Category Archives: Indiana Young Readers Center

Call for entries for Indiana Statehood Day Essay Contest

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The Indiana Center for the Book is hosting an essay competition to commemorate Indiana’s 208th Statehood Day. This year’s theme is “Learning IN Indiana.” The Statehood Day Essay Contest takes place annually in the fall and is open to all Indiana fourth graders.

Essays should be well organized and reflective of the theme “Learning IN Indiana.” Judges are looking forward to seeing students’ interpretation of the theme. The theme can encompass all kinds of learning, like travel, reading, experiences, passions and more. The committee hopes that the theme will build awareness and appreciation for the Hoosier state.

Winners of the essay contest will be honored on Wednesday, Dec. 11 at in-person ceremonies at the Indiana Statehouse and the Indiana State Museum. The winners will be expected to record their essays as well.

Each winner – first place through fourth place – will receive a CollegeChoice 529 deposit of $529 made possible by the Indiana Education Savings Authority.

The essay contest rules are as follows:

– The competition is open to any Indiana fourth grade public, private or homeschooled student in the 2024-25 school year.

– A panel of judges, including Indiana State Library staff and volunteer educators, will choose the first, second, third and fourth place winners.

– Essays must range from 100 to 300 words; handwritten or typed and must be submitted with an entry form.

– Individual entries should use the 2024 individual entry form and class sets should use the 2024 class entry form. The following information should be included on each essay for class sets: student name, teacher name and school name.

– All entries may be mailed or emailed and must be received by Friday, Oct. 25.

– Mailed entry forms can be sent to: Indiana Center for the Book Indiana State Library 140 N. Senate Ave. Indianapolis, IN 46204.

– Emailed entry forms can be sent to this email address as an attachment.

Click here for more information about the 2024 Statehood Day essay contest, including lesson plans for teachers, and to view the 2023 winning essays.

Please contact Suzanne Walker, Indiana Center for the Book director, with any questions.

This blog post was submitted by Indiana Young Readers Center librarian Suzanne Walker.

2024 National Book Festival and Indiana author event!

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The Library of Congress is once again presenting the National Book Festival. The 24th annual festival will take place in-person on Aug. 24 at the Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C., but you don’t have to go all the way to Washington to experience the festival. Indiana is having a National Book Festival Event in downtown Indianapolis on Aug. 10th!

Each year the Indiana Center for the Book chooses two authors to feature during the festival, one who writes for children and one who writes for adults. This year we are proud to highlight Gabrielle Balkan’s picture book “What a Map Can Do” and Kaveh Akbar’s novel “Martyr!”

The Indiana Center for the Book is partnering with Indiana Humanities to host a program with Balkan in-person at 1 p.m. on Aug. 10 at the Indiana State Library. Please join us for this family-friendly event featuring a talk from Gabrielle Balkan and mapping activities for kids. Kids Ink will be on hand to sell books, and you can park for free at the State Garage across the street from the Indiana State Library. Bring your ticket into the library to get it validated. The event is free but registration is required.

In addition to these two authors, Indiana author Candace Fleming will also be at the festival in-person. Fleming’s book “The Enigma Girls” is featured in a toolkit put together by Indiana Humanities and Indiana Center for the Book. Use the toolkit to develop your own local programs related to these authors or the National Book Festival. If you do a local program, Indiana Humanities wants to hear about it. Fill out this form to share your local National Book Festival related programs.

Last year at the National Book Festival, Sammy the Interviewing Toucan was in attendance and got to speak with Kim Howard, Indiana author of the award-winning book “Grace and Box,” featured at the festival in 2023. It was a dynamic day full of people, books and conversations. Enjoy the video here.

Each year the National Book Festival is a time to celebrate our Hoosier literary heritage on a national scale. We hope you can participate by either coming to the festival in person, attending our Gabrielle Balkan author event, or interacting with the program guide. Indiana’s authors are definitely something to celebrate!

