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Using Storyline Online

I took a look at an online resource called ‘Storyline Online’ – a website created by the SAG-AFTRA foundation that provides videos of various actors reading children’s books. It is accessible via a web browser, but even has applications on the Apple Store and Google Play Store for easier access on devices such as phones and tablets. In my perusal, I investigated all potential tools at my disposal; the biggest and most notable being the extensive library of book readings. For easy viewing, they’re divided into alphabetical order – though there is a section for new uploads of the month – and each book has a list consisting of author and illustrator, publisher and recommended grade level. Unique to the website’s purpose, the list also includes the actor reading in the video, and the video’s run time.

I found this site to be cool and innovative; audiobooks have been around for a long time, but they’re mostly targeted towards teenagers and adults than younger children. Storyline Online’s ‘about us’ description states “Reading aloud to children has been shown to improve reading, writing and communication skills, logical thinking and concentration, and general academic aptitude, as well as inspire a lifelong love of reading.” (Storyline Online, 2024) which is evident in the way they’ve presented this program. All of the videos are hosted via YouTube or SchoolTube, making them free and accessible to anyone who’s interested. This is much like a digital library – it saves people, especially children who may not have access to their own money due to their age, from having to buy books and still have the opportunity to read or listen. Reading has always been integral to learning; it’s entirely ingrained in everyone’s daily life, and is taught from a young age for a reason. Research shows that “Reading clearly exposes young people to new vocabulary, so the link between reading for pleasure and vocabulary development is to be expected,” (Sullivan, 2015) – a notion that is shared by Storyline Online. As stated previously, they took the learning aspect of reading and combined it with the appeal of books found enjoyable by children, read by famous actors to create a valuable tool that combines education and entertainment.

Since childhood, I’ve always been someone who enjoys reading, so I’ve never needed to be encouraged to do so. However, I know that’s not the same for many other children – I grew up around plenty of people who didn’t see the appeal of reading for fun. At the same time, television and film has always been a big interest of mine and many others, so if this resource had been around at the time when I was still in primary school, I wonder if many people would be inclined to engage to see their favourite actors. The website also states that “Teachers use Storyline Online in their classrooms, and doctors and nurses play Storyline Online in children’s hospitals,” (Storyline Online, 2024) and I can certainly see why; it’s similar to a story time session, where the teacher reads the book to their class. Storyline Online can be taken outside of that context and watched anywhere, which is one of the appeals. I’m unsure how well it would always fare in an educational setting – it might discourage students from actually reading, but reading isn’t suited for everyone so if listening to books is easier and a student feels motivated to do so, then it can’t be a bad thing.

References:

Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G. (2001). Text talk: capturing the benefits of read-aloud experiences for young children. The Reading Teacher, 55(1), 10–20. https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/stable/20205005

SAG-AFTRA Foundation. (2024). Storyline Online. Storylineonline.net. https://storylineonline.net/

Sullivan, A. (2015). The life-long benefits of reading for pleasure. The SL, 63(1). https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/School_Librarian.pdf

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Reviewing 'Take a Close Look: Inventorying Your Classroom Library for Diverse Books'

I analysed the article “Take a Close Look: Inventorying Your Classroom Library for Diverse Books” by Jannelle W. Henderson, Katherine Warren, Kathryn F. Whitmore, Amy Seely Flint, Tasha Tropp Laman and Wanda Jaggers, published in The Reading Teacher, volume 73. The article investigates the various misgivings of lacking representation in society, specifically in the United States of America. It also raises questions such as “How do our classroom libraries reflect the racial, cultural, and linguistic diversity of our students and their lived experiences?” and “How are books stored, and how well can students access them?” (Henderson, Warren, Whitmore, Flint, Laman, Jaggers, 2020, p.748) in their endeavour to investigate diversity within their classroom libraries.

This article was highly informative, and shed a lot of light on what was considered diverse or lacking. The team of educators that wrote the article investigated three classroom libraries and divided each book by its different markers – for instance, the protagonist or narrative delves into topics surrounding race, gender, disability, sexual orientation and more. I found this to be useful as a thinking tool in my own time; if I wanted to either evaluate the diversity in my own reading, or diversify my reading as a whole, I could use this tactic too. For educators or librarians who want to ensure the books they’re providing to children or young adults, they could find this useful too. The results of Henderson, Warren, Whitmore, Flint, Laman and Jaggers’ investigation found that representation outside of the typical – predominantly white, cisgendered and heterosexual characters with nuclear families – was severely underrepresented (p.750) While this isn’t surprising to me, especially in literature aimed at children, it is disappointing to see that a wide range of accessible, diverse reading material is still not easily achievable, especially since it was found many of the books had been bought by their school, and not teachers (p.751).

