The Ramona Series by Beverly Cleary (audiobook)

Ramona Quimby lives on Klickitat Street with her mother, father, and big sister, Beezus, and their old cat, Picky Picky. She's never afraid to try new things and is always up to something. I hadn't read the Ramona Quimby series since I was little, and I was thrilled at how well this classic children's series had aged. The conflicts and challenges of being a little sister and a new student and making friends are all still perfectly real. The idea of making tin can stilts is still deliciously intriguing to small ears. And in this audio version (all eight books for the price of one audiobook credit if you're an Audible member) is expertly narrated by Stockard Channing, who creates each voice and moment to perfection. I can't recommend this enough for a long car trip or just to keep on hand for carpool lines. It will have kids and adults spellbound for the entire set.

Includes:

Beezus and Ramona

Ramona the Pest

Ramona the Brave
Ramona and Her Father
Ramona and Her Mother 
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 
Ramona Forever
Ramona's World

Download it here: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Ramona-Quimby-Audio-Collection-Audiobook/B0067QRF8Q

The Education of Ivy Blake by Ellen Airgood

If you liked Prairie Evers or just this kind of story and cozy characters, you might try The Education of Ivy Blake, also by Ellen Airgood. The books go together, but don’t necessarily have to be read in order. Ivy and her mother are reunited, and Ivy feels like all her dreams are coming true. But it’s not the happy ending she was hoping for, and Ivy is too ashamed to tell the Evers family how scared and lonely she is. It can get pretty dark, but you’ll be impressed with how Ivy finds her inner strength through a creative love of moviemaking. This book really looks at what it means to create your own identity.

Prairie Evers, by Ellen Airgood

Prairie Evers by Ellen Airgood is a warm and cozy story of friendship and family. Ten-year-old Prairie Evers and her family just unpacked from their move from North Carolina to a farm in upstate New York, when her Grammy, who has homeschooled Prairie all her life, decides to return to the mountains. Prairie devotes herself to her new flock of chickens, but soon, her parents enroll her in school for the first time, and Prairie makes her first real friend, Ivy. Realizing that Ivy and her mother have a rocky relationship, Prairie learns their tragic family secrets, and she is determined to try to help her friend find happiness.

The View from Saturday by Elaine Konigsburg

Elaine Konigsburg’s The View from Saturday is a Newberry Award winner, and it is really a collection of four short stories of sixth graders, all tied together by their teacher, Mrs. Olinski. Noah was accidental best man at Nadia’s and Ethan’s grandparents’ wedding, and Ethan defends the new Indian student, Julian, from the sixth grade bullies. Each character has a really distinctive voice and style of thinking, so the stories intertwine but are very different.
I liked that not all of the characters are likable all the time. Konigsburg does something really nifty, where she uses the Academic Bowl questions to walk the reader back in time to understand the very personal and human reason these students know the answers. I loved that each child had something to offer the others. It’s so important to remember that middle schoolers get such a bad rap, when really they are capable of such selflessness. This is a great empathy and friendship book, and just a fun read.

Always Abigail by Nancy Cavanaugh

If you enjoy making and checking off a good list, this is a great book for you. A fun piece of Realistic Fiction, Always Abigail, is a SC Book Winner, written by Nancy Cavanaugh. It isn’t exactly a diary, it’s a list journal, or maybe you’d call it a listicle, written by sixth grader, Abigail Walters, to keep track of all the things she thinks are important (Pom Squad), awesome (her best friends, Alli and Cami), and terrible (her mean language arts teacher, The Hawk, and her uncool assigned class partner, Gabby Marco).

Abigail longs to join the Pom Squad and to be popular, but with Gabby Marco, she starts to develop a friendship that is more genuine than what she had with her supposed besties. I liked that Cavanaugh didn’t make it easier for Abigail to do the right thing, which happens in too many books and movies. Gabby did not get cooler or prettier or less weird. The perks of being a cheerleader did not fade. So yeah, by the end, Abigail’s struggle seemed genuinely hard. Abigail realizes some not so delicious things about herself, and I think it helps us recognize those opportunities in our own lives when we actually get to decide to “be better.”

Experimenting with Light Up Poetry

I got to experiment with paper circuits with my later elementary school and middle school campers this week, and I have to say, I am a huge fan! Charleston Library Society bought Chibitronics, which is a highly reputable brand, and I’ve seen them on a few maker pages. These can be purchased from Amazon or at chibitronics.com.
          

