The Labors of Hercules Beal (eBook preview)

Presenting … First-chapter Friday, the eBook edition. This month’s selection features The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt.

Celebrating Children’s Book Week in SRCSA library

It’s Children’s Book Week, a time to celebrate books for young people and the joy of reading. During read-alouds this week in SRCSA library, I’ve shared the opening chapter from Dav Pilkey’s A Friend for Dragon. It’s one among a boxful of books and other amazing resources from Every Child a Reader and the Children’s Book Council, in partnership with Dav Pilkey and Scholastic. I’ve also been sharing activity pages from the Dog Man and Friends Epic Activity Guide.
https://everychildareader.net/cbw/davpilkey2025/

Character education: Books about Gratitude

Each month we focus on a character trait at Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts. Our character-education focus for November 2025 is “Gratitude.” Here are books from the school library, which address the character trait of Gratitude.
https://youtu.be/pbWu_CpoZ5g

First-chapter Friday, Halloween edition

Each Friday that school is in session, I share the link to a read-aloud preview of a book from SRCSA library. For Oct. 31, 2025, I shared previews for Pet, by Akwaeke Emezi; Serafina and the Black Cloak, by Robert Beatty; and Hoodoo, by Ronald L. Smith.

📚 Finding 6-7 in the library: Kids knew exactly where to look! 📚

Readers, have you heard young people around you saying the phrase “6-7”? It’s been going viral among some of the students at SRCSA. And there was a lot of interest among some students today in our library, for books shelved under 006.7, Dewey Decimal Classification. So much so, that I created a short-form YouTube video commemorating the occurrence.