Halloween is upon us once again, and you can count on the Library to help you and your children get into the spirit.

The shelves are abound with Halloween books that are informational, spooky and just plain fun, including my new favorite picture book, Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara. The adorable story about a young witch girl and her haunted house is filled with retro illustrations that make this book not only a wonderful addition to the Halloween genre, but picture books in general.

There are some great Halloween websites out there that are worth checking out. You can access a list of authoritative sites which include games, costume making, safety tips and more by visiting KidSpace @ The Internet Public Library.

The Dunwoody Library, Doraville Library and Wesley Chapel-William C. Brown Library will be hosting Halloween programs this week. Stop by and check out these fun, free programs!

How do you get in the Halloween spirit?

83 years ago today the world was introduced to the whimsical world of author A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. Milne only created two books centered around the Bear of Very Little Brain, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House At Pooh Corner, but Pooh and friends continue to have many an adventure as Disney has owned the rights to Winnie the Pooh, sans hyphens, since 1961. While Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit and the rest have since become a sad travesty (in my opinion) of what Milne and illustrator Ernest H. Shepard had created, one just has to open a book to be reminded of how enchanting the original characters of the Hundred Acre Wood were.

Now, for the first time ever, the estate of Milne and Shepard has authorized a sequel to The House At Pooh Corner titled Return to the Hundred Acre Wood. The book has been met with mixed reviews, both good and bad, but it is clear that author David Benedictus and illustrator Mark Burgess are talented and worked hard to keep with the Milne/Shepard style. Unfortunately, since the book was only published last week, the Library does not yet own any copies, but you can read an extract here. I picked up a copy at the bookstore and while I appreciate the negative reviews, I couldn’t help but be pleased with this imaginative addition to the Winnie-the-Pooh collection. But I hate to see what Disney will do with it.

The thought of it sounds delightful but the cost brings me down–quickly. The library has the perfect solution for a night of family fun: dinner and a movie.  Several libraries offer recent blockbuster films.  All you have to bring is the family and a blanket and/or lawn chairs to sit on and of course, dinner.  You can even wear your pajamas . The kids will eat it up. And you won’t have to shell out for tickets and popcorn. (Although you can bring your own if you like!)

Upcoming movies include Bedtime Stories at the Chamblee Library on Tuesday, October 13 from 5-7PM.   Covington offers Teen Movie Day on Monday, October 12 from 1PM-3PM and Family Movie Night on Monday October 19 from 6PM-7:30PM.  Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa will be playing at the Wesley Chapel-WCB Library also on Monday, October 19 from 6PM-8PM.  The Gresham Library will show the holiday classic, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on Tuesday November 24 from 6PM-6:30PM.  Check the online calendar for additional film screenings and more details.

Fairy tales have been popular in cultures around the world for longer than we know. These stories are a source of enchantment for young children and remain embedded in our own childhood memories. And while I can always pore over great re-tellings of The Three Little Pigs or Sleeping Beauty, sometimes it’s fun to change it up a bit. Fractured fairy tales are re-tellings of these familiar stories but with character, plot, setting and point of view twists. This makes for some of the wittiest, most humorous books out there today for children.
Here are some of my favorites:

Waking Beauty by Leah Wilcox

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas

Fractured fairy tales are not only fun, but educational as well. Many teachers are now incorporating these stories into their curriculum to teach children compare and contrast skills, point of view, creative writing and more.

Looking for something a little more in depth? No worries, there are fractured fairy tales for tweens and teens in novel form.

Beastly by Alex Flinn

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Bella at Midnight by Diane Stanley

Ask your librarian for more recommended titles.

The DeKalb County Public Library system is participating in the Metro Atlanta Solar System (MASS) project. Chris Dupree, a professor of astronomy and director of the Bradley Observatory at Agnes Scott College, created this project.

The MASS project is a scale model of the solar system. The sun is located at the Bradley Observatory plaza at Agnes Scott. The Decatur Library represents the earth. The project uses the same scale for both the planetary size and their distances from the Sun. The scale of the model is approximately 1:150,000,000. Want to know where the other locations are and more about the project? Check out this link to Agnes Scott’s web page.

Interested in learning more about the solar system?

The library has several books about the solar system. We even have the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Astronomy written by Chris Dupree.

Here are a few more you might want to check out.

Lives of the Planets: A natural history of the solar system by R.M. Corfield

The Planets by Dava Sobel

Infinite Worlds: an illustrated voyage to planets beyond our sun. by Ray Villard

September is Celebrate Roald Dahl Month (well, according to the Roald Dahl website, at least) as September 13 marked what would have been his 93rd birthday. Dahl is known for his quirky and imaginative books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. A few of his books have been adapted into animated and live action films and love or hate these movie remakes, there is another one on its way.

Fantastic Mr. Fox has been made into a stop-motion animated feature film written and produced by my all-time favorite filmmaker, Wes Anderson of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums fame. The film enlists an all-star cast and I have to say, it looks pretty great. You can watch the trailer here. Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of my favorite Dahl books and it will definitely require a reread before the movie comes out.

By the way, here is an interesting fact that you may or may not know: Roald Dahl wrote the screenplays for both of Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and James Bond You Only Live Twice. You can read more fun facts in the Roald Dahl biography, D is for Dahl: A Gloriumptous A-Z Guide to the World of Roald Dahl.

