By Kitty Felde Most people visit art museums and monuments when they visit a new city. I visit libraries. I’ve visited a tiny community library in rural Oregon with its own vegetable garden and attended the grand reopening of a magnificent new library in Christchurch, New Zealand after a devastating […]
Young Readers: Why Should Dogs Have All the Fun?
By Kitty Felde There’s nothing like sharing a book with a friend. Especially if that friend has a tail and a lot of fur. Dogs are non-judgmental. They don’t criticize mispronounced words or sentences that take forever to finish. They just listen. Read-to-dog events have become part of regular programming around the […]
Young Readers: More Binge, Less Complaints
By Kitty Felde “It’s not that kids don’t like to read. It’s that they don’t like feeling like they’re forced to read.” That’s Eric Berman’s mantra. Berman is Teen Services Coordinator for the Alameda County Library in California. He says the key is getting reluctant readers hooked on something. Anything works, he […]
Young Readers: Facts To Sway Reluctant Fiction Readers
By Kitty Felde They say there are two kinds of people in the world: those who read fiction and those who read non-fiction. Fiction fans argue that stories improve a person’s capacity to understand and mentally react to other individuals and social situations. Non-fiction aficionados argue that fact-filled books help […]
Young Readers: Stopping the Summer Slide
By Kitty Felde There’s still a few weeks of summer left, the perfect time to kick back with a cool drink and read – which may be the last thing the child in your life plans to do with their precious time away from the classroom. But months without reading […]
Young Readers: The Family That Reads Together
By Kitty Felde When I was growing up, I often heard the phrase from Fr. Patrick Peyton, “The family that prays together stays together.” At the National Council of Teachers of English conference, I was reminded of that mantra when I heard about Family Book Clubs. Family Book Clubs are […]
Young Readers: Fan Fiction Gives Familiar Characters A Second Life
By Kitty Felde Ever wonder why networks keep rebooting old TV shows? There’s a special place in our hearts for characters we wish we could spend time with again and again. But what happens when we run out of episodes? Fan fiction. These are original stories by writers who “borrow” […]