Who Is It?

Using the clues below, can you figure out who this person is?

1. His father worked in a brewery , but during prohibition, his father lost his job and began working in a zoo.


2. He was a wild college student at Dartmouth and edited the Jack-o-Lantern.


3. In the 1930's, he wrote for Life and Vanity Fair.


4. During WWII, he published a series of war posters for the United States.


5. Later in his life, he published fanciful children's books.

Who am I?

Books written by this famous author are available in a collection on the 4th floor of Steen library. This collection of children's books is called the Curriculum Collection. Librarians at SFA renamed the children's collection years ago because the books and textbooks from this collection are frequently by education majors when creating lesson plans. The books in the Curriculum Collection have the letters CURR appended to the front of their call numbers. Often students see this and assume it means something like current fiction. This is an easy mistake to make, but the library tradition of Curriculum Collection continues.Other info on book labels for the Curriculum Collection might include J or JR. Usually this means the book is geared for students in the 3rd grade up to the 12th grade. Another label might have an E which indicates that the book is an easy book for students from Pre-k to 3rd grade.

Visit the Curriculum Collection today and remember those times when you were younger and read and reread a favorite book, or pick out a book to read to your own children and start them down the path of loving and reading books.

	Marthea Turnage mturnage@sfasu.edu rm. 202c 936.468.1896 Subjects - Accounting, Criminal Justice, Economics and Finance, General Business, Law, Management/Marketing/International Business, Nursing, Psychology

Guess Who Is to Blame for Punctuation Marks .!:;,"??. . .

Having a hard time with those commas or semicolons? Does punctuation, and that red (or purple) ink on your papers, give you a headache?

The authors of On the Dot: the Speck That Changed the World (Humez, 2008) lay the blame squarely on an ancient Greek named Aristophanes of Byzantium. He was the librarian at the Museum of Alexandria in Egypt. So, go ahead and blame a librarian, but not this librarian! They write that he is generally credited with devising the first system of punctuation in the Western world. Aristophanes “. . . created a system of three dots (low, middle, and high) to address a problem of vital interest to the readers of his day: how to tell where (and for how long) to pause and take a breath while reading out loud.” (Humez 2008, x-xi).

Apart from all those breathless Greeks and Egyptians, the authors caution not to judge Aristophanes too harshly for his "invention." Kathryn Lasky explains in her childrens’ picture book, The Librarian Who Measured the Earth, “Before this, one word ran into another with no spaces between them. There were no question marks, periods, or exclamation points either. Reading was hard!”

just imagine trying to read the following without punctuation marks it would be pretty difficult how about typing a web address what a jumble the comics wouldnt be half as much fun either if characters couldnt react with !**!#?*!! as they often do and you all know what that stands for or so Ive heard texting would be tough carol said forget about database searching it doesnt work well without punctuation marks

Whether you think of the librarian Aristophanes as a problem solver, or a problem maker, he was a librarian who changed the world forever with, three... little.. dots.

Carol Scamman cscamman@sfasu.edu rm. 202e 936.468.1710 Subjects - Art, English, Modern Languages, Social Work, Sociology, Theatre

Kid's Reading Levels

Did you ever wonder if a book would be appropriate for your child, or the class you are teaching? There is a way to find out. It is a tool that we have recently discovered called Scholastic Book Wizard http://bookwizard.scholastic.com/tbw/homePage.do

If you put the title of a book in the Scholastic Book Wizard you will find the recommended grade level equivalent or interest level for that book. If you put in an author's name, the site will list the author's works that are available, along with the grade level equivalent, interest level, and whether or not it has a Scholastic Reading Counts! Quiz or an Accelerated Reader Quiz. Click on the book's title and you get even more more information about the book. If you are looking to build your collection of childrens' books this site will be an invaluable help. Student Activities and Teaching Resources tabs are also available and allow you to use the site when developing lesson plans.

Check it out!

Tina Oswald toswald@sfasu.edu rm. 202f 936.468.1861 Subjects - Elementary Education, and Secondary Education/Educational Leadership