Where's The 2020 Summer Reading List???

June 1 update -- The High School list is published!  Junior High is guaranteed to be published by Friday afternoon.  This year the lists are going to be digital only, but in two layout versions.  One is horizontal (as in previous years): two columns per page, better for printing and for viewing on a computer screen.  The other version is new this year. It's a one-page-at-a-time vertical layout, and it works really well when downloaded to a mobile device into the iBooks or Kindle apps. 

One advantage of digital -- color covers!

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AARRRGGGHHH!  It's on the way, I promise.  Online school is its own particular time warp, and I'm running behind (according to earth year timing).  The plans are laid, but the typing is delayed.

The Summer Reading booklets for Junior High and High School are in the works, and the publication goal is June 1.  You can always refer to the 2019 booklets if you're looking for reading recommendations (last year's good books will be good books this summer too!), but if you're anxious to find out what the 2020 reading requirement for your grade might be, click on the images below for downloadable pdfs.

Junior High School 

The in-a-nutshell info is: all rising 7th and 8th graders are to read The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora, and complete one project based on what happened in the story.  Junior high students should also read 3 additional books (fiction or non-fiction, it's up to you), and complete a response form for each one.

2029 JH preview p1

2020 JH Summer Reading

High School

Rising 9th & 10th students can choose their reading from within a general category specified by the English department. Rising 11th & 12th graders may have specific requirements assigned by their fall 2020 English teacher.  All high school students should read a minimum of 3 books, a combined total of required reading and free choice books.

Alumni & Parents -- Do You Read Ebooks??

Dear Paideia Alumni & Parents,

I'd love your input as I decide on how to go forward with Paideia's ebook offerings.  In the comments section below, or by directly emailing me at library@paideiaschool.org, would you help me out by answering these questions?

1.  do you read digital ebooks (or listen to downloadable audiobooks?)?
2.  if yes, do you usually borrow or buy?
3. have you ever borrowed ebooks or audiobooks from Paideia's Axis360 collection?
4.  do you ever borrow ebooks & audiobooks from your public or university library collection?
5.  do you know what platform your public library uses? (often it's Overdrive/Libby, but there are others. Currently Paideia uses one called Axis 360.)

Here's why I'm asking

Whether and how the Paideia Library offers digital reading are questions we've wrestled with for years, first with the idea of e-reader devices to check out (in February 2011 -- we never really went there), then with the idea of building a downloadable digital collection, (October 2011 and May 2012) and what the collecting policy should be. Five years ago, we made the leap and launched Paideia's digital collection via Axis360, a platform now part of the Follett Library company.

Right now, Paideia's Axis360 digital collection has just over 500 titles, mostly fiction, almost entirely text ebooks and at the grade 7-12 level.  The guiding policy is to purchase ebooks meant for pleasure reading (as opposed to ones that would be used for research projects, such as Salem Witch Trials, or racial profiling).  There are other variables, imposed by publishing companies, that also influence what goes into our Axis360 collection.  Ebooks (even your Kindle and Audible purchases) aren't actually sold, they're licensed, meaning you are buying permission to use it, without all the rights of ownership (like reselling, or giving it away).   Some publishers only allow 26 checkouts per license, after which a library has to pay for the book all over again. Even worse, other publishers only license a book for 12 or 24 months, whether or not the book is ever checked out in that time!  And then some books are just not even available for the school library collection, period.

Zoom!  Five years later, it's time to re-assess.  Axis360 use is growing, but there are so many new books out that we don't have in that collection.  We haven't added much elementary-level material to the collection at all. Even though there is plenty of information showing that the first wave of enthusiasm for digital reading has lessened, and that readership of print books is rising, we can't just drop the ebooks altogether.  It's 2018, and digital is here to stay.

The thing I love most about offering digital book and audiobook lending from the Paideia Library is that it's 24/7/365!  We do our best to keep families supplied with a generous summer checkout program, but there are still going to be times when there's nothing to read and school is is closed.  Sigh.

Ownership is out, subscriptions are in (think Amazon KindleUnlimited, Spotify, Netflix).  OverDrive, still the largest, most well-known ebook borrowing platform, offers a subscription collection with over 10,000 titles available to our regional independent school membership group.   It's 4 times the annual cost, but 20 times the content, including elementary-appropriate books and audiobooks, and a bunch more stuff (that we may or may not want. We'll see.).

