Sunday, March 10, 2013

Don't Be Afraid To Be Silly: CYA Storytelling and Booktalking iTea Is a Great Success

On Wednesday February 6th, CYA had the pleasure to host the Mississauga Public Library at the “Stellar Storytelling and Brilliant Booktalking iTea!” Daria Sharanewych, the Manager of Children’s Services at the Mississauga Library, and the rest of her team shared their wisdom about providing children’s programming. If you were in the Inforum or just passing by you probably heard funny voices, great stories, and tons of giggles! The Mississauga storytelling team brought smiles to everyone’s faces and let us remember what it is like to be a child, including being extremely silly!

Programming for children is not a specific skill that is taught at the iSchool. The iTea was a great way to observe and understand the process behind storytelling and booktalking. The staff of Mississauga Public Library presented their favourite programming ideas that they incorporate on a regular basis. There were stories with books, stories without books, songs with books, and songs without books! Many of the staff engaged the audience by including them in the stories, which felt awkward at first, but everyone was quick to reignite the kid inside them.

The biggest recommendations from the children’s services team were to just be yourself, and do what feels comfortable! Picking stories you actually love will invest your performance with that love, and the children will feed off of it. One of the children’s staff even recommended practicing in front of the mirror! Another piece of advice was to not worry about being silly in front of your audience, because children want to have fun. Engaging children in the performance also makes the experience more personal.

The hour iSchool students spent with the Mississauga Public Library was a memorable experience that will help many future children and youth librarians. Many students left with smiles on their faces, and with many ideas for programming!

Now that the iTea is over, a great idea is to start reading lots children’s books and find out what your preferences are. Even practicing your performances with friends, family, or a mirror is a great idea. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or ideas too! Many children’s librarians are experts and are always willing to share programs that have been successful. Overall, the “Stellar Storytelling and Brilliant Booktalking iTea” was a great success!

-- Contributed by Sarah Gauthier, CYA member, 2013-14 Co-Chair

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Book Reviews: Nonfiction books about animals

In this post, I look at two nonfiction books for young readers. Both are featured in the current "Forest of Reading" program, a province-wide recreational reading program sponsored by the Ontario Library Association. Both fiction and nonfiction winners of the various Forest of Reading awards - Silver Birch, Red Maple, and so on - are featured in public and school libraries throughout the province. In other words, lots of kids will read these books. And that is a very good thing.

The Sea Wolves: Living Wild in the Great Bear Rainforest, Ian McAllister and Nicholas Read, 2012

This beautiful book introduces young readers to some fascinating creatures and their unique habitat. The Sea Wolves begins with the many cultural myths and fears about wolves, then dispels those misconceptions with facts about these beautiful, intelligent, highly social animals. The book examines a unique sub-species of wolf that lives in the rainforest on Canada's Pacific coast. Smaller and thinner than the gray wolf, the sea wolf can swim like an otter, and fishes for salmon like a bear! The sea wolves are also unique among wolves in that they have never been hunted. The First Nations people of the area have lived side-by-side with wolves for thousands of years; their culture holds wolves in a position of respect and admiration. The book also describes the wonders of the Great Bear Rainforest, an isolated wilderness now threatened by plans for the tarsands pipeline.

A lot of information is packed into this short book, richly paired with Ian McAllister's stunning photographs of the sea wolves and the rainforest. (McAllister and Read's earlier book about the Great Bear Rainforest, The Salmon Bears, was also a Forest of Reading selection.) The book is truly a love-letter to wolves and to the Canadian rainforest.

Although The Sea Wolves makes a strong case for conservation and preservation, and does mention that the wolves' future is uncertain and the rainforest is threatened, it stops short of endorsing activism. One never knows about the politics behind the scenes - if the authors had wanted to make the activism piece stronger, but were prevented from doing so - but a short piece of "What you can do to help" would have been better than merely giving a website where interested readers can get more information.

