Re-reading A Little Princess, I was struck by how poorly it has held up to the passage of time, especially compared to The Secret Garden. In A Little Princess, there are frequently references to Indian culture that make a modern reader slightly squeamish. Sara refers to all Indians as “Lascars” and fondly reminisces about her Indian “servants and slaves.” More disturbingly, whenever an Indian character appears in the novel, mention is made of their deferential and respectful attitude to their benevolent, white masters. These issues are present in the film adaptation as well. Like in the book, all Indians are shown as deferential, with the added bonus of being wise and mostly silent. Every time Ram Dass appears on the screen, stereotypical Indian music plays softly in the background.

Liberties have been taken with the plot that further decrease the value of this adaptation. The screenplay is riddled with plot holes and suffers from a change in setting. Instead of taking place in England in the 1800′s, the movie takes place in New York City at the start of World War I. It is left to the viewer to decipher why Sara’s British father would send her to school in America where she knew no one and had no assets before going off to war. In the book, Sara is believed to be penniless because her father lost all their money in speculative diamond mines before his death. In the film, the British government seizes Captain Crewe’s assets after his death in the war, leaving Sara completely without funds or family in a different country. Why the British government would take control of his money rather than arrange for his daughter to inherit the funds is again left to the viewer to decipher. As for physical sets, the movie was filmed mostly on back lots, which is both extremely apparent and extremely disappointing, especially when contrasted  with the atmospheric, note-perfect setting of The Secret Garden film. Finally, will anyone ever have the courage to make this adapatation with the ending found in the book?

Still, there is a charm to this film. Alfonso Cuaron does a wonderful job at capturing the best part of A Little Princess (and the part of this story I loved as a child) – the power of the imagination. Sara believes in magic and the power of storytelling. Cuaron clearly does too. The feeling of magical realism in this film is perfect. Despite the less-than-stellar backlot sets, the movie is also filmed beautifully, and the costumes are so sumptuous you feel you could reach out and touch Sara’s furs. Cuaron’s abilities as a director really shine in the moments Sara’s belief in her imagination comes out to play, and those are the moments that make this movie (and book) a favorite of children around the world.

I got my start in the world of education by teaching children how to track animals.  I was working with a non-profit organization that worked with schools in the Portland area.  We were monthly supplemental educators to classrooms that we worked with over the course of the school year.  Our approach was to educate through entertainment.  We had a host of games and activities that would teach children about the natural world.

During those four years I worked with the non-profit, I was able to talk with many children about their interests.  I asked what they were reading.  Across the board there was an interest in comics and graphic novels.  The idea slowly dawned on me: why not make an educational graphic novel?

I thought back to my youth.  I was a reluctant reader in fourth grade, but I knew more than most fourth graders about the political climate of the day because I loved to read Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County.  My teachers were supportive because I was reading and I remember doing my first book report about a collection of Bloom County.

The first educational graphic novel that I wrote was Terra Tempo: Ice Age Cataclysm.  The topic is the Missoula Floods, the great earth changing events that took place between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago in the Northwest United States.  This event is an amazing story in and of itself; giant walls of water ripping apart solid rock, herds of mammoths seeking higher ground, a thousand feet of water filling up the Columbia River Gorge and an incredible landscape sculpted in a matter of days revealed after the waters receded. However, the books that were out there about this event were all geared to older people.

In Terra Tempo, the learning information is tucked inside of a time travel adventure.  The plot engages children, the images and the color hold interest through all the facts and they don’t realize they are learning something new until the story is finished.  The great thing about the medium of the graphic novel is that a reader can rest their brain on the imagery.  If their mind gets tired of all the new information, they can simply look at the pictures.  Also the pictures help reinforce the text and the lessons instilled in the text.

Terra Tempo is a series in which the time traveling children Jenna, Caleb, and Ari will explore the natural history of the United States.  There is a great deal of information to be covered, but it is important for the next generation to have an understanding of the history of the earth and the many changes this planet has gone through. If they can have fun while learning, then all the better!

