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In today's post, regular contributor Denise Neary shares an amazing program for kids to help them with reading comprehension.  With programs like this - kids have so much fun they don't even realize they are learning.  Thanks to librarian Heather Wright for your commitment to kids - and thanks Denise for sharing! It is my personal belief that librarians have magical qualities.    I was trolling my local library’s website when I came upon this posting.   Act It Out: for children in grades Kindergarten, first and second grades. We will share stories and act them out. Please register.   Wouldn’t you have had to know more?   I did-----and lucky for me, I was connected with the unquestionably magical Heather Wright of the Rockville (Maryland) library.    Her answers to my endless questions appear in italics.   What made the library decide to offer this program?    A woman named Lenore Kelner came and spoke to librarians a few years ago and demonstrated the technique she uses in her drama classes. She runs a place called "Interact Story Theater" which does after school drama classes using children's literature. I have tweaked her strategy to fit library audiences. I then read a book before I began called "A Dramatic Approach to Reading Comprehension", in which I learned how important drama is in the area of reading comprehension. So the participants are having fun and improving their reading at the same time! (All without actually reading a word)   How does the evening play out?   Kids in Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade are the audience. No parents, no younger siblings, are allowed. The format is: I, the librarian do some warm-up drama exercises with the kids (creative, using-your-imagination kind of things), then I read a story, then I have the kids tell the story back to me in their own words making sure all kids get the gist of the story. Then, I assign parts to all the kids, and we basically act it out. I am the narrator and I move the action along. The kids sit around a rug in the children’s programming room in the library, and when it is their character's turn to say or do something, they stand on the rug. They don't need to say exactly what the character says in the book--they can say something they think that character might say under the circumstances. In this way, the kids are internalizing their characters, truly understanding their actions and motivations. This is an excellent way of building reading comprehension and listening comprehension. After the story is acted out, we do some cool-down exercises to come back to reality.  It lasts usually about 45 minutes to an hour.   How widespread it the program?

At this time of year, our thoughts turn automatically to giving and receiving.  How can they not?  We are bombarded with emails and commercials both online and off that tell us what to buy and remind us to hurry up and buy it. 

NPR did a story today called "End Of Days For Bookstores? Not If They Can Help It" about how Amazon and the eBook world are affecting the industry and what the future is both for the chain bookstores and for the independents. There was another very long story in the Boston Review called "Books After Amazon" on essentially the same topic. And if I've read these two articles, I've read a hundred more over the past year or two.  If you've been paying attention the industry at all, you know it is in major flux.  eBooks are on the rise, the big chain bookstores are struggling, Amazon is fighting with publishers over price issues, self-publishing seems to be on the rise and eReaders are the new hot thing. And everyone - literally everyone in the industry is weighing in.  But no one really seems to know how this is all going to play out.  And how could they?  No one has a crystal ball.  They are all just watching the trends and trying their best to stay up to date and offer their readers and customers the right things. So all of this got me thinking... how do I want this all to turn out?  And how do YOU want it all to turn out?  If I could create the perfect future for books and bookselling from a reader's perspective, what would it be?

If you are as obsessed with Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy as most people are these days, you will be thrilled to see that BookReporter.com has chosen the third book THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST as this year's book of the year.<

Want a shot at free books for your whole book club? ReadingGroupGuides.com wants to know what books you discussed in 2010. We're compiling a list of the most popular book club books this year and if you share your list with us you'll be entered to win. It's that simple.

There are good gifts and there are bad gifts.  Well maybe not bad gifts exactly.  I mean the idea that someone is gifting you is pretty good no matter what, but some gifts undoubtedly fall short of the mark. You know the ones I mean.  The ones where you open the package and go "Mmmm -  Ohhhh - uh - thanks.  I uh really love it."

In today's post, regular contributor Denise Neary shares a book club "bad fit".  We've all experienced these I think.  For me it was a woman who came to my independently owned bookstore/cafe bookclub carrying a Starbucks and a library book.  Weird, right?  Denise's "character" is also a bit weird.  Gotta love 'em AND leave 'em!

In today's guest post, author Lorelle Marinello talks about how she uses her books to explore the "what ifs" of life.  I think this is something we do often in book club discussions, and it sounds like SALTING ROSES, Lorelle's novel will be prime "what if" discussion material!

In today's guest post, author Sandra Rodriguez Barron, shares the deeply personal loss that led to her new novel, STAY WITH ME. It's always interesting to learn what drives an author to a story and I always find myself even more compelled to read the book when I know the back story. Love in the Time of Brain Cancer

Have you noticed that e-Readers are EVERYWHERE you look this season?  On TV commercials and in bookstores, of course, but also at gadget stores and home stores and well, really...