How to Get Permission for StoryWalks

This post originally appeared on the ALSC Blog on April 7, 2021. It is reposted here with permission.

You can read my other posts about my library's StoryWalk here:

• Our First StoryWalk
• Hot Chocolate StoryWalk
• Capitalize on Your StoryWalk During Social Distancing

Does your library have a StoryWalk®? Are you thinking of adding one? My library added ours in 2019 and our patrons LOVE IT! One question I get all the time is how to get publisher permission for StoryWalks®. Today, I’ll share what I’ve learned in the past 2 years.

The first stop on our StoryWalk! Photo by Luis Munoz, used with permission.

What is a StoryWalk®?

A StoryWalk® is just what it sounds like. It’s a picture book presented on posts along a walking path or trail so that you read the story as you walk along the path. Started at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, VT, you can now find StoryWalks® all over the country. There are many posts about StoryWalks® on the ALSC Blog – check out the StoryWalk® tag to see them all! I’ve written more about the Floyd County Library StoryWalk® on my personal blog, so feel free to check that out, too. The original StoryWalk® calls for books to be physically disassembled and the pages laminated and posted to avoid violating the title’s copyright. But if you would like to scan or screen capture and reprint the book (which is a lot easier if you have someone who knows how to do it), you’ll need permission for StoryWalks®.

How do I get permission for StoryWalks®?

Ask the publisher! The first step is figuring out what company has published the title you want to use. Check the copyright information in the book and it should list the publisher. Be aware that many larger publishers have multiple imprints, so Google is your friend. You want to find the parent publishing company. That’s who you’ll need to ask for permission. Once you’ve determined the publisher of the title, check their website for a page titled Permissions. I have sometimes found this under a Contact Page. If all else fails, you could do a web search for [publisher’s name] + permissions and hopefully that will get you to the right place.

I have also had some success with contacting the library marketing contact I have at a publisher. That’s something you can try if you’re having trouble figuring out who to ask. They likely can’t grant you permission for StoryWalks® themself, but they often will be able to quickly get you to the right person. And the blog Early Word has a really handy list of children’s library marketing contacts if you need it.

Every publisher treats StoryWalks® differently

Some publishers will have an online form you can fill out. Some will ask you send your request in writing by email. If you’re sending in your request, it’s helpful to include the full title and author’s name, the ISBN of the book, and the publishing imprint. The publisher may also need to know the address where the book will be displayed and the dates you intend to display it.

I don’t think I’ve filled out any publisher permission forms that actually listed StoryWalk® as an intended use. You may need to get creative and select whichever option is closest to what you need. I believe every online form I’ve seen includes space somewhere where you can describe your project. That’s a great place to include information about your StoryWalk®.

Some publishers charge for permissions

Most of the publishers I have approached have granted permission for StoryWalks® for free. Some publishers list a charge on their website, but I have been granted gratis permission by approaching them through a library marketing contact.

Plan ahead because it can take some time!

In my experience, some publishers are quicker to respond than others. Prepare for it to take a number of weeks or months for a publisher to get back with you. (Just like you and me, they have a lot of tasks on their to-do lists!)

And a caveat…

I am still learning this process myself and I have not worked with every publisher. Since I have not worked with every publisher, I am not going to get more specific with details about what which publishers do or don’t do here. If in doubt, reach out to them and ask!

What questions do you have?

I know you probably have more questions about StoryWalks®, so let’s hear them! Or if you have a StoryWalk® at your library, I’d love to hear your advice, tips, and tricks! Feel free to share in comments. And happy StoryWalk®ing!

Capitalize on your StoryWalk During Social Distancing

Photo of a frame on our StoryWalk outdoors in a park

About a year ago now, we installed our first StoryWalk. You can find more information using the StoryWalk tag here. It's been a super delight and has been much beloved by those in our community who have discovered it.

It is so nice to have a small place for the library out in the community, particularly during this time that our buildings are closed. We are promoting our StoryWalk to our patrons while cautioning them to distance their families from others and to avoid touching the frames if they visit the park. You may or may not feel comfortable encouraging your families to leave their homes and it's perfectly understandable if you don't. However, I know that quarantine can be super hard for families and especially for kids and visiting our local park is, I think, a low-risk activity if they practice social distancing. Our parks have closed the playgrounds, sports facilities, and restrooms, but currently our walking paths are open.

The StoryWalk is a fun activity that may still be appropriate to share with your community. It's also an opportunity to reach out to families and promote other collections and services that they have access to while your buildings are closed.

Photo showing a frame in our StoryWalk that promotes our digital services

As part of our latest StoryWalk, our marketing coordinator included some information about accessing our digital materials and our virtual programs. We have found that each story we've put in the StoryWalk has had fewer spreads than our 20 frames, so each time we have posted a new one, we've been able to devote a few frames to promoting other library activities or services.

Photo showing a frame in our StoryWalk that promotes our virtual storytimes

This time we are utilizing these frames to highlight digital services that folks can access from home. And, really, it's something that makes sense for us to promote all the time. I think we'll likely continue to promote digital services this way for the duration of the COVID crisis and probably forever. More and more folks are discovering our digital services who never used them before. 

Our First StoryWalk!

This summer, a professional dream of mine came true. Our library put in our first StoryWalk at a local park. I have always wanted to do one and I'm so grateful that my colleagues were so supportive of the idea. It was truly a team effort!

Our first story in the StoryWalk is A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin. She's one of my all-time favorite authors and this story fit in perfectly with our summer reading theme, A Universe of Stories. 

