California School Library Association

Northern Region Mini Grant Awardees 2022

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 23:29:00 GMT

by Terry Lai, NR Past-President

The CSLA Northern Region Board invited all current CSLA Northern Region members to apply for a Mini-Grant. These funds could be used for a variety of things including library projects, books, library student furniture, author visit, CSLA Conference registration, and more. Grants ranged up to $1000. Eight (8) total grants were awarded. The expectations of the Mini-Grant were:

Must relate back to students
Must be used within the 2022-2023 school year
May be asked to provide pictures of project

Check out the winners and their projects below

Isabella Raquel Barba, Sinclear Elementary : CYRM Reading Night
This will tie in with Reading Across America Week. That evening our campus would be open for families to participate in the CYRM Reading Night. A guest reader will be present, and each reader will have a CYRM nominated book to read on rotation. Students will receive a stamp showing they’ve completed the book . Once students have completed, they will go to the final area where they will have the opportunity to vote on their favorite story and pick out a free book for their participation.

Karen Firstbrook, Spring Grove School: Books for All!
We have identified that many of our students do not have access to books at home, either because they do not own books or do not have easy access to our public library. It’s our goal each year to provide our students with 1-2 hardcover books they can keep forever. We want to help our students build a personal book collection so they are never without reading material. With this grant, we would be able to purchase at least 2 books for every student to keep in their home library.

Christine Ledgerwood-Flores, Central East High School: Kinder Tech Reading Buddies
Central East High School has developed a literacy outreach program that pairs kindergarten students with emerging English Language Learner, high school students as reading buddies. As the kinder students learn to read, they eventually share what they can read with their high school “buddies”. The EL students are able to practice English in a fun and non-academic, social setting. The proposal is for the purchase of headsets with noise-canceling microphones so 25-30 high school students can be in the library at one time reading on their devices without disturbing their peers who are also reading with the younger students.

Sharon Cowan, Center Elementary School: Wild About Reading!
Our animal books are one of the most frequently checked out items in the non fiction section. The proposal is for funds to purchase 30 non fiction animal books that the students are most interested in. These books were published in the last 3 years, with 9 of the books coming out January 1 2023. Having these new titles, with the vivid pictures, on the shelf will reinvigorate our 590 section. In addition to the 30 books, I am also including 10 browsing bins.

Lisa Glynn, Union Mine High School: AP Study Guides and Expanded Manga Collection Project
The proposal is for study guides for the thirteen Advanced Placement courses that the school offers. These study materials will help students prepare for their AP exams. Also needed is the expansion of resources for reluctant and struggling readers. UMHS library would like to expand the recently started manga/graphic novel collection.

Amy Linden, El Dorado High School: Emerging Bilingual Boost
The proposal is for having some core subject-related nonfiction resources available in Spanish and English. These materials would enable students further explore and learn about science and history topics and people from American culture. The materials being requested to be funded through this grant include graphic novels as well as some books in both English and Spanish. Also having some core subject-related nonfiction resources available in Spanish and English would enable students to further explore and learn about science and history topics and people from American culture. I recently discovered the “History Smashers” series and the “Show Me History!” series, which make up a good portion of my book list. These will help with the support of science and history classes and will be more desirable for our students, especially our male EL population.

Annie Stefani, North Tahoe High School: Lakers Love the Library : Flexible Seating to Accommodate All Due to a large increased enrollment, the library is supporting more students than ever, and our aging library furniture is not meeting the needs of students. We are looking for funding to purchase flexible seating. Our hope is that by starting to upgrade library furniture to items that have wheels or are easy to move, it will make it easier for students to set-up the ideal work environment for the task at hand. This will also allow the library to accommodate more students during study hall/RTI blocks as the current seating situation limits the number of students who can be in the library during those times.

Linda Kennedy, Albiani Middle School: CSLA 2023 Conference
CSLA Conferences help to support Teacher Librarians, such as myself, by providing library programming ideas, innovative library lesson ideas, provide recommended book titles, and latest school library trends. I am interested in exploring Passive Programming Ideas with other Teacher. Librarians encourage students to connect with the library. This mini-grant would give me an opportunity to attend the CSLA 2023 Conference so I can continue to support the students at Albiani Middle School through positive library programming.

Posted in Announcements

Our students deserve better than our woeful school libraries

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 10:15:00 GMT

by Jonathan Hunt

Check out this article from CSLA member Jonathan Hunt published on EdSource’ website.

Posted in News

Funding school libraries is a preemptive move against misinformation

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 10:20:00 GMT

by LISA CHEBY

Check out this article by VP of Government Relations, Lisa Cheby, posted on EdSource’ website.

