Son and the lost art of THE END

Lowry brings her Giver quartet to its conclusion in Son, the story of Claire, Gabe's mother.  (If you remember, Gabe is the baby with whom Jonas b escapes in The Giver.)  Personally, I found the beginning to be the most interesting part.  I just like it when everyone is on "the compound" as I call it (but since there is never rain, it isn't a natural place and I'm not sure what word I should be using).  Very Handmaid's Tale.  I'm not going to give you a synopsis here, just being the conclusion to The Giver really should be enough to recommend it (and I do!), but I found this New York Times book review podcast interview with Lois Lowry to be particularly enlightening. (she is the first interview on the podcast so, mercifully, you don't have to ff)

Apparently, Lowry's adult son died when training for the military in a routine exercise, due to a mechanic's error.  Not in the line of duty.  The case was brought to trial in Germany and Lowry was called to testify but refused. On the first day of trial, the accused shot himself in the head.  As evidenced by this man's suicide, the accident had more than the direct victims.  The ramifications of this error are manifold, and tragic.   Lowry saw no good coming out of her testifying.

"I cannot kill someone, he thought."

In the above podcast, the interviewer makes a parallel between Lowry's personal passivity (as in, non-violence, not as in "no-action") and her characters'.  Indeed, with its Faustian quid pro quo element, Lowry drives home the message that without something to feed on, evil dies.  Love is more powerful than hate.  Mercy, more powerful than revenge.

 I suppose that to some extent, Lowry's personal views are reflected through her novels, and aren't most authors?  I know that for me, listening to the interview added yet another layer to this quartet that has forever colored the way I view young adult literature.

And the ending?  THE END says it all.  Is it just me, or has the finality of an ending become pass?

YAB Fest, YAB Fest, YAB Fest - say it quickly 3 times

The Book Spot, Round Rock HS and other district librarians have organized what will be an *awesome* young adult book festival this Sat., May 11th.  

(it's free)

I met two of the attending authors at our TLA conference a couple of weeks back, Jessica Lee Anderson (are you reading this?  Thanks for the great conversation - I'm hopeful!) and PJ Hoover (I hear her new book Solstice is "like crack" - that's according to Mrs. Hance over at Grisham).

(it's free)

Who will be there?  Only fabulous authors such as the above mentioned, Greg Leitich Smith, Rachel Harris, DAVID LEVITHAN (Mrs. Bligh's bff after one dinner)  (if he remembers her) and many more.  Read the poster.

(it's free)

Stop by, chat with an author, get a book (like say, Calli or Solstice) signed and do something different.  Have fun!  Opportunities like this don't happen every day.  Who knew we had so much local literary talent?

May 11
9:00 am-5:00 pm
1100 Building of RRHS off Deepwood Dr.

It's FREE people.

I heart testing! Or, How I Learned to Love Testing Because I Recommend Books to Students Who are Forced to Read

Here are two books I not-so-subtly passed on to students to read after STAAR:
 "Wonder" - is it possible that I haven't blogged about this book yet? The book that got me back into ya lit? (I admit, I've been reading more non-fiction than anything else lately.) Please watch the above trailer. If you have a heart, you'll love Auggie. Love his sister. Understand his friends. Your heart will break (but it will be repaired). You may cry a little. You'll cheer. You'll even find some sympathy for a bully.

Lovelovelove the book.

Be on the lookout: RR librarians and others are planning on making this our first community-wide read beginning in the fall.  I expect some great things to come out of this!

 So yes, I threw Wonder at someone. My next victim, I mean student, got into Fallen Angels (and oldie but goodie). So, given my druthers, here are a few books I have lying around for those students testing in the library with "nothing" to read:

Orange is the new black: One year in a women's prison  - true story (self explanatory, no?)


Fitz
A father.  A son.  A gun.


For ambitious readers (those who brought a book and have finished it already - and those who seem super cool and can handle it):
The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao 
I read this one twice, back-to-back.  Love it.  Love Oscar.  Love Junot Diaz.  Diaz was my John Green, before I knew John Green.


My lobotomy
Dr. Walter Freeman performs a lobotomy on twelve-year-old Howard.  You don't know what a lobotomy is?  It's when part of your brain is removed.

I'm not kidding.



Ack.  I think I'm on the verge of a dark theme again....maybe it's the testing getting to me.  I promise that my next post will feature sweet books with hearts and rainbows.  Except for my review of Son (sequel to The Giver).  I am this close to finishing it.   I love the book, but surprise!, it isn't a lighthearted one.

We're baaack

Mrs. Bligh and I had a great, I mean, productive and educational time in Cowtown for our annual Texas Library Association conference.  I had the pleasure of hobnobbing with authors such as K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr of the recently penned, Loki's Wolves.  It sounds great!  Many thanks to the lovely women at Little Brown who graciously invited me to dinner (at Ruth's Chris, nonetheless) and gave me the opportunity to meet the authors and get an autographed copy of the book.  I'm a sucker for those.



I attended the annual, much anticipated Teri Lesesne booktalk in which she gives a quick rundown of the top one hundred or so of the newest must-reads.  Although self-titled the Goddess of YA Literature, no one would argue with that moniker.  My book list for next year is already growing.  But please stop by so we can talk about everything coming out!

