Storybird

Create a picture book & learn a new piece of software

Storybird is an online book creation software that is very easy to use, even though there is the annoying step of having to register. Storybird provides thousands of pictures that children can place on “pages” and then write sentences next to them to create a story. The illustrations provided can be very beautiful and make the end products something any child could be proud of. In terms of use in a library, it would work best as an activity in computer literacy for children in grades 1-3 to do, most likely with their parents in attendance because of the necessity of having an email address.

I created a very simple, very short story as a method of learning to use the software and was pleased with the result, though I am perfectly aware I am not the best storyteller. The process was quite quick and I found the software to be quite intuitive, though I was annoyed there was only one layout for the front cover if not paying for the “Premium” service. The premium service did not seem to add much functionality and the software could be used quite well without paying a cent for it.

As it is online, it means that the software could be used at the library, then when at home, the child would be able to go online and see their work published. From an educational perspective, it could also be used in English lessons on story writing with the end product being something they could proudly show off to family and friends all over the world.

https://storybird.com/books/the-little-witch-74/

From a professional standpoint, I could see using this as a vacation program activity for young children. 

Children's Book Awards

Peer-Reviewed article analysis

Awards! What are they good for? By Erlene Bishop Killeen

Bishop Killeen contends that despite the short amount of time focus is placed on Children’s Book Awards, they do have a place in the literary world and details the reasons why. Whilst the article is not from an Australian point of view, it is still pertinent as Australia only has the CBCA, KOALA and Inky awards, the latter two being voted for by children, though that does not invalidate them. She notes that all but one of the top selling books on the best sellers lists are award winners and the one that was not is Harry Potter (Killeen, 2009). In America, librarians are the ones who are voting for the books, drawing attention to the profession. The award winning books generally have long lifespans which makes them something that parents can share with the children. The awards promote discussion of youth literature in everyday situations (Killeen, 2009). She notes that it is not necessary for everyone to love every award winning book because not all books are for all people and that is a good thing else librarians would be out of a job (Killeen, 2009).

The CBCA nominated books get purchased by most libraries and are heavily borrowed during the year. The awards generate interest in reading and from that point of view can only be encouraged. Book popularity  is always a good thing for libraries because it generates a more general interest in reading and often, even if the patron is unable to borrow an item because it is onloan with 32 reserves, they borrow something else similar while they weight. An examples that come readily to mind is Twilight (Meyer, 2006), which generated interest in teenage girls and they often borrowed House of Night novels by P. C. Cast (2007-ongoing) and Vampire Diaries (Smith, 1991-1992). Though I would not use Twilight as an example of award winning fiction because it is not, unless it was for sales volume, it did get teenage girls reading novels, at least for a while.

The point was made about the lifespans of award winning books versus non award winning books “Charlotte’s Web did not get  that gold sticker” (Killeen, 2009) yet it is still considered a classic piece of children’s literature, whereas Rowan of Rin (Rodda, 1993) won the the CBCA award for younger readers and whilst I am familiar with it and loved the story, my high school library donated the entire series to me when they weeded it due to a lack of interest. Whilst that could be argued that it was a high school and interest in books for younger readers would have been limited anyway, it does demonstrate that the books that win awards may not be as long lived as one would expect.

This activity was related to my professional practice because it will be expected that I have knowledge of the different awards for books and their place within the library system when doing collection management if I manage to obtain a position as a children’s librarian. 

Digitisation & eBooks

Interview

I interviewed my sister on her thoughts on eBooks and digitisation as she is fifteen years old and currently in Year Ten. She is an avid reader so her opinions on the issue would be developed and relevant. She goes to a private school and works part-time at a supermarket. Therefore she is a fairly typical teenager.

I first asked about her attitudes to eBooks when reading for pleasure, and whilst she does not like eBooks because they have no texture or new book smell, she will read them if she has difficulty obtaining the book in hardcopy. She said that her friends were much the same and that nothing beats a real book.

My second question was in relation to books that were required reading for school, such as Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare, 1597). She replied that it was often handy to have an electronic copy as back if the text was left at school and was in favour of organisations such as Project Gutenberg that make electronic copies of public domain books.

She got much more enthusiastic when I asked about electronic versions of her textbooks and she is definitely very much in favour of them. She complains bitterly of the weight of her textbooks and would much rather an eBook version of all of them to be included so that the book could be left at school yet still is able to do her homework. Currently, only some of the books come with an electronic version, such as her mathematics textbook. She is particularly worried about her VCE books for next year and university books, as she has seen some tertiary texts and was very unimpressed by the size of the law and anatomy textbooks that did not come with electronic versions. I reassured her that more and more textbooks were coming with electronic versions each year and that by the time she is there, maybe they all will.

