Italian libraries and bookstores

I know that summer vacation is supposed to be about relaxing, spending time in the sun, and enjoying time off from school... but I can't help myself. I had to visit the local library the very first week I got to Nervi, Italy. And I've been to a few bookstores too. Hey, this is fun for me - I'm curious about what Italian children read!

This is a book display in the children's section of Nervi's public library. I spy a Wimpy Kid, do you?

Photo also taken at the Nervi public library - Geronimo Stilton is VERY popular! 

This is a bookstore display - Hannah Montana is an international superstar!

Do you recognize this one? Third - fifth grade girls couldn't get enough of Dork Diaries last year. 

I wish I could take home a box of books from here! There are some fantastic Italian authors that are popular as well as other European authors that we just don't get in the U.S. But the prices! Oy, I thought American books were expensive, but oh no, Italian books are far, far more costly. Everything is, really. Oh well, I like to visit the bookstores and libraries anyway. :) 

But I have to say, I sure do miss the Champaign Public and Urbana Free Libraries back home!

Ciao da Italia!

I do enjoy my summers off as a school librarian and decided to take this opportunity to travel somewhere new. I landed in Genoa, Italy last week and am currently living in a suburb called Nervi. During my walk around the town yesterday, I stumbled upon this...

Would you look at that? This is a classic and scientific state high school in Nervi, Italy sharing our name. :) 

You can browse some of my other photos around Nervi and Genoa in my Flickr album. I took some of the local library too! 

Student-created Book Trailers

For the last two months of school, 4th/5th and 5th grade students worked on creating book trailers during library class. They formed groups of 2-4, chose a picture book that would appeal to kindergarten students, wrote scripts for the audio portion of their trailers, found pictures using Flickr CC, and put it all together in iMovie.

The project was inspired by Michelle Harclerode, a fantastic teacher-librarian who posts her own students' book trailers on this website. As an introduction to the project, I showed some of the student examples from Michelle's website so that my students could see what their end result might look like.

I'm rather proud of what our 4th/5th and 5th graders came up with considering it was my first time with this project, so I put them all together in one movie, featured below. Enjoy!

Hot City by Barbara Joose

Hot City written by Barbara Joosse, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (2004)

What a perfect library readaloud for the last days of school!

Mimi and Joe, brother and sister, are looking for something to do on a sizzlin' hot summer day. They help out their Mama, buy some snow cones, then escape to the cool confines of the public library. There, the two siblings get lost in stories - Mimi is a princess riding a unicorn while Joe imagines himself riding a dinosaur. They each leave the library with a book in hand, happy to have had a cool (in more ways than one!) place to go on such a hot, hot day.

Adventures in Cartooning

Adventures in Cartooning by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost
published March 2009 by First Second

I only have three words for this book: I LOVE IT! Okay, maybe I have a little more to say than that, but you get the main idea.

This is the story of a lost princess, a knight, a horse, and an elf who try to rescue the princess, and a dragon they meet along the way. The knight is sure that the dragon has kidnapped the princess, so he goes in search of it on a fantastic adventure!

Throughout the story, the magic elf teaches the reader all about comics and how to read them, so this was a perfect lesson for my third grade students. We read the book together using our document camera and discussed the different features that the elf would point out (motion lines, panels, word balloons, etc.).

Lucky for us, this book is on the Bluestem List for next year, so it will get a LOT of circulation at our library. And I can't wait! This is a book that I think EVERYONE will enjoy! :)

This Week @ the Library (5/2 -5/6)

KINDERGARTEN

We are ending the school year with a Mo Willems author study in kindergarten. This week we read some beloved Elephant & Piggie stories - We Are in a Book! and Can I Play Too?

We love Elephant & Piggie stories in kindergarten! They're easy to read, funny, and show us how to be good friends.



1ST GRADE

Keena Ford is just starting second grade, and she is going through a lot of emotions. She's sad that she won't be in the same class as her best friend Eric, and she's afraid that she'll be spending most of the school year with Mr. Lemon, the time-out teacher. But when she meets her new teacher Ms. Campbell, she decides that she LOVES second grade. Until she makes a mistake that she has trouble fixing...

