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Latest Forum Edition—Spring 2025
President's Message: Behind the Scenes - Office Manager Emily Kristofek
by Barb Fecteau
Barb is the LMS at Beverly High School. She enjoys crochet and swimming, but rarely at the same time. She teaches in the school library program at Salem State University.
Did you go to the conference? I hope so because it was AMAZING! Alix Woznick and the conference committee pulled two incredible days of school library-specific professional development seemingly out of the ether. The new venue was well run and the food was terrific. And not to mention the content! We had so many valuable presentations as well as the kind of conversations that come up organically when school library folk get together.
One of my favorite conversations of the entire conference took place the evening before we started setting up. I was with Alix and Emily Kristofek, the MSLA office manager/event planner when Emily said this: “My husband’s company is creating a star on Earth that could power our world until the end of time.”
What, now?!?
Conference Report: Together We Thrive, Libraries as Catalysts for Social Cohesion
by Luke Steere
Luke is the librarian at Wilson Middle School in Natick.
Whether or not we can define a school library as a 'third place' is beyond the scope of this article here, but for talking about the MA Library System’s Summit on Social Cohesion, I felt it a good idea to run through Ray Oldenburg’s concept of 'third places' outlined in The Great Good Place. The ‘first place’ is home, a personal, private space where we live. The ‘second place’ is a productive, professional environment, for most of us, work.
Picture Books: Taking Action for Change
by Jenny Arch
Jenny is a children's librarian at the South Hadley (MA) Public Library. Previously, she was a library media specialist at East Meadow School in Granby, a school librarian at the Michael E. Smith Middle School in South Hadley, and a children's and adult services librarian at the Winchester Public Library and the Robbins Library in Arlington (MA).
Information is power. Reading is resistance. I saw this on another librarian’s cardboard sign on April 5, a day when many across the country were protesting the actions of the administration that were, and are, affecting people in so many ways– including access to books and other library services. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are good, actually, another sign said. (Are those who are against DEI then in favor of homogeneity, inequity, and exclusion?) Picture books can help kids learn from the past and apply that knowledge to the present in age-appropriate ways…as long as adults make sure kids can access them.
Medium Matters: Two Tidbits and a bunch of Book Recommendations
by Liza Halley
Liza Halley is the Library Teacher at Plympton Elementary School in Waltham. She has loved graphic novels since reading Bone and Amulet with her son. She reads every graphic novel she can find and is a big fan of Monstress, Hellboy, and Saga. She is a founder of the Boston Kids Comic Fest.
This month I offer you several tidbits on which to nibble. A discussion about hybrid graphic novels, some teaching tools from the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, and new book recommendations for May and June.
Reading Culture: Finding Joy in Reading
by Elizabeth Vaccaro
Elizabeth is the Librarian at High Rock School in Needham, a sixth-grade-only school with about 450 students.
High Rock added a new element to independent reading: student book clubs. The idea seems simple: let students talk about books with each other. The challenge was to open the opportunity to all students during their independent reading block in a way that does not place a burden on teachers’ busy schedules. The reward was how fully the students embraced this program. Students’ comments about book club include: “It made me excited to read.” “I always ask my friend, 'Is this a book club day?'” “I want to read another book!”
Cataloging: A Random Assortment of Call Number Conflicts
by Gillian Bartoo
Gillian is the Cataloging and Collection Management Librarian for the Cambridge Public Schools District.
Cataloging conflicts are situations where books on one subject are inexplicably split between one or more call numbers. Dewey numbers are assigned at a nuanced level of understanding by people with advanced academic degrees for huge collections that make most of the differences more obvious due to the numbers of volumes loaded into those numbers. That level of detail is usually way too much for most school libraries, where collections tend to be small and where the topics covered tend to be very generalized and simplistic. If you aren’t versed closely in Dewey or have a limited understanding of the subject matter, figuring out why books that appear to be on the same topic get cataloged in different places requires far more brain power and time than most are willing to devote to it – you want to spend time thinking of curriculum, programs, or space, and you may just want all those books to be in the same place. Below are some common conflicts, why they happen, and suggestions for changes.
Academic Column: On Information, Information Science, and School Librarianship
by Emily Remer
Emily is the Librarian at Michael E. Smith Middle School in South Hadley and a PhD Candidate and Adjunct Professor at Simmons School of Library and Information Science
Defining and Understanding Information
Information is something that has the capacity to help make sense or un-sense of one’s interior or exterior worlds (Dervin, 1977), has the potential of creating knowledge (Rubin, 2016), and/or otherwise impacts ideas, thoughts, emotions, or behaviors (Case & Given, 2016). It can be transmitted through any of the five senses and by virtually any source. Information does not have to be purposively sought nor consciously recognized in order to exist or be received, which means it also does not necessitate intention (Case & Given, 2016).
Information is often discussed within the context of words, such as speech or text, but information is also carried through symbols, images, colors, sounds, flavors, and odors, as Bates (2006) describes.
