Monica @ Covington Archive.

The Pacific Northwest Library Association has announced the nominees for next year's Young Reader's Choice Award. Check out these great books today!!

JUNIOR
The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley's Journal by Jeff Kinney
Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis 
Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke
Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Marley: a Dog Like No Other by John Grogan 
Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
No Talking by Andrew Clements

 

INTERMEDIATE
Alchemyst: Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
Zen And The Art Of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick
Peak by Roland Smith
Plain Janes by Cecil Castelucci
Schooled by Gordon Korman
The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex 
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landry

Librarians from all over Washington state attended an Early Learning Symposium at the Pierce County Library Processing and Administration Center in Tacoma.  The event was sponsored by the Foundation for Early Learning who is facilitating a partnership called the Early Learning Public Library Partnership.  I was one of those librarians lucky enough to attend this worthwhile event and returned with a renewed spirit and a wealth of information to help serve King County kids better.

One workshop I attended was all about a fantastic national organization called Reach Out and Read which is dedicated to getting books into the hands of children through their healthcare providers. The books are free to the families and presented to the children as part of their regular doctor visits.  Check out their website for more information. 

Of particular interest to parents is a wonderful one-sheet brochure called "Developmental Milestones of Early Literacy" which explains where babies through preschool-age children should be developmentally in regards to Early Literacy and what parents can do at each stage.  It is also available in Spanish and Chinese and is free to print from the Reach Out and Read website.  

For more information on Early Literacy, King County Library System offers a wealth of information too in our efforts to help kids get Ready To Read!   

Come to the Covington Library on Tuesday, November 18th at 7pm for what promises to be an entertaining multicultural evening with an amazing storyteller, Gene Tagaban, full of story, laughter, insight, vision and spirit. Be it trickster stories, creation stories, a portrayal of his grandmother or his personal life journey of becoming the "Raven Dancer," Gene masterfully weaves them all together.

Gene Tagaban/Guuy Yaaw, is an accomplished and gifted speaker, storyteller, actor, dancer, musician and trainer. His heritage is Cherokee, Tlingit and Filipino. He is of the Tak'deintaan Raven Freshwater Sockeye clan of Hoonah, Alaska, and the Child of a Wooshkeetaan Eagle Shark clan of Juneau, Alaska. He was featured at the National Storytelling Festival and played a lead role in Sherman Alexie's The Business of Fancydancing.

 

Gene Performing for the Dalai Lama at the Key Arena in Seattle 

October through May, the King County Library Foundation sponsors a reading incentive program called Ready-Set-Read in which elementary school-aged kids can earn free books at all King County Libraries!  All kids have to do is read at least 20 minutes per day for 20 days within one month.  Many kids have to do this as part of their homework so earning a free book from the library is an added bonus!  A grown-up helps the child keep track of the number of days a child has completed by dating and initialing one footprint on the Ready Set Read Form.  When all 20 footprints have been initialed, come to your King County Library with your completed Ready-Set-Read form and claim your prize.

For more information about Ready-Set-Read and family reading tips, check out this information on the KCLS KidsPage. 

Bestselling author J.A. Jance will be visiting the Covington Library!!  This free event will be Tuesday, August 19, 7pm.

Jance will be discussing her latest work Damage Control.

The suspense-filled adventures of Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady continue as an elderly couple drives off a cliff in Coronado National Monument and a gruesome discovery awaits exposure by the subsiding rains of an ominous thunderstorm.

For some cheap, family entertainment, check out mother nature's fireworks!  If you've never spent a cool August night watching shooting stars with your family, now is your chance to give it a try.   According to NASA, the Perseid Meteor Shower will peak at 2am this coming Tuesday, August 12. 

At StartDate Online, you can learn more about the different meteor showers happening throughout 2008 and viewing tips so that you will have better luck sighting shooting stars.

KCLS also has a plethora of materials for those interested in astronomy. Junior astronomers might be interested in reading The Everything Kids' Astronomy Book:  Blast Into Outer Space With Stellar Facts, Intergalactic Trivia, and Out-Of-This-World Puzzles by Kathi Wagner and Sheryl Racine or Exploring Meteors by Rebecca Olien.

For an extreme read, check out Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs.  Fourteen-year-old Brady and his cousin Quinn love extreme sports, but nothing could prepare them for the aftermath of Brady's close encounter with a meteorite after it crashes into his Black Hills, South Dakota, bedroom.

Book groups are a great way to make new friends in people and new friends in books.  Many King County Library System branches have book groups.   Some book groups are for adults, some are for teens and there are even some for younger kids. 

 

For instance, at the Covington Library, we're adding a new book group just for kids, one especially with homeschooling families in mind.  We will be meeting one Tuesday each month, September through May, at 1:30pm in the library meeting room.  It is designed for kids ages 8 to 12, but younger siblings are always welcome.  A snack and juice box will be provided, courtesy of the Friends of the Covington Library.   Our first meeting will be September 30 and we will be reading Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner.  Copies will be available for check out at the Covington Library beginning mid-August. 

  

I will also be leading two book groups in connection with the Black Diamond Library.  The Black Diamond Brown Bag Book Bunch will meet one Thursday a month at 12:30, September through May.  Bring your lunch!  It is designed for kids ages 8 to 12, younger siblings always welcome and homeschooling families are encouraged.  Our first meeting will be September 18 in the Black Diamond Library meeting room.   The other book group is the Black Diamond After School Kids Book Group, also meeting one Thursday a month.  This book group will meet after school at Black Diamond Elementary at 3:45 for all kids ages 8 to 12.  Pizza and juice box provided by the Friends of the Black Diamond Library.  Black Diamond Elementary School kids will need to have a note from their grown-up in order to stay after school.  Grown-ups will need to pick up and sign out their kids by 4:35pm.  Our first meeting will be September 18.  Both Black Diamond book groups will be reading The End of the Beginning by Avi.  Copies will be available for check out at the Black Diamond Library  beginning mid-August. 

 

Remember to check with your own community library about what book groups they may offer.

It's not too late! Kids can still get signed up to "Catch the Reading Bug" and earn prizes. When you have read 500 minutes, visit your library to collect your halfway prize, a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut. When you have read a total of 1,000 minutes, visit your library to collect your finisher prize, a pair of buggy binoculars. Claim your finisher prize by August 31 and enter a drawing to be eligible to win a new laptop computer!

This year there is also a special program just for preschoolers. Parents can register and pick up a Summer Reading Game at your local library. Color or put a matching sticker on the activities you do with your child. Bring the completed game to your library by September 15 to receive your child's prize. One prize per child...

If you're not sure what the school-age children in your life could be reading, we've got the resources to help you by way of booklists created by KCLS Children's Librarians! 

KCLS has many booklists which parents, caregivers and educators find helpful.  There is a wide variety of topics, from heritage to history to horses.  Grown-ups are also delighted to find our graded booklists which they may use to help them choose appropriate books for their child's reading level: Kindergarten-Grade 1, Grades 2-3, & Grades 4-5.

If you are getting ready to send a little one off on the grand adventure called "The First Day of School," you may want to check out the online KCLS booklist "Starting School."   Just go to the KidsPage and select the top choice "Good Books for Kids."  When you get to that page, choose "Starting School" from the drop-down menu and that will bring up a wonderful list of suggestions related to starting school.  You might also pick up a booklist called "Books About Kindergarten."