YAACING Fall 2018

NEWSLETTER OF THE YOUNG ADULT & CHILDREN’S SERVICES SECTION OF BCLA

YAACING FALL 2018

Table of Contents: 4

Message from the Chair 5

Message from the Editors News

26 New and Noteworthy Books

by Sadie Tucker

6 Summer Reading Club

by Cynthia Ford

Call for Submissions

6 Young Readers’ Choice Award

by Noreen Ma

YAACING is the quarterly newsletter of the Young Adults and Children’s Services section of the British Columbia Library Association. We publish articles by librarians and library paraprofessionals serving children and teens. Topics range from library programs and events, to book reviews, story time ideas, literacy tips and more!

8 YAACS Professional Development: Uken Do It!

by Kate Wood

Columns 10 Jbrary: We’ll Link to That!

by Dana Horrocks and Lindsey Krabbenhoft 12 Teens Only

by Christopher Knapp

Features 14 New Curriculum Kits Unveiled at the BCACCS Resource Centre

by Rowena Koh 16 The Perfect Elephant and Piggie Party

by Brittany Lank 20 Diversity in Children’s Literature: What does it mean and how do we support it? Part III of a four part series

by Tracy Stremlaw 22 Teen Summer Challenge

by Stephanie Hong

If you would like to submit something for consideration, please email yaacing@gmail.com

Message from the Chair Whew! Back-to-school time is behind us and it really feels like Fall. There is something about this time of year that is like a reset button, where we can reconnect with our excitement for the year ahead, see our goals with fresh eyes and make changes needed. I hope you are finding the chance to implement those new ideas you’ve been thinking about over the summer.

It has been great to see members of YAACS joining our quarterly meetings and I hope you will join us at our upcoming meeting on December 11th from 7-8pm. We have been busy with our focus on continuing education and we hope you will join us in our YAACS workshops.

We recently held a Vancouver Island “Uken Do It! Beginner Ukulele Workshop” workshop in August, and for our lower mainland members we have a full day of workshops coming up on October 10th. In collaboration with Burnaby Public Library, we are excited to offer “Rhyme Time” and “School Age Program Ideas” sharing sessions.

We’re also excited to announce we have expanded our continuing education portfolios at YAACS to include new roles. I’d like to welcome Continuing Education Coordinators for Teen Services – Claire Badali and Rebekah Adams-Brush, as well as our new regional Continuing Education Coordinator for the Kootenays – Avi Silberstein. I am accepting expressions of interest for the new roles of continuing education coordinators for the regions of Okanagan, Cariboo and Northern BC. It has been a pleasure to review the feedback we’ve received for the 2018 YAACS Youth Services Institute. We feel a positive momentum to continue offering great continuing education opportunities. Stay tuned for a call-out to provide input on our topic for the 2019 YAACS Youth Services Institute!

Kate Longley Chair kate.a.longley@gmail.com

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Message from the Editors Welcome, fall! Nice to see you again! What a heartwarming season fall is: back to school, leaves changing colour, shorter days, sweaters, hot drinks, general coziness. And of course, the fall issue of YAACING! We’re big fans of fall here at YAACING and quite excited to serve up this wonderful newsletter for all of you BC library folks. If this issue is any indication, BC Library staff worked incredibly hard and brought tons of creativity and passion to providing amazing free programs and services for BC families and youth during summer 2018.

Fall is all about change and transformation, and we are going through changes here at YAACING! We are so grateful to Jane Whittingham for her monumental contributions as coeditor. Jane is a full-time children’s librarian at VPL as well as a children’s picture book author on her third publication. Congratulations on your successes in the world of children’s literature, Jane! And a warm welcome to Leah Pearse, stepping in as new YAACING co-editor! Leah works in the GVPL system with the Emergent Literacy Portfolio.

We hope you enjoy reading the fall issue of YAACING as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

Thank you to all the contributors for taking the time to share their knowledge and skills with the wider BC library community!

Till next time, Julia McKnight and Jane Whittingham yaacing@gmail.com

Fall 2018 | YAACING 5

What I did last summer...with the BC SRC Summer may be coming to a close but you can keep those wonderful BC SRC memories alive by writing them down and entering the BC SRC Community Story Award! Tell us a story about the way the BC SRC impacts you or your community and you might win attendance at the 2019 BCLA Conference!

Previous winners include: 2017 Ardie Burnham (Okanagan Regional Library, Salmon Arm branch) 2016 Selina Powszedny (Squamish Public Library) 2015 Miranda Mallinson (Vancouver Public Library) 2014 Beverley Rintoul (Rossland Public Library) For more info, visit: http://kidssrc.libraries.coop/community-story-award/ Send your story to bcsrc@bclibrary.ca with the subject line: SRC Community Story Award.

Cynthia Ford is the Provincial Coordinator of BC SRC

PNLA Young Reader’s Choice Awards Since 1940 young readers in the Pacific Northwest have been participating in the Young Reader’s Choice Award. The award was established in 1940 by Harry Hartman, a Seattle bookseller, who believed every student should have an opportunity to select a book that gives him or her pleasure. The Young Reader’s Choice Award is sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Library Association and continues to be the longest running children’s choice book award. It is also the only international award with young readers in both the United States and Canada participating in the program.