While you can create StoryWalk posts a number of different ways, our library had funding to order premade frames from StoryWalk Solutions. Our Floyd County Parks & Recreation folks installed them for us and they look really nice. Each frame unscrews at the bottom so you can change out the story. 

Our amazing marketing coordinator / graphic artist designed the spreads and we physically took apart a couple of copies of the book and glued them in before laminating them to create the spreads for each frame. This was a ton of work and we will definitely be seeking out permissions to use digital images for future stories so that we can create the spreads as digital files and then just print and laminate them. 

On each spread, Ms. J and I came up with some kind of physical activity or dialogic reading question / talking prompt to encourage interaction and discussion as families walk along the StoryWalk together. 

The walking path at this park is about three quarters of a mile and we ordered 20 posts, which is what I am told is the usual amount that libraries order. For A Big Mooncake for Little Star, that allowed us to include the entire book, plus an extra post in the middle where we placed a little activity break. Post 1 has the cover and info about the StoryWalk. Post 2 has the gorgeous endpapers. Posts 3-19 have the spreads from the story with one "activity break" in the middle (Post 13 below). And Post 20 has Grace Lin's author's note and more library info. 

This is a permanent installation and we plan on changing out the featured stories quarterly-ish. My hope is that we'll be able to install more StoryWalks in our community!

I know you probably have questions, so hit me up in the comments and I'll write a follow-up post to answer everything. And if you have a StoryWalk in your community, I would love to know what's worked for you and what your favorite stories have been! 

ETA (April 2021): The question I'm asked most often about StoryWalks is how to get permission from publishers to reprint picture books for use in StoryWalks and I finally have a post all about it! Click through to read more about that!

The second most frequently asked question I get asked is if I can provide the beautiful layout designed by our talented Marketing Coordinator and I'm afraid the answer to that is thank you for agreeing it's beautiful, but no. 

Firefly Award Kit Update

A couple of months ago, I posted about the Firefly Book Award Kits that I made for our library in order to spread the word about the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award and try to collect more votes from our county.

I am happy to say that we had a lot of success with this program, learned a lot, and plan to continue (and expand it!) next year. My goal was to collect 100 votes with the Firefly Kits and we ended up collecting 196 votes. Together with the other programs we did, we sent in over 200 votes. I'm really proud of that and hope that we can make it even more next year!

Teachers were really enthusiastic about participating. I had the most success in reaching out to preschools and daycares that we have already worked with in the past, but I hope that next year with some experience under our belt we may be able to advertise it more broadly and pick up some new groups. 

I really did not have to convince teachers about the worth of this program. Once they understood what it was, they were super into it. I had several teachers ask me about participating again, so I think we'll hit the ground running next year. My plan is to get this started earlier in the year next year since we now have a template for it. That will allow more time for the teachers to keep the bags and more time to spread the word. 

I decided to make the bags circulating for one week, but several of the teachers kept them longer in order to do the activities in the provided teacher guide. One preschool made their own voting poster for the whole school. One preschool even took pictures of all the crafts the kids did and make a big thank-you poster for us! I love the creative things the teachers thought to do with the voting and I want to encourage that. I had no problem being flexible with the check-out time since we never had a wait list for the bags. Next year, starting earlier will give us even more time, so I will probably extend the check-out time. 

Next year, I would also like to circulate the bags to families, too. We did not have a ton of participation from individual families with our in-house voting. I think we might get more participation if families could check out all the books and read at home. I didn't want to do that this year since we had a limited number of bags for our pilot program and I had a small window of time. I wanted to concentrate on groups of kids to get the most bang for our buck. If we offer the bags circulating to the public, I think it'll be easier to spread the word and that may catch the eye of our local teachers, too. 

It was a great, pretty easy program to run and I think our teachers and their students got a lot out of it. It was definitely successful and I'm excited about doing it again next year!

Firefly Book Award Kits

This year, I took on a project that I have wanted to do for a long time: Firefly Book Award Kits.

The Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award is a kids-choice state book award started in 2015 and aimed at ages 0-5 and featuring books that develop early literacy skills in our youngest readers. Each year, a committee of professionals selects 5 nominees and children 5 and under may vote for their favorite.

We've done some programming around the Firefly Award in the past and set up a voting station in our Children's Room, but this year I really wanted to push it with our local early childhood educators and see if we could get them involved.

I created five Firefly Award kits that each include a copy of each of the five nominees, the 2019 program guide (super useful - it contains ideas on how to share the books, craft ideas, ideas for voting, etc.), and 20 ballot sheets. Each kit checks out for one week and any teacher who checks out a kit and returns children's votes will be entered into a drawing to win a set of all five books.

I set the kits to check out for one week because we're starting a little bit late and I'm trying to get the maximum usage out of them before votes are due on May 15. We'll see how it works - if we repeat the program next year hopefully I will be able to start earlier in the semester so we have more time and we may adjust the checkout period.

For our pilot program, I'm first reaching out to local early childhood teachers because we'll get huge bang for our buck that way. I started last week and all five kits are checked out to teachers. If we start having kits sitting on my shelves, I intend to put them out for any families to check out.

Creating the kits:

I purchased DALIX zippered cotton canvas bags through Amazon for about $13 apiece. I have my eye on heavier-duty canvas totes via Lands End or LL Bean, but for this pilot project I decided to go with cheaper bags. If we like the program and continue it, we'll probably invest in higher quality bags. We will also look at vinyl bags or other options that are not cloth - critters aren't a huge concern to me with bags circulating to schools, but we can never be too careful.

