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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Slice of My New Life in the Library



Since Karen needed a well deserved break from this Slice of Life Challenge, I decided to give the old Literate Lives try this week. My first step was to ask Karen if it's ok to do a "professional" slice of life and she said absolutely, so here goes.

Back in November and December in the library we discussed the Caldecott Awards. The typical stuff, qualifications, past winners, and I included a lot of time to study the winners and discuss what made them good. After all of this, I shared my list of Caldecott Possibles as we came to call them. I asked the kids to share their Possibles with me and told them to look for the "circle C 2007" to make sure it was a new book. As it turned out, most of the nearly 50 books were the ones I chose, but there were 10 or so nominated by kids.

I compiled the list on a ballot, put all of the books on display and gave the kids plenty of time to look them over and vote. As it turned out, we had First the Egg, Kufflebunny, Too and Hugo Cabret in our top 10. Not bad!

Fast forward to two weeks ago, one of my second grade friends, I'll call him Vince, comes running up to me in the hallway all excited.

"Mr. P. I've found one of those Caldecott thingies! You know the books we voted on this year. Are we going to do that again next year?"

"Probably so, did you like that Vince?"

"You have to include this book, The Sea Serpent and Me! I found it at the BIG library and it's awesome!"

"Is it a circle C 2008?"

"YES!"

"Can you bring it in for me to look at?"

"I HAVE IT IN MY CLASS RIGHT NOW!"

And so Vince brought me the book and do you know what? HE'S RIGHT! I read it to the class I had next, also second graders, and they loved it as much as Vince. I purchased it at my favorite book store, Cover to Cover, and now they love it and are going to stock more of them too.

Can I just say, I LOVE MY JOB!

Even more slices at Two Writing Teachers.

10 comments:

  1. Hugo is one of my favorite books.
    I will have to check out Sea Serpent.
    Thanks for sharing
    Kevin

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  2. I LOVE The Sea Serpent and Me. The illustrations are gorgeous, and the story is very sweet.

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  3. Welcome Bill,
    I'm sure Kevin is happy to see another male writing here. All of us actually.
    Loved the story. What was it about that book that won everyone over?
    That's what I'm wondering?
    Bonnie

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  4. Once I read the endings of the Caldecotts to see what they had in common. I will have to try this activity with kids. They will love it. Thanks for writing about it. I post writing and reading lessons at my blog that you might find interesting or helpful. www.debrennersmith.com

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  5. What a wonderful moment chalk that up with all your other amazing exeperiences with books and kids.
    It is PRICELESS!!

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  6. Love your blog... interesting for teachers as a resource. I'm adding a link to it on my blog. (I have a blog for teachers who frequent our store, "The Pointy Pencil".)

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  7. Loving our jobs... that's the best salary I can ever ask for, right?

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  8. This is a great story. I'm so curious about this book now. I'll be reading it for myself, though. My students humor me in many things, but they would definitely draw the line at a children's book! I, however, still love to read them, so thanks for the tip!

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  9. We love going back and look at OLD winners and comparing them to the new ones. FUN!

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  10. I love how I can count on you and ...Vince for great books!! Thanks

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