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Re: ccbc-net digest: October 11, 2010
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From: Vicki Cobb <vicki.cobb2_at_verizon.net>
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 08:57:23 -0400
The success of our blog, Interesting Nonfiction for Kids, where about two dozen award-winning nonfiction authors discuss their approach to content and to the writing process, is gaining in popularity. Yet, I've been listening in to teachers who are required to use prescribed texts in their classrooms. It doesn't even occur to them that all the kids don't have to read the same book on a subject or that students can read more than one book on a subject. They are supposed to teach critical thinking but their students are only exposed to one point of view in their readings. One literacy teacher said that 50-85% of the assessment tests is nonfiction yet kids spend an average of 3.6 minutes a day reading that kind of material. I sat in on a Twitter chat with teachers who were complaining about the weight and the cost of text books and thought that they could just replace them with open source material downloaded from the web. The premise here is that one
is interchangeable with another (editorial comments, mine). In the current discussion about educational reform, there is almost no discussion of WHAT kids are reading. It has also been my experience in traveling to schools across the country, that there is often little or no cross-pollination between the library and the classroom. I know that many librarians beg teachers to keep them in the loop so they can pull books but teachers are too overworked and terrified of straying from the mandated course to take advantage. They dump their kids in the library and leave for a prep period and probably don't even know the name of a single prominent nonfiction author.
We are trying to change this with our free database on www.inkthinktank.com so that teachers can find age appropriate books on subjects they're required to teach that are aligned to National Educational Standards. When I last checked we had almost 2500 registered users.
Vicki Cobb
----- Original Message -----
From: "CCBC Network digest" To: "ccbc-net digest recipients" Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 1:05 AM Subject: ccbc-net digest: October 11, 2010
CCBC-NET Digest for Monday, October 11, 2010.
1. Re: Nonfiction 2. RE: Nonfiction 3. Nonfiction 4. Nonfiction books 5. RE: Nonfiction books 6. RE:Nonfiction 7. Variety of Nonfiction 8. Using nonfiction with students 9. Re: Notable Non-Fiction 10. RE: Notable Non-Fiction 11. Re: Notable Non-Fiction 12. Re: Nonfiction 13. RE: Nonfiction books 14. Nonfiction 15. Re: Notable Non-Fiction
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Nonfiction From: bookmarch_at_aol.com Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 07:14:54 -0400 (EDT) X-Message-Number: 1
There has not been a big rush to respond to the initial question on nonfiction,so I wonder if I may be indulged in slightly reframing it -- or at least mapping out the NF world as I see it? NF is poised in an unusual spot in the library. On the one hand it is an easy popular choice through middle school when books are lively, colorful, and match the interests of readers -- whether detectives, dinos, pirates, trucks, or, more recently, body functions. Years ago Betty Carter pointed out that some of the most popular nonfiction of all was How to Draw Horses -- and surely the modern equivalent books that tell you how to draw Manga or Anime have their ardent fans. On the other hand, though, nonfiction both gains and suffers from the fact that every single young person in America is exposed to nonfiction subjects every day -- in school. School cannibalizes nonfiction -- turning interesting areas into textbook dullness, or -- increasingly -- database snippets. So nonfiction books, especially as they are aimed at up per middle grade and high school, face the challenge that they need to deal with subjects teachers teach (in the hope that a school might use them) and need to be as completely unlike the classroom text as possible (to engage the reading interest of students). I would urge those of you who evaluate nonfiction to keep two key things in mind: nonfiction is literature (indeed this is recognized in the new National Core Standards) -- it is a form of writing designed not just to engage the reader, but to inspire the reader to think, to question, to look at the world in new ways. And second, nonfiction books for younger readers are (or can be) very carefully designed and illustrated. As much care and thought often goes into the design and illustration of photo-illustrated nonfiction as the best picture book. The nonfiction we create has nothing in common with textbooks -- in fact it is the anti-textbook.
Maybe we should call nonfiction: heavily illustrated, beautifully designed, idea books. A mental challenge in a beautiful package.
