Book 14

National Geographic Amazing: 100 People, Places, and Things That Will Wow You

Normally not a nonfiction reader, I was drawn to this book while watching over my bookfair yesterday.  The photographs in this book are amazing!  Each photograph (or set of photographs) is accompanied by a description of the item(s) pictured, ranging from a couple of paragraphs to a couple of pages. This book is informative and will entertain reluctant readers.  They are "reading for information" even if they don't realize it!  My favorite entry is one in which a nature photographer details his experience photographing flamingoes.  He was in an aircraft overhead and just as he was about to leave, the flamingoes shifted into a shape....of a flamingo!  What a cool picture!  Hundreds of flamingoes in the shape of a flamingo.  Can you imagine?

Recommended for: Reluctant readers, students who like science, nature, or photography

Rating: 4 stars

It's Book Fair week!

Woohoo!  It is Book Fair week and I'm so excited!  We do a fair with Scholastic each year and have been pretty successful so far.  The selections this year are great, but I'm not sure how much we'll sell based on the slow economy.  Most of my library friends in town have already hosted their bookfairs and they ALL said sales have been down.  Too bad:( 
Anyway, we love fair week and hope to get lots of freebies for the library. 

Book 13

Book 13 (100 book challenge) is done and it was a good one! I got my hair done yesterday and had an uninterrupted two hours to read...it was magnificent. 

You by Charles Benoit

Kyle is a typical, brooding fifteen-year-old.  He is a member of the hoodies, a group of slackers who have a uniform consisting of worn-in jeans, a black tshirt, and, of course, a black hooded sweatshirt.  Therefore, he spends most of his time "trying not to get caught" by the adults and staying out of the way of the school jocks.  The only thing "mainstream" about Kyle is his crush on a normal girl, Ashley.  He talks to her often, but isn't courageous enough to make his move.   After Kyle is accused of taking a popular athlete's wallet, things can't seem to get much worse.  Enter the new kid...Zach McDade.  Zach is charming, friendly, and...a master manipulator.  He and Kyle become partners-in-crime until he finds Kyle's weak spots and decides to push them.

This book was sooooo good.  It is a fast-paced read, full of suspense.  Benoit shows the reader the horrors of high school and the twist at the end is unexpected and tragic.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Rating: 4.75 stars
Recommended for: reluctant readers, readers looking for suspense or a fast-paced read

Happy Halloween...a few days early!

Mmmm...don't these cupcakes look awesome?  I treated my student aides today with some sweets, chips, and sodas.  They work pretty hard so I thought they needed an early Halloween.  Nobody is too old to celebrate!  We were on Fall Break last week so I've managed to stay away from the blogging world for a bit.  I have finished another book (#12) in my 100 book challenge.  I read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.  I am working on two others and am hoping to post about them this weekend.  Keep your fingers crossed...

We missed Teen Read Week due to Fall Break, so we will be celebrating next week.  What?  I like being fashionably late!  I chose some teachers to highlight next week and had them tell me the name of their favorite books.  They took a picture with a "mystery book" which I posted in the hallway.

The kids will be offered a chance to win a prize by matching the teachers to their favorite books.  It is always interesting to see how much (or how little!) they know about their elders. 

I also created a display based on the characters from Glee.  I got the idea from a recent conference and the kids love it!  I found pictures of the characters, printed, and cut them out.  Then, my student aides and I chose books we thought the characters would read (What would Glee read?) and put them next to the pictures.  Sooo cute and timely!