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Our guest blogger today is David Shapiro, graphic novel author with Craigmore Creations.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at alscblog@gmail.com.

Creative Commons search image - free stock photo from publicdomainimage.com

I’m not sure why I hadn’t considered it before.  Many teachers have their students reflect on their school year in June, but I have yet to ask my students to reflect on their years in library.

This year that is going to change.

At my school, the transition between lower and middle school happens at the end of 4th grade, so I think this is a great place to begin examining the library program through the eyes of my students.  I am thinking of providing them with some open ended questions about their years in library that I will use to tweak the program.  A quick Google search led me to many such questions and I am creating a file of them.   I am wondering if any teacher-librarians in ALSC do year end reflections with students?  If so, please use to comments to share out what has worked and what has not worked in the past!

Looking for some fun new apps to try with various age groups in your library? These are some of of our favorite apps at Darien Library:

Doodlecast for Kids (1.99 by Tickle Tap Apps. Available on iPhone, iTouch, iPad.)

This drawing app has one key feature that sets it apart from other preschool art apps- it allows users to record their voices while doodling. The result is a screencast that immediately syncs to your iPhone, iTouch, or iPad Photos folder or you can upload to YouTube. Recommended for ages 3 and up.

How to use it in the library: Preschoolers will love playing on this app and rewatching their recorded creations. But the real potential is in storytelling. Try it out with a group of slightly older kids and let them draw and narrate their own short stories. For an added bonus, have the kids pair up or group into small teams to create collaborative stories.

Sock Puppets (Free by SmithMicro Software. Available on iPhone, iTouch, iPad.)

Take the interactive storytelling to the next level with this app that allows you to create a digital sock puppet production. Choose sock characters, a setting, props and then record an original masterpiece. The final products may be saved in-app or uploaded to YouTube or Facebook. The best (and most hilarious) part is that your voice recording gets scrubbed during the recording process, producing a funny Mickey Mouse-esque tone. Recommended for ages 6 and up.

How to use it in the library: For our book discussion groups (for grades 4 to 6) there is usually a discussion of a key moment in the text. We discuss why a character made a particular decision and what might have happened if they made a different choice. Use Sock Puppets to extend your book discussion and give the kids the opportunity to make their own alternate endings.

ReelDirector (1.99 by Nexvio. Available on iPhone and iPad.)

This all-in-one app allows users to record or upload videos, edit, add titles and transitions, and publish. It is one of the most sophisticated movie editing apps- especially at this low price point. While not originally created for children, it is much more intuitive and easier to use than iMovie. Recommended for ages 8 and up.

How to use it in the library: Create book trailers and Storytubes. After a class or workshop on media literacy, have kids create their own ads and commercials. Get your TAB or KAB members to creating a walking tour of your library. Use it to create informational videos to post on your library’s website.

ALSC’s Newbery and Caldecott Mock Elections Tool Kit, revised in 2011 by Steven Engelfried, Wilsonville (Ore.) Public Library, delivers everything a planner needs to execute an engaging and gold-medal mock program, including planning guidelines; tips for conducting lively discussion; full-color Caldecott-winning art, demonstrating artistic media, styles, and elements; ideas for follow-up activities; and much more. As a digital download, the new tool kit also provides Word, PDF, and Excel files of audience handouts, evaluation forms, certificates, and voting ballots that can be easily customized.

Now available as a digital download from the ALA Store. Start planning a 2012 mock election program today!

That’s the set up. A big one. When I go visit schools and libraries, I talk to kids about the fact and fiction in my own life. I share something like this:

There is an adage in writing—write what you know.  I do that. But I also write what I don’t know. Fiction for me takes a little bit of facts—some from my own life—and mixes it with a whole lot of what ifs and what thens. The facts about me that ended up in Truth with a Capital T are:

• Like Maebelle, I tested for but did not get into the Gifted & Talented Program.
• When I was in middle school, I played the trumpet—though I wasn’t a prodigy like Isaac.
• Like Isaac, I was born in Chicago and chastised for not saying “ma’am and sir” when I moved to the South.

