School Supplies

I also have a stash of index cards and lined notebook paper, plus a few different iPad/Phone chargers to loan. We aim to be a full-service establishment here at the Paideia Library!

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Waste not. This box is full of the pencils rounded up from my mom & dad’s house when we cleared it out in 2013. Whenever the pencil jar is empty, I sharpen another 4 or 5 and refill. At this rate, they should last until retirement! #paideialibrary

A post shared by Pilibrarian (@pilibrarian) on Feb 25, 2020 at 7:35am PST

Out With the Old:A Goodbye to Perfectly Good Books

There comes a time in every librarian’s life when it becomes necessary to weed out Perfectly Good Books. I know because I’ve been here long enough that I personally bought most of them for the collection. Ouch!

It's been a while, but today I put out another FREE BOOK cart in the JH & HS library.  Some of the books on it are donations we already own (I always ask the donors if it's ok for books to end up as a Free Book), some were highly-reviewed novels from 10-15 years ago that have never have been read by anybody but me, or they might be duplicates of a formerly hot title that we only need one of now. 

With non-fiction, it's probably woefully out of date (Quick and Easy Web Pages from 2001??) and doesn't need to be in the world anymore with incomplete or inaccurate information (these usually go straight to book heaven -- do not pass Book Cart, do not collect $200). "We are not an archive," is a useful weeding mantra.

Until writers stop writing and publishers stop publishing, some things just have to go, to make space for the Brand New Books. Here’s hoping many of these volumes find new readers before they land in their final resting place.

Because . . .

BRAND NEW BOOKS!!!

A January Routine: French Picture Books on Display

Displaying the picture books created by the high school French 2 classes has become a regular January short term event.  This is one of the final projects of the fall Long Term, and students take their creations back in the spring Long Term so they can make a video of the book, another big project in French 2.

Yesterday was the end of January 2020 Short Term, and the display came down today (high school teacher work day).    Enjoy this sampling of the fall term "Livres d'Images en Français" from Joanna Gibson's French 2 students.

Love Those Bloody Cupcakes!! (JH Book Club news)

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October’s junior high book club read was “The Name of the Star” by Maureen Johnson. The Jack-the-Ripper inspired cupcakes made by Finnley’s mom were a HUGE hit!! The little cookie knives, genius. We’re back to real life in November, reading “You’re Welcome, Universe” by Whitney Gardner. I can’t wait to see what this fantasy-loving bunch thinks of dramatic realistic fiction. 🙂 #paideialibrary

A post shared by Pilibrarian (@pilibrarian) on Nov 8, 2019 at 9:40am PST

Trick or Treat!!

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Pika ... pika ... pika ... CHU!!!! Happy Halloween!! #paideialibrary

A post shared by Pilibrarian (@pilibrarian) on Oct 31, 2019 at 11:21am PDT

Thankful for New Books!

Yikes!  We're almost to Thanksgiving without a single blog update.  Yes, things have been happening in the Big Kids' Library, but I'm not as good about keeping up here. 

One of the biggest events of the Library year happens in the fall -- the Library Book Sale held on Grandparents and Special Friends Day, and then again at the Fall BBQ the following day.  This is an exciting event for many reasons.  We (the librarians) get to select a huge number of the most awesome new books, we get to display them to the whole school plus a number of wonderful visitors and we get to talk about our collections and why we chose the displayed books.  And then, members of the community get to show their support for our library programs by donating to the library the price of books they select.   We created personalized bookplates for all donated books, and "honorees" get first dibs for two weeks.

Elementary librarian Natalie Bernstein and I spend a large amount of time selecting books that not only support teacher curricula and student learning needs, but that will speak to the diversity of our world and of the human experience, making sure our community has access to reading that will help their hearts as well as their minds to grow. 

From a new non-fiction work on the Vietnam War, or the latest YA fantasy novel, to a gender studies handbook or the new Black Panther comic, we're proud of our collections and love this annual opportunity to show them off.

Below is just a sampling of the new books joining the Junior High and High School library collection this fall.  I hope you're as pleased as I am.

Anna

(links go to book descriptions in Goodreads)

All the JH & HS Book Sale books
on display in the library.