This is a beautiful book, both visually attractive and extremely well written. It has the potential to propel many young readers towards a fascination with wolves, the sea wolf, and one of our continent's last bit of wilderness.

No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs, Rob Laidlaw, 2011

Talking to children about cruelty is always tricky. I've written about, for example, being traumatized by learning about the Holocaust as a child in Hebrew school, or by seeing certain details of animal abuse on a documentary. Children need to see the world as it is, but a sensitive child can be overwhelmed by the view.

In No Shelter Here, a book about animal abuse and injustice, Rob Laidlaw has found the perfect approach. The book alternates between problem and solution, first showing us an arena of maltreatment - such as puppy mills, research, or dogs kept alone and chained - then introducing us to "Dog Champions," actual young people who have taken action. For every injustice, there is a real person fighting for justice, and suggestions on how a young reader can get involved. In this way, the book is not merely informative and depressing, it is motivating and empowering.

Young people from all over the world are spotlighted as Dog Champions, each with photos, a short story of how they got started, the actions they chose, and their accomplishments. At the end of the book, readers are invited to take The Dog Lover's Pledge, and to visit animal-welfare websites.

No Shelter Here is full of photographs of imploring brown eyes and dogs in need of champions, but the photos are not shocking or explicit. There are also plenty of photos of Dog Champions at work, and joyful, healthy dogs who have been championed. As one reviewer put it, the issues are "addressed frankly but gently". Animal-loving children will find this book disturbing, but they are likely to motivated to educate others, and to become part of the solution.

- Contributed by Laura Kaminker, CYA 2012-13 Co-chair, originally posted on wmtc.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Book Reviews: Classics Old and New (part 3)

Parts 1 of this series is here; Part 2 is here.

Still Classic?

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle, 1962

A Wrinkle in Time has always been one of my favourite books. Although I have re-read it a few times over the years, I approached it for this series with some trepidation, a bit concerned that I might no longer recommend it to young readers. I needn't have worried. The book - continually in print since it was first published in 1962 - was reissued last year in a special 50th anniversary printing, and with very good reason.

From the moment we begin, we are drawn to Meg - confused and frustrated, feeling like she can't do anything right. Scrappily defending her odd younger brother. Clinging to her mother's calm faith that her father will return. Feeling destined to never fit in.

And as we're identifying with Meg, the mystery begins to unfold. Who is this strange Mrs. Whatsit, and how does she know a secret about Meg's mother, one that even Meg didn't know? Family bonds, the pressures of conformity, and the shifting landscape of our own self-esteem quickly become entwined with time travel, the limits of our known world, and the battle against the nameless evil, fascism. The language feels fresh, the characters alive. We follow them into a fantasy, only to learn a basic truth: that we must find our own moral courage, and we must witness the power of love. This book is timeless.

Where to go from there? There are the other four books in L'Engle's "Time Quintet": A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. I haven't read them all, but young people love series, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend anything by L'Engle. However, I would recommend following up in a different direction.

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Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, The Graphic Novel, adapted and illustrated by Hope Larson, 2012

Madeleine L'Engle died in 2007, so she didn't live to see her greatest work thrive in a new format. I suspect she would have loved it. The award-winning author and illustrator Hope Larson has brilliantly adapted A Wrinkle in Time into a graphic novel. It's faster-paced than the original, as you might expect, but true to both plot and feel.

A reviewer at io9.com calls it "a love letter" to the original.

On HuffPo, Hope Larson writes about why she took on the project and what was involved.

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And finally, I want to (again) mention a contemporary children's novel that pays homage to A Wrinkle in Time: Rebecca Stead's 2009 When You Reach Me.

Miranda, the protagonist of When You Reach Me, is obsessed with A Wrinkle in Time. She carries the book with her and reads it again and again. Perhaps that helps prepare her for what is to come. This book is a daring meld of a realistic story with something fantastical and other-worldly. It is a treasure.

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- Contributed by Laura Kaminker, CYA 2012-13 Co-chair, originally posted on wmtc.