Our Library

Our Library

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Book Fair

Book Fair is coming!  The dates for our annual fall Book Fair are October 2 - October 6.  Be on the lookout for fliers that will be coming home soon.

Be A Champion: READ



Be a Champion and Read 
It's the BEST season of the year...FOOTBALL SEASON.  To celebrate football and reading, the Alabama Education Association has brought back its very popular reading incentive program...Be a Champion:  Read.  

Here's how it works 
1.  Get a reading log (they are coming home this week - Week of September 11)
2.  Read 6 books between now and October 27
3.  Record the reading on the log 
4.  Sign and return the log to GVES by October 27

The logs will be submitted to the Alabama Education Association who will hold a drawing for Alabama/Auburn Iron Bowl tickets.  There will be TWO winners - an Alabama winner and an Auburn winner.  The prizes include a trip to the Iron Bowl in Auburn with two guests, sideline passes, and pre-game activities.  So. Much. Fun

So read for your team
 RTR!
 War Eagle! 

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

It's that time of year.  The Caldecott Award winning and Newbery Award winning books have been announced.  Some very interesting choices this year.  

The Newbery Award winners are: 


Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan.  I think this is one of those that could have won BOTH the Newbery and the Caldecott awards.  Not only is it well written; it is beautifully illustrated.  




Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk. I haven't read this one yet, but have been told by the other elementary librarians that it is not appropriate for elementary school.  I hate when that happens, but our GV friends can enjoy this one in middle school. 


The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz.  This is an honor book. An interesting one that I am in the middle of reading.  Elementary school appropriate and will be in our collection 



The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill.  The winner of the Newbery Award this year.  I am also still working on this one but am glad to be able to add it to our collection. 

While this has not been my favorite year for Newberys (as shown by the fact that I'm struggling to get through these books), I have LOVED the Caldecotts.  The Caldecott Award winners are the best illustrated children's books of the year.  

The Caldecott Award winners are:

Radiant Child:  The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is the Caldecott Medal winner this year.  It is illustrated by Javanka Steptoe.  I have not even seen this one.  As always, after the awards are announced, I get online and purchase the winners.  This one has been interesting.  When I first went to Amazon.com, it was not available.  A couple of weeks later, it was available, but the cost was $79.99 (WOW!!!!).  I've been checking back and forth with Amazon since the award announcement.  It's either VERY expensive (yesterday it was $238.33) OR it will not ship for 2 months.  I've never had this difficult of a time trying to acquire an award winner for our library.  I'll keep trying.  

They All Saw a Cat illustrated by Brendan Wenzel.  I LOVE this one!  It's about perspective, and the cat looks different to everyone who sees it.  I see bits of other artists in the illustrations...Seurat, Picasso.  VERY VERY well done!  

Du Iz Tak illustrated by Carson Ellis.  I LOVE this one too!  The text is jibberish which makes this book basically a wordless picture book.  I think the kids will have a great time trying to interpret the text using the illustrations.  

Leave Me Alone! is illustrated by Vera Brosgol.  Love this one too!  As a mom, I totally get it.  Grandmother has a house full and just wants to be left alone with her knitting; so she takes a journey that makes her appreciate her big family.  Precious

Freedom in Congo Square is illustrated by R. Gregory Christie.  Very well done.  Beautifully written and illustrated.  


Thursday, October 13, 2016

Everyone Vote

It's an election year.  I can't think of another year where the election has caused so much chaos.  While I certainly would not talk to our kids about the election, outside the library is a subtle hint that something BIG is happening:

Catching Up

So many things have happened in a year


  • PTO gave the library some money.  So with that money I purchased new books, a some nice orange seating for our library, and some new shelf markers
  • Central Office gave the library some money; so I bought LOTS of new books
  • I found some "Target pencils" that were not being used and used them to make "new" signage for the library.  I was being resourceful 
  • We added a new library pet to our space.  Her name is Lily, and she is a hamster.
  • We had an author/illustrator visit with Michelle Nelson-Schmidt 
Hopefully, I can do a better job with keeping up with our exciting library news.  We always have a great time in here.  
Some of our new seating:


Author visit with Michelle Nelson-Schmidt
 My FREE signage
 My new tropical reading area
 The awesome bulletin board outside my library...took me 4(!!!) hours to complete




Monday, December 7, 2015

New Books! New Books!

Our Book Fair in October did well, AND the state reinstated our State Library Enhancement funds.  SO...I was able to purchase 122 new books for our library last month.  The kids will be so excited to see so many new choices!

Friday, September 18, 2015

Book Fair

Our annual fall Book Fair will be held in the library on October 5-9.  It will be here before we know it.  The Book Fair is such a FUN event (my favorite!)!  Anyone interested in volunteering can contact me.