Hello, I'm Patrick Adams. And I'm Caroline Lashir.
And this is Librarians of Littles, a podcast
where we review picture books, include makerspace
ideas, and give tips and tricks for working with
our youngest learners in the library setting.
Today, we have two wonderful books to share,
both of them coming from the Texas 2x2 list,
a list that encourages children from the ages
of two to second grade to read as many books
as possible. Each year, the Texas Library Association
comes up with this list of 20 wonderful books
to share with young readers. Our first book today
is titled Boop. It is published by Harper's Collins
in 2023. The author is Bea Birdsong and the illustrator
is Lindsay Hunter. As stated, this is a book
that is on the Texas 2x2 Award List for 2024.
Bee Birdsong is a former teacher. She lives in
North Carolina with her husband, son, and rescue
dog. She also does school visits. Some of her
other books include I Will Be Fierce, illustrated
by Nidhi Chanani, Sam's First Word, illustrated
by Holly Hatem, How to Spot a Best Friend, illustrated
by Lucy Fleming, and Goat is the Goat, illustrated
by Kelly Murphy. And the illustrator, Lindsay
Hunter, is an award -winning Scottish author,
illustrator, and hand lettering artist based
in Peckham, London, UK. She creates illustrations
and hand lettering art for many different mediums,
including magazines, toys, packaging, and advertising
campaigns. And she has worked with the BBC, Nike,
Hallmark, and Macy, just to name a few. Some
of her other books include What If Pig, written
and illustrated by herself, Lindsay Hunter, Little
People Big Dreams, written by Astrid Lindgren,
If You Had a Jet Pack, written by Lissell H.
Deddelfson, and How to Write a Great Story, written
by Carolyn Lawrence. And to get into the story,
the book Boop is a cute story of many dogs and
their snoots getting booped. This book introduces
the concept of a snoot on a dog and how to boop
it. It's a rhyming story with many dogs with
snoots ready for booping. I really enjoyed this
book. I am a huge dog lover. I have two dogs
of my own, and I just thought that this was just
a fun story for kids to read. There is rhyming
that's going on. The illustrations are so fun
and cute with all the different dogs, the different
types, the different shapes and sizes of the
dogs. and all of the dogs wanting their snoots
to be booped. It just brought a huge smile to
my face as I was reading through it and I've
really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to
sharing it with my students because I know how
much these kids love dogs and really just any
kind of animal honestly. Most of these kids are
very much animal people so dogs, cats, whatever
they love them all and I just think that this
book is So much fun. I do also love that there
is a page at the beginning that Explains, you
know, even though you love dogs You need to make
sure that you speak with your adults and the
dogs adults before you ever approach a dog You
know, we don't want anyone to get hurt because
a kid is just running up to a strange dog and
trying to pet it So an important warning to say
hey make sure it's okay with your adults, make
sure it's okay with the dog's adults before ever
approaching a dog touching it. Super important.
But I just thought that this was a sweet and
cute story and I love that the one dog that's
on the cover kind of is in every single picture
just wanting additional boops of his snoot. It's
just such a cute story. Like I said, it just
made me smile the whole time I was reading it.
And if nothing else, I think that my students
will enjoy it because of my enthusiasm while
reading it because it's just such a cute and
whimsical story. The illustrations are just so
bright and engaging. I love the whole thing.
The story itself, I think it's a little simplistic,
but I still think that it is a fun read for the
students. I think that it will be so much fun
to read out loud and to kind of get the kids
to go along on the journey with me as we read
through the story. So I'm going to say that this
is at least a four and a half out of five bookmarks.
I'm thinking like at least four and a half, maybe
five just because it's so much fun. I think that's
fair. I thought I really liked the story a lot.
i'm glad you mentioned about the disclaimer at
the beginning because that was my only concern
when i was reading it i was like okay kids are
going to go to weird dogs they're going to touch
them but no that's i i think that's uh i loved
that they talked about having you know talking
to your big people about um asking for permission
first before touching a real life dog and i think
another fun thing to do with this book would
be to have everybody bring in like a little stuffed
animal and um so they could boop the snoots on
their little stuffies. And if they have a dog
stuffed animal, great. That's a fun one to use.
But I mean, really, it could be any kind of stuffy.