Would more people use Paideia's ebook collection through OverDrive?

If we had more titles available AND used the same app as the local public library systems, would it be more convenient and attractive for Paideia readers?  (ps -- take advantage of your tax dollars; use your public library often!!).  Would a more seamless process for students, staff and families who borrow from their libraries make it easier for the same folks to use Paideia's ebooks?

I think we're going to do it, at least as a test, but before I sign on the line, I'd really like to hear from adult members of the Paideia community about your ebook and audiobook use.  Parents in particular, because you can borrow from our libraries just like your kids can (take advantage of your tuition dollars; borrow from the Paideia Library!!).

Email me at library@paideiaschool.org, or leave a comment below to help me offer the best digital reading options for our community.  Thanks!!

Please, Write in Your Book: A New Twist on HS Summer Reading Requirements

For twenty years, Paideia's summer reading requirements have been very unstructured.  Students had to read a certain number of books over the summer -- any book, any choice -- and hand in a list of their reading at the beginning of school.  That's been really cool for the students, but harder on the teachers who wanted to build assignments around summer reading, or check a little more deeply into whether their students really had read (and understood) the books they'd listed.  It's hard to come up with an academic assessment that works for a whole class when student choices range from fantasy and sci-fi to classics of the canon, graphic novels, popular fiction and non-fiction.

Click this image for
a printable copy of
these instructions.

A few years ago, we instituted an "Junior High Community Read"  requirement, picking one book for all 7th & 8th graders to read over the summer in addition to four free choice books.  Now, some of the first activities of the new school year include writing assignments, author visits and group discussions of the Community Read choice (which for 2016 is Ami Polonsky's lovely novel Gracefully Grayson).

Paideia's High School English department spent much time and several department meetings investigating the summer reading programs at other schools, and debating how to craft a requirement that reflects the range of student and teacher interests, upholding Paideia's core value on reading for pleasure, while also giving teachers the ability to plan around a single title read by all their students.

Below is the result, and I think it's a fine compromise.  This information is printed inside the cover of the 2016 High School Summer Reading booklet (downloadable PDF edition) or, if you just want to print the instructions, click the image above for a printable copy.

Happy Summer Reading -- read early and often, and feel free to contact me with any questions.

UPDATE -->
The English department has decided that only ONE book (the grade level title) is absolutely required, and that students may choose ANY THREE additional books they wish from the reading booklet (including anything from the Teacher Picks list). 

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NEW!!   2016 Paideia High School Summer Reading Requirement   NEW!!

Each high school student must complete the 4 steps below during the summer months.  Read a total of 4 books  -- 2 required books and 2 personal choice books — plus watch 2 movies from the list.

1.  Find and read the Mortimer Adler article, then read and annotate the book assigned to the grade you will enter in fall 2016:

All grades must read “How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer Adler.

(There are several PDFs on the Internet.  Once you have read the article, you are required to annotate your grade’s book listed below as you read it.  Bring your annotated copy of the book to school with you on the first day of school to share with your English teacher.)

9^th:  Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons

10^th: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

11^th and 12^th:  The Round House by Louise Erdrich

UPDATE -->2.  Choose one of the books from the top picks of the English Department teachers (some are available as free PDFs or ebooks on the internet—search book name followed by the word 'text.'  Example:  "Tess of the d’Urbervilles"  text).

John’s pick: Tess of the d’Urbervilles  Thomas Hardy

Clark’s pick: The World’s Largest Man, Harrison Scott Key

Joseph’s pick: Number 9 Dream   David Mitchell

Gavin’s pick: Treasure Island  R.L. Stevenson

Marianne’s pick:  Left Hand of Darkness  Ursula LeGuin

Tally’s pick: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gregory’s pick: The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

Sarah’s pick: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Thrower’s pick: any poetry collection by Billy Collins

Jim’s pick: Colored People by Henry Louis Gates

UPDATE --> 3.  Choose TWO THREE more books from the plethora of books in the summer reading list.  One of these can be from the Teacher Picks list above, if you choose.

