Reading Fun: Quick and Easy Activities for the School Library Media Center

This is an interesting series of books for professionals working with children in schools, libraries and media centres: works on storytime and alphabets, maths and library lessons, humour and activities can be found there. Mona Kerby draws on experience in Texas, and she is now assistant professor and graduate coordinator of the school library media program at Western Maryland College in Westminster, Maryland. Activities stimulate reading, so this work is full of activities, worksheets, certificates for reading, and the rest. Four themes emerge from the book. The first is promoting the reading of quality′′ books ‐‐ illustrated books which won the Caldecott Award (for example by illustrators like McCloskey and Sendak, Hogrogian and Spier, Provensen and Macaulay) and the Newbery Award (such as by writers like Cleary and Cooper, Byars and L′Engle, O′Dell and Sawyer, Lofting and Konigsburg), with quizzes, certificates, labels. The second is library‐related activities, like understanding the Dewey divisions, finding a book at your favourite number, and putting a small bibliography together. The third is material by subject ‐‐ such as animal books, biography, fairy tales, mysteries (with mock‐FBI certificates!), and a summer reading calendar. The fourth is arrangement by reader′s age ‐‐ books here are for primary, intermediate, and the independent scholar′′ (Kerby defines this as grades three to six in US education). Over all these themes are lots of activity ideas, diagrams, labels with authors′ signatures, certificates of reading. Heavily American in approach (for example some authors are known mainly there like Patricia Reilly Giff), nevertheless for a librarian or teacher working with children and books there are ideas here worth using. Borrow before you buy.