Hello, I'm Patrick Adams. And I'm Caroline Legere.
And this is Librarians of Littles, a podcast
where we share books, makerspace ideas, and tips
and tricks for working with our youngest learners
in the library setting. This week, we are going
to be discussing two books that we were able
to get during our trip to the Texas Library Association
Conference. And so we're going to share those
two books, give some ideas for makerspace activities
and give some tips and tricks this week. Our
first book is the book called Acoustic Rooster's
Barnyard Boogie starring Indigo Bloom. It was
published by Sleeping Bear Press in 2020. The
author is Kwame Alexander. The illustrator is
Tim Bowers. And this book is currently not on
any awards lists, but Kwame Alexander is a prolific
writer and has earned many awards, including
the Coretta Scott King Award for the Undefeated
and Crossover, as well as an American Story and
Out of Wonder Poem Celebrating Poets and Black
Star. And then he's also won the Newberry Award
for both the Undefeated and Crossover as well.
Alexander was born in Manhattan and grew up in
Virginia. His father was a scholar and book publisher
and his mother was an educator. He was always
surrounded by books. He attended Virginia Tech
and began pre -medical studies. before taking
a writing class with award -winning poet Nikki
Giovanni. In May of 2024, Kwame Alexander received
an honorary doctorate from American University
in Washington, D .C. Kwame is also the executive
producer, showrunner, and writer of the Emmy
Award -winning Disney Plus series, The Crossover,
based on his Newbery medal -winning novel of
the same name. Kwame's production company, Big
C Entertainment is dedicated to creating innovative,
highly original children's and family entertainment.
The recipient of the 2025 NAACP Image Award,
Kwame is also the founder of AuthorStudy .com
and he is the Michael Riddell Artistic Director
for... I do not know how to say that, but it's
some kind of literary arts! Chautauqua. Chautauqua
Literary Arts. Yes. I win. Okay. Yes. Some of
his other books, as we've said, he's a prolific
writer. He has done many chapter books and picture
books. Some of his chapter books include the
Rebound Crossover and Booked series, the Door
of No Return and He Said, She Said. Some of his
picture books include Indigo Bloom in Garden
City, which is illustrated by Just Son. How Sweet
the Sound, a soundtrack for America, illustrated
by Charlie Palmer. Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard
Band, illustrated by Tim Bowers. Surf's Up, illustrated
by Daniel Meares. How to Read a Book, illustrated
by Melissa Sweet and The Undefeated, illustrated
by Kadir Nelson. And the illustrator of this
book, Tim Bowers, grew up being influenced by
comic book superheroes, comedy television, and
his grandparents' many animals, which led to
a career with humorous storytelling and animal
characters. Tim Bowers lives in Ohio. He has
four grown children and three grandchildren.
He also plays the guitar and the ukulele. Not
Your Typical Dragon by Dan Bar -El and Buddy's
New Buddy by Christina Geist. And the summary
for our book today, the Acoustic Rooster's Barnyard
Boogie starring Indigo Bloom. While cleaning
up, for the Garden City Community Festival, Indigo
Bloom finds out that hundreds of people are coming
to hear her sing. She panics and feels terrified.
As she goes to bed that night, uncertain, she
dreams and finds herself with the barnyard band
just moments before a tornado hits. After the
tornado, Indigo convinces the animals to work
together to clean up and repair the barn and
farm. But when the barn collapses, all of the
animals feel completely defeated. Indigo then
convinces the animals to have a benefit concert
to rebuild the barn. And during the benefit,
Miss Derry Parton loses her voice and Indigo
must substitute in for her. In doing so, she
builds her courage and performs when she awakens
at the Garden City Community Festival to great
success. So this is a really cute story. It's
part of the Barnyard Boogie series. There's actually
the two picture books and Kwame Alexander is
working on some board books that go along with
the series also. So it's part of a series. There's
some really cute characters with some awesome
names like we have like Chickie Minaj and Miss
Dairy Parton. very clever, cute names. It's a
fun story with an important message about kind
of building up your confidence and believing
in yourself to reach your goals. There's bright,
vibrant pictures. I would say that this book
is a really good story. I would say I'd probably
give it about a 3 .5. I think it was a little
long. I think we had a couple different times
where we had new problems that popped up that
maybe we could have kind of combined a little
bit and saved some story time. But the characters
and the message and the story itself is a lot
of fun. I really enjoyed it overall. So I think
it's a solid story and I think the kids will
like it. I think a lot of the kids... are gonna
miss some of the jokes with the character names
and stuff like that, but the parents that are
reading to the kids will definitely love that
part of it. And if you read it to some older
kids, they'll pick up on a lot of that too. I
think it's a good story. I think it's a solid
story. I think it's fun. Like I said, I think
it was a little long to keep the attention of
some of our younger learners, but. I think it
has a really positive message about believing
in yourself and overcoming your fears. And so
I think that's a good thing to expose our students
to. So I think it's a good story. I agree. This
one was really cute. This was the first time
that I'd heard of this particular series and
reading it, I kind of had all the same feelings
that you did. I think I would definitely purchase
it for my libraries though, because specifically
because it goes along with our music unit, our
teachers for a good Four to five weeks have a
music unit of study and finding specific picture
books that like really focus on music in particular,
not just like I'm going to sing the wheels on
the bus in a book form, but like a story with
a band like this and everything is kind of there.