by Barb Fecteau Barb is the LMS at Beverly High School. She enjoys crochet and swimming, but rarely at the same time. She teaches in the school library program at Salem State University. Did you go to the conference? I hope so because it was AMAZING! Alix Woznick and the conference committee pulled two incredible days of school library-specific professional development seemingly out of the ether. The new venue was well run and the food was terrific. And not to mention the content! We had so many valuable presentations as well as the kind of conversations that come up organically when school library folk get together. One of my favorite conversations of the entire conference took place the evening before we started setting up. I was with Alix and Emily Kristofek, the MSLA office manager/event planner when Emily said this: “My husband’s company is creating a star on Earth that could power our world until the end of time.” What, now?!? It turns out that he works with nuclear fusion and is doing some REALLY sciencey science that just might save our planet! After that I was all about the Emily lore. Before joining MSLA in 2019, she worked at MIT for about 10 years in admissions departments. She knew she wanted to work in the library world because she enjoys the volunteering she does at the Wayland Free Public Library so much. She kept an eye on the MBLC jobs page and lo and behold, she found us! She has a 10-year-old-son and, in addition to taking care of us and continuing to help out at WFPL, Emily is the parent volunteer library coordinator at his school. Emily wears many hats at MSLA given her very particular set of skills. She studied computer science at Providence College and got her masters in advertising at BU. Our organization has benefited from her expertise in both fields. When I asked her what the biggest part of her job is, she said it’s the everyday rolling membership. As a matter of fact: she has a landline in her house for the MSLA phone number! “When the old-school phone rings, I think, ‘Oh a member needs me!’” she said, “But it’s usually a billing department from a school.” Chasing money is Emily’s least favorite part of the job. She said, “I am pretty much a collections agent from April to November.” But she is making connections with other state school library organizations in New England to talk about best administrative practices, and the board has been brainstorming ways to make the financial machinery of our organization run more smoothly. Her favorite aspect of the job, hands down, is the conference. She loves seeing everyone in person and seeing all the hard planning work come together. “Behind the scenes, Emily was invaluable in executing a nearly flawless conference,” said Alix Woznick. “She was responsible for finding our venue, negotiating the contract, overseeing the food, locking down our vendors, interfacing with the hotel staff, setting up and troubleshooting registration, navigating sticky situations, and closing the loop on payments. She did it all with a heavy dose of good humor, endless flexibility, and by making valuable observations and suggestions that steered us to the best choices time and time again.” Even when the conference doesn’t happen, Emily is in the thick of it. “When I was treasurer, Emily spent months (years?) dealing with the repercussions of the conference being cancelled due to Covid,” said MSLA’s past-president Jen Varney. “As president I would often shoot Emily a text message—riddled with typos—asking her to take care of something, only to find out that she'd done it days before, along with 6 or 7 related things I hadn't thought of. MSLA would not exist without Emily!” And her work goes far beyond the conference. Georgina Trebbe said, “Emily’s support for our new professional development programs has been invaluable. She has organized the attendees, helped the presenters, and directed me to ensure that those teaching can get paid.” Emily’s quiet impact allows us to do everything we do, smoothing our administrative processes and maybe even averting some crime and scandal. According to our treasurer, Daisy Magner, “If it wasn’t for Emily, I would have embezzled thousands and thousands of dollars from MSLA by now!” Thank goodness for Emily’s myriad gifts both organizational and creative, as well as her watchful eye.
Conference Report: Together We Thrive, Libraries as Catalysts for Social Cohesion by Luke Steere Luke is the librarian at Wilson Middle School in Natick.
Successful libraries are fostering several of these qualities throughout the school year. We are not only working in third place, but since Oldenburg's book has come out, many third places have been threatened. Libraries, in particular, have been the target of such dissolution this past year. On Thursday, May 8, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden was fired for putting inappropriate books in the hands of children and not serving the American taxpayer, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavit. This came just about two months after President Trump signed Executive Order 14238, dismantling several government agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which has been met with a temporary restraining order thanks to efforts by the ALA, individual states and others. Such updates have been shared by Maureen Amyot, Director Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, increasing awareness and providing clear outlines of what this means for Massachusetts updates on the listserv. MSLA members are working towards state legislation, providing school librarian input on assessment documents for DESE, and raising awareness and fostering support around book bans. Three speakers at the daylong MA Library System’s Together We Thrive: Libraries as Catalysts for Social Cohesion brought in other strategies, namely a renewed focus on an old standby: community assets. The conference took place on the morning of April 11 in Devens. The keynotes were on the cutting-edge of third space awareness. I had been invited after stopping by the MLS table at our MSLA conference in March. The room was full of librarians, many of them public librarians (a few who I recognized because they’ve gotten me my holds before!) Below I ask what are ways we can conceptualize social cohesion from a school perspective? Community Assets are More Important than Ever Loneliness is a public health crisis, which can lead to a 29 percent increase in the likelihood of premature death, equivalent risk to smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Sandra Harris, co-founder and co-leader of the Massachusetts Coalition to Build Community and End Loneliness, brought this fact and others into stark relief before turning to librarians as “the quiet architects of connections.” Her presentation called on librarians to join a network working on lasting solutions to this problem, to foster places where “connection is not a luxury.” Harris's group formed in 2019, and is focused on goals such as reframing our cultural obsession with physical health to prioritize mental and social health equally, working to get primary care physicians to ask patients if they are lonely, and providing programs for young people to interact with seniors to combat age segregation. The coalition partners with student groups, councils on aging, community centers, and libraries. She cited numerous examples of fruitful programs, including an AI generated version of a "Man cave at the library" with alarming and hilarious car displays: (source) Such a strategy serves hard-to-reach men— one of the program's priorities— to break the stigma around expressing emotions. Well, should Gen Zers go to a man cave? Probably not— but Harris discussed cross-generational work too. If your school does not have some kind of media production program, such as TV, podcasting, or video, it could certainly be used for this purpose. Harris cited TikTok & Tapes Storytelling and Memory Lane podcasts as intergenerational programs that have fostered successful connections through storytelling. Reverse mentoring, wherein students provide tech help to seniors, was another idea, and also a Book Buddies Across Generations book club and storytelling hour, with local history or military themes as the focus. How can we make a "library without walls"? Harris asked. Key takeaway: It is crucial to mention that the mission of combating loneliness works both ways. Harris presented numbers that show Gen Z as the group most frequently reporting "feeling lonely" and the most frequently reporting "interested in working together"-- from the