 

4.  Watch two of the movies from the list below.  You can get some of them through streaming internet sources. 

• Beasts of the Southern Wild	• Selma	• The Namesake
• A.I.: Artificial Intelligence	• Stand and Delver	• 4 Little Girls
• Moonrise Kingdom	• Crooklyn	• Children of Men
• Billy Elliot	• Brooklyn	• Hugo
• Bend It Like Beckham

Kindle Books + Audible Books + Fire HD = Immersion Reading:Even Better Than Tinkerbell!

Remember read-along storybooks?  The ones when you "See the Pictures -- Hear the Record -- Read the Book," and a sound alerts you to Turn the Page?  Back before apps, before CDs, even before cassette tapes, many of the original read-alongs were adaptations of Disney cartoons, released on 45 rpm vinyl records.  In the Disney ones, Tinkerbell's ringing bell signaled that it was time to turn the page to continue with the printed text.  Look Mom, I'm "reading!"

A certain fine young man I know, VB, doesn't much like to read. He enjoys the stories, but reading is hard, and slow, and tires him out.  Kind of like running. Ugh.  Who can really blame a guy for choosing other leisure activities?

Once. U-pon. A. Time . . .

For school, though, reading isn't optional.  There are a number of assistive technologies available, like text-to-speech software, and Reading for the Blind & Dyslexic materials, that let VB listen to the spoken text and read along with it, but they're inelegant. The "Robbie the Robot" voices do they best they can, but often words are pronounced oddly, or without the inflections of meaning that are obvious to a fluent human reader.

None of these options has trumped Tinkerbell, until Amazon.com (which offered a text-to-speech Kindle option that VB liked ok)  figured out how to synchronize Audible.com audiobooks with Kindle ebooks on the Kindle Fire HD tablet, using their Whispersync technology. They call it Immersion Reading, and  It's Awesome! 

Immersion Reading plays the professionally recorded audiobook synchronized to the corresponding text on the screen, with real-time highlighting of each word as it's read.  And poor Tinkerbell is out of a job -- the Fire HD turns the page automatically along with the narration.

On the slight down-side, it does mean buying the book twice, once from Audible and once from Kindle (both are owned by Amazon.com), and not all books have compatible audiobooks.  It doesn't work on a regular Kindle, though they say it will work on Android devices other than the Fire HD.

On the upside, though, since both are owned by Amazon.com, there is often a significant discount on the Audible book once you've purchased the Kindle book (The Martian  by Andy Weir was $5.99 for the Kindle book, and the Audible add-on was only $2.99.  Not all pairs are that good a deal, though).

The proof of awesomeness?  VB has asked for all his school lit books on the Fire HD, and even started reading one 3 weeks ahead of time.  He has also asked for leisure reading books (yay!  "Reader's Advisory" is fun!), and upon finishing one, he asks for another.  He says he understands what's going on much better with a human reading the story, and his work in lit class shows it.  "Reading on the Kindle Fire" even merited its own bullet-point in his recent presentation on his best learning strategies.  Wow.

After all, it's immersion in language and stories that matters, not the container.  Sorry Tinkerbell, this time I think you're out of a job for good.

Have you tried the Fire HD with Immersion Reading?  Or another assistive technology for reading?  Share your experiences in the comments.

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VB's Top Immersion Reading Experiences So Far

Long Way Gone  by Ishmael Beah (for school)
Divided We Fall  by Trent Reedy
     (leisure reading; #1 favorite! VB is impatiently waiting for the audio version of the sequel)
The Martian  by Andy Weir (reading now)
The #1 Ladies Detective Agency  by Alexander McCall Smith
      (for school. Better than he thought it would be -- thanks to Immersion Reading!)

f0r}P3+3]sS@k#!:Guard Your Online Info with a Strong Password

Earlier this fall I mentioned that I'd spent part of the summer reading all the detective/mystery novels by Michael Connelly. One of the novels, The Scarecrow (borrowed from the DeKalb Public Library's ebook collection), features a very, very bad guy who is also a computer security expert.   I was alarmed at how easily this bad guy was able to break into various characters' email and bank accounts, destroying their finances and careers by altering and deleting vital information.   My passwords have been reasonably ok, but since The Scarecrow, I've been going through and upgrading all my passwords, starting with email, and anything that has financial information involved (bank, PayPal, Amazon.com, mortgage company, iTunes, etc etc).