In case you missed them, here are the 2019 nominees: Junior Division (Grades 4-6) Dog Man by Dav Pilkey The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill It Ain’t so Awful, Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas The Key to Extraordinary by Natalie Lloyd Ms. Bixby’s Last Day by John David Anderson Pax by Sara Pennypacker The Wild Robot by Peter Brown The Inn Between by Marina Cohen 6 YAACING | Fall 2018

NEWS Intermediate Division (Grades 7-9) Booked by Kwame Alexander Heartless by Marissa Meyer Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan The Skeleton Tree by Iain Lawrence Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman Replica by Lauren Oliver Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton OCDaniel by Wesley King Senior Division (Grades 10-12) The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E.K. Johnston We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe by Ryan North Passenger by Alexandra Bracken I am accepting nominations for the 2020 PNLA YRCA! Nominations will be collected from students, librarians, teachers, and parents in the Pacific Northwest ~ Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana and Washington. Nominations will not be accepted from publishers. Most importantly nominated titles must already be popular with young readers. Nominated titles must be published three (3) years prior to the award year (for example, for the 2019 nominees must have a copyright date of 2016), printed in the United States or Canada. Nominations may include fiction, nonfiction and graphic format titles. Nominations of books that are a sequel or part of a series may be considered.

When nominating a title please include the following: • Title • Author • Copyright Date (original copyright must be 2017 to be nominated for 2020) • Division where you feel the title is most appropriate and any other information you would like to include about the popularity of the title.

-- Junior Division: Grades 4-6 -- Middle Division: Grades 7-9 -- Senior Division: Grades 10-12 Please email me your nominations at nma75@shaw.ca Noreen Ma is a librarian at Vancouver Public Library.

Fall 2018 | YAACING 7

NEWS YAACS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

YAACS Vancouver Island & Surrounding Islands Professional Development Workshop: Uken Do It!

Photo Credit: Kate Wood

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NEWS On August 20th, Vancouver Island Regional Library’s Harbourfront Branch hosted the Uken Do It! workshop. Under the fantastic guidance of instructor Sam Rowlandson-O’Hara, participants were given a full day of ukulele training. Beginning with learning the four basic ukulele chords, which are used in most popular songs, the extremely eager attendees were able to move through the chord positions quite quickly.

The participants ranged in experience from absolute beginners to experienced players but all had a great time at the workshop. By the end of the day, the group was able to successfully (although perhaps, slowly and carefully) play some basic children’s songs including “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”, and they even figured out the beginning chords to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”!

Save the Date!

Rhyme Time and School-Age Programming Ideas Workshop Join us for a professional development day at Burnaby Public Library.

Tommy Douglas Branch, Burnaby Public Library 7311 Kingsway, Burnaby October 10, 2018 Cost: $3 (let’s share refreshments expenses!)

Rhyme Time

9:30am to 12:30pm Learn new rhymes and songs and enhance your For the last portion of the day, Sam briefly covered storytime repertoire. Pick three of your favourite some important points to keep in mind when singrhymes and share them with fellow children’s ing with children, and then the group participated librarians. in a resource and program sharing circle where they shared successful music related programs.

School-Age Programming Ideas The group was also given a quick tour of the Na1:45pm to 4:30pm naimo Harbourfront branch and were able to revel Let’s talk about middle years! Share your successful in all the resources that the branch, renovated in school-age programs and get ideas for new ways to 2015, has to offer. serve K-7 children in your library.

Thanks to Nanaimo Harbourfront branch for hosting, and to Nikky McCarvill, Kate Wood and YAACS for helping to coordinate and promote this worthwhile and fun event!

Kate Wood is a library assistant at the Greater Victoria Public Library.

Registration due by Friday September 28, 2018.

Payment is due on the day of the workshop, cash only (exact change, if possible). Please indicate which workshop you want to register for (you can attend either of them, or both).

Email: ana.calabresi@bpl.bc.ca

Sam Rowlandson-O’Hara is a Library Assistant (Salt Spring Island Public Library), MLIS Candidate, and Workshop Facilitator.

Fall 2018 | YAACING 9

COLUMNS

We’ll Link to That!

By Dana Horrocks and Lindsey Krabbenhoft

We’re kicking it old school this time around with a link round-up of some amazing ideas we’ve seen floating around the web. Need some fall inspiration? We’ve got you covered.

Over on our Jbrary blog we’ve been fortunate to have some amazing guest bloggers contribute to our Talking to Kids About Race series. Use a curated list of racially diverse storytime books and learn how to give early literacy tips around the topic of race. Following the social justice topic, we also wanted to share an inspiring post by Hi Miss Julie about Outreach in a Time of Uprising where she addresses how to be vulnerable in our work and how to pay attention to the needs of a community. And you know how strongly we feel about community outreach!

Looking for new ideas to serve your early years community? Short on funds?

Check out these Homemade Interactive Play Stations intended to foster creative and imaginative play without costing a fortune. If you’re looking to build up your STEM programming for preschoolers, this Computational Thinking in Storytime with Robots blog post shows you the books, songs, felt activities, and extension activities that blend early literacy and technology seamlessly. Over on the ALSC blog we found these visual schedules a great first step in making storytimes inclusive for all families. We are so excited Miss Meg is back blogging and were wowed by her Fairy Tale Ball that capitalizes on the lasting power of folk and fairy tales for a wide age range. Lastly, we had heart eye emojis for this Mini Masters of Library Science program that is sure to inspire a new generation of youth services librarians!