statistics, a win-win. Check it out: Save the date for Good Neighbor Day Sept. 26 - 28! Community Positivity Radiates Out From A Library’s Staff Speaking before and after lunch, Beth Wahler, PhD, MSW, covered an immense amount of ground regarding patron- and staff well being. In a community, she said, we extend collaborations under the auspices of collectivity. That spirit begins with a staff culture that fosters four cultural areas, and such a culture radiates outward to a more comfortable space. (source) These four cultural dimensions are the tip of an iceberg salad of keywords and concepts to follow up on and dig into. They connect to secondary trauma, compassion fatigue, trauma-informed approaches, reflective listening, assertive communication, “clearness is kindness,” any of which could make for a great professional development session, professional goal, or a guiding principle for a department. Beth Wahler Consulting, LLC, brings social-work informed consulting services to libraries. The amount of fronts on which she offers angles of attack is impressive. The heart of the work for combating cultural loneliness, which is what Wahler decided to focus her talk on, is dealing with the stress at the core of this issue. The signal phenomenon of the stress epidemic is how we’re meant to deal with it: all by ourselves. “We are not going to self-care ourselves out of these situations,” Wahler said. There are high numbers of people we are connected to, but the quality of those connections is lacking. The messages about stress in our society are centered on activities for help – gardening, hiking, or buying yourself something nice – all require full mobility and disposable income. They create a world where only the haves are able to access help, and the current issues of rising homelessness and poverty are happening simultaneously with corroding access to social services. We are also seeing increasing incivility and a perception of libraries as a partisan institution, Wahler explains. That last piece has fallen on libraries in the form of politically motivated anger toward programming and collections. For our cohort, this results in fraught school board meetings, divisive elections and budgetary overrides, and ambient or direct effects of book challenges— including, most tellingly for me, the stories wherein despite winning a book challenge, librarians leave the profession because of the experience. Taking a renewed focus to balance the social services needs of patrons with those of the staff creates sustainability. Sustainability of our practices are very important, Wahler says, before we even consider programs or curriculum around collaboration and mutuality, peer support and safety, empowerment, and voice and choice. Key takeaway: We have limited energy and we must choose where to allocate it. Ask: what is our capacity for priorities? What can or should we say ‘no’ to? Check it Out: https://www.swinthelibrary.com/podcast— Beth's podcast, Surviving the Stacks. Assets are Always There, We Just Have to Find Them Noah Lenstra's central message was that social cohesion can be best fostered by changing our mindsets and recognizing others' mindsets. Many municipal departments in the towns and cities where we teach have a limited view of what collaboration can be. Librarians can be a catalyst for expanding these views. Lenstra is an associate professor of library and information science at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. He framed the cuts and reductions of priorities at libraries not as closing us off, but requiring a greater need to be driven by relationships. “Unless they are already working with you, they are not thinking of you… they are not thinking of all of you [librarians] as people,” he said, explaining that community assets may know of the library, but they don’t understand the dynamic, multifaceted elements and the human collaborators within them. Moreover, this perception is balanced with a 'tyranny of capacity,' a feeling that librarians who are trying to meet every need are overwhelmed, worthless, and spread thin. We should have more grace with ourselves. Libraries, Lenstra reminds us, are not a replacement for social safety nets that are fraying. Such a phenomenon needs little introduction to a school librarian. We try to offer a range of responsive programming for the school over an entire year, plus develop those qualities in our collections, along with teaching any fixed classes and planning collaborations, plus building-wide responsibilities, such as bus duty, in my case. Then, we hear about how 'kids don't read books anymore' in the break room. According to Lenstra, this results in a mindset of 'can I actually do this?' and the sizing up of possibilities based on time, budget, and space, rather than asking a more useful question: who in my community is poised to help? Lets Move in Libraries serves to promote these collaborative ideas and provide pathways to create multi-sector coalitions of service providers. According to Lenstra, his entry point for this work was through programs involved in physical health and movement— exercise programs which needed spaces and libraries that provided them— but part of his work is trying to identify evidence of different entry points to collaboration. These are necessary to break the 'siege mentality' librarians feel. Here is an idea from his slideshow, which is the overview of the Let's Move in Libraries toolkit: (source) I am a big fan of continuum charts, and the agricultural metaphor to identify where along the flow I am with asset collaborations is useful. Another metaphor I liked was the Gardens vs. Recipes programming dichotomy, which points out the collective nature of Lenstra’s message: (source) Lenstra's program offers us a beginning or renewed focus on our collaborations with public libraries. They are a like-minded group which can connect us further to the community which is shaping our patrons. It also made me think of "seeds" I have not been tending to— one's seen for assessments for individual projects, rather than longterm relationships. One was a website students’ created for Civics class, regarding a mural in the Natick Post Office for civics class and another was an RTI project which has resulted in a composting program shepherded by our town's Director of Sustainability. Both ideas were completed and graded for student portfolios. Excellent, vibrant, and inspiring work, but assessment only, rather than viewed as fertile beds for long term collaboration. Lenstra’s shift in mindset can help them regrow. Key takeaway: Besides the 'siege mentality,' I also liked the simple switch from a 'what can I do' to a 'what can we do?' mindset. Simple to say, difficult to commit to. Check it Out: One place to develop seeds: https://hriainstitute.org/coalitions/. This site aggregates coalitions that are working to address community health needs. Works Cited
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Academic Column: On Information, Information Science, and School Librarianship
by Emily Remer
Emily is the Librarian at Michael E. Smith Middle School in South Hadley and a PhD Candidate and Adjunct Professor at Simmons School of Library and Information Science
Defining and Understanding Information
Information is something that has the capacity to help make sense or un-sense of one’s interior or exterior worlds (Dervin, 1977), has the potential of creating knowledge (Rubin, 2016), and/or otherwise impacts ideas, thoughts, emotions, or behaviors (Case & Given, 2016). It can be transmitted through any of the five senses and by virtually any source. Information does not have to be purposively sought nor consciously recognized in order to exist or be received, which means it also does not necessitate intention (Case & Given, 2016).
Information is often discussed within the context of words, such as speech or text, but information is also carried through symbols, images, colors, sounds, flavors, and odors, as Bates (2006) describes. Everyday life examples of this include a sign with the library symbol indicating to a viewer that the local public library is nearby; the smell from a baby letting a caregiver know that a diaper needs changing; the feel of a dog’s fur identifying that dog for someone who is blind. Information can be transmitted through any type of stimulus, not simply through words, text, or speech, and it is important to recognize these varying forms of information. Case and Given (2016) confirm in Looking for Information that these types of stimuli are included in some definitions of information.
