You can mix parts of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas/Yule into a single interactive display enabling library users to choose a book that they may not previously have considered prior to participating in the interactive part of the display.
Using the Kwanzaa mkeka mat as the base upon which to spin the dreidel (or in this case the d-read-l) the library patron will then take the book that matches the symbol on the side of the dreidel that is facing up.
You can also match one of the four letters to different genres instead of specific books as shown below.
Once the patron has taken a book or respun the dreidel if they wanted to try something else, they can also take a Yule Reading Log to keep track of the books they will read over the holiday season.
There is a perennial discussion amongst library workers around the world at this time of year about the appropriateness of Christmas Trees in Public Libraries. I am not here to further this discourse, rather I would like to share some of the resources I have created to recognize the festivals of those patrons that do not hold Christmas traditions.
I put together an introductory ‘zine that can be read with the display. It contains basic information about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, Ōmisoka & Sol Invictus. This can be downloaded here:
I have created a dreidel that can be printed out and used in a library as a way of selecting books – a d-read-l if you will. The idea is to match a genre with one of the four letters of the Hebrew alphabet on the sides of the dreidel – נ (nun), ג (gimel), ה (hei), ש (shin) then when a participant spins the dreidel they get to borrow a book from the genre that matches whichever letter comes up.
I do not have templates for the Kwanzaa parts of the display but for the candles I used red, black and green card-stock that I rolled together to make candles and white card-stock that I folded into a triangular shape to make a candle-holder. I used strips of each of the three colours of card-stock woven together to make a small Mkeka mat.
Yule or Yuletide (“Yule time” or “Yule season”) is a festival historically observed by the Germanic peoples. Scholars have connected the original celebrations of Yule to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin, and the pagan Anglo-Saxon Mōdraniht. Terms with an etymological equivalent to Yule are still used in Nordic countries and Estonia to describe Christmas and other festivals occurring during the winter holiday season. Today, Yule is celebrated in Heathenry and other forms of Neopaganism.
I created a Yule Reading Log, that, when rolled up resembles a log and has the dual purpose of being used to record one’s reading over the holiday season.
These resources are very simple and can be supplemented by books held in most if not all public (& school) libraries. I hope to extend what I have done here in future years to make the displays more complete. This is just the beginning.
I have just set up a Magnetic Poetry interactive display in the teen area of my library. I have gone for the imaginative title of Magnetic Po(l)etry as it is on one of the metal pillars holding up the ceiling in my branch.
It should be very easy to set up – all you need is a magnetic board or something similar (in my case it is a pillar) and some magnetic words. You can find a whole range of magnetic poetry kits online or in stores at reasonable prices. Some kits can contain <ahem> mature words so if you live or work in conservative area it may be worth knowing what you are purchasing before you buy it. On the other hand this program is aimed at teens, people who can make even the most innocent words into suggestive phrases so this sort of thing can be a risk no matter how much care you put into organising it.
Once teens start playing around with it I will update this post and possibly share whatever they create using it.
I owe Sarah a huge apology! This review was supposed to hit the site on September 30th – unfortunately my daughter, being no respecter of the best laid plans of mice and men decided to arrive a bit early (an dmad those plans go awry).
Sarah I am sorry! In creating India Smythe you have gifted the world with one of the funniest protagonists since… well… ever! She fits in with Bridget Jones and Georgia Nicolson! I already knew that you were a brilliant author, The Territory trilogy taught me that; but pivoting from a futuristic dystopian eco-thriller to a contemporary comedy, well honestly that caught me off-guard.
Writing comedy is hard, writing actually funny comedy is akin to capturing lightning in a bottle. India Smythe is Sarah’s lightning in a bottle!
India is a wonderful protagonist, flawed yet engaging, with some really wicked one-liners including: It’s never good to stand next to perfection. Especially when perfection is a complete bitch.
Her voice as narrator came through with crystal clarity while introducing the reader to her family, her life and her friends, frenemies and potential love interests.
