MicroGroks
Now that the COVID pandemic is behind us, we must thoughtfully evaluate what happened during this unprecedented time and prudently consider what should be done if a similar crisis ever happens again. One of the major issues that emerged during this challenging period was the mandatory wearing of face masks in schools.
It’s the Great American “rite of passage”—getting your first library card! The importance of a child having a library card has been celebrated from Arthur the Aardvark rapping “Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card” to Francie Nolan keeping her first library card as a memento of her youth in one of …
Keeping Secrets: The Confidentiality of Kids’ Library Records Read More »
I just read today’s “Judy Aron Report,” which is a great thing to do the day after the House meets. One of many reasons to encourage others to do the same is that she captures most of the items of great public interest.
Rep Arlene Quaratiello vented to me last night that the House Children and Family Law Committee gave her bill, HB 1308, the ITL with a 13-2 vote. Arlene, as you can see on her home page here, is a librarian and has made a few Grok contributions as well.
In one of my previous articles, I told the story of how my request for Michael Knowles’ Amazon #1 bestseller Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds was denied by my local public library.
Almost eighty years ago, Margaret Scoggin, a librarian at the New York Public Library, made an odd choice. As one of the founders of the NYPL children’s branch in the early 1940s, Scoggin had been contributing a column to Library Journal called “Books for Older Boys and Girls.” In 1944, she inexplicably decided that her articles should …
Last March during a “Candidates Night” forum in my small New Hampshire town, I was criticized by an incumbent library trustee who was running for reelection. Although she was seeking to continue in her elected office, she illogically asserted that I had inappropriately “brought politics into the library trustee race and,” as she further declared, “there is …
They’ve Got the Power: The Crucial Role Played by Library Trustees Read More »
Kirk Cameron’s recently published children’s book, Pride Comes Before the Fall, is a charming story about the dangers inherent in being overly prideful rather than humble. While some detractors have labeled this book by the former child TV star as “anti-gay” because of its message about pride, Cameron prefers to call it “pro-humility.”
Educators often use the metaphor of the three-legged stool to convey the ideal parent-teacher-child relationship. If one leg is weakened, the stool inevitably becomes unstable. Over the past few years, this three-legged stool has become more and more wobbly.
When I taught English as an adjunct college instructor, one literary genre that I considered extremely interesting was that of the slave narrative. Hundreds of slaves, overcoming unimaginable obstacles, not only learned how to read but also wrote down their stories which revealed the truth about the horrors of slavery.