Information can also be received without purposely seeking it, as Erdelez describes in her Information Encountering theory, or consciously recognizing it. An image in a book might present an example of this (Aronson et al., 2018) – an illustration in a picture book or a meme on social media informing the reader without the reader’s intention to receive that information or even conscious acceptance of it, and yet still impacting in some way the reader’s behaviors or ideas by influencing their conscious and subconscious thoughts. The type stimuli is a variety of latent information that exists, is transferred, and influences, but is not actively sought or consciously recognized. This latent information can have a strong influence on the recipient, as is discussed by studies on the impact of illustrations in picture books and graphic novels, especially around cultural representation (Aronson et al., 2018; Bird, 2020; McLanahan & Nottingham, 2019).
Information is so multivariable and changeable within different contexts that coming up with a comprehensive definition has not yet been done among information professionals. It is useful to note that information can be looked at as a concept (Belkin, 1978) rather than a definition, since there have been so many attempts to define information without consensus. And as many others have agreed, information can be a primitive term, commonly understood without being perfectly defined (Case & Given, 2016).
INFORMATION SCIENCE AND K-12 EDUCATION
Information science is the study of the needs, uses, transmissions, and creations of information, as well as the study of systems that organize, store, and retrieve information. It is concerned with human behavior around information, which behavior includes information seeking, using, avoiding, and encountering information, as well as any other way humans deal with information (Case & Given, 2016). Information science restricts its study of information by constraining itself to the study of human interaction with information (Belkin, 1978; Case & Given, 2016), thereby ignoring information storage, use, transfer, needs, etc. of other living creatures. Information science is deeply dependent on technology, since technology of some variety is often required to store, organize, transmit, share, and access information.
Information science relates in some way to every other discipline that can be conceived, because all disciplines create, use, and transmit information in various formats and for various purposes. Bates (2007) suggests that information science is a meta-discipline that intersects with other established disciplines within the sciences and humanities and identifies these as information disciplines.
Information is very much related to and part of K-12 education, which often emphasizes the transmission of authoritative information from teacher to student or from student to teacher. Bates (2007) connects education and teaching closely with information science as an information discipline, since it is focused on the composition and transmission of information on myriad subject matters and in diverse contexts. The information communication process within a school classroom often reflects an abridged Shannon’s Model, which in whole shows a source, transmitter, receiver, and destination and a message moving through channels and noise. The teacher or student might be either the source or the transmitter or both, sending the signal of the lesson through the classroom, whether virtual or physical; the signal passes through a variety of types of noise before arriving at the receiver who decodes the message.
OUR ROLE IN THE INFORMATION SCIENCE PROFESSION
As information professionals and school librarians/media specialists, we have a responsibility as facilitators of information for staff and students,
whether that information be statistical or reference fact, other forms of nonfiction, or fiction; whether needed for professional, academic, personal, or leisure purposes. Part of being a facilitator of information as a librarian is to work with those seeking information to understand their information behaviors, wants, and needs, and to guide them on new information seeking skills that can help them throughout their lives. This can be done by teaching students how to use an online library catalog and the Dewey Decimal System; it can be done by working with a student to evaluate database articles and citing them properly; it can be done by running a story time; it can be done by helping a teacher find supplementary resources for teaching units; it can be done by providing a student with a book for leisure reading that they have an interest in.
Helping people evaluate and make sense of the information they receive is another of our responsibilities. This extra step of helping others make sense of the information they receive has become especially important as misinformation intensifies and disperses and as artificial intelligence pervades our online spaces and impacts real-world situations – research shows that people are generally not skilled at recognizing or evaluating misinformation (Saunders & Wong, 2018).
As we work in our roles as school librarians and media specialists within the library and information science profession, we facilitate the transmission and evaluation of information and promote information literacy among our students and colleagues. Our roles are critical in developing an information literate society that can “recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information” (ALA, 1989).
Works Cited
American Library Association. Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report. 1989. http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential.
Aronson, Krista Maywalt, et al. “Messages Matter: Investigating the Thematic Content of Picture Books Portraying Underrepresented Racial and Cultural Groups.” Sociological Forum, vol. 33, no. 1, Mar. 2018, pp. 165–85. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ezproxy.simmons.edu/10.2307/26625904.
Bates, Marcia J. “Fundamental Forms of Information.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, vol. 57, no. 8, June 2006, pp. 1033–45.
Bates, Marcia J. Defining the information disciplines in encyclopedia development. Information Research, 12, 1–13. 2007.
Belkin, Nicholas. J. “Information Concepts for Information Science.” Journal of Documentation, vol. 34, no. 1, Jan. 1978, pp. 55–85.
Bird, Betsy. “They Know Not What They Do: How Good Intentions and Poor Representation Make for Terrible Children’s Literature.” Illinois Reading Council Journal, vol. 49, no. 1, Dec. 2020, pp. 24–31.
Case, Donald Owen, and Lisa M. Given. Looking for Information : A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs, and Behavior / by Donald O. Case, University of Kentucky, KY, USA, Lisa M. Given, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia. Emerald, 2016.
Dervin, Brenda. “Useful Theory for Librarianship: Communication, Not Information.” Drexel Library Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 3, July 1977, pp. 16–32.
Kopp, Carlo, et al. “Information-Theoretic Models of Deception: Modelling Cooperation and Diffusion in Populations Exposed to ‘Fake News.’” PLoS ONE, vol. 13, no. 11, Nov. 2018, pp. 1–35.
Rubin, Richard E. Foundations of Library and Information Science : Fourth Edition: Vol. Fourth edition. ALA Neal-Schuman. 2016.
Saunders, Laura, et al. Instruction in Libraries and Information Centers : An Introduction / Laura Saunders and Melissa A. Wong ; Foreword by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe. Windsor & Downs Press, 2020.
Picture Books: Taking Action for Change
by Jenny Arch
Jenny is a children's librarian at the South Hadley (MA) Public Library. Previously, she was a library media specialist at East Meadow School in Granby, a school librarian at the Michael E. Smith Middle School in South Hadley, and a children's and adult services librarian at the Winchester Public Library and the Robbins Library in Arlington (MA).
Information is power. Reading is resistance. I saw this on another librarian’s cardboard sign on April 5, a day when many across the country were protesting the actions of the administration that were, and are, affecting people in so many ways– including access to books and other library services. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are good, actually, another sign said. (Are those who are against DEI then in favor of homogeneity, inequity, and exclusion?) Picture books can help kids learn from the past and apply that knowledge to the present in age-appropriate ways…as long as adults make sure kids can access them.
