Bolivian culture and bits from abroad

This weekend there is a culture and artisans' fair at the Parque Urbano. If you are interested in this topic, we have plenty of related books in the library. General books about Bolivia are in the 984 Dewey section. Travel books, which will include some information on culture and handicrafts, are at 918.4 in our library. There are also books on specific artists, like Roger Ortiz Mercado's Traces. This book is in the Spanish section, at 779, and has many beautiful portraits of Bolivian people.

If you are interested in foreign culture, you should stop by the feria to see the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit (if you didn't get to go on one of the field trips, that is). Then come to the library to see all the great books we have on the master's life, inventions and art. Also, take a look at the Da Vinci Code, for a good fiction read, or any of the Renaissance books for more information about the era in which he lived.

Finally, today is St. Patrick's day! If you're interested in Ireland, luck, leprechauns or other related tidbits, you'll find resources in the library.

Slumdog Millionaire was a book first!

Have you seen Slumdog Millionaire, yet? (It's playing at CineCenter right now, under the name Quisiera ser millionario?) Did you know that it was based on a book by Vikas Swarup, called Q&A (that means "question and answer")? Sadly we do not have this book in the SCCS library, but Abebooks recommends 19 Other Indian Novels, if you've been bit by the bangra bug!

We have the following from the list:
God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
In a Free State, by V.S. Naipaul
Clear Light of Day, by Anita Desai

If you're interested in reading other titles from this list, please recommend them to the librarian. If you're interested in books by Indian authors, or about India, come to the library and we can find them!

Never Let Me Go movie

Keira Knightley is to star in another book-to-movie production called Never Let Me Go. The original book, by Kazuo Ishiguro, is about a future in which teens are cloned for organ harvesting.

A Pale View of the Hills, another book by Kazuo Ishiguro, is in the library's fiction section. Sadly, however, we do not currently have Never Let Me Go. It has been ordered for the future.

Keira Knightly was also in a recent production of Pride and Prejudice, based on the Jane Austen novel. That book is in the library, and also has an accompanying AR quiz for high school readers.

movies and books, and books and movies!

Cine Center is currently showing two movies that came from great books! Twilight, a romance story with vampires, and The Tale of Despereaux, a mouse's adventures, are both showing right now. If you'd like to read the books on which the movies were based come to the library.

Also, Coraline is coming soon! The movie should be at Cine Center in a few weeks, but, sorry, the book won't be in the library until August. If you'd like to see other Neil Gaiman books, though, we have quite a few available in the library.

Neil Gaiman talks about The Graveyard Book, etc.

Border's Media has a five minute video of Neil Gaiman talking about his Newbery winner, The Graveyard Book. (Remember, Borders is a book store, so they are trying to sell you stuff; you've been warned!)

If you're interested in Neil Gaiman, he regularly tweets on twitter under the name neilhimself.

Newbery and other awards and lists!

The American Library Association recently picked this year's Newbery Award winner. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, is about a young boy, orphaned and raised by ghosts and werewolves in a graveyard. The book will be here in August with the new school year!

The ALA has many other awards and lists, check out these:
Best Books for Young Adults 2009
2009 Great Graphic Novels
2009 Quick Picks (books just for the fun of it)
2009 Fabulous Films for Young Adults

Check out these lists. If any of the titles sound interesting, please recommend them to the librarian to order for next year!

As I'm sure everyone knows, I am a big fan of books. When a book is made into a movie, I more often than not prefer the book form. Every once in a while a movie comes out, however, that is as good as or better than the original book version. For example, I love both the movie and book versions of To Kill a Mockingbird, and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Here is a list from ListUniverse that has their top ten movies that are better than the book version.

I totally agree with some of them, especially The Godfather!

Check it out. What do you think, do you agree? Do you have examples of your own?

National Book Award winners announced

The National Book Award winners were announced yesterdy in New York. The National Book Award is given to the best American book in the categories of fiction, non-fiction, young people's literature and poetry. The winners are:

Fiction: Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country
Nonfiction: Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Young People's Literature: Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied
Poetry: Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems

These books will all be ordered for the library for next year!

Children's books in the White House?

Milton Terrace South Elementary School in New York set out to find if there are any children's books in the White House library. Research showed them that there probably aren't any (though they couldn't be definitive), and so media specialist Susan Penney decided to see what she could do to fix the situation. She had the students and teachers all vote on their favorite titles, and organized donations of the winning books! Read the whole article here, complements of School Library Journal, and see the complete list here.

We have some of the books in the SCCS library, such as:
Click, Clack, Moo, by Doreen Cronin
The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo
Charlotte’s Web, by EB White
Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Patterson

Were some of the titles your favorites, too? Which ones?

What titles would you recommend for the Obama daughters? (They are aged 7 and 10, I believe.)

November is Native American Heritage month!

November is Native American Heritage month in the United States. Check out this great link from PBS about their upcoming miniseries, We Shall Remain. We probably won't get to see it here in Bolivia, but the site has some great information and interactive media.

