Teaching Tough Topics shows teachers how to lead students to become caring citizens as they read and respond to quality children’s literature. It focuses on topics that can be challenging or sensitive, yet are significant in order to build understanding of social justice, diversity, and equity. Racism, Homophobia, Bullying, Religious Intolerance, Poverty, and Physical and Mental Challenges are just some of the themes explored. The book is rooted in the belief that by using picture books, novels, poetry, and nonfiction, teachers can enrich learning with compassion and empathy as students make connections to texts, to others, and to the world.

An advocacy brochure on library standards to be sold in packs of 12 for school librarians to hand out to teacher, principals, administrators. Content comes from AASL Standards publication.

The new National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries reflect an evolution of AASL Standards, building on philosophical foundations and familiar elements of previous standards while featuring the new streamlined AASL Standards Integrated Framework for learners, school librarians, and school libraries.

Kitty decides to run for President of the Neighborhood Cat Association.

Introduce your teachers, librarians, and administrators to the roles and responsibilities of educators in advocating a whole school library learning commons using this step-by-step guide for creating shared learning space in your school. It is no surprise that technology has shifted the way we educate—bearing on how, what, and where we learn. This guide lays the framework for helping turn your school library into a whole school library learning commons (WSLLC)—a space where traditional academics merge with the latest technologies to engage learners in a way never before realized. Author Judith Anne Sykes contends that since the WSLLC philosophy allows staff and students to co-create knowledge in a shared space, it is more effective than the traditional approach. Sykes addresses the differences between a school library and a WSLLC, provides reasons to champion its creation in your institution, and discusses how to use mentoring as a means to sustain its survival. The book explores the roles and responsibilities of educators in developing WSLLC goals and presents strategies for using typical assessment tools—including standardized tests, report cards, and anecdotal assessments—to help support its philosophy.

As school districts across the United States increasingly question the need for trained librarians, this collection of research-based evidence helps make the case for a state-licensed librarian in every school. While serving on the AASL legislation committee, Mirah Dow recognized the urgent need to utilize research-based evidence to prove school librarians are much more than an educational luxury. This collection is the result. It brings together school library research studies and findings from the past decade and draws connections to how they can be applied to situations and questions that occur in practice. Taken as a whole, the research underscores that state-licensed, school librarians are a necessity for 21st-century students. Chapters center on important research studies from the past decade that examine data and locate school libraries within operational contexts. Methodologies are explained and findings summarized, while notes clarify practical applications for school librarians. Because each chapter includes a connection to broad realms of theoretical influence in the social sciences, the work will also be relevant to educators and public policymakers, arming them to better communicate research-based links between investments in school libraries and student learning outcomes.