I think that would be a fun addition to that
and kind of having the kids read with their stuffed
animals. I think they would really, really enjoy
that. And then you could always bring in a couple
of your own. If the kids don't have any with
them, you could always use puppets or any of
your displays around the library or anything
else that you have lying around to kind of make
it a little bit more engaging and let the kids
interact with that a little bit more. So I agree.
It was a super cute book and I love how interactive
it was. I really enjoyed it a lot. Excellent
choice. Thank you. I mean, the Texas Library
Association, they picked a banger with this one.
It's a great story. I really loved it. And I
love that idea of having the kids bring in like
a stuffy so that they can all boot the snoots.
That's a great idea. And a makerspace activity,
materials that you might need for this makerspace
activity, pretty simplistic, those pattern blocks
that like every single campus always has those
yellow hexagons and the green triangles, the
orange squares, the red trapezoids, those blue
parallelograms and the tan rhombuses. You could
also, if you wanted, you could stop there. But
if you, if you wanted to go a little further,
you could have a picture map with a pre -made
image. But my idea is to take, to give those
kids those pattern blocks and have them make
their own dog or make their own other kind of
a pet using the pattern blocks to build. their
animal. In our book it shows different types
of dogs so they were different shapes and different
sizes and different colors so the kids can use
those as ideas but then they get to build their
own and we can kind of look at how every student
makes theirs a little bit different and kind
of unique just like all the students and all
the dogs in the book. Yeah I love that it kind
of gives the kids a little bit of creativity
and takes some ownership over the story as well.
Yeah. Yeah, that's great. And did you see online
too, there was a story kit on the author's website
that has like pre -made, yeah, there's like pre
-made patterns on there that like you could,
it was for, to make the puppets from the book,
but it was like, it's the kind of puppets that
you just cut out and you put on a popsicle stick,
not like, not like paper bag puppets, but like
the popsicle stick kind. So yeah, that would
be a fun one to kind of, not the story needs
like, particular reenactment you could probably
reenact it with just like any of the stuffies
or puppets or whatever you've got but to have
the actual um illustrations from the story that's
awesome that you could kind of act out too that
was fun so we'll make sure that we include the
author's website in the show notes so if anybody's
interested in going there and finding those they
can go through our show notes and it'll be linked
in the description there we go cool I know we
didn't really have anything down for management.
Does that sound like an okay management tip?
Or is that kind of? Yes, I think this is a good
idea. Sometimes I don't know if it's too obvious.
Well, here's my thought on that. My thought is
that it's obvious to us because we've been doing
it for so long. That's true. But we have a lot
of, especially in the state of Texas, we have
a lot of librarians that are kind of being thrust
into working with Pre -K. That's a good point.
And haven't had that experience before. So even
if it seems obvious to us, I feel like sometimes
going with the obvious because it's not obvious
to everybody else is a good thing. I think it's
a good idea. So I like this management tip. That's
a good point. So let's go with it. All right.
Okay, so today for our Librarians of Littles
management tip, we're going to be talking about
defined seating for students. A lot of our younger
learners, our pre -k and kindergartners, they
are still learning really everything and they
are learning where their body is in space, which
is kind of a hard concept to teach and it can
be kind of a difficult thing to learn depending
on the student and their life experiences and
any of their Needs so I think both of our libraries
We both have a colorful rug with squares to kind
of show students where to sit when we're first
learning how to sit in the library I kind of
point out where the squares are on the rug and
kind of noted have the kids notice like okay
My spot is orange I'm gonna keep my body in the
orange and I don't really care how they're sitting
as long as they're kind of in the orange Somewhere
and they're not sitting on their feet just so
the kids behind them can see because a lot of
kids will tend to sit like they'll sit like crisscross
but like up on their feet kind of kind of so
that they're like higher up and that makes it
so that the kids behind them can't see so i do
tell them they have to sit sit flat so that people
behind them can see the book and kind of experience
everything but then that colorful rug just makes
it so that. the kids can kind of see where their
body needs to be in space so they can kind of
share their space a little bit better. For our
kids who need a little bit more help with that
we have something called cube chairs in our libraries.
The cube chairs are about 18 inches by 18 inches
by 18 inches and it's exactly like it sounds.
