Today's graduates will live and work with people from unknown places and backgrounds. Through the world of story students can journey through unfamiliar cultures, gaining knowledge and understanding of challenges faced by their contemporaries around the world. By selecting fiction books with a global focus, school librarians broaden student choice…

As advocates for reading, librarians cannot help but love a reading program. In this article, the author talks about the Battle of the Books, a reading enrichment program that had been in place since 1996. Battle of the Books promotes reading among middle school students by offering interesting books and a trivia-type competition. The author…

In a time of No Child Left Behind and strict accountability measures for teachers and schools, the active engagement of learners is at the heart of effective literacy instruction. Educators strive to make their students competent, independent readers. They want them to read for personal purposes, such as information seeking or pleasure. One way to…

When Oprah Winfrey began her successful book club in 1996, she continued a tradition that public libraries have provided for decades. Oprah placed a spotlight on reading that encouraged many women who had never read a book "to read." Book clubs sprang up in neighborhoods, bookstores, and on Web sites. Library media centers began offering book…

For young teen girls, reading has become hot again. With their appealing covers, witty heroines and humorous plots, teen chick lit books are bringing girls out of the malls and into local libraries and bookstores in search of the next must-have title. These fun books are about boys, friendship, family, fitting in, and growing up. What makes the…