The article provided a lot of food for thought, which I had pondered on previously in the post. As a hopeful future librarian and avid reader, I had thought books lately had been aiming to be more diverse. And that’s not to say they haven’t – many books have been making strides towards a diversified catalogue for all genres – but overall, there’s still a long way to go in improving. To apply this in a library or educational setting, it would be ideal to purchase books that intentionally target underrepresented topics, such as different cultural or historical settings, social issues and the like. The article states that “Each teacher made a conscientious effort to acquire books with story lines and protagonists that offered students images of people who looked like them and broadened their understandings of significant but often overlooked people in historical events,” (p.752) which I believe to be a step in the right direction, but like with anything, it is important to regularly learn how to improve your approach to diverse topics, and how to present it to people wanting and willing to learn.

References:

Fix, K. (2019). Diversity in children’s literature. https://jayscholar.etown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=edstu

Henderson, J. W., Warren, K., Whitmore, K. F., Flint, A. S., Laman, T. T., & Jaggers, W. (2020). Take a close look: inventorying your classroom library for diverse books. The Reading Teacher, 73(6), 747–755. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1886

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Taking a look at the Young Australians Best Book Awards (YABBA)

For this post I chose to look at The Young Australians Best Book Awards (YABBA) website. Prior to doing research, I had never heard of this award before, but it promotes reading among children while also boosting the works of our fellow Australian writers. According to their ‘about’ section on the website, “[YABBA] were established in 1985 by a group of Victorians keen to see children engage in reading Australian books,” (YABBA, 2023) and their goal is to uplift the voices of children by having them recommend books that resonate with them.

The website’s home page opens up to the 2024 awards announcement, followed by a brief biography of YABBA as an organisation. Just from this page I learnt how YABBA organises their award nominations; split into the four school terms, tasks are outlined by the ‘Read, recommend, rate and reward’ subheadings, each with different descriptions on how children can get involved with the shortlisting process of the books, and deadlines for such. This website and activity as a whole would do well in an education or library setting, as it encourages children to read books so they can participate in the recommending and voting sections. Thus, the “YABBA awards are determined by popularity and it is the adult organisers’ explicit intention to not just encourage reading but to also develop the adolescent reader’s willingness to express their ‘opinions about books.’” (Voskyul, 2007) Overall I found the website easy to navigate, with eye-catching colours that would keep children engaged. It also provides links to further reading about the organisation, as well as access to social media and a newsletter for those who may be older and want to follow updates.

I found the YABBA to be a fun, engaging initiative to circulate different books’ popularity for children and young adults, and that they’re set apart from the rest since the books are all recommended and eventually chosen by the children themselves. Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about Young People’s Book Awards, but I think that they’re a great entrance and perpetuation for reading, starting at a young age. Children finding books they enjoy may prompt them to read other books from the shortlist, or even books from the same authors. However, adults such as educators and parents may also want to screen what children read before they get to it – “The parents were quite indifferent to the awards process, the prestige of awards and the idea that awards might be a guide to quality literature. They preferred to judge books for themselves, based on their personal assessment of what their children would enjoy.” (Fisher, 2011, p.218) Activities such as YABBA can foster autonomy and ideas of what the children themselves may enjoy, though perhaps there should be a middle ground for parents as well, in case they also want to know what their children are reading. The website allows for easy access to the books shortlisted, so adults can do their own research as well; this would also be handy for libraries to gauge what is popular.

