Pictures Speak: Wordless Books

Wordless books let the pictures tell the story. Older readers and visual learners will pick up more "cues" from the beautiful artwork in these stories.

Un Brella by Scott E. Franson

The Red Book by Barbara Lehman (Caldecott Honor)

Author/Illustrator David Wiesner has created many beautiful award-winning wordless books

Flotsam (Caldecott Winner)

Tuesday

Sector 7

Free Fall (Caldecott Honor)

For more wordless books from the CCPL collection, click here to search for the subject heading, "stories without words - juvenile".

Pictured is Yellow Balloon by Charlotte Dematons

Curiosities and Wonders: Attention Grabbers Prompt Reading

One of the hottest books in our library is the Guinness Book of World Records. Elementary and middle schoolers, boys and girls, are particularly subject to its freakish charms. This is a great book for reluctant readers. Current circulating copies of the Guinness are usually in short supply but copies from previous years or other books on the subject heading "curiosities and wonders" can be found under the Dewey Decimal Call Number of 032.

Pictured is Guiness World Records: To the Extreme, a circulating juvenile book. Click here for the record and put it on hold!

Click here for Ripley's Believe It or Not books, a strong second runner up!

Family Literacy: Families Read Better When They Read Together

Family Literacy helps boost a child's individual literacy skills.

For tips to increase your family's literacy from the NCFL (National Center for Family Literacy), CLICK HERE.

More ways to build family literacy:

Listening to audiobooks with your child(ren). Audiobooks allow families to listen to the same story and then to practice the skills listed in the NCFL tips website. Time spent in the car or preparing meals becomes a rich literary experience when audiobooks are added to the mix. Audio books are great for reluctant readers and help "hook" them and keep them engaged till the end of the book. They also increase listening comprehension.

Have siblings (or other family members) read to younger siblings or to each other. We now have a new series of books at CCPL called We Both Read that is perfect for this kind of activity. These books come in a variety of beginning reading levels, from pre-kindergarden to Level 2-3. The left hand page is for the adult or fluent reader and the right hand page is for the beginning reader.

Read poetry with your children. Poetry helps engage younger children and reluctant readers. Short humorous poems are fun and appealing to children and can be easily memorized. American poetry is found under the call number, "J 811" and British poetry, such as the classic, A Child's Garden of Verses, by Robert Louis Stevenson, is found under "J 821" in the Children's section.

Get Graphic! Graphic Novels Are Good Reading

"Graphic Novel" is a term used to discribe books that use a comic book type of format. "Grapic Novel" describes ficion and nonfiction works of this type.

Why are graphic novels such a hot print format?

1. They are great for reluctant readers, visual learners, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) readers, and readers who read below the reading level of the text for any other reason.

2. They provide visual information about the setting of the text. This is useful with graphic novel histories and biographies where readers are able to get more information about the clothing and environment of the time period of the work. This is especially nice for student reports requiring a visual display.

3. They are fast, exciting reads, full of color and action.

• To find graphic novels on the shelves at CCPL branches, just look for the light blue "Graphic Novel" label on the spine.

• In the library catalog search under the subject heading, "graphic novel". Use the subject heading "graphic novel and juvenile" to locate graphic novels in the Children's area.

• For great reviews of graphic novels visit the website, No Flying No Tights (www.noflyingnotights.com).

• Click for 2005 Newsweek article on graphic novels from the CCPL Electronic Databases. You will need your library card to access this article if you are at home.

(CLICK FOR GENERAL CCPL DATABASE ACCESS INSTRUCTIONS)

Source Citation: Foroohar, Rana, Tracy McNicoll, Mary Acoymo, Mark Russell, and Kay Itoi. "Comic Relief; Take that, batman. Graphic novels are moving out of the hobby shop and into the mainstream." Newsweek International (August 22, 2005): 58. General OneFile. Gale. Charleston County Public Library. 29 Dec. 2007 .

Guys Read

One of my favorite literacy websites is author, Jon Scieszka's, Guys Read. Guys Read has reading suggestions for guys of all ages and links to author websites and more. The site is also extremely visually appealing with bright graphics and moving pages that help keep the user's attention.

Facing Bullies

Can there be a school without bullies? Bullies are a real problem for kids; some kids face them and some kids are them.5th grader, Gabe, in The Liberation of Gabriel King, by K.L. Going, gets help facing his 6th grade tormenters from Frita, a whip-smart, outgoing African-American girl who is Gabe's best friend (courtesy of integration), in rural 1976 Georgia.In The Revealers, by Doug Wilhelm, Russell bands together with two other victims to take on and expose the bullies in his seventh class using the student email system despite the insistence of the school's principal that bullying is not an issue at "Darkland" Middle School. Visit author, Wilhelm's, Revealer's website (click here) for more info on the impact of this book.Both books appeared on the 2007-2008 South Carolina Junior Book Award List. These books are recommended for ages 9 and up.

Rules by Cynthia Lord

Twelve-year-old Catherine works hard trying to help her autistic brother, David, get along and remember how to act normal. Her main strategy is making lists of rules: rules for how to act, what to wear, how to eat, what to do, what not to do, and more. It's summertime and Catherine wishes she could have an ordinary life and that everything at home didn't seem to revolve around David. She wants to make friends with the new girl next door and then there's that guy she met at David's therapist's office, who liked her drawings. Find out more about Catherine in Rules, Cynthia Lord's Newbery Honor winning book.