I purchased a set of plastic tag holders that came with zip ties to affix the kit labels with barcodes to the bags. On the back of the label, I printed the contents of the kit. I realized that I needed to attach a second tag with the delivery and pickup information, so if we continue the program in future years I will look for better solutions.

My hope is that we will have success and continue the program and then the bags can be an investment that we reuse each year with the new nominees.

The best deal I could find on the hardcover picture books was through Ingram. I ordered them non-processed and put labels in the front of each book with the kit's barcode. That way if they get separated we know where they go. When we give away the books, we'll put a new label with no barcode over the top of it so teachers can be reminded of their awesome library.

Giving away the books once the program is done was my cataloger's idea. That way we don't take up extra shelf space with multiple copies that we probably no longer need, and it's an extra incentive for teachers to participate in the program.

Program Goals:

My hope is to collect 100 votes via this program this year. Last year we were in the throes of our huge staffing restructure and we submitted 0 votes for our county, so if I can get 100 votes to submit I will be happy and that will give us something to build on. I'll be sure to update and let you know how it goes!

Read on for information about my budget and staff time for this project, as well as files you can use if you want to replicate it at your library!

Program Budget:

5 canvas bags at $13/each = $65*

Set of 50 tag holders with zip ties = $14*

25 hardcover picture books (5 each of the five nominees) at an average discounted price of $13/each = $325

Printing 5 program guides + extra in case any of the teachers keep theirs (which would be fine with me) at 25 cents a page = $100**

Printing ballots to include at each guide (500 ballots printed) at 25 cents each = $125**

Total: $629 for five kits
(Or about $400 without including printing costs)

*These items will hopefully be used in future years
**Printing costs may vary and may be something your library can absorb in its normal operating budget. We printed ours in-house, so I did not really need to budget for this, but you might!

Staff Time (approximate):

Purchasing supplies and processing kits (creating labels, making catalog record) = 4 hours*

Drafting invitation letter, collecting contact information, and sending out info to teachers = 2 hours

Checking out and delivering kits, creating teacher library cards, communicating with participating teachers, keeping track of kits = approximately 2 hours/week (mostly in small chunks, may vary week by week) for 11 weeks = 22 hours**

Total staff time: 30 hours
Over a period of about 12 weeks, so averaging about 2.5 staff hours/week

* Much of this can be reused in future years. We will still have to process new kits, but I won't have to design new labels, etc.
** You may or may not need to do all these tasks yourself at your library. Next year I will probably let other staff members handle a lot of this since it fits in with our School Collection program that we already run. I just didn't want to load up their plates with my project before I knew if it would be successful.

Files for your use:
You have my permission to edit these and use them however you like. The Firefly Award makes its logo available for use in promoting this program.

• Firefly program guides and ballots are available at no charge on the Firefly Award website
• Bag labels designed to fit in 3" x 4 1/8" tag holders (Publisher file). These include the Firefly logo, but I took our library logo off. Feel free to edit. We placed barcodes between the two logos. 
• Book plate labels for inside the books (Word file) designed to work with Avery labels 5164
• The letter I sent to teachers (Word file). I emailed this to the teachers and preschool directors that I had contact info for and mailed it to other preschools and daycares in our area. 

Summer Reading In Your Neighborhood

This has been a project that has been in my head for many years and this is probably going to turn into a whole series of posts as we go through the summer and see how it goes.

You see, since I started at my library there has been a huge discrepancy between certain schools. Schools from certain areas of our county have had huge participation in the Summer Reading Club, which schools from other areas have had low participation. There are a lot of barriers there, but one of them is definitely access. So we decided to bring the Summer Reading Club to them.

This summer we are taking a mini-collection, activities and crafts, and all the accoutrements of Summer Reading out into some of our neighborhoods to try to reach families where they are. We're calling it Summer Reading In Your Neighborhood, which is a subset of our new #instaLibrary service.

Our Friends of the Library gave us a grant to help us get started, which allowed us to purchase a canopy tent, folding tables, plastic tubs to carry books, nylon drawstring bags to check out the books in, new library cards specific for this program, and a laptop to take out with us. The collection of books has been culled from donations and fair-condition withdrawn books. We also placed a large order from Scholastic's FACE program to ensure that we would have enough books to carry us through this summer. This collection will grow as we continue to solicit donations (and my review copies have a great home now!).

Kids who visit the sites will be allowed to check out a book bag with five books of their choice in it. The books aren't cataloged and there's no overdue fines or fees for lost or damaged books. We won't check out individual books, just the book bags. If book bags are lost, kids will have the option to pay a small fee or to volunteer or read off their "fine". If patrons already have a library card, they may use that (we will override any blocks for them to check out an #instaReads bag). If not, they may get a free #instaLibrary card just for use at these pop-up libraries. Anyone may get an #instaLibrary card, regardless of whether they have ID, live in our county, know their address, etc. This is modeled off the Indianapolis Public Library's Bunny Book Bag program.

Each morning Monday through Thursday this summer, we'll be loading all this stuff up to head out to a different site in our county. We've partnered with our local schools and other community organizations to bring the sites to places that we can hopefully reach the families that haven't been coming to us. We're also setting up sites farther out in the county where people have to travel farther to reach us.

We will send at least two people to each site - one staff member and at least one intern. We have a couple of interns who are going to be helping us out with this program. I have an intern from our local community college who is completing her early childhood practicum with this internship. We got another intern through one of our local high schools who won a grant for an internship stipend for working in a nonprofit over the summer. Our college intern will be in charge of planning activities each week. Our high school graduate intern may be planning activities, helping to sort through the books in our collection, or just offering another set of hands at the sites.