Marc Aronson
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: Nonfiction From: sully_at_sully-writer.com Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:12:09 -0700 X-Message-Number: 2
I agree wholeheartedly with Marc that nonfiction is the "anti-textbook." When I worked as a school librarian I always encouraged teachers to use nonfiction books in the lessons they were teaching, particularly in the areas of history, science, language arts, music, and art. Knowing how limited a classroom teacher's free time is, I would go so far as to select the books myself, check them out to under her name and personally deliver them to the classroom. I found they were very appreciative and receptive to the gesture. In a short time, I had many teachers coming to me with specific requests for books they could use in their lessons. Teachers do want these books as alternatives and supplements for their lessons because they realize that good nonfiction books do an exemplary job of introducing young people to subject-matter and their students respond enthusiastically to them.
Edward T. Sullivan, Rogue Librarian Author, _The Ultimate Weapon: The Race to Develop the Atomic Bomb_ (Holiday House, 2007) Visit my web site, http://www.sully-writer.com
Visit my blog, Rogue Librarian: All About Books and Reading http://sullywriter.wordpress.com
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/sullywriter
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re:
Nonfiction From: bookmarch_at_aol.com
Date: Mon, October 11, 2010 7:14 am To: pgardow_at_ecasd.k12.wi.us
, ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu
There has not been a big rush to respond to the initial question on nonfiction,so I wonder if I may be indulged in slightly reframing it -- or at least mapping out the NF world as I see it? NF is poised in an unusual spot in the library. On the one hand it is an easy popular choice through middle school when books are lively, colorful, and match the interests of readers -- whether detectives, dinos, pirates, trucks, or, more recently, body functions. Years ago Betty Carter pointed out that some of the most popular nonfiction of all was How to Draw Horses -- and surely the modern equivalent books that tell you how to draw Manga or Anime have their ardent fans. On the other hand, though, nonfiction both gains and suffers from the fact that every single young person in America is exposed to nonfiction subjects every day -- in school. School cannibalizes nonfiction -- turning interesting areas into textbook dullness, or -- increasingly -- database snippets. So nonfiction books, especially as they are aimed at up per middle grade and high school, face the challenge that they need to deal with subjects teachers teach (in the hope that a school might use them) and need to be as completely unlike the classroom text as possible (to engage the reading interest of students). I would urge those of you who evaluate nonfiction to keep two key things in mind: nonfiction is literature (indeed this is recognized in the new National Core Standards) -- it is a form of writing designed not just to engage the reader, but to inspire the reader to think, to question, to look at the world in new ways. And second, nonfiction books for younger readers are (or can be) very carefully designed and illustrated. As much care and thought often goes into the design and illustration of photo-illustrated nonfiction as the best picture book. The nonfiction we create has nothing in common with textbooks -- in fact it is the anti-textbook. Maybe we should call nonfiction: heavily illustrated, beautifully designed, idea books. A mental challenge in a beautiful package. Marc Aronson --- You are
currently subscribed to ccbc-net as: sully_at_sully-writer.com
. To receive messages in digest format, send a message to... ccbc-net-request_at_lists.wisc.edu
...and include only this command in the body of the message: set ccbc-net digest To unsubscribe click here: (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to
http://www.sully-writer.com
http://sullywriter.wordpress.com
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mailto:bookmarch_at_aol.com
mailto:pgardow_at_ecasd.k12.wi.us
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mailto:ccbc-net-request_at_lists.wisc.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Nonfiction From: Sally Miller Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:43:21 -0400 X-Message-Number: 3
Now that I have a daughter and two granddaughters who are classroom teachers, I love buying books for them to have as part of their own "classroom library." Many of these books are nonfiction. One of my favorite authors of nonfiction books is April Pulley Sayre. Her Stars Beneath Your Bed. The Surprising Story of Dust with pictures by Ann Jonas truly deserves to be called a Wonder Book. Of course, books about animals are always winners. In the 60's Random House had a series about various kinds of wildlife doing the strangest things. These were called "Step Up Books," I believe. My boys loved them, especially Animals do the Strangest Things, and Fish Do the Strangest Things. I used them often when I was tutoring second and third grade boys. I still have a copy of a few on my shelf, but I'd love to be able to find them available again so I could give new copies to my granddaughters. Biography is a wonderful way to make history come alive, and Connie Wooldridge's new The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton is both ac curate and engrossing--it makes a great supplementary text for English classes. (And it may even counteract the deadening effect of introducing English classes to Wharton via the depressing Ethan Frome.) Also among my favorite nonfiction writers is the amazing Susan Bartoletti. She has written on an amazing variety of subjects, and her Black Potatoes is one of my favorites. Her books are full of photographs that give the text the feeling of immediacy and make it easier for students to connect. I could go on, but thinking about the titles I would recommend turned my attention to the subject of the role of school librarians. I am so saddened when I hear about schools who have included their librarians as part of their "cut backs." After a teacher has been in the classroom until three, attended a meeting of two after school, and spent a good part of the evening grading papers, how is he or she expected to review and choose from the many books that might be appropriate for supplementary reading? How much luckier
are the teachers who have librarians like Sully to do the reviewing for them. "So many books, so little time." When it comes to teachers, that brings a sigh rather than a smile, doesn't it?
