Zen and the Art of Shopping for Books at Ollie's

Zen and the Art of Buying Picture Books 

for Older Children and Teens for the School Library:

1. Familiarize yourself with respected authors and artists.

2. Think about all of the classes offered at your school 

and the curriculum needs.

3. Keep an eye out on the web and in trade journals 

for what's new in picture books.

4. Win the lottery.

5. Buy all the books.

Okay...Let's say you didn't do #4. Here's the more realistic version:

4. Sign up to be in Ollie's Army. You have to neither keep nor bear arms.

5. Wait for your coupon in the mail.

6. See which stores are near you.

7. Put on pants.

8. Bring your Smart Phone, if you have one. 

You can use this to access book reviews 

as well as your school's current collection.

9. Make good choices using your school's selection guidelines.

If you are like me, you are too cheap for a Smart Phone. So...

8. Scan the shelves to get a feel for the way Ollie's arranges its picture books.

9. Do a quick pass of all the shelves to pull the books you recognize 

from good reviews you've come across by chance. 

Pull all of the authors that you know as awesome while you are at it.

10. Make a pile in your shopping basket.

11. Make another pass and pull books that look intriguing. 

Examine each book before placing it in your basket.

Check the font for accessibility and the quality of the art as it supports the text.

Is the book one that would support the curriculum?

This is why you are wearing pants. You may need to sit on the floor 

in order to see the bottom shelf of books. Yep. 

You may want to bring a friend, 

if you will need help getting back up.

Sunya Osborn lists these look-fors in her article, 

"Picture Books for Young Adult Readers."

• Mature themes
• More complex illustrations than those that would be easily appreciated or understood by younger readers
• More text or difficult text than would be appropriate for the short attention spans of younger readers
• Subtle meanings beyond the understanding of younger readers
• Two levels of meaning - one for younger readers and one for older readers
• Fiction or non-fiction

12. Evaluate the quality of the writing.

13. Imagine the readers who may check this book out of the library.

14. Place books in your cart that fit your selection criteria.

15. Look through your first pile of likely "sure bets." 

Return any "lemons" to the shelves.

16. Now, think about your budget, look at the prices and make final cuts 

before getting in the check-out line.

17. Give the cashier the coupon before purchasing. Save your receipt.

18. You may want to set some books aside before processing, 

if you are still uncertain of the content of some titles. 

It's easy to return items to Ollie's.

Why Ollies? Here's the sad truth about picture books. By the time you read a well-researched article about them, sometimes the titles are out of print! Sometimes the price of the picture books will eat away at your budget in big gulps. Are picture books worth every penny? Yes. But we are being realistic here. Shopping at Ollie's requires the same Zen approach as Magnetic Poetry. 

You have to just be open to what is there. 

Also, the Ollie's in my town often plays soul music over the store's sound system. 

This helps when I have to get on up...and get down.

Every now and then you will see a CRAZY deal on a book that you know is amazing. A few years ago, John's Secret Dreams was on Amazon for $3.99. I did what every sane person would do. I bought about 15 copies and hoarded them for a while before sharing them with friends. When I opened my order, three of the copies were signed by the author.

This is more of an exception than a rule.

If there are specific titles that you want to use in class, checking the online catalogs of local public libraries is a good way to try out a title before 

investing in hunting down a copy.

"Selling" the idea of picture books to middle and high school students and teachers may take a little effort, but it's worth it. There is so much to be gained from the richness of story that comes from the visual arts.

Squared

Yesterday in inquiry block, we read the amazing true story of Henry "Box" Brown's journey to freedom.   He was a slave who worked with tobacco in Richmond.   Once his family was sold and sent to another state, Brown decided to make a wooden box and ship himself to Philly with the help of two friends.   That's the short version.

Read this book to find out the details.   

It's illustrated by Kadir Nelson. 

I first fell for Nelson's warm style when I bought a copy of Ellington is not a Street because the cover had a beautiful girl in braids holding a 78.   It's like everything he paints is smooched by the sunlight.

See?

But let me tell you about the craft we did today.   Thanks to Pinterest, I decided to bring in paint chips and have my students make small boxes.   One chip for the lid, one for the box.   Easy enough, right?   And free!

Well, the first set of directions I found were not in English, and the computer translator was no help.

