Make New Friends and Book Talk the Old...

Over the course of  ten days in February, my family lost two strong and beautiful women. The grief was shocking and deep, making it hard to concentrate. Much as we lean on our friends in hard times, I retreated to a book from my past to help occupy my mind and soothe my heart. How better to spend sleepless nights than lost in the pages of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice? Longbourne, Netherfield and Pemberley were places I could go and exist in a world where everyone, save Lady Catherine de Bourgh and the nefarious Mr. Wickham, got a happy ending. This re-reading inspired me to go in to school and get our copies of Pride & Prejudice into the hands of some 8th graders who had recently come in to research life in the 19th century.

As a librarian, I have told my students many times that looking through the bookshelves at school is sometimes like being among old friends. The titles and covers evoke fond memories of characters, stories, and reflections of who I was and what I was doing at the time I read the book. Some of my most successful book talks have been impromptu conversations at the bookshelf, inspired by the sight of these old friends.

Middle schoolers are keenly tuned in to sincerity and they seem to zero in on anything related to a teacher's personal experience. My students will often argue over a book that is "old" over something with a shiny new cover simply because I expressed how important the book was to me at a certain point in time, or how it made me laugh, cry or long to do something. So while we promote and review all the wonderful new books being published and celebrated, let's not forget to share our old favorites with the next generation of readers.

That said, Blue Balliett's Hold Fast is now downloaded on my Kindle, ready for tonight's reading. Stay tuned for the review.

Top 5 List for January

1. Two gym teachers created professional Pinterest accounts, accessed the links on the Media Center Pinterest board with their classes and pinned original links to the board for their health classes.

~~Gym teachers! I am still smiling.~~

2. 8th grade science teachers brought their classes down for a lesson on citing books, web sites and apps prior to starting a chemistry project. For 2 days I had 50 kids in the Media Center during each block using books, computers and iPads.

~~Chaotic and noisy but fabulous!~~

3. 8th grade Language Arts classes wrote Twitter-Style book reviews. Many thanks to Gwyneth Jones, aka The Daring Librarian, for such a fabulous idea!! *applause for Daring Librarian*
Students wrote original reviews, located their books on Amazon.com, then used Linkyy.com to shorten the URLs. They then accessed an online character counter to make sure their review, including the link and book title, stayed within the 140 word limit. Reviews were submitted via a Google form.

~~The kids were intrigued by the challenge of staying within the word limitation and the teacher was thrilled with the ease of printing the Google form for grading.~~

4. Social studies, Art and Language Arts teachers have come in to book time and co-plan lessons for creating products with technology tools.

~~Apparently word on the street is to come co-plan lessons and good things may happen.~~

5. Conversation with 7th grader (I was told this child was a reluctant reader):
Student: Do you have more books by this author?
Me: No, this is her first novel.
Student: Can you call her and tell her to hurry up and write more?


I am so excited to see what February brings.