Yes, this makes our staffing a little tight at the library since we are continuing with our regular summer storytime schedule. We have cut back a little bit on library programming, electing to offer more self-directed programming which is easier to run with fewer staff. And we'll just see how it goes.

In June, we are partnering with our local schools' Bridge to Success camps, so I know that we'll have a captive audience to utilize the sites. In July, after that camp ends, we're moving some of our sites to other community locations that were recommended by some of the principals as areas where we might be closer to the families in their districts.

I have no idea how it's going to go yet, but I'm really excited to see. It's been a TON of work getting this all set up, but the best thing is that now that we've got the infrastructure in place this is a service that we have ready to go throughout the school year and next summer. We'll learn as we go and change whatever doesn't work.

I'm going to write in more detail about this program throughout the summer. And I'll keep you updated on how everything is going. Help me formulate more detailed posts:

What questions do you have?

Booktalking Redux

Photo by Book Aid International

It's been a magical year of booktalking at our local schools! I posted last fall about getting in to our local schools for booktalks, and now that we're wrapping up our first booktalking year, I wanted to post about how things have gone this year. 

We ended up with 18 grades at 9 schools that we saw monthly (or regularly - one group had us come every six weeks when their language arts unit changed). This includes the 5th & 6th grades at our middle schools and our teen librarians visited the 7th & 8th grades there, as well. We saw different combinations of grades for a total of 12 monthly visits each month. Some of these visits were as short as 15-20 minutes and some of them lasted as long as 3.5 hours, depending on the numbers of classes and groups we saw.

For example, we visited one 4th grade class at one of our private schools for just one presentation, about 15 minutes at the end of their school day, each month. At one of our middle schools, we visited twice a month and saw 6-8 groups for 15 minutes apiece at each visit in order to get all the 5th/6th grade classes in. 

Typically, we see each class (or group of classes) for 15-20 minutes, during which time we can share 5-6 books. We always try to keep a balance between genres and formats and we always include diverse books. This year, we saw kids ranging from 1st to 6th grade. Some of the teachers asked to check out the books we were bringing in school collections, some did not. 

We were lucky this year that we had the collection budget to order multiple copies of the books we were bringing if teachers wanted to check out the books for their classes. Unfortunately, next year it looks like we may not have the money to do that, but we're brainstorming ways that we can still make it work. The good news is that we can reuse some of the books that we brought this year (but we have to be a little careful about that - if the 2nd grade team used a book that we also used for 3rd grade, that wouldn't be one we would repeat this year). That's going to be the biggest challenge for the 5th/6th grade groups we saw since we won't be able to repeat any of those books.

I scheduled certain staff members to visit certain schools and we all pretty much saw the same groups each month. This allows the kids to get to know their librarians and the librarians to get to know their kids. The way it's worked out is that I have a set of early elementary booktalkers and a set of older elementary/middle school booktalkers. We'll see how this pans out for next year when we may possibly have an increase in the number of programs we're asked to do.  

All in all, it's been an extremely fun and valuable year. Many of our teachers have already asked if we will be doing the booktalking visits again next year, and I'm excited to see who will have us back and if we'll have any "new recruits". 

As we are wrapping up with each group, I am sending out a wrap-up email explaining about scheduling for next year, including a book list of all the books we brought to them throughout the year and a link to a survey for teachers. I love to send out the book lists, which can be a great resource for kids as they're trying to find good books to read over the summer. We're slowly getting responses to the survey and we've been getting very positive feedback. It looks like the books we brought this past year were on-target for the age groups we were seeing and have been getting kids excited about reading and introducing teachers to new books. 

Results: 

1. We see kids in all the time, asking for books we have brought to their classrooms. The books are checking out. 

2. Kids have gotten more excited about reading and teachers are being exposed to new books they didn't know about before. We heard from one middle school teacher who has used one of the books we introduced to develop a problem-solving lesson that her kids were super into. Huzzah! 

3. Kids have a chance to connect with librarians and ask questions about the library. We have the opportunity to tell them how to get a library card, give an extra push for Summer Reading Club, or tell them about fun programs that are coming up. 

Things We Have Learned:

1. May is too busy for Summer Reading Club school visits and a bunch of booktalking visits. Next year, we will do booktalks September through April (like the rest of our programming!) and maybe we can offer an extra visit in May to talk about and answer questions about the Summer Reading Club. 

2. We're taking August off for scheduling. That was the most stressful part of last year for me - trying to take vacation in August when I was in the middle of scheduling a ton of booktalking visits. This year, I have let teachers know that we'll be in touch in August to schedule visits for the school year. I am going to take that month to get everything scheduled and then we'll be ready to go in September. 

3. It's GREAT to be able to send teams of two to do the booktalks. Not only does it cut down on the number of books you have to prepare each month, but it makes it easier to get a nice balance of genres, formats, etc. This past year, I only sent one person to some of the smaller groups. Next year, I'll probably still send one person to these groups, but I am going to rotate so that it's not one person seeing the same group every month. We'll rotate between three or four of us, which will help make the workload more manageable and also result in more balanced presentations over the course of the year. 

4. Send reminder emails!!! I have gotten into the habit of sending out a short reminder note a week before our visit. This allows us some time to put together School Collections if anyone has any special requests, time to reschedule if we need to make changes due to field trips, etc., and it's helped keep everyone on track. I copy the staff who will be doing the visit so that everyone's on the same page. 