On Friday, August 28, the award winning children’s program Reading Rainbow aired its final episode. It marked the end of an era. For the past 26 years, host LeVar Burton has introduced countless children worldwide to the joys of reading. In that time the show has been the recipient of over 250 awards, including 26 Emmys (ten for “Outstanding Children’s Series”), a Peabody, and nine Parent’s Choice Awards. While the show stopped producing new episodes in 2006, PBS had continued to air reruns until last month, when lack of funding made it impossible for them to renew the show’s broadcast rights. This unfortunate happenstance is at least partially due to a paradigm shift in children’s literacy work which asserts that the focus should be on teaching the mechanics of reading instead of attempting to foster a love of books, as Reading Rainbow did (See the NPR article for more on this).

The Library has many Reading Rainbow videos available for checking out.   Additionally, the Reading Rainbow section of the PBS kids website is still running and will remain accessible until December 2009.

I was a huge fan of the show as a kid, and though it has been many, many years since I last had the pleasure of viewing it, I still remember the words to the theme song. I bet you do too.

Correction: originally, this post said that the Reading Rainbow series was not available at the Library.  This was a mistake, and has been corrected above.  Thanks to the readers who pointed this out to us!

With school starting back today, homework is not far behind for the students of DeKalb County. How many times as a parent have you had your child come to you early in the evening and say  “I have an assignment due tomorrow morning, and I need to go to the Library!” I know my first thoughts are I don’t want to go out now.  My second thought is usually, the library will be closing shortly or is already closed.

We have a variety of electronic resources that may help you or your child with homework from home. They can be found on our Reference Database page.  For elementary and lower middle school children, many of the resources can be found on our Children’s page. You will need your DeKalb County library card number and your personal identification number (PIN) to access these resources. (The PIN is a 4 digit number.)

For general research help, we have online encyclopedias such as Groliers and Britannica. For social studies homework, there is Grolier’s Passport, Sirs Researcher, Student Resource Center for middle school and younger. For high school or older students, we also have CQ Researcher available.  For Science homework, there is Student Resource Center, Encyclopedia of Animals, and the National Science Digital Library  (available through GALILEO).  For literature homework, there is Literature Criticisms Online and Literature Resources from GALE.

Although the Learning Express Library is listed under test preparation, this resource has several tutorials, tests and diagnostic tests that can help with homework. For instance, they have practice and diagnostic tests for reading comprehension, a variety of math for all levels and vocabulary for high school students. This resource also has a few courses available such as Middle School Writing Courses, and some basic math courses.

Searching for newspaper or journal articles? We have a couple of resources for this type of research. The easiest way to search is to go to GALILEO.  (It will ask you for your library card and PIN numbers and then give you the current password. You will then type in the password to proceed.)  If you click on the search button and type in your keywords, it will search for relevant articles.  These are just a sampling of electronic resources that you have available at your fingertips from home.  Feel free to browse our database page or GALILEO.  If you need specific help on where to start your search, don’t forget to use our Email A Librarian service. It can be found under the Research tab on our home page.  Be sure to select “I need help finding information.”

The countdown is on with only 10 days left of the Vacation Reading Program! If you haven’t returned your reading logs for your prizes and raffle tickets, don’t fret, you have until closing on July 31st to do so.

Feeling the back to school blues creeping up on you? DeKalb County Public Libraries are still offering plenty of programs for children and teens. There is nothing like attending a Tween Chocolate Party, attending a magic show, or catching a free movie to lift those spirits! You can see a full list of programs offered through July here.

For teens there is still time to enter Express Yourself contests, such as the digital photo contest at the Dunwoody Library, or the Lithonia-Davidson Library art contest. And don’t forget to log your reading hours online.

Enjoy the rest of summer!

I am so worried that my five year old still can’t read.  I see all these other kids reading and wonder “What am I doing wrong?”  Being me, I started doing some research.  There is a ton of literature out there for the worried parent.

The book that really started this out was Why Johnny Can’t Read – And what you can do about it by Rudolf Flesch.  This book was published in 1955 and parents are still using it at home.  It’s based on the phonics method of reading.  The  public schools have swayed from the phonics method to whole language  learning and back again since my husband and I were children (early to mid 1970s).  Until I started researching about reading I had no idea that there were basically two ways to teach reading.

Straight Talk about Reading: how parents can make a difference during the early years by Susan Hall and Louisa C. Moats pretty much details how the two different methods work and why phonics is a more successful method.  Actually, I did not find much that supported the whole language method.

Starting Out Right: A guide to promoting children’s reading success by the National Research Council specifically spells out activities to do with my five year old.  The book starts out with what is needed to be considered literate; and it’s not just about reading.  The National Research Council details activities and practices for every age group from preschool to grade three.  This is basically a how-to manual.

The best thing I learned about reading is that it happens at the child’s pace and not because the worried, conscientious, proactive parent is doing anything “wrong”.  I can finally sleep at night.

Here is a list of other titles in the library system:

Prescription for Reading–teach them phonics by Ernest H Christman

The Writing Road to Reading: the Spalding method for teaching speech, spelling, writing, and reading by Romalda Bishop Spalding

Parents Who Love Reading, Kids Who Don’t : how it happens and what you can do about it by Mary Leonhardt

Building Blocks : building a parent-child literacy program at your library by Sharon Snow

Yes, if you’re wondering if DCPL has a building blocks program.  Just check out our calendar of events, look for the red.