A paper circuit is an electronic circuit built on a paper surface, consisting of an LED sticker connected with copper tape and a watch battery and combines knowledge of electricity and polarity with some mental and physical dexterity. These are a fun and small maker project that won’t take a ton of storage, require only maybe 30-45 minutes to complete (depending on your project), and don't need a lot of extra equipment.
The Charleston County Main Branch has made Christmas cards with light up stars. I’ve seen schools use them to light paper mache letters to hang on the wall. Other uses include light-up origami, fine art like a glowing version of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and in my case, poetry.

In our camp, we made lighted poems, either original works or poems chosen from our juvenile book collection. Some of the kids chose Shel Silverstein poems, some picked Kwame Alexander, even a Walter de la Mare. A few kids wrote their own poems, which was wonderful but did make for a much longer process for them. Each got three lights in yellow, blue and pink, two pieces of cardstock, a sharpie and stamps, and they could design what they liked. I had a variety of lino block “stamps,” such as light bulbs, snowflakes, trees, acorns, leaves, and such, or the kids could use sharpies, paints or gel pens.
 
As an example, here is a picture of my "City" poem, by Langston Hughes, with lino block streetscape prints and three lit circuits. It helped the campers to see how one was made, and truthfully, I like to test out projects before I teach them, especially with new technology.

Under your art piece, the copper tape is aligned with the Chibi lights, which I placed under my stars and windows. Each sticker has a tiny Y, P or B to indicate color, and an even tinier + or – to match to your tape and battery. A small piece of paper folded and glued was marked with + or – too, to avoid confusion. When the battery is placed, you simply fold the paper shut over the battery, and voila! Let there be light! Outside vendors on Chibitronics and Amazon offer sticky tabs for this, or even "push me" stickers.

Chibitrobics makes a tidy starter package for $30 that comes with templates, 16-feet of copper wire, 12 sticker lights and two batteries. However, for that same price, you can buy 30 stickers, and then buy a 55 yards of ¼ inch copper tape from the hardware store for $12, and ten CR2032 batteries for $10. There are plenty of tutorials online, so the templates are not really necessary. Chibitronics offers classroom packs of 90 circuit stickers for $110.

Chibitronics also offers a Love to Code (LTC) system for $30 that uses a Chibi Chip to make the LED stickers blink and fade. Students can add interactivity to greetings cards and classroom projects by connecting switches and sensors to the Chibi Chip using Microsoft’s MakeCode Editor, or by writing Arduino-style computer code using Chibitronics’ LTC Editor. Here is a video example of what this looks like with a tree of origami flowers.

Here is a really simple slide show on how paper circuits work by a wonderful maker librarian in Texas, Michelle Cooper. I’ve taken a webinar of hers, and she is full of great ideas. I like how paper circuits would be easy and relatively inexpensive compared to larger robotics or 3D printing projects for a smaller maker space, a maker station or a classroom project. It's a pretty versatile little tool with valid science concepts that aren't too complicated for multiple age groups. It would be great for art, science, math, and language arts, or just for fun around the holidays. Sure, there are maker projects that offer more in depth and collaborative learning, but this is a super cool product that gets kids really fired up and creative.

Bad news for outlaws: The remarkable life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshall

Nelson, V.M. with Christie, R.G. (2009) Bad news for outlaws: The remarkable life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshall. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books

This rather more grown-up picture book outlines the life of Bass Reeves, from his childhood in slavery through his deputization by Judge Isaac C. Parker in 1875 and his methods of bringing in criminals. He escaped slavery after striking his master, and went west to live with the Native Americans. Because the west was so lawless, judges were instructed to deputize U.S. Marshalls, who were to bring in criminals dead or alive. Reeves, the only Black marshall, brought most of his over three thousand outlaws in alive, and not because he wasn’t a crackshot, but because he had such a strong moral compass. And because he was so wily.

Readers learn about some of Reeves’ more famous lawbreakers, and some of his more interesting methods of arrest, like impersonating outlaws or farmers. Nelson does a nice job combining facts with storytelling, which makes Reeves seem as exciting but more real than some Western tall tales. There is a photo of Reeves in the back, with his trademark bushy moustache and imposing gaze, as well as a glossary of some of the fun western words like “dry-gulch” and “shooting irons.” Some of the more serious words, like “warrant” and “lynching,” are included, which I’d already had to explain (badly) for my seven year old. The end notes also offer a timeline of both the country and Reeves’ exploits, and some further reading and websites, info on Judge Parker and Indian Territory and her bibliography. These last I may be able to use for one of my summer camps for the library, as I look for western stories and frontier life! The artwork is a good accompaniment to the stories with a “cruder” folk style evocative of a hard, dry country teeming with two-legged varmints. They actually worked very well telling a story about rustic frontier life.