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Bears, horses, and sausages! Oh my! But it’s what I’ve been doing in storytime the last few weeks, and it’s immensely satisfying to see how much the kids 
enjoy this mix.
After our opening song, I read The Three Bears. I prefer the Barton version. It’s simply told and the pictures are clear and colorful. The Three Bears is a magical story. I’ve never had a group of kids (from toddlers up through age eight) that weren’t just enthralled with it.
I then tell them we are all going to tell the story again, a different way! That’s when we do the fingerplay, The Three Bears (click here). Because The Three Bears relies so much on sequence, it’s a great story for reinforcing narrative skills. So the second time through the fingerplay, I reinforce it even more by letting the kids “remember” what comes next (bowls, chairs, beds, and bears).
Next book up–Bear Wants More by Wilson followed by more food: Ten Fat Sausages (click here). Bear Wants More is in rhyme so it builds phonological awareness as does Sausages with its rhythm and alliteration. I do it as a chant with the kids clapping on the beat. I hold up my handy-dandy flannel board stand-in (a whiteboard with pieces stuck on with double-sided tape) during the chant.
On it is a frying pan, complements of free clip art, and ten sausages, also from clip art. I print the pictures off, trim them to shape, and add the tape to their backs. The sausages won’t all actually fit in the pan so I fan them across the space above the pan in two groups of five.
We clap, we chant, and on POP, I remove one sausage and on BAM, I remove another. Then I pause and count the sausages and we start again till we get to zero sausages. I always do it a second time (sometimes a third, the kids love it) and when I place the sausages back on the board, I also count aloud.
Finally, I tell the kids I’ve got one more puzzle for them (because the sausages have been a puzzle; you can just see their little wheels a-turnin’ during it). Then we read Are You A Horse by Rash. I try to get straight through this one the first time without too many questions so they can get as much of the flow as possible. And I always quietly hold the last page up for many, many seconds until someone finally gets it and the giggles begin.
It’s not your traditional springtime storytime (except for Bear Wants More) but the kids enjoy it sooooo much.
Hope you do too!
Babette
OK, so mostly this blog is about little kids. But I am a librarian for babies up 
through young college aged folks. And I love reading YA (when I have the time) especially nowadays when I think some of the best ficiton writing for anyone is coming out of the YA camp.
So “life” and teaching in the last weeks, things were too crazy for me to get my top ten list into Persnickety Snark’s polling for the top 100 YA novels. But I did make a list and here it is. It’s in no particular order (ranking things I love drives me nuts and I don’t need that right now).
Antsy Does Time by Shusterman
The Outsiders by Hinton
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Mortal Engines by Reeves (the whole series! although the first part of two really drags, you’ve been warned)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee
The Once and Future King by White
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Peck
The Crucible by Miller (I know it’s a book–but it’s soooo right for YA)
The Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood
And number 11 I throw in for good measure unofficially. I truly love this book. I’m terribly interested to see if it ever gets the readership it deserves (from guys and girls)–and what its staying power will be over time.
Crazy Beautiful by Baratz-Logsted
I have this horror of posting and then remembering all kinds of terrific books I’ve forgotten to include! But if that happens, I may do list #2. 
Happy Reading,
Babette
You’ve probably already seen the final countdown, (my life has been really crazy as far as trying to get this posted), but this is primarily a shopping list, not an announcement list. 
So happy shopping!
25. Little Women by Alcott
24. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by Rowling
23. Little House in the Big Woods by Wilder
22. The Tale of Despereaux by DiCamillo
21. The Lightning Thief by Riordan
20. Tuck Everlasting by Babbitt
19. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Dahl
18. Matilda by Dahl
17. Maniac Magee by Spinelli
16. Harriet the Spy by Fitzhugh
15. Because of Winn-Dixie by DiCamillo
14. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by Rowling
13. Bridge to Terabithia by Paterson
12. The Hobbit by Tolkien
11. The Westing Game by Raskin
10. The Phantom Tollbooth by Juster
9. Anne of Green Gables by Montgomery
8. The Secret Garden by Burnett
7. The Giver by Lowry
6. Holes by Sachar
5. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by Konigsburg
4. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by Lewis
3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by Rowling (yeah, the first one)
2. A Wrinkle in Time by L’Engle
1. Charlotte’s Web by White
Thanks to Bird for putting together such a terrifically fun project! And Happy Reading!
Babette
And here’s the other parts of the lists:
One hundred books makes for a really long list! Here’s the next twenty-five. And on the Fuse #8 blog, the countdown has made it to #13; click here to see more. But now, back to the “shopping list!”