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COLUMNS

Summer Reading Club is officially over (thank GOODNESS!) but how are you going to keep those eager readers plugged into the library? We got you. LibraryLaura and her coworker Jen reminded us that book character parties are a blast any time of the year. Their Elephant and Piggie Party is full of fun ideas for budding readers and could honestly be a monthly program. For more book character program ideas, check out our round-up post. Another Mo Willems inspired program (but you could use your favourite rhyming read) celebrates Nanette’s Baguette and its glorious rhymes. We love how Allison the Lightsome Librarian focuses on the importance of rhyme beyond the early years crowd and includes an awesome BINGO template in her School-Age Storytime. You might be all slimed out but Karissa the Ontarian Librarian shares some brilliant new stations for a slime program and also why libraries are the perfect place for slime. Finally, if you’ve been itching to try an escape room this post if for you! We love how Jennifer Johnson breaks down her process, shares resources and makes this Battle of the Bands Escape Room for Tweens and Teens seem downright doable.

The Fall is a wonderful time not only for new books but to start checking out what’s coming out next year too. Mile High Reading has not one, not two, but three glorious posts (so far!) featuring 2019 picture books to feast your eyes upon. And finally, we leave you with an absolute gift of a post by Abby the Librarian. Abby is new to her collection development role and her post on Building a Collection Development Toolkit is incredibly helpful if you purchase for all ages, but even her strategy of subscribing to a blog or weekly email would be helpful for youth services folks.

Have you seen any amazing program or collection resources out there?

Send us an email at jbrary@gmail.com to tell us all about it!

Lindsey Krabbenhoft is a children’s librarian at Vancouver Public Library, who loves all things storytime.

Dana Horrocks is the Director of a small public library in New Brunswick.

Together they make up Jbrary which is a library of storytime resources for those of us working with children. Join us for songs, rhymes, fingerplays, and more at www.jbrary.com Fall 2018 | YAACING 11

COLUMNS TEENS ONLY

Creating a Gaming Community in the Library Gaming is an activity that can bring people from many backgrounds together, and this has certainly been the case this summer at the Prince George Public Library. During our summer programming session, we have created two programs for teens focused around gaming: a “Tens-to-Teens” Gaming Hour and a Teen Tabletop Meetup. As gaming is an activity that is inviting to teens of any age and skill level, it is an easy program to run and oversee, especially once an established attendance base has been achieved. Each program focuses on a different medium of gaming; the former is video games, and the latter is for board and other tabletop games. While these two programs are different in form, they have both managed to bring together a community of gamers in the public library: a community that has been incredibly energetic, excited, and supportive.

Tens-to-Teens Gaming Hour has been a great success and has demonstrated that video gaming is an activity that bridges generations. We opened up this program to such a diverse age range because it encourages youth of all ages to interact with one another. In doing so, it is allowing our teen patrons to continue attending our programming with those that they have become friends with over the years from childhood; therefore eliminating the awkward age-oriented boundary between “child” and “teen”.

Furthermore, it has given our teen patrons a chance to play games with a variety of people, and in some instances, has proven a great opportunity for siblings who are years apart in age: a chance to bond with one another, and just have fun. In bringing these two ages together, it has also afforded the teens who attend the program an informal 12 YAACING | Fall 2018

mentoring opportunity where they can engage with children by teaching them how to play games and how to improve their gaming skills. This gives both the teens and the children attending the program a sense of accomplishment in their skills and the confidence in themselves to be proud gamers.

The Teen Tabletop Meetup has proven to be another success for the library and has demonstrated the great educational potential that board and other tabletop games can have for teens. The program has been crafted to cater to two types of tabletop gamers – those who enjoy more mature board games, such as Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, and 5-Minute Dungeon, as well as those who enjoy card games such as Pokémon and Magic the Gathering. While they might be diverse groups, I have found over the course of the program that depending on the week, the focus of the group will shift between each type of gameplay. The weekly shift between board games and card-based games has given the teens a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate their expertise in their own respective gaming fields. Whenever a new participant has come to the program, I have had teens eagerly take the opportunity to show the new teen how to play the game, including nuanced rules and instructions, and guide them along during the whole program time.

COLUMNS Our board game collection for the Teen Tabletop Meetup For both programs, the materials have been easy to acquire and not overly complex to set up. For Tens-toTeens Gaming Hour, I have used both the in-house Nintendo Switch and Wii U systems for games such as Mario Kart, ARMS, Super Smash Brothers, and Just Dance as they encourage participants to stand up, move around, and communicate as they game.

For the Teen Tabletop Meetup, we have purchased a small selection of board games, including Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, Ticket to Ride, 5-Minute Dungeon, and One Night Ultimate Werewolf; we also encourage participants to bring their own card-based game decks to play with others.

A variety of board games allow for both competitive and cooperative play and take, on average, an hour to 2 hours to play. These titles are rated E through E10+ and are great for getting teens moving!

This is a fantastic opportunity for teens because it allows them to acknowledge their own expertise and to take ownership of that knowledge. As well, it provides the teens with a great sense of pride in being able to educate a peer in a friendly and nontraditional educational environment. As these opportunities are not commonly afforded to teens, I believe it is a great benefit to a public library to be the space where teens can feel this sense of accomplishment and to make that connection with the library space, their peers (both new and old), and the library staff.

Christopher Knapp is a teen librarian at the Prince George Public Library.

