(For easier viewing, go to the Symbaloo page directly or access it through our Primary Portal.)

As promised yesterday, here some more resources to support you with summer reading, especially with regard to what to read. Please consider my title suggestions as well as all the other summer reading lists as resources to browse through and choose from, a starting point, but not a must-read list. In addition to exploring these resources, you might also want to visit a public library and/or bookstore to browse the shelves for more ideas. Having a say in what to read is the most powerful factor in motivating readers. 

With regard to the grade-level boundaries in the document below, it is important to keep in mind that each reader develops at his/her own pace and consequently, there is always a range of reading levels in each grade. The grade-level recommendations are therefore more geared towards interest  level. Fortunately, reading can be done in so many different ways, i.e. reading independently, listening to an audiobook, listening to someone reading the story out loud or sharing the reading with someone. This allows children to have a wide access to all kinds of stories, stories they will enjoy and treasure. It is my hope that you find at least a few in the list below or in any of the other resources shared.

You can also download the two summer reading documents here:

Happy Summer Reading!

During the past week, I shared this video with all students, from our youngest readers in PK1 to our student leaders in G5. After watching the video, we brainstormed why to read this summer, where to get books when the HKA library is closed, where to read and with whom. I think these were among the liveliest conversations we have had this year, with students having so many wonderful ideas to share. 

I was totally blown away especially by our youngest readers for whom the whole discussion was a "no-brainer" - of course you would want to read because it is so much fun! I noticed in student responses, in particular with regard to what seemed to have priority, that the higher up we got in grade-level, the more the fun and enjoyment factor seemed to loose in importance. What gained in importance was the maintaining and developing of reading skills and learning. These seemed relatively rational responses, missing some of the enthusiasm that characterized all our youngsters' responses.

What surprised me too where comments regarding time. All younger students mentioned that since school is out, they will have lots of time to read. That is something I personally also look forward to. A number of older students however shared that their summers are too busy to find time for reading.

I have been wondering all week about what happens that causes this shift in how some of our children view reading as they grow older. What takes some of the joy out of reading and degrades it to a task, for which time has to be searched and fit into a busy schedules? Here are a few thoughts that come to mind:

Increased expectations with regard to independent reading?
Increased expectations and limitations when it comes to choosing reading materials?
Less time spent reading together with a parent?
Less time spent talking about the books read with a parent?
Less modelling how much we, the adults, enjoy reading ourselves?

What do you think?

Happy Summer Reading!

(For more Summer Reading Resources, in particular Summer Reading Title Suggestions check this blog again tomorrow.)

During the past week, I spent more time with our students reflecting on the past school year. At first we looked at a video with snapshots of the year, and then brainstormed things we had done together, learned together, enjoyed together, gotten better at, and so forth. While what was mentioned depended to some extend on the grade-level, author inquiries were a favourite across all grades - and especially when the inquiry involved getting in touch with the author, either through their blogs, via Skype or an actual visit at our school.

Students in grades 1-3 put some of their learning into what we called "library's little equations". This was inspired by Amy Krouse Rosenthal's beautiful picture book, This Plus That: Life's Little Equations, and the help of the ComicBook app on the iPads. Our students showed much creativity as you can see in the examples below.

And here a few snapshots as students were creating their little library equations. Thank you G1-3 students for all your efforts, creativity and enthusiasm!

During the past week, students in grades 3-5 spent time reflecting on the past semester, looking at the goals they had set themselves at the beginning of the semester. Looking through their check out history helped in finding out which goals were achieved as well as possible next steps to take as they continue their reading journey. 

G5 students looked especially at the different genres they had read during the past semester as we had all identified genres we wanted to give a try and/or read more during this semester to broaden our variety of reading materials. Many students were happy to discover that they had tried out several genres they usually don't pick.

Students in G3 and G4 looked especially at fiction and nonfiction titles in the list of books read as many had set a goal to reading more nonfiction books this semester (a goal I had joined them in). 

Another aspect students reflected on are the habits of a reader such as choosing one's own books, dedicating time to read, making reading plans, sharing books and reading with others and having favourite books. Many students mentioned that they had made especially progress in talking about the books they read (also thanks to using Destiny Quest and the wonderful LitCircles our G3 team runs) and in recommending favourite books to friends. Maybe still the most challenging aspect of being a reader seems for many of our students finding time to read in their busy weekly schedules.