This is very much a teen novel but suitable for readers of most ages, the writing is so sharp you may cut yourself on the humour. Trite as it may sound, this is a book that, once you have started reading you will find very hard to put down.
If you work in a library then this is a book you need to press into the hands of your teen readers. It is the perfect antidote to the grey, grim times in which we find ourselves. India Smythe Stands Up is light, funny and will swiftly carry you through India’s travails. I challenge readers of any age to not find some part of themselves in India or her family, and empathise with her as they laugh uproariously at her misadventures.
14 -year-old India Smythe has caught the eye of Ennis, the hottest boy at St Joseph’s. But nothing’s ever easy when you’re dealing with horrific teachers, a dad who’s convinced every boy is a ‘sex pest’, a best friend who talks you into embarrassing makeovers to look good on Instagram and the odd kissing-induced hospitalisation. And does India even want Ennis? Or should she risk social relegation and go for the orchestra geek with the extra-long forehead who she actually enjoys talking to?
India Smythe Stands Up was written by Sarah Govett and is published by Marotte Books a new publisher specialising in comedy fiction. It is available now!
You need to get yourself a copy! Trust me I am a Librarian!
Jake and the other finalists in a story-writing competition have been invited to a stately home for a tour like no other. As their guide leads them through grand rooms, hidden nooks and magnificent grounds, they are about to hear the stories of seven ghosts who haunt these walls. But strange shapes and shadows follow Jake as he journeys through the house. The tour guide’s behaviour becomes ever more suspicious. With each tale that he hears, Jake begins to feel more uneasy, and soon he will discover that something is very, very wrong …
Seven Ghosts, written and illustrated by Chris Priestley
We at TeenLibrarian are big fans of both Barrington Stoke and Chris Priestley, so when I was given the chance to have a gallery of images from his latest novella for them I jumped at it! Seven Ghosts is a brilliantly creepy short story, telling seven short stories of ghosts haunting a particular house, that would be brilliant to read aloud to a class of any age (from 8+) or at bedtime (but you may need the lights on afterwards). Enjoy the slideshow…
Beano has today launched “Beano Booktopia” – a new book subscription service for kids offering newly published books across a wide range of authors and genres.
The tailor-made programme will include fiction and non-fiction books specifically chosen by Beano experts based on the individual child’s given interests and reading ability.
Booktopia encourages children to expand their reading horizons with new books that fans of the Beano will love. The books selected for the Booktopia service follow the winning Beano formula that has won over children for three generations by combining spot-on humour, captivating stories, relatable characters and amazing visual storytelling.
How Booktopia works
1. Pick a plan
Choose one of Beano Booktopia subscriptions with a book arriving every month for either 3, 6, 12 or 24 months – starting from £24.99f5f
2. Name a kid
Name the lucky kid who will become part of Beano’s Booktopia club
3. Booktopia quiz
Children answer a few simple questions outlining their interests. What do they love? Fact or fiction? Adventure or mystery? Books with pictures as well as text?
4. The adventure begins
Beano masterminds hand-pick a book a month to match each kid’s passions and reading ability
Multiple studies have shown that children who read for enjoyment do significantly better at school than their peers and make more progress in maths, vocabulary and spelling, making reading for pleasure one of the most effective ways of helping children to reach their full potential.
Emma Scott, CEO of Beano Studios, said: “Beano has been making kids laugh for over 80 years whilst all the while secretly helping them on the first crucial step on their reading journey. Thousands of parents tell us “Beano is the only thing my kids will read” and we’re constantly awed by the British creative icons who credit the Beano with getting them reading, writing, drawing and even standing up on stage! Beano Booktopia offers kids a monthly chance to immerse themselves independently in amazing stories with the Beano seal of approval to help launch a lifetime love of reading.”