 AARGH!! How can anybody come up with strong, unique passwords for every single dad-blamed website (because, of course, you have to have a username and password for EVERYTHING, from PiBites to updating your directory information, all on different platforms with different accounts.)

Fortunately, Gwyneth Jones, The Daring Librarian, has come up with a nifty comic tutorial encapsulating all the sage advice on creating unique, strong AND rememberable* passwords for all your sites.  In a nutshell:

• 1. Make your password at least 12 characters long.

• 2. Make it complex -- use a phrase (not just a dictionary word) with special characters,
  numbers and both upper and lower case letters

• 3. Add to your main passphrase characters that make it unique for each site (for instance, the
first three letters of the site name, backwards) so you have to remember only one complicated phrase, and the site reminds you of the rest.

 

Can you guess the passphrase in this post's title? It's  f0rP3+3sS@k#!  (for petes sake!).  Vowels are from the number line, spaces are brackets }, and the "t" was replaced by a plus sign.  It looks completely random, but you and I know the secret to remembering it.

The complete tutorial is in the graphic below, and you can download a higher-resolution printing copy of the file from Gwyneth's Flickr site. Post it on your office bulletin board or next to the computer  -- but f0r}P3+3]sS@k#! don't write your passphrase on it!

Of course, you also have to figure out all the zillion sites where you've had to set up accounts over the years, but I can't help you with that.

Check out the rest of The Daring Librarian's 10 Super Geeky Tips for the New Year on her blog.

Are you using lame passwords?  Do you have any additional password tips?  Share in the comments!

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* "memorable" is for dates and fabulous novels. "Rememberable" -- able to be remembered -- is a much better for this purpose :-)

It's Time!! (for summer checkouts)

 * Junior High students read 4 books in addition to the all-junior high selection,
If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period  by Gennifer Choldenko.


Reading lists are also online as downloadable PDFs.  Get yours with the links below.

• 2013 Paideia Elementary Summer Reading List
• 2013 Paideia Junior High Summer Reading List
• 2013 Paideia High School Summer Reading List

21st Century Gutenberg Revolution:Free eBooks for iPad & Kindle

If I gave in to frustration, I'd be totally bald from pulling out my hair over the ebook dilemma.  The best delivery systems either don't have the titles I want to offer or cost way too much for our little school, or both.  We are "evolving" on this issue, but for now progress is stalled.

When I first got my iPad and began to explore ebooks, I scoffed at friends who were all about free ebook downloads.  "They're all ancient," I thought, "who wants to read that?"  Yes, a librarian who was being a dumbhead about the classics. Gosh, sometimes I am so dense.  In any case, I'm now getting a daily list of all the books in the public domain that have been added to the Project Gutenberg electronic book collection, and you know, there really is some good stuff there!

"Public Domain" is a legal concept -- under United States law, creators (or assignees) automatically own the right to decide what happens to their creative works as long as they live, and the right extends to the creator's estate for 75 more years.  After that, unless an extension has been granted, that creative work goes into the public domain -- it is owned by the people.

Project Gutenberg began in the 1980s as a labor of love by a man named Michael Hart.  Since the beginning, PG volunteers have hand-typed and proof-read thousands of public domain texts, in many languages.  The first PG electronic books were computer only, but now almost every title is available in Kindle, Nook, iPad and other e-reader compatible formats.  Some even include full color illustrations!

Below is just a tiny sample of the public domain books you can download for free from Project Gutenberg.   The annotations are mine (a drawback to the project is that there's no synopsis or other description for any of the titles, so using a few research skills, and Wikipedia, does come in handy).  The PG catalog also includes audiobooks (both human-read and computer-read), and if you'd like to practice reading in  Yiddish, Norwegian, Tagalog, or any of 60+ other written languages, PG has ebooks for you too.

• The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 
  "The Lady with the Dog" was first published in 1899. It tells the story of an adulterous affair between a Russian banker and a young lady he meets while vacationing in Yalta. This collection includes 7 other short stories by Chekhov.

