Excited about new children’s books that came today

My Amazon order came today. I ordered Bibles for the kids. I got Gage the Boys Bible-Finally, a Bible Just for Boys. Tyson got a Holy Bible with a camoflauge cover and Isabella got a Princess Bible. Then I got them the Bible on DVD. I got Open the Barn Door, a small board book collection called God’s Wonderful World, Good Night, God, Light’s Out, Night’s Out, three Karma Wilson books Bear’s New Friend, Bear Feels Sick, Bear Feels Scared; three Mo Willems books, The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late and Leonardo the Terrible Monster.

Light’s Out, Night’s Out was a replacement copy for the original that I spilled chocolate milk on and the pages stuck together. I can’t wait to share these gems with my grandchildren!

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Why is it so difficult to focus?

I don’t think I am very disciplined because I don’t write on a project daily. Some days I am busy running around and other days my ability to focus and concentrate is hampered by whatever hampers that needed trait. I do the best I can. At my age, it takes me longer and longer to finish anything I start. That is discouraging. The best I can do is keep plodding along and hope that it gets me somewhere.

Blog Down Today

The Web site that hosts this blog was down this morning. That is why I have been slow about getting comments approved. Everything is up and running, now.

pitching book to publisher

I completed a query today so I could pitch my book to publishers. One of the publishers that works with the literary agency who helped me get my manuscript ready recommended pitching my book to them and with my agent’s blessing I am going to do that. Man! I can’t wait 23 years to be published! If I am still living, I will be drooling incoherently by then!

Children’s Book Week 2010

http://www.bookweekonline.com/bookmark

This week, public libraries and school libraries across our nation will be celebrating Children’s Book Week. Libraries will be offering activities to celebrate children’s books.  Stop in at your local library and see how your library is celebrating.

Started New Book

I was advised by my friend and writer T. I. Cooper to go ahead and start my next book. So, tonight I started Buster’s Mardi Gras. Buster, the animals and the children will learn a little about Mardi Gras and it will be celebrated in a child-friendly way. Who knows how long it will take mybook to get published? I hope I get a book published sooner than gifted mystery writer Tamar Myers did. I read that it was 23 years before her first book was published and I can tell you because I have read most of her books, that she is a great writer. If I have to wait 23 years, I may become a published writer posthumously and I would rather it didn’t happen that way!

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Some links that may be of interest

When I planned story time for my children, I used several Web sites. I can’t list all of them right now, because I can’t remember all of them and some of them don’t exist any more.  However, I have several of those sites here and a couple of new sites that might help you as a teacher, librarian, parent, or anyone who is busy with children.

If you are looking for books to go with themes, themes to go with books, easy crafts to coordinate with your themes, etc., then these sites may be of help to you.

http://www.dltk-teach.com

http://www.enchantedlearning.com

http://www.kids.lovetoknow.com

http://www.pbskids.org

http://www.preschooleducation.com

http://www.learningplanet.com

http://www.atozteacherstuff.com

http://www.familycrafts.about.com

http://www.artistshelpingchildren.org

http://www.first-school.ws

http://www.buzzle.com

http://midhudson.org

http://www.suffolk.libny.us

My apologies

I am so new at this I don’t know what I am doing and I accidentally deleted a post from someone who likes this blog. The person bookmarked the blog to use in the future.  I certainly did not intend to delete the post. I classified the one above it as spam and I think it applied that to both comments. A big “Oops” from me! I will try to figure this out before I try that again.

Censorship of Children’s Books

Why would anyone censor children’s books? What type of content would people want to ban? Most of the children’s books that have been challenged are in the Young Adult section. Some of the most commonly challenged children’s books are Harry Potter, The Chocolate War, The Golden Compass, And Tango Makes Three, Huckleberry Finn, and The Color Purple among others. Picture books that have been challenges are books that have gay and lesbian parenting and themes, books about witches and fairies, etc. Chapter books written by Lexington, Kentucky educators, Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thompson Jones, the Bailey School Kids series have been challenged because of the contents in books like Vampires Don’t Wear Polka Dots and Werewolves Don’t Go to Summer Camp. (Debbie now lives in Furlong, Pennsylvania).

Books that are written to help children cope with alcoholism; drugs, death, divorce, etc. can be challenged. This is the bibliotherapy category. These books are written for a purpose and many children need to know they are not alone with these family problems and they need to see that they have hope for better lives.

While a librarian who selects books for the children’s department will strive to have age appropriate materials and a good mix of quality literature and popular literature, it falls to the parent to determine what suitable material for a child is. What is unacceptable to one person is sought by another and all patrons have the right to find the books they seek.

A collection is developed around the needs, desires and personality of the community who will be using the library with books binge selected to meet the needs of all facets of the community.