The game of war is always rigged . . . Kellen and Reichis are settling into their lives as protectors of the young queen. For the first time Kellen feels as if he’s becoming the kind of man that his mentor Ferius had wanted him to be. Even Reichis has come to appreciate having a noble purpose – so long as no one minds him committing the occasional act of theft from the royal treasury. But thousands of miles away a war is brewing that the Argosi always warned could destroy the continent. An unexpected source brings word that there’s one way Kellen can prevent a hundred years of bloodshed, and all it requires is a little murder . . . Now Kellen and his sister Shalla find themselves on opposite sides, and neither love nor loyalty can protect them from the choices they must make.
Crownbreaker by Sebastien De Castell, HotKey Books
Crownbreaker is the 6th and final book in the Spellslinger series
I failed to keep up with this series after the first two, I loved them but then CKG got in the way, but I’m regretting that now as the 6th and final book was published this month. HotKey Books have very kindly offered a full set of the books as a prize for a TeenLibrarian reader, so I set up my very first Rafflecopter giveaway! Follow the link to enter, and good luck!
Over the past few years, Keanu Reeves has emerged as one of the most popular and intriguing actors working in Hollywood. He has been the subject of a number of memes, rumours and heart-warming tales from a variety of sources.
A while ago I came up with the idea of Keanu Reads on twitter (I am probably not the only person that thought of that). It was a two second chuckle that refused to leave my brain. Recently I noticed that he has acted in a number of movies that are based on novels (& two that were turned into graphic novels) and the idea of creating a display based on his works was born.
MOTHER TONGUE is the standalone follow-up to the award-winning and critically acclaimed THE WORDSMITH (published in North America as THE LIST) by Galway native Patricia Forde. After global warming came the Melting. Then came Ark. The new dictator of Ark wants to silence speech for ever. But Letta is the wordsmith, tasked with keeping words alive. Out in the woods, she and the rebels secretly teach children language, music and art. Now there are rumours that babies are going missing. When Letta makes a horrifying discovery, she has to find a way to save the children of Ark – even if it is at the cost of her own life.
Mother Tongue by Patricia Forde, cover illustration by Elissa Webb
Little Island have been publishing some great books, unfortunately all ineligible for CKG because they don’t have offices outside of Eire, but definitely worth reading! Mother Tongue, and predecessor The Wordsmith, are both brilliantly devised stories based in a society founded at the end of the world, after flood waters have risen. Noah, the founder of Ark, has decreed that words were to blame for the situation people find themselves in – empty promises and lies of people in power, words instead of action – so all except the most functional 500 words are banned from use. The Wordsmith may store unused words until people can be trusted with them again (but will they ever?). Obviously the idea of storing words appealed to me greatly, so I jumped at the chance of being on the blog tour. The author Patricia Forde wrote a piece about Words for us:
The Need to Keep Words Alive.
I love dictionaries. As a child, I was often to be found reading those impressive tomes looking for new words, big words, words to impress. Nowadays, as a writer, I still use dictionaries but now to look for smaller words, simpler words, words that are precise. But what if we start to lose words? If we don’t have a word for something can we conceive of it? Can we imagine it? And maybe, more importantly, do we still value that which it represents? There was a thundering brouhaha some years ago when the Oxford Junior Dictionary removed words like kingfisher, acorn and cowslip from its list and replaced them with words like broadband, blog and voice mail. The dictionary is aimed at seven year olds. People felt that the dictionary was adding to the problem of children being alienated from nature. It seemed that the dictionary didn’t value the thrush, the weasel or the wren as much as it valued the grey world of bureaucracy. Committee, common sense and bullet points all had a place while much of the natural world was sent packing.
But, the dictionary argued, the words they chose to include were the words children were using. They had tracked contemporary usage and reflected their findings in their list of words.
How sad that is. As adults, we have to tolerate a diet of grey sludge when it comes to language. We have to talk about Brexit and hard drives and listen to people going on about journeys they’ve made that aren’t journeys at all, and hear them going forward with this that and the other thing and telling us all about it in bullet points. But children?
Their language should reflect the sacred time that we call childhood. I believe that it should be full of beavers and liquorice and droves of dwarves, elves and goblins. We need to keep those words alive because we need to keep that sense of wonder and awe alive.