Fall 2018 | YAACING 13

FEATURES

New Curriculum Kits Unveiled at the BCACCS Resource Centre The BC Aboriginal Child Care Society (BCACCS) is a Centre of Excellence for Indigenous early learning and child care. BCACCS was established in 1996 to administer the $12 million BC share of the federal government’s First Nations/Inuit Child Care Initiative. Through this initiative we helped establish over 800 licenced child care spaces in BC. We incorporated as a non-profit society in 1998 and obtained charitable status in 2000.

We are committed to nurturing excellence through community outreach, education, research and advocacy, to ensure every Indigenous child in BC has access to spiritually enriching, culturally relevant, high quality early learning and child care services.

This includes ensuring that culturally informed and age-appropriate curriculum resources are made available to Indigenous children and their families, educators, and caregivers. With recent funding from the Ministry of Children & Family Development (MCFD), the BCACCS Resource Centre was able to develop new cultural curriculum kits to support the development of quality Indigenous early learning and child care (IELCC) programming.

Currently, nine kits have been created on themes of significance to Indigenous communities across the province – salmon, bear, eagle, raven, coyote, owl, canoe, drum, and cedar. In developing the kits, we chose to include a mix of resources to support the teaching of Indigenous knowledge, values, and cultural practices, highlighting in particular the importance of our relationship to land and place.

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Kit contents include: • Traditional stories and contemporary books produced by Indigenous writers, illustrators, publishers, and communities • Accompanying felt stories, puppets, and templates that support storytelling in ways that respect cultural protocols and processes • Playscapes, open-ended materials, dramatic play items, and manipulatives made of felted textiles, wood, and other natural and high quality materials • Resource sheets that describe the theme’s significance to Indigenous communities, cultural protocols, and suggestions to encourage storytelling, learning from land, Elder involvement, and the teaching of Indigenous languages The kits were kept small in size and theme to promote both portability and inspire imagination.

It is important to adapt the content and stories to the needs of the children in your program and your local environment. Individual kits can also be combined with each other to create Indigenous oriented, place-based curriculum that shows how land, water, people, animals, and all living things are interconnected. For example, combine the salmon, bear, and cedar kits - bears connect land and water by nourishing the forests with marine nutrients from the salmon carcasses they leave behind after feeding.

FEATURES

Photos Courtesy of BCACCS The kits also act as a travelling, knowledge sharing resource. Educators are encouraged to share activity ideas or local resources relevant to the kit’s theme in the notebook or folder included in each kit. Write down your ideas or include photos and the name of your centre or library so we can share where our kits are travelling to and how they are being used. Our kits are being rolled out and made available for loan from the BCACCS Resource Centre throughout the summer. In an effort to increase accessibility to our resources by communities across the province, our kits are also currently available through the lending libraries of select Child Care Resource and Referral (CCRR) centres as part of our rotating collection pilot project, funded by the Loyal Protestant Association.

To borrow a kit, please contact the BCACCS Resource Centre for information and availability at 604-913-9128 or library@acc-society.bc.ca.

A more detailed description of the kits can be found on our website acc-society.bc.ca. New kits, including a traditional foods kit, will be uploaded as they become available.

Hoping to see a specific subject or theme in a new kit? Let us know what you are looking for. Contact library@acc-society.bc.ca with your suggestions.

Rowena Koh is a librarian with the BC Aboriginal Child Care Society.

Fall 2018 | YAACING 15

The Perfect Elephant and Piggie Party at the Prince George Public Library Elephant and Piggie are two characters who are very near and dear to my heart. Between the silliness of the stories, the lessons about friendship, and the uncanny ability to make even the most serious of young readers laugh, these books are hands down some of my favourite. We were lucky enough here at the Prince George Public Library to have a young patron declare her enthusiasm for these two by requesting that we have an entire party to celebrate them. What a fantastic idea!

We took this suggestion and ran with it, and we ended up with a hugely successful Elephant and Piggie Party that kids will remember forever (or at least until the next one).

The popularity of Mo Willems’ books doesn’t seem to be fading any time soon. As such, I am excited to share the details of our Elephant and Piggie Party with all of you! Please feel free to gather inspiration from what you read here, or otherwise use this information however suits you best.

I’ll be 100% honest with you; the hardest part about throwing an Elephant and Piggie Party was limiting the number of activities and keeping my ambitions in check. There’s just so much fun that you can have with these two, so deciding on activities that were reasonable in both number and scale was difficult. When it was all said and done, we ended up having three main components for the program: a storytime, activity stations and photo-ops.