This blog post was submitted by Indiana Young Readers Center librarian Suzanne Walker.

Interested in pre-made escape room kits starring primary sources? Let us know!

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The Indiana Young Readers Center at the Indiana State Library has been hard at work developing six circulating escape room kits for Indiana librarians and teachers to check out and use with their patrons and students. The kits are not yet ready, but the IYRC is looking for Indiana librarians and teachers who might be interested in testing the kits while they are still in beta form. We are also interested in knowing how many librarians and teachers might be interested in checking out the kits once they are completed in early 2025.

The kits are “escape room” type experiences where students are left in a room with clues, puzzles and locked boxes and must work together to search the room, crack codes and eventually unlock the last box that will allow them to escape. All six experiences include narratives based on Indiana history and feature facsimiles of actual primary source documents located in the Indiana State Library’s collections or collections from the Library of Congress. Most of the experiences have the same “villain,” Sammy, the Interviewing Toucan, who you might be familiar with from Author Interviews available on the Indiana State Library’s YouTube channel.

Escape rooms are perfect for teens – and even adults – as they promote teamwork, collaboration, communication, problem solving, independent thinking, leadership, curiosity and more. The Escape Room Experiences can be used independently or can be used with lesson plans to further explore the topics. Topics covered by the Escape Rooms include:

  • President Benjamin Harrison – Featuring the only Indiana president to date.
  • Genealogy – Featuring a diary written in 1904 by a 9-year-old from Rensselaer, Indiana.
  • Aviation – Featuring Octave Chanute, an early aviator from Indiana who worked with the Wright Brothers.
  • Basketball – Featuring the Crispus Attucks High School state championships in 1955 and 1956.
  • Quakers – Featuring Levi and Catherine Coffin, Indiana Quakers and abolitionists.
  • Hoosier Women – Featuring Madame C. J. Walker, Amelia Earhart, Eva Kor and more.

The kits have been designed with varying levels of difficulty, so that students young and old will be able to enjoy the mysteries.

Interested librarians and teachers should fill out this form. You’ll be able to indicate if you want to be notified in early 2025 so you can get a first crack at booking a kit. You’ll also be able to indicate if you are more specifically interested in testing a kit out this fall in 2024. If you test a kit for the IYRC, it is expected that you’ll provide feedback to the Indiana State Library on how the test went. The kits were designed for middle and high school students and are best used in small groups of four to eight students. If you have a larger group of students, you might consider booking multiple kits as four copies of each kit will be available.

Three in-person trainings as well as a webinar about these kits are coming in October. Trainings are currently open for registration. Click here for training dates and to register. In addition to these up-coming trainings, you can view a webinar on this topic that was done for Government Information Day in May of 2024. It is already available and can be viewed here.

This program is sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Midwest Region Program, located at Illinois State University. Content created and featured in partnership with the TPS Midwest Region does not indicate an endorsement by the Library of Congress.

If you have questions or would like more information, please reach out to Suzanne Walker, the Indiana Young Readers Center Librarian and the Director of the Indiana Center for the Book. She’d be more than happy to answer your questions about this exciting upcoming program from the Indiana State Library.

This blog post was submitted by Indiana Young Readers Center librarian Suzanne Walker.

10 years of the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award

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On Oct. 1, 2014, the Indiana Center for the Book announced their new Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award in the Indiana State Library’s weekly newsletter, the Wednesday Word. Later in 2015, the first book to win the award was announced. In the first year of the award, over 1,200 Indiana children ages 0-5 voted on one of eight books nominated by Indiana librarians and selected by the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Committee as being worthy of consideration for this award. The first year, the book “Don’t Push the Button!,” written and illustrated by Bill Cotter, took home top honors and won the award. Each year since, a different book has won the award, based on votes from Indiana children, ages 0-5.