I'm reading Keena Ford and the Second Grade Mix-Up by Melissa Thomson aloud to our first grade classes, and they are loving it. They can definitely relate to Keena's truth-telling problem!


SECOND GRADE

For our end of the year readaloud in second grade, I am reading The Dream Stealer by Sid Fleischman. This is a whimsical story about a little girl named Susana and the bandit who steals her good dream one night. She is a fiesty gal who wants her dream back! She convinces Senor Dream Stealer to return her dream, but they must first fly to his castle far, far away.

It's a magical story that students are enjoying, with a little bit of mystery and a lot of spice.


THIRD GRADE

Third grade students got a primer in the Dewey Decimal System this week. We've been practicing using the online library catalog all year and especially using call numbers to find picture books and fiction books. This week I unveiled the mysteries of the "nonfiction" collection!




FOURTH GRADE

We are focusing on folktales from around the world to finish off the school year in fourth grade. This week we read Koi and the Kola Nuts, a Liberian Folktale retold by Verna Aardema. Koi, the youngest of the chief's sons, does not share in his brothers' inheritance when his father passes away, and instead is gifted nothing but a kola tree. Using his wits and his kind heart, Koi meets several animals on his travels who are in need of kola nuts for some purpose or another. Koi's generosity to these animals comes back to him when he needs help to win the hand of a chief's daughter in another town.



4TH/5TH GRADE

Students are just about finished writing their scripts for their book trailer projects. They teamed up into groups of 2-4, chose a picture book, and will be creating a book trailer using iMovie, intended for a kindergarten viewing audience. For the past two weeks, students have been working on writing scripts for their book trailers, the audio track which will accompany their images.

We can't wait to share these when we finish at the end of the year!


5TH GRADE
I missed fifth grade students this week, as they were on a field trip in Springfield. They too are creating book trailers and will need to work very hard to finish before school lets out!


P.S. This was our LAST week for library checkout. All books are due next week on students' regular checkout days.

Construction-themed books

Heavy Equipment Up Close by Andra Serlin Abramson (2007)

I bought this book for the library this year because of our major construction project going on right now. We are building an addition to the school and students have been seeing the progress all year long.

This book is HUGE - about four times the size of a chapter book - and includes full-page pull-outs of actual size photographs. From cranes to bulldozers and tractors, this book includes all types of heavy machinery with short, readaloud-friendly blurbs of information.

It's begging to be checked out by a teacher to share with students!

While we don't have too many construction-themed books in the library, I did pull out a few others to make connections to what's happening right outside our windows.

Building Heroes by Annie Auerbach (2004)

Back cover:
An old abandoned building is being demolished to make space for a new after-school center. Bad weather threatens to disrupt construction plans, but the Hero City team knows they must complete the center in time for the next school year. Join these heroes as they rev up their machines and rise to another building challenge!

Raise the Roof! by Anastasia Suen (2003)

Inside flap:
Grab your tool kit and put on your hard hat - there's a house to build! It starts with drawing up the floor plans and ends with laying down a welcome mat, but in between there are lots of things to do. Bright, humorous illustrations capture all the details around a construction site as a busy family lends a hand (and sometimes a paw!) to help build their dream house.

Dig, Drill, Dump, Fill by Tana Hoban (1975)

This wordless book features full-page photographs of heavy machinery. The glossary at the end adds short explanations of what each machine does. Though the book is a bit dated, construction equipment has changed little over the years, so the book is still relevant today.

Machines at Work by Byron Barton (1987)

Inside flap:
At the construction site the workers gather. Their machines are ready and waiting. A busy day is about to begin.
Down comes the old building. The land is made ready. A new building starts to go up.
Byron Barton's bright, bold illustrations convey all the energy, action, and excitement of the day.

Big Work Machines by Patricia Relf (1984)

This is a nonfiction book about heavy machinery. Each page has illustrations of a worksite, with captions for the construction equipment and explanations of how and when they are used.