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From: "PUBYAC: PUBlic librarians serving Young Adults and Children"
<pubyac@prairienet.org>
To: "PUBYAC: PUBlic librarians serving Young Adults and Children" <pubyac@prairienet.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 11:01 PM
Subject: PUBYAC digest 826
PUBYAC Digest 826
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Book groups for 8-12
by Angela Reynolds <angelar@wccls.lib.or.us>
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From: Angela Reynolds <angelar@wccls.lib.or.us>
To: pubyac <PUBYAC@prairienet.org>
Subject: Book groups for 8-12
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 17:07:45 CDT
For several years, I did a Mock Newbery book group with the elementary
school next to the library I worked for. We did this with 4th and 5th
graders (and the school is still doing the group, I no longer work at that
library). The kids loved reading and discussing the books and predicting the
winner of the Newbery Award. And yes, we had mostly girls, but there were
some boys who joined in and were very enthusiastic readers. Last year, for
the first time, we tried this at the public libraries (for grades 5-8). We
had 5 libraries that held "Club Newbery" book discussion groups. The
kids
are asked to read 6 newly published books and discuss them in relation to
one another. In January, before the award is announced, we hold an election
night. We had varying degrees of success with this format: we did not
purchase 15 copies of all 6 books, so they had to take turns with the
books,--trying to lead a discussion in this way can be a bit problematic,
but it went well enough that we are doing it again. The readers that
participated were pretty enthusiastic, and again, we did have boys who
participated. We had plenty of homeschoolers too. Our libraries are limiting
participation to 15 per group this year, so you can tell that there is
interest in discussing books!
One question I always get asked about this: How do we choose the books the
kids will read? Our YS librarians read, read, read, like crazy before the
program starts. We look at book reviews, we listen to list-servs, we ask our
colleagues what they have read that is good. I have to say that this year,
it is slim pickins so far....we only have 4 books on our list and usually by
now we have up to 12.
I can only assume that the outstanding books are still waiting to be
published!
If you want more detailed information on how we run this book discussion
program, contact me.
Angela J. Reynolds
Youth Services Librarian
Washington County Cooperative Library Services
111 NE Lincoln MS58A
Hillsboro, OR 97124
503-466-1894 fax 503-615-6601
angelar@wccls.lib.or.us
"The vocabulary of the average children's book is greater than that found
on
prime-time television." (Hayes & Ahrens, 1988)
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End of PUBYAC Digest 826
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