Her views on digitisation were less pronounced, as though she could see how projects to back up archives of newspapers, journals and books could be useful for university, it does not really affect her at this stage of life and to ask again when she is at university. Project Gutenberg being excepted because it carries books she might actually have a use for.

Overall, her views are fairly similar to mine, though mine are much more favourable to eBooks for leisure, whilst still preferring a real book I do not mind reading eBooks either. It is important as librarians to keep up with technology and provide access to as many trends as can be afforded so that libraries do not get left behind, even though books will continue to have a place in libraries for a long time to come. 

Diversity

Book Review

For this task I read “Does my head look big in this?” by Randa Abdul-Fattah (2005) which explores the issues faced by second generation Palestinian-Australians. Amal is sixteen years old and attends a Grammar School where she is the only Muslim. For the first four years of high school she attended an Islamic school that only went to Year Ten. She decides that she is ready to where the hijab on a full-time basis to feel closer to god but there are many unexpected consequences of this decision. The part-time basis she was on before meant that she wore it whilst attending mosque and whilst at her Islamic school, but full-time means that she would wear it whenever around males that are not members of her family.

Among the issues she has to contend with are intolerance of Muslims because of the events of September 11 and the Bali bombings and her principle and peers believing her parents, her father in particular, are forcing her to wear the hijab when they in fact caution her about wearing it because of bullying. One of her class mates deliberately brings up news stories about middle-eastern people in an effort to make Amal feel ashamed. Additionally, her friends have issues of their own, one has to keep meeting with potential husbands when she would prefer to go to university rather than marry but her parents will not listen. One of her other friends is extremely conscious of her body image because of pressure from her family to lose weight.

The book gives a lot of information about the Islamic faith, detailing Amal’s experiences with different religious occasions such as Ramadan and a wedding for a family member. Reading about the religion in a fictional novel helps the information to remain more interesting than reading it in a factual manner. As a method of introducing or exploring religion, it works quite well as a starting point to be reinforced by more factual resources.

I really enjoyed the novel, particularly some of the references to locations around Melbourne and some of the inherent Australian references. It is really easy to connect with the protagonist, despite the level of religious beliefs within the book and she experiences real issues that are portrayed in a manner that is really believable. The way the story is written is almost exactly how I would expect a teenage girl to be thinking in the situations Amal is put in. I would happily recommend the novel to teenagers fourteen and up. 

I think it is important that librarians be aware of including in their collections books about diversity and that would appeal to the diverse public that will be present within their communities. 

Censorship

Website analysis

For this task I read through the material on the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week (ALA, 2014), including the lists of challenged books and the timeline of banning books from libraries. Not all of the books were children’s books but it does give an idea about the history of censorship in America.

The history of censorship in Australia is harder to obtain. However, the book: “The Censor’s Library” by Moore (2012) compiles a history of censorship in Australia during the 20^th century. Books in Australia are mostly banned because of obscenity, blasphemy or sedition. It is difficult to obtain data on books that challenged by patrons as there does not seem to be an authority collecting this information like there is in America. However, at Bayside Library service, previously banned books such as American Psycho (Easton Ellis, 1991) are placed into a category in the catalogue that prevents patrons from borrowing the item if under 18. At Oakleigh Grammar School the Harry Potter books were challenged and removed because they contain witchcraft when the school was still Oakleigh Greek Orthodox College, they are now however held behind the librarian’s desk and require parental permission to take out as the school is no longer religiously exclusive.

In America, books are not normally banned from the country as a whole due their Freedom of Speech laws. However, common reasons for books being challenged seem to be: offensive language, sexually explicit content, religious factors and drug references. From 2000-2009, the most frequently challenged books were the Harry Potter series by Rowling (1997-2007) because they contain witchcraft. Also among the top ten for that decade were: And Tango Makes Three by Richardson & Parnell (2005) for depicting homosexuality , His Dark Materials series by Pullman (1995-2000) for being anti-Christianity, ttyl series by Myracle (2004) for being grammatically incorrect and the Perks of Being a Wallflower (Chbosky, 1999) for homosexuality, sexual themes, drugs and alcohol usage. Whilst I can understand some of these books being challenged at school libraries, particularly those that are sexually explicit in content, I find it difficult to understand why a book would be challenged on the grounds of lack of grammar or being anti-Christian.

There is also a list of at least 46 novels that are classified as classics on the ALA site (2014) two of which I had to read for school. I have read four others on the list as well, some of which I am not sure why are on the list at all such as the Lord of the Rings by Tolkien (1954-1959). In some ways it says a lot about the over-protectiveness of American parents because a lot of these books were challenged as a result of being recommended reading for English literature classes prior to being challenged. 

It is important as a future librarian to be aware of censorship and the issues surrounding it as it is likely that it will come up at some point in my career, as well as being aware of any self-censoring that may occur.