So...we're halfway through the Summer Reading! If you haven't been working through the reading challenges with your kids, that's okay! But there's also still time to begin, or at least to read through a variety of different kinds of books. We want summer reading to be enjoyable, of course, but it's still a good time to encourage our kids to expand their reading selections a bit and to stretch their reading skills! Fortunately, as we've discussed many times, there are so many wonderful books of all types to choose from.
Each challenge through 6th grade includes an Animal Book category. This is partly because there are so many of them but also because animal stories are such effective vehicles for sharing life issues - even some pretty big ones - in safe and relatable ways. It may also be because, as anyone who has been to the library knows, I really love animals, and they are frequent visitors to the library! At any rate, here are a few of my favorites, for every reading level.
My Pet Wants a Pet
Elise Broach
I love this one because it sounds a little bit like my house - and it's even a little true that a couple of my pets have their own pets, in a manner of speaking! Also kids love guessing which pet is going to come next.
A Pig, a Fox, and a Fox
Jonathan Fenske
The Pig and Fox books are hilarious and are actually readable by beginning readers! (Fun fact: many, if not most, "Readers" are not actually suitable for young children learning to read - the levels are often very deceptive. I don't know why this is, but I do know that it's wise to look for ones that are appropriate to their reading level.)
Mango and Bambang
Polly Faber
If you've never read a humorous story about a tapir before...now's the time! Mango is an independent, free-spirit young girl living in the Big City. One her way home from karate practice one day, she discovers a lost tapir, whom she takes home to her apartment, where adventures ensue!
Each of these is available at the CHESS library, and as always, you can to to our online catalog and place a hold on them to pick them up at our next CHESS Thursday event. For many more suggestions that you can find in our library and others, check out the Book Lists for each grade level. This page also includes a link to the Reader's Advisory form, which I highly recommend you try for personalized recommendations. I'd love to help your kids find their next reading adventure!
Happy Reading!
-Mrs. Meester
Lottie Lipton Adventures\
I might have featured these once already, but even so, I’m
going to do it again! Lottie Lipton lives with her uncle in a British Museum,
where she spends a lot of time with Egyptian antiquities, solving some
mysteries along the way! These are fun reads for 1st-4th
graders (give or take a grade on either side, obviously), and include a bit of
history as well!
The same is true of The Case of the Stolen Sixpence, the first installment of the Masisewhich I’ve
newly acquired for the library. This one appeals to 3rd-7th
graders and features a mystery-solving heroine in Victorian London.
These could be fun for boys and girls, but for the boys who really need to read about a boy protagonist, Nate the Great is still my favorite for readers just
starting to reach into chapter books, and the Mac B, Kid Spy series is humorous
and clever spy series for students around 2nd-5th grade
(with some 90s trivia that might be fun for parents!)
Moving into middle grades, The Strangers is a new mystery with some science fiction elements, as three siblings try to find their missing mother and discover the identities of three children who have been reported missing who also share the same names, birthdays, and features as themselves.
For middle-graders who like action rather than puzzle-solving, City Spies is a fast-paced adventure story featuring a team of young spies from around the world.
And here is where I will pause to say that YA mysteries can get tricky! For this category I love Vango (with some very interesting history woven in, I must say!).
I've also recently added Rebel Spy, which is more of a historical fiction, but is suspenseful and involves some spy craft, so it could fit!
For other YA mysteries (as well as dystopian novels), use my Reader's Advisory form! Family preferences vary widely for teenage reading, and I can be more sensitive to those preferences in a one-on-one situation than with a blanket recommendation for everyone. Give it a try!
Spring is coming, and with it comes our annual spring Read-a-Thon! (If you don't remember it being annual, that's because last year was a little unusual and we weren't able to have one...but that's enough about that!) In a nutshell, the Read-a-Thon is a week-long reading extravaganza and fundraiser that students do at home, but as the summary often leaves people scratching their heads about the what and the why of this thing, I'll try to elaborate briefly.
What and When:
From now until March 4, students can come to the library to register for the event and pick up their packets. Each packet has a reading log and a pledge sheet. Students will then go to friends and family, asking for pledges of $0.05 or $0.10 per page read during the week of March 7-14. During that week, students will keep track of the pages they read, then figure up what their supporters owe. Example: 100 pages read at $0.10 per page means your supporter will owe $10.00. This can be in the form of cash or checks made out to CHESS, which will then be collected by the students and dropped off with their pledge sheets to the Front Desk by March 26.
Why?
The library desperately needs new books! Yes, we're growing all the time, but parts of our collection really need updates. A recent inventory of our non-fiction collection indicated that the average publication date is 1997. Now, sometimes a book can stand the test of time quite well, and just because a book is old doesn't necessarily mean it's not usable...BUT in general, a good non-fiction collection should reflect the information from the last 10 years or so at the most (in case we're having a hard time accepting the truth of time, 1997 is...24 years old!) Also, books can become outdated in writing style and appearance, making them unappealing to students, and if a book sits unused on a shelf, it doesn't matter how good the information is inside.
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| Books like these have had a good run, I'm sure...but they're not very appealing anymore. |
And sometimes books can become SO used that they need to be replaced. Our pop-up books are well loved - and, I might add, of great appeal to children of visiting families. It's time to bring in some new ones!
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| They've been loved to pieces...literally! |
So the library could really use your help this coming month to bring in some extra funds to restock and refresh our library collection. When we did this two years ago, we raised just over $500. Imagine what we could do with our new families and expanded reach!
