Overview
The Odyssey Library/bookroom is named in memory of Angela Aspromonte who at 75 began reading with a second grade student as a reading volunteer. Seven years later they were still a team, but now he was a competent experienced reader who read science fiction novels to her while she listened.
The Angela Aspromonte Bookroom at Odyssey has no affiliation with Denver Public Schools. The Odyssey library began as a parent initiative 12 years into the schools existence. In the first year, about a dozen parents spent fifteen hours a week entering 15,000 books into Surpass , our library data base.
Our library is not coordinated by an Odyssey staff member, but contracted to Partners in Literacy, a nonprofit dedicated to the creation of a community of readers in schools. Our library has one purpose: to encourage Odyssey students and their families to read. Parents, grandparents, volunteers and siblings can have library cards and check out books. Except kindergarten and first grade, all classroom books are also entered into Surpass. Therefore these books may also be checked out. With parents continued help, we now have over 25,000 books entered into the data base. Our collection is about three times the size of most other schools of the same size.
The Odyssey Bookroom is open during school hours, before and after school. Students and their families can come and go throughout the day. Independent check out is always available for students with no overdue books. Although there are specific reading volunteer times throughout the week, there is no specific library period for each classroom. It takes a few trips to the library for our youngest students to learn the self-checkout system, but once they do they are independent users of the library.
Meticulous Curation
The Odyssey library is characterized by meticulous curation. We constantly are searching for books that are the perfect fit for each unique child. Our series are intact. We guard our classics as well as we are waiting holding our breaths for new books due soon to come out.
The Odyssey Library is Organized in areas that match with K/1, 2/3/4, 4/5/6, 6/7/8 and adult.
In most DPS elementary school libraries, the greatest number of books are non-fiction picture books. Although, Odyssey has a large number of these books, we allow the internet to do the heavy lifting of informational texts for the middle grades.
In the Angela Aspromonte Bookroom, our informational texts are primarily picture books and leveled readers for grades kindergarten through fourth grade. These books are organized much like they would be in a good elementary classroom in bins by level and subject. No books are ordered by the Dewey Decimal system. Older students can find nonfiction narratives such a biographies, memoirs or histories shelved by content.
We excel in our collection of fictional titles.
Early readers with controlled vocabulary, great illustrations and scant texts are powerful resources for the kindergarten first or second grade student. We honor all children by having a high percentage of our texts have characters who come from diverse backgrounds. These books are shelved into grade level both by reading level and developmental level.
Poetry, sports, short stories, mysteries, classics, animals, mythology and readers theater are broken out from the other fiction in two levels. There is a k-4 level and a 4-8 level of each category. Historical fiction provides a fantastic bridge between fiction and non-fiction. We shelve ours by date.
Just for fun
We have a healthy collection of these much these loved books: flip, pop up, wordless, rebus, puzzles, Spanish, illustrated chapter, comic books, puzzle, mazes, how-to and graphic novels.
RUSH HOUR, the math logic game made by THINKFUN, is a tremendous hit with kids from first to eight grade.