Book Review: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

I liked reading this book a lot. It's won several awards for children's literature.  It's the life story of the author told in short free verse poems. Her life growing up was a lot different than mine even though we are from the same generation.  She taught me a lot through the vignettes of her childhood.  We see much of the civil rights story told through her life. I especially liked the pictures she included at the back of the book -- I felt as though I knew every one of her family members.  I was sorry to see this book come to an end.

End of Another School Year

As a teacher it's always bittersweet to come to the end of the school year.  The last few weeks are an exhausting sprint to the finish, students and faculty alike have their minds on summer yet there's plenty of work still to be accomplished.

In year's past our fifth graders bring in money to buy a book as a parting gift to the library.  This year the fifth grade teachers wanted the gift to be more meaningful to the boys, and decided to have the boys offer the gift of service.  As the school librarian I was a grateful recipient of much of that service.  Boys were reading and cleaning shelves, removing the batteries from our Playaways, and sorting magazines for a start.  As you'll be able to see they took their jobs very seriously and they did a good job.