Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders

When I first started reading this novel it reminded me of the old Famous Five book by Enid Blyton that I devored growing up. These books consisted of a team of siblings and their strong-willed cousin and a dog that got into a variety of scrapes.

Saunders' novel starts in a similar way with a close knit family featuring children of various ages discovering a cute sand fairy called the Psammead. Psammead however is a being that has lived for millennia and as such has lived a very colorful life. In his present state however he is greatly diminished and is forced to reflect upon his previous exploits.

The novel is set in London at the start of the First World War and at first the childrens' lives continue as normal. Things change however and their older siblings find themselves involved in the war.

Saunders does a good job of showing how the children strived to find a sense of normalcy despite the chaos around them. The Psammead may very well have been an imaginary creature (no one but the kids could see him) but he served his purpose well.


Wars have been fought throughout history for various reasons, some fair and some not. More often than not it is the young who bear the brunt of it. Whether or not young people experience harm or not they bear some toll. I recommend this book for children in third grade and up. I think it is an excellent conversation starter and a great way to generate dialog about thorny issues.

School's in!

  The summer is over, leaves have started turning yellow and here in Denver the temps are already dipping into the sixties. That can only mean one thing, school's back in!  Parents and caregivers fear not, I have scoured the interwebs for resources to help your little ones with even the most obscure assignment.


I love abcya, there are sections devoted to each grade level and the site is optimized for use on mobile devices which is a big plus.

Starfall has lots of great math activities and they are aligned with Common Core standards. Speaking about said standards, teachers now have to teach math concepts in very different ways. It helps to be able to have a reliable video that can show both parents and caregivers how to work out those sums. This is why I like Khanacademy's early math page.

Coolmath has lots of math and math-based games that provide good extension activities for kids who have mastered their basic math operations and want to move on to pre algebra and so forth.

Do you have a kid who loves to spout random facts all day long? Fear not, I have a site that can satisfy even the most voracious reader-Factmonster.  There are also online quests and handouts for homeschoolers and classroom use.  Infoplease has a trove of information about the US and the links on the top of the page have info on the world at large.

Most readers will recognize the name Scholastic from the many book fairs they put on at schools. Their website also has excellent resources on all sorts of topics.  Time for kids is another one that I highly recommend as well, as it has relevant content and accessible articles on current world events.

World languages are becoming more and more useful and with the ease of global travel it helps to be able to speak a language or two or three. I like to use Noah as he is a funny, well-meaning kid who because of his struggles with Spanish gets into all kind of scrapes. He repeats words and phrases just enough so that they stick. The site has practice activities as well.  Onlinefreespanish is another site that I have used for years and it is fun for younger language learners.  Charlotte Mecklenburg Library's fantastic Storyplace is another good resource for early learning in Spanish.  The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has some excellent resources for a variety of languages for example French and Mandarin.

Learning to work with computer code is a good skill for young ones to have and there are some sites I have used with my young'uns. Code.org's site has several great resources to help kids learn the basics of coding. For those who want something that explains things in more detail try Khan Academy's Hour of Code.

Have a great school year!!

Books to help discuss difficult topics

Recent events have shaken the country to the core. There are many people who are hurt and angry for various reasons and rightly so. Little children, even if they don't watch the news or listen to the radio can still be exposed to the goings on through friends and talk at school. They may then come home with questions about matters that parents are not ready to discuss. Books then are a way for parents and caregivers to broach difficult subjects.



As a bonus, drug use and abuse is rampant across the United States. For those who may have been the victims of this or who may have seen family members suffer due to addiction, Zetta Elliot's book Bird is a book that deal with addiction in a touching way without giving too many details and which ends in a somewhat hopeful way.

Carol Swartout Klein's book Painting for Peace in Ferguson uses verse to tell the story of the events in Ferguson and how the community came together to paint for peace. The before and after pictures are amazing to look at as well.

In terms of books that help kids solve problems Keeping the Peace: The Kids' Book of Peacemaking by Anders Hanson is a wonderful resource. It teaches kids to recognize when a problem has occurred and then proceeds to give them the tools to work through problems.

We are not all the same and we are not all equal. Regardless of parents' best intentions and the lessons they impart at home kids will realize that some kids are different. Those differences may be readily apparent or they may be mores ubtle. Susan Martineau's Dealing With Differences is a wonderful little book in which she gives examples and provides some role playing situations that can be used in the classroom or at home.

These books are mostly centered on events here in America but if you are looking for books that deal with issues worldwide this blog has some excellent resources.