Photo Credit: Carolynne Burkholder-James 16 YAACING | Fall 2018

FEATURES

Storytime: I started the program off by doing a • Movement activity: It’s amazing the kind very short storytime. We all gathered in to our of things you can find if you dig far enough storytime room and sang some hello songs, into the storage room. I happened to find then I launched in to readings of “There is a an enormous stuffed snake in our storage Bird on your Head” and “We are in a Book.” room, and we have several smaller snake We also sang a little song in between with help puppets to go with it. Throw some squishy from elephant and pig puppets. We ended up balls in to the mix, add various sized bins with over 115 participants, which was huge to toss them in to, and you’ve got a game for our little library. Everyone sat through the on your hands! Participants threw the storytime really well, and it got them really snakes and balls in to the bins, and it was excited for the next part of the program: activso much fun. I also set up copies of “Watch ity stations! me Throw the Ball” and “Can I Play too?” around the area, just in case participants Activity stations: The stations made up the were a little confused about what throwing bulk of the program. In order to make this snakes had to do with Elephant and Piggie. event easy to follow for staff, volunteers and participants, this program was run rather • Tactile activity: This activity was inspired passively. There were several stations scatby “I Really like Slop” and involved particitered throughout the library, each with a set pants reaching into bags without looking in of instructions taped up nearby. Participants them, and trying to guess what ingredients could do whichever activities they wanted to, were in the bag. They were told that each in whatever order they wanted to. Additioningredient was one that Piggie had added ally, I had set up all the material beforehand, to a delicious bowl of slop! I used variand added pink and blue balloons decorated ous crafting materials for this, put them in to look like Gerald and Piggie to mark each brown bags, and taped paper to the bags station area. Teen volunteers ran each station, that could be flipped to reveal the answers. but all they really had to do was supervise and This was also well-loved by participants, make sure everyone was having fun. especially when they found out that one of the ingredients was silly putty!

• Craft corner: I wanted to set up one craft that kids wouldn’t accidently leave lying • Opinion activity: Did you know that dry around the library when it was time to go. I erase markers not only work amazingly decided on hats that could be worn around well on windows, but also wash off with during the event, and that likely wouldn’t absolutely no problem? Well now you do! be forgotten since they were on kids’ heads.

We have several full walls of windows in Participants were able to choose either our junior area, so I decided to take advanGerald or Piggie, and then draw on a face, tage of the space. I wrote the title of every glue on some ears, and voilà! This was a Elephant and Piggie book in the windows, huge hit, and it was great to see participants and the participants were able to draw and wearing them around the library. colour in the windows under their favourite ones. Participants simply couldn’t believe that they were allowed to colour on the Fall 2018 | YAACING 17

windows in the library. It was chaos. Every title received a lot of love, and I don’t think there was a unanimous favourite. They are all too good!

• Creative Activity: Perhaps my favourite activity of all was the creative corner. Here kids could learn to draw Elephant and Piggie, write their own Elephant and Piggie story, and they could create something that would be sent to Mo Willems himself!

I went through all of the things to be sent away before we mailed all of the fan art and letters to Mo Willems, and participants thought it was the coolest thing.

Photo-ops: The third major component of the event was a corner of the storytime room set up with opportunities for parents/guardians to get photos of their children. These photo-ops were about the Pigeon. I know, I know. It’s an Elephant and Piggie party, not a Pigeon party!

However, that pesky little pigeon had to sneak his way in somehow. We had two photo-ops for parents/guardians: a large picture frame with the Pigeon asking to drive the bus and a little speech bubble saying “no,” and a giant cardboard bus that the Pigeon really wanted to drive. The amazing frame had been created by a previous staff member for a Mo Willems program, but the bus had to be made from scratch. Well, I suppose it didn’t have to be made, but once the idea of a kid-sized bus was in my mind, then it simply had to be done. We were lucky enough to get a very large box, and through some time and effort, it was transformed into a bus! Kids could stick their heads through the windows and everything. Even

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better, I was able to fold it up and store it for re-use!

On the topic of reusability, one of my goals for this program was to make it as user-friendly as possible for not only this program, but also in the event that we do another Elephant and Piggie party in the future. As such, all the instructions were laminated and safely stored in a box, along with the schedule we followed, and facilitator notes and instructions. Next time we want to do this, we’ve got a pre-made program in a box!

This program ended up being so much fun for both participants and for the library in general.

Gerald and Piggie stole all of our hearts with this event, and I highly recommend embracing Mo Willems if you’re looking for program/ event ideas. Please don’t be shy if you have questions or want to chat about this, you can reach me at blank@pgpl.ca.

Happy programming!

FEATURES

Photo Credit: Brittany Lank Fall 2018 | YAACING 19

Diversity in Children’s Literature: What does it mean and how do we support it?

Part three of a four-part series.

Resource Review #3: We Need Diverse Books - An organizational movement http://weneeddiversebooks.org (WNDB) We Need Diverse Books is an organization, now just a few years old, and was the brainchild of Ellen Oh and Malinda Lo. This grassroots collective of publishers, librarians, authors and bloggers “advocates essential changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people.”

Their mission is to “Put more books featuring diverse characters into the hands of all children.”

Ever so importantly, the organization believe a person’s disability is merely a barrier of the social environment in which the individual lives.

We Need Diverse Books has identified the following benefits to reading diverse books:

1. They reflect the world and people of the world 2. They teach respect for all cultural groups 3. They serve as a window and a mirror and as an example of how to interact in the world 4. They show that despite difference all people share The founders of the organization, were frustrated common feelings and aspirations by the evidence that diversity was in a decline 5. They can create a wider curiosity for the world rather than an upswing in children’s literature.

6. They prepare children for the world They wanted to do something significant to make 7. They enrich education experiences a difference. Their idea immediately gained traction among the book community and many have Initiatives of WNDB committed their support to the project. The Initial brainstorming committee birthed the hashtag Internship Grants - Internship grants help start-off #weneeddiversebooks which started to take off graduates’ publishing careers, thereby creating chamstraight away, trending shortly after. pions of diversity in their new workplaces and publishing houses.

