SUMMER READING CHALLENGE:
Saturday August 19th is the last day of the Summer Reading Challenge though you can continue to log in the days from 6/20-8/20 through the following couple of weeks. Our last weekly prize drawing 9/26 and our grand prize drawing 9/6. Hope everyone found wonderful new favorite books this summer!
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Eclipse Fever for Monday is accelerating. Bridgewater Library, RVCC, Science Museums and other locations will be hosting viewing gatherings.
We in NJ will have a partial eclipse between one and four p.m. Our maximum will look much like this:
The Library will have some glasses to use on Monday or Amazon has certified glasses back in stock and promises delivery in time for Monday..
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2017/08/can_i_still_get_free_solar_eclipse_glasses.html
If you want to make an eclipse viewer
More pix and ideas at Bridgewater Library’s Eclipse program.
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MORE STEM FUN on Monday
Bridgewater Library will host its last STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering Mathmatics) Playground on Monday (eclipse night) – families with kids of all ages are invited to drop in anytime between 6 and 8 p.m. to play with our STEM toys.
Starting Sept. 5th, we will be doing a weekly STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, ART, and Math) Tuesdays at 4:30. Geared to K-4th graders but open to all ages. No registration required.
AFTER CHARLOTTESVILLE
Iin a week after Charlottesville, here are a few suggestions...
http://www.whatdowedoallday.com/picture-books-that-teach-kids-to-combat-racism This is a wonderful site for amazing books to share with your kids.
Speaking of Reading… Want to Raise Your Child to Love Reading? Read These Secrets
By MARIA RUSSOJUNE 29, 2017
A class at Public School 682, the Academy of Talented Scholars, in Brooklyn. CreditJoshua Bright for The New York Times
“You’re the children’s books editor?” Someone has said this to me, usually with a smile, at least once a week in the almost three years I’ve been at The New York Times. “What a cool job!” is the subtext. But lurking in the background are almost always other questions, sometimes more pressing ones about kids’ reading in general. “What should my second grader be reading?” a colleague asked the other day, adding, “She’s obsessed with the books in that series with the different flower fairies, and I can’t get her interested in anything else.” A neighbor recently approached me with a worried look and said, “My 10-year-old will only read graphic novels. What should I do?”
Clearly, there’s a lot of uncertainty out there among parents when it comes to children’s books, and also an earnest desire to make the right choices and do the right thing. Parents realize the stakes are high, and childhood passes quickly.
So when the Guides team approached Pamela Paul, the editor of the Book Review, about writing a guide to raising readers, and she asked if I was interested, I jumped at the chance. (Find it here.)
Much of what I do every day is sift through new books, deciding which ones we should assign for review, or which ones might make for a good feature story. I try to balance for different ages, different genres and books by authors from a variety of backgrounds. There’s always the thrill of discovering a book I can’t wait to tell our readers about.
I’ve also learned a great deal. I’ve seen that the classics quite often endure — kids still love “Frog and Toad” and “James and the Giant Peach” — and that new things are happening, too. I’ve watched the We Need Diverse Books movement foster a change in the publishing industry — there were more books published this year than when I started that have children of different races, ethnicities, cultures and abilities occupying center stage, as well as more girls. (This was overdue, given that over half of American kids now are not white — and obviously half are not boys.)
Continue reading the main story