New books and favorite books!

We just got in a shipment of books and I thought I'd do a TikTok Booktok unboxing video!  

(I should have figured TikTok was blocked... so I spent longer than it should have taken, and figured out how to put a TikTok on YouTube!  So hopefully you can now enjoy my attempts at TikToks 😄)

As you can see... I still have not mastered TikTok... please share your BookToks and/orc, if you are TikTok proficient, help Mrs. Schmitz out by sending me some tips on how to make better videos 📱.  

Today in closing out the second full week of School Library Month, I wanted to share some more of your favorite books!  If you want to share a book, something about the library (any library), a booktok video, your favorite poem, etc. please fill out this form! 

"My favorite book would be Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. I would recommend this book because the characters and story to be very captivating." - from an 8th grader

"Sisters by Raina Telgemeier" - from 6th grader Kamille Murdock

"I really enjoyed Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt because it gives a unique insight to what it's like to have a learning disorder like dyslexia and to feel like you are doing everything right but not getting anywhere." - from an 8th grader

Favorite Tech tool! TabCloud

6th graders who have seen my screen on Zoom have witnessed that I have wayyyy too many tabs open!  Plus, I have multiple windows with lots of tabs.  There are reasons for this... I'm doing research on something, creating a newsletter with a bunch of things to share, cataloging and processing books on another, etc... I know that my computer might not run as efficiently when I have all of these open.  I know I need to close them out to make my "workspace" cleaner, but then I'll lose all of my tabs and information I need!!! What am I supposed to do?!?!  

I discovered TabCloud years ago when this started to be a problem for me 😂.  TabCloud is a life saver for those of you like me, who like to collect information on tabs and don't want to lose them, but don't always need them open all of the time.  

You can use TabCloud and have a TabCloud window for each class if you want. So when you open that window in TabCloud you have all the tabs you need for that clas open.  It is especially useful if you are working on a project and have lots of tabs open for it.  

If it sounds like something you need give it a try!

Here is a video that does a great job showing you how to use TabCloud:

April is also Arab American Heritage Month!

I told you, April is full of a lot of celebrations!  Here is some information about Arab American Heritage Month from PBS. Here is an article about Arab Americans who have made a difference.

And to learn more visit this site with information and links about Arab Americans, The Arab World, Arabic Language and Literature, Arab Art and Literature, Arab Food, Arab Music and Dance, Arab Contributions, and Arab American Identity. 

April is also National Poetry Month!

April is a month full of celebrations!  Not only do we celebrate School Library Month, but we also celebrate National Poetry Month in April (and a few more things I'll share later). This year marks the 25th anniversary of National Poetry Month and you can celebrate it in so many ways!

One way you can participate is by sharing your favorite poem on this form and I'll include it in a future blog post!

One of my all time favorite poems is by American poet E.E. Cummings "I carry your heart with me" (printed below).  I love the use of spacing and punctuation as it adds so much meaning to the words in the poem.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

Today is: Drop Everything And Read (D.E.A.R.) Day

D.E.A.R... which you might have also heard as SSR (silent sustained reading) is something I always loved when I was in school.  I remember it fondly and  I have seen it used less and less in schools unfortunately.  The idea is that everyone in the whole school is reading at one time... teachers, staff, and students.  It is a time that gives everyone a break to just sit and read and enjoy that time. You might see this idea appear in you ELA/Humanities classrooms as a time to silently read.  

The term D.E.A.R. actually comes from the book Romana Quimby Age 8 by Beverly Cleary.  It is celebrated each April 12th in celebration of Beverly Cleary's birthday.  You may have heard that Ms.Cleary passed away a few weeks ago, on March 25th, at the age of 104. So this D.E.A.R. day is especially significant due to her passing.  If you are not familiar with the Romana Quimby books you might know some of her other books. She was a very popular author when I was young, and her books are still published, meaning that they are fairly timeless in their themes. 

More information about D.E.A.R. day can be found here.

I think you all should celebrate this day by dropping everything and reading for at least 30 minutes today!

Some of your favorite books!

 

Thanks so much to those of you sharing on this form!  Keep things coming!

Here are some of your classmates favorite books:

"I love the book Aru Shah and the Song of Death. I love the whole Aru Shah series but The Song of Death is probably my favorite. I like this book, because it is about Hindu mythology and there is a lot of stuff I can relate too. I recommend it for people that love Rick Riordan books." - Swathi Kumar (6th grade)

"One of my favorite books, or series I should say, is the Defy series. A little while ago my mom took me to a bookstore and I got a book, I didn't notice it was the second in a series until about halfway through. So things were a bit spoiled for me but it is such a great book and series I highly recommend it. The first book is called Defy, the second is called Ignite, and the third is called Endure, they are written by Sara B. Larson. I hope you enjoy the book if you read it!" - from an 8th grader

"Keeper Of The Lost Cities by, Shannon Messenger. I love this series so far! (I'm on the 6th book) These books are for people who love Harry Potter because they are completely fantasy. Some of the characters names are Sophie, Fitz, etc. (I don't want to give away too much). But summing it up, this is an amazing series that I would recommend to read! :)" - Heera Karwal (7th grade)

I will share more of your favorites during the month... so if you don't see your recommendation on this blog entry, it will be shared in an upcoming post. Thank you so much for your contributions and recoomendations!

It's Celebrate Teen Literature Day!

