BookPALS - Bookfinder


	Click on any book title or cover image on this site, and it will take you to Barnes & Noble's website. Purchase the book (or any product on their site), and a percentage of your total sale will go to BookPALS!

Fun Ideas for Story Time

Start Your Story Time With a Rap

Beth Van Kirk of the Phoenix Reading Corps starts her story times like this: Have the kids snap or clap the rhythm and you do hand gestures. They'll soon join in and want to make up their own raps!

"I'm (your name) and I'm here to say
I've got a real fine story for you today
So put your seat on the floor and your hands in your lap
Wiggle your shoulders; let me hear you clap
Now when your eyes are on me, then we're ready to go
So put your fingers to your lips and blow-Shhhhhhhh
IT's STORY TIME!"

Take the Readers' Pledge!

"I promise to read each day and each night.
I know it's the key to growing up right.
I'll read to myself, I'll read to a crowd.
It makes no difference if silent or loud.
I'll read at my desk, at home and at school,
On my bean bag or bed, by the fire or pool.
Each book that I read puts smarts in my head
'cause brains grow more thoughts the more they are fed.
Come rain or shine, snow, wind or sleet,
Each day of the week reading's a treat.
So I take this pledge to make reading my way
Of feeding my brain what it needs every day."

— Debra Angstead
(New Jersey BookPAL Lawton Paseka taught her kids
this pledge and they recite it each week!)

Planting the Seeds of Literacy

A BookPAL in San Francisco had a great idea which some of you might want to try. She and the chidren created a BookPALS BookTree. Each week they would add "apples" with the title and author of the books read aloud. At the end of the year they have a bountiful harvest.

Return to Reading Tips

Celebrate Older Americans Month and read stories about grandparents!

"What Grandmas Do Best: What Grandpas Do Best "by Laura Joffe Numeroff

"The Always Prayer Shawl" by Sheldon Obermanm Illustrations by Ted Levin

"Grandpa's Teeth" by Rod Clement

"Thundercake" by Patricia Polacco

"The Wednesday Surprise" by Eve Bunting, Illustrations by Donald Carrick

"Now One Foot, Now the Other" by Tomie De Paola

"Shoes for Grandpa" by Mem Fox, illustrations by Patricia Mullins

Books About Immigration

America is a land of immigrants. People have been immigrating to the USA for the past 400 years. Each new wave brings new peoples from different lands and many of them were children braving the voyage alone. The books listed below are just a few of their stories.

1.A Picnic in October by Eve Bunting

2.Dreaming of America: An Ellis Island Story by Eve Bunting

3.Tattered Sails by Verla Kay

4.A Boy Named Chong by Brian & Heather Marchant

5.The American Wei by Marion Hess Pomeranc

6.Anna's Goat by Janice Kulyk Keefer

7.Letters From Rifka by Karen Hesse (chapter book)

8.In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord (chapter book)

9.How Tia Lola came to Visit Stay by Julia Alvarez (chapter book)

10. A Day's Work by Eve Bunting

11. How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting

12. mama provi and the pot of rice by Sylvia Rosa-Casanova

13. Something's Happening on Calabash Street by Judith Ross Enderle & Stephanie Jacob Gordon

14. Boundless Grace by Mary Hoffman

15. Big Jimmy's Kum Kau Chinese Take Out by Ted Lewin

16. The Brand New Kid by Katie Couric

17. Gleam and Glow by Eve Bunting

18. Very Important Day by Herold

19. The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland

20. Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say

21. Grandmother and the Runaway Shadow by Liz Rosenberg

22. The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco

23. The Hand-Me-Down Horse by Marion Hess Pomeranc

24. Klara's New World by Jeanette Winter

25. Annushka's Voyage by Edith Tarbescu

26. I Hate English! by Ellen Levine

27. When Jessie Came Across the Sea by Amy Hest

28. Lights for Gita by Rachna Gilmore

29. The Dream Jar by Bonnie Pryor

30. An Mei's Strange and Wondrous Journey by Stephan Molnar-Fenton

31. When This World Was New by K.H. Figueredo

32. Apple Pie and Onions by Judith Caseley

33. Buba Leah and Her Paper Children by Lillian Hammer Ross

34. Watch the Stars Come Out by Riki Levinson

35. Dancing with Dzaidziu by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

36. My Grandmother's Journey by John Cech

37. All the Lights in the Night by Arthur A. Levine

38. What Zeesie Saw on Delancey Street by Elsa Okon Rael