Sally Derby Kyle's Island.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Nonfiction books From: Elsa Marston Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:11:33 -0500 X-Message-Number: 4
Marc Aronson's concluding remark makes me think: Is it time for another debate on this perennially unsatisfactory term "nonfiction"? It's such a clumsy, negative, non-suggestive term . . . yet I can't think of anything better as a comprehensive category.
Elsa Marston www.elsamarston.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: Nonfiction books From: "Steward, Celeste" Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 09:13:22 -0700 X-Message-Number: 5
The children in my elementary school library used to call nonfiction "true books"...but, I think any other name would still smell as sweet... :)
Celeste Steward Collection Development Librarian IV Alameda County Library 2450 Stevenson Blvd. Fremont, CA 94538 (510)745-1586
From: Elsa Marston
Sent: Monday, October 11, 2010 9:12 AM To: ccbc-net_at_ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject:
Nonfiction books
Marc Aronson's concluding remark makes me think: Is it time for another debate on this perennially unsatisfactory term "nonfiction"? It's such a clumsy, negative, non-suggestive term . . . yet I can't think of anything better as a comprehensive category.
Elsa Marston www.elsamarston.com
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 08:57:23 -0400
The success of our blog, Interesting Nonfiction for Kids, where about two dozen award-winning nonfiction authors discuss their approach to content and to the writing process, is gaining in popularity. Yet, I've been listening in to teachers who are required to use prescribed texts in their classrooms. It doesn't even occur to them that all the kids don't have to read the same book on a subject or that students can read more than one book on a subject. They are supposed to teach critical thinking but their students are only exposed to one point of view in their readings. One literacy teacher said that 50-85% of the assessment tests is nonfiction yet kids spend an average of 3.6 minutes a day reading that kind of material. I sat in on a Twitter chat with teachers who were complaining about the weight and the cost of text books and thought that they could just replace them with open source material downloaded from the web. The premise here is that one
is interchangeable with another (editorial comments, mine). In the current discussion about educational reform, there is almost no discussion of WHAT kids are reading. It has also been my experience in traveling to schools across the country, that there is often little or no cross-pollination between the library and the classroom. I know that many librarians beg teachers to keep them in the loop so they can pull books but teachers are too overworked and terrified of straying from the mandated course to take advantage. They dump their kids in the library and leave for a prep period and probably don't even know the name of a single prominent nonfiction author.
We are trying to change this with our free database on www.inkthinktank.com so that teachers can find age appropriate books on subjects they're required to teach that are aligned to National Educational Standards. When I last checked we had almost 2500 registered users.
Vicki Cobb
----- Original Message -----
From: "CCBC Network digest" To: "ccbc-net digest recipients" Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 1:05 AM Subject: ccbc-net digest: October 11, 2010
CCBC-NET Digest for Monday, October 11, 2010.
