What's a Wiki? Watch this video, Wikis in Plain English

We want YOU to help create this site with topics of interest to you concerning information, books, and library services

Add a column or row to the table to add another topic.

Here are some categories to get you started thinking about how to make our library the best it can be:

Week of :

March 17, 2008

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian (Author)
From Publishers Weekly
Readers will be startled to learn early on that the heroine of this engrossing puzzle, 26-year-old Laurel Estabrook, was born in West Egg. Wait a minute, wasn't West Egg where Jay Gatsby lived? Laurel works in a Burlington, Vt., homeless shelter and is trying to overcome mental and physical scars incurred from a brutal assault some six years earlier. After being given a portfolio of photographs taken by a recently deceased resident of the shelter, Bobbie Crocker, she becomes obsessed with questions surrounding what appears to be a picture of herself shot on the day of her attack. Laurel's already fragile mental state begins to unravel as she follows Bobbie's life from his rich-kid childhood on Long Island to homelessness in Vermont. The Gatsby references form the basis of the mystery, compelling readers to try to imagine how this fictional backdrop relates to the novel's "reality." It's a high-wire act for bestseller Bohjalian (Midwives), and while the climactic explanation may be a letdown for some, he generally pulls off a tricky and intriguing premise. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

March 3, 2008

Harmless by by Dana Reinhardt

Review:
From School Library Journal
Freshmen Anna and Emma have been best friends since third grade. When Emma meets Mariah during rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet and becomes friendly with her, Anna grows jealous. Mariah, who is dating a senior from another school, invites them to a sleepover at her boyfriend's house while his parents are away and things change for the three of them after that night. When the girls make up a story about their whereabouts and are caught in the aftermath, the lies grow into something bigger than any of them could have imagined. The unfolding of the truth is believable and told from the girls' alternating points of view. Anna enjoys the newfound attention and rationalizes that maybe the lie wasn't so bad, even as things spiral out of control. Emma, who drank at the party and had sex for the first time, opens up slowly to a counselor. At the end of the book, Mariah is still coming to terms with her actions and regrets, noting how something can appear one way one day and be different the next. Unpredictability and suspense will keep readers turning the pages and questioning their own sensibilities. They will appreciate how well the characters are developed, and how seemingly simple lies can have far-reaching and devastating consequences.—Kelly Czarnecki, Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg, NC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Feb. 25, 2008--

Title: The Rest of Her Life

Author: Laura Moriarty

Book review:

From Booklist
Moriarty, author of The Center of Everything (2003), limns the aftermath of a family tragedy. Kara Churchill, 18, is driving with a friend and talking on her phone when she blows through a stop sign and strikes a classmate, killing her instantly. Kara retreats into herself, baffling and upsetting her mother, Leigh, who can't find a way to reach her. Leigh's own mother abandoned Leigh at age 16 when she abruptly took off for California to live her own life, and Leigh's sister has moved from one bad relationship to another, so there are reasons Leigh has difficulties relating to her privileged, popular daughter. Moriarty avoids the twists readers expect—an outraged community and a lurid trial—to focus instead on the internal workings of the Churchill family and their shock and grief in the days following the girl's death. Leigh in particular wonders how her daughter will move on beyond the accident that will haunt her for the remainder of her days. Powerful, original, and utterly absorbing, Moriarty's novel will stay with the reader long after the final page is turned.

Feb. 18, 2008--

Extras by Scott Westerfeld

Summary from Amazon:

Playing on every teen’s passionate desire to look as good as everybody else, Scott Westerfeld (Midnighters) projects a future world in which a compulsory operation at sixteen wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty by conforming to an ideal standard of beauty. The "New Pretties" are then free to play and party, while the younger "Uglies" look on enviously and spend the time before their own transformations in plotting mischievous tricks against their elders. Tally Youngblood is one of the most daring of the Uglies, and her imaginative tricks have gotten her in trouble with the menacing department of Special Circumstances. She has yearned to be pretty, but since her best friend Shay ran away to the rumored rebel settlement of recalcitrant Uglies called The Smoke, Tally has been troubled. The authorities give her an impossible choice: either she follows Shay’s cryptic directions to The Smoke with the purpose of betraying the rebels, or she will never be allowed to become pretty. Hoping to rescue Shay, Tally sets off on the dangerous journey as a spy. But after finally reaching The Smoke she has a change of heart when her new lover David reveals to her the sinister secret behind becoming pretty. The fast-moving story is enlivened by many action sequences in the style of videogames, using intriguing inventions like hoverboards that use the rider’s skateboard skills to skim through the air, and bungee jackets that make wild downward plunges survivable -- and fun. Behind all the commotion is the disturbing vision of our own society -- the Rusties -- visible only in rusting ruins after a virus destroyed all petroleum. Teens will be entranced, and the cliffhanger ending will leave them gasping for the sequel. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell

