 Am I good to begin? There you go, yep, awesome, go ahead. Awesome. Hi guys, I'm Dana Fontaine. I'm the high school librarian at Fremont High School. And I love children's literature and I've read over 113 books this year and so reading really my passion. The first book that I'm gonna talk about right now is Schoolway by Lupita Nyong'o and Schoolway is about a girl who is really self-conscious about her skin color. And, okay, so she's really self-conscious about her skin color and her parents are really life-skinned and so is her sister. And so this kind of takes her through a journey, like a self-discovery and when she compares Schoolway to the beauty of the night sky. So she is like having some really self-doubt types of things. And so it's really, like she's really, just really self-conscious. And Lupita Nyong'o actually goes into it a little bit more in these two videos and I shared the link with this on the handout. So if you want this presentation, it's on the QR code on the handout. So I love this book and I talked about it in the last couple presentations I've given because it is just so good and the illustrations are amazing. And the writing is spectacular and so she's kind of like a jack-of-all-trades. Lupita Nyong'o is and she also talks about why diverse books matter and so every book in this presentation is a little bit diverse in some way, okay? So this is my all-time favorite book on this list, Lift by Nin Lee and Dan Sandpack. So it's a really lintiful tale about imagination that's kind of written with like gutters and things like that because it's kind of written carved with corn but not really. So it's about a little girl who always gets to elevate her button first. It's like the simple pleasure in life that is her job, that is what she does, okay? One day her baby brother hits the button and everything breaks loose. And so everything is just destroyed and she's really distraught and she wants to go on an adventure by herself. However, she then notices that it's much more fun to have somebody with you joining you on your adventure. And so she eventually asks her baby brother to come along. And so I love Dan Sandpack. Like everything he writes, I think he touches and it turns to gold because I really love this stuff. And he's written a lot of stuff lately. All are welcome. And this is the realistic and sometimes idealistic tale about a class that is welcomed with open arms. It's diverse and wonderful and all students are welcomed and it makes your heart out fuzzy when you read it. It's a perfect, it's a perfect opener to your school year. It's a perfect opener to any library program. You can really read it for any class, any grade level. It's wonderful. All right, Jack for an only bill before, by Alice Dwine and I, I love this book too because who doesn't like billing for it? I read this to my life skills class and they talked about work like probably for the next hour. So Jack for an Ollie are opposites. Jack for a fast and build the dream work quick but Ollie takes a bit more time in building him. And they end up hanging out in Ollie's fort because they just need somewhere to go that they can share. And so it turns out that Ollie's fort is very, like it's very well put together. He takes his time on it and he stops to think it out. And it's kind of a modern day toward it from here because phone study wins the race in this book. And I, I've been waiting for this book for effort. So this came out in the middle of summer. We will rock our classmates by Ryan Key Higgins and who has read We Will Not Eat Our Classmates by Penelope or by Ryan Key Higgins about Penelope. This is, this is the second book in the series. It's just as cute if not cuter than the, than that book. So I absolutely love this series because Penelope is so sweet. And she's back to her antics in the Penelope series. Penelope has a secret. She loves to play guitar. And she is going to share that at the school talent show but will people accept her for who she really is or will she, will she let the butterflies escape out of her stomach and will she be able to play guitar really well? Oh, my granddaughter's Penelope in kindergarten. I've read it one million times, yes. I love the Penelope book. I hope you write a whole like 50 million more books because I really love it. It's such a cute series. Reading Beauty and this book rocks. It's a sleepy video retelling, but it's about books. And it's, it's actually good for older grades because it's good for older grades because the protagonist in the story is 15 years old. And so it's kind of unique to have a 15 year old as the protagonist in the picture. But plus, if you can see this, the cover's shiny and sparkly. And so I absolutely love that. So Reading Beauty is a retelling. It's diverse. It can be read through your upper elementary, middle school, and high school process. It's about this girl who likes to read and this fairy that came to her birthday party, says you will go to sleep once you give a paper cut in the book. And then all of the books you have ever loved will go away. And so it's very creative and it's kind of a unique storytelling because, or a unique retelling because it takes place in space and Sleeping Beauty is a space princess. So I usually, I'm not a fan of retelling because I'm like, do you write something original? But this is pretty original and a retelling. Okay, The Magical Yet by Angela DiCiolisi. And this is, Tony DiCiolisi is white who wrote The Spider with Crackles. And so this, and she's a wonderful author. It's a beautiful book about learning and the magic of yet. So you might not have mastered something yet. It's all about like growth mindset and the yet is a magical thing that hangs around until you master the thing and it assists you in changing color whenever a task is mastered. And so it's a, and the yet kind of grows with you and the yet actually stays with you from when you're a baby until you're all grown up. And so this is also a great book about growing and having an imagination and a really good attitude about learning things. Your name is a song by Jamila Tompkins Bigelow is probably like one of my favorites. I think all of these are my favorites. So I should probably stop saying that. But I absolutely loved this book because names are really important to me and names are really important to our students and our patrons. And so your name is a song