Welcome to Librarians of Littles. I'm Patrick
Adams. And I'm Caroline Legere. And this is a
podcast where we discuss books and makerspace
activities, give tips and tricks for working
with pre -K students in the library setting.
Today, we have two books about grandparents.
As the school year starts in September, we have
grandparents day. Grandparents are a big part
of our students' lives. And so. we decided that
we would find some grandparent themed books to
share this week. Um, and I think that we did
a pretty good job. We found some excellent ones.
I think so too. Yeah. The first book is I Really
Want to See You Grandma. It is written and illustrated
by Taro Gomi and it was published by Chronicle
Books LLC in 2018 for the English version. Originally,
it was published in 1979 in the Japanese version.
This book did get a couple awards and is on a
couple lists, including Outstanding International
Books for grades K -2 selection of 2019, the
Horn Book Fanfare selection for 2018, and El
Dia de los Niños, El Dia de los Libros, Selection
2020. The author, Taro Gomi, was born on August
20th in 1945. He's a graduate of Kuozawa Design
Institute, and his first book was published in
1973. He has published more than 400 books in
Japan. That's amazing. Yes, very amazing. That's
a huge number, so very impressive. Some of his
other books include Over the Ocean, The Crocodile
and the Dentist, Terogomi's Big Book of Words,
Mommy Mommy, I Know Numbers, What Do You Wear?
Little truck and one of the most popular of his
books Everyone poops. It's true. Yes So he's
done a lot and he's very prolific and many many
of his books have been translated into multiple
languages a lot of them being English, so He's
he's one of those guys that like you don't necessarily
he's not one of those names that pops out But
when you start looking at the list of books that
he's, he's produced, it's impressive. It's like,
you're like, Oh, yeah, I've read that book, or
I know of that book, or, you know, like, there's
quite a few of them that as I was going through
the list, I was like, Whoa, I know that one and
that one. But his name isn't one of those names
that just like stands out, which is sad, because
he's got some quality books there. He does. I
Yeah, I've heard of most of these, but I didn't.
I honestly I didn't recognize his name immediately
and I hadn't read this book either until you
suggested it but it's precious and I love it
and yes it he deserves more recognition I assume
it's just because he's Japanese and most of it
was originally written in Japanese that I would
think that would have definitely have some play
in it for sure yeah that everything that he does
has to be translated to English definitely slows
down that process. Like I said, this book was
originally published in 1979, but it was done
in English in 2018. So like, yeah, there's a
there's definitely a delay there. A little bit.
So the summary for this book is the story of
a granddaughter and grandmother that both wish
to see each other. But as they leave their homes
and try to meet each other at the opposite person's
place. They keep passing each other along the
way until they finally meet in the middle at
a tree. It's a really cute and fun story. It's
very simple story. But it like the illustrations
are just warm and beautiful. And there's a simplicity
to them that, like, I don't want to say they're
simple, but There's a simple style to them that
makes them just so wonderful and it's just this
sweet story of a Grandmother and their grandchild
trying to to be there to spend that time together
and they just keep passing in the night It just
so it's it's a fun story. I think students will
enjoy it It's not a long story. So it's easy
to keep the attention during that story And I
love that even as they're passing in the different
vehicles that they're riding in, it's very clear
that they're not the characters aren't noticing
each other, but it's very clear for students
that they're right there. They're so close and
they're passing and not even realizing it kind
of thing, which I think makes it a lot more fun.
So I think this is just a wonderful story. It's
so cute. I love it. And so I'm definitely saying
this is a five out of five bookmarks. I think
it's a, it's a wonderful story that a lot of
kids can relate to. They like grandparents are
such a big part of our students' lives. Um, many
of our students, honestly, a lot of my students
being like I've mentioned to you previously,
we live, my, my students, I have a lot of students
that qualify for pre -K because they're low economic
or they are in a home that's considered multifamily.
Many of them are in homes that are multi -generational.
And so grandparents, for my students anyway,
play a huge part in, in many of their lives,
um, because they spend quite a lot of time with
them. They, a lot of them live with them and
that kind of thing. And so grandparents in general
are big part of my kid's story. So they're like
their stories, their lives. And so this is a
perfect book. to kind of show that love and that
appreciation for them. So I really enjoyed the
book. Yeah, I did too. Like I said, this was
the first time I'd read it and it was just very
sweet. I loved that you could just feel the affection
that the child and the grandmother have for each
other and that they're just constantly trying
to connect. While they didn't connect right away,
they did eventually make that connection and
they met in the middle. It was just very sweet.
I love it. I love the persistence of it too.