Olympic-themed crafting for kids

For those who love crafts with an athletic theme this summer is something that they have been eagerly awaiting. The Olympics start in early August but I have already seen a nearby library with a craft program based on the Olympics. At our branch we are fortunate to have a big green space in the front of the building which is perfect for games such as running tic tac toe and so forth.

For me, I love to see the Olympic flame enter the stadium. Crowds line up on the streets just to cheer whoever is carrying it.  The craft below allows any child to pretend that just for a moment they are the ones with all the glory. How cool would it be to have kids make this in a program and then parade through the library.

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Whenever we see images of Greek gods they are often wearing a toga and one of those cool wreaths. Little ones may well want to put one of these on after gluing and sticking it together.

                                                              

The Olympic rings are iconic symbols known the world over. Here are some ideas I found across the web to represent said rings.

 

Instead of the rings perhaps little ones can use hand prints (be careful with the mess!)

                           Cool glasses that the kiddos can use to show their Olympic spirit.

These are just a few of what's out there but they are a good starting point. The Olympics only come around once every four years so it's perfectly fine to be hyped about them!

A Librarian's Summer of Reading pep talk

Here in the city of Denver the Summer of Reading program gets underway today and I wanted to pause for a moment before the craziness starts (besides the increased numbers of folks at the branch and the adjustments made to schedules, one of our prizes is a ticket to Elitch Gardens and this can cause people to line up outside the library on the day we start distributing them).

With all that going on it's easy to lose sight of the reason for a summer reading program in the first place- to help combat the summer slide, to foster a love of reading etc etc so I have been searching for some vids, blogs and so forth that can be a source of hope and encouragement for librarians young and old for the inevitable low points this summer.

I love TED talks and I keep telling myself that I need to watch one of them a day and in some cases watch some every day in order to fully gleam what the talker is trying to convey. Check out these talks that accurately convey the importance of libraries- one of them talks about why books are like secret doors.

I love feel good stories about the library helping people. I follow this blog on tumblr and this story made me swell with pride. Sometimes it takes someone from a different country to help us see what we have here in North America.

A library without books?!?!  Yes! It has 3-d printers and powerful pcs and free access!  This is the future of libraries right here. The Denver Public Library's idealab already provides a space space for kids and teens.

Libraries are fun places to work most of the time but this town takes it a step further. I have always wanted a red car but I guess I may have to settle for a red library cart.  It sure beats the dull beige all our carts are painted.

Have a great summer!!

 

Battlesaurus: Rampage at Waterloo by Brian Falkner

How would dinosaurs have affected the course of history assuming they had managed to survive and coexist with man. This is the premise of this great new YA novel by Brian Falkner set in early nineteenth century Europe.


Willem's dad was a magician who was well-known to general Napoleon but fell out of favor with him and the family was forced to flee. Willem now lives in a small, provincial town called Gaillemarde where he goes under an assumed name so no one will know of his family origin. The fruit does not fall far from the tree however and soon he begins to display magical gifts.

Word gets out about this powers and soon Willem finds himself with big decisions to make. His cousin Jean and friend Francois are all young, strong, brave lads but will they be able to fight against the entire French army with the might of gigantic weapons of war behind them?

This novel is not only about senseless violence and there many different themes covered including family love, small town politics and man's relationship with wild creatures. There is some blood and gore in the book so for this reason I will recommend it for ages 11+.

The Hero Two Doors Down by Sharon Robinson

This book is written by Robinson's daughter Sharon and is loosely based on a family friend's experiences with Jackie and his wife in Brooklyn, New York during the time when Jackie played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Told as one long flashback it recounts a year in a young Jewish boy called Steven's life when Jackie's family moved into the neighborhood.

At first there is some opposition to the Robinson family from the current residents, all of whom are Jewish. Steven is surprised when his best friend, a girl called Sena expresses some doubts as well. Thankfully his family, and his father in particular are reasonable adults and are determined not to see the lessons of history repeated.

For Steven however, getting to meet Jackie is perhaps the highlight of his life and their families quickly form a strong friendship and celebrate holidays together another way in which they end up sharing their own unique cultural celebrations.


Recent events in our country have shown that there is still a lot of prejudice and ignorance to combat and that if left unchecked there are people with nefarious intentions who will try to enact legislation to discriminate against any group they dislike. Hopefully through reading books such as this one young kids will see that discrimination in any form is wrong and that when faced with it the right thing to do is to stand up against it. I recommend this book for kids 8+.