Let’s start with Victoria Tentler-Krylov, who has illustrated a number of picture books with activist themes: Sanctuary: Kip Tiernan and Rosie’s Place, the Nation’s First Shelter for Women by Christine McDonnell (2022), One Small Spark: A Tikkun Olam Story by Ruth Spiro (2024), and Love Is Hard Work: The Art and Heart of Corita Kent by Dan Paley (2024); she is also the author/illustrator of The High Line: A Park to Look Up To (2023). All of these are stories about noticing a need for helping others, creating community, and working to make a difference, whether it’s shelters for women and children experiencing homelessness in Boston or transforming an old elevated train line into a park in New York City.
Coming Home: A Hopi Resistance Story by Mavasta Honyouti, translated into Hopi by Marilyn Parra (2024): A Hopi man reflects on working in the fields with his grandfather (kwa'a) as a young boy and learning about his grandfather's history: being taken from his family to a boarding school where boys and girls were separated and children were punished for speaking their native language. Carved, painted carved woodcut illustrations in warm earth tones show scenes on the farm, at the school, and back at home. Back matter includes notes on history and learning, translation, and art, as well as photographs. In this story, preserving culture and language is resistance.
I wrote about Sweet Justice: Georgia Gilmore and the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Mara Rockliff, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (2022) and All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything by Annette Bay Pimentel, illustrated by Nabi H. Ali (2020) in a previous column, but they’re both worth mentioning again. Sweet Justice describes Georgia Gilmore’s role in the famed Civil Rights bus boycott in 1956, while All the Way to the Top centers Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, who used a wheelchair and demanded the right to attend school with her peers, traveling to the U.S. Capitol to participate in the “Capitol Crawl” to draw attention to ADA legislation in 1990.
Free to Learn: How Alfredo Lopez Fought for the Right to Go to School by Cynthia Levinson, illustrated by Mirelle Ortega (2024): In 1975, the Texas legislature passed a law prohibiting the use of public money to educate undocumented students. Two years later, four families sued the Tyler Independent School District, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal protection to all, and the state law was unconstitutional– and they won. Alfredo Lopez didn’t know the details of the case at the time; he only knew that his friends and little brother (born in the U.S.) could go to school, while he had to stay home. Free to Learn is a fictionalized version of Alfredo’s story, but it shows the real impact of (in)justice on real people.
Barrio Rising: The Protest That Built Chicano Park by Maria Dolores Aguila, illustrated by Magdalena Mora (2024): "What will it take? Will we ever get a park? Don't we deserve one?" This is a child's-eye view of the beginning of Chicano Park in San Diego in 1970. The people of the neighborhood had been asking for a park – and been promised one by the City Council – but when construction equipment arrived, it was to build a police station, not a park. The residents protested with a peaceful sit-in for twelve days until the park was approved. They then added beautiful murals; the park was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016.
Our Wild Garden by Daniel Seton, illustrated by Pieter Fannes (2024) is a British import, but the concept of rewilding applies even if the specific flora and fauna look different in the U.S., and the art is too beautiful to miss. The story follows two siblings, Poppy and Ali, who “hear about rewilding at school” and “talk to Mum and Dad about how they want a garden where all different kinds of life can be happy.” The parents get on board and the family transforms their small yard from a rather sterile, tidy garden to a wonderland for wildlife. Back matter includes information about ponds, hedgehogs, wood piles, wildflower meadows, moths, hedges, birds, and insects, a few more tips, and two websites (https://www.rhs.org.uk/wildlife and https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/gardening). Children whose families rent rather than own can still participate in rewilding by planting native plants in pots to attract pollinators. A related title - more in-depth and set in the U.S.– is First Garden: the White House Garden and How It Grew by Robbin Gourley (2011).
Whales in the City by Nancy F. Castaldo, illustrated by Chuck Groenink (2025): Second person narration begins from the perspective of the whales (“Before there were ships and streets and buildings and a city called New York, we were here”), who experience the pollution of the water around Manhattan and are hunted by humans until they leave for the cleaner waters of the Atlantic. Perspective then shifts to humans (“We grew a city. We polluted the water until there were no whales”). People realize their mistake and work to correct it, by picking up trash, marching, protesting, and voting (sound familiar?). The Clean Water Act is passed, and eventually, the river is clean enough for the whales to return. Back matter includes information about individual people who worked to protect the Hudson River, a “How You Can Help” section, and sources. This book pairs well with The Day the River Caught Fire: How the Cuyahoga River Exploded and Ignited the Earth Day Movement by Barry Wittenstein, illustrated by Jessie Hartland (2023).
Andrew Joyner’s The Pink Hat (2017) and Stand Up! Speak Up!: A Story Inspired by the Climate Change Revolution(2020) both use spot color effectively to help readers follow the action and focus on important details. In The Pink Hat, a hat is knitted and travels from one person to another (and through a few animals’ paws) until a little girl wears it to the 2017 Women’s March, a worldwide protest at which people of all ages and genders held signs to show that women’s rights are human rights. The young girl in Stand Up! Speak Up! also attends a protest, but her actions don’t end there: she brainstorms additional ideas and gets her family, school, and neighbors to help with climate-friendly initiatives. Back matter includes information about other young people working on climate change (e.g. Greta Thunberg).
Just as important as standing up for others – people, animals, and the environment – is standing up for yourself. In Mirha’s case, that’s about insisting that others pronounce her name correctly in That’s Not My Name! by Anoosha Syed (2022). Like many children, Mirha is excited to start school, but confused, irritated, and discouraged when teachers and classmates don’t pronounce her name right. She considers changing her name to something easier for others, but after sharing her feelings with her mom and hearing about the origin and meaning of her name, she returns to school fortified and determined to help others pronounce her name correctly. Even for adults, it can feel awkward to correct others, but That’s Not My Name! shows that it’s possible to speak up with grace, courtesy, and strength, and that one’s identity is worth the effort.