Some things about the award have changed. Starting in the second year, only five books appeared on the ballot, as it was determined that young children could more easily choose from a group of five books versus a group of eight. During the pandemic, remote voting was added. Also, starting in 2018, the Firefly Committee began creating program guides to go along with the award, providing parents, caregivers, teachers and librarians with dozens and dozens of developmentally appropriate activities to support each title appearing on the ballot. The program guide is what sets the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award apart from other state book awards.

This year’s program guide includes songs, book lists, rhymes, magnet boards, full-body activities, fine-motor activities and much more to support the program and encourage parents and caregivers to not just read the books, but to immerse their children in activities about the books.

Since the award’s inception, over 27,000 votes have been cast for the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award. This year, the committee is hoping for another crop of votes from young children, ages 0-5 to usher in the next 10 years of the award. Of course, it is assumed that children ages 0-5 will need assistance in casting their ballots. Some libraries provide voting programs where children each get a bean bag that they put directly on the cover of their favorite book. Other libraries provide ballot boxes that parents can use to log their child’s vote. No matter what book wins, everyone wins when they participate in the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award. Why? Because it’s just the cutest book award in the land.

Voting for this year’s award is now open. Votes can be submitted online through the remote voting form or can be submitted through any local library in Indiana that is participating in the award.

The 2024 nominees are as follows:

  • “Bear Has a Belly” by Jane Whittingham.
  • “Firefighter Flo!” by Andrea Zimmerman.
  • “Let’s Go Puddling!” by Emma Perry.
  • “I Was Born a Baby” by Meg Fleming.
  • “One, Two, Grandpa Loves You” by Shelly Becker.

For more information about the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award, reach out to Suzanne Walker, director of the Indiana Center for the Book.

This blog post was submitted by Indiana Young Readers Center librarian Suzanne Walker.

Two writing contests for youth open for entries at the Indiana State Library

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The Indiana Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress housed in the Indiana State Library, is open for entries for two writing contests for youth this fall. The Indiana Statehood Day Essay Contest is open to Indiana fourth graders and the Indiana Letters About Literature Contest is open to Indiana’s fourth through 12th graders.

For the Indiana Statehood Day Essay Contest, Indiana fourth graders are invited to write an essay on the theme of “Playing IN Indiana.” Judges are looking forward to seeing students’ interpretation of the theme which can encompass Indiana sports, recreation in Indiana’s parks, playing music, visiting Indiana’s amusement parks and so much more. The Indiana Statehouse Tour Office partners with the Indiana Center for the Book for this contest which commemorates Indiana Statehood Day each year. Indiana’s 207th birthday is Dec. 11. Winners of the essay contest will be honored at a Statehood Day Celebration. The 2023 celebration is on Dec. 8 at the Indiana State Museum and on Dec. 11 at the Indiana Statehouse. Four top winners will be selected. Each winner will receive a CollegeChoice 529 Deposit of $529 made possible by the Indiana Education Savings Authority! All Indiana fourth graders should take advantage of this exciting opportunity. Find out more about the contest at the contest website. The deadline to enter is Oct. 27.

The Indiana Letters About Literature contest is also now open for the 2023-24 contest cycle. This contest is a reading and writing contest for Indiana students in grades four through 12. Students are asked to read a book, poem, essay or speech and to write to the author – living or deceased – about how the work affected how they see themselves or how they see the world. Letters are judged on how well they interpret the theme of the power of literature to change readers as well as on expression, voice, structure and grammar. One hundred state winners are announced each spring. All winners get published in the annual Indiana Letters About Literature anthology, and top winners receive cash prizes. All winners are invited to an annual virtual celebration where they will get to meet an Indiana author. This year’s author is Rob Harrell, Indiana author of “Wink.” The Indiana Letters About Literature program is supported by the James and Madeleine McMullen Family Foundation and the Indiana State Library Foundation. For more information about Indiana Letters About Literature, visit the contest website. The deadline for entries is Jan. 19, 2024.

The judges are hoping that hundreds of students enter each contest. For questions, please reach out to Suzanne Walker, director of the Indiana Center for the Book. Good luck to all the young Hoosier writers who enter either – or both – contests.