Race and Gender Studies

Killerman, Sam.  A Guide to Gender: The Social Justice Advocate's Handbook.

Pollock, Mica, ed.  Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School

Oluo, Ijeoma. So You Want to Talk About Race.

Anderson, Carol and Tonya Bolden.  We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide  (Young Readers adaptation of White Rage)

Mathison, Ymitri, ed. Growing Up Asian American in Young Adult Fiction. (scholarly criticism)

Fiction (grownup and YA)

Acevedo, Elizabeth. The Poet X.  (YA) (2018 National Book Award, young reader)

Jackson, Joshilyn. The Almost Sisters.

Chakraborty, S. A. The City of Brass.

Dray, Stephanie & Laura Kamoie. My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton.

Gortner, C. W. The Romanov Empress: A Novel of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna.

Hughes, Dean. Four-Four-Two. (YA)

Ness, Patrick.  And the Ocean Was Our Sky.  (Moby Dick according to the whales; illustrated)

Owens, Delia. Where the Crawdads Sing.

Quigley, Dawn.  Apple in the Middle (YA)

Non-Fiction

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Even Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.  Katharine Wilkinson (Paideia '01), Senior Writer.

King, Maxwell.  The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers.

Redding, Anna Crowley.  Google It: A History of Google.

Partridge, Elizabeth.  Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam. (YA)

Prout, Chessy.  I Have the Right To: A High School Survivor's Story of Sexual Assault, Justice and Hope.

Smarsh, Sarah.  Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth.

Stewart, Jefrey C.  The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke (2018 National Book Award)

Graphic Novels

Anderson, Laurie Halse.  Speak: The Graphic Novel. (new edition of the 1999 classic YA novel of the aftermath of a high school sexual assault)

Civil War:  Black Panther

Kaye, Julia. Super Late Bloomer: My Early Days in Transition.

Molver, Luke. Shaka Rising: A Legend of the Warrior Prince.

Néjib. Haddon Hall: When David Invented Bowie.

En Español

Green, John.  Mil Veces Hasta Siempre (YA, translation of Turtles All the Way Down)

Shetterly, Margot Lee. Talentos Ocultos (translation of Hidden Figures)

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. El Libro de la Alegría (translation of The Book of Joy)

January Book Club Update:Scythe and When She Woke

The semester is well underway, and so are Book Clubs.  Both clubs (junior high and high school) have met twice in 2018, with really great meetings.  I LOVE this part of my job.  OK, so it's a fantastic job and I love most of it, but book clubs are super rewarding, and fun too.

High school book club is teeny tiny this year (3 stalwart members, with a couple more who sometimes come), but we're picking up steam.  We generally meet on Friday afternoons, when fewer clubs and activities are competing for time, and in January we met the first Friday after coming back from the holiday break.  Our book for January was When She Woke, a future-dystopian riff on The Scarlet Letter.  It's the second novel by author Hillary Jordan, whose first novel, Mudbound, is the basis for this year's Oscar-nominated film.

I contacted Hillary in December (we were in the same year at college) and she generously agreed to Skype with us at the January meeting.  Book club members, plus Caroline and Kristi from Admissions, and English teacher Marianne Hines, had a great 30+ minute conversation with Hillary on a snowy (in New York) Friday afternoon.  My favorite answer was to a comment that the last part of the novel seemed to wrap up quickly without a lot of development.  Hillary said that by that point, she'd said what she wanted to say, her characters had learned what they were going to learn, and she was basically ready for it to be done!  I love that, because not only does it remind me that accomplished authors are real human beings, but that they are creators with the power to choose and build their stories however they want.  And that's how it's supposed to be.

When asked if a movie version was in the works, she said of course, that's always a hope, and that it's been under option a couple of times.  Her vision of a TV series caught my imagination.  The story of Hannah, Aidan Dale and the "red" crimes is complete and ready to go, but a future world where the convicted criminal is punished, not by incarceration but by a genetically-induced identifying skin color (red for murder, yellow for misdemeanors, blue for violent crime) and released into society, promises any number of riveting multi-part stories.  HBO, Netflix, Amazon Video,  are you listening????

