April is National Poetry Month.
Come check out our large and lively poetry collection!

And April is full of reasons to read:

April Fool’s Day

What better time to read funny, foolish fare? Chelm stories, Daniel Pinkwater, James Howe, Judith Viorst, Jon Scieszka, Joanna Hurwitz and Mark Twain—plus lots of joke and riddle books. We even have a picture book called April Foolishness by Teresa Bateman. Watch out for tricks!

Earth Day

We have books about the earth, ecology and environmental protection. And we have books that celebrate the earth in poetry and prose for all reading levels.

National Library Week is April 11 – 17.

Celebrate the contributions of libraries. Democracy depends on access to information and freedom of expression. America’s libraries (and librarians) have been staunch advocates of both. Come by here and visit your local public library.

April ends with National TV Turnoff Week. Read instead! Maybe you should start with Betsy Byar’s The TV Kid!

April Author/Illustrator Birthdays

Hans Christian Andersen (April 2 – International Children’s Book Day)
Richard Peck
Grahame Base
David Adler
Beverly Cleary
Gary Soto
Gertrude Chandler Warner
William Shakespeare
Patricia Reilly Giff
Ludwig Bemelmans

Women’s History Month

The exciting, interdisciplinary Women’s History Project tied to Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party done each year by 5th grade helped to create an amazing collection of books about women’s history and accomplishments in all kinds of fields. Come check out books in history, science, sports, and biography. New titles include: Girls Rock: Fifty Years of Women Making Music and biographies of Laura Bridgman, deaf-blind pioneer who mentored Helen Keller, writers as varied as Gertrude Stein and Wanda Gag, Nobel Peace prize winner, Wangari Maathai, and rabble rouser, Emma Goldman.

Historical fiction based on real women’s lives is always especially exciting. I love Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan about her grandmother’s dramatic life as a spoiled, rich Mexican girl forced to flee to the USA and become a migrant worker during the Great Depression, or Kerby Larson’s Hattie Big Sky which won the Newbery Honor telling a story based on the author’s great-grandmother’s experience homesteading in Montana. Of course, contemporary fiction is also fun. I couldn’t stop reading Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, about a farm girl who joins her high school football team and learns much more than she bargained for.

Pesach/Passover

We have books about Pesach, stories set at Pesach and lots of beautiful Haggadot.

March Author/Illustrator Birthdays

Leo Dillon
Dr. Seuss (Read Across America Day – March 2)
Dav Pilkey
Mem Fox
Thacher Hurd
Kenneth Grahame
Lois Lowry
Wanda Gag
Ezra Jack Keats
Virginia Hamilton
Anno
Louis Sachar
Randolph Caldecott
Robert Frost
Dick King-Smith

Celebrate spring with books!

Purim

Queen Esther, joke books, even books about costumes are all here--so come check them out!

Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year falls in February this year. We have many books about the holiday and the many countries in which it is celebrated.

Black History Month

My years at Tehiyah have taught me the importance of L’Dor V’Dor—from generation to generation. Sharing your story—your family’s story; your people’s story-- from grandparent to parent to child who becomes parent and then grandparent & on & on for hundreds and then thousands of years. “Why is this night different?” “There was only enough oil for one day, but it burned for eight.” “Sarah laughed.” “And Miriam danced….”

BUT what if you were stolen violently away from your family, and taken in chains across an ocean where you were sold like a piece of farm equipment? What if no one around you spoke your language? What if you did manage to grow up and have a family, but they were sold away from you as soon as they were able to pick cotton--so you never saw them again?

What if you risked your life to learn to read, but found that the history books had been written by those who stole you or your ancestors away—and that you, and they, had been left out of the story? This is what happened to Carter G. Woodson, son of slaves, who spent his childhood working in Kentucky coalmines but started high school at 20, graduated in 2 years and went on to get a PhD from Harvard. He found nothing in history books about the contributions of his ancestors so he set out to change that—first by doing research and publishing it in a new history journal--and then by starting Negro History Week in 1926.

He chose the second week in Feb. because it included Feb. 14, the day Frederick Douglass, the great African-American abolitionist, celebrated as his birthday (because he was born a slave he did not know the actual date). Later Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on Feb. 12 was included because he had signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves.

