October 2023
Contents:
 The Oklahoma Higher Regents held its 16th annual reading conference on Friday, September 22, at the University of Central Oklahoma.
Three local authors spoke on a panel about their journeys as authors and some of their experiences visiting school libraries. Barbara Lowell, Mariana Llanos, and Tammi Sauer delighted the audience with their stories of how they became authors and what they enjoy about representing Oklahoma.
Each author is available for school visits. Visit their websites to learn more:
The Teens' Top Ten is a book list, for which teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year. Nominators are members of teen book groups in fifteen school and public libraries around the country. Nominations are posted on the Thursday of National Library Week, and teens across the country vote on their favorite titles each year.
Readers ages twelve to eighteen will vote online between August 15 - October 15 on this form on the Teens' Top Ten site.
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The library of the month is Heronville Elementary School in Oklahoma City Public Schools. Heronville serves students in Pre-Kindergarten through 4th grade. The media specialist is William Lynch, and the media assistant is Patricia Carothers.
Many of the book series in the library are sorted into tubs to make them easy for all students to find and to help avoid the frustration that can be caused by language barriers.
 Heronville Elementary's student population is predominantly Hispanic, so the library has some books in Spanish as well as English.
 The elementary school's theme is "It's All Fun and Games," so the library has joined the fun. Some books in the library have a hidden golden ticket that once found can be used to play a Plinko game to win a prize. (The students will write a summary of the book before they play the game.)
Another game about to debut is a series of mystery books that have been wrapped in colored paper with only the genre labeled. Students will have the chance to roll a dice and pick their book based on the paper color and genre.
 Mr. Lynch has a large collection of picture books that he refers to as "e-books." He explained that some people used to refer to these kinds of books as easy books, but he wanted to send a different message. These books are for everybody. That's why he calls them e-books. To highlight the picture books from the Redbud Read-Aloud list, a redbud tree was fashioned for one corner of the library in the e-book section. Mr. Lynch's favorite read-aloud from his e-books is After the Fall by Dan Santat.
 William is appreciative of the ReadOKC initiative sponsored by the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation whose mission is "to instill the love of reading in the students of OKCPS and in our community."
ReadOKC encourages community members to be involved in a variety of ways:
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"Reading Buddies and Book Clubs: We recruit caring adults to serve as Reading Buddies and Book Club Leaders. Become a ReadOKC Volunteer and engage with a small group of students on a weekly basis. Enjoy reading with them and serve as a mentor in their lives.
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Access to Reading Materials: We improve access to reading materials for OKCPS children through the ReadOKC On the Go! Book Bus and Little Libraries. Volunteer on the Book Bus, lead a book drive, or serve as a steward of a Little Library.
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Reading Challenges: We organize Reading Challenges for OKCPS students during school breaks, with a goal for every student to read 20 minutes per day. Support our Reading Challenges by providing incentives!" [source]
Nominate a Library!
So far this year, we have featured a high school, middle school, and elementary school library. They have all come from larger districts. We would like to feature libraries from all the over the state with the hopes of featuring future libraries from rural areas.
Email your nomination to Jason at the email address below. You can nominate yourself or a colleague from another district.
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