Now that I feel like we have a better handle on how booktalking programs can work for us and our teachers, I am really excited to schedule folks for booktalks next year! 

Flannel Friday: Library Card Sign Up Month

Here's a really simple and fun idea to use during September for Library Card Sign Up Month: color library cards!

Miss T made these felt library cards by making color copies of our library card on cardstock. Then she laminated them, cut them out and glued them to different colors of felt. She added a little velcro on the back to help them stick since the cardstock makes them a little heavier than the typical felt. If you have library cards to spare, you could also just glue your library card onto colored felt, especially if you're not making a set of 30. ;) 

We use a lot of these color sets by passing them out to children (we typically have less than 30 children in each storytime) and then having them bring them up to the felt board when we call their color. This not only reinforces color concepts, but it helps kids practice following instructions and it helps them get used to interacting with an adult who is not in their family. 

If you have a larger group, you could certainly use these cards in different ways. Maybe a five little... rhyme, maybe placing each card by a word label for each color. 

These are especially great for outreach storytimes because it allows us to end by letting the kids know that they can get a free library card, too! And, of course, they're great to use during Library Card Sign Up Month. Do your patrons know that children can get library cards, too?

Bridget at What is Bridget Reading? has the Flannel Friday roundup this week, so click on through to see what other flannels everyone's using!

The Magic Words: Getting Into the Schools for Booktalks

Image Credit: cleverclaire1983

I've been trying to get into our local schools for booktalking since I started my job five years ago.

And this year, I've hit upon the magic words to make it happen.

I LOVE booktalking. It was something I got to do on a regular basis at my previous library in Illinois; we had several regular programs set up with some of the schools up there. When I moved to my current library, I was eager to set up booktalking programs, but the marketing I was trying just didn't seem to work. No one seemed to be interested. What was up with that?!

Two things I learned helped us get started:

1. Teachers are super busy. My State Library Youth Services Coordinator, the awesome Suzanne Walker, suggested advertising "booktalking in as little as 15 minutes". That's what helped us get into the first school. One fourth grade teacher said, "I can spare 15 minutes of my language arts time for booktalks."

2. The word "booktalk" is jargon. Not everyone knows what it means. I kept shouting at everybody about doing booktalks, and it turns out they had no idea what I was talking about. Once I started adding a brief explanation (booktalks are brief previews of books, like movie theater trailers, designed to get kids interested and excited to pick up the books), interest shot WAY UP.

Knowing these things helped me get us into our first school. Last year, we visited the fourth grade classes at one of our local schools once a month. We spent 15 minutes in each classroom and found that we could comfortably booktalk 5 books in that amount of time.

It turns out that getting into one school and figuring out the nuts and bolts of how this type of program could work was the best thing to do.

This year, I approached principals about talking at a faculty meeting to tell teachers about the services we offer for teachers. I was able to give them some concrete examples of how booktalking programs can work. I made sure to take down email addresses of anyone interested in having us set up booktalks. I know teachers have a ton of things on their plate, so I took responsibility for getting the ball rolling.

And things snowballed from there!

Last year, we saw one grade at one school each month. This year, I have fifteen grades at six different schools on our schedule (so far!).

Guess what? Teachers talk! If you bring them something they like, they will tell other teachers! Some of these new groups are folks I have approached at faculty meetings, but we had several who came to us because they had heard about what we were doing.

And we're ready to handle them. I've been laying the groundwork for this by establishing our Reading Wildly staff readers' advisory program. Each month, my staff members have been sharing booktalks with each other, so they already have an arsenal to choose from. To start with, I'm scheduling booktalks in pairs. As everyone gets more booktalking experience, we may be able to break up the teams and schedule individuals instead of pairs.

(Although... being able to send staff in pairs is really nice. Not only does it cut down on the amount of prep each person has to do, it gives kids and teachers two different styles of booktalkers. It's also easier to get a balance of different types of books when two people who potentially gravitate towards different genres present together.)

I also shared with my staff some booktalking best practices. Read the book you're going to booktalk. The best booktalks are books you truly enjoy and are excited to share with kids. Even if a book's not your personal favorite, if you can get excited thinking about the kind of kid who would like this book, it's a good choice. And bringing balanced selections - including nonfiction, graphic novels, and diverse titles - is a must. We're seeing so many different kids and we want to make sure that every kid is seeing something they like at some point.

I encourage my staff to leave a minute or two at the end of their visit to get feedback from the kids and find out what books THEY recommend so we can get an idea of their tastes and better tailor our booktalks.

As I'm scheduling groups, I'm trying to say YES as much as possible. It's most important to me to start fostering a better relationship with our schools and teachers. We'll figure out details as we go along. I recommend booktalks for grades 2 and up, but if teachers of younger grades want us to come and do something, we'll brainstorm some program ideas. It sounded overwhelming to booktalk to the entire 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades at one middle school, but we're making it work.

And what I've found is that as we divide up groups between staff members and as we all start planning, things are coming together. So far, scheduling has been the hardest part (and that's maybe because we just switched to a new software and I'm terrified something's going to fall through the cracks).

And thus begins our journey into the schools. May it be long and positive for all parties!

January, February & March Afterschool

Afterschool was hit or miss for us this year as our kids had SO MANY SNOW DAYS and thus many of our visits were canceled. And now we're starting to wrap up the school year (yup - doesn't feel like it, but April will be our last month for Afterschool visits!).

