Great Books Celebration 2008

On April 2nd I attended the "Great Books Celebration" sponsored by the Consortium of Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, and Howard County. The first hour the three committes (picture books, kids books, teen books) presented their favorites among the lists they compiled. Too many to ennumerate here but the lists also have annotations so I recommend getting them from a colleague who attended.

We then broke out into our discussion groups. I attended the "You're My Best Friend" picture group - books read were: "The Golden Rule" by Cooper; "Help! A Story of Friendship" by Keller; "This Is Just to Say" by Sidman; "Nothing But Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson" by Stauffacher; "My Friend is Sad" and "Today I Will Fly" by Willems. We discussed the pros and cons of the books and how they could be used and/or displayed to encourage customers to check them out. The second session I attended was called "Who Let the Dogs Out?" - books read were: "City of Dogs" by Michael; "Cracker: The Best Dog in Vietnam" by Kadohata; "How to Steal a Dog" by O'Connor; and "Marley: A Dog Like No Other" by Grogan. These were all juvenile titles. The books included fantasy, realistic fiction, historical fiction and nonfiction. Again it was useful to discuss the pros and cons of these titles. The last session I attended was called "Who I Was" - books read were: "Before I Die" by Downham; "Does My Head Look Big in This?" by Abdel-Fattah; "Parrotfish" by Wittlinger; and "Story of a Girl" by Zarr. These were all young adult titles. Again we discussed pros and cons of the titles and more importantly what audience they were intended for.



The speaker this year was Bruce Coville author of many children's books ("My Teacher is an Alien", "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher" etc.). Some of the more interesting points he made were that boys often do not have male role models at the elementary school level (men who read books) and the same could be said for Children's Librarians as most of us are women as well. He also lamented that U.S. publishers often are concerned with length in children's books but British publisher do not. He pointed out how kids will read lengthy books if it's something they are interested and excited about (i.e. Harry Potter). Side note - he is also a very entertaining speaker.



I know that the information I gleaned from these sessions will help me with reader's advisory questions, book talks, and I may use some of the titles in the children's book discussion group that I run at Fairland Library. I definitely recommend to other librarians who have an interest in children's and teen books to attend next year.