The best way I have found to handle the book fair previews is to create PowerPoint presentations and use those along with physical copies. (This keeps me on track, haha.) The PowerPoints are down below--you can click on them to see what I'll be showing your students. The recommendations are from the preview box provided by Pages, the vendor for the fair. The books are for the most part ones I know and admire, but there are a few that I have not read.

The only grades with which I'm not doing a book fair preview are TK/K. This week the library has on display quite a few new books, so I'll be sharing some of these with those students. 

I hope you are as excited about the book fair as I am! It's nice that it is taking place just before the winter holidays, as books make wonderful gifts. The library is open as usual during the book fair week, but I will try to spend some time up at the fair, too.

Class visits this week all focus on Halloween. I prefer to do books before the actual day instead of after, and Halloween falls on Tuesday next week, so this week makes the most sense. Furthermore, next week I will be previewing books that will be for sale at our upcoming "Dive Into Reading" book fair, November 6 to 13. Some of this week's Halloween books are old favorites, such as Hallo-wiener, by Dav Pilkey; some are new in our collection, such as Rules of the House, by Mac Barnett. 

In keeping with the week's theme I'm going to read a couple of books by Brian Selznick, author of Wonderstruck, a fine book that has just been made into a movie. I will mention the book and movie and (time permitting) show the movie trailer to grades 4 and 5, especially since a book and a bookstore are central to the plot. Grade 4 will hear The Houdini Box, a short, charming story that has to do with Harry Houdini (who happens to have died on Halloween). Grade 5 will hear The Boy of a Thousand Faces, by Brian Selznick, about a boy who is fascinated with monster movies and especially the 1925 Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney, who was known as "the man of a thousand faces." So there's lots here for 5th-grade lovers of cinema. A short clip from Phantom and the Wonderstruck trailer are below, but please always be careful with YouTube content because the accompanying comments, sidebars, and advertisements are often inappropriate for children.

And please don't forget--Pages bookstore is having a special "Spooky Storytime" with Denise Doyen, author of The Pomegranate Witch. The event is intended for younger children, up to second grade (but really, who doesn't like hearing a story and visiting an awesome bookstore?). And there will be Halloween treats! This event will be on October 28, at 10:30 a.m., at Pages, 904 Manhattan Ave. in downtown Manhattan Beach.

The theme for this week is bats and spiders. Grades TK, K, 1, 2, and 3 are hearing books about one of those adorable creatures, and the books on display are on bats and spiders too. Grades 4 and 5 are hearing a folktale from India and seeing a video (see below) about Diwali, which is October 18 to 22 this year. You can see all the titles of this week's readalouds on the Weekly Readaloud page of this website.

Also this week I am going to announce to grades 3, 4, and 5 something new and exciting: the Super Literacy Quiz Bowl (SLQB). Taking place during the PK Literacy Event (February 5 to 26, 2018), the SLQB is a trivia game in which students are quizzed on facts and details from a grade-specific list of 13 books. Participation in this activity is optional! In order to participate, students need to read at least 10 books from their grade's book list by mid-January 2018 and return a signed parent consent form. Teams will be randomly assigned, and competition will take place during the week of February 12 at an assembly. Students who might like to participate can begin reading right away! I will pass out a flyer about SLQB during class visits this week. Parent volunteers are needed, and the contact information is on the flyer. Thanks to the Pennekamp PTA for supporting this event.

Some of the upper-grade students have been asking for scary chapter fiction. (There has been more interest in the Goosebumps series this year than I can ever remember!) If your child is in the mood for something spooky there was a good roundup of such stories in School Library Journal last year. Beware: these books really are rather scary and, furthermore, are written at a pretty high level--I would recommend them for students in grade 5 and up, and only those who really are okay with scary content. I am displaying some spooky chapter fiction here in the library for the coming couple of weeks.

And finally, there are some outstanding events coming up in our town. Pages: A Bookstore is having a special "Spooky Storytime" with Denise Doyen, author of The Pomegranate Witch. The event is intended for younger children, up to second grade (but really, who doesn't like hearing a story and visiting an awesome bookstore?). And there will be Halloween treats! So mark your calendar: October 28, 10:30 a.m., at Pages, 904 Manhattan Ave. in downtown Manhattan Beach.

Unrelated to Halloween, the Manhattan Beach public library is hosting a couple of cool events promoting girl empowerment, both of which are on Wednesday, October 18. At 3:30 that day, the library will show Soul Surfer, about female surfer Bethany Hamilton who survived a shark attack and returned to surfing after her recovery. That evening, from 7:00 to 8:00, there is a girls skateboarding discussion with Cindy Whitehead, who in 2016 was inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame. She recently authored the book It's Not About Pretty, which features dozens of photos of inspiring, impressive girls who skateboard. The target age for this event is described as "grades 6 to 12, and young skating enthusiasts."

October 8 to 14, 2017, is Fire Prevention Week. Although I am not reading books about it this year during class visits, it certainly is important. The event provides an opportunity to talk with your children about fire safety--about what to do in case of a fire, what escape routes there are from different places in your home, and other instructions that can help keep children safe in the event of a fire. The Manhattan Beach Fire Department has a thorough list of "fire do's and don'ts." If you would like to use a book to bring up the topic of fire safety with your children, the Pennekamp library has some good ones (which I often read aloud but am not this year). The Fire Cat, by Esther Averill, works well for even the youngest children; and The Firehouse Light, by Janet Nolan, is a great choice for children in grades 2 and above. To be clear, these books do not teach fire safety--they are simply enjoyable books that might help you start a conversation with your children.

What we are hearing about this week is Hispanic Heritage Month, which is from September 15 to October 15. All classes are hearing books that celebrate Spanish-speaking places and people. Of particular note is Separate Is Not Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation, by Duncan Tonatiuh, which I will read to 5th grade. In 1954, seven years before Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Mendez family prevailed in their suit brought right here in California challenging a rule that Mexican children could not attend their local school but rather had to attend a "Mexican school," which was further away and nowhere near as nice as the neighborhood school. Mendez v. Westminster resulted in the desegregation of public schools in California and paved the way for school desegregation nationally. I've lived in California almost my whole life, and until the publication of this nonfiction picture book I was completely unaware of this historic event. Sylvia Mendez and her sister Sandra Mendez Duran briefly talked about their experiences on an episode of Storycorps, which I will play for the students.

This is the final week to enter the County of Los Angeles Public Library's annual bookmark contest for children. You can download the entry form from the public library's website or from the PDF link in last week's blog post. The theme this year is "What's Your Story?" Entries that are mailed had to be postmarked no later than October 7, 2017, so don't mail any entries now. Instead, entries can be turned in at the PK library up 'til Friday, October 13, 2017, or hand-delivered to any County of Los Angeles public library branch (such as our Manhattan Beach public library) no later than Saturday, October 14, 2017.