Thank you G3-5 students for putting so much thought and effort into your reflections!

While the finals for the current year took place just a week ago, we are already advertising next year's competition among our G3-5 students (the current G3 and G4 student would participate in the Primary Category, the current G5 students would be participating in the Secondary Category). There is much enthusiasm and excitement among our students as they are looking through the titles - once again a wonderful selection of books. We will share more information about the program and how to participate at the beginning of next year but encourage everyone to consider titles for their summer reading. There are so many wonderful stories to choose from, something for every interest. Happy reading!

Image source: https://sites.google.com/site/hkbattleofthebooks/home

It's been an exciting Hong Kong Battle of the Books journey for HKA this year, with our Primary School team showing a great performance during their semi-final, and with our Secondary School team winning their semi-final and performing fantastically at the finals today here at HKA in our very own theatre. It was a most amazing final to witness, with teams from Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau School, St. Paul's Co-Educational College, South Island School and HKA all impressing with their thorough knowledge of the books. For most questions, the answers came within a few seconds. All students were very well prepared and knowledgeable about the books, stating the answers confidently, pronouncing names and titles impeccably. There was a great atmosphere in the theatre, competitive, yet respectful and amicably, also thanks to the wonderful introduction and moderation of half of the rounds by Jeffrey Comer, Co-Chair of the B.o.B. Committee. 
 
Congratulations to the winners from Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau School, and to our amazing Secondary School team and their librarians, Mrs Hand and Mrs Musco.

And while this year's competitions are over, we can already look forward to Hong Kong Battle of the Books 2015-16, with a wonderful list of titles awaiting students (and their coaches) both in the Primary Category (for students in G4-5) and in the Secondary Category (for students in G6-8). Below are the 20 titles for each category, once again a great selection from the best children's and young adult literature has to offer.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/hkbattleofthebooks/home

In addition to reading some of his stories and looking through his books, we spent some time already exploring his website, learning a bit about the author, his writing and illustrating. Here a few examples of what students found out so far:

Graeme Base was born in England in 1958.
He lives in Melbourne, Australia.
He is married and has three children.
His favourite animal is the warthog.
His favourite book as a child was Lord of the Rings.
Some of his books have won awards.
His books have been translated into many languages.
He is considered one of the world's leading creators of picture books.
It takes him about two years to write and illustrate a book.
He thinks that traveling is the best way to get ideas.
He did not always want to be a writer but always wanted to be an artist.

Some of the things we are still wondering about are for example what his daily routine (as an author and illustrator) looks like, what he does when he takes a break from writing and illustrating, and what inspires him as an author. Of special interest to some of our students seems the question whether the words or the pictures come first as he creates his books. While reading The Eleventh Hour we wondered whether it would have been possible to just make all the illustrations first and then write the story or vice versa. Or is he going back and forth between words and pictures? We hope to find an answer to this as well as to other questions as we continue to explore his books and website.

A wonderful week of celebrations around literacy ended with a wonderful day on Friday, a true grand finale: an all Primary School assembly with a colourful book character parade, the launching of our annual read-a-thon in the presence of a special guest, the award-winning children's author Lenore Look. Afterwards, students in grades K-5 got together in multiage groups to enjoy a variety of read-alouds and literacy activities to reflect and record some of their favourite (reading) memories of the past week. Then we had three fantastic sessions with Lenore Look who inspired her audience, students and teachers alike. While I will share a special dedicated post with more detail about her presentations, below some snapshots from the day.

Then came fantastic sessions with author Lenore Look, who inspired everyone in the audience, children and adults alike. Not only did she provide us with wonderful and very practical ideas on how to become better writers (her number one secret being to keep a writer’s notebook with you at all times and use different colors and tabs in organizing thoughts and ideas), in sharing about her own struggles in school and the many obstacles she had to overcome to be a successful writer, she gave courage and hope to everyone that with perseverance and hard work, dreams can be achieved. Personally, I was especially touched by an anecdote involving her librarian from Primary School. Ms. Look shared that when she was in third grade, she proudly announced to her librarian that one day she would be a famous author. Even though a struggling student at the time, the librarian took her to a shelf in the library, pointing between two books, telling her, “this is where I will put your books”. When Ms. Look returned to her former school many years later with her first two published books, the librarian who had retired by then came back to school to honor his promise, putting her books on the shelf of the library. Next week, in a dedicated post, I will share more about her wonderful visit that made our students want to become authors just like her.

