This is where they are never turned away.

From the Chicago Tribune today: Kids find summertime haven in libraries, parents find day care

“Librarians … they are the hidden stars of our communities,” [University of Michigan education professor Susan] Neuman said. “Librarians act as substitute mother teachers. They have taken it upon themselves to fill this role. They are doing it and doing it well, even if it is not something they wanted to do.”

And from the  manager of the Austin branch library:

“When they tell their parents they’re at the library, it alleviates anxiety,” he said. “This is where they can get a cold drink of water. This is where they can use the restroom. This is where they are never turned away.”

Libraries are useless? Tell that to the 50,000 kids in CPL’s summer reading program.

So after this idiocy, in which some Fox News reporter asked, “Are libraries necessary, or a waste of tax money?”, Chicago Public Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey sets her straight. This “reporter’s” argument was that, because some particular section of the stacks (non-circulating bound periodicals, for the record) was not in use during the particular time that she was there, libraries are a waste of money. After all, everyone was “just” using the computers.

“And yes, we proudly provide free access to the internet because so much information today is found online, something you should know from your own work. … There continues to exist in this country a vast digital divide. It exists along lines of race and class and is only bridged consistently and equitably through the free access provided by the Chicago Public Library and all public libraries in this nation.”

Also this:

“Chicago’s schools offer the shortest school day in the nation. As schools slash their budgets for school libraries and shorten their classroom teaching time, thousands of children flock to Chicago’s public libraries every day afterschool, in the evening and on weekends for homework assistance from our librarians and certified teachers hired by the public library.”

Thank you, Mary Dempsey, for being super awesome.

Program: Wacky Weather

Ever wondered where rain comes from? Do you know how rainbows form? Find out all about the science of water at this program just for kids going into grades 1-6. We’ll play games, do experiments, and have tons of fun!

June 30th, 2010 from 2-3 p.m.

Ages: Grades 1-6

Budget: $0

Materials (for me): Glass jar with lid, flashlight, clear glass cup, hot water, ice

Materials (for them): Water wheels photocopied on card stock, water cycle name tags, brads, paper, watercolors

Learning about the water cycle

Forms of water: Liquid, solid, gas. What is water in solid form? When is water a gas (boiling water on the stove)?

Water cycle stages: Evaporation, condensation, precipitation

Demonstration: Boil water and pour into a glass jar. Put the lid on and place ice on top of the lid. Watch it rain!

Color and put together water cycle wheels from summer reading book

Water cycle tag: Each kid is assigned to a group (evaporation, condensation, precipitation) and gets a name tag. Decorate and color name tags. Explain that kids can only tag kids in the next group (i.e. if you are condensation, you can only tag precipitation kids). Pick one “It” and have them close their eyes for ten seconds. Then set them free! Last one standing gets a piece of candy.

Learning about rainbows

Explain how rainbows work, and ask about times when kids have seen them.

Demonstration: Fill a clear glass with water, and place on the edge of a table. Hold a white piece of paper below. Shine a flashlight through the glass and move it around until a rainbow appears on the paper. Pull the flashlight further away to make the rainbow bigger.

Hand out paper and have kids paint a rainbow with water colors.

Books for display or killing extra time

A Cool Drink of Water by Barbara Kerley / J-E 363.6 KER

A Drop of Water by Gordon Morrison / J 508 MOR

A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder by Walter Wick / J 546.22 WIC

The Water Cycle by Rebecca Olien / J-E 551.48 OLI

How’d it go?

Way better than I expected. The kids seemed to really enjoy the parts of the program where I taught some of these basic concepts – I think that sort of thing goes over better during the summer, when they aren’t already sitting in classrooms for eight hours a day. The demonstrations were fun – they were really impressed with the rainbow. If I did this program again, I might give everyone a clear plastic cup and let them make their own rainbows. Yes, there is a risk of water spilling everywhere, but getting messy is an occupational hazard for us.

The crowd was a little younger than I anticipated, so I shared a little bit of A Cool Drink of Water. They loved the pictures of kids from around the world. The age of the group also meant that water cycle tag was difficult for some of them, so I ended up cutting the game a little short. Any suggestions for a more little-kid-friendly water game would be appreciated.

