Libraries supporting literacy

Henning Mankell, plenary speaker, IFLA 2010, World Library and Information Congress, Gothenburg, Sweden.
I was alerted to this by the CILIP announcement of the untimely death of Bob McKee. What a shock as I had only been speaking to him on 20th July at the House of Commons launch of the school libraries survey. He had supported SLG so well in all our efforts and he seemed to be looking forward to his retirement.
So I then went to investigate the conference and listened to two presentations, this one and the Hans Rosling one (which was very annoying as you could not see the ppt he was pointing at, but much of the content seemed similar to other of his talks available on TED)
This Mankell talk was about literacy and the role of libraries. I would suggest you listen

Laugh at least once a day or life would be too miserable
To be able to read and write the question of being literate
What I want more than anything else in my life is an identity card, to get an identity card I need to be literate
Illiteracy is a plague that haunts the world.
The internet is the only thing we can thank the army for
People who read are armed forces words and pens are among the most dangerous things there are

His talk reminded me of a poem, in the past we did a lesson using this poem as a writing frame to discuss identity. Some of the poems the students produced were amazing and gave us such an insight into their lives, far more than if we had just asked them to write about what was  important to them. When I read the poem I realise what Mankell means about words being dangerous things but they are precious too and we need to take care how we use them.

Poem by Miroslav Holub A boy's head
(Image)


In it there is a space-ship

and a project

for doing away with piano lessons

And there is

Noah's ark,

which shall be first.

And there is

an entirely new bird

an entirely new hare

an entirely new [bumble-bee.

There is a river

that flows upwards

There is a multiplication table

There is anti-matter

And it just cannot be trimmed.

I believe

that only what cannot be trimmed

is a head

There is much promise

in the circumstance

that so many people have heads.

Miroslav Holub

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

The Perfect Book

I have been trying to read lots of teenage fiction ready for the new book club I want to start in September. Think I will call it First Choice Club, unless I think of anything better. Members will get the opportunity to read new books first (wont include the major new titles but the new ones that they might not otherwise notice) and hopefully the students might than do some sort of recommendation for the books to promote to others.
To remind me of each book I read I am making a brief record about it, again following ideas in Igniting a Passion for Reading. For each book I am trying to think of a hook, how I would sell the experience of reading the book to the students, not what it is about but how they will feel if they read it.

Then a few notes on plot to remind me and and idea of genre and target age. Just finish Simone Elkeles "Perfect Chemistry". At first I thought it was going to be very chick lit but infact it is more about loyalty and doing the right thing rather than what is expected of you. Even shed a few tears towards the end. Not sure about the epilogue though.

Readers' Advisory Work

At the moment I am planning a lesson for Year 7 about choicing fiction and was thinking of planning it on Steven Layne's shopping for fiction ideas. And now, as always, once something it going round in my head I spot other relating items. Checking emails this morning alerted me to SLJ's latest issue and I read this article
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/885803-312/its_all_about_text_appeal.html.csp
Then thought it would great if I could read "Readers' advisory service in the public library" By Joyce G. Saricks and low and behold it is available online in google books. or at least up to page 41!
Skimming through spotted these sentences.
"most readers are not usually looking for a book on a certain subject. They want a book with a particular "feel""
We often ask students what they are interested in and then try to find a fiction book on that topic. But in reality this is probably all wrong and explains why the football fiction books are not popular. Perhaps if you like football you like playing it not reading about it. For reading you probably want something that makes you feel the same way you feel when you are playing football.
Now will have to buy or borrow thew book if I want to know more

Header

Thought it was about time to sort out a header for the blog.
This is part of a display that we have had in the school canteen. It is on a huge display board so it was quite a challenge to come up with something that filled the space.
You can see the full image on my flickr photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgeabbot/sets/72157594419908410/

Next challenge will be to change it regularly!

A passion for reading

As well as reading lots of fiction I do like reading books about reading. By fire my imagination and inspire me to keep on trying new tacks at school to get kids reading for fun.
My latest find is Steven Layne's Igniting a passion for reading http://www.stenhouse.com/html/stevelayne.htm

Although really for teachers it has some great ideas for how to do just that.
I am now reading it for the second time so that I can pick out stuff that will work for me.
I am going to use his idea of teaching students about shopping for books with the booked up books this September. ( the book is available online at the moment, this section being on page 78)
He suggests that students do not know how to shop for books in the same way as they would know how to shop for clothers, phones etc. and that at school we do not really model the choosing process. He reminded me of Goggle Eyes (Anne Fine) when he jokes about kids going into a shop and asking for the yellow dot section. My daughter hated choosing books at school because the teacher told her that as she was a good reader she could only choose from the pink shelf, which was all the classics, when what she wanted to read was the Jean Ure's and Paul Danziger's (it was a while ago)
Anyway I digress. The shopping idea model's the whole choosing process and cant wait to try it out. At least I get 10 tries at getting it spot on!
I also like the way he emphasises that it does matter that students remember who wrote a book. (and who illustrated it) His analogy for this is that students would know who made their favourite clothes, which team their favourite footballer plays for and who sings the songs they like so they ought to remember who wrote the names of the people who write the books they like.

House of Commons

Time has flown as ever and the event now seems historic.
Got there early and it was great to catch up with people. I wonder if everyone's career world is so wonderfully networked as school librarian's, probably.
Cakes and tea were lovely, could have done with a goody bag as there was lots left over.
I was disappointed that Jim Knight was not there but Stephen Timms expounded the wonders of libraries.
Sue Shaper gave a great speech with key messages for different groups of people, will ask her if we can put her speech on CILIP SLG site.
As she said at that event we were preaching to the converted and in reality it is all the others that we need to reach.