March Madness

It's that time of year! IRS will be doing a book tournament featuring The Great Stone Face Award nominees for this year. Click here for a book preview.

What is The Great Stone Face Award?

The Great Stone Face Book Award is given annually to an author whose book receives the most votes from 4th through 6th graders throughout the state. In April, N.H. children vote for their favorite book from a list of 20 recently-published titles that are chosen by the Great Stone Face (GSF) Committee. The purpose of the award is to promote reading enjoyment, to increase awareness of contemporary writing, and to allow children to honor their favorite authors.

These books are available in print at our library and on Sora as ebooks and audiobooks! Check them out today!

(We also have former Great Stone Face Award winners available for checkout!)

Read Across America

NEA’s Read Across America takes place on March 2nd, and is the nation's largest celebration of reading. Celebrated annually, it focuses on motivating children and teens to read through events, partnerships, and reading resources that are about everyone, for everyone.

Read Across America was celebrated full force at IRS! We had events throughout the week including themed spirit days, virtual author visits, a bookmark design contest, the IditaREAD challenge, and IRS Reads Across Mascoma Valley. It was a fun-filled week that encompassed a love of reading. Click here to see the packet of information that was distributed at school.

Virtual Author Visits

We were excited to welcome three authors this week from across America to share their stories and writing process with us. Two hailed from the west coast and one from Pennsylvania. We will be adding some of their books to our library collection soon.

Book Mark Design Contest

We had some great designs entered into the contest. Voting is now open. Choose your favorite design. All entries will be proudly displayed in the library, and the winning design will be copied for the entire school!

VOTE HERE!

IRS Reads Across Mascoma Valley

One of the absolute highlights of Read Across America week was the "IRS Reads Across Mascoma Valley" program. The middle schoolers at IRS volunteered to read virtually to students at EVS and CES. It was so much fun and a positive experience for all!

IditaREAD

Our schoolwide IditaREAD mini reading challenge took place during Read Across America week. Our goal was to read from Anchorage to Nome, a total of 975 miles (pages).

The students did a phenomenal job reading and tracking the number of pages they read. All grades made it across (and past) the finish line!

• 1st Place Grade 6: 6,175 miles
• 2nd Place Grade 5: 5,100 miles
• 3rd Place Grade 8: 2,886 miles
• 4th Place Grade 7: 1,410 miles

Iditarod March 5, 2022

https://iditarod.com/#

Hike Safe

Sara Dunkerton invited Sgt Heidi Murphy from NH Fish and Game to present the Hike Safe Program to 6th graders at the IRS library. Heidi shared the appropriate winter gear for hiking, survival packs, as well as the items used by NH Fish and Game for their search and rescues. This tied in nicely with their survival unit. Students were studying the Iditarod and recently read The Race Against Death. The students were fully engaged and loved the presentation!

Hot Cocoa & Books

Students and teachers were invited to the library to enjoy hot cocoa and books this week! They read in front of a roaring fire with some gentle Disney piano music playing in the background (all Disney songs because that's Ms. Hollander's favorite). Have a good break everyone!

Sora Updates

Sora is a great digital library that has truly expanded our library offerings! Students at Indian River School are using Sora regularly to enjoy more reading choices. In our first month after launching Sora, we had over 250 digital checkouts! The number has remained steady at 185 digital checkouts at our school for the past couple months. January's statistics have not yet been released.

However the students decide to read, whether it be a physical book, an ebook, or an audiobook, just keep encouraging them to read, read, read!

Link Sora to Your Local Library!

Now, students have the ability to further expand their library collection! The Sora student reading app conveniently includes public library access. Through this feature, students can browse and borrow ebooks and audiobooks from their local public library in addition to our school’s digital collection. Sora has also made sure that only age-appropriate titles are displayed so their reading choices are both broad and relevant.

How can students access public library titles for educational and pleasure reading without ever leaving Sora?

1. Sign in to Sora.
2. From the menu in the upper right corner of Sora in your screen, select Add a public library.
3. Search for titles from the public library and borrow a book.
4. Add your public library card number when prompted.
5. Checkouts from school and public library collections will appear on the same Shelf.

World Read Aloud Day

Many teachers and parents stop reading aloud to children once they can read on their own. However, research shows that reading aloud to your students—even long after they're reading independently—benefits learners of all ages.

In that spirit, IRS participated in World Read Aloud Day by inviting authors to do live, virtual read alouds! They also gave us some insight about their experience as authors. They spoke about the writing process, including the time to get to the publishing stage. For Shawn Peters, it took 6 years to get his debut novel published, for Jessica Vitalis, it took 6 book rejections to get her first work published. Joshua Levy wrote almost 400,000 words that went nowhere and was rejected 119 times before he was published! The resounding advice was simply to read and write every day, and to write what you enjoy and are passionate about.

The Authors:

Shawn Peters, a local author from Massachusetts whose debut MG adventure novel, The Unforgettable Logan Foster, just hit the shelves! https://www.shawnpeterswrites.com/

Jessica Vitalis, author of The Wolf's Curse. Her next book, The Rabbit’s Gift, is set to be released in October. https://jessicavitalis.com/

Joshua Levy, former middle school teacher turned author (and lawyer) is the author of titles including The Jake Show, Seventh Grade vs. the Galaxy, and Eighth Grade vs. the Machines. https://www.joshuasimonlevy.com/

Black History Month

February is Black History Month! This is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history.

At the IRS library, we are honoring our observance by highlighting current youth fiction. Jason Reynolds was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature for 2020-2021. He’s a prolific and well-loved author who is featured along with other trending authors like Angie Thomas and Kwame Alexander. Jerry Craft’s New Kid also won the Newbery Medal. Come celebrate Black History Month at IRS by reading African and African-American voices.