Dog stories

A small group of fifth graders gathers in the Reading Room at lunch to talk about books. "I read Shiloh" announces the hefty fellow lounging back against the bookshelves. This starts a discussion of dog stories - the quiet thoughtful guy had read Where the Red Fern Grows and most of them had read one or the other. They toss out bits of the plots. They remember that Shiloh was an award winner. "Why are they all so sad?" asks someone.
"Yeah," they all agree, "Why does the dog always die?"
"I could write a dog story" says the one who started it all. "There's a boy and he gets a dog and KABOOM the dog explodes and the end. I bet I'd win all those awards too."

Backwards

How to continue to make alphabetical order interesting? We've lined up by their names starting with "A" and we've lined up in reverse starting with "Z". Ah, what if I wrote their names backwards and we line up by their backward names in alphabetical order?
They are distracted during the story, looking at the strange words on the board. I can see in each class the moment when one of them figures out that those strange assemblages of letters are their names. The whispering and pointing spreads across the group. They are unusually attentive and patient lining up, being delighted as I twist my tongue pronouncing their names backwards: Enirahtac, Nosam, Ylil.
Just as I am congratulating myself on their docility, they carry my brilliant idea to the next level - spin around and stream out of the Reading Room giggling and walking backwards.

Just a book

She comes in regularly, this round faced girl with her short black hair and sweet dark eyes. She smiles engagingly and asks the same question every time "Just a book to read?". I'm figuring out what sort of a book. Something contemporary. Something with a girl. Something sad - child abuse or kidnapping or crazy parents.

I look at her untroubled face, placidly demanding another story of a terrible childhood.

I suggest - have you read this one - that one - the one where the girl takes care of her autistic brother? the one where the mother abuses the girl? the one where the girl goes off to find her mother's past? "I read it" she says over and over again, "I read that one".

Another view

Here's how the school librarian appears to the students.

Focus

Here is a child who wiggles and squirms in reading time. He's always turning here or there, distracted by any one else's slightest motion.
Here he comes into the library and sees, on the slanted book display right inside the door that coveted book, The Racecar Alphabet. I'd had it out in the Reading Room as an example for a lesson on alphabetical order. Despite the boys' pleading requests to read it, I'd stuck to my lesson and only pointed to the cover as I talked about ABC books. Now he has it!
He spreads it out on the floor right there and stretches out on his belly to carefully open it up. For surely ten minutes he lays still, concentrating on his prize.
A gaggle of fourth graders comes in to finish answering questions on their work sheets. Each one steps over the body prone on the floor across the doorway. He never looks up.
I think, ah, the power of literature.

School Pictures

Who knew? School pictures include the librarian!

Kicking

The morning kindergarteners pour into the Reading Room. 16 of them sit down more or less quietly and listen as I begin talking. The 17th lies flat on the floor on his back, staring at the ceiling, his arms spread out. OK, I think, as long as he's quiet. Then he discovers that his feet reach the back of a girl in front of him. He pushes, a little. She doesn't respond. Then he kicks. She protests. Then we talk about sitting up and not kicking. He lies still. I go back to the book I'm sharing. He twists a little and discovers that he can reach the boy next to him. He pushes, a little. The boy pushes back. He kicks. I move him back to the corner, usually a prize position for someone in most classes - they like to hide back there between the shelves and the dehumidifier. He sits for almost a minute. Then he lies down. He discovers that the dehumidifier rolls. He pushes, a little. It moves, a little. Then he kicks. The dehumidifier flies to the end of its cord.
This seems to satisfy whatever urge has driven him and he quietly writhes on the floor in the corner until our reading time is over.

Alphabetical Order

Why do they always want to be first in line? What IS the big deal? Still, after months of instruction in making a line, why do they shove and push and edge each other out to be first? What's with the "He cut!" and "She got in front of me!" complaints?
Today, after sharing ABC books and discovering that you could actually predict what letter would be on the next page of an alphabet book; after guessing our way through "A is for....?" and "Tomorrow's Alphabet"; after finding a favorite letter in "Animalia"; after finding the alphabet in "Old Black Fly" - today I lined them up alphabetically. And they were fine, accepting that alphabetical order is a force like gravity about which one cannot fuss. Only, in a whisper as she left, Stellie said "my real name is Estelle". I had to acknowledge that indeed, she would not be at the end of the line if I had used her real name, and she trotted off happy to have established her place in the grand scheme of alphabetical order.

A Day Off

The fifth grades are going to do historical fiction as their next genre of reading. Would I do booktalks? Of course! Have I prepared booktalks? No. I've spent an inordinate amount of time working on organizing historical fiction by the year in which the story takes place - it became one of those compulsive projects: once begun, it had to be completed, sensible or not, and so hours and hours have gone into creating this year-by-year list. Today, with no school and with the booktalks to be given tomorrow, I spent finally reading some of the books I hadn't already read. The gray and misty day was perfect for curling up in the big green club chair with a stack of books. I've gulped down book after book, and made not one single note, marked not one passage to read aloud. I would never let a student teacher get away with winging it like this.