1. Re: Nonfiction 2. RE: Nonfiction 3. Nonfiction 4. Nonfiction books 5. RE: Nonfiction books 6. RE:Nonfiction 7. Variety of Nonfiction 8. Using nonfiction with students 9. Re: Notable Non-Fiction 10. RE: Notable Non-Fiction 11. Re: Notable Non-Fiction 12. Re: Nonfiction 13. RE: Nonfiction books 14. Nonfiction 15. Re: Notable Non-Fiction
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Nonfiction From: bookmarch_at_aol.com Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 07:14:54 -0400 (EDT) X-Message-Number: 1
There has not been a big rush to respond to the initial question on nonfiction,so I wonder if I may be indulged in slightly reframing it -- or at least mapping out the NF world as I see it? NF is poised in an unusual spot in the library. On the one hand it is an easy popular choice through middle school when books are lively, colorful, and match the interests of readers -- whether detectives, dinos, pirates, trucks, or, more recently, body functions. Years ago Betty Carter pointed out that some of the most popular nonfiction of all was How to Draw Horses -- and surely the modern equivalent books that tell you how to draw Manga or Anime have their ardent fans. On the other hand, though, nonfiction both gains and suffers from the fact that every single young person in America is exposed to nonfiction subjects every day -- in school. School cannibalizes nonfiction -- turning interesting areas into textbook dullness, or -- increasingly -- database snippets. So nonfiction books, especially as they are aimed at up per middle grade and high school, face the challenge that they need to deal with subjects teachers teach (in the hope that a school might use them) and need to be as completely unlike the classroom text as possible (to engage the reading interest of students). I would urge those of you who evaluate nonfiction to keep two key things in mind: nonfiction is literature (indeed this is recognized in the new National Core Standards) -- it is a form of writing designed not just to engage the reader, but to inspire the reader to think, to question, to look at the world in new ways. And second, nonfiction books for younger readers are (or can be) very carefully designed and illustrated. As much care and thought often goes into the design and illustration of photo-illustrated nonfiction as the best picture book. The nonfiction we create has nothing in common with textbooks -- in fact it is the anti-textbook.
Maybe we should call nonfiction: heavily illustrated, beautifully designed, idea books. A mental challenge in a beautiful package.
Marc Aronson
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: Nonfiction From: sully_at_sully-writer.com Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:12:09 -0700 X-Message-Number: 2
I agree wholeheartedly with Marc that nonfiction is the "anti-textbook." When I worked as a school librarian I always encouraged teachers to use nonfiction books in the lessons they were teaching, particularly in the areas of history, science, language arts, music, and art. Knowing how limited a classroom teacher's free time is, I would go so far as to select the books myself, check them out to under her name and personally deliver them to the classroom. I found they were very appreciative and receptive to the gesture. In a short time, I had many teachers coming to me with specific requests for books they could use in their lessons. Teachers do want these books as alternatives and supplements for their lessons because they realize that good nonfiction books do an exemplary job of introducing young people to subject-matter and their students respond enthusiastically to them.
Edward T. Sullivan, Rogue Librarian Author, _The Ultimate Weapon: The Race to Develop the Atomic Bomb_ (Holiday House, 2007) Visit my web site, http://www.sully-writer.com
Visit my blog, Rogue Librarian: All About Books and Reading http://sullywriter.wordpress.com
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/sullywriter
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re:
Nonfiction From: bookmarch_at_aol.com
Date: Mon, October 11, 2010 7:14 am To: pgardow_at_ecasd.k12.wi.us
, ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu
There has not been a big rush to respond to the initial question on nonfiction,so I wonder if I may be indulged in slightly reframing it -- or at least mapping out the NF world as I see it? NF is poised in an unusual spot in the library. On the one hand it is an easy popular choice through middle school when books are lively, colorful, and match the interests of readers -- whether detectives, dinos, pirates, trucks, or, more recently, body functions. Years ago Betty Carter pointed out that some of the most popular nonfiction of all was How to Draw Horses -- and surely the modern equivalent books that tell you how to draw Manga or Anime have their ardent fans. On the other hand, though, nonfiction both gains and suffers from the fact that every single young person in America is exposed to nonfiction subjects every day -- in school. School cannibalizes nonfiction -- turning interesting areas into textbook dullness, or -- increasingly -- database snippets. So nonfiction books, especially as they are aimed at up per middle grade and high school, face the challenge that they need to deal with subjects teachers teach (in the hope that a school might use them) and need