You are growing up in a day and age where there are so many great books written for young people.  So much in fact that adults are loving to read this type of literature too. From Harry Potter to The Hunger Games to The Hate U Give to The Fault in Our Stars to so many other great books, adults are finding lots to read in YA and children's literature.  Now, maybe I'm a bit biased, being a librarian, but if I think back to my childhood growing up I can only remember a slight few books that were aimed at tweens and teens that were any good. 

I do remember one book I got from the Scholastic Book Fair that I was in love with. It was a sad book (I have always apparently loved sad/depressing stories) called I Want to Live by Lurlene McDaniel.  It is a book in a series but this is the title I most remember.  I read it many times.  I was surprised to see it, and other McDaniel books are still being published and read!  I guess maybe there was a reason this book was one I remembered. But other than that book, I don't recall reading anything in my tweens and teens that was aimed at my age group that was memorable.  

As a lover of books and a librarian for tweens and teens I am so happy to see so many amazing, literary, relatable books being written for this age group.

When the MMSD Middle School Librarians pick books for Battle of the Books we try to pick books we know are great, but that may not be the first book a student picks up.  I think we did a good job this year based on the feedback we have received:

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) puts out a list each year of the Teen's Top Ten that you can access here.  

What are your favorite books???  Share them here if you would like to have them posted on the blog this month!

Let's talk Booktok...

I had not yet joined the world of TikTok until recently.  In preparing to celebrate this year's School Library Month I came across something called Booktoks.  You can read more about them here, and see some good examples. In short, they are TikTok videos where people share books they love, books they are reading, the experience they have/had while reading a book, etc.  They can show the person or not; the person can be talking or not; they can use music or not; but ultimately all of them show the book(s) they are talking about.  

Here are a few more examples that I came across when looking up what Booktoks were.  I discovered that there are several Pinterest boards that save these Booktoks. (Make sure when you open the links to click on the video so the sound comes on.)

• Books that had me hooked from the first sentence
• YA fantasy novel tiktok would devour if they knew about it
• Books that had me sobbing at 3am

I was intrigued that this is such a popular thing on TikTok, and excited that people like to create these to share what they are reading!  I just recently made my first TikTok, which is a #booktok and I realized TikTok is not as easy as it looks 😄.  Here is my first attempt... I wanted to share all the books I liked as a kid... but I only had the one that I read as a kid (the first book in the video).  The others I read as an adult.  Again, first go at it, but wanted to share it with you.  

@schmitzie77

##booktok ##firsttiktok

♬ When You Were Young - The Killers

I'll keep trying things out and would love to see what you SHMS students have to share!  

You don't have to use TikTok to create one!  You can use a screencast software like screencastify or loom, or you can use Canva as they have TikTok templates you can use and walk you through what to do! You can also use Awesome Screenshot which is a Chrome extension and allows you to do videos and screenshots.

If you want to share your Booktok or anything else to be featured in these posts during April, fill out this form!  Thanks!

Today is National Library Worker's Day!

Here is one of my favorite authors and humans, Jason Reynolds, talking about libraries and librarians (it is from a few years ago). 

I'd like to thank all of the librarians and library aides and student aides I have had the privilege to encounter and work with! Most of you at Spring Harbor probably don't remember Mrs. Lazorik, but she was the nurses aide and library aide when I started working here and she was such a joy to work with!  She loved the students and helped me, new to middle school and being a full time librarian, find my way!  She also kept the library clean and the circulation desk organized! I have not done a great job of the clean and organized desk since she left 🤔.  When we can have visitors back in the school building maybe you will meet her because she is such a great human (another one of my favorite humans) that she comes in and volunteers to help shelve books or process books... in other words, she comes in an volunteers to do the job she used to get paid for!  Thanks Mrs. Lazorik!

And... if you need any reminders about why school librarians are important see below... (click on the first image to open it up so you can zoom in to read it better).

It's School Library Month!!!

 

April is School Library Month (and this week is National Library Week) and we will be celebrating all month long!  Each day I will post something about the library or other library related things... and will also be highlighting what YOU want to share!  I'll be asking YOU to share some of your favorite books, booktoks, stories about the library, etc. to feature on this blog. 

As a librarian, I buy all types of books so that everyone can see themselves represented in stories AND so that you can also read about people unlike yourself, to see how other people navigate the world.  I believe in Intellectual Freedom and the Library Bill of Rights, that you have the choice to choose what you read or do not read.  I mention this, because in September/October each year we celebrate Banned Book Week... that is not a time to celebrate the banning of books though... this is a week where we talk about Intellectual Freedom and the freedom we have to read what we want.  We look at what books have been banned and challenged and many of them are some of your (and my) favorite books. 

I know it is April, and not Banned Book Week, but today is the day that the American Library Association released the most banned/challenged books of 2020. One of the things I love most about the book talks I do with students around banned/challenged books is the outrage I see and hear about "Why is this book banned?" and that, "This is my favorite book ever!"  I hear you and I see you! Look over this years list of the top 10 most banned/challenged books and the reasons for them. You can see former lists here as well. 

Here is a video presenting 2020's top 10 that shows reasons why they have been challenged"

Here is a list with some more explanation of the reasons for being challenged (if you open the link you can zoom in so you can read the explanations clearly).

Here are reasons for books being challenged... the words that appear bigger are the reasons that were brought up the most.