What Books Alive is All About

This year 2020 begins the tenth year of Books Alive. It began the January after our first grandchild was born and that was nine years ago. That milestone in our family gave me extra incentive, energy, and desire to share books with her, my librarian colleagues, teachers, and the students in my school, a small private school where I had the opportunity to develop both the computer lab/media center and the library. 

But the development of Books Alive has been fitfull--changes in schools, changes in host sites, changes in frequency of posting. However, the reason I continued to resurrect the blog has always been the same. I enjoy books. I enjoy reading. I enjoy research. I enjoy developing book lessons. I enjoy sharing books with students. I enjoy advocating books and the library to teachers. I enjoy planning book and other media related lessons with teachers, both classroom teachers and specialist teachers. I enjoy new books. I ejoy helping teachers teach science and social studies with trade books.

And so, an active Books Alive blog continues with guidelines I hope will be useful to you and to me. 

1. Books Alive will post weekly on Sundays. Odd numbered Sunday posts will feature science books; even numbered Sunday posts will feature social studies books.
2. Books Alive will emphasize science and social studies trade books from the Outstanding Science Trade Book list and the Notable Social Studies Trade Book list.
3. Books Alive lessons will feature three grade groupings: K-3, 3-5, and 5-8.
4. The primary lesson for most entries will be designed for the publisher grade designation. Quick lesson ideas may be included for other grades.
5. The lessons will be designed to be team taught as part of a library curriculum and classroom science or social studies curriculum. I am a firm believer in curricular planning and do not support an isolated library curriculum.
6. For 2020, the Inspiration Books (my name for the featured book) will have a 2018 copyright. Why? Many schools don’t have the most recent titles.
7. Bibliographies will include titles from 2010 to 2020. Most books on bibliographies will have at least five positive reviews, thus the bibliographies could be used as a selection tool.
8. Lessons will be connected to science, social studies, and media standards.
9. ADJUNCT LESSONS are revised lessons of older and previous posts. They may appear with a new post if the lesson and topic are still appropriate.

MISSION STATEMENT: Assist librarians and classroom teachers in sharing newer quality science and social studies trade book literature to teach basic subject and library skills.

About me/us: I have been a classroom social studies teacher and elementary and middle school library media specialist for 40+ years. One year, my elementary facility was AASL library of the year. Additionally, I have taught children’s and adolescent literature, storytelling and school media managment at local universities. I have been reviewing new books for the past fifteen years. My husband is the science connection. He has taught middle school science and science methods at area universities. Twice he was the state Teacher of the Year and our state’s national science teacher. He was also the executive director of the Wisconsin of Society of Science Teachers for forty-four years and was the director of the Science Outreach Office for the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.