In 1976 Negro History Week became Black History Month. We continue to celebrate the many accomplishments of African Americans: Visual artists like Romaire Beardon, Faith Ringold & Jacob Lawrence; writers like Phillis Wheatley, James Weldon Johnson, Christopher Paul Curtis & Lucille Clifton; musical artists like Alvin Ailey, Marian Anderson & Scott Joplin; scientists and inventors like Dr. Charles Drew, Garrett Morgan, Benjamin Banneker, Elijah McCoy; educators like Mary McCloud Bethune & Booker T Washington; athletes like Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe, Wilma Rudolph, & Muhammad Ali; political heroes (and sheroes) like Fannie Lou Hamer, Shirley Chisolm, Joseph Rainey & Barbara Jordan; those who fought for their own and others’ rights like Ruby Bridges (who was 6 years old at the time), Sojourner Truth, & Medgar Evers. The many who worked behind the scenes in human rights struggles like Daisy Bates, W.W. Law & Jo Ann Robinson. And so many, many more…

May you all grow up to help create a world where Black History Month is no longer needed because we will have recognized that Black history is American history and your children learn it every day.

And if you want to learn more NOW come see me in the library! We have wonderful books in every section from picture books to biography to poetry, from fiction to history and science that will open the world of Black History to you.

Suggestions

We have several wonderful picture book biographies. Newbery Honor book, Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Wheatherford and illustrated by Kadir Nelson emphasizes her mysticism and courage as it tells her remarkable story. Art from Her Heart: Folk Artist Clementine Hunter describes her courage and perseverance as she showed her work in galleries that would not let her in to see her own paintings. Delivering Justice: W.W. Law and the Fight for Civil Rights tells the story of Westley Wallace Law who led the Great Savannah Boycott in 1961 which ended racial discrimination in that city before the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Music is celebrated in the Dillon’s Coretta Scott King Honor book, Jazz on a Saturday Night which includes a CD introducing jazz and the instruments prominent in it, a delightful biography of Dizzy Gillespie by Jonah Winter called, Dizzy, and a fascinating look at the Chevalier de Saint-George, the son of slave who was educated as an aristocrat in Paris at the time of the French Revolution. The book is The Other Mozart.

Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America, the beautiful biography written by his daughter Sharon Robinson and illustrated with wonderful “family photos”, is a great addition to the many books about the courageous barrier breaker. And Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement by Ann Bausum won the Robert F. Sibert Honor Award for its compelling story of the Freedom Riders of 1961.

February Authors/Illustrators Birthdays

Langston Hughes
Jerry Spinelli
Judith Viorst
Russell Hoban
Laura Ingalls Wilder
El L. Konigsburg
Jane Yolen
Jamake Highwater
Paul Zelinsky
W.E.B. DuBois
Wilhelm Grimm
Cynthia Voigt

What wonderful variety. There’s something here for everyone.

Happy New Year!

Come see the new books we have ready to read in 2010! The New Book Cart is overflowing with titles we got at the book fair.

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday come find some of the many biographies, fiction and nonfiction titles we have that describe the courageous fight for civil rights. One wonderful title is Russell Freedman’s Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Park’s act of courage thrust a 26-year-old minister into leadership during that year-long struggle. Rev. M. L. King began his struggle for justice there. Freedman uses photos and exciting text to tell this compelling story.

Two historical fiction titles also help make this period and Dr. King real for today’s children. Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues by Harriette Gillem Robinet tells the story through the eyes of twelve-year-old Alfa Merryfield who with his older sister and grandmother, struggles for rent money, food and their dignity while walking instead of riding that long year after Rosa Parks’ arrest. Just Like Martin, by Ossie Davis, tells the story of Isaac Stone, a boy who has met Dr. King and disagrees with his father that nonviolence equals cowardice. Can he convince his dad about the power of nonviolence even after a church is bombed?

January Authors

Isaac Asimov
Jean Little
J.R.R. Tolkien
Carl Sandburg
Charles Perrault
Michael Bond
A.A. Milne
Edgar Allen Poe
Brian Wildsmith
Jules Feiffer
Lewis Carroll
Vera Williams
Bill Peet
Michael Dorris

Celebrate by reading their books.

Happy Hanukkah!

We have a new and very poignant title. It’s the Sydney Taylor Award winner, Nine Spoons: A Chanukah Story by Marci Stillerman. The picture book, illustrated by Pesach Gerber, is based on a true story of brave women and children in a concentration camp collecting spoons to use as a menorah to celebrate Hanukkah.

Be sure to come by to check out plenty of books to read over winter break! The New Book Cart is loaded with new titles we picked up at the Hanukkah Book and Gift Fair. Thanks to all the volunteers and shoppers who supported the library at the fair!

December Author/Illustrator Birthdays include:
Jan Brett
David Macaulay
Munro Leaf
Kim Kjelgaard
James Thurber
Mary Norton
E. H. Shepard
Marilyn Sachs
Eve Bunting
Jerry Pinkney
Ingri d’Aulaire
Diane Stanley
Molly Bang
Mercer Mayer

Toast their birthdays with a cup of cocoa while you read their books!

