CSLA 2021 #Memeoff Challenge #keepingitreal

 

This year's CSLA 2021 Conference Meme-Off Challenge is to use the hashtag #keepingitreal to show how you are #keepingitreal as a Librarian in this virtual environment.  For example, This sample is me wearing my book themed mask as I continue to work from campus. My mom makes masks and asks that recipients donate to Feeding America through her website.  Here are some suggestions for the challenge:  

• what does a librarian look like (you doing librarian things)
• your workspace at home or on campus 
• your book themed accessories and clothing
• items from your conference experience box, and how you are using them
• how you are putting your conference experience into action
• make a copy of the google slides template posted at the end of this article or make your own using your favorite meme generator
• post to twitter @4csla #memeoff #4csla #keepingitreal @hgruenthal 
• post to discord #hallway channel with the hashtag #keepingitreal
• you and your #furbabies in the discord #furbabies channel

 ALA YMA in Review

The award winners have been announced. How did you do? Did your favorites win? Any big surprises? How about history-making choices? 

The Caldecott Medal win for We Are Water Protectors made illustrator Michaela Goade the first BIPOC woman and the first Indigenous illustrator to win the prestigious award. We Are Little Feminists, a board book, won the Stonewall Award for picture books. Christian Soontornvat made history with her double Newbery honors for All Thirteen and A Wish in the Dark. Tae Keller's When You Trap a Tiger won the Newbery Medal and the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) Children's Literature award. Women swept the Caldecott and Newbery medals. 

Rounding out the Big Three, Everything Sad is Untrue (a true story) by Daniel Nayeri won the Printz Award. 

"We felt it was an excellent meeting of middle school with Scheherazade tales where one only wants to get out alive!" Printz committee chair Ellen Spring said in an email. "The personality of Daniel Nayieri shone through with readers learning of his family, early life in Iran and the food, which sounded fantastic! It was an autobiographical novel filled with memory and anecdote. It was a unique refugee story, and there was poop!"

Before noon on the Big Day, TeachingBooks had already created the lists, curating resources for the 75+ titles. (Go to Recent Book Award Winners and Honorees. Filter by Award Year.) 

I missed a few--Me and Mama (Caldecott) and All the Way to the Top (Schneider) were on my shelf, but I hadn’t gotten around to reading them. And I was surprised to see some titles left behind. (Maybe I should do an "It Should Have Been A Newbery/Caldecott/Printz” workshop.) At least there are the Notables, for one more round of recognitions. 

Now what? 

Since last week, I’ve looked at those new lists and created lists that I’ll use in my CSLA sessions at our annual conference. Here are some highlights of my favorite resources. You can use them as booktalk hooks to use with your students. 

Honeybee: Candace Fleming talks about how to make a honeybee something you could care about in her Meet-the-Author Recording. 

The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh: Listen to the Meet-the-Author Recording and discover how a childhood hero inspired Candace Fleming to dig a little deeper and find a flawed man who still became a hero. It’s more than a who-stole-the-baby biography. 

Book Trailers: How We Got to the Moon, A Wish in the Dark, When Stars are Scattered, Dragon Hoops

Book Readings: King and the Dragonflies, Efrén Divided, We Are Not Free

Full Documentary: Everything Sad is Untrue (10 minutes, but you can play about a minute and they’ll be hooked)

And into the Future

Now I’m off to 2021 titles. Publisher-sent boxes are piling up. It’s time to dig in and look ahead. I’ve got a dozen 2021 PDFs on my iPad. Next week, we will look at the newest highly starred titles and start making our shopping lists for spring purchase consideration. Get your wish lists ready to go! 

About the contributor: 

Deborah Ford-Salyer is a long-time lover of children’s and YA lit. Her seminars and workshops have created piles of books to be read on nightstands from the east to west coasts. She’s also the CA Implementation Specialist for TeachingBooks and a senior presenter at BER.org.

Meet CSLA VP of Communications Trevor Foglesong

 We would like to introduce Trevor Foglesong VP of Communications

Meet Trevor

I became teacher librarian for Upland High school in 2015 after many years at the school as an English teacher. It was not in my career plans to be a librarian but when the librarian retired, many people at the school felt I would be a good fit. I have always had a love for libraries and I had my students in the library often.

I have some interests and hobbies that might not fit into what might be considered typical for librarians. I was in a punk rock band when I was in high school and before social distancing required, I would still go to concerts with my adult children. I also used to prepare and drive in demolition derbies in my free time.

Vision for CSLA

I hope to be a part of the voice that champions the need for librarians today. With the increasing access to information through questionable sources on the internet and increasing challenges for students to critically evaluate these sources, we need librarians more than ever. I want to be part of the reason people come to know this to be true.

Why did you join CSLA?

I joined CSLA because of the community. I come from a district in which I am the only teacher librarian. I wanted to know the questions, successes, and struggles of other teacher librarians so that I could plan how to be more effective in my position.

I found that community and now I am hoping to pay it forward as other new librarians come searching as I did.

Follow Trevor

Twitter - @TrevorTechTL