Remember Dippy by Shirley Reva Vernick

Johnny is ready for a very boring summer in Vermont. He's about to enter high school and is preparing himself for a lot of gaming, sleeping, and eating. All of those plans come to a screeching halt when Johnny's mother informs him he has to go live with his cousin and aunt for the ENTIRE summer.

Johnny is a little excited though. His aunt works at the local 7-11 and gives him free slushies whenever he wants. The summer is starting to look pretty promising. Then, his mom drops the bomb. He has a JOB! He has to basically babysit his older cousin, Remember, while his aunt is at work every day.

Remember is not your normal 15 year old boy. As Johnny describes him, "He's what polite people call different. I call him weird. He doesn't have friends. He looks the wrong way when you speak to him. He either talks a mile a minute or not at all. He's stubborn and high-strung. I could go on and on."

Is this going to be the worst summer of Johnny's life?

I really enjoyed this book. It is a subject that has been touched on by many, but never quite as well as Shirley Vernick portrays it. Johnny is an average 13 year old boy. He's selfish, in love with a girl, and doesn't want to be stuck with his weird cousin all summer. Johnny is also a character that is easy to relate to. His love for his family shows on every page, even the ones where they are arguing with each other.

This book has plenty of angles to keep middle grade readers intrigued. There is some mystery involving a lost engagement ring, romance involving a best friend's sister, and bullying from the neighbor next door. However, the overall theme in this book is friendship. By the end of this book, you'll be yelling at Johnny to make the right decisions, yelling at Remember to hold it together, and you will absolutely love how much the characters have developed throughout this book.

This is a wonderful book that I would recommend to anyone that came in asking for a good summer read. Fans of books such as Wonder by R.J. Palacio, Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper, or The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger will love this addition to your library shelves. For more readalikes for this book, check out The Show Me Librarian's wonderful recommendations.

Remember Dippy by Shirley Reva Vernick is available June 11, 2013.

Review copy provided by author.

Early Literacy Tips & Tricks: Start with a Book Blog Tour

I am so happy to be part of this wonderful book tour promoting Start With a Book! This is a fabulous website full of information for caregivers, librarians, and teachers. Seriously, go check it out.

As a librarian who does storytime on a regular basis, it can be difficult to come up with new literacy tips each week. I have a lot of children who are repeats in my session, so I might see one family for 4 separate session in a year. I like to keep things as exciting as possible for them and don't want them to hear the same information each session. This is where a website like Start With a Book comes in handy.

This website has a huge amount of information about early literacy. If you are looking specifically for tips to share with your parents during storytime, then the Reading Aloud section is a great place to start. This section includes links to its parent site Reading Rockets, and some wonderful handouts. Things like "Reading Tips For Parents" gets further broken down into parents of babies, toddlers, preschoolers, etc. This would be a wonderful handout to give to caregivers during your storytime session.

There is also a section where you can sign up to receive a reading tip every day! They are perfect short and quick tips that you can share with parents or put on your monthly library calendars. These tips are also available in Spanish. Plus, they come to your cell phone. It really can't get any easier. 

So whether you're struggling coming up with new literacy tips for parents, or you just want to have more resources available to your parents--this is a great site to go visit.

To check out what some other librarians are doing with this site go visit Amy at Show Me Librarian for the tour schedule.

Also, don't forget to enter to win a bundle of fantastic books!

Tell A Pigeon Story!

In our "Play- Learn- Read" early literacy center, we have a magnetic/flannel board that we switch out every month. It is something the littlest library patrons seem to rush to every time they come into the children's room. I thought it was only fitting to do a Mo Willems- Pigeon flannel this month since we are holding a Pigeon Party for our "1,000 Books Before Kindergarten" families.

Since the Pigeon stories by Mo Willems are so popular, I decided to make the main characters and a few props.

 

There is a non-circulating copy of "The Pigeon wants a Hot Dog" next to the flannel board, but I expect it to disappear at some point. Just in case it does, I made some story starters for parents and children to use.

 Also, we try to include a quick early literacy tip/motivation with each of our activities.

It's always fun to overhear kids telling their very own Pigeon story!

You can see all the other Flannel Friday Roundup submissions for this week at Loons and Quines @ Librarytime.

How To Do A Substitute Storytime For Toddlers

This post could also be titled, "What To Do When Storytime Parents Rebel". It wasn't quite that dramatic, but this week the librarian who traditionally does toddler storytime was out sick. I absolutely adore toddler storytime, and this week has made me realize how much I miss planning them. However, our storyteller who does them every week is loved by all. I had a few parents who were quite upset with the change in their routine, and they definitely didn't keep it a secret. It was very hard to get them to buy into my storytime style. I just let it roll off my shoulders though because I don't like to invite negativity into my life.

All the parents looked like this.