HANUKKAH BOOK AND GIFT FAIR

Come shop for Hanukkah and support our library at the Book and Gift Fair from Nov. 10 to Nov. 13. We have books from Books, Inc. and Afikomen, books, Judaica, art, and crafts from members of the TDS community.

Hanukkah Book Fair Hours:
Nov. 10 noon to 5:00
Nov. 11 8:45 to 6:00
Nov. 12 8:00 to 6:00
Nov. 13 8:45 to 4:00

Native American Culture Month
Come check out our collection of books about Native American cultures and history, biographies, folk tales and fiction.

November Authors/Illustrators include:
Sterling North
Armstrong Sperry
Lois Ehlert
Pat Cummings
Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
Robert Louis Stevenson
William Steig
Astrid Lindgren
Daniel Pinkwater
Jean Fritz
Robin McKinley
Yoshiko Uchida
Marc Brown
Kevin Henkes
Ed Young
Louisa May Alcott
Madeleine L’Engle
Mark Twain

It’s an especially long list with a wide variety of from which genre to choose.

You can find books about Sukkot and Simchat Torah. There are stories as well as books about the holidays. One favorite Sukkot story is Patricia Polacco’s Tikvah Means Hope which is set in Oakland at the time of the firestorm in 1991.

Mystery series week begins Oct. 4

Come help Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, Cam Jansen, Nate the Great, Sammy Keyes, Enola Holmes, the Aldens, Calder, Petra and Tommy solve the many mysteries lurking on the library shelves!

Celebrate Black Poetry Day on Oct. 17

We have collections of African American poets and biographies of several.

Here’s one of my favorites from Maya Angelou (in Soul Looks Back In Wonder , ed. by Tom Feelings):

I Love the Look of Words

Popcorn leaps, popping from the floor
of a hot black skillet
and into my mouth.
Black words leap,
snapping from the white
page. Rushing into my eyes. Sliding
Into my brain which gobbles them
the way my tongue and teeth
chomp the buttered popcorn.

When I stop reading,
Ideas from the words stay stuck
In my mind, like the sweet
smell of butter perfuming my
fingers long after the popcorn
is finished.

I love the book and the look of words
the weight of ideas that popped into my mind
I love the tracks
of new thinking in my mind.

Author/Illustrator Birthdays for October include:

Karen Cushman
Donald Sobol
Josheph Bruchac
NIcki Grimes
Ursula LeGuin’Marjorie Flack
Steven Kellogg
Eric Kimmel
Katherine Paterson

There’s something in that list for everyone!

Welcome back to the Tehiyah Day School Library!

The House of Stories and Information is open and waiting for your visit!

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

We have lots of books on the High Holy Days—from the beautiful Yussel’s Prayer by Barbara Cohen and The White Ram: A Story of Abraham and Isaac to the funny When the Chickens Went on Strike by Erica Silverman. Come check them out.

September is Hispanic Heritage Month.
We have fiction and nonfiction books about or set in Mexico and Latin America.

Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan tells her grandmother’s story in fiction. Esperanza is a wealthy and spoiled little girl in Mexico who is forced to flee to California and become a migrant worker in the 1930’s. This story tells a story of people who haven’t been heard enough.

In My Family: En Mi Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza is a beautiful collection of Garza’s artwork and descriptions of her life growing up on the TexMex border.

La Causa: The Migrant Farmworkers’ Story describes the struggle for recognition of the United Farmworkers’ Union with Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.
We have several new books by Carmen Agra Deedy , Cuban-American folklorist. Martina the Beautiful Cockroach is especially funny.

Some September author/illustrator birthdays include:

Demi
Aliki
Syd Hoff
Paul Fleischman
Jack Prelustsky
Jon Scieszka
Roald Dahl
Mildred D. Taylor
Tomie de Paola
Joanne Ryder

Why not celebrate by reading one of their books?

June

Welcome to June and to Summer Reading!

Pride Month

We have books from the picture books like King & King, to novels like Annie on My Mind and Totally Joe, short stories like Am I Blue? as well as nonfiction and multimedia examining the lives and contributions of gays and lesbians.

Fathers’ Day

Come celebrate Abba, Dad or Daddy with stories and poems. From Daddy Is a Doodlebug to Inkheart, to Father Fox’s Pennyrhymes, to Tango Makes Three, we have many books about all kinds of fathers.

ALL BOOKS ARE DUE JUNE 12

Please return all books. Any books that cannot be found by the end of the school year must be paid for so that they can be replaced.

Be sure to visit your local public library this summer and join their summer reading program. Games, prizes, and excitement as well as a wonderful selection of books and magazines await you at your public library. Check it out!

Happy Reading!