Children's Literacy and Reading News Roundup: June in Review

The end of June Children's Literacy and Reading News roundup, brought to you by Terry Doherty, Carol Rasco and me, is now available at Quietly (Carol's new blog). I'm happy to report that Carol and Terry both have their power back, after the "DERECHO" that attacked the East Coast this week (though power outages did delay the roundup a bit). Nevertheless, Carol has the scoop on all things children's literacy and literature-related (well, ok, not all things, because that would be impossible. But many things).

Here are a few highlights:

• "Poll results! Let’s start exactly where last month’s “events” section concluded…don’t miss Betsy Bird’s complete polls on chapter books and picture books; her introductory post on the winners will set the stage for you. Read about signing up to receive an email with a link to download the PDF of all the posts for both sets of the complete posts when published. Betsy Bird has done a great service for all of us who revere children’s books through her detailed posts on each winning book. Thank you, Betsy!" You can also find the complete top 100 picture books list here. 
• How did LeBron James keep himself focused before the big games in the NBA finals? By reading books. Publicly. See this Washington Post article by Valerie Strauss. I love it when people that kids look up to demonstrate the value of reading. This is an excellent example!
• "It’s back…and I’m so glad! LeVar Burton has brought back Reading Rainbow: Take a Look. It’s in a Book. And it’s an APP! Head to the site now, you’ll feel better just seeing and reading LeVar’s posts, I sure do!"
• Plus a whole slew of resources about summer reading and the importance of play. Click through to see.

And here are a few other things that I ran across recently:

•  At the ALSC blog, Sondra Eklund discusses early learning and technology, and whether the interactivity of apps will end up being helpful for kids' learning. My own take-home from the article was about the importance of responding to kids, rather than just talking at them. I'm also thinking that I should re-read Nurture Shock. 
• In a Guardian blog post, author Michael Morpurgo shares his thoughts on the ways that we are failing boys in the enjoyment of reading. The piece is impassioned and yet clearly articulated, and is well worth a look. See also: We Are Not Doing Enough for Boys in Young People's Publishing at the NCBLA blog. 
• This one isn't about children's reading, but I still think that it is fascinating. According to the Guardian, "Brazil will offer inmates in its crowded federal penitentiary system a new way to shorten their sentences: a reduction of four days for every book they read." Via Stacked. 
• Congratulations to The Nerdy Book Club for winning their first Independent Book Bloggers Award. I really enjoyed this post, in which Donalyn Miller discusses both the award and their guiding principles regarding book reviews and book promotion. Here's her conclusion: "As a teacher, I gut check every decision by asking, “What is the right thing for the kids?” I think this ideal has been a good compass for Nerdy Book Club, too. Any blog dedicated to elevating young adult and children’s literature should be about the kids. As long as Nerdy Book Club continues to celebrate children and their books, we can’t go wrong." 

And that's all for today. I'll be sharing some other Twitter links, not quite so relevant for the roundup, in a separate post. We're going to skip the mid-July roundup because, well, it's already July 6th, and we all have a lot going on this month. But Carol will be back with the end of July roundup before you know it. And in the meantime, you can find us on Twitter at @CHRasco, @ReadingTub, and @JensBookPage.

Thanks for caring about children's literacy, and have a great weekend!