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El Día de los Niños-Celebrating Young Americans is a gift from the Latino community to all children. Many nations throughout the world, and especially within the Western hemisphere celebrate "Día de los Niños" on April 30th to honor and celebrate children-who represent the hopes and dreams of every community.

Our Poem In Your Pocket Day Celebration

Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now held every April, when publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools and poets around the country band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

Celebrate national Poem In Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 26, 2012!

The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends. You can also share your poem selection on Twitter by using the hashtag #pocketpoem.

Celebrate Poetry with professional staff too!: Combining dry wit with artistic depth, Billy Collins shares a project in which several of his poems were turned into delightful animated films in a collaboration with Sundance Channel. Five of them are included in this wonderfully entertaining and moving talk -- and don't miss the hilarious final poem!

Another poem a day resource! National Poetry Month is April and we can thank Poets.org for wonderful materials to help us celebrate. Visit their extraordinary website as a place to begin. Listen to a favorite poet, download lesson plans, find out whether there are any special events scheduled locally, and examine the National Poetry Map.

Library advocacy. I am honored to join you tonight to celebrate ten outstanding librarians and the thousands more that you represent. This award is truly significant because the nominations received from across the country show that libraries continue to play a critical role in our democracy, and that librarians are once-again on the front lines of a battle that will shape the future of our country. It is a battle that is fought out of view and the heroes are people who didn't seek a career of confrontation, but who live lives of principle and meaning - understanding that the gift of knowledge is the greatest gift we can give to each other.

http://youtu.be/lF4qii8S3gw Ready to celebrate language, pronunciation? Here's a hilarious but useful video!

Online books read by authors and celebrities. FREE BOOKS.

World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child's right to a safe education and access to books and technology.

Though Twitter's contribution to the world of social media and progressive society was at one time a strongly argued point, there is no doubt today that the popular social media platform has become a valuable tool for various aspects of education. Sure, Twitter can be the perfect place to waste hours on mundane details about people's lives or worthless celebrity gossip. But, the microblogging platform also enables us to create and participate in meaningful conversations concerning education, technology, and society.

Watch for those posters and bookmarks to be ready soon- David Weisner and Lane Smith. Celebrate Children's Book Week!

Great resource links for celebrating Banned Books Week!

Wonderful website celebrating Roald Dahl.

A timleline showcasing Banned Books from over the years

Let me tell you about our Floor-etry. First, floor-etry is a poem on the floor. That's it. It's simple and vastly influential in the process of creating an early literacy environment.  We here at the Allen County Public Library  got the idea from Saroj Ghoting's website for early literacy. In a presentation put together by Dana Bjerke, Joanna Redman and  Kelly Wussow from the Hennepin County Library, you can flip through different slides and see inspiring ideas that make words accessible to even the littlest of patrons. We thought, "We can do that!"

And we did! We wrote a poem that is actually just a string of similes so the reader can start anywhere in the circle and the poem makes sense. We typed it up in HUGE, easy to read font, printed it out on bright paper and cut out the words. After cutting out the words, we laminated each one and added Velcro to the back for a temporary hold. We placed the poem in the front of our department in the shape of a (yellow) sun!

"There are some remarkable efforts underway in American schools to invest the next generation of students with the literacy skills needed to innovate, solve problems, and meet unprecedented challenges. Until now, there has been no way to connect these initiatives, to provide models for advancing literacy learning in every subject, to collaborate in identifying and pursuing critical research questions about literacy teaching and learning on a consistent, sustained basis. That's about to change. The National Center for Literacy Education (NCLE) is building a coalition of stakeholders representing the premiere education organizations, policy analysts, researchers, and foundations who are working together to identify and share the plans, practices, support systems, and assessments used by educator teams working to improve literacy learning. NCLE will celebrate the work of successful school teams across the country that are achieving remarkable results in advancing literacy learning, and share what is learned with education policymakers…NCLE is providing the Literacy in Learning Exchange as a free resource to all educator teams. All educators are invited to use the free site to build or further develop a team in their school, district, or across schools/districts, or in their out-of-school setting. Educators that embrace the challenge of sponsoring and supporting a team will be eligible to apply for recognition and support as Centers for Literacy Education." Does your school have (need) a literacy team? If so, hopefully library staff is involved. Centers for Literacy Education, or collaborative groups/teams working toward capacity building for literacy: http://www.literacyinlearningexchange.org/about/centers-literacy-education

Some of the text below applies to the 2013 event, but the site's URL stays the same year to year. "World Book Night 2013 is a celebration of literacy by publishers, bookstores, libraries and individuals who love books and reading. On World Book Night 2013, 25,000 'book givers' will each give away 20 copies of a specially-printed, not-for-resale WBN edition of book they have read and loved (from a list of 25-30 titles selected by librarians and booksellers) to complete strangers - people who may never have owned a book of their own. To promote this literacy event, libraries and bookstores - as organizational participants in the event - form a nationwide advocacy and distribution network." Last year was the inaugural event, which happens on April 23rd. If you want your library to participate as a distribution center, fill out the attached application by October 1, 2012. Specific responsibilities of official participants are outlined in the application. The deadline on the form indicates September 1st, but according to discussions on ALAConnect, it was extended by a month. Sign up for the mailing list to learn when applications go online annually: http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/component/forme/?fid=3

"Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States." 50 State Salute (Want your library to participate to represent Oregon?): http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/calendarofevents#50statesalute Virtual Read-Out: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/calendarofevents#virtualreadout Ideas and Resources (listed in the column on the left): http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/ideasandresources BBW Promotional Items from ALA Store: http://www.alastore.ala.org/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=269

The Giving Tree Narrated by Shel Silverstein