I found another set of directions that seemed straightforward and headed to Lowes for more chips.

Yeah.   I was so prepared by the time IB rolled around, so prepared that I should have known better.   My paint chips were smaller than the pattern suggested, and we weren't too skilled at immediately reducing the box to lid ratio.  

Who among us can do such precise math in the 15 minutes before lunch anyway?   

I showed the kids the main idea behind creating the box...where to cut vs. where to fold and then we estimated the size of our matching lids.   Some of us did pretty well.   And others of us, ahem, had lopsided marshmallow looking creations.   In spite of it all, many of the kids gave it their best shots.  

We ended up with enough oddly shaped containers to have a wedding shower for Barbie -n- Ken and offer them endless colors and sizes in casserole dishes, litter boxes and trash cans.  

And that's all I have to say about that.

Can you picture that?

It's no secret that I love picture books and subject my 8th graders to them on occasion.   The truth is they aren't just for little ones anymore.   Sometimes a book's humor, topic, plot twists and word choice are really meant for an older audience.

This week I read a book to one of my classes in which the narrator, illustration style and word choice are geared towards a younger audience, but the subject matter is not.   It grates on your sensibilities like plaid pants with argyle socks.   We examined the book critically...as in...who is this book for?

Let me back up for a second.

I've been feeling overworked this year.   But haven't we all?   The days that I don't have a planning period are particularly taxing.   In addition to teaching 5 classes of language arts, I have another class that bookends lunch.   We had a bit of freedom in choosing a course of study for our kids, so I chose picture books, African American themed picture books.   Our minority population is small, but our students take civics this year.   I remember being captivated by the stories of the civil rights movement at their age.   Even so, I was dreading adding one more class and 19 kids I didn't teach to my plate.   Oddly enough, it's becoming a favorite part of my day.   Before lunch, we work on something of my choosing.   After lunch, they may read their own books, or borrow something from our classroom.

So far we've read Tar Beach and The People Could Fly and talked a little about the myth of flight in African American stories.   We listened to the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Hot 8 Brass Band perform "I'll Fly Away."

Although the song was written by a white man who was no stranger to picking cotton, it's a tune that's been embraced by black congregations as well.   (And doggone if the season premiere of Treme didn't launch right into that song last week.   Serendipity.)   We spent a few days making small collages entitled, "If I had wings..."   And I'm thinking of a way for us to dance the second line with umbrellas (and fairy wings?) around the parking lot.

But I digress.

Back to the story at hand.   I don't mean any disrespect, but Bessie Smith and the Night Riders will make your willing suspension of disbelief wear a little thin.   It's a children's book based on the evening that the KKK showed up at a Bessie Smith tent show and Ms. Smith told them where to go.

Yes, the KKK.   Hmmmm.

The author has a young girl sneaking to see the show, spying the Night Riders pulling up tent stakes and alerting Ms. Smith.   Sure, there's a happy ending, as there was during the real incident, but the KKK in a children's book is a little odd.   If you take a longer look at the cover, you will see those nasty Klansman with their torches framing the smiling Emmarene and Bessie.   Well, the kid does like the song "Tain't Nobody's Business," so she can't be a stranger to violence.   No word on if she knows the songs "Kitchen Man" and "Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer."

Of course, the 8th graders were spellbound by the truth behind the story and well aware of the multitude of unhappy endings that could have resulted in Ms. Smith's confrontation with the Night Riders.   They decided that the book should be read to children only after the subject of the KKK has been taught in school.   Otherwise, how would one explain the KKK to preschoolers, the usual picture book crowd?

For additional drama, the story of Ms. Smith's death is another real life nail-biter.   If you're ever in Clarksdale, Mississippi, make sure to take note of the Blues Marker at the Riverside Hotel.   It was once a hospital, the one where Bessie died.   You may read the text of the marker here.

I'm going to post a link to a clip from an A& E Biography on dear Bessie, but let me apologize in advance for someone's manners.   Someone couldn't miss the opportunity to call Ma Rainey "the ugliest woman in show business" before remarking on Bessie's beauty.   Not necessary to put one woman down to lift another woman up, and tain't nobody's business if she is.

http://www.biography.com/people/bessie-smith-9486520/videos/bessie-smith-mini-bio-2079136302

Well, that's all for my not-quite-midnight-ramble.   Thank you and good night!