Posted in News

CSLF Recognizes Bob Logan

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 05:13:00 GMT

By Katie Williams,
CSLF President

The California School Library Foundation is happy to highlight children’s author and illustrator, Bob Logan, this month.

Bob grew up in Baltimore, MD. He used his artistic talents at a young age by selling his Star Wars drawings to kids who happily spent their milk money. He then used this money to buy books at the Scholastic Book Fairs. Then at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, he studied animation. He has worked as a story artist on feature animations such as Madagascar, Open Season, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. He is also widely known for his books The Sea of Bath and Rocket Town, both of which have been favorites for children.

Now living in Thousand Oaks, Ca with his family, Bob enjoys good coffee, sea shanties, a little gardening, sketching, and talking.

You can see Bob’s sea captain illustration on items featured at the Library Advocacy Store .

Thank you very much, Bob, for your colorful work!

Posted in CSLF

“More than just books” sends the wrong message

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 22:49:00 GMT

By Dr. Stephen Krashen

Every morning, I scan google news to see if there are newspaper articles about libraries. About once a week, an article appears that says that members of a local public library can now borrow games, toys and even tools from their library, and often the article proudly announces that the library is now more than “just books.” This sends the unfortunate message that even librarians think that books alone will not attract the public to the library, the common sentiment being that “kids these days” and their parents don’t like to read.

But they do. In a survey of about 3000 children in grades four to six in the US (Schatz, Pierce, Galambor, and Krashen, 2008), only 10% said they didn’t like to read, 85% said they had a favorite book, and about 80% said they often or sometimes “got so interested in a book that I lose track of time when I’m reading it.” Also, these children were clearly not anti-library: Only 18% percent said that they didn’t like spending time in libraries. (About 2/3 of the children were participants in Book Trust, a program that enables children of poverty to choose and purchase books for their home libraries.)

It was refreshing to read that Dubai is very enthusiastic about the book collection in its new library. Dubai has recently invested $272 billion in children and adult books, periodicals, and journals for the new Mohammed Bin Rashid Library. It contains 1.1 million print and digital books and is described by CNN’s Nicola Chilton (Chilton, 2022) as “a beautiful oasis of calm contemplation, where visitors can curl up with a good book, plug in laptops for study or work, or marvel at the rare manuscripts and first-edition books displayed in the exhibition space on the seventh floor.”

There’s nothing wrong with offering more services, but let’s not suggest that we are doing it because books and reading are unpopular.

Note: A recent report from the Pew Research Center (Schaeffer, 2021) presents clear evidence that “reading for fun has become less common” among US children, but there is no mention of the obvious reasons, e.g. reduced funding for school librarians (Kachel and Lance, 2021) and increased amount of homework (Pinsker, 2019). No evidence was presented that interest in reading has declined.

Sources
Chilton, N. 2022. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/mohammed-bin-rashid-library-dubai/index.html
Kachel, D. E., and Lance, K.C. 2021. “Data Speaks: Preliminary Data on the Status of School Librarians in the U.S.” Teacher Librarian 48 (5): 30-31
Pinsker, J. 2019. The cult of homework. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/homework-research-how-much/585889/
Schaeffer, K. 2021. Among many U.S. children, reading for fun has become less common, federal data shows.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/12/among-many-u-s-children-reading-for-fun-has-become- less-common-federal-data-shows/
Schatz, A., Pierce, K., Ghalambor, K. and Krashen, S. 2008. More on the “literacy crisis”: Do children like to read? Knowledge Quest 37 (1): 40-41.

Thumbnail photo by Marco Verch. Obtained via Flickr Creative Commons.

Posted in Books

CSLF Highlights Kazu Kibuishi

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 20:56:00 GMT

The California School Library Foundation is happy to highlight the work of author/illustrator, Kazu Kibuishi. American graphic novel author and illustrator Kazu Kibuishi is best known as the creator and editor of the comic anthology Flight and for creating the webcomic Copper and the Amulet series. You probably recognized his cover illustrations for the paperback 15th anniversary editions of the Harry Potter series. Kazu is a fourth generation Japanese American. Born in Tokyo in 1978, he grew up in LA with his family. His love of drawing began at the age of five. Surprisingly, he didn’t go to art school. Instead, his college years found him at the University of California Santa Barbara where he graduated with a degree in film studies. Working in animation, his love of drawing drifted back to comics.

At the age of 27, his career took a new direction. Scholastic won the war of the bids for the rights to publish Amulet.

“We are very proud to be the publisher of Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet,” said

Jean Feiwel, publisher and senior vice president, Scholastic Children’s Book

Publishing. “Kazu’s amazing ability to combine action-packed storytelling,

engaging characters and stunning artwork will appeal to children and adults

alike. We look forward to building this new Graphix(TM) talent and bringing

these innovative books to Scholastic’s distribution channels.”

