Cool Story Programs for the School-Age Crowd

by Rob Reid

What kid wouldn't love literary explorations of the stinky, creepy, and dirty? Throw in rats, witches, aliens, and underwear, and it's irresistible. Yet few story times are designed for elementary school children, who are intent on separating themselves from younger siblings. Why aren't there more events for these kids? It's not a lack of great material insists librarian-humorist Reid, who builds upon his earlier ALA bestseller, Something Funny Happened at the Library (ALA Editions, 2002), to offer 18 new wacky and offbeat programs, guaranteed to delight this discerning younger audience. Each plan opens with a thumbnail overview, then draws on unusual combinations of poetry, picture books, chapter book excerpts, and short stories. The mix varies by theme, but all the programs touch the concerns, interests, and humor ( Captain Underpants) for this age group. Audience involvement includes wordplay, reader's theater, dramatics, writing, music, sports, or crafts. Reid also illustrates how to tweak programs to appeal to younger (or older) audiences.Plans for fun story programs Designed to inspire public children's librarians, school media staff, classroom teachers, and anyone who wants to help literature come alive for kids in grades K–4, Cool Story Programs is a proven, adaptable resource, and a must-have for libraries serving kids.

Genres: Nonfiction

196 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2004

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Rob Reid is the very popular author of numerous books on children’s programming for ALA Editions. He has also written resource books for Upstart Books, as well as two picture books. In addition, he writes regular columns on programming and children’s literature for LibrarySparks and Book Links magazines. He teaches courses on children’s and adolescent literature and a variety of library topics at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. He conducts workshops throughout North America on ways to make literature come alive for children.

Source: ALA Store.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a big fan of Rob Reid's work (mainly because the majority of his work is geared toward Early Literacy/Storytime). He does a good job with this one, giving a list of current chapter books, picture books, and oral stories for each subject, many of which gear towards the boys: Underwear, Stinky smells, Getting Dirty, and Cool Exotic Animals and Locations. He also lists activities, ways to layout the program (WHICH yes, it is essentially Elementary school appropriate storytime), but the less "storytime" you do, and the more "activities/questions/hands-on" you do, it can work. The nice part about the books referenced is that most of them almost every public OR school library should have them...they're not dated back to the 1960's, but they're not the NEWEST 2017/2018 publication. So that's helpful.