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Real Life Horrors, Continued

These past few days have been difficult ones that involve a lot of soul-searching.

I remember the shock of Columbine. It wasn’t the first, or the last, school shooting in this country. Teenagers have turned on their classmates and teachers with guns enough for it to be the subject of books, both fiction and nonfiction, for a long time. A few months ago, I wrote about one of these, Stephen King’s Rage, that he originally wrote in 1966, while he was actually still in high school himself. After Rage was found in the possession of a school shooter many decades later, King had the book pulled from publication. He spoke about his reasoning, and his thoughts on school shooters, at a conference of the Vermont Library Association (click here to see what he said) and called for an examination of our country’s culture and violence. Columbine, and so many other school shootings (and attempted school shootings), all took place in high schools and middle schools. They were shootings by teenagers of teenagers– classmates and teachers. And there is both fiction and nonfiction out there on school shootings, written for teens, parents, activists, and counselors.

What happened on December 14 is different. The real life horror that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary is unimaginable. In writing about real life horrors not that long ago, I made picture book recommendations that might help in discussing some of the terrible things that exist in this world with children. So many of those titles are about events far away or long ago– there is nothing about the possibility of someone walking into a child’s school to commit such a horrifying act. And it’s not just because I couldn’t, or didn’t, think of it. A search of Amazon shows just one book for young children (recommended for grades 3 and older) that even touches on the topic: The Berenstain Bears and No Guns Allowed by Stan and Jan Berenstain. I hope someone writes something for younger kids, and for their families, to help them through this very uncertain and scary time. I have a kindergartener and first grader myself, so this hits very close to home for me, and I wish there were more resources to turn to. Although at this point you have probably talked to your kids about the events at Sandy Hook Elementary if you plan to do so, here are a few resources I have discovered that may be helpful.

When You Are Done Hugging Your Kids Too Tightly, Elmo Will Help You Figure Out What To Say Nextfrom Upworthy.com

Tragic Events in the News— tips for talking to your kids from Mr. Rogers

Talking to Children About the School Shooting from Psychology Today

One of the life saving individuals of Sandy Hook Elementary was Maryann Jacob, a library clerk who called the office when the intercom clicked on and learned immediately of the shooting(she was interviewed by the Boston Herald here). She got the class of fourth graders in the school library to safety, and ran across the hall to warn another class. Then she ran back to the library to stay with her class. So many people put their lives on the line to save others– it’s truly amazing that this selflessness outweighed the instinct for survival.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by this tragedy. No one, child or adult, should ever have to face, or live, real-life horror.

Tell-Tale Art– Spooky Illustrations with the Power to Change Lives

How cool is this? I learned about it from a tweet from Jon Scieszka, the mind behind Guys Read. All kinds of well known children’s book illustrators are participating in an art auction that you’ll want to be sure to check out, called Tell Tale Art. It’s all original spooky art from these illustrators, and if you’ve ever picked up a children’s picture book some of these names ought to sound familiar. Maybe you’ve heard of Lane Smith, David Shannon, Brett Helquist, Mo Willems, Paul O. Zelinsky, Dav Pilkey, Adam Rex, or Tony DiTerlizzi? All of them have donated their own scary illustrations to this auction, which is a fundraiser for an organization called 826NYC.

826nyc.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write, structured around the belief that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success. With this in mind we provide free drop-in tutoring, field trips, after-school workshops, in-schools tutoring, help for English language learners, and assistance with student publications, intended to ultimately strengthen each student’s power to express ideas effectively, creatively, confidently, and in his or her individual voice (Most of that is straight from their mission statement)

Even if you can’t afford to participate, go look! It’s a great opportunity to see what children’s authors and illustrators can do with a spooky theme.

Poison Apple Books Alert! Check Your Kids’ Scholastic Book Club Flyer

In a recent post, I mentioned the Poison Apple Books as a series for the beginning reader who is looking for something spooky. Lo and behold, the books showed up on parent/teacher radar in the November book order from Scholastic. If you are the parent of a child who brings home Scholastic book orders from school, and would like to acquire these for your newly independent reader, they are available as a set in a slipcase in the” Holiday Gift Books” flyer for November 2012 at 55% off (the flyer is a little odd, in my opinion, as it contains both Goodnight Moon and The Hunger Games, but nobody hired me to market to kids and their parents and teachers, either).  A six-pack of  the Goosebumps Hall of Horrors books(which I know nothing about, except that it’s written at a 2nd-3rd grade reading level) is also available at 50% off. Parents are encouraged to order online, where the entire family of flyers for all the book order books at all grade levels are available, but unfortunately these are time sensitive. So if your child did not bring home a book order, you might want to contact the teacher, find out the classroom code, and see what’s available there.