Summer Weeding - Nonfiction 100s

The 100s shelf includes philosophy, psychology, paranormal, and ethics. These are not exactly hot topics for the K-5 set, which probably explains the low circulation and dated collection I found here.

Our school used to go through 8th grade and some of these titles are definitely more appropriate for older students.  There are a lot of easy weeding decisions here.

My favorite books from this section were easy to pick.  What a nice pairing People and Feelings would make to open a discussion on how to get along with all the different kinds of people we meet in this world.  Both should appeal to students interest in books full of detailed pictures.  Plus, there are so many perspectives to explore. 

I also enjoyed The Earth is Sore: Native Americans on Nature.  It has history, environmentalism, philosophy, culture, and poetry all in one place. For example: 

True Civilization

The man who sat on the ground in his

tipi, thinking of life and its meaning,

accepting the kinship of all creatures

and knowing unity with all things, was

drawing into his being the true heart

of civilization.

Each entry, such as the one above, includes a brief historical background information about who, when, and where the passage derives. I think 6th graders are ready to consider some of these themes.

Since this section is so woefully outdated, I do need to update it when funding allows.  Students love the ghost stories that are found in this section, and would absolutely read as many more as I could add.  Other book series I would like to add to this section:

10 Things You Need to Know:                   Friendship Quizzes

 

Mysteries of Science                          Really Scary Stuff

                        

And, several individual books like these dealing with ethical issues on a K-5 level.  I have plenty of books discussing the qualities of caring, honesty, responsibility, fairness, etc..  What I need are books that have them looking at these issues using real life examples.