The California Young Reader Medal contest is in full swing at the library. The younger students will finish hearing the five "Primary" nominees by the end of the coming week. The older students have heard one of the nominees so far and have two more to go in their category, "Picture Books for Older Readers." We will vote after the February break. 

From February 22 to March 4 we have our schoolwide Literacy Event! Among the many activities planned for this time are visits from two prominent authors.

For grades TK, K, 1, and 2, author/illustrator Erin Eitter Kono will be visiting our school on Tuesday, February 23. Erin Eitter Kono is an award-winning picture book author and illustrator. She grew up in the midwest and spent many years traveling the world before settling down in Palos Verdes. She has published ten picture books including the cheerful Caterina series. Her next book, Every Color, comes out later this year. You can order books for Ms. Kono to sign and/or personalize with a child's name. There is an online order page, and a paper order form will go home in the Tuesday envelope on February 2.

On Thursday, March 3, author D.J. MacHale will be presenting assemblies to grades 3, 4, and 5 as well as meeting with the 5th-grade book club. D.J. MacHale is the author of the bestselling book series Pendragon--Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space; the spooky Morpheus Road trilogy; and the sci-fi thriller trilogy The SYLO Chronicles. His newest book, Project Alpha, is the first in a new adventure/science series, Voyagers. You can order books for Mr. MacHale to sign and/or personalize with a child's name. There is an online order page, and a paper order form will go home in the Tuesday envelope on February 2.

Thanks to Pages: A Bookstore, our local independent bookstore, for putting me in touch with Ms. Kono and Mr. MacHale, and for coordinating book sales. Thanks to the Pennekamp PTA for its support of these events as well.

The Manhattan Beach Public Library will be offering a Valentine's Day craft event on Thursday, February 4, from 3:30 to 5:00. This event is intended for children age 4 and up. 

Monday is a school holiday this week in recognition of the birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Tuesday, the library will be in use for vision and hearing screening, conducted by our school district.

Class visits will take place normally on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. With the lower grades we continue the nominees for the California Young Reader Medal. This week I will attempt the long but hugely popular book The Day the Crayons Quit, by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. Grades 3, 4, and 5 will begin hearing the nominees for their grades starting next week. 

Looking ahead, we will be having some exciting author visits in the coming couple of months! On February 23, grades TK, K, 1, and 2 will hear an assembly presented by Erin Eitter Kono, author of the Caterina picture books! Caterina is a little bird who has to be flexible when things don't go exactly as planned--and she finds out that that's often just fine! Then, on March 3, grades 3, 4, and 5 will hear an assembly presented by D.J. MacHale, the author most recently of Project Alpha, the first volume in the new "Voyagers" series! D.J. is also well known for the very popular Pendragon series. Both authors will be willing to sign their books, so you'll want to get copies ahead of time. Pages, our local independent bookstore, will have an online order form for books for both events--I will be able to direct you to those very soon. Thanks to the Pennekamps PTA for supporting these author visits!

Last night the American Library Association presented its Youth Media Awards, the most famous of which are the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott Medal. See the full list of winners at this link. I am delighted that the current selection for the 5th-grade book club, The War that Saved My Life, received a Newbery Honor!

This week the lower grades continue with the nominees for the California Young Reader Medal. The upper grades are hearing examples of narrative nonfiction, a type of writing they are learning about in class. The choice for grade 4, Everglades, by Jean Craighead George, does double duty as it has to do with the impact on Native Americans of the coming of the Spanish explorers. The book is set in what we now call Florida, but grade 4 will soon be looking at the same conflict as it played out in California. For grade 5, which is studying weather, I've chosen a narrative nonfiction book about lightning and Benjamin Franklin, since that grade is about ready to start on the American Revolution. Ben Franklin was accomplished in so many ways, including as an inventor. Below please find a YouTube clip of someone playing one of Franklin's many inventions, the glass armonica. (Please note not all advertisements, comments, or sidebar content on YouTube is appropriate for children.)

The book club meeting last Thursday went great! The club is now very full--I'm afraid I really cannot accept any more members. We have chosen The War that Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, as our book to read in January. I just finished it and really liked it. We meet again on Febrary 4.

Welcome back, and happy new year!

This week grades TK, K, 1, and 2 begin hearing the nominees for the California Young Reader Medal in the Primary category. Every year five books are nominated in the Primary category, and the winner is determined solely by the votes of young people who read the books or for whom the books were read aloud. We are starting now because it is a fun way to start the year, but also because this should allow the students to vote during Pennekamp's "literacy weeks," which are from February 22 to March 4.

Grades 3, 4, and 5 will hear stories that cover a big sweep of time. These are occasioned by the start of the new year. 

The Manhattan Beach public library will be having one of its neat science events this week. This one is about astronomy and features a guest speaker, Richard Wade, on the topic "How Big Is Big, How Far Is Far?" When it comes to space, it really is hard to grasp these concepts! The presentation uses common objects to illustrate vast ideas. It is Wednesday, January 6, from 3:30 to 4:30. The program is for grades 2 to 8.

This week is the introductory meeting of our very own book club for students in grade 5. The initial meeting will be Thursday, January 7, in the library at lunch recess. Pre-enrollment is required, and forms can be obtained from me in the library or from your child's teacher. Club members eat lunch in the library on club days, and it's a bit easier to do this if a student brings rather than buys lunch. The first reading selection will be announced at the initial meeting, and the club will meet next on February 4 to discuss that book. In the event of rainy-day schedule, the meeting will be postponed to the next non-rainy day.

Excitement is building for the American Library Association's Youth Media Awards, which will be announced on January 11, 2016. The Newbery Medal and Caldecott Medal are the most famous of them, but there are so, so many different awards, all recognizing excellence in literature for young people. You can study up by heading over to the American Library Association's website.