The end of May children's literacy and reading news roundup, brought to you by Carol Rasco, Terry Doherty, and me, is now available at Carol's new blog, Quietly. The roundup is a tiny bit later than usual (due to some weather-related Internet issues on Carol's end), but is still chock-full of information about children's literacy and reading events, literacy and reading programs and research, and suggestions for growing bookworms.
Here are a few highlights:
- Betsy Bird has been posting the results from her latest picture book and chapter book polls. Anyone interested in finding great children's books should really take a look. Start here.
- See also Best Books for Babies. (The Fred Rogers Company supportsBest Books for Babies along with The School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children (PAEYC))
- The May Carnival of Children's Literature is up at Hope is the Word.
- Carol says: "You read often in our Roundups about summer reading issues. I hope you are aware of the invitation issued by The New York Times Learning Network for you to “take to twitter” on this Thursday, June 7 to discuss your plans, your questions, your students’ and children’s ideas about #summerreading! Let’s make the twitterworld well aware of this important period in the education of our children!"
And here are a couple of additional tidbits from me:
- To Carol's list of friends to be remembered, lost during May, I must also add Ray Bradbury, who passed away yesterday. Leila has a roundup of obituaries at Bookshelves of Doom.
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I think that a fitting tribute to all of the authors who have passed away this year would be to participate this weekend in MotherReader's 7th Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge. It's very simple. Pick any 48 hour period between 7 am Friday the 8th and 7 am Monday, the 11th. During that time, spend as much time as possible reading and blogging about books (middle grade and up). More details are here.
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One particularly important point about the 48HBC. From Pam: "New this year, we'll be making ourselves a real readathon with a dedicated beneficiary. For the last few years we've been able to connect the 48HBC to charitable causes, while not officially being a fundraiser readathon. I would like to do so now with a pledge to Book People Unite and collect money for Reading is Fundamental. All participants should sponsor themselves with a pledge for the number of hours spent in the 48HBC and donate that amount directly through Reading is Fundamental This donation is on your honor and at your financial comfort level. You many also look for additional sponsors in your online and "real" life, which if nothing else, promotes the ideas of us book people, you know, uniting. While there are many great libraries and literary causes that need help in these difficult times, I think the timing of the Book People Unite is perfect for us to join forces for the greater good."
But do check out the full roundup at Carol's. I'll be back mid-month with the next roundup, here at Jen Robinson's Book Page. You can also expect literacy links from all of us on Twitter in the meantime (@JensBookPage, @CHRasco, and @ReadingTub). Particularly tomorrow, when we'll be reading and participating in tweets about #SummerReading. Thanks for reading, and for caring about children's literacy.