Review: Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

I’ve never been a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, to be honest. I read this for a book club, and was surprised by how much I liked it. I really like Gaiman’s writing – it’s straightforward without sacrificing style. And I liked Richard quite a bit, really, but–

Richard, like pretty much everyone else in this book, wasn’t fleshed out very well. I felt like I “got” the Marquis better than anyone. Door? I had no idea at all. She was a blank slate who occasionally showed off some interesting powers. But she had no real personality traits, and I never got a sense that she and Richard developed a friendship, except that Gaiman told us that they had. Whatever.

The other problem is that once you get to the end, you get the distinct impression that you’ve just read the less interesting half of Richard and Door’s story. The plot part of this book doesn’t make all that much sense, once you start to think about it. Nothing really happened. But stuff is totally going to happen…right after the end of the book.

I did like it, though. This book gets major points for the good writing and the really thoroughly developed, fascinating world Gaiman created. But I just kept expecting more: more characterization, more plot, and at least like ten more chapters to really finish the story.

Program: Intro to Web Design for Young Adults

This is my final project for Media Literacy and Youth. It is a plan for a four-week (eight session) class on web design, aimed at high school students and taught in conjunction with the high school. Forgive the goofy place names – they’re the ones I used throughout the semester, and mad props if you know what book they’re from.

Continue reading “Program: Intro to Web Design for Young Adults”

Review: The Line, by Teri Hall

The Line, Teri Hall

This is yet another YA dystopian fiction novel. This one takes place near some border (pretty sure it’s Canadian). It is the first in a series, and I will definitely not be reading the rest. Also, YA authors, I’m tired of series. Is it that hard to write one good stand-alone book?

In short: It’s not like there was anything wrong with this book. There just wasn’t anything right, either. The writing is really clunky (I am pretty sure some of these paragraphs were “what not to do” examples in my high school creative writing textbooks). The characters are flat and boring. Plus, Hall does that annoying thing where she unnecessarily makes up words to sound more sci-fi (“digim” for “picture,” “creds” for “dollars”) – Star Wars novels do this a lot, but they’re Star Wars novels, you know? Made-up words do not create an interesting world all by themselves. Overall, the world was not particularly well-developed or believable – when is this set? How is it possible that all of these countries have different names? How is the government simultaneously so tyrannical and so incompetent? And WHY did all of the “world-building” happen in the form of a pop quiz? The other big problem is that this book requires the reader to be concerned about the characters, which is impossible because a) we know nothing about any of them, nor believe anything they say because they are all painfully insincere, and b) you never believe that their world is actually dangerous. Oh no, they might have to wear jumpsuits? Ugh. Add to that the predictable ending and the lazy dialogue, and you’re in for a real treat. I might have liked it in middle school, though, because I was a big “X-Files” fan and would have loved the over-the-top paranoia about the government.

Program: Dinosaurs and Fossils

We’ll learn about the dinosaurs through stories and crafts, then do our very own fossil dig here in the library!

April 22, 2010 from 4-5 p.m.

Grades: K-3

Budget: $15: $6 for a bag of seashells, $9 for 150 clothespins. I made the play dough at home, and haven’t got any idea how much it costs.

Activity

Make-your-own fossil (after explaining what a fossil is, of course)
Each kid gets a ball of home-made play dough*. Roll the play dough into a ball, then flatten it against the table. Turn over so the flattened side faces up. Have kids choose from plastic dinosaurs, twigs, seashells etc. to push into the play dough. Leave them there for a few minutes, then take them out. Have kids place their fossil on a paper plate with their name on it, put aside to dry.

Story

The Super Hungry Dinosaur by Martin Waddell

Craft

Clothespin stegosaurus: Each kid gets a cardstock stegosaurus cut-out. Have the kids color and decorate their dinosaur, then glue on a googly eye. Color 5-7 clothespins the same color as the dinosaur, and attach to the stegosaurus’s back.

* Play Dough Recipe:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons cream of tartar

Easy. Mix everything together and cook it over medium heat until it all clumps together, then take it out and knead it for a few minutes (until it feels like store-bought play-do). Super easy, and it worked really well.

How’d it go?

