Vicky Hays of Poudre River Libraries Shares Her Favorites

Vicky Hays, Early Literacy Librarian at the Poudre River Public Library shares her list of favorite books that showcase early literacy skills. 

- board books and picture books for infants and toddlers

- books for preschoolers

- picture books published in 2010

Lots happening at Poudre River Libraries! Check out: 

Early Literacy blog 

Storytimes

Kids' Place: Meet Riffy and Rita at Leading to Reading

December Calendar: Winter Wonderland Holiday Concert on Wed 12/15 7pm at Council Tree and Dickens Carolers on Mon 12/20 at Council Tree

Check out our fellows blogs!

• http://kidsstacks.blogspot.com/

This is the blog of fellow Amy Reyes. The Kids' Stacks goal is to make reading fun and remind the world to take a daily adventure with a good book! This site incorporates children's book reviews, crafts, recipes and information on early childhood and literacy development.

• http://www.readgcld.blogspot.com/

This is the blog created by fellow Tegan Davis to share the Every Child Ready to Read (tm) information with other librarians in her library district. The blog highlights great children's picture books as well as ways to use them to help develop the 6 pre-reading skills in children 0-5.

• http://www.readalouddenver.com/blog

This blog is written by fellow Vivienne Hougton and highlights early childhood and literacy information for the state of Colorado and the Denver metro in particular, as well as book reviews of quality children's books.

• http://www.viviennehoughton.com/blog.html

This blog is also written by fellow Vivienne Houghton in which she discusses more heavily the information science aspect of the MLIS  program.

Scholastic Experts Issue List of ‘Ten Trends in Children’s Books from 2010’

Read the Full Text of the Article Here!

1.The expanding Young Adult (YA) audience: More and more adults are reading YA books, as the audience for these stories expands.

2.The year of dystopian fiction: With best-selling series like The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner, readers can’t seem to get enough of fiction that suggests the future may be worse than the present.

3. Mythology-based fantasy: Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series set the trend – and now series like The Kane Chronicles, Lost Heroes of Olympus and Goddess Girls are capitalizing.

4. Multimedia series: The 39 Clues, Skeleton Creek and The Search for WondLa are hooking readers with stories that go beyond the printed page and meet kids where they are online or via video.

5. A focus on popular characters – from all media: Kids love to read books about characters they know and recognize from books, movies and television shows. Titles centered around those popular characters (like Fancy Nancy, David Shannon's “David,” or Toy Story characters) are top sellers.

6. The shift in picture books: Publishers are publishing about 25 to 30 percent fewer picture book titles than they used to as some parents want their kids to read more challenging books at younger ages. The new trend is leading to popular picture book characters such as Pinkalicious, Splat Cat and Brown Bear, Brown Bear showing up in Beginning Reader books.

7. The return to humor: Given the effects of the recession on families, it is nice to see a rise in the humor category, fueled by the success of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Dav Pilkey's The Adventures of Ook & Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, and popular media characters like Spongebob, and Phineas & Ferb.

8. The rise of the diary and journal format: The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series is the most well-know example of this trend, but the success of Wimpy Kid is leading to popular titles such as Dear Dumb Diary, Dork Diaries, The Popularity Papers, and Big Nate.

9. Special-needs protagonists: There is a growing body of literary fiction with main characters who have special needs, particularly Aspergers Syndrome and Autism. Examples: My Brother Charlie, Marcelo in the Real World, Mockingbird, and Rules.

10. Paranormal romance beyond vampires: The success of titles like Shiver and Linger, Beautiful Creatures, Immortal, and Prophesy of the Sisters shows this genre is still uber-popular and continues to expand.

Introduction

This is the blog for the Early Childhood Librarianship Program at the University of Denver. Fellows can post and share useful information, links, review and recommend books, talk about council meetings, course work, projects and more using the blog.