Tuesday, May 17, 2016

We were awarded a grant for many new Audiobooks!

Well, it’s no secret that reading improves people’s minds, but have you heard the about the studies proving that reading actually improves people’s lives as well?
Studies show that people who read are more likely to vote,exercise and be more cultural.  Reading literary fiction has been proven to enhance a person’s empathy and ability to understand others. Reading improves your memory and wards off Alzheimer’s disease, improves one’s writing abilities, and is more impacting on children’s cognitive development than their parents’ level of education.
And most people know that listening to audiobooks is quite fun and entertaining. Many folks are aware of audiobooks being used in schools as an aid for struggling readers or kids with differing learning styles. Audiobooks allow the listener to retain their visualization skills without the task of “decoding” the words on the page and losing the meaning. HOWEVER! Recent studies (and trend) indicate that listening to an audiobook can be a helpful way for anyone to access and enjoy the powerful benefits of reading books. New research shows that reading and listening are strikingly similar cognitive processes, proving that the benefits of reading can be transferred to listening to books. Additionally, audiobooks enable a child to listen to books above his or her current reading level, providing a cognitive bridge to more advanced ideas and thinking.

So… SHABAM, right?

I bring all this up as a way to introduce the very exciting bit of news that your very own public librarians have really got your back. Our audiobook collection for kids and teens has been woefully understocked, and we decided it was high time to do something about it. In order to keep our book collection vital and up-to-date, the budget for our collection is used primarily for books, with less opportunity to add to our audiobook collection as they are significantly more expensive and would dramatically eat into our book budget. Which is why we decided to ask good old Ben and Jerry for some help! We wrote and were awarded a grant from the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation for $750 to spend exclusively on audiobooks for the kid’s and teen’s collection!  We were able to purchase 34 new books on cd, all of which are ready and waiting to be checked out at Johnson Public Library. (Full list is forthcoming)

And with this fabulous influx of audiobooks to the collection, we truly feel it will be possible  to keep the audiobooks rolling in (1 or 2 a month) in order to continue to build the collection at a doable rate.

And now for the list:

Children’s and Middle Grade Titles:
The entire series of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” by Rick Riordan
“The City of Ember” by Jeanne DuPrau
Product Details
“The Doldrums” by Nicholas Gannon
Product Details
“The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate” by Jacqueline Kelly
Product Details



“Fish in a Tree” by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41jSi7C+UcL._AC_US160_.jpg
“Frog and Toad Collection” by Arnold Loebel
Product Details
All the remaining Harry Potter books in the collection
Product Details
“The Amber Spyglass: His Dark Materials” (Book lll in the Golden Compass trilogy) by Philip Pullman
Product Details
“Inkheart” by Cornelia Funke
Product Details

“Little Bear” by Else Holmelund Minarick
Product Details
“Mary Poppins” by PL Travers
Product Details
“The One and Only Ivan” by Katherine Applegate
Product Details
“The One and Only Shrek Plus 5 Other Stories” by William Steig
Product Details
“Pax” by Sara Pennypacker
Product Details
“Peter Pan” by James Mathew Barrie
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51uhlKKJihL._AC_US160_.jpg

“Pippi Longstockings” by Astrid Lindgren
Product Details


YA Titles:
All three books in the “Divergent” trilogy by Veronica Roth
Divergent (Divergent Series)Insurgent (Divergent Series)Allegiant (Divergent Series)
“Bone Gap” by Laura Ruby
Product Details


“I’ll Give you the Sun” by Jandy Nelson
“The Maze Runner” by James Dashner
Product Details
“Paper Towns” by John Green
Product Details
“Walk the Earth a Stranger” by Rae Carson
Product Details
“If I Stay” by Gayle Forman
Product Details




“The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman
Product Details
“An Ember in the Ashes” by Sabaa Tahir
Product Details
“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak
Product Details

No comments:

Post a Comment