Be warned, we are NOT going to link you to all the great sites mentioned in this article because you can just go to Librarian Chick and link to whatever you want. We'd like you to see all the options, not just those we mention here.

What's Available at Librarian Chick? A few samples...

Books and Audio Books:

The list is just about endless. So let's investigate just a few of the Librarian's book links. 

If you are looking for classic books in audio format, try FreeClassicAudioBook.com, where you'll find three pages of great books like H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, Jack London's White Fang, and Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days in MP3 and MP4 format. If you'd rather listen to human narrations of your books, not text-to-speech, on this site you can order a DVD of 200 classic audio books for less than $10.

Maybe you are doing a report on Marco Polo? At Bookyards.com, you can download a free PDF copy of books about his travels. Or if you don't want to download the books, you can find information about him, photos and link to other sources just below the book download area.

Or how about getting information on thinking like a scientist or like a programmer? There are free PDF books on these topics as well as on mathematics and loads of other subjects.

Social Networking

At gnooks, a social network all about literature, you can find books, movies, and music you like and take part in discussions about your favorites-or maybe a discussion about an assignment. Let's say your assignment is on J.K. Rowling. You can choose to take part in a discussion about the author. There's a Literature Map that lets you pick a name of an author and then join a discussion about that author and his books.  A few of the names on the map, for example, are: Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte Bronte, and Dan Brown.

Keep in mind that if you go to a Social Networking site, even an educational/informational one, you cannot always be sure of the content or discussions you'll encounter. Tread with care on any social network and be sure you have your teacher's and/or your parents' permission to use social networking sites.

Culture, Music, and the Arts

At Librarian Chick there are links to information on computers and technology, including animation guidelines, PC Tips, programming cheat sheets, how-tos, programming eBooks, and more.

If you are interested in art or doing art-related reports, you might try Art on the Web, which includes a list of art topics such as image collections, resource guides, architecture, film, photography, art in different centuries, sculpture, museums-you name it.  Then there's OnlyPencil Tutorials, a blog that can help you with your pencil sketches.

Beside the art links, you'll find ways to find royalty-free music, sheet music, music lessons, song trivia, and music theory.

Note: if you want to download Royalty-free Music, you may have to get your parents or teacher to go through the application process for you. The music, however, will be a great resource for you to use in your school or personal projects, for you won't have to worry about copyright.

What is a graph?

You've probably seen graphs in the newspapers, in magazines and in your textbooks. They are a great way to give people information without writing it out in a paragraph. For instance, you could write a paragraph telling about how tall you and your friends are, or you could make a graph to show the same information. There are all kinds of graphs-some of them look like bars going across or up and down on a piece of paper, some look like lines moving across a box, and some look like multi-colored pies.

Have you ever made a graph?

Maybe your teacher gave you a worksheet with a graph you had to fill in, or maybe you had to make one from scratch.

Let's say your teacher wants you to do a graph about types of pets. She asked everyone in the class about their pets, and this is what she discovered:

7 kids had dogs
6 kids had cats
4 kids had goldfish
2 kids had birds
3 kids had hamsters

So what can you do with this information to make it into a graph?

Take a piece of paper and put a line along the bottom of it. Math and science people call this the X-axis.  Write the names of the animals along the line.

Dogs              Cats                 Goldfish                Birds                Hamsters             

Next you'll make what is called the Y-axis. It's a straight line like the X axis, but it is up and down or vertical, not sideways or horizontal like the X-axis. Put numbers on the Y axis just like this:

Now you are ready to show how many animals your class has. Use bars or rectangles to show the numbers of dogs, cats, goldfish, birds, and hamsters. You can color the bars different colors like we did.

Look at your graph, and you'll see how many of each kind of animal the kids in your class have.

Making Graphs on a Computer

This is the kind of graph you can draw on your own on paper or use the computer to help you. We made our graph using word processing software. You can also make a graph with a paint program such as Kid Pix, but it's lots easier to make really neat graphs with software that's meant to help you make graphs.

With graphing software, such as Graph Club2 you can create all kinds of graphs in no time. If you using Graph Club2, for example, to make the same graph we did about animals, you can press your mouse button and add a dog at a time until you get to seven dogs, and you can use icons or drawings that look like dogs on your graph. Instead of the yellow bar we made for the dogs, you could have seven dogs. Instead of the red bar, you could have six cats. You get the idea. It sure would make your graph more interesting.

With graphing software, you can also change your graph into different forms. You've seen graphs that look like pies. With the animal graph, you'd have a pie filled with pieces that show how many dogs, cats, goldfish, birds, and hamsters you and your classmates have.

If you'd like to learn more about graphing software ask your parents if it is okay to learn about Graph Club2 online. Go to the Tom Snyder site and click on the Product Tour. It's really neat and shows you lots. The tour will take you about five minutes, and it will show you all the fun graphs you can create.

Graph Club2 is meant for students in Grades K-4, but if you or your parents are interested in graphing software that is designed for Grades 4 Up, you'll want to take a look at a program called InspireData. You can take a Quick Tour of the software or download a 30-day free trial version.

Of course, you don't have to have graphing software to make graphs, but it will make it easier for you to create some very interesting graphs. You may be a really good artist and like to make your own graphs. Then you'll probably just love making them by hand.

No matter whether you make your graphs by hand or on the computer, you'll find that graphs are a great way to show information. Think of how many things you can show with a graph: what the kids in your class eat for lunch, the population of the different towns in your state, and who wants to be what when they grow up, what sports people like, what kids have birthdays in what months-you'll think of lots of ideas.

Information for Your Parents

Graph Club 2
Tom Snyder Productions
http://www.tomsnyder.com/graphclub
Mac and PC
Approximately $80
45-day free trial

InspireData
Inspiration
http://www.inspiration.com
Mac and PC
Approximately $70 with rebate
30-day free trial

Create A Graph
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph
Free graphing software from the Center for Education Statistics