Blogger Tess Prendergast

Celebrating Board Books for Babies

Every year, I teach a survey of children’s literature class to MLIS students. After I have covered the history of children’s publishing, and children’s literacy development, I spend a whole class on books for babies. It’s one of my favourite classes because I get to bring an enormous stack of baby books to class and teach my students all about them.  Reading to babies I start out by reminding them that human babies are born totally helpless and frankly – they don’t care what anyone reads to them. That being said, babies do want and need to be held and touched and interacted with.  Books designed for babies do seem to offer parents and caregivers a nice way of doing just that: holding, touching, and interacting with their babies from their earliest days onwards.  When babies are born, their vision is not fully developed so high contrast books with very clear and spare black…

Blogger Tess Prendergast

Exploring refugee child experiences through picture books

Mirrors and Windows You have likely come across the metaphor “mirrors and windows” as it relates to children’s books before. It is a metaphor coined by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop when she discussed how books can mirror a child’s own experiences – thereby legitimizing them by showing that people similar to themselves are important enough to be in books.  Additionally, she said that books can also be windows through which children can see the lives and experiences of children who are different from themselves. (Bishop, 1990). I am going to apply this wonderful metaphor to some of my favorite picture books about refugee child experiences.  Come with me as I explore the ways in which these books can be mirrors (for children with refugee backgrounds to see reflections of their family’s lives) as well as windows (for other children to grow in their understanding of people who have refugee backgrounds)….

Blogger Jonathan Dolce

All Together Now 2023 SRP

But It’s Still Winter… Believe it or not, this is my 20th year working – as a paid employee – in Central Florida libraries. If you include volunteering…well…that’d be most of my life. From all I’ve ever experienced, you can never be fully or overly prepared for a season of summer reading programming. As a matter of fact, I am known for ALWAYS having a backup plan for each program, right down to duplicates of mission critical equipment. Sounds like a military operation, doesn’t it? So, yes, it’s January and we are talkin’ All Together Now, our 2023 Summer Reading Program! Nitty Gritty, Nuts and Bolts I always love a tool kit, a place I can have everything in one spot, like a Swiss Army knife. I’m based in Florida, but this seems to have universal appeal: CSLP 2023 Program Resources 2023 Summer Program (and beyond) Resources: Overview of popular…

Blogger Liza Purdy

The Right Book in the Right Hand at the Right Time

I am writing this blog post on the night before I return to work from bereavement leave. My dad was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Multiforme in late February. I once heard GBM referred to as the “great white shark” of brain cancer because of its relentless rate of growth and spread, and the lack of effective treatment. My parents moved in with my family right after Dad received the diagnosis; we put their house of 53 years on the market, moved their stuff into storage, and buckled up for the wild ride of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy while maintaining our “normal” work, school, church and home duties. Needless to say, it’s been a lot. I don’t know if you all experience this, but when I am particularly stressed out, I sometimes find that I cannot read. I just can’t allow myself to enter into a story. I can’t put my life…