with children of color.  I would like to say that "children of color" is not the important part of the book but it is exactly the important part of the book.  The characters are of color and their race is not part of the story.  This is casual diversity done well. And it's about darn time, publishers.  Oh, and thank you.

And now here - I want to hug the publishers.  We do not have enough kids of color on the covers of juvenile non-ficiton.  Thank you for this series.  And just so you know - they are popular and always circulating.  I believe that parents and teachers are breathing a giant sigh of relief.  Casual diversity on the covers of non-fiction.  Finally.  ('Cuz it's not only white kids who do magic, and craft and enjoy science projects)

And there will always be beautiful books where diversity is intentional.  This is how we learn and experience other cultures.  These are a couple of new ones in my branch.

It's "our part" right?  To find the casual and the intentional diversity that matches our library's needs?  

I have written before about the tremendously diverse neighborhood my little branch serves.  The many cultures I encounter each day may indeed make me more aware and sensitive to what has been lacking in children's publishing.  The tide is changing.  I am so grateful.

(btw Green is a Chile Pepper won a Pura Belpre illustrator award)

Now what do I do with the tweens and Brown Girl Dreaming? 

I think I need some more time with this idea.  

Did you see that cover art on the book?  

Seems almost magical to have a cover with all that open space for medals - Coretta Scott King author award, National Book Award, Newbery Honor and Sibert Honor - wow!    

P.S.(Piper Script)

Just in case you are new to Piper Loves the Library  - here's a few more places where we visited diversity:

http://piperlovesthelibrary.blogspot.com/2014/08/flannel-friday-are-you-feelin-it.html

http://piperlovesthelibrary.blogspot.com/2014/07/reading-beatrices-goat-together.html

http://piperlovesthelibrary.blogspot.com/2012/05/on-our-way-to-cla.html

Planning with Pigeon

So this happened today!

The Pigeon!  Need I say more?  Mo Willem's character, The Pigeon, and I have been collaborating on plans for Take Your Child to the Library Day on February 7th.  

We have some great fun planned for our community.  But with all the snow here in New England and all the work we have to do... the Pigeon has been perching, squatting, hanging at my house.  

So I told him today that he needed to make the bed before we went out.

Yo, Pigeon, we need to clean up a bit and make our beds today.

Yes, I'm talking to you.

It's time to make the bed...please....!

What's that?

You don't know how to make the bed?  

Come on...just give it a try.

What now?

You thought and thought and thought about it

and you still don't know how to make the bed?

Okay, I'll help

Please just stay right there and then we'll head out to the grocery store.  

More snow is coming tonight.

Pigeon...Pigeon...hey dude...where are you?  It's time to go...

PIGEON?  NOOOooooo......

P.S.(Piper Script): All's well now. They're watching the Super Bowl...Jane's picked the Pats and Pigeon is cheering for the SeaHawks, of course!  Birds of a feather...and all that! 

Flannel Friday Missing Duck - Yikes!!

Little Duck, Little Duck....
               where are you Little Duck??

Whew!  Here he is.  And he's ready to play.  That's my guy!  And I have something he loves today...TRUCKS!  Yep!  Big beautiful trucks.  So cool.  Honestly, what little guy doesn't love trucks?  And these are the trucks from Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia, one of our favorite books.

Little Duck, please go check out the trucks.  We brought them here for you.  Yellow, green, orange, purple and blue.  

This new "take" on Little Mouse, Little Mouse comes from Erin, who posted about a fox in a box last week and made mention of ducks in trucks. Please visit Erin's creative blog post.  And thank you Erin because I actually had all the pieces to do this...already made.  I owe ya, girl! 

Adhering to Piper's rules of full disclosure...because we all know that almost 3 yr olds will always blab tell the truth:  the little duck is truly a gosling.  He's part of my set of Oliver Dunrea's characters, Gossie and Friends. 

Hey, wait a minute...where's Little Duck?  Ut-oh!  Where did he go??  Do you know?

Little Duck, Little Duck,

Are you in the blue truck?

Not there

Little Duck, Little Duck,

Are you in the purple truck?

nope!

Little Duck, Little Duck,

Are you in the Orange Truck?

Little Duck...are you in that orange truck??

We think you are....

Yes!  We found you in the orange truck.  Yay!

This game has been a hit for as long as I can remember.  It is often the flannel I suggest as a first flannel when someone wants to take a ride on the flannel story telling street.   A simple rhyme with mouse/house, cat/hat, fox/box, duck/truck ... and the kids do indeed love the anticipation of finding the missing character.  Everyone wins with this flannel.  Go ahead...take a spin!  

P.S. (Piper Script): I still love the pirate house and mouse best!!

Flannel Friday is an outstanding resource for everyone working in children's services.  Please visit the Flannel Friday blog and you will discover the FB page, the Twitter #, the amazing and addicting Pinterest pages.  Join Flannel Friday!  

Take Your Child to the Library Day meets Pigeon!

Pigeon Party! 

This is a follow-up to our post Take Your Child to the Library Day.  

The event is February 7th, 2015 and we have Mo Willem's Pigeon taking it to the next level.  At the request of said Pigeon we will even have a theme song.  Do you know Go Fish, Party Like a Preschooler?  The Crazy Dance song on that CD will from-here-on be known as The PIGEON DANCE!  What can I say? He's a pushy pigeon!

As our plans develop I am loving this day more and more.  Yesterday I worked on creating the 5 Little Pigeons Jumping on the Bed.  I will need to make them a very cool bed as well.  Here are some photos of my flannel process:

Pigeon Shadows

(Which makes me think - Why a Groundhog on Feb 2nd when Pigeon is way cooler?) 

Two little pigeons jumping on the bed!

Crafting this flannel set has been a blast.  They make me so happy and I am finding my inner pigeon voice. It's very sassy!  Of course! 

The program will include "Feed the Pigeon"  He's looking for cookies.  Check him out!

It's a bean bag toss!  

There is one thing I need from Pigeon before we can get-our-party going, but he's not cooperating.  Hmmm.

 Honestly...what's a librarian to do?  Advice?  Anyone?  

As always, we are grateful to the creative crew at Flannel Friday.  Their inspiration is awesome.  And many thanks again to ~K~ who inspired my flannel pigeons with her blog post.

P.S. (Piper Script) :  I'm ready to Party Like a Pigeon!!!! If you would like to join this international event please click here for info and registration.