Here are the biggest hits over the past few months of Afterschool:

Actual Size by Steve Jenkins (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2004). This nonfiction book shares facts about many animals from around the world. The cool part? The illustrations are made ACTUAL SIZE, so they show you just how big (or small) these animals really are! The short, simple text makes this an easy one to read aloud. Kids LOVE learning fun facts about animals (and sharing what they know!), so this is great for incorporating some nonfiction in your readalouds.

Dinosaur Kisses by David Ezra Stein (Candlewick Press, 2013). A baby dinosaur hatches and decides to give a kiss... but she doesn't exactly get it right the first time. After some whomping, stomping, and chomping, she meets a friend who can finally kiss the way dinosaurs kiss! At first the kids thought this was going to be a sappy story ("Is this a kissing book?" YEP!), but it's actually funny. This is a great readaloud for February since it can go along with Valentine's Day, or for any time since it is hilarious. 

My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza (Puffin, 2003). When a piglet shows up at Mr. Wolf's door, Mr. Wolf thinks it's his lucky day! How often does dinner just SHOW UP on your doorstep?! But after piglet's done with him, your listeners will know just whose lucky day it really is. This is another silly story that'll have the kids laughing.

Stuck by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel, 2011). It starts with Floyd's kite. Stuck in a tree. And to get the kite down? Floyd throws his shoe at it. But guess what? The shoe gets stuck... and so on and so on until most of the neighborhood is stuck in the tree, too! This is a really wacky story and the kids really responded to the humor in it. 

There were other books, but these were my biggest hits this winter. For crafts, we did building squares, made Valentine's Day cards*, and colored slap blank slap bracelets (found on Oriental Trading!).

What new books have you found that are great for K-4th readalouds? Any old standbys I need to know about? I'm always looking for new books to share with my groups!

* After February 14 they became I love you/Happy birthday/Whatever cards. Make sure you have some different colors of construction paper and you're good to go. Kids LOVE to make cards. 

Afterschool: December

I only had one Afterschool group in December because my other visit was snowed out. Here's what we read:

Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner, illustrated by Mark Buehner (Dial, 2002). This rhyming story about what snowmen do at night works with a wide range of ages. Those crazy snowmen get up to all kinds of things once people go to sleep - snowman races, sledding, snowball fights, and drinking ice-cold cocoa, of course. This was a fun one since we recently had some snow (fairly rare for us in Southern Indiana), so many of the kids had build snowmen or gone sledding or something.

It's a Tiger! by David LaRochelle, illustrated by Jeremy Tankard (Chronicle Books, 2012). This one's all in the way you read it, I think. I told the kids we're going on an adventure together and whenever that tiger comes up, I scream my head off. This was a fun, funny one and I love the colorful illustrations.

I'm a Frog! by Mo Willems (Disney-Hyperion, 2013). By popular demand! We have made little Elephant and Piggie fanatics of all our Afterschool kids, I think. These books just lend themselves to reading aloud. This new E&P stars Piggie pretending she's a frog and Gerald trying to figure out why Piggie is suddenly a frog (she looks like a pig...). Another rollicking good time.

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen (Candlewick, 2011). I had read Klassen's This is Not My Hat with them last year, but realized that I hadn't brought this first book! They really enjoyed this funny story. Illustrations are very important to getting the jokes, so make sure everyone can see!

This month's craft was snowman scratch-art ordered from Oriental Trading. The kids looooove scratch art and would happily do it every single time. I had a ton of kids wanting to do this craft. I always debate with myself over whether we should be switching it up every month (like we're doing now) or just give in and order scratch art every month. I guess my fear would be that if we have budget cuts, we may not be able to order scratch art at some point, so I don't want them to be counting on it. But maybe that's just not a good way to think about it!

Afterschool: November

Here's what I shared with my Afterschool groups this month:

Animals Should Definitely NOT Wear Clothing by Judi Barrett, illustrated by Ron Barrett (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1970). This story is short and extremely silly; it's great for a broad range of ages. The Barretts examine many different reasons animals should not wear clothing - it would be disastrous for a porcupine, a mouse would get lost in it, it would be messy for a pig. Each spread features an amusing illustration - my kids are particular fans of the hen. The illustrations definitely make this book, so it'll work best if everyone has a good view. 

Carnivores by Aaron Reynolds, illustrated by Dan Santat (Chronicle Books, 2013). I totally flubbed this book when I read it to my first group because I didn't practice it beforehand. I had read it, thought it was really funny, and stuck it on the Afterschool shelf. When I picked it up a couple of weeks later, I made a big mistake by bringing it along without practicing the readaloud! When I did it for my second group (after practicing!), it went a lot better and the kids enjoyed it. This is a good choice if you have older kids; I think a lot of the humor went over the heads of the younger kids in my groups. I introduced the story by asking if someone could tell me what a carnivore is and we talked a little bit about that before I read the story. 

'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic, 1990). This rhyming story is a little silly with a lot of heart and it's perfect for the school-age crowd around this time of year. In the cadence of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", Pilkey spins the story of a class visiting a turkey farm on a field trip, realizing what's going to happen to their new turkey friends, and smuggling the turkeys out under their jackets to enjoy a veggie Thanksgiving dinner at their houses. 

This month's craft was a paper mosaic leaf and we debuted our new glue sponges! These have been all over Pinterest for elementary school classrooms and they're great for libraries, too. We've replaced the glue sticks at our make-and-take craft table and we've started bringing the glue sponges along to our Afterschool outreach. They last way longer and are way less messy than glue sticks (or glue bottles) and the kids got the hang of them quite quickly. 

