The Thief Lord - 6th Grade Summer Reading Book

What do you think? Any questions or comments? Did you like it? Let us know . . .

A Wrinke in Time - 5th Grade Summer Reading Book

Any thoughts or questions about the book? Are you enjoying it so far? Tell us what you think . . .

Looking for a good book to read?

The Houston Area Independent Schools Library Network puts together great lists of recommended books for Preschoolers through 12th graders. Need an idea of a good book to read? Why not check it out?
http://haisln.org/recommendedreadinglists.html

The New York Public Library also has extensive reading list by grade. They even have a short video that shows the covers of the recommended books. http://www.summerreading.org/booklists.php

Another great resource is the 2012 Notable Children's Book List put together by the Association for Library Services to Children. http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/notalists/ncb

And for middle schoolers, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School has an extensive list of books in a variety of categories, including classics, books for Harry Potter fans, books for Lightning Thief fans, graphic novels, and more.  http://www.ecfs.org/files/ms-booklist-general.pdf

Summer Reading!

We are getting ready for summer reading! The students will be getting their logins for the Scholastic Read for the Record site next week in library class. The website to track their minutes is http://www.scholastic.com/summer/. There is also a cool Reading Timer app that you can download on your phone, iPad, or other tablet, where you can time how long you read and track your minutes directly from the app! Click here to download it!

An article worth reading!

Did you see James Patterson's Op/Ed piece on cnn.com? It's called, "How to get your kid to be a fanatic reader." It's definitely worth reading http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/28/opinion/patterson-kids-reading/index.html?hpt=op_t1

His main point is that the more kids read (no matter what they are reading) the better readers they are! So if your kid loves Captain Underpants or Junie B. Jones or the Guinness Book of World Records or The Vampire Diaries, but doesn't want to read the classics, it's okay. They are still improving their vocabulary and becoming better readers.

Patterson has a website - ReadKiddoRead - with lots of great book recommendations. Check it out and help your child find a book that he or she will not want to put down. I will be looking it over to find new books to add to our library collection.

New Library Catalog!

Not sure if you've heard, but you can now access the library catalog from home. Just go to http://swain.follettdestiny.com and you can see all the books we have in the library. Soon you will be able to see what books you have checked out as well. Let me know what you think!

Have you tracked your minutes?

We have read over 270,000 minutes this summer! That's amazing! I'm so proud of all that you have read so far - keep it up! We are currently in 34th place in the entire country. Wow! Keep tracking your minutes until the end of August: www.scholastic.com/summer