Hanukkah Book and Gift Fair
Come shop for Hanukkah and support our library at the Book and Gift Fair from Nov. 13 to Nov. 16. We have books from Cody’s and Afikomen, books, Judaica, art, and crafts from members of the TDS community. This year we feature items from A World of Good, a fair-trade company founded by Tehiyah alumni, David Guendelman. We have a chance to “shop our values” giving as much consideration to those who make our gifts and to those who receive them.

Hanukkah Book Fair Hours:
Nov. 13 noon to 4:00
Nov. 14 8:45 to 6:00
Nov. 15 8:45 to 6:00
Nov. 16 8:00 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.

National Children’s Book Week Nov. 12-18
Come see what is new on the New Book Cart to celebrate National Children’s Book Week.

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

Sukkot
Check out our books about and stories of Sukkot, including my favorite, Patricia Polacco’s Tikvah Means Hope. This beautiful picture book recounts the story of a sukkah and a cat named Tikvah that survived the Oakland Hills firestorm in 1991.

Black Poetry Day – October 17
We have a new biography of Langston Hughes by Alice Walker and books by Nicki Grimes and Nicki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, James Weldon Johnson as well as wonderful collections like Pass It On and Ashley Bryant's ABC of African-American Poetry.

October birthdays include:
Molly Cone
Karen Cushman
Donald Sobol
Faith Ringold
Johanna Hurwitz
James Marshall
Joseph Brucac
Eric Kimmel
Katherine Paterson
Ursula LeGuin

Mystery, fantasy, historical and contemporary fiction, humor and folk tales--they're all represented by this month's birthday authors.

Welcome back to school.
Please come by to see the many new books acquired over the summer.

Labor Day
Learn about the struggle of workers to organized for better wages and safer working conditions through history books, biographies and wonderful fiction. Katherine Paterson’s Bread and Roses, Too is just one example. Based on actual events in 1912 as seen through the eyes of twelve-year old Rosa, we learn about the living conditions of mill workers and the sacrifices made to improve them. We also have books on the many Jewish labor organizers, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Mother (Mary Harris) Jones and many others.

Celebrate the High Holy Days with books! We have a large selection of books about and stories of Rosh ha-Shana and Yom Kippur.

September Author/Illustrator Birthdays

Demi
Aliki
Syd Hoff
Paul Fleischman
Jack Prelutsky
Jon Scieszka
Roald Dahl
Mildred D. Taylor
John Steptoe
Tomie dePaola
Robert McCloskey
Joanne Ryder
H. A. Rey
Taro Yashima
Bernard Waber

Celebrate them by reading their books! Did you know that H.A. Rey escaped Vichy France with the manuscript of Curious George?

Fill your summer with reading! Be sure to visit your local public library often. Sign up for their summer reading program. They are offering activities, prizes and lots of great books

Happy Reading!

May is blooming with reasons to read!

May Day

Find out about the labor union movement and the many contribution of Jewish organizers. We have books about the Triangle Shirt Waist Fire, United Farm Workers’ and Pullman Porters’ organizing, Mother Jones, A. Philip Randolph and Emma Goldman.

Cinco de Mayo

Biographies, nonfiction and fiction at all reading levels celebrate Mexican-American history and culture.

Mothers’ Day

We have wonderful books honoring the mothers and others who love us. We can also return to the day’s original purpose with books about peace. Julia Ward Howe, most famous for writing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, called for a Mothers’ Day for Peace in 1870. Her proclamation read in part, “Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

Shavuot

Check out the Shavuot stories and books about this celebration of harvest and the Torah.

Memorial Day

We have books about those who have served in the military throughout history.

May Author/Illustrator Birthdays

Milton Meltzer
J.M. Barrie
Peter Sis
Edward Lear (May 12 is Limerick Day)
George Selden
L. Frank Baum
Bruce Coville
Eloise Greenfield
Gary Paulsen
Tom Feelings
Arthur Dorros
Arnold Lobel
Susan Cooper
Margaret Wise Brown
Walt Whitman

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

And April is full of reasons to read:

We may be on vacation on April Fool’s Day, but 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!

Pesach/Passover

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

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 15 – 21

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

Announcing the 4th and 5th Grade TDS Library Book Club

Educators and librarians are always trying to find a way to prevent the decline in recreational reading that happens in middle school. Fourth and fifth graders still tend to enjoy reading for pleasure. To encourage them to continue taking delight in books, we will begin a 4th-5th-grade book club in the TDS Library. The children and I nominated over twenty titles to read together for our first selection, and they voted on ten. In a very tight election, the winner was The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin; a clever, funny and exciting mystery full of challenging puzzles. We will meet every other Thursday in the library at lunch.

March is Women’s History Month

To celebrate Women's History Month, Tehiyah mom, Linda Press Wulf, will visit 5th-7th grades on Wednesday, March 7 to talk about her process as an author writing The Night of the Burning: Devorah's Story. This beautiful and important book tells the story of Linda's mother-in-law who survived a pogrom in Poland in 1920 and was rescued from an orphanage by South African philanthropist, Isaac Ochberg. We will be selling autographed copies of the book that day.

And Tehiyah parent, Diane Wolf, will do a reading from her new book Beyond Anne Frank: Hidden Children and Postwar Families in Holland as a benefit for the Tehiyah Library on Sunday March 11th at 3 p.m. A former hidden child from Holland will be present to answer questions. Parents and middle school students are invited.

We have many books about Women’s History from new picture books like Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor, Julia Morgan Builds a Castle, and If This Bus Could Talk about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott to new collected biographies like Latina Women and histories of the women’s movement like The Untold Story of the Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists. We also have many individual biographies and wonderful picture books folk tale collections and novels that celebrate strong and creative women.

One such novel is the new Newbery award winner, The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. This is an exciting story about a delightful and resourceful young girl. The controversy surrounding the use of one word is, in my opinion, overblown. The word (scrotum) is used appropriately to describe where a rattlesnake bites a dog.

March Author/Illustrator Birthdays

Leo Dillon
Dr. Seuss (Read Across America Day)
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!

February is full of good reasons to read!

Tu b’Shvat - The Birthday of the Trees

We have books about trees and the environment in both fiction and nonfiction.

Black History Month

Come check out our large selection of books on Africa, African Americans and the Civil Rights Movement. We have biographies, history, folk tales, poetry, arts and science plus many works of fiction.

Lunar New Year

Come check out the books on Lunar New Year and about the many Asian countries that celebrate it.

February Author/Illustrator Birthdays

Langston Hughes
Jerry Spinelli
Judith Viorst
Charles Dickens
Laura Ingalls Wilder
E. L. Konigsburg
Jane Yolen
Judy Blume
Jamake Highwter
Paul Zelinsky
W.E.B. DuBois
Cynthia Voigt

Celebrate with one of their books!