Neither of them really gave up and they were
like, this is going to happen. Yeah. And that's
a good message to teach our kids too, is to keep
trying, right? Yeah. So a makerspace activity
to do with this lesson, I thought since in this
story, The two characters the granddaughter and
the grandmother travel in many different ways.
The at one point the granddaughter travels by
bus while the grandmother travels by train another
time one of the characters travels by. Like truck
that is passing by and the other by taxi and
then at the end it's like. The little girl is
traveling by scooter while the grandmother is
traveling by motorcycle. So there's all these
different vehicles that they're trying to use
to get to each other. So I thought it'd be really
fun to have the Legos and have the students build
different vehicles to help the grandmother and
granddaughter get to each other. So giving those
kids a chance to kind of build some different
vehicles to help those wayward family members
get back to each other would be a cute way. for
the kids to make a connection with the book.
Um, if you had the little mini figs of like different
characters, you could use those as well. Personally,
I don't use the mini figures, but I know that
so many of my kids get creative and they build
their own little figures using the blocks. And
so having them be able to build those little
figures with the blocks and then put them onto
different vehicles that they build so they can
try and retell the story would be a really fun
activity for a lot of them to do. Yeah. And I
love that. I love that that both involves you
know the creativity portion of it with the building
and creating a vehicle but then they could also
like reenact it or like extend upon the story
and kind of have a literature component to it
well i mean that's the goal right yeah all of
them have a literature component to them but
that you do the story retelling with it as well
so they can do the story extension there that's
great Yeah. So I think that would be a fun way
to share this story and definitely a really cool
way to have the kids be creative. And then like,
if your campus has a day where you have actually
have like a grandparents day where grandparents
get to come in to like the classroom or into
the different settings, if they come to the library,
you could read this story and have grandchildren
with grandparents, and then they could work together
to build the vehicles with the Legos and do that
too, which would be really cool. I know my campus,
we don't get the chance to actually have the
grandparents come into the classrooms, but I
know some campuses do invite the grandparents
to stay all day for Grandparents Day and that
kind of thing. And so that would be a cool way
to have multi -generational makerspace going
on, which would be pretty awesome. That would
be, I like it. All right. So that already brings
us to our library of littles management tip for
this week. This week, we're going to be talking
about newsletters. This year, I'm terrible. I
mentioned this to you, Caroline. I'm so terrible.
I am. I'm so terrible at self -promotion in the
library. Self -promotion for me is just one of
the hardest things to do to keep Our families
up to date on all the different things that are
happening in the library when i've got. All the
different things happening i'm juggling so many
balls in the air and to. To promote myself and
to let everyone know what's happening is. So
very important but it's usually the thing that's
last on my list of things to worry about and
so this year i'm gonna be getting much much better
with that i'm doing a monthly newsletter where.
the first week of every month. I'm going to send
out a newsletter with some of the things that
are coming up. We're going to include like future
dates for the month, events and activities that
are coming up. I'll include some pictures and
some things that we did from the month before,
including like some of the makerspace activities,
stuff like that. Also, I'm planning to, I have
student helpers in the library. So I'm going
to be doing spotlights on my student helpers
that are helping to keep the books on the shelves
and organized and all that kind of stuff. Uh,
as well as just kind of like including some of
the upcoming themes that we're going to hit.
Like in September, it'll be easy to like have
a little blurb about Hispanic American heritage
month and that kind of thing. Like, you know,
little things like that to just let everyone
know what's happening because I feel like a lot
of times I'm just kind of in my own little cave
and yeah like the students and I are in there
and they know we're doing this stuff but that
doesn't always get communicated out to the parents
and so I need to be better about communicating
all the things that are happening within the
library walls. Like my parents know when there's
a book fair and that kind of thing. They know
when certain activities are happening because
they have to sign permission slips and that kind
of stuff. But like the monthly day to day kind
of things that are going on in the library are
not things that the parents know about. Like
we even you and I even mentioned like we could
include in the monthly newsletter, some information
about like checkout data, like how many books
have we checked out in the last month? How many
books are overdue this month? Like that kind
of stuff, just to give some like statistical
data also, like anything I can do to self promote,
I need to get better at it so that my community
is aware of everything that I'm doing and all
the work that I'm doing with the kids. Cause
otherwise it just, oh, you're the librarian.
You, you give the kids books and that's the extent
of my parents knowledge of what I'm doing, which
Granted not the worst but really not even It's
just service level of all the stuff, you know,
it's the tip of the iceberg Absolutely. Yeah,
like we're doing so many more things. And so
I need to get better about Self -promoting letting
everyone know all the great stuff that really
is happening Because you know if if I take some
pictures of the kids working on a makerspace
activity after we read a book And I can put that
in the newsletter. Like that's somebody's kids.