Medium Matters: Two Tidbits and a bunch of Book Recommendations
by Liza Halley
Liza Halley is the Library Teacher at Plympton Elementary School in Waltham. She has loved graphic novels since reading Bone and Amulet with her son. She reads every graphic novel she can find and is a big fan of Monstress, Hellboy, and Saga. She is a founder of the Boston Kids Comic Fest.
This month I offer you several tidbits on which to nibble. A discussion about hybrid graphic novels, some teaching tools from the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, and new book recommendations for May and June.
Hybrid Graphic Novels
What are graphic novel hybrids?Graphic novel hybrids are books that use a combination of comic-style illustrations and traditional text passages. Cutting across all genres - fantasy, mystery, humor, animal, realistic fiction - these books are some of the most popular books in my library. Pursuing several interviews with authors of hybrid books, I am fascinated by how the format of their books arose from the creative process of listening to the story and what the story needed to be told. In an interview with Remy Lai about her creative process in making graphic novel hybrid books she says she started off with a picture book in mind but that felt too short and then she wrote pages and pages of a novel but then she was doodling and sketching and realized the hybrid book was the way the story needed to be told.
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Example of a 'hybrid' book, combining comics and prose. From Remy Lai's Pie in the Sky
Where do I put them? Most of my graphic novel hybrid books are in a range of sections. Some find themselves in my genre-fied fiction section and in my series sections, some in the picture book section, and some have landed in the graphic novel area of the library. I made choices based on how heavy the traditional text passages are compared to the comic-style illustrations and the content.
Who are these books for? Some folks mention giving them to students who traditionally only read graphic novels to push them toward having more stamina for reading a longer chapter book. I don’t think of graphic novel hybrids in that way. In my mind, if a student only chooses to check out graphic novels the entire tenure in elementary school, I consider that a success story. I firmly believe students should choose what medium and which books they want to read. In terms of which reader would love the hybrid graphic novel, I think mostly about the storytelling and who would connect with the story. Our Amelia Rules fans might love Dork Diaries and our Babymouse lovers might love Dragonbreath and Hamster Princess. So too, our Stuart Gibbs Spy School lovers might like Mac Barnett’s Kid Spy books.
Resources of Interest from the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance
The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance offers a host of resources for teachers who want to teach with and build their graphic novel collection. I highly recommend taking a moment to look through the linked articles. The article includes concrete lesson plans, resources for print and online comic creation, advice and tips from Brigid Alverson, who has been writing about comics for the classroom for School Library Journal since 2016, recommended book lists, and so much more. A two highlights to delve more into:
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Reading Rockets has a guest post by Colleen Dykema which lists important Common Core standards to which teaching with comics connect. I highly recommend this for those who have trouble convincing teachers and administrators about why graphic novels are solid choices for including in instruction.
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Read Write Think book report alternative using comics.
Some of the articles/links date back to 2016 or a bit earlier, but the information is super helpful for teachers and librarians.
Book Recommendations
During the months of May and June, librarians often make book displays to honor Mental Health Awareness, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Jewish Heritage, LGBTQIA Pride, and Juneteenth. I wanted to take a moment to highlight some newer books that you might want to add to your collections.
Puzzled - Growing up with undiagnosed OCD sure isn't easy, and here Pan Cooke shares his own experiences with that condition in a graphic-novel memoir that is as funny as it is powerfully candid and openhearted. Told with endearing honesty and humor, Puzzled shows the reader the importance of empathy for oneself and those going through something they don't yet understand. (Grades 5 and up)
* Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2024, Ms. magazine * Kids Indie Next Pick *
Age 16 - A powerful coming-of-age graphic novel about how mothers and daughters pass down--and rebel against--standards of size, gender, race, beauty, and worth. Award-winning creator of Living With Viola Rosena Fung pulls from her own family history in her YA debut to give us an emotional and poignant story about how every generation is affected by those that came before, and affect those that come after. (Grades 10 and up)
The Night Marchers - The fourth volume of the "Cautionary Fables & Fairytales" graphic novel series is a thrilling, funny, and totally new take on stories spanning the entirety of the region, with loads of lesser known myths and legends from the Philippines, New Zealand, Hawaii, and beyond. The Night Marchers features the work of Tintin Pantoja, Paolo Chikiamco, Rob Cham, Tokerau Wilson, and more! (Grades 6 and Up)
Continental Drifter - With a Thai mother and an American father, Kathy lives in two different worlds. She spends most of the year in Bangkok, where she's secretly counting the days till summer vacation. That's when her family travels for twenty-four hours straight to finally arrive in a tiny seaside town in Maine. Kathy loves Maine's idyllic beauty and all the exotic delicacies she can't get back home, like clam chowder and blueberry pie. But no matter how hard she tries, she struggles to fit in. She doesn't look like the other kids in this rural New England town. Kathy just wants to find a place where she truly belongs, but she's not sure if it's in America, Thailand . . . or anywhere. (Grades 5-8)
In this book, the first volume of a three-book series, our middle school protagonists Padmini, Sammy, Joe, and Tiana and their guide, Kenji, embark on an amazing journey through time to witness key events in AANHPI history. They witness the arrival of the "Manilamen" to the United States in the eighteenth century and fly through significant moments in the next 150 years. Fighting to Belong! helps new audiences young and old, AANHPI and non-AANHPI, understand how these stories are truly interwoven within the fabric of America. (Grade 6 and Up)
Courage to Dream - This gripping, multifaceted tapestry is woven from Jewish folklore and cultural history. Five interlocking narratives explore one common story - the tradition of resistance and uplift. Neal Shusterman and Andrés Vera Martínez are internationally renowned creators who have collaborated on a masterwork that encourages the compassionate, bold reaching for a dream. (Grades 7 and Up)
Bibliography
Gagliano, Gina. On Hybrid Books and Hungry Ghosts: An Interview with Middle Grade Cartoonist Remy Lai. The Comics Journal. Aug 14, 2023. Accessed May 1, 2025.
Heinrichs, Jane. Guest Post: Why a hybrid graphic novel was the perfect format for Every Home Needs an Elephant.The Orca Blog. June 8, 2021. Accessed May 1, 2025.
Reading Culture: Finding Joy in Reading
by Elizabeth Vaccaro
Elizabeth is the Librarian at High Rock School in Needham, a sixth-grade-only school with about 450 students.
