Check out the Cooperative Children's Book Center

The Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at UW-Madison is a wonderful resource for families, childcare providers, and children’s educators when it comes to finding critically acclaimed books for children and young adults. Their recommended reading lists and bibliographies are curated by childhood educators and librarians at the CCBC and are available freely online. The CCBC’s general recommended reading lists (broken down by age group, and general subject matter) may be found in Choices, a yearly publication with recommended titles from the books published the previous year.

Choices for 2014 is available here as a PDF: 

http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/CCBC_Choices_2014_citations.pdf

If you’re a K-12 educator, check out this specially-prepared bibliography of recommended titles that also align with Common Core standards: http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/commoncore.asp Remember, you can always order books through the Arrowhead Library System in addition to your school media center!

For educators and other patrons interested in learning more about Wisconsin authors and artists, check out this handy guide: http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/authors/wiBookCreat.asp

Sign in and search RockCat to find the books recommended by the CCBC, or give the library a call and we’d be happy to order them for you. 

Books about Kindergarten

Each year the library does a school-themed story time to celebrate the beginning of another school year! For your librarians, this is always a happy time of year because we get to say “yay” and “congrats” to a whole new set of 5-year-olds who are just starting out their first year of…KINDERGARTEN! We COULD choose to be sad about this, but we’re determined to see the silver lining!

With that in mind, here is a set of our favorite books about kindergarten for families to enjoy together. Have fun and come see us soon!

• The Night Before Kindergarten, by Natasha Wing and illustrated by Julie Durrell.A rhyming story about kindergarten and gearing up for the big day.
• Who Will Go to Kindergarten Today? by Karl Rühmann, illustrated by Miriam Monnier
  Sam decides to send his toy monkey Timbo to kindergarten in his place, but after telling Timbo about his school friends and what his day is really like, he realizes he wants to go himself.
• The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten by Maureen Fergus, illustrated by Mike Lowery.
• Countdown to Kindergarten by Alison McGhee, illustrated by Harry Bliss. 
  Ten days before the start of kindergarten, a preschooler can not tie her shoes by herself and fears the worst.
• Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten by Joseph Slate, illustrated by Ashley Wolff.
  Introduces the letters of the alphabet as Miss Bindergarten and her students get ready for kindergarten.
• Welcome to Kindergarten by Anne Rockwell.A boy visits the classroom where he will attend kindergarten the following fall and finds out what is in store for him.
• Wemberly, Worried by Kevin Henkes.A mouse named Wemberly, who worries about everything, finds that she has a whole list of things to worry about when she faces the first day of nursery school.

You can find all of these titles right in the library's picture book bins, or you can order them online or over the phone. 

Non-Fiction Science Books for Adults

This is the last week of the Eager Free Public Library’s summer reading program! We hope you had as much fun reading this summer as we did around here. Did you participate in the first adult reading program? Don’t forget to turn in your book bingo sheets by the time the library closes on Saturday August 16th in order to enter our awesome prize drawing.

One of the bingo spots is “non-fiction science.” We fielded a lot of questions about this square this summer, about what “counts” as non-fiction science for adults. In case you’re scrambling to find an appropriate book for that spot this week, we’ve compiled a list of books that fit into this category. 

Science writers to check out:

• Mary Roach. With titles like Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, Roach’s books are smart, entertaining, and present science “for the rest of us.”
• Michael Pollan. Pollan’s books cover important topics that affect us everyday, particularly when it comes to food science and issues related to farming and food production. 
• Carl Hiaasen. Check out the non-fiction work by popular fiction and environmental science writer Carl Hiaasen.
• John McPhee. This writer’s eclectic catalog ranges from geological histories to sports. 

More recommended titles:

• The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic, and How it Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson 
• The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz-Age New York by Deborah Blum
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (it’s the next book club title, so you can read more about the book and read-alikes here!)
• Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
• The Best American Science Writing collections for you anthology lovers out there!

We hope you find something to suit your science appetite in this list!

Books about Community Helpers

Tuesday, August 5th is National Night Out and this year Evansville hosts the Rock County Night Out in our very own Lake Leota Park. Night Out is sponsored by the emergency services departments from Rock County, including of course the Evansville Police Department and Department of Emergency Medical Services. 

To celebrate the vital work that these folks do for our community, we’ve compiled a list of picture books about helpers in communities. Check ‘em out at the library or through RockCat today!

• All Through My Town by Jean Reidy (found at Hedberg PL) Illustrations and simple, rhyming text take the reader on a tour around town.

• Police: Hurrying! Helping! Saving! by Patricia Hubbell (found at Hedberg PL) Illustrations and rhyming text celebrate police officers and what they do.

• On the Town: A Community Adventure by Judith Caseley (found at Hedberg PL) Charlie and his mother walk around the neighborhood doing errands so that Charlie can write in his notebook about the people and places that make up his community.

• I Stink! by Kate McMullan (found at all Rock County PLs) A big city garbage truck makes its rounds, consuming everything from apple cores and banana peels to leftover ziti with zucchini.

• The Firefighters by Sue Whiting (found at Beloit PL and Hedberg PL) After dressing up as fire fighters, building a fire truck out of a cardboard box, and extinguishing imaginary fires on the playground, Mrs. Iverson's students are surprised by the arrival of a real fire engine with real fire fighters on board.

• Firefighters! Speeding! Spraying! Saving! by Patricia Hubbell (found at Beloit PL and Hedberg PL) Illustrations and rhyming text celebrate firefighters and what they do.

We did a whole blog post dedicated to fun picture books about libraries and librarians, so you can check that out here!

Eager Free Public Library will be at Night Out on Tuesday, August 5th at Lake Leota Park. Stop by our table to say hello and make a fun back-to-school craft!