Those books definitely exist, but it's very niche
and it goes perfectly with our curriculum. So
I definitely would make this purchase for my
libraries in particular and I would recommend
it to my teachers but I agree I think generally
speaking like I don't know if I would purchase
this like at home for my personal children like
I don't know if I would love reading it over
and over and over and over again like I would
with my personal kids at home but it is fun and
I do like all the jokes they kind of slipped
in there for the grown -ups when you're reading
there's a lot of nods to kind of some very famous
musical names in there. So that was that was
kind of nice to have a little have that kind
of slipped that in there for the grownups and
some of those older older kids. But yeah, it
was a fun, fun book. I liked it. And I also need
to point out. So in at the beginning of the book,
as they're cleaning the neighborhood and that
kind of thing, there's a gentleman and they refer
to him as Mr. Woody in the book. And if you I
don't know if you noticed, but Mr. Woody, Tim
Bowers used Kwame Alexander as the model for
that character, which is kind of cute. So a little
nod to him in that. That's great. Yeah, I thought
that was kind of cute. And this, like I said,
I enjoyed it. Kwame Alexander in general is...
such an amazing author. And I was fortunate enough,
I got to meet him and he is such a down -to -earth
kind of guy. So he likes to joke around and have
a good time. And when I was waiting in line,
he was asking everybody to come up with names
that he could use in another one of these books
with characters. He was like, I have a goat character.
I need to come up with a name for it, for the
goat character. And so he was like asking everybody
what they had for ideas. Oh, that's cool. If
in one of the books that he comes up with in
the future, if there's an Isaac Graze, G -R -A
-Z -E, like instead of Isaac Hayes, I'm taking
credit for that. That was my suggestion to him.
He really liked it. So we'll see. I don't know.
I can't wait. Nothing will happen from that,
but it'll be a nice story for me to be like,
I have high expectations for you. Because that
was my suggestion. I was like, I got this. Well
done. So we'll have to see. But it is a good
book. It's cute. And I agree with you. Like the
music, music is finding books that use music,
not just for the rhyme scheme and stuff like
that, but that actually has musical characters
in it and incorporates that. There's not a lot
of books like that. And so this is an excellent
book for that kind of a unit for sure. I agree
with you there. As far as a makerspace activity
for this, I was going to go kind of simplistic,
but fun. Things that you would need for it. Boxes,
like tissue boxes or something like that, that
size. You could also use some paper plates, some
dried rice or beans, some rubber bands and some
markers, crayons, colored pencils, that kind
of thing. And so the activity is building some
instruments. In one of our previous episodes,
you talked about how to build shaker kind of
tambourine ish kind of thing where you take a
paper plate put a couple pieces of rice or bean
in it fold it over staple it together and then
let the kids decorate so that's one possibility
the other possibility is taking like I said some
like tissue boxes and stretching out some rubber
bands over it so that the kids can kind of make
their own little guitar ukulele kind of instruments
that they can decorate and then pluck those rubber
bands to make some sounds that way. And so I
think a lot of kids would be interested in that
because anything that they can make that they
can make sounds with and stuff will be lots of
fun. But I think that they'd like a lot of kids
would like to build their own little guitar or
ukulele that they could play with and then like
if that's something if you don't want to introduce
the rubber bands or something like that then
you can do the shakers the tambourine kind of
thing and the kids would love that too but i
think that would be a fun way to incorporate
music after reading this story about music so
it would it would be a really fun yeah i agree
something different a lot of fun and you could
Do some kind of a science lesson with it, I suppose,
with you're doing rubber bands like that with
vibrations and waves and things like that. So
yeah, good call. Love it. And if you get different
size rubber bands, like different thicknesses,
they'll make different sounds so that they have
different sounds that they can play with different
rubber bands. So it'd be a lot of fun. That's
a good idea. That a lot of the kids would really
like that a lot. And yeah, it's a whole science
lesson. Agreed. Kind of is. Excellent. All right,
so this week for our library of littles management
tip or trick I Thought we should talk a little
bit about sub binders. There's always those times
when you're gonna be out of the library in in
a lot of cases for at least for us when you're
out of the library that doesn't mean the library
just closes down. We gotta have a sub in there
that's helping make sure that kids have access
to those books and are seeing them for lessons.