But there is plenty of fiction in Truth with a Capital T

• My grandparents aren’t honky tonk legends who drove a Winnebago that honked out their top hit.
• My parents didn’t mortify me by writing a marriage self help book and appearing on tv.
• I never had an adopted African-American cousin.
• And, though the town of Tweedle is based on many small Georgia towns, where I did live—it only exists right here between the pages of this book.

I then lead the kids in character sketches. When asked what a sketch is, kids know the answer to that.  But a character sketch—they are not so sure. We talk about how when drawing we use our pencils to shade faces, to draw details. A character sketch they soon realize is much the same.  One young student, a fourth grader, even said, “Oh, it is drawing with words!”  Exactly.

I have them pick concrete details for their characters—that are all fiction. The character’s name. How tall, how short. What they are good at. What they are not-so good at. What they like to eat. What is their favorite song.

Then we work on emotional facts. Facts from their lives that could help them shade the fictional person they just created. “When we write a story, I tell them, and move this character around on the page, it won’t be you but it won’t not be you, either.” I don’t mind the weird ‘what are you talking about, lady’ looks. I don’t refute them, I just take them in. I know the magic that is coming. I ask them to jot down their most embarrassing moment, a memory of what made them the most happy they’ve ever been, or the most sad. I ask them what their favorite private place is. I ask them what it feels like to ride on a bus, walk a country road, see paintings in a museum, etc.”

With our lists complete, our character sketch now is. We plop the characters—those created with a little bit of fact and a little bit of fiction—and we play. We write and write and write and at some point I ask for volunteer readers. I don’t make the students who read tell which parts of their own stories is fact or fiction, but I do ask what it felt like to write the scene. The kids come up with some interesting answers. “More real.” “Fun—kinda.” I’ve even heard “scary.” Those are all the right answers, I tell them. Writing fiction where you use your imagination and draw on a bit of your own emotional truth and then give that feeling away to your main character does make it more real, it does make it kinda fun, and it does make it scary. Most fiction writers I know feel all three of those things when they write—and on a daily basis. I sure do.

We end these visits going back to Truth with a Capital T, to Maebelle and her quest to find her talent, to be good enough and seen as enough (by herself) and as being recognized as brilliant as the rest of her family is. If they’ve read the book, we talk about Maebelle’s research into her family’s past to see if they indeed owned slaves or were a part of the Underground Railroad. We talk about Maebelle learning the quilt code, which some historians believe is fact and others believe is fiction. We talk about whether or not getting back into the gifted and talented program is as important to Mabelle by the book’s end as it was in the beginning. For the visits, where the students haven’t yet read the book, we usually perform a readers’ theatre. The kids read a scene—act it out—and then we together turn another scene into a script and perform it. That exposes them enough to some of the scenes that we can have a similar discussion—sticking to the scenes we worked on.

Both groups, the ones who’ve read the novel in full and the ones who haven’t, end the visit having written. They do what I do every day; they’ve taken real circumstances and real feelings and mixed it with imaginary circumstances and imaginary feelings. They’ve started with a blank page, as I do every day. They felt, if even for a moment, the magic that mixing fact and fiction can bring. The personal catharsis—the feeling that makes—and keeps writers writing. I may not leave knowing which child is destined to become an author, if any,  but I do leave knowing that they all got a small taste of what it is an author does and the emotional roller coaster—joyful and scary—that a fiction writer experiences. Sharing story, whether with kids directly, or in the pages of the books I write—is a talent. And like Maebelle I searched for a long time before finding it but find it I did.

