As  you put together your orders for next year be sure to check out school librarian Travis Jonker's Top 10 list for 3rd & 4th graders published here in School Library Journal. I know you'll have most of them but you might find one or two new titles to add. He provides a link to his list from last year and promises lists for the younger and older grades in the future so watch for them too.           Katie

This is a great post by "Geek Dad" on the WIRED website with his favorite laugh out loud books to read with his two daughters. How refreshing!          Katie

James Patterson has put together another great list of suggested 'holiday gift' titles for four different age groups. For those of you who aren't familiar with the site, a well established adult author, Patterson started writing for children upon discovering that his young son couldn't find interesting books to read. He then started Read-Kiddo-Read to promote those books and to highlight other books that would appeal especially to young boys as well as to girls. But perhaps even more importantly he is taking seriously his responsibility as a parent to promote reading to his child and to recommend ALL parents join him in this duty. The Read-Kiddo-Read site offers a variety of tips for parents and a great number of reading lists.                                                                                        Katie

This tip from LM_Net user and public librarian Barb Langridge-

"I went to abookandahug, clicked on Search in the right hand corner, selected picture book and scrolled down to click on the keyword 'gratitude' and got this list:
http://www.abookandahug.com/search/search-results?order=alpha&cat=37&criteria=1&jr_keywords=gratitude
Grateful for the hundreds of teacher librarians who are supporting abookandahug with book recommendations and in the library/classroom.

Cheers,
Barb

Barb Langridge
Children's Services
Howard County Central Library
10375 Little Patuxent Parkway
Columbia, MD 21045

Notice that she used "gratitude" rather than "thankfulness." Talk to your students about keywords and synonyms. And be sure you show them how to get to the search box on her site, ABookAndAHug. If YOU haven't been there take a look. When you click on "Search" not only do you get limiters for genre, age and reading level but she has listed out hundreds of common terms the kids can just check!!! Pretty cool for beginners. Probably need to talk to them about what happens when you click ten boxes versus one box.....Boolean in disguise!                  Katie

Check out the list of Scary Books at James Patterson's READKIDDOREAD site. They also offer tips on Telling Scary Stories as well as Ten Scary Reading Tips for parents.

If you missed this article, because it was published smack dab in the middle of summer....,  you might find it useful as you're placing book orders. The Fiction Series Roundup is for grades 5 and up.

And if you missed this Series Made Simple article with reviews about non-fiction series, it too could be useful as you  create orders, especially in light of the new emphasis on informational literature.

And while we're on the topic of books continuing a story line, this recent SLJ article is about sequels to many very popular award winners in the fiction world. I hope you find these all useful for keeping your readers satiated!!                                         Katie

This Common Sense Media article by Regan McMahon is something you might want to share with parents. And...you might want to check out some of the linked lists, like their Graphic Novels recommendations.  Katie

SLJ has generously made available PDFs of Betsy Bird's Top 100 Novels and Top 100 Picture Books.
Print them out and post them with a question for your students,  "How many have YOU read??"                 Katie