And so having a sub binder is really important.
And so like I figured we could discuss a little
bit what you put in your sub binder and like
any kind of like emergency sub plans that you
might have. I'll tell you from the start, for
me, Some of the things that I find that are really
helpful and important to put in this into my
sub binder is. At the front I put a general daily
schedule of what times I see classes and then
I'll have like on what day of the week I see
which class so they can know what classes are
actually coming to see them. I also include a
map of the campus just so they know where where
everything is, because if it's a brand new. the
sub that hasn't been on the campus before. I
like having that map with restrooms highlighted
and stuff like that so they know where they can
go if they need to take care of that kind of
stuff. And I also highlight my team, where the
PE teacher, where the gym is, where the art classroom
is, that kind of thing, so that they know where
to go to ask for any help if they're struggling
with something. They can get some help there.
I also include, my binder, I have different sections.
So in one of the sections, it's all of the emergency
procedure stuff. So where do you go if there's
a fire drill? Where do you go if we have a lockdown
drill? Where do you go if there's a severe weather
thing? Like all of those kinds of things. So
I have like some information about all of that.
And then I have a tab that's just daily routines
and procedures, which talks about how we Welcome
the students into the library where the students
sit how like the process for doing book checkout.
If it's a book checkout week how to. Like what
our story time song is and what the words are
to it and what it the tune it goes to all that
kind of stuff. I include all of that. And then
at the very end is where I have my emergency
sub plans and currently my emergency sub plans
have a pre K. kinder lesson, a first and second
grade lesson, and then a third to fifth grade
lesson. So I have like three separate emergency
lessons just in case if I end up not being able
to make like a sub plan with a specific lesson
for that day. I have those backup lessons ready
to go. Do you have a sub binder? Do you keep
anything that I didn't I do yours? Yeah. So I
have been real spoiled in my whole career. And
this is the first year I've had to do like real
subplans. And now I do it all the time every
day. Because up until now, I've always been very
blessed to have a para. When I was in the classroom,
I was always... I taught... Early childhood special
education. So I always had a para with me So
if I was gone when I was in the classroom, I
was just like you do it You teach you know how
and I always had fabulous pairs that were very
willing to take on that role and then Same thing
when I became a librarian. I was just very fortunate
and that we had just one co -cur pair to share
between all the co -curs and I would just give
my Book I would just text my para to do it That
particular day so i really i'm spoiled i'm not
gonna lie and i didn't need one till this year
but this year i'm at two campuses and. I get
the privilege of running both simultaneously
but only being at one at a time obviously so
i can't split myself in half so now. That's true
i'm getting there. So this year I got real good
at sub plans. So I do have a binder now similar
to what you described that kind of starts with
like a list of like the daily routine and the
the classes and when they're coming and going
and all the things like that is what it starts
with. It does have like the story time song and
the words to it and that, you know, it's the
tune of London Bridge and all the things. And
then it has, since I'm gone all the time anyway,
it just has my regular plans in it, which I suppose
if I was going to make sub plans now it would
just be the same as what I'm describing, but
it says what book we're meant to read and it
has a link, an online read aloud link to whatever
book we're meant to read as well. And both of
those things are available in the library in
the same place all the time, since I am gone
so much. I also have most of my subplans I'm
now doing on Google slides. And I really didn't
figure out how great it was to do my lesson plans
that way until January of this year. But now
the way I have them all written that I really
like, and it only takes me about half an hour,
no, maybe one hour to put everything together
the way I like it. That's like real concise and
easy to read and easy to follow for my constant
line of subs. It has in my Google Slides document,
it has for the actual plans itself, it lists.
