Pointing the Way for Parents

With picture book apps multiplying like the kittens in Wanda Gag's "Millions of Cats" parents, as well as librarians, are wondering how to choose the best of them. There are reviews in some of the journals including School Library Journal, which are helpful but many reviews are appearing in blogs. Helping parents to find reviews that can help them is not always easy. Recently I came across a useful blog that suggests ways of using apps with children as well as linking to reviews. The Digital Media Diet is an active blog that offers articles on using blogs as well as purchasing them. A recent blog post for parents describes how volunteering in your child's school can be enriched through the use of apps for early literacy. The blog also links to many review sources for children's apps such as Great Kid Books and many others. Why not introduce the parents in your library to some of these useful and convenient guides in the confusing world of children's apps. You'll be doing a favor to them and to their children.

New twelve-step program for children's librarians

If you or your colleagues are suffering a bit of post-holiday letdown and back-to-work blahs, you may want to consider some changes that can energize the way you work. Instead of the same-old, same-old routine of familiar picture books for storytimes and lackluster class visits, resolve to try a few new tricks in 2012. Here are twelve suggestions for ways to make your services more interactive and exciting for children and librarians alike. Take advantage of all the new gadgets many children found under the Christmas tree this year. Welcome apps into your library; let children write blog posts on their smartphones and laptops; start using Facebook to tell the world about your library as well as your friends and causes. Here are twelve ideas—one for every month of the new year. Try them and see how you can chase away the doldrums.

Twelve Resolutions for 2012

1. Evaluate one new children’s app every week. Encourage others in your department to do the same.

2. Plan to attend one new conference, workshop or webinar this year—get your request for funding and time off in early to avoid disappointment.

3. Set up an advisory group of tweens or teens who are frequent library users. Take their suggestions seriously.

4. Start a work journal—at the end of every day (or the beginning of the next one) jot down what tasks you worked on, what you accomplished, a new idea that came to you. Keep the notes to use for annual reports or grant proposals.

5. Feature at least one graphic novel in every book display you mount in your library or on your website

6. Contribute an item about children’s services to the library’s Facebook page at least once a month

7. Volunteer for a committee of your state or national library association

8. Practice taking pictures with your smartphone or camera so you can document your programs or materials (Don’t forget to get parental permission before posting kid’s photos online.)

9. Contact your local PTA and try to speak to a group of parents at least once each semester—preferably at the beginning of the school term.

10. Exchange visits with other libraries in your region—once a month or once a season see what other children’s librarians in your area are doing.

11. Make your summer reading program an interactive experience by setting up a blog for middle-grade participants.

12. Open a twitter account and tweet about what your library is doing. Follow as many other children’s librarians as you can find.

Another multicultural book list?

Librarians are always searching for books that feature diverse children and teen, whether racial or ethnic minorities, children with disabilities or other groups underrepresented in most current writing for young people. Once the books are found and purchased, it’s sometimes hard to see them to kids, especially mainstream readers who are looking for entertainment and shy away from anything that seems goody-goody or adult approved. It’s good to know that Elizabeth Bluemle, a blogger at Publisher’s Weekly has come up with a refreshing list of multicultural books that should please both librarians and their patrons. As she describes it, “This is a list of books a great list of multicultural books published in 2011 featuring main characters of color in stories that are not driven primarily by racial issues”. The books, suggested by readers of Ms. Bluemle’s blog, include titles for the picture-book crowd as well as for teenagers. What they have in common is the unselfconscious use of characters from varied backgrounds who are coping with the joys and worries of childhood or the anxieties and pleasures of adolescence. What better way to let children realize that the thoughts and feelings of the people around them are not so different from their own no matter how different their skin color, weight, or language may be? Too many old standards from the early days of multicultural sensitivity make a great point about overcoming racial differences, sometimes exemplifying the worst of 1960s self-consciousness that makes today’s teens snicker. Let’s keep it cool. Let’s not talk so much about differences but demonstrate what is the same (and what is different) about the lives of different people living in our society. The blog post also makes a point about the importance of covers that do not blur the fact that the protagonists of the book are not white Barbie-doll types. Publishers love to use covers that don’t exactly misrepresent, but certainly try to hide who the characters are. It’s time that librarians and teachers stand up and say that children and teens can and will read books about other races and groups if we give them a chance to meet fascinating characters in intriguing situations. Let’s trust the kids and be honest with them!

Keeping up with the flow

Once again we can thank the Pew Research organization for giving us useful information about how young teenagers (13 to 17) use communication media. As reported in School Library Journal, the research group found that social media sites are the most popular place for young teens to post. Blogs are fading in their appeal, perhaps because blogs are based on the idea of longer posts, which might strike some teens as almost like an assigned paper for school. Facebook is filled with short twitter-like posts, although the twitter site itself is not a favorite choice for teens. As usual, what librarians probably want to take from this is to be sure to keep up a Facebook, or other social media, presence until the trend turns. And whatever you do, don't turn in love with any one format. When the kids move on to something else, we have to be ready to move too.