Tag Archives: firefly

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.

Firefly season – Voting, summer reading challenges, nominating and more!

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Children’s librarians across the state of Indiana know May as Firefly voting season. For the past five years, May has been the month that libraries have showcased the five nominated picture books through programs, displays and outreach, leading up to inviting their youngest patrons, ages 0-5 to vote on their favorite book to win the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award. Like most things in 2020, this year the voting season for the Firefly Award will be different.

Voting for the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award has been extended until July 31
Libraries now have the opportunity to offer the Firefly program virtually and as a part of their summer reading programs. Libraries are welcome to showcase the Firefly program in whatever way they choose using the following resources:

Virtual Viewing: Patrons can view all five books through recorded videos available on the Indiana State Library’s Firefly website. The videos will be available until July 31, at which time they will be taken down.

Virtual Voting: After patrons have viewed the books, either in person, or through the recorded videos, they are welcome to use the online voting form to record the votes of any members of their household ages 0-5. An effort should be made to limit votes to one vote per child.

Program Guide: Every year the award committee collects craft ideas, activities, songs and rhymes to support each book. These are perfect for patrons to do while at home or for children’s librarians to use in virtual storytimes. The 2020 Program Guide is available for download here.

Libraries and childcare providers may collect votes in any manner of ways. They can encourage their customers to use the online form or they can collect votes themselves and email their tallies to Suzanne Walker at the Indiana State Library. Tallies will be accepted until July 31. If libraries choose to collect votes themselves they might do this through hands raised during a virtual storytime, phone calls, email or even snail mail.

In addition, libraries are encouraged to offer Firefly voting directly through their summer reading programs, either as a challenge in their online reading platform like Beanstack or READsquared, or as simply a task that patrons can complete for a prize or incentive. This is the first year that the Firefly deadline has been extended to coincide with summer reading. It is a great opportunity to engage the public in these quality picture books while at the same time providing virtual content for summer reading.

How to add the Firefly Award to your Beanstack Summer Reading Program
The Indiana State Library recognizes that Beanstack is just one option for tracking summer reading participation online. We offer these directions as a guide and perhaps as inspiration for any library who is using Beanstack or any other online summer reading platform. These directions are being included as a courtesy and should not be considered to be an endorsement of Beanstack or any other summer reading tool.

Creating a Beanstack Learning Track to feature the Firefly Award is a great way to get your young readers connected to this fantastic program! You’ll need a title, a description which you can copy from the Firefly Award website, badge details, patron details – where you can set age limitations for our 0-5 year old customers – and then you’ll add the activities. Each book can be a separate activity with a link URL to the video. The sixth activity of your learning track will be the link to the voting site. Beanstack has some helpful tools for learning how to build your program. Learning tracks are covered here.

For a step-by-step guide to adding the Firefly Award to your Beanstack Summer Reading Program download the Firefly Beanstack Activity Badge put together by the North Manchester Public Library. Alternatively, you could offer the Firefly as its own program. Directions for that are here.

New Facebook Group
The Firefly Award Committee has started a new Facebook group for any librarian or childcare provider who works with the Firefly Award. The purpose of the group is to share ideas and inspirations and to generally support each other and the book award. You can find the group by searching for “Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award.” Once you have located the group, click Join Group to request to join.

Nominating Titles for 2021
This summer, not only do we want you to keep the votes coming, we are also starting to collect nominations for the 2021 Firefly season. Nominations will be accepted from June 1-Oct. 1, 2020. We recognize that it may be difficult for libraries to access new picture books this year due to budget constraints. We encourage librarians who can to go ahead and nominate several titles.

If you work with youth in a library, either in a school or in a public library, you are eligible to nominate as many titles as you wish. Nominating is easy. Just send an email to Suzanne Walker. Include in your email: title, author, illustrator and publication date.

Criteria for book nominations are as follows:

  • Must be published by July 1 of the current year, or any time in the previous year and still be in print. Currently, this ranges from Jan. 1, 2019 to July 1, 2020.
  • Possess strong child appeal.
  • Demonstrate three or more of the five practices of Every Child Ready to Read®: talking, singing, reading, writing and playing.
  • Have artistic quality with text that supports the illustrations or a compelling narrative provided by illustrations.
  • Diversity and inclusion are encouraged.

The nomination pool will be narrowed down to five titles by the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Committee by January 2021. More information on ballots and how to vote will be available in early 2021.

Watch for Fireflies
Finally, we are entering the outdoor evening firefly season in Indiana. According to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, the Say’s firefly is one of the earliest emerging fireflies in Indiana and may be seen from early May through mid-July. What better tie in for the Firefly Award program than actual fireflies?

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

2018 Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award winner announced

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Indiana Center for the Book Director Suzanne Walker has announced author Mac Barnett and illustrator Brian Biggs as the 2018 Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award winners for their book “Noisy Night.”

“I write for kids because I believe children are the most thoughtful, adventurous, intelligent readers there are. And so I’m particularly honored that our book has won the Firefly, an award bestowed by kids themselves,” Barnett said.

The Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award is an initiative of the Indiana Center for the Book to promote early childhood literacy in Indiana. The state award committee is made up of professionals in Indiana, including librarians, caregivers and project coordinators; all of whom are involved in early childhood development. The committee chooses five books each year for children ages zero to five to vote on with help from an adult.

Runners-up include “Hooray for Birds!” by Lucy Cousins, “Blocks” by Irene Dickson, “Spunky Little Monkey” by Bill Martin Jr. and Michael Sampson and “Everybunny Dance!” by Ellie Sandall.

“The coolest thing about this award is that it is voted on by Hoosier children,” Walker said. “It is really fun to see the young children try to decide which book out of five is their favorite.”

“I was fascinated to see how many votes ‘Noisy Night’ received at my library,” said Cathy Butcher, a librarian in Flora, Indiana. “We don’t have any apartment buildings in our little rural town, but this book really held the interest of our preschoolers.”

This is the fourth year of the Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award. This year, 54 Indiana counties submitted votes for the award and over 5,000 children, ages zero to five, voted. Votes were collected at public libraries as well as at daycares.

The nominated books are chosen for their ability to encourage parents and children to use the Every Child Ready to Read® practices of talking, singing, reading, writing and playing together. Caregivers can use the Firefly books as a quality go-to resource for having fun and learning with their young children.

Submitted by Suzanne Walker, Indiana Young Readers Center librarian at the Indiana State Library and director of the Indiana Center for the Book.