The names of my co -cur team and it explains
that the co -cur aid is present and able to help
But may or may not be running things But probably
knows the best since they're the ones that are
in the classroom all the time And then it says,
you know, this is it says you're going to read
a story and then at the very So that I don't
have to change that from week to week It just
says you're gonna read a story and then you're
gonna let the kids play with these makerspace
centers, and it describes the centers. And then
at the bottom it says, Monday, Tuesday, this
story. Wednesday, Thursday, this story. Friday,
this story. And then on the following slides,
it has, see next slide for Monday, Tuesday's
read -aloud, and then the following slide is
the online read -aloud goes directly to the read
-aloud, I learned in January that in Google Slides
you can embed the direct link to whatever read
aloud you want and you can tell it the exact
time you want it to start playing and the exact
time that you want it to stop playing so that
you can skip all of the thank you for coming
to my channel and please consider subscribing
and all the mess like that that all the content
creators are going to do and you can just skip
straight to the story. And you can also make
your link most of the time. You can make it so
that it doesn't have the commercials that would
normally play by going to the link that has no
cookie embedded in it. So it kind of simplified
everything for my constant stream of subs. They
both campuses really like Google slides it was
just a little bit easier for them to read through
it all there's a simpler method and I Don't really
like that. I'm constantly leaving an online read
aloud. It's not my favorite and if I Know I'm
gonna have a really good sub who's really engaging
a really engaging reader and is going to Kind
of capture the children's attention. I will say
please just read they need to see you reading,
but I so often have people subbing for me that
maybe have never seen the book before and maybe
they're a little drier reading than most people
and or they might speak English as a second language
and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's
still difficult to read an English book when
that's not your native language. And they might
not know how to pronounce things correctly, which
again is fine. But we are also teaching our three,
four and five year olds how to speak properly.
And it's kind of important for them to hear proper
pronunciation just for their language development
in general. So yeah, that's now the way that
I'm doing my sub plans. So now the school year
is finally over. I finally got a hang of it.
Hooray. Yeah. I've heard of other people using
like Google slides or slide deck or something
like that for their for just their regular plans
even and I think that I need to look at that
this summer because I think that sounds like
a really great way to do subplans and just regular
plans to have like visual cues on the screen
as you're going through your regular lesson too.
So I think I'm gonna look into that. And with
it since I'm gone Yeah, and since I'm gone so
often, there is just a single iPad that lives
in the library all the time. So I don't leave
my things or anything like that for them. It's
just whatever's designated in the library. I
just have it pulled up and my team does have
access to that. It's all in a shared folder for
all of my team to access so that any of them
can come into the library and just click that
button and kind of get everything set up. No
matter who's on campus that day. I love that.
That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah,
having a sub sub binder, because I always try
to make my sub plans in advance, but you know,
there are some times where like an emergency
comes up or like you wake up in the middle in
the morning and you're like, I feel like death.
And so having like plans that are just like ready
to go. Yeah. Like that emergency situation is
always a good thing. My campus also, I forgot,
but just recently, like within the last week
and a half or so, my campus came up with, you
know how you always have to like send kid, if
you have to send a kid to like the nurse, you
have to fill out like the nurse pass and everything
like that. And so you have to have like papers
all over the place. My nurse made a QR code.
So I actually just put that into the front of
my sub binder also. And so all they have to do
is kind of scan the QR code with their phone
and they can fill out all of it without having
to send, find a paper and send it that way. You
just send the kid and she fills out, you can
fill out the QR code and send the kid without
anything. You don't have to be searching for
what did I do with that last paper I had. Oh,
that's nice. But that helps her a lot, too. Yeah,
because then she has a digital record that she
can go back to and make sure she does all her
note -taking on for each kid she sees, but doesn't
have to be like, where did I put that paper?
Yeah. Yeah. Kind of cool. Cool. Yeah. All right.
Well, for our next book that we're going to talk
about today, we're going to talk about Mustache
Baby Meets His Match. It was published by Clarion
Books Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2015. The
author is Bridget Hios and the illustrator is
Joy Ong. And this book is not on any awards or
lists, but it sure is a fun one! Bridget Heos
always knew she wanted to be a writer. Her family
supported her ambitions as a writer by allowing
her to put on big plays in the backyard. As a
child, her grandmother fueled her desire to write
by becoming her first editor. She mailed back
her letters corrected in red pen. After completing
school, Bridget became a teacher and social worker,
but soon she transitioned into freelance writing.
When she had her first child, she began to wonder
who wrote all the non -fiction books that her
son loved to read. After doing some research
herself, she began writing non -fiction books
for children herself. Some of her other books
include the Mustache Baby series, Santa Jaws,
Triceratopsit, Stegathosaurus, Who Wants to Be
a Princess, and over 100 nonfiction children's
books. When I was looking through all the things
she's written, I have quite a few in my library
that I had no idea it was just kind of nonfiction
books, so you just don't know. I don't know.