Everyone loved getting to play with play dough (of course), and the fossils turned out awesome. Some kids took them home, but most left theirs at the library to dry on paper plates – they were all ready by the next morning. The dinosaur book display was also a hit, and everyone wanted to take home The Super Hungry Dinosaur – which is now my second-favorite Dino storytime book, after Dinosaur Vs. Bedtime.

Book Club: Vampire Island

Vampire Island, by Adele Griffin

Discussion Questions

1. Who is your favorite character? Why?

2. What do you think about Hudson’s crusade for the environment? Why did it make the other kids in his school so mad? How would you feel if someone like Hudson was in your class?

3. Was Maddie right to go after the von Krik family? Or should they have been left alone unless they bothered Maddie’s family?

4. When the Livingstones left the Old World, they gave up the chance to live forever. What do you think about that choice? Would you want to live forever?

5. Why do you think Hudson might have kept his Old World powers when everyone else in his family lost theirs?

Activities

By popular (and repeated…constantly) request, we played Mafia (called “Vampires” this month). I can never turn down a game of Mafia.

Program: Superheroes

Put on your best cape for our superhero party! We’ll make crafts, play trivia, watch and listen to some superhero stories, and do a special obstacle course.

March 11, 2010 from 4-5 p.m.

Age group: Grades K-5, parents welcome

Objective: Increase awareness of/interest in our extensive collection of Superhero books. Draw reluctant readers (especially boys) to the library.

Soundtrack: Chronicles of Narnia

Display: Superhero comics, novels, and early readers (incl. Captain Underpants, etc.)

Budget: $20 (4 plastic tablecloths @ $2 each, 5 packs of stickers @ $0.50 each, 1 bag of Oreos @ $3, 2 packs of prizes – Spiderman erasers and Batman pencils – @ $3 each)

Activity

Spiderman’s Web!

Make a web out of white yarn. Tape the ends of each string (at least one string for every two kids) to a surface and write a number and corresponding letter on either end (A-1, B-2 etc.). Have each kid pick a number, then race to unravel the web and reach their letter! (They need to take the string with them along the way.) Give the first kid a prize!

Craft

Superhero capes

Materials: Plastic tablecloths, brightly colored, cut into squares approximately 28” on each side; yarn

Prep: Before the program, use a hole punch or scissors to make four small holes evenly spaced across one side

Kids: Take their piece of yarn from the web and string it through the holes, then tie the cape around their shoulders and trim the yarn. They may need help. (If kids did the web in pairs, cut the yarn in half first.)

Superhero masks

Materials: Mask templates on cardstock; yarn and/or popsicle sticks; stickers and other decorations

Prep: Cut out masks and eyeholes; hole-punch masks and cut yarn if desired

Kids: Decorate masks. Either glue popsicle stick to mask (easier!) or tie a piece of string to hole punched in either side of mask, then tie around back of head.

Superhero trading cards

Have each kid fill out the back of the trading card, then draw a picture of themselves as a superhero on the front! Take a look at the trading cards here – you are welcome to use them, but you’ll probably want to take my library’s name off first. 🙂

Book (if crowd skews younger)

Read aloud Traction Man Is Here! by Mini Grey.

Activity

Pass the Kryptonite

Paint a piece of Styrofoam green. Play Hot Potato. Winner gets a prize.

Super Vision!

Use super-zoomed-in mystery photos of familiar objects, and have each kid guess what they are. Whoever gets the most right gets a prize.

Trivia (if time allows)

See attached. Winner gets a prize. (Can do in teams, then the whole team gets a prize.)

Snack (can do at the same time as Super Vision!)

– Kryptonite juice – green Hi C fruit punch

– Spider cookies (double stuff Oreos and either Twizzlers or red licorice for legs.)

– Give out rest of prizes during snack time.

How’d it go?

Attendance: 22 children, 10 caregivers, 1 teen volunteer

This program was a HIT. Everyone loved their capes, masks, and trading cards, and the spider web – the part of the program I was most dubious about – was actually a lot of fun. I wonder if some of this program’s success is attributable to my more-detailed-than-usual agenda…hmm. It also helped to have lots of extra activities planned – it let me customize the program to the group I had. I did read the book, which the kids liked even though it’s sort of a tricky storytime book.

Anyway, this was tons of fun, and I would do it again in a second. Also, pretty much all of the displayed books were gone by the end of the program. That’s what I call a success.