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?

New laptop purchase?

Are you thinking of getting or asking for a new laptop for the holidays? This article from PC World has suggestions on what to look for, and a few lists of their favorites.

Do you spend a lot of time online? Do your parents and teachers think it's rotting your brain? Check out this article, which reports on a University of California study saying that online time "teaches important skills."

What do you think? Is Facebook more important than learning about, say, the causes of the Civil War?

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!

Find your dewey number

The Dewey Decimal System is used to classify books in our library by subject. As many of you already know, those numbers on the spine of non-fiction books correspond to the most important subject in the book. Fun, eh?

Try out this quiz to find your Dewey classification number. (It's totally not scientific, just for the fun of it!)

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?

Spiderwick-esque library

Holly Black, one of the authors of the Spiderwick Chronicles, shares her library with us on the Steampunk Blog. Clicky here for some wonderful pictures of a hidden library!

Biblioburro

We have a great library here at SCCS, full of interesting and useful books, not to mention computers, wi-fi, magazines and movies. Some places aren't as lucky. Take a look at this article from the New York Times on a Biblioburro project in Colombia. The organizer, Luis Soriano takes books to people in rural Colombia with the help of his two mules. What a novel way to get your novels!