is really important to me because when I was a child, sometimes my name was mispronounced and there are lots of unique things out there and it's really important to learn them and how they are correctly pronounced. So this little girl in the story does not want to go back to school because her teacher is having a really hard name pronouncing her, a really hard time pronouncing her name. And so it kind of like pulls at your heartstrings because her mom teaches her, like we'll just teach her a teacher to say your name as a song. And then the teacher comes back with names are not songs. And so there's kind of a battle back and forth. But then in the end, she even turns Bob into a name and it's really, it's really cute. So it, okay. So have you ever had trouble pronouncing a student for patron's name? This was spread to how it's coordinated to pronounce it correctly and how names are each beautiful in their own right. Okay. You Matter by Christian Anderson. This is an awesome book about how even when things get rough and tough, you matter and it's a great read a lot of books for all ages. And this, and I like this book because who doesn't like parachute day? Who doesn't like parachute day when they were little? And so I really love this book because it goes like from the beginning of time, like through the big bang. And then at the end when humans and kids are playing like humans and animals are like playing together. So it's a really cute book and it's really simple and it's great for those younger readers. And then I promised by LeBron James and I thought, oh, you know, LeBron James, he might just be doing this for the money. But this book is legit. So it's a writing book about promises and pledging to do the right thing and trying to be successful with human being. In the back of the book are the promises that each student makes every day at the school to be successful. And if you didn't know, LeBron James has actually started a school in Acre, Ohio and they were the kids that were at most at risk for dropping out. And so he went and made the school and the kids kept forward to scoring and he makes them commit every day to these promises. And so he makes them say this every day, I promise to go to school. I promise to do all of my homework. I promise to my teachers because they will help you learn. I promise to have questions and write answers to never give up no matter what. I promise to always try my best. I promise to be helpful and respectful to others. And I promise to live a healthy life with eating right and being active. I promise to make good choices for myself to have fun and above all else to finish school. And it's strive for greatness. And it's just such a good book because it just goes through the city and it goes through school day and it's just a really heartwarming read and LeBron James is doing great things with that school as well. Okay, so and here's two videos if you want to do like a deep dive into the school. Here's the opening of the school and he takes them, he takes people on an exclusive tour of the school. So it's really nice. And here are my honorable mentions. These are books that I'm kind of past my 10 minutes but these super diverse and honorable mentions. So Bunheads is coming out at the end of September and anything by Misty Copeland is great. So she is seriously a wonderful writer. Like she, if you watch any videos about her or if you watch any Zoom meetings about her, she loves to write. In fact, she liked to write before she even liked to dance. And so Misty Copeland is the founder of Brown Ballerinas and that hashtag and she's on social media a lot. And she's just such a good writer. And Firebird is beautiful and I'm excited to read Bunheads and that comes out at the end of the month. So she's just very humble and very thankful for where she's, where her dance has taken her in her life. And then Connie Shilfield-Morson has wonderful spiritual books about living your breath like and these are simple read-alows. I got the school spirit and I got the rhythm. It's a nameless little girl and she just is so happy and she is just really spunky and she is really excited to go to school. And she kind of, and she's a strong person. She goes and like comforts her friends. Excuse me, she doesn't comfort her friends when she, when her friends are sad about going back to school and she just kind of dances her way through life. And I think everyone needs to dance their way through life. I love it. All right. And then that was my 10 to 15 minutes. Sorry, I went a little bit over. So you can find me at Library Tigers or at my email right here. Actually, I think you're right on time. It says 2.14 by my clock. So- Oh, perfect. Awesome. Does anybody have any questions for me? If anybody has any questions or comments or other books to share. There were some comments in the chat about saying great books that they like some of your books from the ones you did mention, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, share your favorite books. What books have you read this year that you absolutely loved that your students loved? Tammy says my granddaughter is Penelope in kindergarten. I've read it a million times. That's how it goes. I love the books, yeah. Does anybody have any other suggestions even books like within the past year or two? I know for most of the year we've been close, but... Oh, do not go in there. But here we go on. Oh, Tiger versus Nightmare. Yes, I love that one. Oh, Dragons of Tacos and their second one out. Dragons of Tacos, too. Ooh, the extraordinary, ordinary Ella. Awesome, I'm gonna write that down. I haven't read that one yet. This way, Charlie. And what's that one about, Angela? Oh, yay. All are welcome. Amy, can you explain what that is? How you did that with the Story Walk? Oh, about it. Cool. Okay, so this way, Charlie, is about a grumpy goat befriending a blind horse. Oh, that's awesome. All right. Oh, I like books that kind of hit you in those heartstrings that kind of pull on them that need to cry. Oh, The Night Dragon. Cool. All right, does anybody else have any questions? Oh, I love Deborah Underwood. Cool. Wherever I go. Is that a family in a refugee camp? Yes. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for letting me present today. And if you have any questions or other suggestions, I'm always open to other suggestions. Thank you. Awesome, all right.