Just like that

Our OverDrive ebook site made it very easy to accommodate a student request for an audio version of Around the World in 80 Days, his current classroom reading assignment. I was able to locate an inexpensive 48-month "lease" version which was available for download within the hour. Cool beans.

#hashtag

Made some bookmarks/shelfmarkers with #hashtags. Will give it a go.

Snow trek

So I'm closing in on the climax of Dan Simmons's arctic novel, The Terror. I am sharing the exhaustion, hunger, and perseverance of their four year ordeal for survival against the elements and "terror" of that desperate world; in the pit of our own January, no less.

It was with some relief that I stumbled an article in WIRED magazine about an upcoming Antarctic expedition featuring a nifty 3D built and solar powered vehicle, the Solar Voyager. Plus, I like the one of their text subtitles:

Test. Fail. Learn.

Getting the Word Out

Took an "on location" photo of some new arrivals to add to my grade 7-12 email.

Then made a library foyer display using the "new shipment" boxes.

What's new at ACSLIB

Have our Recent Arrivals queued up on the foyer flat screen..along with a teaser of ebooks and audiobooks! Plus, I emailed a video of the slideshow to students and staff.

Plus, placed my first order for OverDrive ebooks and audiobooks; using some of my $1000 prize credit:

Piece by piece

Our puzzlers have completed the 1000-piece puzzle that is now the centerpiece of our book display.

The reading-making connection

After seven great days of sustained reading in the library, these 7th graders are beginning their interpretive projects about their novels. The ACSLIB has been steaming laboratory of creativity and problems-solving!

Soaking it up

I admit it. It has been a long time since this library has had a roomful of students reading, enjoying it, and going at it for a sustained 40 minutes; let alone for days on end.

Seventh grade science students "finished" their year's agenda ahead of schedule, so their teacher is having them read for the remaining 10 days; novels focused on or loosely related to science. I racked up 50 books, set them out on the floor, and they are on it.

Kinda speechless about the whole thing.

Pound away all year working to utz teachers into the library, then boom - "Is it OK if I bring my two classes to the library each day for the rest of the year to read?"

Feel like Ulysses' dog when the guy finally shows up in Ithaca.

Load Up

Working on the roll-out of a first-time ACSLIB Summer Reading Program: LoadUp page & video I emailed to HS students.

Looking ahead to Summer

And I was wondering where to start on assembling my Summer Reading list. Thank for the nudge JM! #thegreatamericanread

“THE GREAT AMERICAN READ is an eight-part series that explores and celebrates the power of reading, told through the prism of America’s 100 best-loved novels (as chosen in a national survey).  It investigates how and why writers create their fictional worlds, how we as readers are affected by these stories, and what these 100 different books have to say about our diverse nation and our shared human experience.  The television series features entertaining and informative documentary segments, with compelling testimonials from celebrities, authors, notable Americans and book lovers across the country. It is comprised of a two-hour launch episode in which the list of 100 books is revealed, five one-hour theme episodes that examine concepts common to groups of books on the list, and a finale, in which the results are announced of a nationwide vote to choose America’s best-loved book.  The series is the centerpiece of an ambitious multi-platform digital, educational and community outreach campaign, designed to get the country reading and passionately talking about books.”

Responses

Have got my proof of a chapbook done of our ELA week at the end of April. These are creative journal and diary "responses" to poems that high school ELA students have read. I made TinyUrl links to the original poems.

Here's the "how-to" on the chapbook process that I used:

Author Art for ELA Week

A New South Wales connection

Had a great start to my day! An ACS colleague now living and teaching in Australia emailed me to COLLABORATE on a task, "New South Wales is implementing a new English syllabus. One of the main concepts is "Reading to Write", and how we need to introduce various texts on writing and styles of writing.  I immediately thought I would pick your brain as to some different books you might be able to suggest about authors and the craft of writing."

Cool. Collaborating at day-away to the southern hemisphere. 

BTW, I reponded with:

Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau. It's a classic from the 1940s. Queneau tells the same short anecdote in 99 different writing styles! I think it would be very accessible for students.

And The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner. Both of these are from my days working at Broome College. Gardner, of course, was the revered guru of teaching writing at Binghamton University.

Verse recommendations

Holiday Display

Back stories

Many books have intriguing back covers with images and passages that might do as good a job of cultivating interest as the cover. At least that's what I'm giving a go.

Take me home

Displaying my "Take Me Home" withdrawn books on a 4'x8' canvas during our HS art exhibit in the library.

Old story that does not grow old

Some great & varied takes on the ultimate oldie-but-goodie; inspired by this month's DIG magazine.

Summer reads

I had a diverse-reading Summer; some old and new, fiction and nonfiction, re-reads and hand-me-downs. I hope to write up some book talks on a few of them, especially A People's History of the United States.

Opening Day 2017

It is always a gas to welcome back students on the first day of school. It's still amazing how much they grow and evolve over a few months! I'm hurrying to get at least some of our dazzling new books and makerspace kits on the shelf by the end of the day. Also made my opening bulletin board display about fishing (my recreational rebirth this Summer) and our own Bumps Creek natural world (supplemented my posters with the careers posters I salvaged from last May's Career Day).