If you're interest in Native America, come check out the book display in the library!

The new president's reading list

The Chicago Tribune recommends a list of "required" reading for the new president-elect. We have some in the SCCS library:

An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore
The Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides
A Savage War for Peace, by Alistair Horn
The Trial, by Franz Kafka
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

I would add a personal favorite:

The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan

What books do you think the new president should read?

Oh, and only slightly related, did you know that President-elect Obama likes to read bedtime stories to his daughters, and has all the words to Goodnight Moon memorized?

Alan Gratz's twist on Hamlet

Alan Gatz's new book Something Rotten will be available free, online for the next month. It's an interesting cross of Shakespeare's classic Hamlet, and a modern detective story, written for young adults. Go take a look!

(I heard about this from the Bookshelves of Doom blog; it's a great place to keep up with all sorts of new young adult books!)

Latino Heritage Month

September 15-October 15 is Latino Heritage Month. The library has a wide variety of books by Latino authors, with Latino characters or about Latino people, and pertaining to Latino culture.

Some of my favorite authors that work with Latino issues are Isabel Allende, Julia Alvarez, Pat Mora and Francisco Jimenez. Come to the library to find out more about these authors, or to look at the huge variety of Latino-related books we have.

2008 Teens' Top 10 nominees

The Young Adult Library Services Association (or YALSA), recently posted their nominees for the Teen's Top 10 list. Sadly we only have two of the nominees in the library right now (don't worry, more are ordered for next year!). You can vote for this year's nominees, or peruse previous lists here. If any of the books look really intersting, let me know and I'll make sure to order them!

The two nominees that we do have? Evil Genius, by Catherine Jinks and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling.

Banned Books Week

The American Library Association is celebrating our freedom to read with Banned Books Week. Banned books are those that libraries, bookstores, governments and other groups have prohibited people from reading for a variety of reasons, including age appropriateness, subject matter, sexual content and religous convictions.

According to the ALA website, "BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them."

We currently have a display in the library of the most challenged or banned books from the last 15 years. If you're interested, come take a look. Two of my favorites are Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, and the Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling. You might also notice a few of your class books on the list, such as The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier.

(Sorry for not posting earlier in September. I will try my best to be more consistent for the rest of the semester!)

Welcome back!

Welcome back to SCCS, the Library Media Center and a new school year!

The library will be open 7:30-4 Monday-Thursday and 7:30-3:30 on Fridays. Please come by the library in your free time! During out first two weeks all elementary and middle school students will come to the library with their classes to review the rules and check out books. I can't wait to see you, and meet the new students!

On to business: the new books haven't arrived yet. We expect them in the library by the end of the month. I'm heartbroken about this, but in the meantime there are a few new books that were donated or bought at the Feria de Libros. Please come by and take a look.

Current displays include the Olympics, and History and Mythology in Fiction (this will help with Mr. Dahlberg's social studies assignment).

Have a great year!

Entertainment Weekly's modern classics

Entertainment Weekly, which reviews movies, books, television and other media, recently published their top 100 list of New Classic Books. The lists consists of "the 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008."

There are some great young adult offerings on the list, for example:

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)

There are many others that are aimed at adult audiences, but would be great reads for our high school students. Come see which we have in the library!

I've read about a quarter of these, how many have your read?

Rowling vs. lexographer

JK Rowling, famous author of the Harry Potter books, recently testified in New York against Steven Vander Ark, a lexographer of her series. The Michigan man in question put together a comprehensive dictionary of the Potter world and wishes to have it published. Rowling and Warner Brothers Entertainment are suing, stating that the proposed dictionary is plagarism. For more details on the case, read a recently published New York Times' article.

After reading the article, let us know if you think it is biased in Rowling's or Vander Ark’s direction. Is it completely balanced?

110 books you must have in your library?

English newspaper The Telegraph recently published a list of the 110 books that are needed to create the perfect library. After looking through the list, I'm sad to report that we don't have all of the books, especially some of the older titles. Luckily, though, we do have quite a few of the recognized classics and the newer books! The list is separated into the following categories for easy browsing:

CLASSICS
POETRY
LITERARY FICTION
ROMANTIC FICTION
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
SCI-FI
CRIME
BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
BOOKS THAT CHANGED YOUR WORLD
HISTORY
LIVES

Here are some of my favorites from The Telegraph's list (which we also have in the library):

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
War and Peace, by Lev (Leo) Tolstoy
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
1984, George Orwell
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Which ones are your favorites? Are there any titles that we don't have in the SCCS library that you'd like to see?

Favorite reads for British Teens

An article in the Guardian (UK) talks about British teen reading habits. The first entry on the list of favorite things to read is a celebrity gossip magazine, followed by online song lyrics, gaming cheats and info, and blogs and fan fiction. Harry Potter books are the first paper entries on the list, and Anne Frank, Alex Rider and the Narnia series fill out the top ten.

What are your favorite things to read? Do your tastes match those of British teens?