As part of our Literacy Week celebrations, G3 students got the opportunity to visit our Secondary School Library for a special visit with our Secondary Teacher Librarian Ginny Hand. Mrs. Hand shared a beautiful read-aloud, Mem Fox' Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, the perfect story for this year's Literacy Week theme which is all about memories. In the story, a young boy helps an elderly lady in his neighbourhood to find the memory she seems to have lost. It is a story that leads to wonderful conversations about what memories are and how we can save or recollect them.

After the read-aloud, students shared their thoughts about the story before individually reflecting and recording a reading memory in words and pictures. In addition to enjoying a beautiful story, students loved being in the Secondary Library - and I can tell that many are looking forward to the day they will be reading and learning with Mrs. Hand in her fantastic library.

Today we joined over a million people around the world in celebrating World Read Aloud Day. The organisers of the day, LitWorld, want to raise awareness about the many people around the world who can't read and write. At HKA, we spent extra reading time today, sharing read-alouds within and beyond our immediate community. 

In the library, our G5 students started the day by skyping with Rob Buyea, author of Because of Mr. Terupt and Mr. Terupt Falls Again (his third book, Saving Mr. Terupt will be available in bookstores in July 2015). What an amazing experience that was for all of us - students, teachers and librarians alike! We learned so much from the author, about him, his books and his writing; we were entertained by his stories (what a brilliant storyteller he is) - and most importantly, we were inspired as readers and writers in so many ways. While we will spend more time reflecting on this Skype visit next week (and a more detailed blog post will follow then), here just a few comments he made, to give you a taste what we took away from this experience:

"There has never been a writer born who wasn't a reader first."
"I am going to emphasise this [rewriting and revising sentences and paragraphs] is by far the most work that is going into these books."
"What we write is about our characters taking steps towards change, so that your characters are different on the last page than they were on the first."
"You are only as good as your first sentence."

A big THANK YOU to Rob Buyea for making the time to meet with us, share his expertise and inspire us!

Next, our G3 students were treated to a reader's theatre performance (from Mary Ann Hoberman's wonderful books You Read to Me, I'll Read to You) by their teachers and Ms. Amelia, a former teacher at HKA who now teaches G3 students in Cambodia. Students on both sides enjoyed the performance. Especially excited they were however when they got the opportunity to share reading recommendations with one another. Books that were popular among both groups of students were greeted with loud cheers. The third graders from Northbridge International School then had a few questions about Hong Kong, which our G3 students enjoyed answering. At first there were general questions about the weather in Hong Kong and the height of buildings, for example. Most interest seemed to get the question what our students thought about wearing school uniforms. The students in Cambodia will wear uniforms from next year onwards and were curious to hear our students' opinions. They were very mixed, some in favour of school uniforms, others leaning more towards casual wear.

A big THANK YOU to Ms. Amelia and her students for celebrating WRAD with us in such a special way!

The third Skype session of the day was between our G4 students and Ms. Pickles and her fourth graders at Jakarta International School. Also during this sessions, the students were first treated to a reader's theatre performance by their teachers on both sides. Then there were lots and lots of enthusiastic reading recommendations - both from students and teachers. We could have spent much more than the 30min since there were so many recommendations. It was wonderful to see and hear the reaction to favourite books on both sides, such as the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, the Harry Potter books, Wonder, The One and Only Ivan and Judy Blume's books about the hilarious Fudge.

Lots of "OOOHHHs" and "AAAAHHHs" got an extra surprise towards the end of the session: the introduction of the class pet, a little hedgehog.

A big THANK YOU to Ms. Pickles and her wonderful fourth graders for celebrating WRAD with us and giving us so many great ideas on what books to read next!

Visitors to HKA might have been surprised about our dress code today as many students and teachers came to school in their pajamas! But "Get Comfy and Read All Day" aka Pajama Day has a long tradition at HKA and is one of the most popular days in the year for students. The day got even more popular when Ms. Rachel introduced the idea of the Continuous Reading Chair last year. Due to the great feedback received, she organised the day again for us this year. Once again, we had a wonderful turn out, proof of what an amazing community of readers HKA is. We had students, teachers, members of our leadership team, from the IT, Communications and Operations Department and many more enjoy special reading time on our Continuous Reading Chair. Thanks to the live stream set up by our IT Department, everyone could follow the reading happening on the chair - and in fact, the chair and reading area around stayed occupied from 7:45am until the end of the school day at 3pm. Below a few snapshots from the day.

