Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - No Spoilers

It's Sunday at midnight. I just finished reading the new Harry Potter. I loved it.

Without giving any spoilers, have any of the rest of you finished it yet? Please share your immediate gut reaction.

NEXT ALAN CHAT with LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

The ALAN book chat on Wednesday, July 18 discussed TWISTED by Laurie Halse Anderson. On June 25, Laurie will be joining us for an interview at 9:00 pm. Sign on to the ALAN website at http://alan-ya.org/bookchat/flashchat.php. If you haven't been to the site before, look at it today so you will be ready to join us on those Wednesdays. Membership is not required to chat!

Converting Powerpoints to Screen Savers

For those of you thinking of creating spiffy screen savers with book reviews to display on all your library (or school!) computers, try this tutorial. It's super easy, and it even works on MS 2007.

Once it's set up, it shouldn't take long at all to add more slides or delete the ones you no longer wish to use. I plan to save the folder with the slides in the staff shared folder at our school in the hopes that some of the teachers will use them as well.

Anyone up for sharing book blurbs?

Censorship

Here's a new wiki about censorship.

http://censorshipresources.pbwiki.com/

-Stephanie

Disaster Library

I've inherited a most spacious library that apparently has been the dumping ground for the whole school. Besides that it looks like it's never been weeded and to top it off the whole collection really needs to be relabeled/recataloged. I started today with some help and we've already filled all 3 or 4 of the carts. I also got rid of some framed pictures and 3-D puzzles. I'm trying to find the fine line between necessary clean-up and too much change/throw aways at once. ( I know we all remember the Providence Middle School experience). I probably should have taken a before picture.

-Stephanie

BYU Symposium

Is anyone going to the BYU Symposium for Young Readers the end of this week? I am going by myself, and I would love to meet up with someone, so I don't have to sit by myself. Gary Paulsen, David McCauley, Ann Cannon, Suzanne Staples and others are going to be the featured authors. It should be good!!!

teacherdiscovery.com is a website you can buy book bundles or cheap classroom book titles
Karen R Finley

Eclipse the third book by Stephanie Meyer is coming August 7th.
Karen R Finley

Utah Children's Authors Speak

Here's a link to a great article about three Utah writers you should know: Kristyn Crow,
Mette Ivie Harrison, and Shannon Hale. I took a writing class with Mette right before
her first book came out. She's a really talented writer.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,680195114,00.html

Thanks for the memories

To all a big hello! I was riding high after our week in Logan. I look forward to communicating with you and sharing library resources. I am currently putting together a book order. I purposely saved some of my budget so that I could have lots of new books for the beginning of the school year. I am toying with Kathy Dale's idea of an early bird book club, but I am concerned about holding those titles away from general circulation for the term, and about the cost of 5 copies. Any suggestions ? Also, how do you feel about puzzles and word games being available for in library use?
Bea

The Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2006

I found this information on a blog from someone in ALA, and thought we should all be aware of what books were most often challenged last year (and beyond)

Banned Books Week September 29 through October 6, 2007

Where to begin? How about with the most frequently challenged books of 2006--

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, for homosexuality, anti-family, and unsuited to age group; (Vaughn read this one to us)

2. Gossip Girls series by Cecily Von Ziegesar for homosexuality, sexual content, drugs, unsuited to age group, and offensive language;

3. Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor for sexual content and offensive language;

4. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler for sexual content, anti-family, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

5. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison for sexual content, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

6. Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz for occult/Satanism, unsuited to age group, violence, and insensitivity;

7. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher for homosexuality and offensive language;

8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky for homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

9. Beloved by Toni Morrison for offensive language, sexual content, and unsuited to age group; and

10. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier for sexual content, offensive language, and violence.


The best novels of the 20th Century (according to the Radcliffe Publishing Institute)--here's the top 30--the titles in bold have been banned or challenged:

1. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

2. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

3. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

4. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

5. The Color Purple, Alice Walker

6. Ulysses, James Joyce

7. Beloved, Toni Morrison

8. The Lord of the Flies, William Golding

9. 1984, George Orwell

10. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner

11. Lolita, Vladmir Nabokov

12. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

13. Charlotte's Web, EB White

14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

15. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

16. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

17. Animal Farm, George Orwell

18. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

19. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

20. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

21. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

22. Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne

23. Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston

24. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

25. Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison

26. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

27. Native Son, Richard Wright

28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey

29. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut

30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

Truth and Treason

My teenaged son who is the budding movie director just asked me, "Whatever happened to Haley Joel Osment?" So, I checked out his page on imdb.com and found a new movie he's working on. Since the topic has Utah and LDS ties, I thought I'd let all of you know what I found.

Truth and Treason (2008)
"Based on the true story of Helmuth Hübener, the 16 year-old leader of an anti-Hitler group in Nazi Germany, Truth and Treason explores the complex bond that forms between the brilliant young resistance fighter and Erich Müssener, the Gestapo agent intent on hunting him down. Each convinced of the rightness of his cause. Each forced to deal with the consequences of his beliefs. In the vein of The Pianist, this film examines the human struggle for freedom and confirms the impact of one courageous voice."

If you're not familiar with the story of these boys, you might want to read Brothers in Valor by Michael O. Tunnell.




Brothers in Valor by Michael O. Tunnell (Holiday House; 0-8234-1541-4)
Hamburg, Germany, 1937. Rudi Ollenick, the narrator, and his best friends, Karl Schneider and Helmuth Guddat, German boys, are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. The boys aren’t sure how they can follow the teachings of their church, yet still be good German citizens, willing to follow the Führer. When the boys are forced to join Hitler’s youth group, they learn about the ruthless and violent ways of the Nazis and begin to formulate a plan to spread the truth among the German people. The flyers they print and distribute put them in danger, but all three boys are willing to take the risk, even if it means they lose their lives.

Tunnell, a BYU School of Education professor, has based his story on personal interviews, published biographies, and Nazi archival records, bringing to life the story of three heroes who had to decide on whose side they would stand.

Thanks for all your hard work!

All work is graded and you all did a great job. It was so fun having you all here in Logan. I can't believe June is gone and it is July. Thanks for all your hard work and for your friendship. Thanks LuAnn for setting up this Blog for all of us to keep in touch. Hope you all have a great summer.

Kari great news about the baby. Oh and I love the name Quintin.