Kazu is working as a full-time book creator, partnering with his wife, Amy. Visit their blog, Bolt City Productions , to read the origin story of the series that was a personal goal, not a “career ambition.”

The readers of the Amulet series are now waiting for Book 9. It is the final book of the beloved series.

Follow him on Twitter and Instagram . Look for merchandise with his Reading Rabbit illustration at the Library Advocacy store. A portion of the proceeds benefits the foundation. CSLF thanks Kazu Kibuishi for his support of school libraries in California.

Posted in Uncategorized

What to Read? What to Purchase? CDE Provides Recommendations

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 21:10:00 GMT

The California Department of Education (CDE) coordinates the development of the Recommended Literature List —now in an annual updated format and searchable database. The purpose of the list is to support students, teachers, and families in finding books that inform, entertain, and motivate students to become lifelong readers. It should be noted that the titles are suggestions selected by teams of educators and not all-inclusive. The annual list is a tool that can be used to:

Encourage students to read quality literature in all curriculum areas
Aid families in selecting quality literature in a variety of formats and genres
Promote the latest in children’s and teen literature with a selection of diverse titles relevant to California readers
Provide a source list for updating school, classroom, and home libraries

In collaboration with the CDE and the Recommended Literature List committee, TeachingBooks has posted the entire list, as well as grade level band-specific lists in all California accounts. You’ll find them under Your Reading Lists under the toggle menu on the left. Select see all California lists to see the lists by grade band. You can also search CDE (don’t press return) to see the lists.

How can you spread the word? Use the share tool to create bookmarks to share at staff meetings or family events. Share the list with your local independent bookstores so that they will be prepared to suggest titles and create orders. And remember to connect with your local public library staff who can also help you promote the titles. These lists can also be embedded on your websites using the share tool.

Here’s what the embedded list will look like. Note there is no search bar—just direct access to the list.

Jen Howerter, Renee Ousley-Swank, and I will be sharing the list and resources at conferences, COE staff meetings, and in an upcoming webinar. For more information see the CDE’s Recommended List website .
Note: “It should be understood that inclusion of a variety of diverse materials on the Recommended Literature List does not preclude local teachers and administrators from selecting those specific materials that best suit the needs and interests of their local students.”–CDE website

Posted in Uncategorized

CSLF highlights David Shannon’s support for California School Libraries

Mon, 22 Aug 2022 21:14:00 GMT

The California School Library Foundation is happy to highlight the work of author/illustrator, David Shannon. He was born in Washington, D.C, in 1959, and grew up in Spokane, WA

David liked to draw as soon as he could hold a crayon. He went to Hutton Elementary school where his teachers soon realized that if they let David draw murals it would keep him from disrupting class and their classroom would have some pretty good art on the walls, too! David eventually graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, majoring in Illustration. He sold his pickup truck and moved to New York City in 1983 to start a career in editorial illustration.

David’s work appeared in many magazines and newspapers, including Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times, as well as numerous book jackets and posters. In 1988 he illustrated his first children’s book, How Many Spots Does a Leopard Have?, by Julius Lester. (Btw, Leopards have two spots – dark ones and light ones.) After illustrating several books by other authors, David was encouraged to try writing his own stories. His first book was How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball, which was named a New York Times Best-illustrated book in 1994. In 1999 the semi-autobiographical story, No, David!, received a Caldecott Honor. David has written and/ or illustrated over 35 books for children ages 3-8. He now lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Heidi, and his daughter, Emma

Some of the books he has written are Roy Digs Dirt (newest book), Hiawatha and the Peacemaker, The rough faced girl (Algonquin Cinderella story), Encounter (Columbus & Taino Indians), Shark God (Hawaiian), Mr. Nogginbody, (2 titles) Bizzy Mizz Lizzie, and eight David books.

Look for merchandise with his “David” illustration at the Library Advocacy store. A portion of the proceeds benefits the foundation.

Posted in Uncategorized

California School Library Association

Northern Region Mini Grant Awardees 2022￼

Our students deserve better than our woeful school libraries￼

Funding school libraries is a preemptive move against misinformation￼

CSLF Recognizes Bob Logan

“More than just books” sends the wrong message

CSLF Highlights Kazu Kibuishi￼￼￼

What to Read? What to Purchase? CDE Provides Recommendations

CSLF highlights David Shannon’s support for California School Libraries

Northern Region Mini Grant Awardees 2022

Our students deserve better than our woeful school libraries

Funding school libraries is a preemptive move against misinformation

CSLF Highlights Kazu Kibuishi