More reading will follow tomorrow as we join many schools, organisations and individuals around the world in celebrating WORLD READ ALOUD DAY. 

Behind closed doors we have been busy preparing for our library event of the year: Literacy Week, a long standing tradition at HKA. Now we are ready for the celebrations to begin! Our memory project display is up and we hope that many of you will get a chance to stop by and enjoy browsing through the wonderful memories students, teachers and parents have shared. A true celebration of reading!
We look forward to a wonderful week with authors, readers, writers and beautiful stories that will allow us to create many new reading memories.

Below again our video, in case you haven't seen it yet. It gives you a quick overview on what we have planned for the week. Enjoy - and stay tuned for daily updates on this blog!

During the coming week, our students will interact with a total of three authors: our PK1, PK2 and K students will meet Matthew Cooper; our G1-5 students will meet Lenore Look; and our G5 students will have a Skype visit with Rob Buyea. In order for students to get the most out of the experience, we spent some time during the past week in exploring, further exploring and revisiting their books, websites, and what we think we already know about them. 

While our Kindergarteners already know quite a bit about Matt Cooper from their last visit with him a couple of weeks ago (see their answers in orange to previous questions on the left and new questions in their journal on the right), it was wonderful hearing also our youngest readers and writers in the PK classes share what they are curious to find out about the author. There was a variety of wonderings, ranging from why the author knows so much about Hong Kong, where he lives, why he wanted to become an author, whether he is interested in transportation and what kinds of books he likes to make.

Our G5 students are super excited about meeting Rob Buyea as his Because of Mr. Terupt is a much loved and discussed book and not only among this year's fifth graders. While there is a wide range of questions for the author, I had the impression that most curiosity was around his latest book, Saving Mr. Terupt, which will be published on July 14, 2015. Some of the other things students wonder about is why the author wanted to become a teacher, what inspired him to be a writer, whether the book might be turned into a movie, whether there will be further instalments in the series, and whether some of the things in his books happened for real. Just like our students, I am looking forward to hearing the answers - and maybe also getting a little preview from the newest book.

Students in G1-5 prepared for their visit with Lenore Look in various ways: listening to a read-aloud, revisiting what we know about the author already (as you can see in the posters above from G3 and G4 respectively, especially students in those two grades know already a lot about the author and her books) and recording questions we want to ask the author. After reading Polka Dot Penguin Pottery, the story of a little girl with writer's block, students in grades 1 and 2 talked about what inspires them as writers, where they get their ideas from and where they prefer to write. They look forward to hearing from Ms. Look, how she goes about writing and what inspires her.

The biggest excitement, however, received an activity that was suggested by Ms. Look in connection with her Alvin Ho books and in preparation for her visit. Alvin Ho, the main character of a series of books, loves writing lists, whether it is about what he is afraid of or how to survive a fire or meeting a new teacher (for the later he recommends wearing a scary mask, rubbing yourself with garlic and staying 100 feet away). Alvin has a list for everything. Our students in grades 3-5 had much fun in thinking of and writing down a list themselves and sharing these lists with each other and their teachers. There were lists on how to survive younger/older siblings, how to avoid doing homework, how to fly, how to survive your librarian (I loved that as it included ice-cream!), and many more. We are looking forward to showing these lists to Ms. Look during her visit.

We are just a few days away from our annual Literacy Week which begins Monday March 2. We are all looking forward to a special week of celebrations around literacy under the theme “Share your memory, be the story.” Inspired by a project of Singapore’s National Library, we want to collect and share in various ways memories connected to books and reading. Each time you read a story alone or with others, you create your own story from the experience and memory. This is what we want to make visible and celebrate during the week.

Here is an outline of the week:

Monday - Let the celebrations begin - and meet an author!
PK1, PK2 and K students will meet with the author Matthew Cooper.

Tuesday - Get comfy and read all day aka Pajama Day
Students can come to school in their pajamas. We will have two continuous reading chairs set up, in which we will have readers throughout the day.

Wednesday - World Read Aloud Day
We will celebrate WRAD with a million of other people around the world to raise awareness around the many people who are not able to read. G5 will Skype with author Rob Buyea.

Thursday - Meet the Author Day
G1-5 students meet with the author Lenore Look.

