Before I read a story aloud, I activate student’s prior experiences and knowledge (schema). I sat in my rocking chair, talking with kindergartners before reading a large, appealing book called A Splendid Friend Indeed (Suzanne Bloom, Boyds’ Mills Press, 2005.) I was enjoying the session and the children seemed motivated and involved. Evidently it was all too much for one little girl, who suddenly yelled loudly, “Would you just READ the book?!”
I recently went to the Texas Library Association’s annual conference and entered most of the vendor contests. Two weeks later, I saw an e-mail from Junior Library Guild in my e-mail, so I thought I won one of their prizes. When I opened the e-mail, it asked me to please send a photo and autobiographical sketch for their catalog. WOW! I must have won some kind of special prize! Would someone come to my school with cameras and a giant cardboard check?
Wait–their grand prize was a basket of books, so that couldn’t be it. Why would they need info about me for their catalog? UNLESS…(!) I wrote to Wendy McClure, my editor at Albert Whitman, with a terse question. “I heard from JLG today. Is this what I think it is?” Her answer was even more terse, “Yes it is.”
Amazingly, my Substitute Groundhog has been named as a JLG book of the month for January 2007! It will be in the Primary Plus (love that Plus) category. Junior Library Guild is like Oprah books for the school crowd. JLG prides itself on its track record of picking Caldecott, Newbery and other winners long before they receive their medals. I am delighted that my first children’s book has been so honored. I see hundreds of new books and am still incredulous that mine was chosen from such a wide field of superior children’s books. It’s like getting a giant cardboard check in front of cameras.
