April 2007

Dear Fellow Book Lovers:

A JOURNEY THROUGH DEWEY @ YOUR LIBRARY

Libraries all across America will be celebrating National Library Week April 15-21. This year’s theme, Come Together @ Your Library, supports a community spirit that all types of libraries welcome. A terrific way to celebrate this week is to help young patrons and their parents understand that the library has books to satisfy everyone’s personal interests and curiosities. Take them on a trip through the Dewey Decimal system and they will quickly learn how libraries are arranged, and perhaps better understand that their library is the place to come together and enjoy all types of resources. Here are a few suggestions from Random House:

000 - Random House doesn’t really have a book that fits this category, but have students check the 000’s in their library for the type of books that bear this classification.

100 - The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson (Ages 10 up)

200 - Noah's Ark by Peter Spier (Ages 5-8), D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths by Ingri d’Aulaire and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire (Ages 8 up), and One World, Many Religions by Mary Pope Osborne (Ages 9-14).

300 - George and the Dragon by Chris Wormell (Ages 5-8), American Tall Tales by Mary Pope Osborne; illustrated by Michael McCurdy (Ages 9-14), The First Thanksgiving by Linda Hayward (Ages 6-8), Inside Delta Force: The Story of America’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit by Eric L. Haney (Ages 12 up), To Establish Justice by Patricia C. McKissack and Arlene Zarembka (Ages 14-16), The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia C. McKissack; illustrated by Brian Pinkney (Ages 10 up), and The Code Book for Young People by Simon Singh (Ages 12 up).

400 - The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter

500 - How High Can a Dinosaur Count? by Valorie Fisher (Ages 5-9), Animal Babies by Harry McNaught (Ages 0-3), Dinosaurs! by Dr. Robert T. Bakker; illustrated by Luis Rey (Ages 3-7), Close to Shore by Michael Capuzzo (Ages 10 up), Honeybees by Emily Neye (Ages 7-9).

600 - Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building by Deborah Hopkinson; illustrated by James E. Ransome (Ages 4-9), The Ear Book by Al Perkins; illustrated by Henry Payne (Ages 2-6), Be Healthy! It's a Girl Thing: Food, Fitness, and Feeling Great by Mavis Jukes and Lilian Wai-Yin Cheung; illustrated by Debra Ziss (Ages 10 up), Accidents May Happen by Charlotte Jones (Ages 8 up).

700 - What a Song Can Do edited by Jennifer Armstrong (Ages 10 up), The Cat in the Hat Songbook by Dr. Seuss (Ages 6-9), The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night by Peter Spier (Ages 3-8), Baseball's Greatest Hitters by Sydelle Kramer (Ages 7-10).

800 - Favorite Poems Old and New by Helen Ferris (All ages), The Beauty of the Beast by Jack Prelutsky; illustrated by Meilo So (Ages 10 up), Go! by Dee Lillegard; illustrated by Valeri Gorbachev (Ages 3-6).

900 - Pompeii by Mary Pope Osborne; illustrated by by Bonnie Christensen (Ages 6-10), Cause by Tonya Bolden (Ages 8-12), The American Story: 100 True Tales from American History by Jennifer Armstrong; illustrated by Roger Roth (Ages 6 up).

Biography - The Champ by Tonya Bolden; illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (Ages 5-8), Andy Warhol, Prince of Pop by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan (Ages 12 up), Anne Frank by Josephine Poole; illustrated by Angela Barrett (Ages 10 up)

Older students may also enjoy an activity with a different twist; what section of the library would the main characters from the following novels find books of interest:

Whittington by Alan Armstrong; illustrated by S.D. Schindler (Ages 8-12)

Frenchtown Summer by Robert Cormier; illustrated by Dan Krovatin (Ages 12 up)

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis (Ages 10 up)

Summer of Fear by Lois Duncan (Ages 12 up)

Maggie's Door by Patricia Reilly Giff (Ages 8-12)

Flush by Carl Hiaasen (Ages 10 up)

The Wreckers by Iain Lawrence (Ages 10-14)

The Giver by Lois Lowry (Ages 12 up)

Holes by Louis Sachar (Ages 10 up)

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder (Ages 10 up)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Ages 12 up)

You may email me at pscales@bellsouth.net.