The Norris HS library will be featuring author Christopher Paolini this month. His final installment in the Eragon series will hit shelves November 8th.
Here is our animoto featurette: Paolini Spotlight
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
NSD Titans Book Club
We have started our Twitter book club at Norris High School. Our first title is Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. Members of the book club can either follow us at Twitter with the hash tag #nsdtitanbookclub or at the NSDTitansBookClub in the groups of nsdtitans.org.
Curious about what Shiver is about? Here's a quick synopsis:
Grace, 17, loves the peace and tranquility of the woods behind her home. It is here during the cold winter months that she gets to see her wolf—the one with the yellow eyes. Grace is sure that he saved her from an attack by other wolves when she was nine. Over the ensuing years he has returned each season, watching her with those haunting eyes as if longing for something to happen. When a teen is killed by wolves, a hunting party decides to retaliate. Grace races through the woods and discovers a wounded boy shivering on her back porch. Who is he, and how will this boy change her relationship with the wolves in the forest?
Curious about what Shiver is about? Here's a quick synopsis:
Grace, 17, loves the peace and tranquility of the woods behind her home. It is here during the cold winter months that she gets to see her wolf—the one with the yellow eyes. Grace is sure that he saved her from an attack by other wolves when she was nine. Over the ensuing years he has returned each season, watching her with those haunting eyes as if longing for something to happen. When a teen is killed by wolves, a hunting party decides to retaliate. Grace races through the woods and discovers a wounded boy shivering on her back porch. Who is he, and how will this boy change her relationship with the wolves in the forest?
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks
Why should we care? Frankie is out to take down the "good old boy" system. She knows where the power lies and with her keen eye for strategy and detail, I am sure she can find some new icons to overthrow. I am also dying to know what happens in several of her unresolved relationships. Author E. Lockhart has left the second semester wide open and too many characters hanging. I want/need to know more.
The book trailer doesn't do it justice, but here it is anyway:
History of Frankie Landau Banks Trailer
Friday, August 19, 2011
Starting a Twitter Book Club
The Norris HS students will be starting a Twitter Book club this fall. My hope is to have the first title chosen soon and announce it when we come back from Labor Day weekend. To sign up and or nominate a title check out the book club page.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Getting Ready for School!
I'm in BACK TO SCHOOL mode, frantically inputting new students into the library database and coding all of the magazines that came in this summer. I'm still reading, just not as much.
I have just started Feed by M.T. Anderson. It is a story about a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment--even on trips to Mars and the moon--and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy. Click here to read an excerpt.
I have just started Feed by M.T. Anderson. It is a story about a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment--even on trips to Mars and the moon--and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy. Click here to read an excerpt.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
My most recent bookish exploits
I have been relentlessly pawing through the racks of graphic novels at every library and book store I visit. I have found many good titles and I hope to bring them over to Norris this fall. Best news? Turns out my soon to be 5th grader LOVES the graphic novels, so I can get a second opinion on them before I make that final book order.
Macey's fav so far is Smile by Raina Telgemeier. It follows the harrowing and true life of a MS girl who knocks out her two front teeth running home from Girl Scouts one evening. I loved it too, it will really click with any MS reader who has or will have braces, glasses, or anything they feel uncomfortable about. Awesome book.
I am all caught up with the Amulet series by Kazu Kibuishi. This is another graphic novel and these will be out on the shelves when schools starts and I am guessing they will always be checked out. Book four comes out in September.
Here is the review from Publisher's Weekly:
Almost too clever and poignant, Amulet is, on the surface, about navigating the murky waters of adolescence and, beneath that, an exploration of abandonment and survival. Emily and Navin are lost children, literally lost in a dark, new world and struggling to save their mother, who has been kidnapped by a drooling, tentacled beast. With stellar artwork, imaginative character design, moody color and consistent pacing, this first volume's weakness lies in its largely disjointed storytelling. There is the strong, young, heroine; cute, furry, sidekicks; scary monsters—all extraordinary components, but pieced together in a patchwork manner. There is little hope in his dark world as Kibuishi removes Emily and Navin's frame of safety. Their hopes rest in a magic amulet that seems to be working in the interest of the children—until it suddenly isn't. The most frightening element of Amulet is the sense of insecurity we feel for Emily, fighting her way through uncharted terrain with no guide and no support system. This first volume of Amulet isn't a disappointment, but it does feel like a warmup to the main event. If anything, it's a clear indication that Kibuishi has just begun skimming the surface of his own talent.
Ms. Wilhelm suggested an author to me at the end of school and I loved her adult fiction. Maryjanice Davidson writes great, funny "Chick Lit", the kind you read at the beach like candy. I discovered that she has written a few Young Adult books and I like the first one quite a bit. Dying for Ice Cream is about Austin Opitz and the girl he never meant to fall for, Yvonne Robinson. She is rich and spoiled, a lethal combination. But when he saw her sobbing in the hospital cafeteria with a plate of ice cream melting in front of her, he couldn't walk away. So begins a strange friendship between two opposites: Diabetic Yvonne, bitter about the mandatory change in her lifestyle; and jokester Austin Opitz, who hides his own recent tragedy by playing class clown. This is a story about teenagers getting a taste of life's ups and downs, and how they cope, despite tremendous odds.
Macey's fav so far is Smile by Raina Telgemeier. It follows the harrowing and true life of a MS girl who knocks out her two front teeth running home from Girl Scouts one evening. I loved it too, it will really click with any MS reader who has or will have braces, glasses, or anything they feel uncomfortable about. Awesome book.
I am all caught up with the Amulet series by Kazu Kibuishi. This is another graphic novel and these will be out on the shelves when schools starts and I am guessing they will always be checked out. Book four comes out in September.
Here is the review from Publisher's Weekly:
Almost too clever and poignant, Amulet is, on the surface, about navigating the murky waters of adolescence and, beneath that, an exploration of abandonment and survival. Emily and Navin are lost children, literally lost in a dark, new world and struggling to save their mother, who has been kidnapped by a drooling, tentacled beast. With stellar artwork, imaginative character design, moody color and consistent pacing, this first volume's weakness lies in its largely disjointed storytelling. There is the strong, young, heroine; cute, furry, sidekicks; scary monsters—all extraordinary components, but pieced together in a patchwork manner. There is little hope in his dark world as Kibuishi removes Emily and Navin's frame of safety. Their hopes rest in a magic amulet that seems to be working in the interest of the children—until it suddenly isn't. The most frightening element of Amulet is the sense of insecurity we feel for Emily, fighting her way through uncharted terrain with no guide and no support system. This first volume of Amulet isn't a disappointment, but it does feel like a warmup to the main event. If anything, it's a clear indication that Kibuishi has just begun skimming the surface of his own talent.
Ms. Wilhelm suggested an author to me at the end of school and I loved her adult fiction. Maryjanice Davidson writes great, funny "Chick Lit", the kind you read at the beach like candy. I discovered that she has written a few Young Adult books and I like the first one quite a bit. Dying for Ice Cream is about Austin Opitz and the girl he never meant to fall for, Yvonne Robinson. She is rich and spoiled, a lethal combination. But when he saw her sobbing in the hospital cafeteria with a plate of ice cream melting in front of her, he couldn't walk away. So begins a strange friendship between two opposites: Diabetic Yvonne, bitter about the mandatory change in her lifestyle; and jokester Austin Opitz, who hides his own recent tragedy by playing class clown. This is a story about teenagers getting a taste of life's ups and downs, and how they cope, despite tremendous odds.
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