Junior High Book Club's January discussion of Neal Shusterman's new series starter, Scythe, was fabulous!  Sometimes, there's just not that much substance to talk about, even if everyone actually enjoyed the book, but Scythe was not one of those.  In fact, the whole group loved it AND we talked about it for the entire 60+ minutes of the meeting!

Scythe explores many of the same basic if/then ideas as Shusterman's earlier Unwind dystology -- if society evolves and advances in a certain direction, then what happens??  In Unwind, the resolution of a war between anti-abortion and pro-choice factions is the absolute banning of all abortions, BUT, if a child isn't working out for the parents by age 12, they can release her/him to a government Harvest Camp for "unwinding" (being separated into constituent donor parts for transplant procedures).  So sanitary, so thoughtful, so gruesome in its reality.  Death and government and ethics, all in one fast-moving page turner!  Unwind has been a lit book and a Reading Bowl book in the junior high for several years.

Scythe begins with a different if/then proposal. IF advances in technology have made death irrelevant (complete revival is possible even for the "deadish," and turning the clock back on physical age is always an option), THEN how does society make room for the newly born?  In a nod to The Giver,  a revered and feared select group, a kind of priesthood of ordained Grim Reapers, carries this responsibility for society.  In an ideal world, the best person for this job is the person who least wants to do it, but a small and growing faction of new-order Scythes believes there's no harm in enjoying "gleaning," and in meeting their quotas in increasingly flashy and bloody incidents. Two teen-aged Apprentice Scythes are caught on either side of this dangerous political and philosophical rift.

Sanctioned assassins, a perfect virtual government, immmortality, and the ethics of life and death.  Big ideas for 12 & 13 year olds.  One student said that when she told her dad about this book club choice, his response was "I think my daughter is reading the wrong book!"  I'm pretty sure it was the right book, though, because the conversation and the questions were thoughtful, deep and numerous.

• Imagine the power and responsibility a Scythe would have.  
• How does this book resemble The Giver? (a few have to carry an unpleasant burden for the many)
• If living forever means you get so bored, you make yourself "deadish" for fun, who would want to live forever? (the Tucks certainly weren't crazy about it in Tuck Everlasting)
• Is it right or wrong to enjoy your work, if your ordained work is killing?
• The Thunderhead is just "the cloud" super-advanced. Who's got stuff in the Cloud? (Google Drive, Amazon Music, Instagram, email?) Think about that!

In February, Junior High book club read Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski (after a routine flu shot, everyone in a 10th grade homeroom can hear other people's thoughts).  High School book club read a fascinating memoir, Thirty Days With My Father, by Christal Presley, a former Grady High School teacher, and Skyped with the author during the meeting. More on that later.

Coming up in March - 

• Junior High -- Every Day  by David Levithan (in time for the movie release)
• High School -- My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry  by Fredrik Backman

What have you read lately?

Advising Today

Also,  bungalows can't dine eloquently. Furthermore, giraffes have igloos and jobs. Kangaroos laminate macaroons, notoriously often, a purposeful quail rages spectacularly in testerone.  Ugly vermin wail "Xavier!" y Zebras¡

Our story doesn't make much sense, but my 9th grade advisees laughed and enjoyed ourselves playing this goofy improv game during advising period today.  Going around the circle, each person adds one word to the story; the word has to be the next one in the alphabet. A, an & the were free, plus short prepositions.

It's snowing right now, on the last day of the last full week of classes for the term. Monday and Tuesday are review days, and finals are Wednesday-Friday.  Then 2+ weeks for the December holiday break.    ¡¡Xavier!!

and Happy Holidays to all.

What Teachers Are Reading in the High School

Anna's note - Robert and Catherine are both doing internships in the library this school year.  Look for more guest posts from them in the near future.

Hello all! For this blog I went around the high school and took pictures of what the teachers are reading. I noticed that some teachers liked fiction, some liked non-fiction, and some weren't reading anything at all. Please read and see what your teachers are reading throughout the high school. This blog also has the subject each teacher is teaching in the caption if you want to compare or just know.

