Today, almost all of the 3/4 classes gathered in the library to meet Ann Hood, author of The Treasure Chest series.
Ms. Hood was a very engaging speaker who got the students excited about the historical fiction genre. Best of all, she was able to share how she got the idea for her series when she was a kid herself! She showed pictures of the books that inspired her, and even asked Lyman students for more ideas!
To read more about Ms. Hood and The Treasure Chest series, visit her publisher's website.

While the 3rd/4th grade learn about Native American culture in their classrooms, in the library they spent this week learning about how to use folktales and fairy tales to find out more about cultural values.

We talked about the familiar fairy tale, Cinderella, collected and written down by Charles Perrault over 300 years ago in France. Afterwards, we read the Algonquin folk tale, The Rough-Face Girl by Rafe Martin.

Using a Venn diagram to illustrate the similarities and differences in the stories, students learned more about the cultural values described in each story. For example, while Europeans valued royalty, the Algonquins valued nature and the intangible. Several students pointed out how fire was important to both stories, so much so that the protagonist in each was nicknamed for her role in keeping the family fire.

It is interesting to point out that there are Cinderella stories from all over the world, several of which we have in the library. You can search for them in the Lyman library through our online catalog, or