kathleen odean

        expert on children's & young adult books

 
great books for girlsgreat books for boysgreat books for babies & toddlersgreat books for things kids love
 

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RECOMMENDED LINKS
 
Here are some of my favorite web sites, mostly on literature for young people. I've also included links to some activities in my workshops.

Animoto
A free website for creating videos. It's good for making book trailers. Educators can get an educator account to use with their students. Here's a link to a book trailer I made for Avi's City of Orphans. It uses photographs from the Library of Congress. City of Orphans book trailer

ALSC — Association of Library Service to Children
A division of the American Library Association and sponsor of the Newbery and Caldecott Awards. The website gives information on the awards, booklists, and more. 

Children’s Book Council
A nonprofit group to encourage reading, the sponsor of Children’s Book Week and source for posters, booklists, and more. 

Fakebook
Use the free "Fakebook" template at Classtools.net to create Facebook-type pages for fictional or historical characters.

Fairrosa Cyber Library of Children's Literature
An enthusiastic collection of information, links, and booklists.

Newspaper Clip Generator
Fill in a newspaper name, date, headline, and story, and get a newspaper clipping.

Guys Read
A web site connected with an initiative by author Jon Sciezcka, of Stinky Cheese Man fame, to encourage boys to read more. 

Voki
Voki is a free website where you can create talking head avatars, add text for them to say, choose a voice and bling, and post as a short booktalk. Here's an example of one I made: Voki for the book Chime  

Wallwisher
Free site for creating bulletin-boards with post-it type notes. An example of a wallwisher I created: Mysteries and Thrillers Wallwisher

Write4Kids.com
A good starting point for anyone who hopes to get a book published for young people., with information about submitting manuscripts, agents, and the craft of writing. 

YALSA – Young Adult Library Services Association
A division of the American Library Association which offers terrific book lists and far more.

Middle School Common Core Books
This list has middle school novels that are good for teaching and meet the new lexile levels suggested by the Common Core Standards. If you read them closely, you'll see that the standards recognize that lexiles are not a very useful measure for grades 6-12 fiction. They give instead much more appropriate ways to evaluate the complexitiy of books. However, if your administrators insist on the lexiles, this list will be helpful.

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© 2012, Kathleen Odean, all rights reserved.