Last summer a woman came into the library looking for the latest Cassandra Clare book. Rarely have I seen someone so excited about finding a book on the shelves! I was telling a colleague about it when I discovered that this person was a teacher at one of our local elementary schools.
I had recently stumbled on the idea of book talks (http://www.abbythelibrarian.com/2014/08/the-magic-words-getting-into-schools.html) which sounded like great fun to me! I had planned on approaching some teachers I sort of knew, but this woman’s enthusiasm just spoke to me. So I totally caught her while she was at the circulation desk checking out and presented the idea to her.
And so began one of my absolute favorite parts of my job – the book talk! Every month, Miss Erin and I each read at least two middle fiction titles and book talk them to Clarkston Elementary’s fourth grade classes. We take about twenty minutes total talking about these four books to kids who are super excited to hear about them! We actually check the books out to our Children’s Department account, and let the teachers hang onto the books for the month. Some of the titles, the teacher will read out loud. Others the kids share amongst each other for that month. Often, we see those kids coming in to the library later in the year to check the book out themselves. Which all shows us that everything we intended to do with the books talks - reaching out to the community, bringing people in to the library and instilling our love of reading to a new generation - is really happening!
Lots of these books have made their way into our booklists here, but if you are a fan of middle grade fiction, here’s a list of some of the titles we’ve talked about!
All of these are either available to check out or put on hold at the library!
- Miss Tracy
I had recently stumbled on the idea of book talks (http://www.abbythelibrarian.com/2014/08/the-magic-words-getting-into-schools.html) which sounded like great fun to me! I had planned on approaching some teachers I sort of knew, but this woman’s enthusiasm just spoke to me. So I totally caught her while she was at the circulation desk checking out and presented the idea to her.
And so began one of my absolute favorite parts of my job – the book talk! Every month, Miss Erin and I each read at least two middle fiction titles and book talk them to Clarkston Elementary’s fourth grade classes. We take about twenty minutes total talking about these four books to kids who are super excited to hear about them! We actually check the books out to our Children’s Department account, and let the teachers hang onto the books for the month. Some of the titles, the teacher will read out loud. Others the kids share amongst each other for that month. Often, we see those kids coming in to the library later in the year to check the book out themselves. Which all shows us that everything we intended to do with the books talks - reaching out to the community, bringing people in to the library and instilling our love of reading to a new generation - is really happening!
Lots of these books have made their way into our booklists here, but if you are a fan of middle grade fiction, here’s a list of some of the titles we’ve talked about!
- Dear Hank Williams by Kimberly Willis Holt
- Listen, Slowly by Thanna Lai
- The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin
- Sweet Home Alaska by Carol Estby Dagg
- The Terrible Two by Mac Barnett
- Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures by Maggie Stiefvater & Jackson Pearce
- The Sandwich Thief by Andre Marois
All of these are either available to check out or put on hold at the library!
- Miss Tracy