We Need Diverse Books Defines Diversity in the following way: The Walter Dean Myers Grant - This grant is avail“We recognize all diverse experiences, including able to develop emerging writers and illustrators (but not limited to) LBTQIA, Natives, people of in the Young Adult and Middle School category of colour, gender diversity, people with disabilities literature. (not limited to physical, sensory, cognitive, intellectual or developmental disabilities, chronic con- Mentorship Program - WNDB operates a mentordition and mental illness (including addiction), ship program which received almost 300 applications ethnic, cultural and religious minorities.” in 2015. The committee chose five emerging writers and paired them each with an award-winning author to help them get their book finished and published.

The program was so successful they have doubled the sponsorships for the following year.

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FEATURES

WNDB in the Classroom - This is an initiative that brings diverse authors’ books to classrooms each month within the school system.

Highly recommended by many respected booklists, the organization has found another powerful way to further spread their message.

Partnerships -The organization works to partner with other industry leaders to create a space for diversity wherever they can. These efforts work to help librarians, educators and booksellers find the diverse books that are out there and “get them into the hands of the children”.

Thoughts

This organization seems to be on the forefront of the diversity movement. As a library student or professional, this website can be used a resource for its up-to-date articles on diversity and its well-chosen Diverse Book Lists. Their strengths are that they Educational Kits - Working with School Library have the support of so many talented people on Journal and American Bookseller Association, the inside of the industry and they were savvy with they are creating educational kits to help educators their initial social media campaign to raise awareand librarians present diverse books to students. ness for their cause. This arms them with a voice that seems to be getting heard. In only a few short Ways People Can Help WNDB Mission years they have accomplished so much and each of their initiatives have been met with overwhelmAs this is a grassroots operation, support is sought ing, positive support leading to expansion and in the following ways through their website: growth. Not only are they supporting new authors and emerging writers and illustrators through their Volunteerism: Currently they are not accepting work, but they are changing the publishing indusmore applications due to high interest. try with partnerships and internships. Their broad definition of diversity is inclusive and enveloping.

Fundraise or Donate: Via a PayPal portal on the Much of the diversity literature published concenwebsite, a visitor can donate to the cause. You can trates on ethnicity and it is easy to forget that there also support the cause through your own personal are really so many other places that need to become fundraising efforts, or by donating portions of more diverse in literature. WNMD have set a new your purchases through programs such as Amazon standard and their efforts are going to really make Smile and iGive. a difference by exposing diverse books to children who need to read them.

Other Resources available on the Website: WNDB has a blog with important news about Bibliography diversity in books. You can follow them on Tumblr Goldmsith, Annette Y and Betsy Damant-Cohen. or on Twitter for the latest updates. Their newslet- “Diversity through International Youth Literature.” ter is published monthly with updates and curJournal and Libraries: The Journal of the Associarent events regarding WMDB partnerships, new tion for Library Service to Children 14.4 (2016): authors and grant recipients. Diverse Book Lists, 38-40. published at the end of each year, provide guideWNDB. 2017. 11 april 2017. <www.weneeddiverselines for librarians looking to incorporate diversity books.org>. at their libraries.

A recently published anthology entitled “Teacher’s Guide to Flying Lessons”, edited by founder Ellen Oh, has brought the biggest names in children’s Tracy Stremlaw is a Library and Information Techpublishing, each one representing a diverse section nology student at Langara College. of the population to bookshelves.

Fall 2018 | YAACING 21

TEEN SUMMER CHALLENGE This summer Teen Services at the Vancouver Public Library launched our first Teen Summer Challenge, a summer-long passport initiative comprised of eight different programs and eight different reading and creative challenges. We noticed a gap in teen programming in the summers and wanted to create a fun and memorable experience with the potential to continue. Our theme for 2018 was Fantastic Fandoms.

So how did it all begin? After a successful summer Harry Potter program at VanDusen Botanical Gardens in 2017, we wanted to repeat that same success but explore different beloved worlds and encourage teens to venture out into the city. The initial vision became a passport where teens could collect stamps for the various “destinations” a.k.a. the programs. We brainstormed a list of various fantasy, dystopian, and otherworldly works and thought about how we could emulate the idea of travelling to these worlds while delivering an exciting program. After several brainstorming sessions we were able to narrow down our list of works to the following: Alice in Wonderland, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantastic Beasts and 22 YAACING | Fall 2018

Where to Find them, The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Shakespeare, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

It’s important to acknowledge that one of the major keys to our success lies with our partnership with the VanDusen Botanical Garden Library. In 2017 we celebrated the 20th Anniversary of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone with an herbology themed scavenger hunt at the Gardens and we were blown away by the positive reception from the teens. Furthermore, we were able to build a positive partnership with another organization who was just as excited to have teens visit their space. We decided to think about different organizations we could potentially work with and it resulted in four partnerships for 2018: Bard on the Beach, Beaty Biodiversity Museum, Britannia Community Centre, and VanDusen Botanical Garden. The partnerships allowed our teens to experience different locations or events in the city.

FEATURES We ended up created the following eight programs: For teens who wanted to participate in the Teen Summer Challenge but who had limited mobility • Edible Cinema: Alice in Wonderland (1951) and or who would be out of town, we also included Edible Cinema: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate several non-program challenges. Teens could Factory (1971) - Teens would watch a film, complete three creative challenges, such as “Draw while simultaneously being served memorable your own fantasy map/world,” and five reading food items found in the film. Think “Drink Me” challenges, such as “Read a book by a Canadian potion and Wonka Bars. author.” Booklists with recommendations for each of the five reading challenges were available on the • Into the Glade: Maze Runner at VanDusen - Trial VPL Teens website. oriented tasks at VanDusen Botanical Garden, including running the maze.