This blog post was submitted by Indiana Young Readers Center librarian Suzanne Walker.

Get your Sammy fix with poets laureate and Indiana children’s authors

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Sammy the Interviewing Toucan, who works out of the Indiana Young Readers Center, is back with a whole load of content for all the Sammy fans out there patiently waiting for more of this sassy bird. Sammy was hard at work this summer catching up with all kinds of literary types. The corduroy puppet has put together two series of videos. The first features five of Indiana’s poets laureate, including current Poet Laureate Matthew Graham and the second showcases five Indiana authors who write for children.

First to hit the airwaves will be five interviews with the poets laureate available on the Indiana State Library’s YouTube channel the morning of Sept. 5. When asked what it was like to talk to poets, Sammy said, “Of course I was delighted. I especially liked the fact that so many of them talked about birds. Except Matthew. He talked about James Dean, but that was cool too. James Dean is about as famous as I am, so there’s that.”

Then on Sept. 11, five more videos will be released featuring Indiana authors who write for children including an interview with award-winning Margaret Peterson Haddix. “That was just a dream come true,” Sammy said. “I mean, MPH is legendary in children’s literature. And it was great getting to talk to so many authors about how reading books – all kinds of books – is great for kids!”

When asked what’s next for this busy bird, Sammy said, “Oh, I’m going to be the star of some Escape Rooms that my staff is working on. They’ll be available for Indiana librarians to check out starting sometime in 2024. There’s always something keeping me flying!” Mark your calendars and tune in to catch up with Sammy, authors and the poets laureate of Indiana.

This blog post was submitted by Indiana Young Readers Center librarian Suzanne Walker.

2023 National Book Festival – Indiana’s involvement

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The Library of Congress is once again presenting the National Book Festival, and Indiana is excited to be part of it. The 23nd running of the festival will take place in-person on Aug. 12 at the Washington Convention Center. A selection of programs will be livestreamed, and videos of those presentations can be viewed online after the festival concludes. The theme for this year’s festival is “Everyone Has a Story.”

Indiana is participating in the festival in a variety of ways. The Indiana Center for the Book will staff the Indiana booth in the Roadmap to Reading area of the festival, and two books by Indiana authors are being highlighted at the festival as part of the Great Reads from Great Places initiative. “The Rabbit Hutch” by Tess Gunty is the selection for adult readers and “Grace and Box” by Kim Howard is the selection for youth readers.

The Indiana Center for the Book is partnering with Indiana Humanities to host a program with Tess Gunty in-person on July 17. You are welcome to join Indiana Humanities and the Indiana Authors Awards for a conversation between National Book Award winner Tess Gunty and Indiana author Susan Neville at the Indiana Landmarks Center on Monday, July 17 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern. The event is free but registration is required.

“Grace and Box” won the Indiana Authors Award in the Children’s category in 2022 and was also nominated for the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award in 2022.

In addition to these two authors, Indiana author Chasten Buttigieg will also be at the festival in-person. Buttigieg’s book “I Have Something to Tell You – For Young Adults: A Memoir” is featured in a program guide put together by Indiana Humanities and Indiana Center for the Book. Use the program guide to participate in the festival. Explore the writings of one of the authors. Learn more about the Library of Congress, our national library. Listen to a podcast interview in a group and discuss it afterwards. Above all, enjoy connecting with Hoosier literary heritage.

This blog post was submitted by Indiana Young Readers Center librarian Suzanne Walker.

History Escape Room Kits from the Indiana State Library!

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Attention teachers and youth librarians! There’s a new kit coming from the Indiana State Library created especially with middle and high school students in mind. History Escape Room Kits will be available for teachers and librarians to check out starting in January of 2024.