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Our guest blogger today is author Bethany Hegedus. Bethany’s books, Truth with a Capital T (Delacorte/Random House) and Between Us Baxters  (starred) (WestSide Books) were both named as Bank Street Books, Best Books in 2010 and 2011. Forthcoming, with Atheneum/Simon & Schuster, is the picture book Grandfather Gandhi, co-authored with Arun Gandhi, grandson of the Mahatma. Bethany is the Editor of the Young Adult & Children’s page for the VCFA literary journal Hunger Mountain.  She operates The Writing Barn, a writing workshop/retreat space and all-around book lover haven. She serves as a preliminary reader for a New York publishing company and teaches privately and speaks across the country. A longtime resident of NYC, she now writes from her home in Austin. 

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at alscblog@gmail.com.

1. Learn and Apply Rigorous Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics content
2. Integrate Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics Content
3. Interpret and Communicate Information from Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
4. Engage in Inquiry
5. Engage in Logical Reasoning
6. Collaborate as a STEM team
7. Apply Technology Strategically

My colleagues and I recently attended a great conference on STEM and Early Childhood. We learned more about the need for STEM in young children’s education and strategies for childcare providers and early childhood educators to incorporate STEM into their curriculum. Young children are ready at an early age to have STEM experiences. Kids like mysteries and have a spontaneous interest. Play is essential but it should be planned experiences to be most effective. The presentations at this conference got my colleagues and I thinking about STEM and the Library. On the trip home, with our brains full and excited with the new learning we acquired that day, we began to brainstorm how to incorporate STEM into our Library programs, Storytimes and Learning Spaces in the Library. A few ideas we had for Learning Spaces that that focus on STEM are: 1) including 3-4 Large Foam Dice to encourage counting and adding 2) a block center to encourage engineering and shape recognition 3) Hop Scotch Rug to encourage number recognition, counting and gross motor skills as an added bonus 4) Magnifying glasses with samples of plants and bugs to encourage natural curiosity, exploration and observation and 5) Large Abacus to encourage counting, adding, subtracting. We have added some of these centers in our Library already and they were instantly popular with kids of all ages. What seven Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics ideas do you have for your Library?

“Oh, how sweet,” said the person I had just met. “You have a background in children’s services.  It must be nice to play around with puppets all day.”  This off-hand comment really struck a chord with me. Yes, programming is fun (at least it should be.)  It’s also an essential role of the job of a youth services librarian, working with purpose behind the practice. 

The high-energy antics (as well as those incredible voices) of a puppet show may be viewed by colleagues from other departments and those customers outside of our profession as simple play.  In youth services, however, the reasons behind why we do what we do (how interactive library programs for children develop essential literacy skills and promote a positive association with books and libraries, to name a few) is, as we know, a life-changer. How can we best get our message across to those who think our work is merely “child’s play?”  We can start by simply sharing our ABCs. 

A stands for Advocacy.  As librarians working with children, we can promote the benefits of our work with passion, but we have to learn the language of those around us.  If a customer expresses concern about preparing her daughter for school, we can discuss how our programs develop school-readiness skills. If our supervisors value statistics, we can frame the conversation around our high picture book circulation or our programming figures from the last quarter.   Advocating for children’s services doesn’t only have a role in formal presentations; the opportunity presents itself at the most unusual times, often during a brief exchange with a customer or a quiet moment before a meeting begins.

B stands for Books.  Books are at the heart of our profession.  Parents, and library staffers in other departments, may be so inundated with the influence of standardized testing that they fail to realize the role readers’ advisory can play in assessing children’s reading interests and abilities.  When we promote books, we promote our departments.  We can connect books to every aspect of our programming and puppet shows. Working in customer service, whether staffing a desk or engaging in proactive reference, allows us to answer questions and connect the right book to each reader. As youth services librarians, we can also offer training to our colleagues from other departments on readers’ advisory for children and teens.  Providing these trainings and workshops to staff outside of youth services ensures all our staffers have some understanding of the theory and hands-on training required when working with youth.

