A wonderful Halloween adventure with Miss Smith and her students Miss Smith's students know to expect the unexpected when she reads from her magical book. This time, Miss Smith takes her kids to the eerie library down the block and introduces them to the weird librarian, Virginia Creeper. But per usual, storytime is never ordinary when reading from Miss Smith's Incredible Storybook. And what starts out as a run-of-the-mill field trip soon becomes a full-out monster bash!

Miss Smith's class can't wait for story time. When their teacher reads from her incredible storybook, the worlds she describes come alive-literally! So when the class takes a field trip to the local aquarium, reading magic brings favorite nautical characters to life, including Long John Silver and the Swiss Family Robinson. From swimming with the Little Mermaid to rescuing their treasured storybook from scurvy pirates, it's another rollicking reading adventure Miss Smith's class - and readers - won't soon forget.

Whether used for thematic story times, program and curriculum planning, readers' advisory, or collection development, this updated edition of the well-known companion makes finding the right picture books for your library a breeze. Generations of savvy librarians and educators have relied on this detailed subject guide to children's picture books for all aspects of children's services, and this new edition does not disappoint. Covering more than 18,000 books published through 2017, it empowers users to identify current and classic titles on topics ranging from apples to zebras. Organized simply, with a subject guide that categorizes subjects by theme and topic and subject headings arranged alphabetically, this reference applies more than 1,200 intuitive (as opposed to formal catalog) subject terms to children's picture books, making it both a comprehensive and user-friendly resource that is accessible to parents and teachers as well as librarians. It can be used to identify titles to fill in gaps in library collections, to find books on particular topics for young readers, to help teachers locate titles to support lessons, or to design thematic programs and story times. Title and illustrator indexes, in addition to a bibliographic guide arranged alphabetically by author name, further extend access to titles.

This text presents a compilation of the best of ideas from a group of library science graduate students, providing creative and engaging programs geared especially for children ages 0–12. What are the concepts, activities, and topics that will hold the attention of today's children? And what are the best ways to provide a valuable learning experience while they're having fun and being entertained? Many of the most original, creative, and wildly effective ideas in storytime are contained in Storytimes for Children, a collection of fresh and vibrant programs created to be relevant, interesting, and fun for today's youngest generations. This collection of themed storytimes includes suggestions for opening and closing sessions; crafts and activities; songs, poems, fingerplays, and movements; as well as the accompany literature. Several of the included storytimes comprise a series of programs, allowing for related activities that build upon each other. The text is organized into six chapters, each prefaced by an introduction that clarifies the strengths of the programs within. Each chapter covers a highly targeted age range to give practitioners the ability to easily choose the most appropriate storytimes for any given audience.

*Notable Social Studies Trade Books Selection for Young People 2018* “I was six years old the day we left the farm in Mississippi,” remembers Cassie in this richly textured picture book. “Between the boll weevils, the floods, and the landlord, there was no way a family could scratch out a living there anymore.” Packing themselves into an old jalopy—with Daddy, Uncle Vern, and Mama in the front seat and Cassie and her two brothers in the back—they joined the Great Migration from the impoverished Deep South to Chicago, where there was work to be had in the stockyards. Across the kids’ laps lay Daddy’s prized possession, a six-string guitar. Daddy worked hard to put food on the table, but what he really loved was playing the blues. This evocative tale of the African-American odyssey in search of a better life is also a homage to the uniquely American music that developed from African music and American spirituals, work songs, and folk ballads. In the book’s backmatter, Garland relates how he first heard and fell in love with blues music, beginning a lifelong fandom. Portraits and thumbnail biographies of great blues musicians and landmark songs complete this tribute to the great American music and the yearnings that produced it. Fountas & Pinnell Level S

With entries that range from specific works to authors, folklore, and popular culture (including music, film, television, urban legend, and gaming), this book provides a single-volume resource on all things ghostly in the United States and in other countries. The concept of ghosts has been an ongoing and universal element in human culture as far back as recorded history can document. In more modern popular culture and entertainment, ghosts are a popular mainstay—from A Christmas Carol and Casper the Friendly Ghost to The Amityville Horror, Ghostbusters, Poltergeist, The Sixth Sense, and Ghost Whisperer. This book comprehensively examines ghost and spirit phenomena in all its incarnations to provide readers with a holistic perspective on the subject. It presents insightful information about the contribution of a specific work or author to establish or further the evolution of ghost lore, rather than concentrating solely on the film, literature, music, or folklore itself. The book focuses on ghosts in western culture but also provides information about spirit phenomena and lore in international settings, as many of the trends in popular culture dealing with ghosts and spirits are informed by authors and filmmakers from Germany, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom. The writers and editors are experts and scholars in the field and enthusiastic fans of ghost lore, ghost films, ghost hunting, and urban legends, resulting in entries that are informative and engaging—and make this the most complete and current resource on ghost and spirit lore available.

Michael Garland (Daddy Played the Blues) displays his impressive illustration range with the stylized, country-quilt, digital collage illustrations of A Season of Flowers. Snowdrops and crocuses yield to tulips and hyacinths, then dogwood blossoms, iris, lupine, daisies, morning glories, daylilies, geraniums, peonies, sunflowers, roses, and chrysanthemums as spring passes to summer, then autumn. At last the garden slumbers into winter under a blanket of snow, preparing next year’s procession of blooms. Like actors crossing a stage, flowers narrate the passing seasons in the first person, each one briefly proclaiming its unique and vital role in the natural world. Backmatter descriptions complete this child’s introduction to a garden year, in which the passage of time is vividly realized. Fountas & Pinnell Level L