• Unicorns by James Huneker 
  A collection of essays, published in 1917, by American music writer and critic James Huneker. Included are essays "In Praise of Unicorns," on George Sand, James Joyce, Henry James, Brahms, Wagner, Cezanne, and "The Great American Novel."

• Two Boy Gold Miners by Frank V. Webster
  Frank V. Webster was a pseudonym controlled by the Stratemeyer Syndicate (publisher of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books). This pseudonym was used on books for boys from the early 1900s through the 1930s. Two Boy Gold Miners was published in 1909.

• Tom Swift and His Motorcycle; or, Fun and Adventure on the Road  by Victor Appleton. 
  The first book (1910)  in a long-running series from the Stratemeyer Syndicate.  Tom is a teenage genius inventor, modeled after such real-life inventors such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, whose adventures have inspired young people from Issac Asimove to Steve Wozniak.  As with so many older books, readers should be aware that ethnic and racial depictions can follow negative stereotypes, and parents may want to be prepared to discuss changes in society since then.

• Life of Beethoven by Anton Schindler  
  Anton Felix Schindler was an associate, secretary, and early biographer of Ludwig van Beethoven. His "Life of Beethoven," first published in 1840, had a great deal of influence on later Beethoven biography. He claimed to have been Beethoven's best friend.

• The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood 
  1910 horror story by Algernon Blackwood, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre.   In the Canadian wilderness, a hunting party separates to track moose, and one member is abducted by the Wendigo of legend (a malevlolent canibalistic monster, possibly created when a person ate human flesh).

• The Man in Black by Stanley John Weyman
  Written by an author much celebrated in his time, and later by modern author Graham Greene, The Man in Black is a short and spellbinding Cinderella tale with a monkey, a cruel, crafty-eyed showman and the evil of the man in black, a charlatan and wizard. This is a tale of corruption, abuse of the innocent and the complete destruction of evil by good. One of the most imaginative and clever works by Weyman, it is a magnificent tale.

• The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan
  
  
• The Million Dollar Mystery by Harold MacGrath 
  Harold MacGrath (September 4, 1871 - October 30, 1932) was a bestselling American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. This 1915 novel was written from MacGrath's work on the 1914 serialized silent film, and was also adapted for a second "Million Dollar Mystery" film in 1927.  There's a review of the novel (with plot summary) at http://www.angelfire.com/planet/edwardian/million_dollar_mystery.htm
  
  
• The Book of the Little Past by Josephine Preston Peabody
  A 1903 collection of poems by Josephine Preston Peabody, entitled "The Little Past", which relate experiences of childhood from a child's perspective. Josephine Preston Peabody (May 30, 1874 - December 4, 1922) was an American poet and dramatist, born in New York and educated at the Girls' Latin School, Boston, and at Radcliffe College. From 1901 to 1903 she was instructor in English at Wellesley.

If you have an eReader, but aren't quite sure how to go about downloading from Project Gutenberg (or for that matter, from your Atlanta area public library), zap me a message, come on by the library and we'll try to get you set up.  It's one of those tricky things that, once you know how, it's not so hard, but a helping hand is really really useful in getting started.

Are you planning to read any classics over the sumer?  On paper, or "pad?" 

Summer Reading Lists Are Out

Seems like I say the same thing every year ("gosh, can't believe it's time already . . ."). So with no further ado, the Elementary, Junior High and High School summer reading lists have all either been distributed (current K-6th graders) or mailed (7th-11th graders, and all new students). They should have hit mailboxes by yesterday, or possibly as late as today.

* Each reading list link will download a full-size PDF of the booklet

A word about our summer reading "requirement" -- yes, we absolutely require summer reading, but we don't specify what must be read. The reading lists for all levels are for guidance, entertainment, education, but not limitation -- there are so many good books that a student might not find on her own, and the lists include hundreds, if not thousands of recommendations. There are also too many zillions of good books to fit them all into one 40 page booklet, so the odds are good that a student will have one or more books on his "must read" list that isn't in the booklet. No problem! Does it have words? Ideas? A more or less sustained narrative? Then it probably counts. If in doubt, e-mail me or Natalie with your question, or ask your teacher.