Friday - Book Character Day 
Students are invited to come to school dressed up as a favourite book character. We will have a special assembly with a book character parade and the launching of our annual read-a-thon in support of Room to Read. Students in K-5 will participate in multiage literacy activities.

In addition, our students will enjoy D.E.A.R. time (Drop Everything And Read) every day and participate in the Golden Dragon Book Awards. Stay tuned as we will provide daily updates from the events through this blog.

Prompt for Week 2 of the Blogging Challenge (for more information on the Blogging Challenge as a count down to this year's World Read Aloud Day on March 4, please check The Busy Librarian Blog.)

You & Someone New
"Answering the following questions with someone you haven't spoken to about reading before. The person might be a student or a family member, a colleague or a sales clerk. The focus here is on starting a conversation and sharing the joy of reading aloud. Make sure to exchange and enjoy answers with one another before sharing them with us." (The Busy Librarian)

For the second week of the Blogging Challenge, I asked our school nurse, Fay Beese, who kindly agreed to chat with me about reading. Here are our answers.

1. I think everyone in the world should read…

Me: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce. I know, I already mentioned this book in the first post of the WRAD Blogging Challenge but it is such a special book, I would love for everyone to read it and hear it. It is about the power of stories and of libraries – and even though it talks about books and written stories, for me it is about stories in general because, as Morris Lessmore says, “everyone’s story matters”. We all have stories to tell, some joyful, some sorrowful, and they all deserve to be heard. Also, each time we read a story like the one of Morris Lessmore, we create our own story, our own memory from the experience, especially when we read the story with someone else. 

Fay: I always liked Winnie the Witch. I love the pictures, I think they are really good fun and the colors are amazing. The Winnie the Witch books are attractive stories; they light up the imagination. It brings the characters alive when you read it out loud and its much more fun. It makes it 3D as opposed to 2D. Any book that can do that should be read aloud.

2. If I could listen to anyone in the world read aloud to me it would be…

Me: My daughter Jessica. I love hearing her voice. She is brilliant in impersonating characters, in taking on different accents. She has a wonderful sense of humor that comes through when she does this. I am looking forward to having her read to me aloud, when I will be visiting her at university during the break. I will ask her to read aloud to me, something she hasn’t done in a long time and I miss it. Maybe I should record it so I can listen to it any time, any place.

Fay: Billy Connolly. He is a Scottish comedian, very well known in the UK, married to an Australian who used to be a comedian but now is a psychologist and practices in the States (Pamela Stevenson). Billy Connolly is hilarious. He tells great stories with an amazing Scottish accent.

3. When I read aloud, my favorite character to impersonate is…

Me: I would have to pick two characters because I simply wouldn’t be able to choose one over the other: it’s Gerald and Piggie from Mo Willems’ wonderful series of picture books. I love reading these books out loud, every single one of them (even though We are in a Book is my absolute favorite). I love impersonating Piggie, who is so exuberant and carefree – nothing is impossible, the sky is the limit for her and her enthusiasm is contagious. She never seems to have a worry in the world and I love slipping into that role and enjoy seeing how she makes everyone laugh and feel good. But I also love being Gerald because he (just like me) is a big worrier and I can understand him so well.

Fay: It depends on the book. I like this book: The Hairy Toe. I read that a lot to the children who come to the health center. Not too many words, very brightly colored. There are things like “the wind began to moan and groan” and you can make those noises with your voice; “where’s my hairy toe”, I just like the words; “the woman scrooched down”, what wonderful words. Or here we got “the wind growled around the house like some big animal and r-r-um-bled over the chimney”, that’s just superb! The children are always completely enthralled in it and that’s why I love reading this book to them. Especially to settle children down if they are upset or hurt and waiting for their mothers to collect them. It takes them somewhere else, to the land of imagination.

4. The genre or author that takes up the most room on my bookshelf (or e-reader) is…

Me: Realistic and historical fiction are the genres I read the most – and a lot of these books are by author Michael Morpurgo who actually often combines the two. Many of his books have a present day setting in which a story from the past is embedded. I love the first person narrative as it makes me feel the main character is sitting right next to me, telling me the story. In fact, his books always leave me feeling I have actually met the people in the book. However, having said that, some of my favorite books are fantasy, like Kate DiCamillo’s Flora and Ulysses, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, … I also adore great picture books such as The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (I just had to mention this book again ;), Zen Shorts by Jon Muth, or The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers.