Afterschool: September

This will be our fourth year visiting all of the YMCA Afterschool sites in our school district to read books and do a short craft with them, and our visits started in September. (Although the kids go back to school in August, we generally take August off from programming and we like to give the sites a chance to get into their routines before we start visiting.) You can read more about our Afterschool outreach on the ALSC Blog here and here. Last school year, I posted monthly about what books I was taking on my visits, so check out the afterschool tag for those posts.

Five of my six staff members (including myself) split up visits to the nine Afterschool sites each month. A few of the sites have very large groups (40-50+ students) and I send two people on those visits. I see two of the sites and my two groups are very different. Site A is located in the city and this year it's a very young group - lots of new Kindergarteners - which I'm hoping will make it a little bit easier this year. (Last year, this site had lots of older kids who were too-cool-for-school, so I had to be very strategic in what I brought.) Site B is located in one of our most affluent suburbs and they love books and will sit through anything that I bring. It is not unusual for me to read four or five books to this group and I'll often bring longer books knowing that they can handle it.

Sometimes I'll bring the same books to each site and sometimes I'll have some overlap and then sometimes I'll read completely different things. It all just depends on how the visits go.

So, here's what I read in September:

Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard, illustrated by James Marshall. Houghton Mifflin, 1977. I always start the year with this one because it's one of my favorites and a perennial favorite of the kids. The kids who have heard it before know the surprise ending and delight in keeping the secret (or blurting it out... either way). The canvas bag we bring to each visit has Viola Swamp's picture on it, so it's a great way to introduce our program to new faces and connect all our visits.

A Big Guy Took My Ball by Mo Willems. Disney-Hyperion, 2013. Add this to the growing list of Elephant and Piggie books that make GREAT readalouds. My kids at Site B are especially huge fans of Elephant and Piggie and they were so happy that I had brought a new one to share. If you do voices, make sure to practice your HUGE WHALE voice.

Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld. Scholastic Press, 2013. I wasn't sure how this one would go over and if the kids would get it, so I skipped it with Site A (so many Kindergarteners!), but the kids at Site B really liked it. Voice inflection is really important with this one to tell the dialog apart. This would also make a GREAT book to share with kids working on punctuation or possibly English language learners to demonstrate the different voice sounds when asking a question or making an exclamation.

CDC by William Steig. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1984. Okay, so I brought this one to Site A anticipating all those older, punky kids. When I was faced with a group of mostly-Kindergarteners, I wasn't sure how it would go and I would have skipped it, but they asked me for a third book (saying, "You always bring three books, Miss Abby!"), so I tried it. And for the most part it went way over their heads. I had one little girl who got the idea and would chime in with the answers, but it just didn't work with the group I had. The idea is that each spread is a phrase that's written out in letters or numbers that sound like words or parts of words. You read the letters/numbers and the kids try to decipher what the message is (with help from an illustration). The cover image "CDC?" translates to "See the sea?", etc. It's a fun book and great for older kids who like word games, but it just didn't go for my Afterschool crowd. Lesson learned! We only tried a few of the spreads and then I decided it was time to move on to our craft.

This month's craft was complete-the-picture, inspired by 25 Days of Art: Complete the Picture from In the Children's Room. We cut cardstock into half-sheets and used leftover magazine cutouts from when we did I Spy Collages last year. We had a volunteer glue a small picture on to each cardstock piece and the kids could select a picture to add a background or complete their picture. The kids enjoyed it and some of them were really creative with it!

What are your favorite real-alouds for the K-4th set?

Boxes of Books for Teachers at the @ALSCBlog

Friends, today I'm at the ALSC Blog talking about our School Collection program where we check out boxes of books to teachers for classroom use. Please head over there and check it out!

15 Minutes for Booktalks @ the @ALSCBlog

Yesterday, I was over at the ALSC Blog talking about how we've brought monthly booktalks to the fourth graders at one of our elementary schools, taking just 15 minutes a month of their literacy time! Click through to see how it works for us!

Daycare Summer Reading Club: How It Went

Today I'm over at the ALSC Blog with an update on how our new Daycare/Summer Camp SRC went this year. Please click on through and check it out!

At the Baby Fair

One of my favorite outreach events that the library participates in each year is the Baby Fair, held at our county hospital. There's usually a nice crowd and, even though not everyone lives in our county, expectant parents and grandparents are hungry for information. The Baby Fair crowd is very engaged and eager to take whatever handouts I bring along.

So, what do I take for my table at the Baby Fair?

1. BOOKS! A display of books is great for catching people's eye and quickly branding your booth. I select books from our parenting section, board books, and media items to show parents what we have to offer. Classic favorites that parents will remember from their childhoods are also a great bet. Anything to catch their eye and draw them over to your booth.

2. Early literacy information. This is a great time to break out your Every Child Ready to Read brochures and bookmarks.

3. Book lists. We updated our "New Baby" book lists (books for siblings about to get a new brother or sister) and I put together a new list of some of my favorite books for babies. My list includes board books, picture books, nursery rhyme collections, and music CDs. Also consider bringing other book lists you might have, since many of the families might have older siblings.

4. Program information. I brought along our summer calendar and I made a separate flyer just for our baby storytime. I included the summer and fall dates for the program since I know I'll be seeing many expectant parents who might not have a baby to bring until the fall or spring. Since I am in a community where I know I'll be seeing patrons with other home library districts, I try to familiarize myself with their offerings for babies. That way when I get "Oh, I don't live in Floyd County", I can let them know that their home library has programs for them, too. This isn't too hard since we're fairly collaborative and communicate frequently with our neighboring districts.

