Tag Archives: graphic novels

Books, Check it Out:, Guest Blogger

Fieldstone and St. Michael Elementary CMLE Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Kristina Kampa, Media Specialist at Fieldstone Elementary and St. Michael Elementary.

I have seen this grant application before, but never thought to apply. My thoughts were it would be too much work since I have never applied for a grant before, I don’t have time, I would never get it, the list goes on. 

I saw the information in the CMLE Newsletter this fall and I figured I would apply this year because we were not given any funds to purchase books other than the money we raised from our book fairs.

So this was the year I was going to sit down and fill this application out for the two elementary media centers I work in. The Google Form for the grant was very simple to fill out.  When I received the email back saying that both of my schools I work in were awarded the grant, I was beyond excited.

I work at two different elementary schools in my district and they both have areas in the collection that need updating, but funds have kept the updating limited. 

I started weeding the non fiction section in one of my schools last year, but realized I couldn’t weed all of the books my report suggested because I didn’t have funds to order new ones.

Our sports team section was in desperate need of more current updated books and I was able to purchase a whole new collection of football books from this grant. I was also able to purchase a few new graphic novels as well which we never can keep on the shelves! 

My other school desperately needed updated picture books for the students and teachers to have for read alouds. With this grant, I was able to place an order for over 50 new picture books. 

The students have been eagerly waiting for these books to arrive and to read them. I am very thankful for this grant and how it allowed me to purchase new and current books for my students and staff at both schools. Thank you CMLE for helping me update our collections this year! 

Guest Blogger, School Media Specialist, Tech

Steve Kline at South Jr. High Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Steve Kline, Media Specialist at South Junior High School. Read more about our Extended Mini Grant Program.

Covid has impacted our students in many ways. Many opportunities and resources have been taken from or denied them in the past few years. The CMLE grant gave South Jr. High an excellent opportunity to leverage our District 742 1:1 program (in our case, Chromebooks) and gave students access to a wonderful resource, a subscription to the Comics Plus tool from Mackin.

Using their Chromebooks and the subscription purchased with the CMLE grant dollars, students now have unlimited, simultaneous access to thousands of graphic novels, manga, and comics all vetted and appropriate to their age level.

Distance learning substantially changed and impacted the way libraries operated and continues to influence how we work with and are being asked to serve our patrons. Whatever your opinion on digital resources is and the value they have, the need to build and provide access to digital libraries became more immediately pressing and happened on a much grander scale because of the immediate need distance learning created.

Digital libraries gave us the opportunity to provide resources to students remotely via their 1:1 device. Unfortunately, developing and maintaining a digital collection is expensive. Comics Plus allows us to provide high interest materials to students in a one-stop solution. Kids are excited when they see what is available to them. Better yet, they don’t have to wait until material or resources is returned – they can check out any resource in the collection at any time.

So, I want to thank CMLE for their mini-grant program. The grant allows us to fund our subscription to Comics Plus for another year. That is another year students will be able to access new and different resources that our library would not be able to purchase or provide. Thank you from the staff and students at South Jr. High in St. Cloud.

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Best Books 2013: Graphic Novels

Tis the season-for lists! Over the next month, CMLE will highlight the “best of” 2013 books.

Image by sirexkat. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons' licensing.
Image by sirexkat. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons’ licensing.

This week, we would like to share the Library Journal’s list of top picks for graphic novels, published in 2013.  Graphic novels are a continuation of the popular superhero comics from the 1940’s and 50’s. According to Internet Public Library 2 (IPL2), one of the first novels recognized in this genre was, A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories, published in 1978 by Will Eisner.

Packed full of dynamic illustrations, with minimal text, these quick reads are also resources for librarians/media specialists to engage reluctant readers. Additional information about graphic novels can be found online at http://tinyurl.com/6q6rjca.

Tip: A free webinar on graphic novels will be held on December 13th. Click here to learn more.