
Shelf Notes
February 2024 - Issue #9
Our Librarian Life, January 2024
All things inventory. Do you do inventory in your library? If so, how do you do it? In this month's Our Librarian Life, Sherry and Sara talk about how they use LibraryThing for inventory. We even made two short tutorial videos to help other LibraryThing users. Kristi talked about how her library work is different in the winter because of the cold in her library. And Diane talked about how, despite all of our fancy technology, she is old-school and will probably always just use index cards, because they are what work best for her. Join us by listening in your favorite podcast app or at this link.
If you would like to watch the videos, you can see the basics video, here. And the bonus video, here.
Small Publishers We Love
In the Small Publishers corner of the newsletter each month, we hope to draw your attention to something lovely from one of our beloved small publishers. We are so grateful for the good work that these publishers do to revive otherwise lost good, true, and beautiful books!
In January, we had the privilege of recording a lively conversation with three of our favorite small publishers: Anthony Coafield of Living Book Press, Jill Morgan of Purple House Press, and Jody Skinner of Smidgen Press. In addition to talking about their favorite projects from 2023, we also found out about the exciting things they have planned for 2024. A Mistmantle Kickstarter with a twist, a gorgeous new Alcott set, more Stephen Meader, (Anthony’s new audiobook), and so many more treasures are coming this year! You can listen to that interview by clicking, here. You can check out the show notes with links to all of the goodness, here.
Book List Recommendations
In this section of the newsletter each month, we want to highlight book lists we have found to be particularly good for librarians. This month we want to make sure you know about Sherry Early’s Picture Book Preschool. This beautiful resource is a such a powerful tool for librarians!
Picture Book Preschool is a list of more than 365 of the best picture books available—a book for every day of the year! Every week of the year has a theme, a character trait to focus on, a corresponding Bible verse, an activity parents can do with their child, and a list of seven excellent picture books on that theme. As librarians, we can pull those classic and worthy books together, making it easier for families to read and love these excellent books.
Here is a sample week:
WEEK 5 (Feb) MUSIC AND MUSICIANS
Character Trait: Compassion
Bible Verse: "Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints" Psalm 149:1.
Goffstein, M.B. A Little Schubert. Harper Row, 1972.
Minarik, Else Homelund. Little Bear. Harper Row, 1957.
Zemach, Margot. Hush Little Baby. Dutton, 1976.
McCloskey, Robert. Lentil. Viking, 1940.
Langstaff, John. Over in the Meadow. Harcourt, 1957.
Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Dance at Grandpa’s. HarperCollins, 1932, 1994.
Martin, Bill and John Archambault. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Simon and Schuster,
1989.
BONUS: Nelson, Kadir. He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands. Dial, 2005.
Cauley, Lorinda Bryan, illustrator. Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Putnam, 1989.
Activities: Play samples of classical music and folk music for your children this week. If you are not familiar with classical music, try Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev or The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky. Both these pieces have a story that goes along with the music.
Practice whistling.
Make some simple rhythm instruments—a shaker filled with rice or dried beans, an oatmeal box drum, or jingle bells sewn to a piece of elastic around the child’s wrist or ankle. (Bells and elastic are available at a craft store.)
Book Club Guides With Librarians In Mind
Last month we announced that the Plumfield Moms are creating custom book club guides perfect for librarians (and others) to use in their libraries. Each PDF guide comes with 25-35 pages of resources, questions, background information, invitations and book marks, participant journals and more. Think of it as a bookclub in a box. All you have to do is print and host! Because you are a subscriber to Shelf Notes, you can download The Princess and the Goblin for free! Just email Plumfield and let them know you would like to have The Princess and the Goblin Book Club Guide (plumfieldandpaideia@gmail.com). If you would like to see more of the guides, go to the guide page, here. You can hear the story behind these new book club guides on the Plumfield Moms State of the Podcast episode, here.
Did you know that each month the Plumfield Moms have a podcast book club that is linked to a guide? You can read the featured book, listen in on the podcast discussion, and then host your own book club. And if you want some help making that book club happen, head over to the Plumfield Moms guide page to purchase their corresponding guide. This month, the podcast book club discussion was for George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin. You can listen in on the discussion with Tanya Arnold and Lara Lleverino, here.
Diane and Sara chose The Princess and the Goblin because they have loved using this book with children in their own book clubs and homeschool classrooms. A marvelous fairy tale, this one is always a fun read with many excellent themes. Favorite authors G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien all credit George MacDonald (and this book in particular) with enriching their own imaginations.
Michelle Howard Resource Page
It has been our great pleasure to speak with Michelle Howard several times about many things related to living books and homeschooling. It was our particular privilege to work with Michelle to create a video that librarians, homeschoolers, and lovers of good books could watch and share as we all endeavor to better understand what a living book truly is and why it matters so much. On our Michelle Howard page, we hope to pull together those resources and a few others to make it easy for librarians to find it all and make use of it.
Private Lending Library News
- North Prairie Living Books in Hamilton, ND (Aubrey Midkiff, Librarian) was added to the Private Lending Libraries directory at Biblioguides this month. We are happy to have one more state, North Dakota, with at least one lending library, and one more library to serve the lovers of living books in that state.
- Living Books Library, a private lending library for Christian homeschool families in southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee (Emily Kiser and Liz Cottrill, Librarians) hosts at its website a library tour video that shows how their library is organized and shelved.
- Erin Hassett (Wattle Gum Library, New South Wales, Australia) had her first Open Day of the year in mid-January with seven families in attendance and two new families signing up. Over 60 books were returned and over 100 borrowed for the new month! In addition, a non-member turned up and donated a beautiful collection of books!
- Ashley Borrego (Cornerstone Living Library, Lilburn, GA) and Sherry Early (Meriadoc Homeschool Library, Houston, TX) both began offering monthly book clubs in January. Both clubs started out small, with only four or five children in attendance, but they are aiming for both depth and growth in numbers. The book club at Meriadoc Homeschool Library will be reading The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford in February and using the Plumfield Moms book club guide for that book.
- The Briar Rose Living Library in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, Canada (Helen Mackay, Librarian) hosted their first book club (The Princess and the Goblin) on February 14th, using the free Plumfield book guide. Helen says it was "a grand success. The guide was VERY useful and it really assisted me to gently move the club along . . . showed me that I myself had ideas about books and connections."
- Robin Pack of Children's Legacy Library in Rogersville, TN offers a monthly library day, pre-assembled Five in a Row and Read-Aloud Revival totes, as well as over 18,000 carefully selected living books to borrow.
- Patrons of Covenant Family Library in West Virginia (Elizabeth Jones, Librarian) will be gathering to watch the movie The Pirates of Penzance with Kevin Kline in celebration of Leap Year and Leap Day on February 29th.
We love hearing about what you are doing in your private lending library. If you have news of events or new endeavors in your library, please share with us by email at thecardcataloglibrarians@gmail.com.