Feb. 4, 2008--Winner--Amanda Weickert

Someone knows my name

Author: Lawrence Hill

Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom and of the knowledge she needs to get home. Sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence, Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In Manhattan, Aminata helps pen the Book of Negroes, a list of blacks rewarded for service to the king with safe passage to Nova Scotia. There Aminata finds a life of hardship and stinging prejudice. When the British abolitionists come looking for "adventurers" to create a new colony in Sierra Leone, Aminata assists in moving 1,200 Nova Scotians to Africa and aiding the abolitionist cause by revealing the realities of slavery to the British public. This captivating story of one woman's remarkable experience spans six decades and three continents and brings to life a crucial chapter in world history.

January 28, 2008--

Finn by Jon Clinch

January 21, 2008--Winner Kellie Lanzillotta

The Luxe by Anna Godbersen

From Publishers Weekly
With a quote from The Age of Innocence as an epigraph and an enthusiastic blurb from the creator of Gossip Girl on its back cover, this lavishly produced debut makes no secret of its twin influences. The story opens in 1899 with the funeral of Elizabeth Holland, a well-bred beauty said to have plunged to her death in the Hudson River. The narrative then travels back several weeks, tracing the relationships and events that have led to the somber assembly. This tangled web includes not one but two sets of star-crossed lovers; an upstairs/downstairs romance; a scheming social climber; a bitter servant girl; and oodles of money, all set in a Edith Wharton via Hollywood vision of Old New York. The dialogue has its clunky moments, and the plot twist that drives the tale is telegraphed from the very start, but readers caught up in the fancy dress intrigue are unlikely to mind much: it’s all part of the dishy fun. Needless to say, the ending paves the way for at least one sequel. Ages 14-up.

January 7, 2008--Winner is Sam Jones

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Hardcover)
by Sherman Alexie (Author)

From Booklist
Arnold Spirit, a goofy-looking dork with a decent jumpshot, spends his time lamenting life on the Spokane Indian reservation, drawing cartoons (which accompany, and often provide more insight than, the narrative), and, along with his aptly named pal Rowdy, laughing those laughs over anything and nothing that affix best friends so intricately together. When a teacher pleads with Arnold to want more, to escape the hopelessness of the rez, Arnold switches to a rich white school and immediately becomes as much an outcast in his own community as he is a curiosity in his new one. He weathers the typical teenage indignations and triumphs like a champ but soon faces far more trying ordeals as his home life begins to crumble and decay amidst the suffocating mire of alcoholism on the reservation. Alexie's humor and prose are easygoing and well suited to his young audience, and he doesn't pull many punches as he levels his eye at stereotypes both warranted and inapt. A few of the plotlines fade to gray by the end, but this ultimately affirms the incredible power of best friends to hurt and heal in equal measure. Younger teens looking for the strength to lift themselves out of rough situations would do well to start here. Chipman, Ian

