Sturdy For Common Things

Shark Stroytime

“SHARK! Get out of the water and into the library!” With the much anticipated 25th anniversary of The Discovery Channel’s Shark Week on the horizon, and since kids love sharks, I thought it would be fun to have a storytime featuring these fun, yet fearsome creatures. For our after-stories craft we made “Deep Sea Panoramas” [...]

See You at Harry’s

See You at Harry’s by Jo Knowles Published: Candlewick Press, May 2012 Recommended Age: 10 & up In a Nutshell: Twelve-year-old Fern is feeling anything but the love. Her three-year-old nuisance of a brother Charlie will not leaver her alone. Older brother, Holden, a freshman in high school, is having a hard time at school [...]

Throwback Thursday: The Snow Spider

The Snow Spider by Jenny Nimmo Published: Dutton Books, 1986,  Orchard Books (Imprint of Scholastic), 2006 Recommended Age: 9 & up In a Nutshell: On Gwyn’s 5th birthday, his older sister, Bethan, tragically disappeared. Four years later, still ridden with guilt over her disappearance, his slightly cooky grandmother gives him five unusual presents. Presents she [...]

Looking for your next magical adventure?

Wizards, Greek mythology, and tales of princesses long ago… The most popular fantasy requests for middle grade readers this summer. Harry Potter and Percy Jackson rule and Ella Enchanted is still holding her own. Continuing the Summer Book Hook marathon, these are a tried and true read-a-likes that will keep kids coming back for more! [...]

Summer Book Hook: Season’s Readings

For the latest edition of the Summer Book Hook, I’m going to direct you to the Summer 2012 issue of Lawrence Kids Magazine featuring picks from Lawrence Public Library’s youth librarians. You can see this summer reading feature and the magazine in it’s entirety HERE! (Psst… Also check out the Sturdy for Common Things feature [...]

Olympics Storytime

The opening of the Olympic Games is this Friday! To celebrate we had our own Olympics celebration at storytime yesterday. We read books about competition, good sportsmanship, and London, where the 2012 Olympics are being held. First I held up a picture similar to the above image and I asked the kids if they knew [...]

Seeing Things

Love is all you need… Love and libraries… And music. And coffee. Evening pool haze. Wheels turning. Castle making. Cool dips. Placid waters. Fire in the sky. Summer slumbers. Warm celebrations. Hovering planets. How he sees me. Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon. Midsummer latelys… Triple digit heat, librarying, reading, lots of reading, Lawrence to Ludington, MI [...]

Mr. & Mrs. Bunny–Detectives Extraodinaire!

Mr. and Mrs Bunny–Detectives Extraordinare! by Polly Horvath, illustrated by Sophie Blackall Published: Schwartz & Wade (Imprint of Random House), February 2012 Recommended Age: 8 & up In a Nutshell: Dear Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom, The Royal Tanenbaums), Please, please, PLEASE pick up this book, do your magic, and make it a movie. What you [...]

Summer Survival Guide for the Wimpy Kid Fan

Haven’t been able to get the Summer Book Hook posts out the past couple weeks, so this week there will be TWO Summer Book Hook editions. Whaahooo! Additionally, the next few Summer Book Hook editions will be devoted to Middle Grade Books (i.e. 3rd – 7th grade reading level), specifically current favorite series. Double Whaahoo! [...]

Turtle Storytime

You’ve gotta admit it, turtles are pretty awesome. They’re pretty famous too…there’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Crush and Squirt from Finding Nemo, and get this… the Kansas state reptile is the ornate box turtle. They’re also a boat load of fantastic children’s picture books about turtles. Since turtles are too cool for school, for this [...]