We were very fortunate to have plenty of support from various departments at VPL. Everyone in • Dungeons and Dragons 101 - Intro to Dungeons Teen Services helped plan and deliver programs, and Dragons where teens learned aspects of the and several branch staff took on programs which game and a small portion of a campaign. allowed us to deliver programs in different locations. Our Marketing and Communications • Hunger Games: Library Edition - A competition department created a visually stunning passport to overthrow the Capital in a Hunger Games and poster series for the summer, and the branches themed program that included various partner worked hard to promote the programs to teens and groups and the Britannia Community Centre. get them registered for their passports.

• Shakesperience in the Stacks - A partnered program with Bard on the Beach’s Riotous Youth ensemble where teens watched an informative performance and took part in an acting workshop.

We received wonderful feedback from the teens who participated, several of whom came to multiple programs over the summer. It was a rare treat to get to know these teens better and hear from them; the majority of our 2018 summer participants did not come to our regular teen programming throughout • Jigsaw Showdown - A race against the clock and the previous school year. Several teens mentioned a jigsaw puzzle competition filled with Harry that they appreciated having fun activities planned Potter trivia. since it gave them something to do that was free, social, and entertaining.

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - A hunt for Fantastic Beasts at the Beaty We’ve had an absolute blast running the program Biodiversity Museum, complete with a tour and can’t wait to get started on plans for 2019 and hosted by museum staff. all its possibilities.

For more questions about how the program went, send an email to teens@vpl.ca.

Stephanie Hong is a Senior Library Public Service Assistant at Vancouver Public Library.

Fall 2018 | YAACING 23

FEATURES

Photo credit: Sasha Schertzer

Photo credit: Stephanie Hong 24 YAACING | Fall 2018

FEATURES

Photo credit: Stephanie Hong

Photo credit: Stephanie Hong Fall 2018 | YAACING 25

FEATURES

New and Noteworthy Books Babies, Toddlers & Preschoolers Bath! Bath! Bath! (Florian, Douglas)

(B-T) A fun book about bathtime, with lots of repetition. Features a diverse cast of characters. A good contender for group storytimes.

Starred reviews: PW

Ducks Away! (Fox, Mem)

(B-PreS) A mother duck is crossing a bridge with her five ducklings when one of her ducklings falls into the river below! As her ducklings fall into the river one by one, she must figure what to do. A simple story with a great rhythm and a surprising amount of suspense.

With clear illustrations, this is a perfect choice for group storytimes or even a felt story. A charming avenue to discuss subtraction and addition with preschoolers.

Starred reviews: HB

The Alphabet of Alphabets (Wood, A.J.)

(T-gr.3) A fun and innovative search-and-find book that’s great for a wide range of ages! Every page spread is dedicated to a different letter of the alphabet and features a busy illustration full of themed items to find. Fantastic for letter recognition, visual literacy, and vocabulary development. Starred reviews: GR (4.3*) Digger and the Flower (Kuefler, Joseph) (PreS) When Digger finds a flower in the middle of a construction site, he cares for it with tenderness and consistency. What will he do when it is threatened by development? A sweet story with real emotional suspense and sorrow. Starred reviews: K, SLJ

Perfectly Norman (Percival, Tom)

Pignic (Phelan, Matt)

(T-PreS) When a group of pigs go o n a picnic, they have great fun despite challenges that they encounter along the way. A strong storytime contender!

Starred reviews: PW, SLJ

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(PreS-gr.1) Norman was perfectly normal until he grew a pair of wings. Worried about what others, including his parents, will think, Norman dons a coat to cover up this new development. Running around in a coat all the time is less than fun. A sudden realisation that the coat, not the wings, are what’s making him miserable eventually inspire Norman to shed his disguise. Starred reviews: GR (4.1*)

FEATURES

Primary Grades Thank you, Earth: A Love Letter to Our Planet (Sayre, April Pulley)

(PreS-gr.4) An ode to the planet, for its beauty and the sustenance it provides us. The photos are splendid: vivid and plentiful. The poem is lyrical and inspiring. Starred reviews: SLJ, GR (4.3*)

Islandborn (Diaz, Junot)

(K-gr.3) Lola and her classmates are from all over the world.

When they are assigned to draw a picture of where they are from, Lola is concerned because she was only a baby when she left. Through her community’s stories, Lola is able to explore and embrace her heritage.

Starred reviews: BL, PW, SLJ, GR (4.3*)

Where’s Halmoni? (Kim, Julie J.) (K-gr.4) When Noona and Joon go to visit their grandmother, they find her missing and what look like tiger tracks in her house. They soon enter a magical realm where Korean folktales come to life. Starred reviews: BL, K, PW, SLJ, GR (4.2*)

School Age Novels Bob (Mass, Wendy)

(Gr.3-6) When Livy returns to her grandmother’s after a fiveyear absence, she discovers a small green creature, called Bob, hiding in her closet. The twist?

Livy was friends with Bob and even promised to help him find his way home, but mysteriously forgot all about him during her absence. Starred reviews: BL, PW, SLJ, GR (4.1*)

Nightbooks (White, J.A.)