Many of the words removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary had to do with nature. In this time of environmental crisis surely we need to make children more aware of nature and their natural habitat. It should concern us that if children no longer speak about bluebells or brambles it may be because children are becoming increasingly solitary and urban.
Every word in every language represents an entire archaeology and a history of what has gone before. I shudder to imagine a world like the one I created for The Wordsmith and Mother Tongue. A world where people have access to only five hundred words. Letta, my protagonist, says at one stage:
How can we dream if we don’t have words?
I would also ask how can we think? Words give us precision. In this chaotic world we’ve never needed clear thinking more than we do now. We need our leaders to use language like a laser rather than a slurry spreader. We need to cut through the noise, refuse to accept philosophy that can be written as a tweet because it has no complexity, and build a longer list of words – a list that includes all ideas, all languages, all dictionaries. Let’s make a thundering brouhaha about that!
Mother Tongue, the sequel to The Wordsmith, has just been published by Little Island and they are both available from their website (thankyou for sending me copies of both!). Founded by Ireland’s first Children’s Laureate, Siobhán Parkinson, Little Island Books has been publishing books for children and teenagers since 2010. They specialise in publishing new Irish writers and illustrators, and also have a commitment to publishing books in translation.
For a sneak peek of Mother Tongue, download this free sample:
October will bring us this really powerful collection of poetry for teenagers, by young transgender poet Jay Hulme. Troika asked him to create a semi-autobiographical narrative, and included are reworked poems he wrote while at high school. He has said that when considering what to include he realised that what he’d wanted as a teenager, and what he wanted to give to teenagers, was the truth, and devised a two part story.
Being trans means that my life does feel almost like it comes in two halves. I have lived in this world as two people: The person I was before; angry, confused, violent, trying to find out what was wrong, trying to find my place in a world that didn’t want me. And the person I am now; proud, confident, at peace with myself, trying to forge a future to be proud of. With that in mind, I divided the book into two parts. The first half is filled with problems, anger, and confusion, and the poems in turn are often filled with industrial and urban imagery, dark, and claustrophobic. The second half is filled with hope, change, and growth – the poems here are often filled with natural imagery, they are lighter, softer, quieter – kinder.
No issue is out of bounds, anything he thought of as a teenager is included, some induce anger, some tears, some snorts of recognition, some a smile…and some all of the above. If I had to pick one favourite from each part, the one that made me stop and stare without moving on for a few minutes was his response to the Islamophobic attack at Christchurch earlier this year. That is towards the end of part 1, which is full of rage and sadness and despair at injustice. In part 2, possibly verging on soppy (which is very not me and yet it had me crying happy tears on a bus) is ‘Just the Small Things’ about the every day things that make you happy. Bonus mention though for ‘The Meaning of Stories’, which may resonate with many a reader, particularly I’d think readers of this blog (thank you so much Jay for letting me post it in full here):
THE MEANING OF STORIES
Perhaps it is true that none of my heroes exist, summed up on a list entitled “fictional characters”. My life lessons come from the mouths of people paid to pretend they are someone they’re not, but I can’t forget what they have taught me.
Because when words mean something, they stay, no matter where they came from. So who cares if I live my life by a line issued from the mouth of Gandalf the Grey, on a film set, it doesn’t mean it’s worth less than something said by someone who actually existed. Because attribution is overshadowed by meaning, and the fact that these words stay with me means more than the circumstances under which they were uttered.
So if fiction is the foundation on which I build my life, I can promise you that my turrets will reach the sky, before yours reach my dungeons. Because fiction holds within it the promise of a better world; and I believe, not just because I can, but because I have to.
Jay Hulme is an award winning poet and performer from Leicester, Winner of Slambassadors 2015, and finalist in the 2016 Roundhouse Poetry Slam. He has recently branched out into children’s poetry, and his work was Highly Commended in the 2018 CLiPPA Awards. He also works as an ambassador for Inclusive Minds, promoting inclusion and diversity in children’s publishing, and doing sensitivity reads to ensure depictions of trans people in books are both accurate and unoffensive.