Escape rooms are a popular way to engage students in learning, problem solving and critical thinking. Students enter a room or a space and are presented with a problem or mystery. They are “locked in” until the mystery is solved. They must scour the room for clues and work together to solve a series of puzzles that involve all manner of skills: map reading, image analysis, math problems, analyzing short passages, searching through newspapers, teamwork, leadership and more. If they succeed in solving the puzzles (usually in a limited amount of time) they can solve the mystery and “escape.”

The Indiana State Library’s History Escape Room Kits are being developed for Indiana’s public libraries and schools. All programs will be steeped in history and based on primary sources available from the Indiana State Library’s collections and the collections of the Library of Congress. The programs will be housed in containers and shipped to libraries and schools using the State Library’s courier network. Possible themes for the kits include: Genealogy with the Iris Baughman Diary, Jazz on Indiana Avenue with Sanborn Maps, Presidents and Vice Presidents of Indiana (including Benjamin Harrison), the Flu Pandemic of 1918 with WWI letters, Famous Political Speeches in Indiana and Indiana Basketball focused on Crispus Attucks High School.

Each History Escape Room kit will align with Social Studies Standards in Indiana for grades 6-12. These standards include map reading, industry in Indiana, primary and secondary sources, and events and movements in the 20th century. Escape rooms could be used by teachers as an engaging activity both during and after school hours. Youth librarians could use them as a pre-planned out-of-the-box program. History Escape Room kits will be designed for up to 16 youth to work on together but could be used by groups as small as four. Teachers could check out two to three copies of the same kit to accommodate larger classroom sizes.

Ease of use is front of mind for these kits. Teachers and librarians should be able to receive a kit, watch a video and get their room set up in 20 minutes or less. All solutions and hints will be included for the lead librarian or teacher, and all kits will be tested with actual teens before release. Interested libraries and schools will be able to reserve kits through KitKeeper, the same service that is used to book Storytime Kits, Book Club Kits, and Lego and Duplo Kits.

Training on using the kits will be available both at the Indiana Library Federation’s Youth Services Division conference held on Aug. 13 in Indianapolis, and at fall trainings held by the Indiana State Library yet to be scheduled.

The Escape Room Kits are sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Midwest Region Program, located at Illinois State University. Content created and featured in partnership with the TPS Midwest Region does not indicate an endorsement by the Library of Congress.

Questions? Reach out to Suzanne Walker, Indiana Young Readers Center librarian.

This blog post was submitted by Indiana Young Readers Center librarian Suzanne Walker.

Visit the Lego Monument this holiday season! It’s free!

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Visitors to the Indiana Young Readers Center located in the Indiana State Library will get a treat this holiday season. For the fourth time since 2018, a 7-foot-tall replica of the Indianapolis Soldiers and Sailors Monument is on display from now until Valentine’s Day, 2023. Startlingly similar to the real monument, the replica is made from Legos, over 75,000 Legos to be precise.

Jeffrey Smythe of Center Grove, Indiana is the artist behind the Lego sculpture. Smythe attended the Herron School of Art and Design and graduated from IUPUI with a degree in interior design. He loves sharing his piece with the Indiana public, especially with field trips who visit the Indiana Young Readers Center.

The initial construction back in 2017-18 lasted 15 months, including three months of planning and sketching. Lego bricks used to create the sculpture, which includes a roughly 6-foot circular base area, were obtained from existing kits, Goodwill stores, auction houses and via online retailers and resellers. The piece was constructed at a 1:48 scale to accommodate Lego minifigures.

Since the initial build, Smythe has tweaked the design and grouped different combinations of characters around the base of the monument to tell different visual stories and provide lots of opportunities for viewers to seek and find.

This year, visitors will be delighted by a Muppet rock concert and a very familiar mystery solving dog. Let’s just say that we Scooby-Dooby-Doo hope you bring your families to visit the monument. “It’s one of my very favorite parts about working downtown in December,” said Indiana Young Readers Center librarian, Suzanne Walker. “The Lego Monument is beautiful, quirky and so very ‘Indiana.’”

