Next Book Club Meetings Announced

The Lunch Bunch Book Clubs kicked off successfully in September. We have three book clubs at Highland, one for each grade level. At the end of the first meetings we selected our books for the next meeting.

Here is the information about our next meetings:

• 6th grade will be reading Wild Man Island by Will Hobbs. Our next meeting will be Thursday, November 1 during 5th period.
• 7th grade will be reading Silent to the Bone by E. L. Konigsburg. Our next meeting will be Friday, October 26 during 4th period.
• 8th grade will be reading Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff. Our next meeting will be Wednesday, October 31 during 6th period.

Any interested Highland students are invited to participate. See Ms. Wyatt to sign up and get a copy of the book.

Check out the survey

I was reading the blog, News from the LMC, and saw that Katie Kirsch - the fabulous school librarian at Lake Bluff Middle who is a friend of mine - added a survey feature to the blog. I decided to try one on this blog as well. The first survey question is about how you choose the next book you are going to read.

Happy Reading (and selecting!)
Ms. Wyatt

Citing Sources

This morning at our faculty meeting, Ms. Hauman, Highland's technology teacher, and I talked to the Highland staff about citing sources. Our hope is that we can grow a school-wide expectation of citing sources in a consistent style through teachers modeling and adding requirements for citations in every assignment. The idea being if students need to cite sources every time they do research or use an image, that it will become a habit of mind in the way that they use information academically.

Highland's guide to creating a works cited can be found at:
http://www.d70schools.org/hlc/workscited.htm. There are also some really helpful how-to guides that Kim Hauman created for electronic resources that are integrated into the works cited guide.

Whirligig

The 8th grade book club is meeting to discuss Whirligig by Paul Fleischman next week. I initially read the book a couple of years ago. I just finished reading it again. I knew I enjoyed the book, but I found it such a pleasure this time around! I love that the whirligigs take on a life of their own and connect people in ways that they don't/won't ever realize. There was one quote that really struck me as I read, "We never know all the consequences of our acts. They reach into places we can't see. And into the future, where no one can." (38) The book explores the extended consequences of actions in several ways and left me thinking about that idea even after the last page was read.

Here's the little blurb I wrote on my LibraryThing page:
Brent Bishop has moved around a lot, so he knows "the rules" of trying to fit in at different high schools. A lot of these things have to do with status and appearance: the right clothes, cars, girlfriends. Those things matter to Brent. After getting humiliated at a party, he decides to end his life. The car crash doesn't kill him but instead it kills Lea, an 18-year-old with a bright future. Her mother gives Brent the task of building whirligigs in Lea's honor at the four corners of the United States. The story is interwoven with vignettes of how the whirligigs touch the lives of people who come across them. The story is beautifully written and the structure of the story reinforces the themes of interconnectedness, loss, and healing. Brent is a person transformed by his experience.

I'll keep you posted about our discussion. I am hoping it'll be a good one. There are a lot of interesting talking points and themes in the book! Any Highland 8th graders who have read the book are welcome to come to the meeting.

Lunch Bunch Book Clubs Starting in September

Each grade level will have its own Lunch Bunch Book Club this year. Any interested students are welcome to join the club. Copies of the books are available in the Learning Center.

6th Grade -- Our first book of the year is No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman. We'll meet on September 27 during 5th period.

7th Grade -- Our first book of the year is Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. Our meeting will be on Wednesday, September 26, during 4th period.

8th Grade -- Our first book is Whirligig by Paul Fleischman. Our meeting will be on Wednesday, September 26, during 6th period.

Participants should bring lunch to the book club meeting. We'll eat together while we discuss the book.

New Books for Fall

I really love when new books arrive at the library. I ordered a bunch of new titles over the summer, and one of the very first things I did when I came back to school was to open the boxes of books to see what new things we'll be adding to the Highland collection.

I was busy getting the library ready to open after school one day, when I picked up one of the books off the cart. An hour or so of reading later, I realized I was really enjoying the book I picked up!

The book was Janet Tashjian's Fault Line. Here's the review I wrote on my LibraryThing page:
Becky is a smart, funny, driven seventeen-year-old. When she meets Kip, an aspiring comic, she totally falls for him. Although when he starts to make her choose between him and her friends, becomes more and more controlling, and seems to turn on her for no reason, she starts to wonder if this is the relationship for her.
Interspersed throughout the narrative are notes-to-self Becky makes and Kip's journal entries that give more insight into what each character is thinking. A powerful exploration of an abusive dating relationship.

All of the new books that are being added to the Learning Center's collection this August and September will have purple tape on the spine and will be shelved on the "New Books" shelf. Add a comment to this post with your feedback on any of the new books you read.

Highland Summer Reading Wall of Fame

It is hard to believe that it is already time for school to start. I'm looking forward to get the library opened for business once again.

What was your favorite book of the summer?
Students and staff members are invited to contribute their favorite reads of the summer to the Highland Summer Reading Wall of Fame. To participate, simply submit a short description of the book and why it was a favorite. Then have your picture taken with the book. The resulting flyers will be posted outside the Learning Center.

I read mostly young adult books this summer. Here's the picture I took to use in the Wall of Fame with my favorite summer reads: Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer. Of course, the end of Eclipse has left me anxious for book four. It won't be published until August 2008 at the earliest!