Fay: I like a variety; there is no one genre… I enjoy books when there is a story and where I learn something, either about a historical time period or a culture or country. I like to get both out of a book if I can, not purely the story. Amy Tan’s A Hundred Secret Senses or Valley of Amazement, these are examples of books where its Chinese culture and a historical period. I like these. The first one is where a Chinese relative joins a second-generation Chinese family in America. It’s interesting what you learn about Chinese culture. I really do like to learn. Another example would be Philippa Gregory and her books, like The Other Boleyn Girl or The Kingmaker’s Daughter. When a historical period is brought to life as in her books, I enjoy that.

5. My favorite part about reading aloud or being read to is...

Me: When I look up during a read-aloud and I see the eyes of the children in front of me, wide with astonishment, some mouths maybe slightly open, hardly breathing, as they wait for the next words, totally captured and hooked by the story; that’s when I know and feel, we are all in that story together, we are with the characters, feel what they feel, experience what they experience, and in doing this, we create our own story, our own very special memory. That is absolutely priceless, that is the beauty of reading together, the magic of stories.

Fay: The book comes alive when you read it out loud and you really do take away a lot. Listening to audiobooks is really good too. I think you make a special connection with whoever you are reading a story aloud to. Really, you can throw your own interpretations into a book. Everyone will read the book in a different way and bring it alive. The most important thing is that you read to children. I think as a parent it is really important that you invest that time, to sit down your child and spend special time with each child, especially during a busy a day. I think every child needs time with just one parent looking at a book every day.

Me: Thank you, Fay, for making the time to chat with me about reading, reading aloud and books.

As you might have already read in our e-news or in the email we sent out this week, our theme for the upcoming Literacy Week (March 2-6) is “Share Your Memory, Be The Story.” Inspired by a project of Singapore’s National Library, we want to collect and share in various ways memories connected to books and reading. Each time you read a story alone or with others, you create your own story from the experience and memory. This is what we want to make visible and celebrate during the week. During the past week, we introduced this theme to our students as they visited the library. We began by sharing a read-aloud (The Silver Button by Bob Graham with students in PK2-G2 and The Matchbox Diary by Paul Fleischman with students in G3-5). This helped in getting a conversations started what memories are, where they come from and how they might be recorded.

Then we gave a few examples of memories around reading and books: Ms. Rachel shared a memory about her first hardcover book (Where the Sidewalk Ends), Ms. Phyllis talked about childhood memories when reading Marshfield Dreams and I provided memories of reading my very first book, I am a Bunny. Some of our students had wonderful examples to share right away, others found one of their reading memories by chatting and brain storming with peers and teachers.

And then our students got remembering, writing, drawing, and sharing some of their favourite reading memories with us. Without giving too much away, here just a few snippets to get you excited about the reading memories we will have on displays during Literacy Week: memories of special library visits, of special books that turned kids into passionate readers, of special readers in our students' lives, and more. We encouraged our students to ask someone at home to share a reading memory with them over the break and look forward to receiving more reading memories after the break. Wishing you all a relaxing Chinese New Year break. 

We introduced the award program and shared some of the books with our students during this past week. Some books, as I pulled them out of the box, received loud cheers of excitement especially among our Upper Primary students (The Days The Crayons Quit, Alvin Ho, Tom Gates and Fortunately the Milk). Everyone wanted to get to hear one of the stories or at least a chapter from one of the books right away. 

We also brainstormed what makes a good book for us. Here are some of the things our EC and UP students mentioned:

With our students in Upper Primary I also shared excerpts from this interview with Debbie Alvarez aka the Styling Librarian to show students how experts go about when they review and evaluate books. Mrs. Alvarez shared some advice that will surely help our students as they read, talk about and vote for their favourite title.

[Image with kind permission by Debbie Alvarez]


Welcome to the HKA Primary Library blog, Mrs. Alvarez, and thank you for agreeing to answer a few questions that will help our students as they participate in the first Hong Kong Golden Dragon Book Awards.

Hi Ms. Tanja, happy to join in the conversation!

Could you please tell us a bit about your experience with reviewing books and participating in the selection process of book/literary awards?