The Indiana Young Readers Center is free and open to the public Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. The library is located at 315 W. Ohio St. in downtown Indianapolis. Visitors can also view the monument on select Saturdays; Dec. 10, 2022, Jan. 14, 2023 and Feb. 11, 2023 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. If you have questions about viewing the Lego Monument, reach out to Suzanne Walker, Indiana Young Readers Center librarian.

This blog post was submitted by Indiana Young Readers Center librarian Suzanne Walker.

Indiana Letters About Literature writing contest for grades 4-12

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The Indiana Letters About Literature writing contest is now open! Students in grades four through 12 are invited to write a letter to an author, living or deceased, whose one work has made a difference in how the student sees themselves or the world. Indiana students can write about works of literature including fiction, nonfiction, short stories, poems, essays or speeches, including TED Talks.

Last year over a thousand letters were submitted to the contest. Students wrote about many books, including “Wonder” by R. J. Palacio, “The Lightning Thief” by Rick Riordan and “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. Students once again explored weighty issues including identity, neurodiversity, anxiety (we received a lot of letters about anxiety), racism and police violence. Letters are not actually delivered to the authors, but for the past ten years about 100 letters are selected for inclusion in an annual anthology.

First, second and third place winners are selected from amongst the top 100 letters in three levels: grades 4-6, grades 7-8, and grades 9-12. In addition, a special award is given to the top letter written to an Indiana author.

The top letters from the 2021-22 contest are as follows:

Callum Green, New Palestine, was the first-place winner from Level One. He wrote a letter to Alan Gratz, author of the bestselling novel for children, “Grenade.” This is a selection from his letter:

“I really should blame this whole thing on my great-grandfather. I mean, the reason I got interested in WWII was to know more about his past. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was captured. He is still alive today, at 98 years old. I would always listen to his stories and not fully understand them until one day I decided I would learn about this major conflict … Due to my interest in the topic, I immediately got hooked on your writing. Your style of writing and the perspectives makes me feel like I am actually in the setting of your books.”

Naomi Cohen, Indianapolis, was the first-place winner from Level Two. She wrote a letter to Sara Leicht-Weinstein, author of the novel, “The Power of Hatred, the Strength of Love.” This is a selection from her letter:

“From the very first page to the last … tears began to sting my face as I envisioned a girl my age stepping off a filthy cattle car into the gates of hell – Auschwitz. I began to question the world and people around me. What causes people to hate so deeply? Why do people find it so difficult to put their differences aside? Which is more powerful – love or hate?”

Loralee DeYoung, Dyer, was the first-place winner from Level Three. She wrote a letter to Markus Zusak, author of the novel, “The Book Thief.” This is a selection from his letter.

“As I read the first few pages … it became clear that this novel was not like the ones I had read before. Confusion grew, then shock. Not only is the strange narrator the embodiment of Death, but he unceremoniously visits Liesel’s younger brother. The character Death was desperately foreign to me; there had not even been a single warning in advance. As I journeyed farther into the story, the kind of story I was reading grew increasingly clear. There was never going to be a happy ending, and a lot of people were going to end up hurt or dead.”

BethAnn Fairchild, Madison, won the Indiana Author Letter Prize for the top letter written to an Indiana Author. She wrote a letter to Gene Stratton-Porter, Indiana author of “Laddie, Freckles, and A Girl of the Limberlost.” This is a selection from her letter:

“Gene Stratton-Porter, thank you so much for painting elaborate pictures of the creation you love. It makes me able to experience what you experienced when you were young. And I have gained so many lessons from my friendships with your characters. The world has changed a lot but because of your books, everyone can encounter the beauty of the Limberlost.”

The deadline to enter the 2022-23 contest is Jan. 9, 2023. Details, entry forms and official rules for the contest can be found on the Letters About Literature website.

Get your students excited to enter the contest by sharing this video with them:

This blog post was submitted by Indiana Young Readers Center librarian Suzanne Walker.