Garden City Library Goings-On
Sunday, September 21, 2025
Mapping the Library
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Book Talked Books 2024-2025
I can recommend books all day long, but sometimes (often?) kids' opinions and tastes differ greatly from mine. So I have students in grades 3-5 recommend books to each other via book talks - short little "ads" for titles they love.
Already in collection
Series
- Babysitters Club (#1 again)
- Dog Man (#2 again)
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid (up from #4 last year)
- I Survived (up from #11 last year ... probably because we have graphic novel versions now)
- Wings of Fire (down from #3 last year)
- Dork Diaries
- Harry Potter
- Cat Kid Comic Club
- Percy Jackson
- Lost in ...
- The Last Kids on Earth
- NEW: First Cat in Space
- Super Potato
- Bad Kitty
- Captain Underpants
- Hooky (I purchased this thanks to a book talk the previous year)
- Magic Tree House
- Babymouse
- Big Nate
- NEW: My Weird School
- NEW: Hilo
- NEW: Junie B. Jones
- Ivy & Bean
- Elephant & Piggie
- InvestiGators (I purchased this thanks to a book talk the previous year)
- NEW: Max and the Midnights
- NEW: Warriors
- NEW: My Life as a ...
- NEW: Judy Moody
- NEW: Sparks
- NEW: Spy School
- NEW: Meesh the Bad Demon (RICBA nominee)
- FGeeTV (I purchased this thanks to a book talk the previous year)
- Bad Guys
- Total Mayhem (I purchased this thanks to a book talk the previous year)
- NEW: Max Crumbly
- NEW: Notebook of Doom
- NEW: Chunky
- Whatever After
- NEW: Nat
- NEW: Goosebumps
- Owl Diaries
- NEW: Katie the Catsitter
- NEW: Nnewts
- Amulet
- The Cardboard Kingdom
- NEW: Diary of a Pug
Picture books
- Pete the Cat books
- Where's Waldo
- Mel Fell
- Where is My Butt?
- It's Only Stanley
- Spring is Here
- Puppy Cam
- David Goes to School
- Grumpy Cat
Standalone Graphic novels
- Allergic (#1 again)
- Smile 6 (up from #3 last year)
- Guts (up from #5 last year)
- Sisters
- No Such Thing as Perfect
- Art Club (RICBA nominee)
- Ghosts
- Frizzy (I purchased this thanks to a book talk the previous year)
- Dream Jumper
- Explorer: Boxes
- Swim Team
- Expedition Backyard
- Miss Quinces
- Growing Pains (RICBA nominee)
- Forget Me Not
- Roller Girl
- Click
- Short & Skinny
- Awkward
- Copper
- Bad Sister
MG Novels
- The One and Only Ivan
- The Wild Robot
- Hatchet
- Wonder
- Travel Team
- Flying Solo
- Million Dollar Shot
- Lulu and the Brontosaurus
- Holes
- Ollie's Odyssey
- The Lost Library (KRARI read)
- If This Were a Story
- The One and Only Bob
- Framed
- I'm Trapped in a Video Game
- Fever 1793
- Coraline
- The Mysterious Benedict Society
- The Tale of Desperaux
Nonfiction
- Gator Bites
- Gone Again Ptarmigan
- Patrick Mahomes
- Beluga Whales
- Who Would Win?
- Taylor Swift
- My Little Book of Football
- Sand Tiger Sharks
- I Spy
- Lebron James
- Secrets of the Zodiac
- All About Lions
Books I will add to the collection
Series
- Campground Kids - added in the fall!
- Search and Rescue
Graphic novels
- Inspector Fly Trap
MG Novels
- Pax
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
New School Year, New Books!
The last box of books that I bought with book fair money has been unpacked (purchases from the spring are listed here), as well as the ones that I bought with my district budget. If you are reading this before your first library checkout, you can go ahead put holds on any titles you'd like to read via Destiny Discover.
Best Reads of the Summer
Over the summer, I read dozens of books to prep for Mock Caldecott and Mock Sibert; these were my favorites. All images and summaries from Goodreads.
Picture Books
Some tadpoles don't feel ready to become frogs.
And some never wanted to become tadpoles in the first place.
Nonfiction
Grimpy knows all about what makes these many-armed marvels so special, like how the coconut octopus uses tools or the cuttlefish talks with color! It seems like every creature has a special ability—except him. When Grimpy gets stuck on everything a dumbo octopus can’t do, the other cephalopods show him why it’s great to be a dumbo.
... a praying mantis only has 1 ear?
... a squid has 3hearts?
... a giant African land snail can have up to 18,000 teeth?
Toes, Teeth, and Tentacles celebrates and highlights the numerous unusual and strangely fascinating features and appendages of all kinds of animals, from horns to toes and stomachs to hearts. From the two-tongued loris to a scallop's 200 eyes, readers will find joy in numbers with this latest book by these two masters of nonfiction.
Sleuth & Solve encourages readers of all ages to practice deduction, inference, and logical reasoning to crack each case—and develop critical thinking skills at the same time.
Like many other Japanese Americans, Ruth and her family were sent to incarceration camps. ... The barbed wire would inspire Ruth’s art for decades. Throughout her career, she created enchanting twisting sculptures and curving shapes that connected, divided, and intersected.
In 1776, Mary was asked to print the Declaration of Independence – she is the only woman whose name is on the Declaration.
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Triangle (and Square) with K
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image from goodreads.com |
In K, we talked about illustration styles and read several books by Jon Klassen (one of my all-time favorites).
In "Triangle," Triangle decides to play a sneaky trick on Square. The characters are literally a triangle and a square. And the students made their own to act out the story at home. Look at these adorable kids and their shapes!