Collections

Who this collection is designed for:

o  This picture book collection is designed for educators or other adults such as parents, storytellers, and writers who are looking for unique ways to think about fairy tales, fables or nursery rhymes.  While it is designed for adults, it will be fully accessible to children as well, giving them a vast array of different stories from around the world.  The collection will hold original versions all the way to modern/fragmented versions of multiple stories, making access and interest something that will be original to our collection.

·      The hope of the collection in a world full of testing and the Common Core:

o  The hope of the collection is to compare and contrast the old vs. new picture books through traditional literature.  We want to provide as many examples of titles (well-known and more modern) as we can to give users and readers, new experiences with the stories that are so well loved.  Bringing new experiences can make reading more interesting and more fun, which is one of the goals for our organization.

o  This collection is also going to be aligned with the teachers who now have to focus on the Common Core Standards used at the elementary levels.  We will have lesson plans that are linked to the stories as well as each standard as it applies, giving teachers a head start.

·      Why a picture book collection is so important:

From an article titled “Early Essentials” author and Assistant Professor Alan R. Bailey states:

Children develop the critical language and early reading skills necessary to enter kindergarten between birth and age five; therefore, reading to infants is essential in boosting brain development and school readiness. Reading aloud to children during these early years provides numerous learning advantages essential to school readiness. Principal benefits include expressive and receptive language abilities, expanded vocabularies, narrative skills, print awareness, an understanding of written language, awareness of story structure, alphabetic knowledge, and phonological sensitivity. In addition, reading aloud encourages enthusiasm for literacy which develops lifetime reading habits- habits crucial to lifelong literacy.


Picture books are essential to meeting the intellectual developmental, cultural, language, cognitive, creative, communication, and social needs of children ages zero to six. To fully support critical language and early reading skills, lifelong literacy, and early childhood education programs, librarians serving early childhood professionals, parent educators, child advocates, curriculum development specialists, and additional individuals serving young children and their families must develop and sustain strong birth-kindergarten library collections. (17)

o  Our hope for having this collection is to make a space where minds can grow and more support for learning can take place.  While we will have multiple versions of stories, we can also have different reading levels of books in our collections – making the differentiation of our collection something special. 

o  Having versions of stories for different reading levels then makes us accessible to young children to teenagers/adults.  Making our collection as diverse as possible ensures that our collection will have something for everyone. 

·      What our collection will look like:

o  We will have physical books that have been bought from outside sources so we are able to have the physical rights to the materials.  By doing this, we can grow our collection to have as many versions and make separate collections for each individual fairy tale, nursery rhyme and fable.  By getting many different physical versions, it can also be used to organize.

o  We will try and look for different size books as well for different appeals to different readers.  By creating a collection that has a variety of stories/versions of tales, having different sizes will make our collection that much more visually appealing to children and adults alike.  In Leonard Marcus’s article The Size of Things he states, “To stand a fighting chance of attracting the requisite number of customers, a book had somehow visually to advertise itself—shout "Buy me!"—from its perch on the picture book wall. Splashes of color and shiny add-ons enhanced even as they competed with size for shoppers' attention. In this overheated commercial atmosphere, it was not surprising that even a picture book that celebrated smallness—The Little Engine That Could—would morph into a colossus, the edition published in 2005 with new illustrations by Loren Long” (48). 

o  While thinking about what book titles will be in our physical collection, we have to think about what type of books we want when thinking about color, size, shape, etc.  Being physically pleasing to the users is one of the most important aspects to making this collection successful for adults and children.

o  We will also have books that are ONLY picture books.  Having books that are only pictures are important because then the story is told from the child/adult’s perspective.  In Carolyn S. Brodie’s article “Wordless Picture Books: Creative Learning Ideas,” she states that “With no words to work in tandem with illustrations, young people (and adults) must use only the illustrations to interpret what is happening in the book. Wordless picture books can serve as a great tool for building vocabulary and comprehension skills while serving as an introduction to reading by providing an opportunity to verbally “read” the pictures. Children have freedom and creativity to use their own voices for the story as narrators of what happens and developing characters” (46).  This also bring a different aspect to our collection which continues for us to be unique.

·      Collection open to:

o  Our collection will be open to the public.  While signing up to our organization will be necessary, once a member, the collection will be open for use of all the materials in the collection.

·      Can be checked out for:

o  Items can be checked out for two weeks.  The may be renewed up to two times for one extra week each time. 

·      References:

o  Bailey A. Early Essentials: Developing and Sustaining Birth-Kindergarten Library Collections. Children & Libraries: The Journal Of The Association For Library Service To Children [serial online]. Winter2009 2009;7(3):17-20. Available from: Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 14, 2012.

o  Brodie C. Wordless Picture Books: Creative Learning Ideas. School Library Monthly [serial online]. September 2011;28(1):46-48. Available from: Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 14, 2012. 

o  Marcus L. The Size of Things. Horn Book Magazine [serial online]. September 2010;86(5):46-49. Available from: Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 14, 2012.