I view challenges as one person trying to push his or her notions of what is appropriate material on the rest of the public and I take a dim view of that. If a parent doesn’t like a book, don’t check it out of the library, but it isn’t right to remove it from the shelves when others might want it. I don’t think anyone else has the right to determine what I read and I don’t have the right to determine what another person reads.

Do librarians self censor? Sure, they do and in various ways. I knew a high school librarian once who took a razor blade and cut out all the cuss words in the books. She spent a considerable amount of time doing that. I was appalled. She was scared to death of someone challenging one of her books. Librarians have limited budgets and they cannot buy everything. So, it is easy to avoid the most controversial books since budgets are so limited. This is a way a librarian can censor without anyone knowing it is going on.

In order to be prepared for someone challenging a book, I made sure when I purchased a controversial book for the library that it had been well reviewed in a reviewing journal such as The School Library Journal or the Horn Book. That way, if there were any questions, I could point out that the book had been well reviewed and on that basis, I was justified in adding it to my collection. Also, I worked close to Northern Kentucky University and when they needed books for their children’s literature classes, I had to have a variety of books to meet their needs. While our patrons were mostly conservative and most of our collection suited them, we had to have books to meet the needs of other parents.

ALA.org has kits educators and librarians can get to use during Banned Book Week. This year it will be between September 25 and October 2. The reason I didn’t do a banned book display was since I didn’t have anyone challenging any of the books I had on the shelves, I didn’t want to give them the idea to do so.

I am interested in hearing if you have ever had any books challenged or censored at the school where you teach or where your children go to school and what was done by it. I am also interested in hearing from you if the public library you patronize has had any challenges.

Below are some links where you can read further on banned or censored books.

Annotated bibliography of books with gay and lesbian parenting and themes

http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/educator/library/record/27.html

Frequently challenged and banned books

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedclassics/reasonsbanned/index.cfm

Banned Book Week

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

Purpose of my Blog

Children’s Literature is a passion of mine. I absolutely love beautifully written and illustrated picture books. It is the best way I know of to introduce children to books and a lifetime love of reading. Those of us who are avid readers know that our love for reading has impacted and enriched our lives. Instilling a love of reading in our children is the best way I know of insuring that our children are not only enriched for the experience, but, their chances of being better able to comprehend what they need to excel in school.

This will be a blog for anyone and everyone who loves children’s literature and who wants an outlet to talk about experiences that impacted you as well as an opportunity for teachers, librarians, children’s programmers, day care workers, preschool teachers, Head Start teachers, college students, etc. who are looking for theme related material to talk about the types of books you need, but have difficulty finding. Sometimes finding developmentally appropriate materials to use with very young children is very difficult. It is also a blog for parents who are interested in quality literature for their children.

Are you looking for holiday books for very young children? Do you need Black History books for very young children? What about “bibliotherapy” materials? For those of you who don’t know that term, are you looking for books that help young children deal with death, divorce, catastrophic illness, or other serious subjects? Express your difficulties in finding certain types of books here. At best, other bloggers may be able to point you to materials you are looking for. At least, you may inspire potential writers to write the book you need. With that in mind, I want this blog to be a chance for all who participate to fulfill various objectives. This blog will be directed mostly to those who are interested in talking about picture books, but as your children age and you are interested in other books, we may look at chapter books and look at referring you to other blogs that deal with literature for older children.

1. Talk about the books you have loved, books that influenced you, books that every child should have the opportunity to experience.
2. Discuss books that worked and books that just missed. We can explore what makes a great book and why some miss out on greatness.
3. Describe books you would like to have in your collection that you cannot find when you need them for a unit, a story time, or whatever.
4. As a retired children’s librarian, I am very sensitive to the need of books being available. Even children’s books are censored. If you have had problems finding a book because it was censored in your school or in your library, I am most interested in hearing about that. Librarians are very committed to keeping books available to the public, even those we may personally dislike for some reason or another. I am not talking about poorly written books here, but books you could not find because they were written about a subjective that is sensitive to some or books that contain an idea or theme that somebody else decided was inappropriate.

5. Most of all, this blog needs to be enjoyable, useful and often a lot of fun.

This will be a blog that talks about children’s literature. It will not be a blog where we share the difficulties of our jobs or our political issues. People who know me know I am very interested in politics, but there are other venues to talk about that.
Sometimes, I will write my own reflections and sometimes when I am able to reproduce with permission or without copyright infringement, I may pass on an article of interest.

In time, I hope to add links where you can look for book reviews, resources for teaching a book, resources for finding older or out of print books, and other useful links. I also look for ideas from people who use this blog that will make this a better blog. It will give me ideas, but it will serve you, too.