Somebody's going to see that and be like, Hey,
that was my kid. They did that. That's so cool.
Like even just that little bit. Um, it just can
be so powerful to share those, those things with
the parents. And so I have already been working
in Canva looking at different newsletter templates.
And so I think I found the one that I'm going
to use for mine. Um, but yeah, I'm going to make
sure that I have that. I'm going to make sure
that I work with my principal. so that that gets
sent out every month. And my campus has a library
Facebook page that it'll be posted on. And then
the campus Facebook page will repost the library's
post of the newsletter so that everybody has
access to both Facebook accounts and we'll be
able to see it that way and through email. So.
Anything anything we can do to promote ourselves
and make sure that the community understands
the impact that we're having because in a in
a time when Libraries are being questioned as
to their importance We want to make sure that
everybody understands that we really are important
and that we're having an impact on their students
education So any way that we can show that is
always important Absolutely Yeah Yeah, you're
right. A lot of people don't really realize I
think kind of understandably so how much goes
into the library. I think for most professions
in general, you don't really realize all the
different aspects of everything that person does.
And the library is no exception to that. There's
just a lot that goes on behind the scenes and
a lot of bonus things that other people don't
really see. And it makes it even harder because
we're the only one. So if we don't say it, literally
no one will know. And it can be hard and uncomfortable
to kind of tutor on horns because we're kind
of as a culture kind of value humility and being
humble and kind of self -deprecation a little
bit. So that makes it even more challenging.
But you're right. Like if if we don't say it,
nobody else knows about it. It's it's not going
to like we know we're doing amazing things, but
we need. the parents of the community to be aware
of it as well. So they don't cut our funding.
That self -advocacy piece is really pretty crucial.
So yeah, a newsletter is a great way to let everybody
know what's going on. It's, you know, predictable
and regular and kind of holds us accountable
too. So we have a deadline and can make sure
that we share that with everyone. It's important
stuff. So I will hopefully Do that. Maybe I'll
do like a quarterly one this year. Or maybe I'll
do like a, just like a wrap up each semester
with like our circulation stats and highlight
some of the great things that we've done. But
starting on a new campus this year, I don't,
I would love to, I think monthly is ideal, but
I'm establishing a lot of things right now. If
you do it like every, every quarter, every grading
period. Yeah, that would be a good start. And
then you can just improve from there, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'll do that this year,
too Okay. Anyway for our next book. I love that.
We both accidentally picked Books with Asian
characters. That's fun Yes, the other book says
something about that culture and the importance
of grandparents to I think maybe I think it might
Yeah, I think Yeah exactly I think that's very
accurate. And it's important to highlight other
cultures as well. But this one, the next book
that we're going to talk about today is called
Drawn Together. It was printed by Disney Hyperion
in 2018. The author is Minh Le and the illustrator
is Dan Santat. And this book has won quite a
few awards. I did not know how many until we
went to do this episode. It's got a total of
10 awards. It got the Anna Dudney Read Together
Honor in 2019, Asian Pacific American Award for
Literature in 2019, Notable Children's Books
and Language Arts Award in 2019, ALSC Notable
Children's Book 2019, Charlotte Huck Award 2019,
Notable Books for a Global Society 2019, Junior
Library Guild Selection 2018, and School Library
Journal Best Books of the Year for 2018. It is
on a total of 16 state lists, a few of which
are California Young Reader Medal for 2021, Colorado
Children's Book Award 2020, Georgia Children's
Book Award 2019, Illinois Monarch Award 2021,
Texas Little Maverick Novel Reading List 2020,
and Vermont Red Clover Award 2019. And for our
author history, Minh Le is a Vietnamese -American
award -winning author of children's picture books
and middle grade graphic novels. He's worked
in education at the state, national, and local
level and is on the board of the organization
We Need Diverse Books. He holds a bachelor's
in psychology from Dartmouth College and a master's
in education policy from Harvard University.
He currently lives in San Diego with his wife
and children. And some of the other books that
he's written, quite a few of them are with Dan
Santat. Some of those are Built to Last, Lift,
and The Blur. Some other books he's written are
Let Me Finish, illustrated by Isabel Roxas. The
Perfect Seat, illustrated by Gus Gordon. The
Real Me, illustrated by Raisa Figueroa. Green
Lantern Legacy illustrated by Andy Dong. Green
Lantern Alliance illustrated by Andy Dong. And
Enlighten Me illustrated by Chan. I don't know
how to say that. Chao? Chao? Gonna go with Chao.
That sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. And the Illustrator.
is Dan Santat. He is a Caldecott award -winning
artist who grew up in Southern California and
graduated from the Art Center College of Design.
Santat is the creator of the animated series,
The Replacements, and he lives outside of Los
Angeles with his wife, two kids, and many, many
pets. So Some of Dan Santat's other books, books
that he has illustrated, include Endlessly Ever
After, written by Laurel Snyder. A New Day, written
by Brad Meltzer. The Misfits series by Lisa Yee.
No More Poems, a book in verse that just gets
worse by Rhett Miller. Oh No, or How My Science
Project Destroyed the World by Mack Bennett,
Dude by Aaron Reynolds, and the Ricky Ricotta
Mighty Robot series by Dave Pilkey. Books that
he has both written and illustrated include A
First Time for Everything, The Adventures of
Beekle, The Unimaginary Friend, After the Fall,
How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again, and many,
many more. And this book, so I didn't know before
we did this particular episode, but there's a
really, really, really good PBS Books YouTube
with Men lay reading this book and it's this
book is it's a nearly wordless picture book.
And it's about a young boy's mother who drops
him off at his tie speaking grandfather's house
for a visit and at first glance it looks as though
they have nothing in common they try to connect
but they just. I can't get there they both speak
different languages and eat different food enjoy
different tv shows and after missing that connection
and. repeatedly missing the mark, they finally
learned that they're both passionate about art
and they connect with each other through their
drawings. And in the PBS books, YouTube video
with Menle reading it, like he kind of explains
all of the different little pieces with the book.
I learned that Menle is Vietnamese and his grandmother,
either his grandmother or his grandfather, only
spoke Vietnamese. And they kind of had a very
similar relationship from, you know, grandchild
to grandparent, as in this book. And Dan Santat
had the same experience, but his family is Thai.
So I don't remember, one of them had a grandmother
or grandfather that they were trying to connect
with that didn't speak. English at all and they
were both English speaking and they didn't realize
that until after they like were halfway through
reading or creating this book together that they
Pretty much had the same childhood experience
and they both dedicated it to their grandparents,
which was really sweet but Because this is nearly
wordless. It's like really I like to do it with
pre -k because It's a really good one for like
a lot of pre -k kids will you know, when they're
in the library and you tell them that, you know,
you can go read a book, they'll say, No, I don't
know how to read. That's not possible for me.
So I like to start with something like this,
because then you can just look at the pictures
and I'm like, Look, there's no letters on this
page. No letters means no words. You tell me
what you see in the book, and we'll read it together.
So then that's that kind of introduces the kids
to like, Oh, I can still read this book. But
this one in particular, it does a really, really
good job with you can see like the Like when
they sit down together the grandson is eating
a hot dog Which is you know, the quintessential
American meal over there like burgers and hot
dogs. That's like you don't get more American
food than that While the grandfather is eating
ramen, which is I I mean I think to most people
Looking at that like you would see that and you're
like that's Asian food with a four -year -old
They may or may not recognize it as being like
a different Cultured like culturally different
I guess so you would have to point out things
like that like the cultural differences and you
would have to kind of Just point out how they're
trying to connect but not quite making it there
the kids can still read their facial expressions
and Like you can tell by the way the characters
are looking at each other that they want To connect
with each other like they're smiling sometimes
and they're kind of looking at each other. Like
are you interested in this? I don't know and
there are a few words like on the page not a
ton like I said like it is nearly wordless but
not quite there and on those with those words
like it's written in like the the words that
the grandfather is speaking to the grandson is
in Thai so like You can point that out to kids,
and I have done that before when reading this
book to classes. I'm like, that doesn't look
like, I don't see a letter A in there, do you?
None of those are letters that we recognize because
he's not speaking English like we are. He's speaking
a different language. And look, we do see that
the grandson is saying these words, and we see
those letters. We know these letters, so he's
speaking English because we can recognize those
letters. So like you would have to point out
things like that But I absolutely love this book
I love how they you know, it doesn't just such
a good job of showing them trying to connect
I love that it is nearly wordless so kids can
kind of learn to read the pictures more or less
on their own and When they do connect through
those drawings the grandson has you know, very
bright and vivid markers, and the grandfather
only has like black and white pens and paint.
And so they do use different art mediums. And
then when they do start their drawings, like
it kind of goes into their, it shows their them
dressed up doing their drawings. And it kind
of shows them trading their the boy trades. his
markers for you know the grandfather's black
and white paints and such so it kind of shows
how they kind of share that connection and they
keep that connection even though they don't speak
the same language and even though they have so
many differences i just i absolutely love it
this one for me is definitely a five out of five
it's just so beautiful and i don't know the colors
are so vivid and so bright it has Dan Santana
has a very distinct, almost half anime, half
kind of American drawing, kind of the way you
would expect him. Maybe not expect, but you would,
that's probably heavily influenced by his Asian
background. But I don't know. This is one of
my favorite books. Dan Santana is one of my favorite
creators. I love it a lot. Yeah. Totally agree.