High Rock added a new element to independent reading: student book clubs. The idea seems simple: let students talk about books with each other. The challenge was to open the opportunity to all students during their independent reading block in a way that does not place a burden on teachers’ busy schedules. The reward was how fully the students embraced this program. Students’ comments about book club include: “It made me excited to read.” “I always ask my friend, 'Is this a book club day?'” “I want to read another book!”
Student choice is central to the success of book clubs. Students choose to participate, they choose the book they want to read, they choose their reading pace, and they choose what to talk about. They like being able to leave their classroom to meet book club friends in the library. I have been struck by the richness of their discussions and of how they accommodate their reading strengths. For example, one group chose to read passages aloud to help one of their book club members who had a slower reading speed. Another group admitted to each other that they really could read more pages, that a faster pace would work better for them. Some took notes on characters so that they could analyze the book better.
Book clubs are ideal for middle school readers. In elementary school, students often read books under the guidance of their reading teachers. In middle school, core novels are only one part of the ELA curriculum, and novel reading practice moves to the independent reading block. Some students were missing the support of reading with others. Middle school students seek out opportunities to be with peers. Some students signed up right away, and others wanted to sign up once they heard the excitement from their peers. In a school of 450 students, more than a quarter of the students have been in a book club.
In the program's third year, book clubs have hit their stride. I have figured out a system that helps everyone know when a book club is meeting.
- First, I have a simple Google Form that the students fill out when they start a book club. The form is on the library’s web page, easily found. The form puts every student in a spreadsheet that I can sort, most often by cluster, date, and book.
- Students sign up for meetings on a calendar posted in the library. They write the name of their book in their time slot.
- I fill out paper passes for each student and give them to their independent reading teacher. By handing them out in the morning, I learn of any unexpected schedule changes. Teachers know which students will be leaving their classroom, and it eliminates the issue of students creating extra meetings in order to socialize with friends.
- The spreadsheet helps me realize when a book club hasn’t met. I send students emails, and they get back on track.
Space is important. High Rock’s library is used for classes five blocks a day, and it can be disruptive to have a lively book club conversation happening during a quiet moment in class. This year I was able to reserve the library office, a space with a door that is directly behind the circulation desk. I can step in for a moment to ask for a progress update, and I can ask a quick question if I sense the group is getting off task. Having their own space in school adds to the luxury of having time with chosen peers.
It has taken a few years to develop a special collection for book club books. The first year I started with a grant from the Needham Education Foundation, and since then I have added books from the regular library budget. I sought out books that have rich discussion potential and bought about five copies each. I used Project Lit titles as one source of ideas and added suggestions from teachers and students. A few favorite titles are Mascot by Charles Walters and Traci Sorrell, Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee, and Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes. Graphic novels were especially popular the first year, but now students are less apt to choose them because they don’t want their book clubs to end too quickly. There are currently close to fifty titles on this list, available here (format thanks to the .pdf version of a Collection in Destiny, High Rock’s Library catalog.
Students consistently inspire me with the depth and sophistication of their discussions. In discussing Mascot, one group was examining which of the many student voices may have aligned with the author’s viewpoint based on how each character was portrayed. A group of more reluctant readers tackled George Takei’s graphic novel memoir of his family in the Japanese Internment Camps (They Called Us Enemy) and were genuinely excited to see some primary source documents that helped answer their questions. In a small group, students feel more comfortable discussing weighty topics such as race and immigration. When I am nearby, I can offer historical perspective and provide a sounding board. I see strengths in these students that can help me when I work with them in their research projects.
Increasing students’ reading is a major goal of most librarians. I wrote this fall about High Rock’s Title Trivia contest, where the library club and I create a core list of 80 books that will be the answers in the school-wide quiz show and celebration of reading. Teachers and students post favorites and books they are reading along the doors and walls of the school. We have bookmarks to record student reading and to help inspire students to share ideas with each other. At High Rock, simply giving students space to talk about books with their friends has been a way to inspire joy in reading.
by Gillian Bartoo
Gillian is the Cataloging and Collection Management Librarian for the Cambridge Public Schools District.
Cataloging conflicts are situations where books on one subject are inexplicably split between one or more call numbers. Dewey numbers are assigned at a nuanced level of understanding by people with advanced academic degrees for huge collections that make most of the differences more obvious due to the numbers of volumes loaded into those numbers. That level of detail is usually way too much for most school libraries, where collections tend to be small and where the topics covered tend to be very generalized and simplistic. If you aren’t versed closely in Dewey or have a limited understanding of the subject matter, figuring out why books that appear to be on the same topic get cataloged in different places requires far more brain power and time than most are willing to devote to it – you want to spend time thinking of curriculum, programs, or space, and you may just want all those books to be in the same place. Below are some common conflicts, why they happen, and suggestions for changes.
2XX Religion vs. 398 Folklore vs. 88X Classical literature
The parsing between 29X and 398 is difficult, particularly with animistic-, oral-, and parable-based religious traditions. Some of this is due to the way they’ve been written and cataloged in the past, but it is also due to the general “established” religion bias of Dewey, reserving 200-289 for Christianity, and 290-299 for all other religions. Of most concern to children’s literature, few Native American myths and legends are cataloged to the 200s. I don’t feel knowledgeable enough about the subject to move any of these books out of 398 just on the strength of a publisher’s title or subject heading. If it’s new and cataloged at 299 I would keep it there, but leave others as is in 398. I do move the few titles I’ve seen in 899 to 398.
Greek, Roman, and, to a lesser extent, Norse and other ancient myths tend to land all over the place within 2XX or 88X. For differences between 2XX and 398, move classic texts to 2XX if they involve the origin and actions of deities or religious figures as they pertain to “the nature of existence.” Iliad and Odyssey tales and their derivatives, for example, usually land in 883 or 398. Move them to 292 only if you’re moving 398s as well, otherwise move them to 398 just to avoid the 8XXs. I generally consider 820-899 as a black hole in children’s collections.
