The Book Search

I got two great new picture book biographies last week. I hadn't read either one of them, instead relying on reviews from the School Library Journal and the Non-Fiction Detectives . It turns out, having someone give you a good recommendation can save you a lot of time and money. Here are three that I really loved.  The first one is called "Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table" by Jacqueline Briggs.  It's a beautiful and vibrantly illustrated story about Will Allen, an urban farmer who is trying to make sure that everyone gets fresh, healthy food.  Here's a short interview with him. The second biography is actually less of a biography (it doesn't tell her whole life story) but tells the story of a pivotal event.  It's called "Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist makers' Strike of 1909" by Michelle Markel and illustrated by Melissa Sweet.  It's the story of Clara Lemlich, who was an immigrant to NY in the early 1900s.  She was th...

I recently joined a group with the Discovery Network called the Discovery Network Ambassadors.  Our job is to learn about all the cool tools that are available on the Discovery Network and then share them with our colleagues.  A lot of teachers have used the Discovery Network in the past for videos (they have a great collection of non-fiction videos if you haven't used them!).  As the media specialist, I'm hard pressed any more to buy DVDs because there are so many good ones available for free (at least for us because our district buys the Discovery Network for us). Video is a great way to engage your students immediately (who doesn't like to watch a video?) and with the new Common Core Standards, comparing video to text is a skill that students are expected to have.   One of the things that also makes this great, is that the videos are arranged in a searchable database, which allows you to filter your search by grade level, by subject, even by the kind of video you...