C stands for Collaboration.  When we partner with other library departments, we offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the work required in youth services.  This collaboration can take many forms; invite other departmental staffers to shadow a youth services staffer for a day and speak up at library meetings to ensure children’s initiatives have a voice.  In our Hope Mills Branch of the Cumberland County Public Library & Information Center, we include departmental staff from all areas to assist with aspects of programming, under youth services staffers’ direction.  We also cross-train employees to staff both service desks at our community facility, providing information services staff an opportunity to work the Children’s Desk, and youth services staff frequently staff the Information Services Desk.

What tricks have you found to ensure customers and staff alike understand the reasoning behind why we do what we do?  What in youth services have you been able to defend to others, and how have you been able to express the purpose behind your practice?

If you’ve already read the latest issue of Children & Libraries, then you are probably just as motivated and inspired as I am by all the ideas about PLAY.  If you haven’t, you should.*** The second edition of Every Child Ready to Read has brought the focus on this all-too-important topic, separating “Play” out as its own distinct pre-literacy activity.  That means for those of us coordinate children’s programs, we have now assumed the role of “facilitator of play.”  But let’s be honest, many of us have probably already taken this on before.  Many of our programs may already have playtime built into our storytime programs.  The new edition of ECRR makes it official.  I, for one, am excited to have another reason to continue playing and encouraging families to play, too.

At my previous library, I coordinated Sensory Storytime program, a one hour long program for children with special needs, and it was developed to give playtime its own special focus.  Children ages four to eight came to the library on a Saturday afternoon for 30 minutes of storytime activities, and 30 minutes of structured play activities.  After our storytime activities were completed, children and caregivers would receive a small picture card that matched one of the three stations in the room.  This program has evolved several times incorporating different play activities offered, including play-doh, puzzles, rice table, and a craft table.  Once at their station, families would then have about seven to ten minutes to experience the activities in that station.  I would give a two and one minute warning before it was time to change to the next activity, and then families would receive a new card that matched one of the other stations.

I had the opportunity to observe several special education classrooms before planning this program, which helped inform my planning process for Sensory Storytime.  What I saw in those classrooms was very similar.  Children were grouped together at small tables around the room, and each table would involve a particular activity or lesson.  Then, when the child completed the lesson, he or she checked his individual picture schedule, received a new card, and moved on to their next activity. What I took away from this learning experience was that it was crucial to make sure appropriate structure was given to playtime.  Visual cues like picture cards and large group schedules, coupled with verbal and visual warnings when transition was going to occur helped support children in their play experience.  For a child with special needs, play–and all the social expectations that come with it–may not be something that comes as naturally.  Children with special need need structure, direction, and support with transitioning to different activities in a library program.  So, setting out a pile of toys  in the middle of a large room and ‘expecting’ children to ‘go and play’ may not be the right strategy with children with special needs.

One other thing I learned: not all toys are made equal.  Having a program like Sensory Storytime invited children with various kinds of special needs into the library.  I quickly learned that I needed to adapt activities to make them accessible to everyone, and I had to offer toys and manipulatives that could be used by children with various abilities.  Some children had ability to grasp; others didn’t.  Some children could manipulate a glue stick; others couldn’t.  I always had to be cognizant of the expectation I was setting up for children whenever I put out toys or an activity, and realized that offering variety was always best option.  For those libraries who offer or are considering to offer a toy lending library, or just want to consider purchasing more accessible toys, check out AblePlay.  AblePlay is a toy rating system and website that provides a wealth of information on toys for children with special needs.  It was created so that parents and professionals alike could make informed decisions about purchasing produces for children with disabilities.  What impressed me the most about this website was its searching and limiting capabilities.  You can actually search products and limit the results that best targeted for children autism, learning disabilities, or another disability category.  It’s also a great resource if you simply want to share it with families.

What is your library doing to show families that it’s okay to play?

***Children & Libraries is a scholarly journal for continuing education of of librarians working with children, and a fantastic resource available to all ALSC members.