January 1, 2008--Winner is Stephanie Porter
Ray in Reverse by Daniel Wallace

Amazon.com
Ray in Reverse is such an exceptionally winning novel from start to finish (or would that be finish to start?) that one can almost forgive its opening chapter. The shtick: Ray's in heaven, and he's joined a group called Last Words, where the members... well, you guessed it, rehash the last things they said on Earth. As it turns out, the dead make for fierce critics, and when they criticize his offering (the incomplete phrase "I wish--"), Ray storms out in a huff.
Not so funny, actually, but what follows is--funny, as well as heartbreaking and all too real. From the second chapter onward, Ray relives the most prominent episodes of his life in reverse order, starting with his fatal cancer and working his way back. Here is Ray losing hair, growing wings, and trying to make his final amends; Ray building his son a tree house and getting drunk there every night; Ray with amnesia; Ray stealing the good-luck penny from his dead grandfather's pocket. The book ends with Ray's last act of true innocence, at age 10: "He was simply doing the right thing, and doing the right thing came to him as naturally as breathing. How could he have known that this was a talent that would be lost over time?" Ray's is an ordinary life, with an ordinary mixture of good intentions and bad judgment, but it's also one in which extraordinary things happen. In Big Fish, his first novel, Daniel Wallace proved himself a master at mapping precisely the point where the mythic and the quotidian meet. With its gentle humor and pitch-perfect prose, Ray in Reverse is exactly the right kind of fairy tale for our unmagical times. --Mary Park


December 17, 2007--Winner is Marilyn Petry

Kudzu Christmas: Twelve Mysterious Tales (Hardcover)
by Jim Gilbert (Editor), Gail Waller (Editor), Daniel Wallace (Illustrator), Julia Spencer-Fleming

Long-held family secrets are revealed over Christmas dinner… a crazy uncle has a visitation from sweet-talking angels… a baby disappears from a neighborhood nativity tableau… a woman stakes out a diner for her lover’s killer… a world traveler finds a unique gift in an exotic locale… a vampire sleuth returns home for the holidays… For the twelve days of Christmas, River City Publishing gives to you twelve mysterious stories, and all with a distinct, regional twang. Crafted in the workshops of some of today’s best Southern writers, these original tales—ranging from the humorous to the thrilling to the downright eerie—are guaranteed to stave off any long winter’s nap, no matter how cozy your seat by the fireside.

December 10, 2007---Winner is Margie Powell

Ana's story: A journey of hope

Author: Bush, Jenna

Ana's life is a collection of bits and pieces of her past. Infected with HIV at birth, she's unaware of many details of her early childhood and barely remembers her mother. Living with her strict grandmother, she learns how to keep secrets – secrets about her infection and about the abuse she endures at home. But after Ana falls in love and becomes pregnant at seventeen, she begins a journey of hope – a journey of protecting herself and others. She is living with HIV, not dying from it.

Jenna Bush tells of Ana's struggle to break free from the cycle of abuse, silence, and illness with passion and eloquence. But this is not just Ana's story. It is also the story of many children around the world who are marginalized, neglected and mistreated

December 3, 2007--Winner is Ms. Wiley

William Shakespeare's Macbeth (Graphic Novel)
illustrated by Von

Book Description
Shakespeare has been called the greatest writer in the English language—but his language and settings can seem remote and forbidding. Welcome to Black Dog’s Graphic Shakespeare Library, where each play comes to life in a new way, panel after illustrated panel.

Macbeth is a story of kingship, honor, and bloody revenge. Graphic Shakespeare brings all of the action to vivid life while retaining every word of the original plays. Macbeth is illustrated in full color by Von, an up-and-coming London artist, and includes a synopsis of the play, and an illustrated character list. It’s a marvelous way to experience Shakespeare for the first time—or the tenth—and is sure to be attractive to students and theatre fans alike

NOvember 26, 2007--Winner is Alex Droba

Life on the Refrigerator Door
by Alice Kuipers

Claire and her mother are running out of time, but they don't know it. Not yet. Claire is wrapped up with the difficulties of her bourgeoning adulthood -- boys, school, friends, identity; Claire's mother, a single mom, is rushed off her feet both at work and at home. They rarely find themselves in the same room at the same time, and it often seems that the only thing they can count on are notes to each other on the refrigerator door. When home is threatened by a crisis, their relationship experiences a momentous change. Forced to reevaluate the delicate balance between their personal lives and their bond as mother and daughter, Claire and her mother find new love and devotion for one another deeper than anything they had ever imagined.