50. Island of the Blue Dolphins by O’Dell
49. Frindle by Clements
48. The Penderwicks by Birdsall
47. Bud, Not Buddy by Curtis
46. Where the Red Fern Grows by Rawls
45. The Golden Compass by Pullman
44. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Blume
43. Ramona the Pest by Cleary
42. Little House on the Prairie by Wilder
41. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Speare
40. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Baum
39. When You Reach Me by Stead
38. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by Rowling
37. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Taylor
36. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Blume
35. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fired by Rowling
34. The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Curtis
33. James and the Giant Peach by Dahl
32. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by O’Brien
31. Half Magic by Eager
30. Winnie-the-Pooh by Milne
29. The Dark is Rising by Cooper
28. A Little Princess by Burnett
27. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Carroll
26. Hatchet by Paulsen
That’s all for now. I’ll add #1-25 after she finishes her countdown. And then I’ll tell you my favorites for the whole 100.
Stay tuned,
Babette
Thomas Cahill has a marvelous piece in the NYTimes today about the Irish and how they saved Western Civilization after the fall of Rome. How did an 
obscure, ragtag bunch of folks in the early days of the Dark Ages manage such a feat? They copied books.
What’s an added bonus in his article is his mention of their sense of play in the midst of all the seriousness of the world dissolving around them and the rest of Europe. And of course, it being St. Patrick’s Day, Patrick gets his fair share of credit as well.
I wish Cahill had mentioned another saint, though, one equally as important to the preservation of books and thereby civilization. That is St. Columba. I learned about him through a fascinating children’s book, Across a Dark and Wild Sea by Don Brown.
As a boy St. Columba was known as Columcille, and he was son of a king. But the church taught him reading and writing, and he was forever hooked–to the point that he copied a book rather illegally and thereby started a war. Yes, a war over a book. (Boys eat this up, let me tell you!)
Devastated afterward by what his actions had wrought, he exiled himself to an island off the coast–and thus was born the religious community of Iona.
The book combines fact, some of the legends associated with Columba, watercolor illustrations that stir up the windswept coasts of Ireland, a calligraphic guide to the Uncial alphabet from Columba’s time, and a bibliography. There’s even a diagram of a coracle (no, I’m not going to tell you; you have to read the books! )
As you can tell, it’s one of my favorites.
Happy St. Paddy’s Day,
Babette
With no further adue, here’s the next batch!
75. Love That Dog by Creech
74. The Borrowers by Norton
73. My Side of the Mountain by George
72. My Father’s Dragon by Gannett
71. An Unfortunate Series of Events: The Bad Beginning by Snicket
70. Betsy-Tacy by Lovelace
69. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Stewart
68. Walk Two Moons by Creech
67. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher by Colville
66. Henry Huggins by Cleary
65. Ballet Shoes by Streatfeild
64. A Long Way from Chicago by Peck
63. Gone-Away Lake by Enright
62. The Secret of the Old Clock by Keene
61. Stargirl by Spinelli
60. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
59. Inkheart by Funke
58. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Aiken
57. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Cleary
56. Number the Stars by Lowry
55. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Paterson
54. The BFG by Dahl
53. The Wind in the Willows by Grahame
52. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Selznick
51. The Saturdays by Enright
I almost entirely cannot quibble with the selections–although I’d love to dicker on a few of the rankings. What a list though!
Read on!
Babette
I’m loving reading Betsy Bird’s Fuse #8 Top 100 Children’s Novels. And the collection of covers after each review is fabulous.
But I also want to just see a list of them. The better to go shopping with, my dears. So if you are feeling somewhat frustrated with being list-less, here they are by nothing but title and author! (I’ll post twenty-five at a time and she is posting from number 100 down to number one.)
100. The Egypt Game by Snyder
99. The Indian in the Cupboard by Banks
98. Children of Green Knowe by Boston
97. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by DiCamillo
96. The Witches by Dahl
95. Pippi Longstocking by Lindgren
94. Swallows and Amazons by Ransome
93. Caddie Woodlawn by Brink
92. Ella Enchanted by Levine
91. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Sachar
90. Sarah, Plain and Tall by MacLachlan
89. Ramona and Her Father by Cleary
88. The High King by Alexander
87. The View from Saturday by Konigsburg
86. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by Rowling
85. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Wilder
84. The Little White Horse by Goudge
83. The Thief by Turner
82. The Book of Three by Alexander
81. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Lin
80. The Graveyard Book by Gaiman
79. All of a Kind Family by Taylor
78. Johnny Tremain by Forbes
77. The City of Ember by DuPrau
76. Out of the Dust by Hesse
Ok, maybe I was skimming my reader too fast. But when I first saw this 
headline, Great ‘Read-Alouds’ for the New York Times, I thought it was for a kids’ book list.
I’ve never seen a read-aloud list for newspaper articles! What a fabulous idea! Children will hear a different style of writing and a different “grammar” beyond a story grammar. No one has ever said that when we read aloud to children, we need to read children’s picture books. But how often do we assume that’s what “read-aloud” means?