It's just a chair, it's a colorful chair that's
shaped just like a cube and it's incredibly durable.
I think I've been using the same one for like
the ones in my library I know are at least this
is my 17th year working with pre -k kids and
it's the same chairs that I've been using for
17 years they're ridiculous they're kind of expensive
I think it's like a hundred dollars a chair but
It's lasted for 17 years and they're going strong.
Sometimes if kids get a little bit too wiggly
on the chair, kind of push up with their legs.
You can, if you really need to, put Velcro on
the bottom of it with the kind of rougher side
and it'll stick to carpet really well. That doesn't
stick to rugs very well at all, but it sticks
to carpet ridiculously well to the point where
you have to like kick it up. So if you need the
chair to like stay down because the kid is like...
Kind of pushing back on their chair too much
and it's like dangerous for them. They might
fall back and hit their head. You can put that
rough side of the Velcro down on that so that
they kind of stay. Their chair stays down and
the kids can stay safe and they have their own
very well defined space so that they can kind
of keep their learn to keep their hands to themselves
and really stay in their own space so that they
can attend to the story a little bit better.
I completely agree with you having that defined
seating space, whether it's like an assigned
spot on the carpet or just that they stay in
their own square, whatever square they end up
on on the carpet, absolutely. That's definitely
important for those students. The only other
thing I might add is that I do, like I let my
kids sit. almost any way they want on the carpet.
Like you said, not sitting up on their feet or
on their knees because people behind them. But
I also, the one other thing that I don't let
my kids do is a lot of the kids want to do that
W sit where their knees are kind of bent back.
And that's the one other one there. And I'm like,
I can't have you sitting that way. I don't want
you to mess up your knees. Being as old as I
am, it just hurts my knees just to look at it.
But I also just, it's not good for the kids'
legs. And so that's the one other. thing about
sitting that I don't let my kids do they can
if they want to sit with their legs to the side
or something like that I'm totally okay with
that as long as they're staying in their own
space that visual that square that they're sitting
on or the circle or whatever shape your carpet
has it's just it's so helpful for them to see
a boundary because otherwise they're they will
they'll just kind of climb on top of each other
half the time um and then the cube chairs are
amazing and they The cool thing about the cube
chairs is that they have two different, like
you can flip it over. So there's like a higher
side where they set up a little bit more. And
then there's the lower side where they're kind
of in the chair a little bit more. And then for
even another substantial cost, I'm sure they've
got those trays that can go over it so that they
can sit in that chair and have. if they need
like a fidget or something in that tray kind
of helps give a little bit even more defined
space if needed for some of our kids and or that
just gives them a surface that they can work
at. And the cube chairs are amazing and they
are incredibly durable. Absolutely. I love them.
They're they're such an expensive investment,
but totally worth it. Absolutely. They really
are. I know. I feel a little bit bad recommending
something so expensive, but like it will last
forever. Like the ones that I've got that are
more than 17 years old. Cause they were already
in existence before I started working. Like so,
and they're, they've shown no signs of like where
really like they're like, they're not super duper
clean anymore, but they're not cracking or like,
they're not, they're still, we still use them
every day. I see no need to replace them anytime
soon. So if it can last for, you know, 20 plus
years, then it's a good investment. So for sure.
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, that defines seating.
Such a hard concept like that. Like you said,
keeping the kids and having them understand where
their body is in space. Such a weird concept
that you might not think about. you had to learn
that at some point. And so we have to be the
ones that help those students learn that so that
they can be aware of it and understand. Very
important. I agree. Yeah. All right. So the next
book that we're going to talk about today is
called Just One Flake. It's published by Abrams
Books for Young Readers in 2023. The author and
illustrator of this book is Travis Yonker. Is
that how you say it? Yonker, right? This book
has won many awards and is on many lists including
the Texas 2x2 Reading List, the Minnesota Star
of the North Picture Book Award List, the Missouri
Building Block Picture Book Award, and the Wyoming
Buckaroo Book Award K -3. Travis Yonker is a
school librarian in Michigan. He also helps make
a podcast about children's books called The Yarn.