to be as completely unlike the classroom text as possible (to engage the reading interest of students). I would urge those of you who evaluate nonfiction to keep two key things in mind: nonfiction is literature (indeed this is recognized in the new National Core Standards) -- it is a form of writing designed not just to engage the reader, but to inspire the reader to think, to question, to look at the world in new ways. And second, nonfiction books for younger readers are (or can be) very carefully designed and illustrated. As much care and thought often goes into the design and illustration of photo-illustrated nonfiction as the best picture book. The nonfiction we create has nothing in common with textbooks -- in fact it is the anti-textbook. Maybe we should call nonfiction: heavily illustrated, beautifully designed, idea books. A mental challenge in a beautiful package. Marc Aronson --- You are
currently subscribed to ccbc-net as: sully_at_sully-writer.com
. To receive messages in digest format, send a message to... ccbc-net-request_at_lists.wisc.edu
...and include only this command in the body of the message: set ccbc-net digest To unsubscribe click here: (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to
http://www.sully-writer.com
http://sullywriter.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/sullywriter
mailto:bookmarch_at_aol.com
mailto:pgardow_at_ecasd.k12.wi.us
mailto:ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu
mailto:sully_at_sully-writer.com
mailto:ccbc-net-request_at_lists.wisc.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Nonfiction From: Sally Miller Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:43:21 -0400 X-Message-Number: 3
Now that I have a daughter and two granddaughters who are classroom teachers, I love buying books for them to have as part of their own "classroom library." Many of these books are nonfiction. One of my favorite authors of nonfiction books is April Pulley Sayre. Her Stars Beneath Your Bed. The Surprising Story of Dust with pictures by Ann Jonas truly deserves to be called a Wonder Book. Of course, books about animals are always winners. In the 60's Random House had a series about various kinds of wildlife doing the strangest things. These were called "Step Up Books," I believe. My boys loved them, especially Animals do the Strangest Things, and Fish Do the Strangest Things. I used them often when I was tutoring second and third grade boys. I still have a copy of a few on my shelf, but I'd love to be able to find them available again so I could give new copies to my granddaughters. Biography is a wonderful way to make history come alive, and Connie Wooldridge's new The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton is both ac curate and engrossing--it makes a great supplementary text for English classes. (And it may even counteract the deadening effect of introducing English classes to Wharton via the depressing Ethan Frome.) Also among my favorite nonfiction writers is the amazing Susan Bartoletti. She has written on an amazing variety of subjects, and her Black Potatoes is one of my favorites. Her books are full of photographs that give the text the feeling of immediacy and make it easier for students to connect. I could go on, but thinking about the titles I would recommend turned my attention to the subject of the role of school librarians. I am so saddened when I hear about schools who have included their librarians as part of their "cut backs." After a teacher has been in the classroom until three, attended a meeting of two after school, and spent a good part of the evening grading papers, how is he or she expected to review and choose from the many books that might be appropriate for supplementary reading? How much luckier
are the teachers who have librarians like Sully to do the reviewing for them. "So many books, so little time." When it comes to teachers, that brings a sigh rather than a smile, doesn't it?
Sally Derby Kyle's Island.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Nonfiction books From: Elsa Marston Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:11:33 -0500 X-Message-Number: 4
Marc Aronson's concluding remark makes me think: Is it time for another debate on this perennially unsatisfactory term "nonfiction"? It's such a clumsy, negative, non-suggestive term . . . yet I can't think of anything better as a comprehensive category.
Elsa Marston www.elsamarston.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: Nonfiction books From: "Steward, Celeste" Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 09:13:22 -0700 X-Message-Number: 5
The children in my elementary school library used to call nonfiction "true books"...but, I think any other name would still smell as sweet... :)
Celeste Steward Collection Development Librarian IV Alameda County Library 2450 Stevenson Blvd. Fremont, CA 94538 (510)745-1586
From: Elsa Marston
Sent: Monday, October 11, 2010 9:12 AM To: ccbc-net_at_ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject:
Nonfiction books
Marc Aronson's concluding remark makes me think: Is it time for another debate on this perennially unsatisfactory term "nonfiction"? It's such a clumsy, negative, non-suggestive term . . . yet I can't think of anything better as a comprehensive category.
Elsa Marston www.elsamarston.com
---Received on Tue 12 Oct 2010 08:57:23 AM CDT