I never really learned who writes those nonfiction
books either. So that was interesting. I knew
she had written a bunch of the fiction, the picture
books and stuff, and I've loved those. But yeah,
now I'm going to have to go back and look to
find out which non -fiction. Apparently non -fiction
is her jam. I didn't know. Yeah, that's awesome.
All right, so the illustrator for this book is
Joy Ong. She grew up in Alberta, Canada. She
graduated from the Alberta College of Art and
Design with a Bachelor of Design in 2007. She
started her career as a children's book illustrator
for Yudon Comics. Some of her other books include
the Mustache Baby series, Wings of Fire book
one, two, and three, and 101 reasons why I'm
not taking a bath. Alright, so this book is the
sequel to the 2013 book Mustache Baby. And in
it, Baby Billy meets a boy with facial hair to
rival his own. At first, Baby Javier beats Billy
out in everything that they do, from magic tricks
to rasslin' a bear to running for president.
And eventually, Baby Billy gets fed up with losing
all the time. So, Baby Billy's mustache morphs
into a bad guy mustache, while baby Javier's
beard grows into a pointy bad guy beard, and
they wrestle each other until baby Billy's mother
breaks up the fight. She explains to baby Billy
that instead of fighting, they could both race
to apologize. Inspired by her pep talk, they
do just that, and they become best friends. I
really liked this book. It was a lot of fun.
It was really sweet. I love that it was like,
it started out with baby Billy trying to be friends
with Javier, but then with all the conflict with,
you know, Billy losing all the time, essentially,
you know, they become rivals, but then end up
figuring out how to become best friends in the
end. I just, there were a lot of, you know, kind
of jokes kind of embedded in there for grownups
to look at too. So that was a lot of fun. Like
they had them, you know, both run for president
and naturally it was presidents that like you
have like Abe Lincoln in there that grownups
are going to recognize but not so much the kids
so there were a lot of fun jokes in there for
parents and teachers and whoever's actually reading
the story to the child to kind of look at themselves
and so that was a lot of fun but it was sweet
i love that they ended up figuring out how to
get along. It was a really nice social emotional
story. Yeah, this I love this series. They're
so fun. And they're really engaging to the kids
because the kids think it's hysterical that that
the baby has a mustache or the baby has a beard
and so it keeps their attention because it's
funny and silly and they get into such crazy
situations. So this whole series is excellent
and Um, I, yeah, I think she does a great job
of balancing like the adult, like the little
things for the adults while making just a really
great story for the kids to enjoy with like a
big heart to it too. Yeah. Or like they're becoming
best friends or they're learning, um, from their
parents and that kind of thing. So it's a, they're,
it's a really great series. I strongly suggest
them. I think they're excellent. And like I said,
my students love them. They're so much fun. They
were really cute. Yeah. I liked it. I think I'd
give it a four out of five. It was a lot of fun.
I think for a makerspace activity, I would do
any kind of race. There was a lot of competition
in there with Baby Billy and Baby Javier. So
I think I would look at whatever unit of study
maybe you're doing in science and do maybe like
a ramp lesson or some kind of like a builder
like racing some kind of cars or something is
what I was kind of envisioning. We have a unit
of a wheels unit of study. One of ours that we
already talked about is music, but another one
is just wheels in general. And I could see doing
this with pre -k and like having the kids either
build their own car, well maybe not build their
own cars, that'd be a little complicated for
pre -k, but finding a way to race their cars
down ramps or something and see who can get theirs
to go the farthest and have a little friendly
competition in there of some kind and just see
kind of see what you're doing in like physics
related. and kind of do a cross -curricular connection
there. I mean, if you gave them some Legos, they
could probably build a car. They could build
a car with Legos, actually. And now that I said
materials, that would be yeah, they could do
it. It just depends on what materials you're
using for sure. Good point. Now that I think
about it, I have some magnetic car builders that
would go really well. Lakeshore has some really
cool ones. Naturally, you would have to spend
some money for those. But yeah, I forgot I have
those. Good call. Yeah, so I think you're right.
Having them build it and then race them, I think
that would be a really cool thing. And I think
a lot of kids would really enjoy being able,
even if they didn't win, just being able to watch
all the other cars racing and have it, that'd
be a lot of fun. I think they'd enjoy that a
lot. Yeah, I think it would be a lot of fun.
And a great way to incorporate the book with
the unit on wheels. Yeah. I love that. All right.
Well. Thank you all for joining us today on this
episode of Librarians of Littles. We hope you
all found some fresh ideas for inspiring our
young readers. Please be sure to subscribe and
connect with us on social media. Happy reading!
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 Legere. Editor, Patrick
Adams. Our theme song is performed by J .D. Adams.
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