Top Three Most Viewed Blog Posts Linky Party

By Denise Krebs, Children's Literature Moderator

I started this Children's Literature blog during the summer of 2011, inspired by my Children's Literature college students. It is a blog where anyone is invited to submit posts about children's literature. We've had twelve submissions so far coming from Canada, United States, New Zealand, and Australia, written by college students, librarians, junior high and elementary teachers, and a writer-principal.  One of my seventh grade students is working on a post now.

Now, as part of the Top Three Most Viewed Blog Posts Linky Party by Fern Smith, the three Children's Literature posts that were most viewed in 2011...

The first post on our blog, and the most viewed post, came from Nancy Carroll, a fourth grade teacher from Massachusetts. She wrote about the Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer. Read her post here.

The next post was on August 10, 2011. This was Picture Book 10 for 10, a wonderful serendipitous children's literature community event on August 10.  Teachers, students, parents chose their best ten children's books and wrote about them. I wrote this post with my children's literature students. We each chose two books that were must haves for our children's literature library. Read our choices here.

The third most popular post was written by Julie Swenson, college student extraordinaire. She wrote a wonderful review of the book Escape from Slavery: Five Journeys to Freedom. Read it here. 

Thanks to Fern for planning this Linky Party, and for you for reading this post.  If you are interested in children's literature too, I hope you will read the Writer's Guidelines and consider joining us.

Latte and Literature

By Lyn Howlin, Children's Literature Blogger

 

This year I have been privileged to be invited to a series of Latte and Literature afternoons.

These very social gatherings are held about every 6 weeks in a coffee shop.

Natalie with some of her many books.

Natalie, an ex-teacher, who now works in a book store, brings along the latest selection of children’s books. She has always researched them well and is able to give us a story outline and draw our attention to particular features in layout design, written or visual text.

The group who attends this very social gathering are a mixture of teachers, teacher-librarians and student teachers.

The books seem to provide a springboard for a great exchange of ideas and views. There are always wonderful discussions about other books by this author or illustrator and suggestions as to how this book may be used in the classroom to enhance teaching. Sometimes we just enjoy the book.

One of our student teachers, Kate Booth, keeps track of the books we discuss and adds further information about them on her Captain Flint blog. We also enjoy the latte (or milkshake in my case) and the getting together with like-minded people.

It really is a fun way to spend time sharing and learning more about the amazing range of children’s books now available.

Image taken by OzLyn and used with permission.