References:

Australian School Library Association. (2019, March 10). Awards & events in children’s literature. Asla.org.au. https://asla.org.au/awards-and-events

Fisher, H. J. (2011). Children’s book awards in Australia: their effects on the literary marketplace. https://rune.une.edu.au/web/bitstream/1959.11/10910/20/openpublished/ThesisFisherHeatherDoctoralThesis2011.pdf

Voskuyl, H. (2007). Young adult fiction: part of a differentiated curriculum? Access, 21(2), 5. https://search.informit.org/doi/epdf/10.3316/ielapa.592378829453860

Young Australians Best Book Awards. (2023). YABBA. YABBA. https://www.yabba.org.au/

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Book Review: Something Happened in Our Town

The activity I chose to undertake was a book review, specifically of a banned book, as my chosen topic of focus was censorship. Censorship, specifically in media is something I’ve done personal research into before, so I chose a book I was already familiar with to write a review on – a children’s picture book titled ‘Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice’ by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins & Ann Hazzard; illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin (2018). I chose this novel out of the American Library Association’s (ALA) lists of most banned and challenged books. This was the sixth-most banned book in the year 2020, despite its publication and various awards in 2018, in the wake of George Floyd’s death. It was cited to be challenged for “divisive language and because it was thought to promote anti-police views.” (ALA, 2020) I reviewed the book based on its narrative and its learning integrity as an educational tool.

The book goes into adequate depth about racial injustice and prejudice black people and other people of colour face in their daily lives, in this case displayed by a black man who was shot by a white cop, and a Middle Eastern refugee student who was facing social exclusion by his classmates. Due to this book being banned in the United States specifically, I had higher hopes finding a copy of it more easily here in Australia. I learnt that wasn’t the case, however, since I combed through three different library chains in New South Wales and couldn’t source a single one short of buying it online – as there also seemed to be none in store either. Censorship is a large issue everywhere, Australia not excluded, though I didn’t expect that finding the book in question would be so difficult. I cannot properly ascertain why there’s a significant lack of accessibility, though my assumption would be that there was a lack of distribution from the US due to its status as a banned and challenged book.

Book reviews are common practice across all reading material, children and young adult books notwithstanding. It is an especially prevalent tool for educating, whether you are a parent or a teacher of any form, and when catering to children specifically, can be a great form of researching into researching if the material is age appropriate, educational and/or entertaining. The book I chose also came with additional resources for parents to do their own research – attached to the book and also displayed on the American Psychology Association (APA) website – though one might not find those before picking up the book itself, and thus, resorting to reviews as a first impression. The gaps in my knowledge appeared while I was thinking about how applicable this book would be to a teaching environment; there are many stories of educators and other authors landing in controversy over their promotion of banned books, despite those books largely being challenged due to content that isn’t deemed ‘age-appropriate’ – due to topics such as racism, sexuality and topics alike. In my opinion, these are things that children start discovering at a young age, especially due to easier accessibility around them, and there should be more resources fostering discussions around them instead of suppressing them.

References:

American Library Association. (2020). Top 10 most challenged books lists. Advocacy, Legislation & Issues. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10/archive#2020

American Psychology Association. (2022). Something happened in our town. Apa.org. https://www.apa.org/pubs/magination/441B228?tab=5

Linder, S., & Majerus, E. (2016). Can I teach that?: Negotiating taboo language and controversial topics in the language arts classroom. Rowman & Littlefield. https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ZzWNDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=banned+books&ots=_vepT79N3d&sig=Zw3hxqiwzXscW18Jgb9EiEwRr8M#v=onepage&q=banned%20books&f=false

Scales, P. (2018). Celebrating banned books week with something happened in our town [Review of Banned Books: Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story about Racial Injustice , by M. Celano, M. Collins, & A. Hazzard]. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2568752643?accountid=10344&parentSessionId=X58X%2BdTGz1zy%2FuWMHp7KnWqs3STiU1qvOwr9jFue1HI%3D&pq-origsite=primo&sourcetype=Trade%20Journals

Something happened in our town: a child’s story about racial injustice. (n.d.). Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37953987-something-happened-in-our-town?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=T2PTSSGTc5&rank=1

Louw, K. (2023). Library, books on table and background for studying, learning and research in education, school or college. Reading, philosophy and open, vintage or history print book, university blurred background stock photo. In iStock. https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/library-books-on-table-and-background-for-studying-learning-and-research-in-gm1460007178-494280033?searchscope=image%2Cfilm

Miroshnichenko, I. (2021). Banner with books. Business and education background. Back to school concept stock photo. In iStock. https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/banner-with-books-business-and-education-background-back-to-school-concept-gm1354989842-429596752