Offering over 200 ready-to-use, successful "booktalks" for librarians, teachers, and parents, this book shows how to "hook" reluctant readers onto books. The field-tested booktalks are brief "commercials" for books that give just enough information to promote reading the book, and that help match the right reader with…

The Caldecott Awards are presented annually for the most distinguished American picture book(s) published for children. Invariably these books are well written and illustrated and frequently touch an inner core. Here are some of the messages the Caldecott winners can pass along: a book should be a pleasure to hear; a book should help a child…

This curriculum guide identifies minimum library and media skills students should master as well as expanded and new library skills that should be introduced and developed in all elementary classrooms. It begins with the mission of the Passaic School District, a message to classroom teachers and elementary school librarians, the mission of the…

The zone of proximal development provides guidance to the teacher in taking care of selected prerequisites, prior to pupils doing the actual reading. Three models are presented and elaborated upon to indicate what can be done to fulfill requirements of the zone of proximal reading. The zone may be applied in relation to reading from basal texts…

A study examined whether allowing students to make choices in their reading program significantly increased their self concepts as readers and the value they place on reading. The Motivation to Read Profile was administered to 20 fifth-grade students from a variety of socioeconomic families. After allowing the students to make choices in their…

Discusses the changing content of children's books and remarks on three prominent Britons in the field of children's literature. (TO)

Offers a number of suggestions that can aid teachers and schools in providing appropriate reading materials for students without encountering effective censorship from the community. (TO)

Discusses with brief annotations several novels that treat the problem of the adolescent trying to survive and grow in a broken home. (TO)

The reevaluation syndrome'' currently sweeping children's Librarianship is evaluated. (NH)

The banning of: Down These Mean Streets'' by Thomas Piri is discussed as a case study of the dangers of school library material censorship. (NH)

One segment of the public expects the school superintendent to be a censor, and another says he had better not be. The author feels that educational organization is too complex today for a superintendent to take on the role of censor. (Author/SJ)

Historically, censorship of school reading materials has centered on the question of obscenity. The Slaughterhouse Five'' case, however, was unique in that the primary legal issue dealt with the charge that the religious content violated the First Amendment which prohibits advancement or inhibition of religion in public schools. (Author/SJ)