Bullies, Gangs, and Books for Young Adults

This action research project describes the impact a love for reading and access to books had on incarcerated youth and the adults directly working with them. Through adults working inside a juvenile detention center a library was established, young adult books were made available, and literature discussion groups were conducted. The positive results dispels the myth of high illiteracy rates associated with people serving time for criminal offenses. The act of establishing a library in one detention center evolved into academic course work that brought educators, social workers and criminal justice students and professionals together for the first time. This action research had ramifications in the surrounding communities and other state agencies working with youth at risk. Suggestions for preventing problems associated with juveniles in schools and communities are part of the outcomes in this paper. A list of YA books around the theme of youth at risk is included

Beyond the Region: Cuban Libraries, a Humbling Experience

Vintage automobiles from 1960 and older cruise the roads with engines that have been massaged over the years to keep them running. The weathered buildings and worn stairways were built to last, but show years of exposure to the elements and multitudes of foot traffic. I stepped into the past on this trip and I am now envisioning Cuba’s future in light of the recent US and Cuban talks. Access to much needed materials will truly change Cuba. As librarians and educators we can impact this transition. At present Cuban libraries have very limited resources, yet Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the world. How do they manage it

Teaching About Peace Through Children’s Literature

Historically children\u27s literature has always been used as a teaching tool with children, but today the choices of literature has grown and the audience expanded. Teaching moral messages was an underlying foundation for making books available for children. Early children\u27s books were often tied to religious teachings and folklore that had implied messages of staying close to home, listening to elders, caring for others over oneself, and traditional gender roles to name a few. Many adults have identified other subliminal messages as they critically analyzed some of the literature from the past. Some messages you will find are passive women needing to be rescued by a courageous prince (Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty), distrust of stepmothers or strangers (Hansel & Gretel, Cinderella), and ethnic stereotyping (Five Chinese Brothers, Little Black Sambo). As a result, adults have become more critical of the literature selected for children. Educators are expected to be more aware of stereotypes touching on ethnicity, gender, social status, religion and cultural identity. At the same time we must ask how much is too much or not enough when it comes to cultural sensitivity or more specifically, social consciousness

Leisure Reading: Impacting the Affective Domain Across Borders

Comparison of literacy in South Korea and the United States through the lens of a ten-year old exemplifies a comparative survey study conducted in both the United States and South Korea. The ongoing study measures students\u27 reading habits and their perceptions of the adults in their lives as readers over a seven-year period. Some questions that have driven the study include, What affective filters influence development of students\u27 reading skills? Do teachers model leisure reading interests and habits through example? Do teachers share books with students or parts of books they are reading? Do teachers generate frequent discourse with their students about books read outside of assigned material

Multicultural Literature that Brings People Together

Over the past ten years we have been tracking a specific type of multicultural literature. We diligently look for literature for youth that reflects multiple cultures within the story line or images projected through illustrations. The books we focused on in this theme depict multiple characters reflecting a variety of ethnic backgrounds because this mosaic of characters is what we see to be more of a reflection of our changing world. The interaction of young people today across ethnic lines is more prevalent and we believe will continue to become common place as long as adults allow and encourage this interchange to happen. A good example is a book by Maya Ajmera, Yvonne Wakim Dennis, Arlene Hirschfelder and Cynthia Pon called Children of the U.S.A. It is filled with rich photos of children in 51 cities across the United States and celebrates their ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds. Subtle and effective ways to project this natural occurrence is through literature. The dilemma we see is the lack of such multicultural literature, so we wrote this article with two goals in mind. One is teachers and librarians would be encouraged to use this literature in their classrooms and libraries. Second, we hope that more authors and illustrators are encouraged to write and illustrate stories that portray an interaction of characters from multiple ethnic backgrounds

Multicultural Literature, Literally!

This article is titled multicultural literature literally because we wanted to focus on literature that reflects diversity in the pictures and story lines. We felt it was important to call librarians’ and teachers’ attention to some of these books because they reflect the natural interactions across race that occur with our children and adults. The books we refer to may have the ability to break down racial discrimination in their own subtle ways if we have them available in our libraries or classrooms and share them with our patrons

Children\u27s Choices Through the Years: Some Surprising Results

It’s difficult to ignore all the recent teacher talk about the importance of helping our students become adept users of nonfiction texts. With this rising interest and attention being focused on nonfiction books, spurred by the adoption of Common Core Standards, we decided to look at the Children’s Choices finalists over the last ten years to determine if there was a connection to what children liked to read. We were especially curious about how many of the award winning books selected by children were actually nonfiction. Given our findings, we also decided to investigate further by analyzing all the publishers’ title submissions over the same ten years to determine the ratio of fiction to nonfiction titles. In this article, we begin by providing readers with an overview of IRA’s Children’s Choices Project and a review of studies focused on the use of nonfiction books in elementary school instruction and classroom libraries. We then will share with you what we consider to be very interesting and somewhat telling findings based on our investigation

Beginning Readers’ Interest in Animal Books: An Analysis of Data Collected from the Children’s Choices Project

This article describes a reading interest study, which analyzed 330 titles selected over a ten-year period by beginning readers (Grades K-2) across the United States (U.S). [sic] for ILA\u27s Children\u27s Choices project. Its aim was to determine if young children\u27s reading interests have changed since earlier studies were conducted in the US. Specifically, a team of four researchers analyzed Children\u27s Choices books selected by 5,000 beginning readers (K-2) every year, from 2005 to 2014. This article illuminates the study\u27s methodology, its findings, and implications for understanding the reading interests of contemporary young children. By examining and comparing the books that were selected by children as their favorites and looking for possible patterns and trends, the study found that animals (66%) was the prevailing feature. Researchers then examined and identified distinct ways in which animals are represented in the selected titles, creating a spectrum from totally human-like animal characters to animals that are true to their animal forms

Antimullerian hormone and obesity: insights in oral contraceptive users

The study was conducted to examine the impact of oral contraceptives (OCs) on serum antimullerian hormone (AMH) levels by obesity status in reproductive-age women