This was just such a charming, sweet book. It
was wonderful. I was so happy when I saw that
you selected this one. Yes, I have not found
a bad book that Dan Santat has been a part of.
Especially when they work together, I just love
how the storytelling just kind of gets elevated
to a whole new level when Dance and Tap and Minle
work together. They, so many of their books are
on my favorites list. Like I love to use them
with students and I love how quite a few of them
are like minimalist in the use of words and they
still tell such a powerful story. And so I really,
I love to include a lot of the books that they
work on together in my lessons throughout the
year because they're just so wonderful. And so
this is at the top of the list there too. And
I think that a lot of our students love art and
love to draw and that kind of thing. And so to
see it as a way to communicate with someone else
is, it's something that, especially in pre -K,
I don't think a lot of them ever think about.
And so it's a nice, new idea for them to see
that their artwork can be a form of communication
also. So really fun. Love this book. Yeah, I
love it a whole lot. Like pretty much everything
they do is kind of amazing. Yeah. Yeah. For a
makerspace activity, because this book does center
around art in a really big way, I would just
put out lot of different choices for kids to
use to create their own art just maybe get like
a really big piece of butcher paper and lay it
across the table and then have everybody get
something and not necessarily the same thing
and kind of create their art together. So yeah,
I would put out like crayons and markers and
pens if I was feeling brave. I might do, I probably
wouldn't do paint actually with something like
this because there would be so many kids in the
same spot. But I'll probably stick with like
colored pencils, crayons and markers so everybody
could have something different. And because there
is the black and white in the book as well with
the grandfather, I would probably get just some
pens as well. And I'll probably do less messy
things due to the number of kids using it at
the same time, but kind of create our own. Big
drawing like they saw in the book Yeah, and see
what everybody could bring to that drawing I
Love that. That's really cool end up with this
beautiful mural that the kids all work together
on kind of thing Yeah, and then you could like
hang it up if that depending on I don't know,
I guess it depends on how many classes did it.
I don't know if you'd have room for it or not.
Or you could give it to the classroom teacher
and they could hang it up if they if you didn't
have enough space. That would be something kind
of cool to have in their classroom to that would
I bet they would like Yeah, the kid and the kids
would probably enjoy seeing the work that they
created altogether like that as well. Yeah. Very
cool. The other thing that I thought is you could
and I haven't used them So I don't know how messy
they would get but they now have like sharpie
makes like paint pens So they're a little expensive
because I bought my wife some for school Five
of them they're like oil or yeah, they're water
based their watercolor based Because you can
get watercolor based or the oil ones, but like
the watercolor ones I think I got a pack of five.
It's like 20 bucks for them. So they're not cheap.
Yeah. But I like, I don't think they're gonna
be super messy either. So it's a way to introduce
paint maybe without all the mess. So it's something
that if you had them lying around, if you had
them and you wanted to introduce them that way,
you could add those in. But I think you're right.
I think like trying to Like adding like watercolors
with paint and everything. That would be a nightmare
this early, like in September, especially we're
not ready in September, right? Not in September.
We're around grandparents today. But, um, also
just if everyone is participating together, you're
going to have people putting elbows in it and
stuff like that. So I think that you're right
to keep it out of it. It keep paint out of it,
but you might be able to find some other ways
to do it, but Yeah, super cool idea. I love that
idea of just like all of them working together
to do something. That'd be cool. Yeah, it'd be
a lot of fun. All right, well thank you all for
joining us today on this episode of Librarians
of Littles, and we hope you 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 JD Adams. You can
follow us on Instagram at Librarians of Littles.
You can follow us on bluesky at littleslibrarian
.bsky .social. And you can send us your emails
at librarianoflittlespodatgmail .com. And I accidentally
started a massive dot day at my school. I just,
I did not on purpose. I just asked the art teacher
if they ever do anything for dot day. And she
was like, no, but we should let's go. And now
it's, I don't know. It just, it just slowly got
bigger and bigger. Okay. So there's, she's doing
like a three week project with them in the art
room. And we're going to hang up all the things
around the school and it's just going to be a
dress up day. And that's cool. The principal's
getting little dot candies for everybody and
the art teachers hosting an after school staff
dot making party. Okay. That's pretty awesome.
Yeah.