(Gr.4-7) Many reviewers have called this novel a clever combination of “Hansel and Gretel” and “One Thousand and One Nights”. Alex loves horror and loves to write. When he is trapped in a witch’s oddly large, magical apartment he finds himself required to read her one of his stories every night. Along with a fellow prisoner named Yasmin, Alex must figure out a way to escape before he runs out of stories! A not-scary story for young horror fans. Starred reviews: BCCB, BL, PW, SLJ

Sci-Fu (Mercado, Yehudi)

(Gr.4-7) An afrofuturist graphic novel for tweens? Yes, please!

13-year-old Wax is a budding DJ in 1980s Brooklyn, but his rapping needs some work. When his scratches attract the attention of some aliens, he’s bound for adventure. Kirkus says it best, “A lighthearted tale with black and brown characters, matter-of-fact Brooklyn bilingualism, and a solid message of creating through failure and love.”

Fall 2018 | YAACING 27

FEATURES

Teens Where the Watermelons Grow (Baldwin, Cindy)

Hullmetal Girls (Skrutskie, Emily)

Mortification of Fovea Munson (Heider, Mary Winn)

Learning to Breathe (Mather, Janice, Lynn)

(Gr.4-7) 12-year-old (Gr.8+) In the future, humanity Della lives on her family’s is wandering the universe watermelon farm with her looking for a new home. The mother, father, and toddler ships are protected by a group sister. In the midst of a of individuals who, for various record-setting drought, which reasons, elected to be turned threatens the family’s crops, into cyborgs. Aisha and Key are her mother’s schizophrenia two such individuals. Newly flares up something horrible. transformed, they must learn Della is determined to fix her mother, not only to work with the rest of the rookie team in order to by caring for the baby but also by getting a jar of survive. Easier said than done when the training is supposedly magical healing honey from the Bee Lady. grueling and a rebellion is afoot. Booklist praised The honey may not be able to heal Della’s Mama, but it the story for creating “a fully realized world… [with just might help Della accept her mother for who she is. a] diversity of ethnicities, sexualities, genders, and Starred reviews: BL, PW, SLJ, GR (4.4*) religions [that are] seamlessly integrated into the story.”

Starred reviews: VOYA

(Gr.5-8) No starred reviews here, but the premise is too good to pass up! Fovea’s parents perform surgery on cadavers, which pretty much makes 12-year-old Fovea an outcast at school. When she discovers three heads, bodies not included, talking amongst themselves, she is roped into doing them a favour. SLJ recommends this hilarious book “for kids who like fantasy, science fiction, and light horror.”

28 YAACING | Fall 2018

(Gr.9+) Growing up in the Bahamas, Indy has never been able to escape her mother’s reputation of living wild and loose. When Indy is raped by a cousin and becomes pregnant, she must battle her community’s assumptions about what happened while also finding peace within herself. After stumbling onto a yoga centre, Indy finds solace and just maybe a way through her trauma. Starred reviews: SLJ

FEATURES I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain (Walton, Will)

(Gr.9+) Avery has an alcoholic mother, an ill grandfather that he adores, and sort-of boyfriend (but definitely best friend) who wants to slow things down. Using poetry and prose, he explores life’s losses and gains, as well as his own identity. Starred reviews: PW, SLJ

The Book of Pearl (Fombelle, Timothée de)

(Gr.7+) A modern fairytale like no other. When Ilian is banished from his fairy tale world by an evil genie, he wakes up in 1936 Paris with no memory. Starred reviews: BCCB, BL, K

Out of the Blue (Cameron, Sophie)

(Gr.9+) A few days after Jaya’s mother died, strange winged beings began to fall out of the sky, dying from the impact, and Jaya’s father is obsessed. When Jaya finds a Being injured, but alive, she takes it under her wing (pun intended), to help it heal and protect it from those who would exploit it. With the help of two new friends, will she be able to pull off the ultimate rehab and release? Starred reviews: K, SLJ

Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe (Norton, Preston)

(Gr.9+) 16-year-old Cliff, at 6’6” and 250lbs, is called “neanderthal” by his classmates and leads a generally miserable life. When one of the popular kids comes back from a near death experience with a plan for improving the school and community, Cliff agrees to help. But what at first seems simple, creates ripples. Funny, wry, and full of expletives. Kirkus dislikes it, but PW says, “At the story’s core is an unsentimental treatment of a bullied kid and his one-time bully discovering their commonalities. That Norton accomplishes this without moralizing and in inventively rhythmic and pop-culture–saturated language only adds to the fun.”

Starred reviews: BL, PW, GR (4.2*)

Sadie Tucker is a children’s librarian at Vancouver Public Library

Fall 2018 | YAACING 29

Call for Submissions YAACING is published four times per year and is always looking for submissions that might interest childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and teen specialists in BC libraries. We accept articles, program descriptions and ideas, conference reports, and much more. If you would like to write a regular column, send us a brief pitch.

Submissions should be no more than 1500 words, sent in an editable format (not PDF). Please include a byline with your job title and workplace, or for students: your school, program and class information, if applicable.

YAACING invites your contributions to our Reviews and Felt Story sections: Reviews: Please send us reviews of books, blogs, websites, or other resources. Submissions should be no more than 300 words. Longer reviews may be considered for publication as featured articles.

Felt Stories: Share your creativity! YAACING is looking for felt story patterns. Submissions should include a printable pattern, photograph of the finished product, and related rhyme or note about the origin of the story.

The deadline for the Winter 2018 issue of YAACING is November 1st 2018. Please email your submissions to the editors at YAACING@gmail.com

30 YAACING | Fall 2018

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