Anyone who works in a school or public library with middle school aged kids, is welcome to join the new electronic discussion list jointly created by ALSC and YALSA designed for you to use to discuss the issues that come up around serving this age group. Sign up to join the discussion list!
This is a little tricky at first. You need to go
here to ask for a password, click on “first login” in the box on the left. They will email it to you and also tell you where to go to change it to something you can remember. After you sign up and sign in, you can click on this
link and you are given the option to subscribe. Click on the word “Subscribe” and you are subscribed to this email group. (I ended up going to the “List of Lists” link at the top of the page and scrolling down to “
“middlegrd@ala.org.” I clicked on it and was immediately added to the group.) Now we will see what kind of discussions and information are shared in this group. Today there are 305 subscribers, so far I have only received a few messages.
Are you or your young readers looking for some wacky, slapstick fun? Try
Hooey Higgins and the Shark by Steve Voake. Hooey and his best friend, Twig, decide they can make some money if they capture the shark people saw near their ocean-font town. Catsup and a rope are their tools – madcap humor will appeal to readers looking for slapstick silliness (and sharks!). This early chapter book is a British import and so has a few terms American kids don’t use, but it won’t stop the fun. For grades 2-4.
(The Nebraska Library Commission receives free copies of children’s and young adult books for review from a number of publishers. After review, the books are distributed free, via the Regional Library Systems, to Nebraska school and public libraries.)
