Children's Book Week!!! Still Time to Celebrate!

Ahhh!  I’m terrible!  It’s Children’s Book Week and I just found out TODAY!  What kind of children’s lit lover am I? 

I apologize profusely for my oversight, but it’s not too late to make things right. Right?

This year Children’s Book Week is May 2nd-May 8th.  What a great time for all of us (teachers, librarians, parents, kids, teens, etc.) to take a break and sit back with a good book.  Basically, it’s time to celebrate children’s lit and promote literacy.

I encourage each one of you to pick up a children’s or young adult book this week to read yourself or read aloud to a child.  It is so important that we hook children into reading now so that they can grow into perceptive, knowledgeable, tolerant, creative, inquisitive adults.  Don’t let the opportunity pass you by!

Here are some great links for recommended books and ideas on incorporating author studies and children’s literature into lessons at home or in the classroom.

1.     http://www.bookweekonline.com/

2.     http://www.teenreads.com/

3.     http://www.cbcbooks.org/

4.     http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/calendar-activities/celebrate-national-children-book-20682.html

5. 
And if you’re interested in e-books, here is a site one of my writing group colleagues recently got published on.  Actually, she was runner-up in a book contest (she is author and illustrator).  Check out Who is the Most Beautiful Bird in the Barnyard?  and other children’s books:

6.     http://www.meegenius.com/

As for me, I’m going to take a break from my current read – the adult mystery novel In the Woods by Tana French (although it’s very good!) – and head out to my library to grab a YA novel. 

Enjoy your reading!  Remember, it’s a celebration!