Heartfelt, touching, and unforgettable, Life on the Refrigerator Door is a glimpse into the lives of mothers and daughters everywhere. In this deeply touching novel told through a series of notes written from a loving mother and her devoted fifteen-year-old daughter, debut author Alice Kuipers deftly captures the impenetrable fabric that connects mothers and daughters throughout the world. Moving and rich with emotion, Life on the Refrigerator Door delivers universal lessons about love in a wonderfully simple and poignant narrative

November 19, 2007--Ms. Turner

Title: A year in the life of William Shakespeare, 1599 by James Shapiro

Instead of relying on the meagre evidence about Shakespeare's personal life, Shapiro's biography examines how public events left their mark on the four plays-"Henry V," "Julius Caesar," "As You Like It," and "Hamlet"-that Shakespeare wrote during 1599, the year in which the thirty-five-year-old playwright "went from being an exceptionally talented writer to one of the greatest who ever lived." The approach proves illuminating for the overtly political plays. Lines in "Henry V" allude to a rebellion in Ireland that Elizabeth I had recently sent the Earl of Essex to suppress. Chapters on "As You Like It" and "Hamlet" revert to more conventional textual analysis, interlarded with biographical speculations and digressions; for instance, Rosalind's journey to Arden may derive from Shakespeare's annual trip to Stratford to see his wife and daughters, and the "limbs with travel tired" of the twenty-seventh sonnet perhaps reflect the poor condition of English highways.

November 12, 2007--Winner is Sr. Elizabeth

Title: The Mitfords by Charlotte Mosley

From Publishers Weekly

The six notorious and passionately opinionated daughters of the second Baron Redesdale knew many key figures of the 20th century, from Hitler and Churchill to Evelyn Waugh and Lucian Freud. The sisters wrote some 12,000 letters to each other over a span of 80 years—the last was a fax sent in 2003 by 83-year-old Deborah to the dying 93-year-old Diana—and 5% are included here. The turbulent years before and during WWII produced the most noteworthy correspondence: Jessica scandalized her family by running away with her Communist cousin, and Diana divorced a Guinness heir to marry British fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Anti-Semitic Unity gushes like a schoolgirl over Hitler and tells Jessica that she wouldn't hesitate to kill Jessica's Communist husband for Nazism—but in the meanwhile she hopes they can be friends. Nancy writes cheerily to the imprisoned Diana after secretly testifying against her during the war. In later years, Jessica irritated her sisters from her home in America and broke completely with Diana over political differences. Peppered with colorful nicknames, filled with love, encouragement, jealousy and gossip, and written primarily to amuse the recipients, the letters testify to the bonds of sisterhood. Diana's daughter-in-law has diligently edited the mammoth correspondence, although readers will need to fill in the gaps with Mitford biographies and memoirs. B&w illus. (Nov. 6)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

November 5, 2007--Winner is Dr. Jones

Title: Forsaken Afghan Women by Lana Slezic

Book Description
In March 2004, when award-winning photographer Lana Šlezic began an assignment in Afghanistan, she never dreamed she would stay for two years. At the time she believed that since the ousting of the suffocating Taliban in 2001, Afghan women and girls were living under considerably less oppressive conditions. She soon discovered that life for Afghan women was not as she expected and felt compelled to stay and document their story. With the help of a young female Afghan as her friend and translator, Lana photographed women all over the country. Over endless cups of tea in sitting rooms from city to village, Lana learned that Afghan women are still living in a harrowingly oppressive society where forced marriage, domestic violence, honor killings, and an unpalatable lack of freedom still exist. Even today many are not allowed to leave their homes or go to school, and the burka remains a common sight on the dusty streets of the war-torn country. Forsaken: Afghan Women is a collection of photographs and vignettes that document Lana’s journey over the two-year period during which she lived and worked in Afghanistan.

October 29, 2007--Winner is ??

Title: Frankenstein (Audio Book)

Author: Mary Shelley

AUD She

October 22, 2007--winner is ?

Title: When I was a soldier : a memoir

October 15, 2007--winner is Amanda Weickert

Title: Fire From the Rock

Author: Sharon Draper

In 1957, Sylvia Patterson's life--that of a normal African American teenager--is disrupted by the impending integration of Little Rock's Central High when she is selected to be one of the first black students to attend the previously all white school.

October 8, 2007--Winner is Erica Howard

LIBBA BRAY and SHANNON HALE
discuss and sign
The Sweet Far Thing and
A Book of a Thousand Days
Wednesday, January 30 at 7:00 p.m.