I've participated in reviewing books for over 15 years. First I reviewed books and shared my thoughts only in my classroom and library. Then I joined a committee in Oregon and we created Oregon Battle of the Books. We read hundreds of books every year and chose 16 for three divisions. That was a lot of books to read. Our goal is to make sure at least two people judge each book. Around three years ago I officially began blogging and reviewing books and many publishing companies allow me to read books before they are released to the public, this is very exciting because I get an early glimpse at books and can share my thoughts with the publisher and my blog readers about the new book treasures. The toughest part of the book selection process, especially for our new Golden Dragon Book Awards, has been to cut back and eliminate titles. The committee is made up of many people who all are reading and judging the books. We work hard to choose a balanced selection of titles.

What are some of the criteria reviewers and committee members and judges of book/literary award programs are looking for?

We are looking for a strong plot that pulls us through the book. Also, we appreciate characters that make us want to know more about them and experience life with them. Picture books should really be able to be opened, looked through and have the illustrations tell the story without reading the text initially. Finally, we look for books that touch our hearts either through humor, realistic situations, fantasy adventures, graphic novel adventures, and more. There are other things we look for such as balance of books in our selections for girls and boys, different genres, and multicultural selections as well.

What advice do you have for us as we read, talk about and vote for the Golden Dragon Book Awards?

Take your time and try to read as many of the titles in your division as possible. When you read each book, slow down and discuss if the story had a strong plot, if you appreciated the characters and could understand what they were experiencing, and above all please listen to your instincts and identify which book calls out to you above all the other books. There's a book for every person out there and we won't all agree but we can celebrate books in this special way.

Thank you for sharing your time and expertise with us.

My pleasure. Happy reading!

Over the next three school weeks (including Literacy Week), our students will read as many of the books as possible, have conversations in their classes about the books, record their comments in our GDA reader's journal and then decide which book to give their votes to. Voting for the GDA will close on midnight of March 6 and in Primary, we will submit these votes on behalf of our students. We are excited about being part of the Golden Dragon Book Awards, about discovering new books (and revisiting some favourites by the same authors) and celebrating their wonderful stories and art work.

Those of you reading this blog regularly already know that I am a big fan of Destiny Quest, a feature within our online catalog that helps to promote lifelong reading habits such as making reading plans and sharing reading and books with other readers. While we have so far used it mainly with G5, we have recently begun introducing it to our G3 and G4 students - and they are loving it! So let me share a bit about what Destiny Quest is and how it supports our young readers in developing lifelong reading habits. Here a quick introductory video:

Here a quick tutorial on how to access it from home since we are encouraging students to use it also in their own time outside of school:

So how have our G3 and G4 students been using Destiny Quest? At first, both grade levels spent time exploring the various features Destiny Quest has to offer and how it can support them in working towards their reading goals for the second semester. Students quickly discovered that it helps in keeping track of what they read and what they plan to read in future, allowing them to search for titles of interest in the catalog, benefitting in this process from title ratings, reviews and recommendations; further there is the possibility to share books and reading with others by sending recommendations to peers, teachers and librarians. Best of all, however, seemed for most students that they could tell right away whether a book was currently available and where to find it. While students can do this also through the regular search feature in our online catalog, having the iPads - a mobile device - which allowed them to walk right up to the shelf to look for the respective book. Students seemed to enjoy this very much.

And in case you should wonder whether Destiny Quest is taking away from direct personal conversations about books happening, there is no need to worry. Students enthusiastically shared book titles they discovered with each other and helped each other in managing the new tool as well as looking for books on the shelves. 

I hope this post has made you curious to find out more about Destiny Quest from your third or fourth grader. I am sure they will be more than happy to show you what they have already discovered about about this fantastic online tool.

Here just a quick post about a book that is currently probably the most requested in our Primary library, even though we don't have a copy that can be checked out yet: The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak. No matter whether students already knew the book or not, when we shared it as a read-aloud with students in K-4 during their first library visits in January, it was met with much enthusiasm. Some classes even asked for the book to be read a second time and their laughter was just so wonderfully contagious, we, the adults had as much fun reading it, as did our student audience.

Since students know that I have a copy of the book behind my desk, not a day passes without a student asking to read the book with a friend. So what makes this book so special? It has no pictures, just words, and could be pretty boring, right? But then it makes the reader say one silly word after another because as the reader, you have to say "everything the words say", "That's the deal. That's the rule." If you want to put a big smile on your child's face, get a copy of the book and read it together. You'll love it, I guarantee :)