I also think I'm going to undertake suggesting a library social media policy for the district....we'll see.  Lots of things to think about.  Whoops, how can I forget?  Mrs. Bligh and I want to be the first school in the district to create a mobile app for the library.  What features would you like to see?  Off the top of our head we're thinking: holds, re-checks (no more overdues, dreamy) and book requests - in addition to database access, etc.  Your thoughts?

We did miss you all.  But not the testing.

PS If you are reading this at all, you have Mercedes to thank.  I took a break from the blog life last year, but once I heard Mercede's story (and she said I could share) I decided to pick it back up.  As a newbie to McNeil, Mercedes spent her summer looking up stuff about MN and other local schools to figure out where she wanted to go.   As a library frequent flier, as we like to say, she spent time on our site and reading this blog.  That's when she knew she wanted to go to MN.

Makes your heart swell just a bit, doesn't it?  So to Mercedes and my two other readers, this is all for you!  Thank you for reading.

Going once!

Some of our most recent discards.  Hmm, seems that the puppet circus craze has died down and the middle book there hasn't been checked out in over 10 years.  AND, there was a surprise in the card slot in the front of the book (for the old fashioned pen & paper check out) , but discretion prevents me from going into more detail.

Going, going, gone!

Often, people are surprised or express dismay/disapproval because we discard books.  Yet, if we didn't, we would have books that say, "One day, man will land on the moon..." (forgive my unimaginative example) taking up room on the shelf and where would our new books go?  The books with updated, current information?  (Fiction is another story before you debate, "But Paradise Lost isn't 'new'.)  So if you see a book with DISCARD stamped all over it in red, please leave it alone.  Stories of well meaning people finding discarded library books, in say the trash or river, going to great lengths to return them are nice in a people-really-are-good kind of way, but I'm over that at this point.



During my days in HEBISD, a janitor fished a paperback out of the toilet and returned it to me in a plastic bag.  The  Toilet Book was on my desk for I don't know how long. Thanks, but no thanks.


Out with the old, in with the new.  Allow me to highlight a few of our new titles:
Plane wreck.  Ocean. Sharks. Island.  Need I say more?

Old, but new to me (and MN).  Apparently, when published in the 70's Zoo Station was widely read in Germany, where Christian F. lives.  At the age of 13 she was addicted to H and would do anything to get her next fix.  Fans of Tweak and the like may want to check this out.  It's written in a more sophisticated way, and her story is much, much darker than Nic's, but it is certainly keeping me up at night.

I'm hoping Triggered is as good as The Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood, I'll find out this summer when I have the time to read it.

Happy and safe prom, Mavericks - have a great weekend!
Oh wait, one more book, aptly entitled Prom.  A documentarian view of prom in America as a rite of passage of sorts.  If you're not the prom type, you may find this more interesting than most.

John Green has my heart

I know, I know.  I'm a late-comer to the John Green craze.  But I am so glad that I finally jumped on the bandwagon.  Not only is TFiOS (Come on people, you know what I'm talking about; if you don't - look it up) one of my favorite y.a. books of all time, but it's soon to be a movie.

If the movie is a bust, it will break my heart.  I'm not kidding.  I felt the same way about Holes, and that turned out OK, so fingers crossed.

As soon as I finished TFiOS, I started listening to Paper Towns via Playaway.  (Tricky thing with Playaways, I have no earthly how far along in the book I am and our print copies are currently checked out so I can't peek - frustrating.  I'm a print girl, what can I say?)  My dog is getting much longer walks these days so I can listen to it, thus, CharChar has become a JG fan by default.

Not only is JG a fabulous author, as evidenced by his many  fans (and who knows better than our students???) and sales, but he's a history buff so I can't help by have an author-crush on him.  I used his Crash Course French Revolution for our Tale of Two Cities anticipatory project.  (More about the project later.)  I'm looking forward to hearing how Tale is going and will start grading those tonight.  Good luck, my freshmen soldiers.  I know Tale can be a bit rough, but it is SO worth it.  One of the best stories ever told.



The French Revolution Crash Course Video from Troy Sayre on Vimeo.

Cockadoodle-doooooo

Last Friday we had a special guest, Aurora Porter from Vital Farms, speak in the library.  Her presentation was a hit!  We learned so much.  A few things we learned:

1. pasture-raised eggs are healthier than factory farm - higher in Omega-3's, for example
2. expiration dates on eggs really don't mean that much -  as long as an egg doesn't smell rotten, it's OK to eat
3. chickens are much like our domesticated pets in that they play with toys and like people
4. the chickens on the Vital Farms farms (Vital Farms is actually a consortium of farms that practice ethical and environmentally sound farming) live good lives, are not debeaked and lay the best eggs around!

I just checked their website for info on the upcoming farm tour and noticed that MN rated it's own blog post!

As for the farm tour, it looks like that information isn't posted to their website yet.  Check back later in the week for more info.  I'll email Aurora and ask her about it.

She also told us how she got into the farming biz.  Turns out, she was turned onto organic farming through an organization called WWOOF.  This organization places workers on organic farms all over the world.  Aurora worked in Japan, Scotland, and other exotic countries that I can't recall.  Turns out that Mr. Studer's brother was also in WWOOF and now has his own farm in Hawaii.

To top off our day, our very own Joseph Plappert gave Aurora, Mrs. Bligh and I a tour of MN's farm - goats included.  I can't wait until next year when the farm is in full use so I can see all our animals.  MN has chickens, steer, swine & goats!  (I have a not-so-secret desire to raise goats for my own goat milk and cheese.)

But wait, there's more!  This week Vital Farms is having an open farm tour