I spend a fair amount of time encouraging parents to continue reading aloud to their children beyond the preschool years and beyond the years when the child can read on his or her own. Now I have another angle to encourage!
Bear in mind, any reading aloud, as long as the child enjoys the time together, is good reading aloud. The material really doesn’t matter (my mother once read a dictionary aloud to my oldest when he was a baby; he was entranced! )
So find a book–or better still, change the pace and find a Times article and read on,
Babette
If you’re happy and you know it–speak your first word in Toddler Time! Oh 
my, what a moment! We were all singing and had reached the “Hooray!” point–when out of the blue, a just barely walking kiddo said, “Hap-py!” I’m not making this up.
We read Choo Choo Clickety-Clack by Mayo and we all got louder and louder and louder. So many great sounds to make in that book! So good for phonological awareness! So fun!
And Ring Around the Rosies was a winner as well. Lots and lots of giggles. And when the little boy with some social struggles grabbed his dad’s hand to join in–well, we did it again! We do Rosies with two verses (scroll down the column on the left to listen) and today there were children anticipating what comes next! Another name for “what comes next” is anticipation, which leads to making predictions and later reading comprehension, and sequencing, which leads to understanding how letters go together to make words (and that was the early literacy TIP for the day).
Betcha didn’t know you could have all that in twenty minutes of fingerplays and singing and a dash of reading!
Nothing but awesomeness!
Babette
Got an older elementary kid (probably boy) that just finished a great book with aliens or spies or great big swords? What can he read next?
Here’s a list I put together for someone last week:
- The Alex Rider series by Horowitz; the first title is Stormbreaker.
- Percy and the Olympians series by Riordan; the first title is The Lightning Thief. Yeah, that one with the movie coming out soon. Don’t let that hold you back. Haven’t met a kid yet that didn’t love these.
- The Johnny Maxwell series by Pratchett; most adult novelists cannot pull off a good kid’s book but Pratchett can. These are laugh out loud funny. The first one is Only You Can Save Mankind (and it does have aliens!).
Read on!
Babette
There are some movies I remember watching as a kid that I just didn’t “get.” 
Why? Because I was too young. Remember, this was in the days before videos and dvd’s. If you wanted to see a movie, you went to the theatre. And if your mother, father, or grandmother wanted to see a movie, you went too (well, most of the time. I couldn’t get my teenage aunt to let me go with her and her date to see Valley of the Dolls).
So off to the movies I went! And most of what I saw before the age of ten left me with nothing but a vivid image or two. And left me feeling pretty clueless. Here’s a partial list:
- Sound of Music (all I remembered was the graveyard scene)
- Planet of the Apes (all I remembered was the Statue of Liberty at the end)
- Thunderball (watched this one in my pj’s from the back seat of a VW at the drive-in; all I remembered was the cool underwater scooter-thingies)
- Gone with the Wind (all I remembered was the scene before intermission with the rotten carrot)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (I remembered a little more: apes and bones, and the cool talking tv/phone)
What’s this got to do with kids and reading? Conversation, of course! (Hang with me a minute more.)
I have never forgotten the cool talking tv/phone thingie in 2001 over all these years. And in fact, every single time I use Skype to talk with my college kid, I think of it! It still amazes me that we are using something, and using it for free, that was in a movie I saw when I was seven! And it stuck with me then and over all these years (a lot of years, trust me, I know, I have a birthday this week) because it was so fantastic, amazing, and almost unimaginable!
Just a few years later, in 1972, Geoffrey Hoyle, a sci-fi writer of the day, wrote a children’s book, 2010: Living in the Future. And Daniel Sinker has a copy of it, still, and has kindly placed every page online where you can read it with your kids. Click here.
And talk. Lots. About the past. About now. About the future.
About what it was like when you were a kid. About what has changed. And what hasn’t.
About what remarkable things have happened since you were a kid their age. They’ll eat it up. It’s fun for all. (And pssst, you’re building literacy and thinking skills at the same time. But don’t tell them.)
Have fun!
Babette
Much anticipated by many librarians (and hopefully other adults, and dare I say, children?), the American Library 
Association announced its version of the Golden Globes and Oscars.
These include the Newbery and Caldecott winners, probably the most well known of the awards. Actually, though, my favorite awards are the Giesel (for humor) and the Sibert (for non-fiction). So here are those four winners:
- Newbery: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
- Caldecott: The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
- Sibert: Almost Astronauts: Thirteen Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone
- Geisel: Benny and Penny in the Big No-No! by Geoffrey Hayes
And to brag a bit, I did pretty well this year. We’ve got most of the winners in the collection at Southern Peaks already.
Click here for the complete list.
Happy reading,
Babette
My Usborne web order page
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