Every librarian has their own way of handling a substitute storytime. Some try to mimic what their coworker does exactly (same songs, dances, etc). While I have done this before, I decided to go a different route this time. Personally, when I try to mimic someone storytime style, I feel like I'm setting myself up for failure. I do the hokey pokey differently, I sing faster, I didn't make the right funny faces, I didn't give all the kids high fives after every story, or my hair is too bright. (Two of those have actually happened to me while filling in for a coworker. Can you guess which ones?) To hopefully avoid the past, I set my own guidelines for parents and children as soon as we all sat down.

"Hello everyone! My name is Miss Brooke and this is toddler storytime. Miss S is feeling sick today, so I am so excited because I get to do storytime with you! My storytime is going to be a little different than Miss S's but that's ok, because you're awesome, I'm awesome, and we're going to have a wonderful time! So today I'm going to read some great books and sing lots of songs. I love when parents sing with me so the words to all of my songs are on the wall. Is everyone ready?"

The quick mention of my coworker acknowledged that there was a change, but didn't allow for conversation. Things like "why is she sick, what's wrong with her, when will she be back"- are none of the patron's business, but they will always ask if you give them a chance to.

Once I finished my spiel I immediately went into my storytime routine. I stick to pretty traditional songs and rhymes, so while they were new songs to storytime, most parents and kids had heard them before. For the ones that were unique I made sure I explained them in detail before we attempted them.

All the words to my songs and rhymes can be found here.

Opening Song
Welcome Song

Opening Rhyme/Movement
Hands Are Clapping

Book
Brown Bear, Brown Bear
Singing a book is always a great way to break the ice in a new storytime setting.

Rhyme/Movement
Itsy-Bitsy Spider

Book
Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia
This book works for babies or toddlers. By this point, most of my parents were participating with me.

Rhyme/Movement
Row, Row, Row Your Boat 

Rhyme/Movement
Roly-Poly

Book
Tuck Me In! by Dean Hacohen
I used this book because I wanted to include a craft in my storytime. I made the mistake of trying to let everyone tuck in a baby animal. This has worked for me in the past, but this group definitely couldn't handle it. I think it was a mixture of newness and just general wiggles.

Rhyme/Movement
Clap, Clap, Clap Your Hands

Rhyme/Movement
This is Big

Rhyme/Movement
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

I ended this storytime earlier than I usually would. Most of my group was still with me, but I didn't want to push it. Since this was the last storytime in the session, I also brought a craft for the toddlers. This helped ease any guilt over ending early.

Craft Time

I did have one older sibling immediately
call out that I was not wearing a polka-
 dot shirt in real life. 

I convinced him my pajamas
 were polka-dotted.

I wanted a quick, easy, and cheap craft for this storytime. I decided to have the kids color their own gingerbread person and then tuck them in. I simply printed off gingerbread cutouts on cardstock  and cut different color paper to use as sheets. The parents helped tape the sheet on when they were done coloring their person. Since crafts aren't usually done at this storytime, I had some parents who didn't understand that they had to help give their little toddlers some direction to understand what was happening.

Overall, once the parents got over their initial discomfort and really started participating and interacting with their children, it was a pretty lovely storytime.

Baby Storytime #2

My allergies are on full attack mode this week. I warned parents before we started that my new scratchy man voice was not very good at singing, but we were still going to sing our hearts out.

Check out what typical storytime looks like here. All the words to my songs and rhymes can be found here

Opening Song
Welcome Song

I had a storytime regular run to me on this song and sit in my lap. It led to a natural literacy tip...

Literacy Tip
Even if you think you have an awful singing voice (pointed to myself), babies still love it when you sing to them. Your voice is their favorite thing in the world to hear, so don't be embarrassed to sing! (I swear everyone started singing a little bit more loud and proud after this.)

Opening Rhyme/Movement
Hands are Clapping

Rhyme/Movement
Itsy-Bitsy Spider

Book
Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia
This book works for babies or toddlers. I clipped a lot of the pages for my babies, but the group loved it. Ms. Anna over at Future Librarian Superhero actually has a great tip on how to read this story using scarves! The next time I use this book, I will definitely be incorporating her ideas.

Rhyme/Movement
Row, Row, Row Your Boat 

Rhyme/Movement
Roly-Poly

Book
Peek-a-Boo, I Love You! by Sandra Magsamen
This book is small for a big group, but it still worked. Lots of animal noises and parents pretending to gasp made it a great read. Also, I walked around the circle on the last page so the babies could see themselves in the mirror.

Rhyme/Movement
Giddy-up, Giddy-up
There was a different baby in two separate sessions who signed "more" when we were done doing this bounce rhyme. It was beautiful!

Rhyme/Movement
The Noble Duke of York

Rhyme/Movement
This is Big

Choral Reading
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.
Today we chanted the book instead of singing to show that books can be read multiple ways. A lot of the parents, and myself, kept singing verses by accident. Lots of giggles during the choral reading this week.

Egg Shakers
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Baa, Baa, Black Sheep 

Rhyme/Movement
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

Playtime!