Brookline Reads

Readers are invited to pick up at the Lawrence library a calendar of events for the town-wide Brookline Reads program. This year's chosen works are Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, classics which have captured readers' imaginations for years. There are many different types of events over the coming weeks, in different places about town. Check them out!

Welcome, Mr. Swaim!

Today our principal Mr. Swaim was our guest library teacher for Ms. Frye's first grade class. He read Janet Stevens' From Pictures To Words: A Book About Making a Book, all about a real life illustrator creating a picture book, a process with which the class of first grade authors could connect. First graders had just completed their moon stories. They were familiar with the concepts of character, plot, setting, problem and solutions as story elements. It was a very enjoyable time in the library.

First graders have been hearing classic stories written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton during their recent visits to the Lawrence library: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Katy and the Big Snow, Maybelle the Cable Car, Choo-Choo and The Little House. We are making observations about the similarities and differences in Burton's work from one story to another. She brings a personality to many of her non-human characters! She seems to really like vehicles of all kinds, and she likes to draw landscapes. It is interesting to concentrate on the books by one creator; we have come to recognize her work really well!

A Whole New Look

We have a new look to our library catalog. All the public school libraries in Brookline recently underwent a migration of its database of books and other materials to new software. The online catalog has some new search strategies and a few new capabilities. I, as librarian, will have a great time acquainting students and teachers with the new software; we hope that using it will seem easy. We have about 19,000 items in our library, a rich and varied collection with something for every reader!