Purposeful Poetry

Space Songs

“I need a poem to go with a unit on diseases.” “I need a poem about respecting other people’s property.” “I need a poem for a lesson I’m doing on invertebrates.” “Where are your poetry books about personal hygiene?” Upon hearing such requests posed by education students and teachers, a librarian’s first thought might be, [...]

Teaching New Readers to Love Books

Stone Fox

Packing and unpacking. Those were the governing actions of my Army brat childhood. I learned how to size up the fashion, the accents, the special vocabulary, and the social climate of every place I lived. I learned the bike and walking routes around all the Army bases and was a quick study for the best [...]

Writing Backward: Modern Models in Historical Fiction

My Brother Sam is Dead

I expect we can all agree that historical fiction should be good fiction and good history. If we leap over the first briar patch by calling good fiction an “interesting narrative with well-developed characters,” we are still left with the question of what is good history. Alas, there are nearly as many thorns here as [...]

Have Book Bag, Will Travel: A Practical Guide to Reading Aloud

Goodnight Moon

By Mary M. Burns and Ann A. Flowers Suddenly, literacy is a hot topic. While definitions may vary, there is general agreement that it’s a good thing, and the more of it, the better. The problem seems to be discovering how to nurture it. Because Americans incline toward Puritanism when faced with self-improvement, the process [...]