To support and encourage students in finding a reading passion, we open the collection for summer checkouts at the end of each school year. Families may check out up to 40 books, which will all be due when school starts back in the fall. Because of the number of materials and the length of the summer, we require a parent to be responsible for the books and check them out on parent accounts. Elementary students must come in with a parent, while high school and junior high students may select and check out books on their parent's account as long as they have permission from the parent (a note, e-mail or phone call to me works).

Come on in and choose a stack. If you're overwhelmed or stumped for choices, arrange for a "Personal Consultation" with a librarian -- it's sort of like having a Personal Shopper for books, only it's free!

ps -- the downloadable Elementary list will be ready next week.

I Hope to See You Here Next Week!

Toward a Less Stressful Season of Peace

Mindfulness Resources in the Paideia Library

The last few weeks of fall semester are high stress times for high school students. Seniors are either hearing back from early college decision or pressed to meet December & early January application deadlines. All students are wrapping up 17 weeks of learning and study with papers, quizzes and presentations, and then there are 3 days of finals, which start tomorrow. It's holiday time for many, which though ideally offers peace and joy, often just adds more stress and hustle to the days.

The Paideia community has for some time been incorporating occasions of "mindfulness" into daily life. Mindfulness isn't quite meditation, though can include it. It's more of a remembering to pay attention to "right here, right now" -- being aware of one's surroundings, physical and emotional feelings, without worrying or dwelling on them. As research has shown the negative effects that stress can have on learning and neurological development, an increasing amount of research demonstrates the benefits of the opposite, that a deliberate, intentional calming of the brain and nervous system has overwhelmingly positive effects on student behaviour, resilience and ability to learn.

In October, we brought educator and expert in social and emotional learning Linda Lantieri to Paideia for a couple of days, working with student groups and speaking to parents and faculty. Linda's book Building Emotional Intelligence, is a guide for parent and teachers to help young people develop mindful habits. Parents of teens, you are in luck! This book is especially valuable because it includes different approaches for different ages, including middle ages/young teens and older teens (often left out of active parenting books). After Linda's visit, we have had faculty meetings about our students and their stress levels, how school practices might be adding to it, and what we might do to help students manage or reduce stress. Counselor Thrower Starr has held mindfulness sessions during activity period for interested students.

In response to requests, I've expanded elementary librarian Natalie Bernstein's work on a collection of books, links and audio resources related to mindfulness practice. We have a "Mindfulness at Paideia" tab on the Paideia Library start page -- this page pulls together book descriptions, websites and links to online guided meditations. On the Library catalog, there is a Mindfulness reading list including all our books in both the high school and elementary libraries, and several audiobooks and audio guided meditations. The reading list entries even show which items are currently in and available -- e-mail me to hold one for you.

I encourage everyone in the Paideia community -- faculty, staff, parents, students -- to explore these resources. The research is solid, the effects are positive. In this busy season, making a little time to slow down, notice and appreciate right now, and breathe, will pay back much more in emotional time and freedom to enjoy everything else. I hope to see you here soon!

Caution: These Books May Be Dangerous

For many years, the American Library Association has designated the last week of September as Banned Books Week,

"an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment . . . Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States."

Most of the books highlighted weren't actually "banned," but the alliteration of banned books week sounds much better than banned or challenged books or books somebody tried to get removed from the library week.

So this is Banned Books Week! I've created an eye-catching display of books in the library's collection that made ALA's "Top Ten Banned or Challenged Books" list at least once in the past five years. Lots of students, parents and teachers have stopped to read the information, and several have asked more about it.



I'd say we proudly own about 75% of the 40 or so books in those lists (a few repeat often, as they get challenged somewhere every year), and many many more that have been challenged somewhere. Many of them are popular books for teenagers -- a subversive group if there ever was one, and only the popular books (the Twilight series, Lauren Myracle's TTYL series, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and good ol' Catcher in the Rye) get enough notice to inspire opposition. The most recent firestorm erupted just last week over Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, popular since its publication in 1999.

The nature of our school is such that (knock wood) we've never had a formal challenge to any of our materials, though from time to time a parent will question why a certain book is in the collection, or why it's taught. We do have a materials collection policy that states why and how we add items to the collection, and should it ever be needed, a formal challenge policy and procedure.