5. A door prize (if the event asks for one). I usually fill a little bag with a few of my favorite board books with bookplates (read: printed labels) on them to tell parents that they came from the library. This is a great opportunity to spread love for some of your favorite titles and to help start a baby's library!

Daycare Summer Reading at the @ALSCBlog

Flickr CC: usnavy

I'm over at the ALSC Blog talking about the special Summer Reading Club we're creating for daycares and summer camps this year! Click on over to hear all about it and post your advice or questions in the comments.

(Sadly, Michelle Obama is not part of our daycare Summer Reading Club. Hopefully it will still be fun!)

Afterschool: December

December is a tricksy time to visit afterschool programs. (Click for more info about the afterschool outreach programs we do!) Kids are excited for the upcoming holidays and winter break. They may have been having a celebration in their classroom, someone may have brought in treats to get them all hyped up... I chose carefully which books I shared with my groups this month. :)

This month I read:

Hippospotamus by Jeanne Willis, illustrated by Tony Russ. Anderson Press, 2012.

I love the funny language in this wacky rhyming story. Hippopotamus has a spotamus on her bottomus. The other animals try to diagnose her problem, but none are successful until a little boy comes along, looking for his lost bubble gum... With a little practice, the fun rhymes roll off the tongue and the ending will have the kids giggling for sure.

Baron Von Baddie and the Ice Ray Incident by George McClements. Harcourt Children's Books, 2008.

When I held up this title, one of the boys observed "He looks like a sneaky guy!" and I asked them what made him look sneaky. They said his sunglasses, "his face" (I mentioned the crazy eyebrows), his ICE RAY, his suit and gloves. Baron Von Baddie is always coming up with evil plans and he's always foiled by his nemesis, Captain Kapow. But when the Baron accidentally freezes Captain Kapow with his ice ray, having free reign is not as fun as he had imagined. This was definitely a favorite of my kids. The text is short and makes for a great readaloud.

Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman, illustrated by Dan Yaccarino. Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2012.

This is a rather quiet story about a boy who finds a robot in the woods. When the robot accidentally gets turned off, the boy tries to make him feel better by feeding him applesauce, reading him a story, and tucking him into bed. When the robot gets turned on and sees the boy sleeping, he tries to fix him by giving him oil and reading him an instruction manual. The kids appreciate the turned tables and enjoy the idea of a boy and a robot being friends.

Merry Un-Christmas by Mike Reiss, illustrated by David Catrow. HarperCollins, 2006.

This is my go-to Christmas book because it's KIND OF not about Christmas. I feel a little weird sharing Christmas books with my groups because I know not everyone celebrates Christmas, but at the same time they expect a Christmas book and I don't want to disappoint them. Merry Un-Christmas is about a town where it's Christmas 364 days a year, so the holiday they get excited about is UN-Christmas, the one day a year when kids get to go to school, the family eats TV dinners for supper, and the mailman comes. It's funny and the kids like it. I have used it many years in a row, though, so other suggestions for holiday readalouds are hugely appreciated!

Our craft this month was scratch-art candy canes, ordered from Oriental Trading. All our groups seemed to figure out at once that if you can peel the plastic layer off, all the color on top comes off, which is way easier than scratching the whole thing. I don't know if this batch of scratch art was just easier to peel or what. The kids still love it and I'll tell them it's their choice how they want to do it.

Hey, please leave suggestions of holiday books that might be good for my groups! I can definitely use some non-boring, non-religious holiday books to spice up my December afterschool visits next year. And hey, Valentine's Day is coming right up and I've already read Zombie in Love this year, so I'd appreciate suggestions for that holiday, too!

#FlannelFriday Color Library Cards

This week, I visited 4 classes at a local early childhood center. Y'all know I love outreach. It's fun to get out of the library, to see where the kids spend their days. We're modeling for teachers some methods of sharing books with their students and we're making connections with the kids so they'll know there's a friendly face at the library. I wanted to include an activity that would encourage the kids to come back to the library with their families. Enter: felt library cards!

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Miss T had made these for one of her Toddler Time programs and they were the perfect thing to bring with me. I told the kids I had one last activity and I would need their help. I showed them one of the cards and asked who had a library card ("Or maybe your mom or dad or grandma or grandpa has a library card?"). I explained that if they don't have a library card, they can come to the library any time and get one for free, and with  their library card they can check out books and movies and CDs to borrow. This was something familiar to some of the kids, which was great. 

I passed out different colored cards to the kids and sang a song: 

(To the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb", but you can do it to pretty much any tune you want!)

If you have a blue card, a blue card, a blue card,

If you have a blue card, bring it up to me! 

(Repeat with different colors.)

[You can also do "Put it on the board" or "Put it in the basket/bag" depending on how you're equipped. The classrooms I visited didn't have feltboards at ready and I hadn't thought to bring my own, so I asked the kids to bring the cards up to me. In one class I had a few special needs kids who weren't as mobile as the other kids, so I asked them to "Hold your cards up high!" and went around and collected them.]

Miss T made these cards by photocopying the front of one of our library cards, laminating them, and hot-glueing them to a colored piece of felt. 

Here's hoping that talking about library cards today will encourage some kids to come visit us at the library! 

And hey, it's Flannel Friday! Cate at Storytiming is hosting this week's roundup. 

What do you do at outreach visits to encourage families to visit the library?