His father was born in the Netherlands and immigrated
to Canada. He attended college in Holland, Michigan
and met his wife. His other books include Caboose,
illustrated by Ruth Chan, which came out of February
4th of this year, The Ship in the Window, illustrated
by Matthew Cordell, Blue Floats Away, illustrated
by Grant Snyder, and The Very Last Castle, illustrated
by Mark Pett. Before we get into this book, I
want to tell you a little bit, just kind of a
brief side note. Have you used teaching books
for schools? Have you used that resource before?
No. What is it? So this is a super cool resource.
Like a lot of the public libraries have it and
a lot of schools have it available also. So you
can search for like most authors and it'll give
you any kind of interviews that they've done.
A lot of times it'll link to their personal websites.
And one of the super cool things that it has
is it will give you, oh, it gives the authors
an opportunity to record a message where they
tell you how to pronounce their names. Because
some of these names are crazy, incredibly difficult
to, to just like phonetically try and figure
out. Yeah. Feel that. Yeah. And so, um, Travis
Yonker. Did this and so that's where I kind of
found it that they pronounce it yonker Apparently
his dad was born in the Netherlands. They moved
in so in Dutch It's yonker they move his dad
was a child and immigrated to Canada when they
got to Canada Everyone pronounced it Jonker with
the J sound and that's how they pronounced it
So when he was a kid, he pronounced it Jonker
when he grew up. He went to a mostly Dutch area
of Michigan, Holland, Michigan. That's where
he went to college. That's where he met his wife
and everybody there because they're from that
Dutch heritage pronounced it Yonker. And so that's,
so he's kind of gone back to that original pronunciation.
That's interesting. Dad was a child, which is
super cool. But yeah, teaching books for schools.
If you find that resource, if you have access
to it, like our local libraries, one of the local
libraries in our area can give you access to
it if the school district doesn't. My school
district does have access to it also, but you
can search for a lot of these authors and illustrators
and it gives interviews, it gives their website
links and not everybody does it, but a lot of
the authors will make an audio recording telling
you how to pronounce their name and give a little
story as to why it's pronounced that way or how
to pronounce it like with like it rhymes with
this or whatever so super cool resource that's
a little bit of a tangent but really cool resource
um for for any librarian that's wanting to pronounce
the names correctly so cool thank you all right
so in this book it's about a determined little
boy who struggles to catch a snowflake on his
tongue during a snow day eventually he does catch
a snowflake Although it is on his mitten, not
his tongue. I thought this was a really cute,
relatable story for children. I think that's
probably the thing that most kids do first when
they go outside for a snow day is try and catch
that snowflake on their tongue if it's actively
snowing. That's, I think, the number one thing
is to catch your snowflake on your tongue. Second
thing, go build a snowman. That's just what you
do, right? So, yeah, and it is, it is hard to
do. It's true. So I thought that most kids would
really relate to this and kind of identify with
the little boy in the book. It's got simple illustrations
and simple text. It makes it really easy to understand
for our little learners. It could be used as
a launch point to discuss both social and emotional
skills because the boy shows great perseverance,
really struggling to catch that snowflake. And
he tries several different ways to solve his
problem. Or you could also do a STEM lesson about
snow in general and individual snowflakes, because
at the end of it he does catch that snowflake
on his mitten and he kind of gets to really see
what it looks like before it melts away. And
then, of course, at the very end he makes his
own snowflake out of paper. you could do lots
of different lessons with this one, even though
it's really short and really only takes a couple
of minutes to read through, but you can really
go a lot of different directions with it. So
I enjoyed it a whole lot. Yes, I agree. This
is a very cute story. I love that he had a goal
in mind. And even though he didn't reach his
goal, he was kind of content with himself, especially
at the end of the book, where he was like, you
know what? I caught it on my mitten. I've seen
what it looks like at least and then he goes
inside and he's like you know what the hot chocolate
probably tastes better than the snowflake would
anyway and but now that i've seen a snowflake
i can make my own and he's able to do that so
like even though he didn't reach his original
goal he was still able to find some contentment
in what he was able to achieve for himself and
kind of move past Being slightly unsuccessful
to to get to another goal of his of being able
to make his own snowflakes Which is really cool.
And that's a it's a good lesson for a lot of
kids You know, sometimes we set goals that we
just can't reach but if we Get if we learn something
from it and can move forward with it then, you
know Then it's still a success, right? And so
yeah, I thought this is a really cute story.