The whole issue of censorship, the Freedom to Read, and the First Amendment is complex and tricky. As a private school library, we have a lot of freedom to select and not select, and a specific, well-defined community to serve. I spend time thinking about the "right" mix of ideas and viewpoints for our students. The Paideia community and approach to education means that many of the books challenged in more conservative communities are books that are perfect for our collection, such as those that present sexual orientation and identity questioning in a positive light. Author Lauren Myracle, whose TTYL books have hit the banned big time (on the Top 10 List 3 years running, #1 in 2009) has twice visited Paideia to talk to students.

But we don't have a collection of Christian fiction, or memoirs of notable conservative politicians, or more controversial and "other" side books like Holocaust denials or anti-global warming treatises. Should we? Where is the line between the librarian's responsibility to create and maintain a diverse range of viewpoints, and the responsibility to develop a collection that reflects the community's values and information needs? Many many kids have checked out The Geography Club, but not once have I ever had a request for Ann Coulter's books. Is it an appropriate use of school resources to buy a book if it won't ever get checked out?

This last week of September is a good time to be thinking about the freedom to read widely and diversely, how best to serve a diversity of opinion among a community, the courage to confront opposing and possibly repellent points of view, and the challenges of supporting everyone's Freedom to Read with the responsibility of upholding the rights and safety of the community.

Some of the library's most recent additions will be available in the Library Donation Sale this Saturday during the Fall BBQ & Dance. Please come visit, or browse the entire library collection using the online catalog. See you there!


More Banned Books Week reading:

15 Iconic Movies Based on Banned Books (Huffington Post)

Twitter: Banned Books New Best Friend (NY Times)

Banned Books: Does Censoring a Kid's Book Remove Its Prejudices? (Huffington Post)

The Dirty Dozen: Twelve Books Guaranteed to Turn (Almost) Anyone into a Censor

Wednesday Website:Open Culture

This one is for all the life-long learners out there. Subtitled "the best free cultural & educational materials on the Web," Open Culture is a project of Dan Coleman, the Director & Associate Dean of Stanford's Continuing Studies Program. As he describes it:

Open Culture brings together high-quality cultural & educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community. Web 2.0 has given us great amounts of intelligent audio and video. It’s all free. It’s all enriching. But it’s also scattered across the web, and not easy to find. Our whole mission is to centralize this content, curate it, and give you access to this high quality content whenever and wherever you want it. Free audio books, free online courses, free movies, free language lessons, free ebooks and other enriching content — it’s all here. Open Culture was founded in 2006.

There are other sites that pull together great educational materials. Many top notch colleges and universities such as MIT and UC Berkeley post readings, syllabi, and video or audio lectures for many of their most popular classes through Open CourseWare projects or iTunes U. TED posts videos of its inspiring and thought-provoking talks on its website for the world to view. Free Technology for Teachers is an award-winning collection of all kinds of freely available websites, with ideas on how they can be used to benefit student learning. I love them all, but a very nice thing about Open Culture is that it's very inclusive in topics and formats, which makes it an awesome place to start.

Students who want extra help, or to learn a language not taught at Paideia, there are links for you. Want to go further into Roman Architecture than you did in World Civ? Learn from a professor at Yale. Psyched to travel, or catch up on the classics of literature? Open Culture links to 20 different top quality travel podcasts and dozens of free audiobook classics you can download to your iPod. And the blog has daily posts that link to all kinds of just really cool stuff -- on Monday it led to a transcript of a 1939 lecture by Alfred Hitchcock on the art of suspense, a great find for all film buffs with hungry minds.

Being a school librarian is a great outlet for a hungry mind. As we work to satisfy student learning needs, we get to learn at the same time. And then pass it on. If Paideia students graduate into a vocation as life-long learners, we'll have done our jobs well.

Welcome Back! (to students and returning books)

Today is the first day of school, and we're in full swing. Yesterday was orientation for all new High School students (reminder -- read your library info flyer very carefully!), and today we've seen groups of junior high students coming to check out a book for a scavenger hunt. Tomorrow and Thursday will be joint Technology/Library FirstClass and library account orientations for all 7th graders, given down in the computer labs.