Thanks,
Robert Pickel
Library Intern

Marianne Hines - English and Writing Lab

Brian Meeks - Senior Systems Administrator

Mike Emery - Athletic Director

Stacey Winston - Assistant Coordinator

Brett Hardin - High School Coordinator and Social Studies

Sarah Schiff - English

Gavin Drummond - English

Melissa Mckay-Hagan French and Spanish

Jack Bross - Mathematics

Jack Bross - Mathematics

Rachel Peterson - Dean of Students

Jeanne Lee - Social Studies

Barrington Edwards - Social Studies

Mark Schmitt - Mathematics 

Beth Schild - Mathematics

Ansley Yeomans - Mathematics

Tally Johnson - English

Lindsay Reid - Biology

Magnus Edlund - Biology and Chemistry

Miranda Knowles - Biology

Eddy Hernandez - French and Spanish

Amanda Sautter - Biology

Natalie Rogovin - Social Studies

Jim Veal - English

Joy Lewis-Mendez - Spanish

Joanna Gibson - French

Rosalinda Ratajczak - Math

And It's Off To School We Go

The Seniors have Graduated.

Best senior prank EVER. Thanks Dominique and Celeste!!

Long Live the Seniors!

The Class of 2016 has mostly gone off to become the Class of 2020, and the Class of 2017 has risen to take their place.  School began last Wednesday and we're off and running at pretty much full-speed already.

On Friday morning, the Junior High had a very successful Skype session with Ami Polonsky, author of the summer all-read novel Gracefully Grayson.  The six homebase classes generated and submitted questions on Thursday afternoon, and the author, a middle-school teacher herself, answered them non-stop for 20 minutes before having to off to an 8 am (her time) teacher planning meeting.  This wonderful novel has been embraced fully by our junior high teachers and students, and it's been the catalyst for some amazing learning already.  Only 8 months left to find a 2017 all-read that comes even close to this one. Yikes.

In the library, it's the usual carousel of summer books coming back, and more books going out.  I've added a couple of titles to our iPods for listening by students for whom text is difficult, and pulled together options for "free choice" assignments.

An alumni family clearing out a friend's house donated 50+ great, essentially brand new books for distribution on the "Free Books" cart.  Who doesn't love free books?

And I've printed FORTY book cover images for faculty and staff participating in the What I'm Reading display.  That's a LOT of reading going on around here, folks!  Yep, it's another school year, all right.  Somebody let the kids in, and we're running with it!

Musings (or, Spring Break Approaches)!

I was a little bit late walking over to the high school assembly yesterday morning, and as I approached the theatre this scene just bowled me over -- maybe 100 backpacks fairly neatly stacked up outside, waiting confidently for their proper owners to come collect them in 45 minutes.  Just through the lobby doors was a repeat scene.  Around here it's a common sight, but having been to a big public high school for a meeting the night before, I realized again how fortunate we are to enjoy this level of trust in our community.

And only a little bit ironic, since the assembly speaker was J. Tom Morgan, former Dekalb County District Attorney and powerful legal advocate for young people.  It's been a few years since J. Tom last spoke at Paideia, so 75% of the high school had not heard his important message for teens -- "ignorance of the law is no defense."   Spring break, and soon graduation festivities, are coming up, and it's a good time to remind teens in Georgia (where 17-year-olds can be prosecuted as adults) of the life-altering difference a birthday can make!   High school students and parents -- we have a copy in the library, so come check it out.

The days before spring break is also an active time in the library.  Groups of students gather during breaks to prepare for the inevitable "before holiday" tests, quizzes and assignment due-dates.  There's often a cluster of students with iPads around the printers, waiting for a final draft to come out (the stapler usually needs refilling around now too).  The most fun part (for me, and probably for them too) is the re-appearance of the faithful reading customers, having been submerged in schoolwork since the end of short term, now seeing a little room to breathe -- and to read for fun!!! 

I'm gathering all my spring break reading, and downloading some audiobooks & podcasts for the drive.  I always take too much, but it's better than running out!

Right now, it's time to go, so no time to carefully import images and links.  Have a fabulous week, read lots, and enjoy.