I like the simple illustrations to it I like
that. It's just kind of like that relatable kind
of art of like all of the snowflakes are just
kind of they they're just white but they have
that little crisscross in the middle of them
and that kind of like that art style kind of
just kind of reminds me back to when I was younger
and I was trying to do drawing and stuff like
that and like so it's kind of relatable in that
sense as far as the illustrations go as well
and I just like that the kid was just so determined.
Like at one point I was reading and I'm like,
he's just like eating himself towards that last
snowflake. Like he just kind of jumps and goes
for it. And that's just, it was just a fun story
to read. I enjoyed it a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So for
the makerspace activity for this one, it's a
little obvious, but I think it was great because
it was obvious where you just get white paper
and scissors and cut out paper snowflakes with
your students. There's a whole lot of I mean
just if you just Google you know paper snowflake
cut out like there are so many templates that
you can use online where you can it shows you
how to like fold up the paper and where to cut
on the lines which I think would be a great place
to start with it and then hopefully eventually
your students would figure out, you could teach
your students anyway, how to fold the paper appropriately
and kind of make their own cuts so that they
can create their own snowflakes. This would be
a fun one to do around December, January. You
can cut out all those paper snowflakes and then
hang them up all over the library or maybe even
in the hallways at school, like leading to the
library so it kind of looks like it's snowing
in the halls. I think kids would get a kick out
of seeing all of their artwork. all over the
place so yeah absolutely and as we've said in
previous episodes you know using scissors and
practicing those cutting skills is something
that can be a challenge but this was a good way
to practice those skills in a controlled setting
where they can work on that grip with the scissors
and cutting appropriate things and you know it's
going to be something that some of the students
will struggle a little bit more with but giving
them that practice will help build those muscles
in their hands so that they're successful and
yeah because I mean being at the elementary school
I still have students in like third and fourth
grade that struggle to cut and I think it's because
they didn't. always get these opportunities to
practice. And so I think offering that to our
younger students, giving them those opportunities
to practice using the scissors in a controlled
setting so that they can build up those muscles
and get that practice in super important. And
I love that idea. And I really like the idea
of having the snowflakes like kind of hanging
from the ceiling and hanging in the hallway.
If nothing else, maybe even just kind of wishing
that snow day into existence sometimes, right?
Yeah. I wished for it real hard this week. It
didn't quite happen, but that's okay. On my way
to work this yesterday, it was snowing. There
was, it was just random flakes. It wasn't sticking,
but it was snowing and I was like, man, what
good are you snow? Uh huh. in thinking about
it just now too you could also do that same thing
with a bigger piece of tissue paper so that it's
just a little bit thinner and easier for the
kids to cut through because once you do fold
over that paper it will be a little bit thicker
and a little bit more difficult to cut through
but doing it with tissue paper might be a good
way to kind of have a thinner thing that you're
cutting through make it a little bit easier for
the kids and i do like Cutting this way in particular
too because it's not like you could do it on
a line and you could print out a template for
the kids to cut on but you could also just do
snips in it and it's not necessarily like it
doesn't have to be like particular shape that
the kids are going for so if they don't you know
if they mess up or if they just snip a couple
of times like they're still successful, you know,
yeah and on that same kind of Path I think I've
also seen people do like coffee filters and stuff
too. Oh, yeah coffee filters would be good So
that might work too. Yeah, I love that Yeah,
and but it's also like coffee filters also, like
you said thinner than that printer paper for
sure, too So I like that idea very cool Maybe
someone is still getting some snow. It sounds
like people a little bit further north than us
They're still getting some snow. So maybe they
can still use that idea this year. We'll see
it probably can it's still I don't know when
this will post. It's February for us! It's winter
now. I don't know when this will post, but it
would still be fun. Thank you all for joining
us today on this episode of Librarians and Littles.
We hope you found some fresh ideas for inspiring
young readers. Please be sure to subscribe and
connect with us on social media. Thank you for
listening to this episode of Librarians of Littles.
We hope that you've enjoyed it. Check back each
Wednesday for a new episode. Librarians of Littles
is a podcast produced and hosted by Patrick Adams
and Caroline Ligier. Editor, Patrick Adams. Our
theme song is performed by JD Adams. You can
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