It's "March madness" for kids' book lovers! It's the fourth annual Battle of the Books, offered by School Library Journal, a respected publication used by thousands of public and school librarians. Each year the BoB, as it's fondly called, asks popular children's authors to judge a pair of books. Usually the pairings are wildly different -- this year, for example, a non-fiction memoir, Drawing From Memory is matched against a novel The Grand Plan to Fix Everything. Even if you haven't read all of the books, it's wonderful to read the explanations of the judges why they chose one book over another. And there's even a surprise element: readers can vote to bring back a book "from the dead" -- i.e. a book that lost in its original bracket -- to compete in the final match-up on April 2. Join the madness here:
School Library Journal's Battle of the Kids' Books
Happy Spring! We celebrated at Circle Time today by learning a new rhyme:
In the spring, the sun does shine
The birds fly to and fro
The frogs say Ribbit in the pond,
And the flowers bloom and grow.
Act out the rhyme by placing your arms together over your head as a sun, then flapping your arms as birds, saying Ribbit with gusto, and then creating a blooming flower by placing your hands together in front of you (palms touching each other) and then moving them upwards and out.
Continue the celebration by reading some of these new picture books, including a wonderful new one titled And Then It's Spring:
Children's Corner: Cool critters run riot in fine new picture books - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
We still have a couple of slots left in the "twosies" program for March. Registration is required.
If you register, remember to do so using the child's, not the parent's, name. And please complete a separate registration form for each child.
"Babytime", the April series, is already full.