The Sweet Far Thing –the stunning conclusion to the Gemma Doyle trilogy. It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered, her father a laudanum addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength and has discovered an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the realms, where dark magic runs wild. Despite certain peril, Gemma has bound the magic to herself and forged unlikely new alliances. Now, as Gemma approaches her London debut, the time has come to test these bonds.

Libba Bray is the author of the New York Times bestselling novels A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, son, and a cat of questionable intelligence.

A Book of a Thousand Days – Set in a medieval Asian land, a classic Brothers Grimm tale is reimagined by a Newbery Honor author. In this completely unique retelling, filled with adventure and romance, drama and disguise, a young maid sacrifices her freedom to accompany her mistress into exile.

Shannon Hale started writing books at age ten and has not stopped, earning an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana sixteen years later, and publishing The Goose Girl, her first book, not long after that. A sometime actress, instructional designer, and missionary, she now makes her home in Salt Lake City, with her super-human husband and her newborn baby.


Celebrate Teen Read Week October 14-20, 2007.

Every student who checks out a book receives a prize.

Sept. 3, 2007

• JETSET

• Stop Cyberbulling Day, Friday, March 30.

Link to this site to find out more about Friday's purpose Stop Cyberbulling Day

Another site of interest on the topic is Cyberbulling.org--provides info for students, parents, and educators

• Harry Potter--goes out with a BIG book (784 pages)--Read More

• Open Educational Resources, or OER, offer new ways to engage with free-to-use learning content

Welcome to a worldwide learning network

OER Commons is a teaching and learning network of shared materials, from K through college, from algebra to zoology, open to all to use. Open Educational Resources, or OER, offer new ways to engage with free-to-use learning content.

Want to find new courses or lesson plans? Lab activities or syllabi that are open to adapt for your own use? Browse Categories or Collections to find what interests you.
With a free membership, you can add tags, ratings, reviews, comments, and favorites to your own portfolio. You can post to discussion, blog, and wiki areas, and see how others are using OER

• ALA's 2006 list of most challenged books

Which ones have you read and loved? Want to create an audio review of one or more?

• C-SPAN Offers 'Classroom-Ready' Coverage of 2008 Presidential Campaign

• New SUA SKI CLUB WIKI

See some photos of our club members having a great time at our club outings

• Digital Video Collection

  The Ohio Area Instructional Media Centers (OAIMC) Digital Video Collection (DVC) is available to all Ohio K-12 schools at no cost to districts, educators or students.

Download or stream from the WEB.

Here's the list of titles: Titles

• Readergirlz new online book community called readergirlz for girls hooked on reading and opportunities to share that love with others

• Lulu.com Self Publishing that makes sense

Lulu is fast, easy and free
Publish and sell easily within minutes.
No set-up fees. No minimum order.
Keep control of the rights.
Set your own price.
Each product is printed as it is ordered.
No excess inventory.

• Faculty/Staff Book Discussion

Barack Obama's book, Audacity of Hope , will be disucssed on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2007 at Robbi Russo's home. Directions will be coming.

• Grammar Girl Web Site--have a question about grammar or syntax?

Here's a great site that's "not for English class only." It a blog (or podcast) that displays grammar questions and answers. For example, today someone asked about when to use the words, lie or lay. Grammar girl also provides easy tips on remembering which to use. http://grammar.qdnow.com/.

• The latest Harry Potter book is being released July 21, 2007!

• We Want Podcasters!

We want to add audio podcasts (created by students) for reviews of popular Young adult books I'd love to have students doing the actual recordings and book reviewing. We have the equipment in the library and we can do it as a team.

Who would we like to do this?

1. someone who loves to read and wants to share books with others
2. someone who is or has read a book that they love for a class or project

I plan on posting the podcasts on a blog--linked from our library webpage. You and other students can subscribe to the service and have the newest podcasts come right to their RSS or blog aggregator (like bloglines.com or iTunes)

Please let Mrs. Behen know if you are interested and we will create the time and opportunity

• Need usernames and passwords for our databases?

You will now find them in Blackboard. Look at the bottom of your page and you will see the library listed as an organization. Click on library documents for the newest usernames and passwords.