Genrefying the Everybody Section: Part 2

After several days of sorting, I finally had a rough sorting of my picture books. I ended up using these categories (instead of genres) for my first round of sorting:

• Historical stories
• Humorous stories
• Traditional stories (folk tales, fairy tales, nursery rhymes)
• Family
• School
• Holidays
• Children/Friends
• Animal Characters
• Dinosaurs and dragons
• Sports
• Vehicles
• Science
• Dogs
• Cats
• Princesses
• Pirates, ninjas, superhero
• Cowboys
• Wordless books
• Art
• Numbers
• Alphabet
• Words and books

Plus I already pulled out our "favorite authors", "favorite characters",  and easy reader books.

Almost finished resorting my Everybody books! Might @periScopeOut later today about my process. #tlchat #lotstodo pic.twitter.com/zPm8LHonI4

— Karyn Lewis (@ktlewis14) August 11, 2015

(A look at my books sorted into categories.)

As I started to put books onto the shelves, I quickly discovered that several categories were too large to really help my youngest students find what they were looking for. So I started trying to think of ways to further divide the categories of "historical fiction", "science", and "animal characters". I started with the historical fiction section, and will definitely pull out biographical/memoir stories and cultures of the world, but am still undecided about if I should divide U.S. history into "eras" or not. Next I will tackle science, which might turn into "the world around us" and "the animals around us" categories. When I take a look at the animal character books again, I might see if some could fall into some of my other categories, such as humorous, family, children/friends, and school.

In sharing my journey on Twitter, Kristen Murphy, a fellow librarian, shared a post by a public library that changed their picture books into neighborhoods. This article gave me something to think about, but I might ask a few students what they think before I make any changes! However my categories end up, I think it will make my picture book section much more accessible to my kindergartners and first graders! I can't wait to share it with them, but I've got some more work to do until then...

In case you want to take a look at how it is shaping up, here is a copy of the Periscope session I did earlier this week giving a visual tour of the process just after I finished sorting:

Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @ktlewis14 and @LibraryMWE to see more about my process and my reveal to students in a few weeks! 

Genrefying the Everybody Section

After 3 years of frustrated kindergarteners, I decided to reorganize my Everybody section! Being encircled daily by 5 and 6 year olds asking for "princess", "superhero", "dog", "ninja", and "dinosaur" books made me think there has to be a better way! So the process began by pulling out our "favorite authors, illustrators, and character" books:

Then I started making stacks of kindergarten topic requests:

I completed sections A-D today. Hoping to get everything sorted before school starts so I can recruit some volunteers to help sticker all of them!

What do you do to help your littles find the book they want on their own?

Enjoy the movie Ramona and Beezus?

Houston Public Library suggests reading these realistic fiction titles.MWE Library owns a copy of each.

Ivy + Bean: Book One by Annie Barrows; illustrated by Sophie Blackall
When 7-year-old Bean's mother pesters her to make friends with the nice new girl next door, Bean says, "No thanks." The new girl, Ivy, may be Bean's age, but that seems to be the only thing they have in common. Ivy wears a dress every day and spends a lot of time reading. Bean only wears a dress when her mom makes her, and she's usually too busy zipping about (or getting into trouble) to read. But when Bean plays a mean trick on her big sister and it backfires, Ivy comes to Bean's rescue. Maybe they can be friends after all! If you like reading about all the mischief that Ramona gets into, be sure to give this 1st book in the very funny Ivy + Bean series a chance.

Moving Day by Meg Cabot
After an awful fight with her best friend, nine-year-old Allie Finkle starts a list of rules to live by. Rule number one: Don't Stick a Spatula Down Your Best Friend's Throat. Then Allie finds out that her family is moving to a creepy old house across town, which means that she'll have to go to a new school. Her efforts to stop the move get spunky Allie in all kinds of trouble, and it'll take a whole new bunch of rules for her to figure out the Right Thing to Do. Like the Ramona Quimby books, the Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls series (this is the 1st; The New Girl is next) is about feisty girl who's just trying to get along with her family and friends...and who sometimes messes up.

Ruby Lu, Brave and True by Lenore Look; illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf
Happy-go-lucky Ruby Lu is nearly eight years old. She loves her family, her neighborhood, and performing magic tricks, and she really loves riding the No. 3 bus to Chinatown to see her pohpoh (grandmother) and gunggung (grandfather). But there are new things in Ruby's life that she might not love so much: her mom wants her to go to Chinese school--on Saturdays!--and her baby brother, Oscar, is learning how to talk...and how to ruin things for Ruby. Like Ramona Quimby, Ruby Lu is often misunderstood, and Ramona's fans will enjoy reading about her mishaps and her loving family.

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker; illustrated by Marla Frazee
Plucky third-grader Clementine always has great ideas "sproinging up" in her brain...but her latest scheme was maybe not so spectacular. She really was trying to help her friend Margaret, but she ended up cutting off ALL of Margaret's hair in an attempt to get a glob of glue out of one piece of it. And, to Clementine at least, drawing replacement hair on Margaret's head with a permanent marker was a brilliant idea. Ramona Quimby fans are sure to enjoy Clementine's one-of-a-kind personality and her funny misadventures and will also want to read the rest of the books in the series (The Talented Clementine is next).

These titles are part of HPL's NextRead Subscription email service. To get started, click the link, choose your favorite topics from the list, enter your account information, and let them link you to your next book or library event.