Rules of thumb:
- 29X > Religion > Other [non-Christian religions]. The general rule for determining “religion” for the 200s is “[Materials about]…beliefs, attitudes and practices organized around the nature of existence…within the context of revelation, deity and worship,” Dewey, 2011.
- 398 > Folklore. See a more detailed definition here, but, in general, consider cultural oral or written stories common to a group of people as folklore.
- 87X – 88X > Literature of Hellenic languages [Roman and Greek] These may contain deities as characters but aren’t considered religious “texts”.
Community Helpers: 3XX vs 6XX vs everything else
Most everybody has “community helpers” as a curriculum unit somewhere in the lower grades. “Community helpers” is just not a construct in Dewey. These books usually end up somewhere in the morass of the 300s depending on the slant of the content but can also land in other areas (doctors and nurses, 61X; librarians, 020). Regardless, they don’t end up in one convenient call number. What to do?
My solution, which is usually my solution for a curriculum that covers broad call number areas, is to build a list and keep it updated. Building a list doesn’t involve the time it takes to recatalog and retag books; you don’t have to remember non-standard call number changes, and it doesn’t create a mess when the curriculum changes. It also doesn’t create problematic cataloging questions such as: Should fire truck books stay in 628.9 or move to firefighting in 363.37… or vice versa? The answer to that question is up to you. In Cambridge, I’ve noticed most of the firefighter and police books have migrated to 628.9. That said, if you want to go super general so you can shelve them all together:
- 307 > Communities.
- 331.7 > Labor economics > Labor by Industry and Occupation.
- 305.9 > Groups of people > By occupation or other social statuses. (I’d be careful here. “Other social statuses” can include things that have nothing to do with community helpers or occupations – also, 305 is usually just a big ‘ol mess anyway, so try to avoid making it messier.)
LEGOs– 600s, 700s and beyond
LEGOs have seven different nonfiction call numbers in our catalog, depending on whether the book is about the company, the founder, the movie, the object, or how to make things with the object and whether you consider that activity engineering, handicrafting, or an “indoor diversion." Best to just pick one and put them all there. These are the ones that make the most sense to me. Most of Cambridge’s have consolidated to 688.7.
- 688.7 > Manufacture of products for specific uses > Other final products > Recreational equipment (toys).
- 790.1 > General kinds of recreational activities.
- 793.9 > Indoor games and amusements > Other.
91X vs 93X-99X
Let's say you have a series of National Park books with 973-9 on four titles and 91X on three.
Your teachers have a curriculum about national parks, so should you put all your national park books in 917.X so that they sit close together? Or scatter them amongst your 973-979 books for the curriculum about specific states? What about that one book about the history of the National Parks over in 363.68 and the other one at 333.78?
To consolidate either as a series and/or geography and history, I usually move 91X into 973-979 because it’s a more general subject. I leave 91X for atlases, pirates, and the Titanic (“travel disasters”) – the big three of the range in an elementary school. “Explorers and exploration” fall in 91X as well, but it’s mostly dropped out of our curriculum, and what we do have is in Biography (92X) and History (93X-99X). I’d probably move the 300s to my preferred 9XX area, but it may depend on the number of books and usage I have in that area.
- 91X > Geography > Description and travel. This includes current and historical atlases, travel guides, travelogues and geography. It’s a collection of “what you see there” kind of books about the physical world as it appears / appeared.
- 93X-99X > History. I think of these as “what happened there” books. They are about human civilization and events.
- 363.68 > Economics > Public Utilities and Related Services > National Parks and Recreational Areas.
- 333.78 > Economics > Ownership of Land > Public Lands .
These few examples come from just this week of cataloging in Cambridge (and there were plenty more to choose from). Remember that cataloging conflicts are unavoidable, no matter what system you use; it’s what you do about them that’s interesting. I’d love to hear which ones vex you the most and how, if at all, you’ve figured out to deal with them.
Bibliography
Dewey, Melvin . 2011[?] Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index: 200, 23rd ed., Dublin, Ohio: OCLC.Dewey, Melvin . 2011[?] Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index: 300, 23rd ed., Dublin, Ohio: OCLC.
Dewey, Melvin . 2011[?] Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index: 600, 23rd ed., Dublin, Ohio: OCLC.
Dewey, Melvin . 2011[?] Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index: 700, 23rd ed., Dublin, Ohio: OCLC.
Dewey, Melvin . 2011[?] Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index: 800, 23rd ed., Dublin, Ohio: OCLC.
Dewey, Melvin . 2011[?] Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index: 900, 23rd ed., Dublin, Ohio: OCLC.
Image Bibliography
Bell, Samantha. 2023. Guandi : god of war (Chinese mythology). Kids Core / Abdo Pub.
Bowman, Chris. 2022. LEGO bricks (Epic: Favorite Toys). Bellwether Media
Curtis, Kenny and Jillian Hughes. 2024. Heroes and Olympians (Greeking out). Illustrated by J. Espila. National Geographic.
Dees, Sarah. 2019. Genius LEGO inventions with bricks you already have : 40 new robots, vehicles, contraptions, gadgets, games and other fun STEM creations. Page Street Publishing.
Fickett, Jamie. 2025. Firefighter (Helpful People). Norwood House Press.
Greve, Meg. 2025. Fire trucks (Starting Out). Creative Education.
Hinrichs, Alexandra S. D. 2023 I am made of mountains : an ode to national parks--the landscapes of us. Illustrated by Vivian Mineker. Charlesbridge.
Hugo, Simon. 2023. The big book of LEGO facts. DK Publishing.
Kaiser, Brianna. 2023. All about librarians (Sesame Street Loves Community). Lerner Publications.
Last, Shari. 2024. LEGO Minecraft ideas (LEGO Ideas). DK Publishing
Leaf, Christina. Everglades National Park (Blastoff! Discovery. U.S. National Parks). Bellweather Media.
Lock, Deborah. 2023. Greek myths (DK Super Readers Level 4). DK Publishing.
Murray, Helen. 2019. The LEGO movie 2 : the awesomest, most amazing, most epic movie guide in the universe! DK / Penguin Random House.
Siber, Kate. 2018. National parks of the U.S.A. Illustrated by Chris Turnham. Wide Eyed Editions.
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