New book displays are up. After the scorching summer we've had, this theme was a no-brainer:


And this one for junior high students who may be a little behind on their Reading Bowl preparations (check this list to see which titles are available for checkout right now):


And as for all those summer checkouts? The books have enjoyed their time out of the library and they're coming back daily, but no need to rush. The due date for all summer checkouts is not until Friday, September 3, so you're not late yet. Bringing them back next week is fine too. And if there are any that you or your family want to continue reading, just call or send me an e-mail to renew for another 4 weeks (JH students and up).

Welcome back to school!

CQ Researcher Reports: an information goldmine

This showed up in my e-mailbox this morning:

Sleep Deprivation:
Are chronically tired people at greater health risk?
via CQ Researcher Online

New research links sleep deprivation to a large number of automobile and other accidents. Moreover, chronically sleep-deprived people are at higher risk for poor memories, mental illnesses, obesity, cardiovascular disease and early death. Yet today's 24/7 culture fights against the human body's biological need for about seven hours of sleep a night. Some people are especially sleep deprived, notably teenagers and late-shift workers such as police officers, nurses and medical residents. Meanwhile, some experts worry that overuse of sleeping medications is becoming a serious problem. Newer medications like Ambien and Lunesta are in some ways “safer” than older drugs, but they also affect brain function and sleep patterns in ways that are still not fully understood. With primary-care doctors now able to prescribe these medications because of their greater apparent safety, more people may get into trouble with sleeping pills.

This is the weekly report announcement from CQ Researcher, one of our awesome online subscription databases. It comes from a company that got its start preparing background reports on issues coming up in the US Congress; CQ stands for "Congressional Quarterly." Each weekly report is a 24-32 page goldmine of information on some hot national issue, and includes an overview introduction, background information, a timeline, a Pro/Con debate on some question related to the topic ("Should medical residents' work hours be further limited to allow more time for sleep?"), and lots of citations to sources for further research. Some of these citations can even be gotten by going right over to ProQuest or SIRS Researcher, library databases of magazine and newspaper articles.

Recent CQ Researcher (and its monthly companion CQ Global Researcher) reports include:
Press Freedom: Should partisan bloggers get free-press protections?
Professional Football: Is the NFL doing enough to protect players?
Housing the Homeless: Is the solution more shelters or affordable housing?
Climate Change: Will the Copenhagen Accord slow global warming?
Truth Commissions: Can countries heal after atrocities?

If there is a relatively recent Researcher report on your topic, you have hit the mother lode!! Though the full-text of every report is available as a web page, I teach students that the easiest way to access the report is by downloading the PDF file to the computer; page 2 of the pdf always contains an annotated table of contents that helps a student get right to the good stuff.

From on campus, students can go directly to CQ Researcher Online, no passwords needed. For parents, or from home, a Paideia user ID and password are necessary -- see the librarians or go to the Library database page for the Database Help login link (use the @Paidia login info).

Want to keep on top of all the latest reports? You can subscribe to the E-mail Alert newsletter and get a weekly e-mail like the one I got this morning, or subscribe to the RSS feed (I use GoogleReader), using the orange RSS button at the top of the CQ Researcher home page.

I cannot enthuse enough about this wonderful resource! Solid, sophisticated coverage written for regular people, the CQ family of reports is a great way to research a topic or just learn more about the issues facing out nation and the world.

Essential Reading for Junior High Parents

A good school works hard to educate not just its young people, but the entire community of people who surround it. Our Junior High leaders hold a series of parent meetings every year to discuss various topics about raising, teaching and understand young teens (ages 11-14 or so).

The 2009-2010 Junior High Parent Reading list for this year's meetings is available online on Paideia's library catalog. In this list you can see, not only the recommended titles, but which ones are in the library right now for immediate checkout. If you a Paideia parent, you can e-mail me to place a hold on any title that is currently checked out to someone else.

A comprehensive list of Junior High Parent reading (including this year's as well as previous years' discussion titles), plus LOTS of other reading lists for adults and students, can be found on the library catalog's Recommendations page. Visit it under Browse Recommendations in the purple sidebar of the main catalog page.