Happy 2024!

November and December flew by as 2023 came to a close.  Smaller goals I set in August for library organization and book purchases were reached, and a medical emergency involving my youngest son, a senior in high school, was able to be handled thanks to caring teachers, well-trained medical professionals, encouraging staff and specialists. I have yet to feel overwhelmed or anxious that I'm not prepared for whatever the next day might bring.

Thank.

Goodness.

After rereading a post from two years ago where I made the decision that "sacrifice" would not be my word of the year, I know how remarkable my current state of mind is.  It took me two years to make my resolution statement true, to readjust priorities, to create new routines, and to completely restructure my work days so that they accommodate most of what needs to be done without having to rely on others.  I no longer attempt to make every lesson a stand-alone, encompassing all necessary content in one shot for every grade level. Students can explore genres, award winners, fiction and non-fiction, and learn about and practice catalog searching, browsing, researching facts and misinformation, while bingeing on favorite authors, illustrators, and content throughout the year. ISTE standards can be integrated within center activities, as can collaboration and social-emotional problem-solving. Readers can pair up, work with a small group, or lone-wolf it, snuggled within a beanbag to dive into the book they've just checked out. 

I am not a classroom teacher, and our shared space isn't a classroom. I am a teacher-librarian, a library media specialist, a collection administrator, and a reading and learning guide. Our space is the library, a collection of ideas, thoughts, facts, imaginings, hopes, dreams, discoveries, commiseration, humor, affirmations, and questions bound between book covers ready to be explored. Within our walls is the space for personal choice and interest, and the freedom to learn. The freedom to choose a book, read a few chapters, and then decide whether or not it's the book for us.  The freedom to stop reading a book, to return it, and to try again as we browse to appease our appetite. 

Admittedly, I might be *this close* to shaking the next adult who tries to tell a student "After you start a book you have to finish it, " as if they've never stopped reading mid-article, mid-editorial, or mid-book themselves. While young students might not yet be the readers that adults are, when it comes to unassigned reading material they should be developing and exercising the same discretion and decision-making that we do. I remain annoyed by families who don't do at least a quarterly clean out of their kids' bedrooms and homes, tracking down "lost" library books that would never become misplaced if they simply developed the habit of take-book-out-of-backpack, read-the-book, put-book-back-into-backpack-before-bedtime, repeat.  The backpack is the only student possession that I can really try to utilise when it comes to book care.  No water bottles inside the backpack please; close all lunch boxes and throw all snack wrappers into the trashcan; pencils and pens should be stored in the smaller pocket, and books should always be transported to and from home inside the backpack.  But when families avoid everything regarding the backpack, especially library books ("It's how I teach my child about personal responsibility..."), then my "lost book" list grows.  And grows.  I'm no gatekeeper, so I don't hold library books hostage until books are returned to me. And I hate asking students and teachers to keep library books in classrooms because frankly, Home is usually where kids need reading material. 

I still appreciate being able to keep a bulletin board display up for all of December and January by utilizing a snowy theme that hints at library topics to come (Caldecott and other award winners!).  Our fourth-graders added more snowy friends to the display after I took these photos, which has really cheered up our hallway.

I've been thrilled that our bi-annual book fairs have done well enough to provide funding for new books and book repair materials for those already in our collection.  I can't... stop... buying... books.  And students can't stop grabbing them from shelves as soon as I put them out.  Do you know how to get kids interested in books?  Don't just try to hand them all of the ones you, your parents, and your grandparents read.  That's right: school libraries don't need nine copies of Green Eggs and Ham.  Or the Berenstain Bears.  Or Clifford.  

Get.  The.  New.  Books.

In fact...

Tell.  Your.  Administrators.  How.  Important.  Providing.  Annual.  Funding.  For.  Actual.  Literature.  Is.  When.  The.  Goal.  Is.  To.  Motivate.  Students.  To.  WANT.  TO.  READ.

I mean, looooooooooook at these:

The second half of the school year promises to be chock-full of great stories, funny quotes from students, and still more learning for me as I make progress toward reaching my remaining goals:

Weeding and genrifying biographies to make them easier for students to engage with

Weeding and implementing more front-facing displays of non-fiction books so that students can find what they need whether they've mastered Dewey or not

Creating a Kansas collection location after the remaining very-out-of-date reference materials are weeded

Cleaning up cataloging duplicates into single entries

Hosting our spring book fair with help from parent volunteers

Evaluating ELA curriculum contenders and getting a head start on any literature support lists they might include

Updating the list of the book sets available in our professional library

Researching and selecting more manipulatives and center materials for next year

Accompanying my colleagues as we present a Reconsideration Policy to our BOE

Continuing to add wonderful books and resources to our collection

Do I have a one-word intention for 2024?  Nope. Have I made any resolutions?  Also "nope." 

*****

I've read quite a few books on my Kindle over the last few months, but here are two paperbacks and one hardback that I'll be reading soon:

Happy New Year!