Student request

A student suggestion box for PRHS has found a home in the library, and one of the suggestions was for me:

Different variety of books! More historical/thrillers/adult.

This was a fun one to do, especially as I just received a donation from the Student Council. It is also apt since we don't have many adult books or thrillers, although we have a fair amount of historical novels (which I need to promote more, it seems!). So here is an abridged list of books at the library - some new to the library with more still to come - that fit this request.

Historical Fiction

(You can view a nearly complete list of historical fiction at the library, as well as lists of World War 1 and World War 2 fiction on GoodReads.)

Crossley-Holland, Kevin. Arthur trilogy.

Gardner, Sally. The red necklace.

Hooper, Mary. Newes from the dead.

Jefferson, Joanne K. Lightning and blackberries.

Roberts, Judson. The strongbow saga.

Smith, Sherri. Flygirl.

Speare, Elizabeth George. The witch of Blackbird Pond.

Sutcliff, Rosemary. The Eagle of the Ninth.


Adult Fiction (full list)

Bradley, Alan. The sweetness at the bottom of the pie.

Brightwell, Geri. The dark lantern. (This book is actually an adult historical thriller!)

Ford, Jeffery. The shadow year.

Hill, Lawrence. The book of Negroes.

Mankell, Henning. Chronicler of the winds.

O'Flynn, Catherine. What was lost.


Thrillers (full list)

Abrahams, Peter. Reality check.

Bowler, Tim. Frozen fire.

Duncan, Lois. Killing Mr. Griffin.

Hamilton, Steve. The lock artist.

McNamee, Graham. Bonechiller.

Ness, Patrick. The knife of never letting go.

New books!

Hooray, I can log into Blogger from work again! :)

Due to a donation from the PRHS Student Council, I purchased new books for the library, some based on some student requests.

Fiction

Bowler, Tim. Frozen fire.

Brightwell, Geri. The dark lantern.

Chevalier, Tracy. Girl with a pearl earring.

Cornish, D. M. Factotum (The foundling's tale, book 3)

Efaw, Amy. After.

Ford, Jeffery. The shadow year.

Gallo, John. On the fringe.

Griffin, Adele. Where I want to be.

Hamilton, Steve. The lock artist.

Kluger, Steve. My most excellent year.

McCaughrean, Geraldine. The death-defying Pepper Roux.

McKinley, Robin. Chalice.

Shulman, Polly. The Grimm legacy.

Shusterman, Neal. Everlost.

Smith, Sherri. Flygirl.

Valentine, Jenny. Me, the missing, and the dead.

Volponi, Paul. Rikers High.


Nonfiction

Guinness World Records 2011.

Ripley's Believe it or Not! Enter if you Dare!

Stone, Tanya Lee. The good, the bad, and the Barbie.

Gotta Keep Reading

Inspired by the Oprah/Black Eyed Peas flashmob in September 2009, Ocoee Middle School in Florida made their own version called "Gotta Keep Reading."

Ocoee Middle School Gotta Keep Reading from Michael Cardwell on Vimeo.

Freedom to Read Week, February 20-26

Freedom To Read Week is celebrated in Canada every year to "encourage Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms." Censorship occurs when anyone but the justice system attempts to enforce limits on what a person can or cannot read. Furthermore, included in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is this statement: “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms . . . thought, belief, opinion and expression.”

I have put together a display of books contained in the PRHS library that were either challenged (one or more persons wanted the book off library shelves or out of classrooms) or banned (those persons challenging the book succeeded) in the past decade in Canada or the United States, one even within Nova Scotia. Below is a virtual display of those books.

For more information about book censorship in Canada, explore the Freedom To Read Week website.

PRHS's freedom-to-read-week book montage

PRHS's favorite books »

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Google Art Project

Announced on February 1st, Google Art Project digitally displays over 1000 works of art from museums like the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Florence's Uffizi Gallery, the Tate Britain, Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, and many more. You can do a Google Street View-style walk through of the galleries, make your own collections from the works on display, and the level of detail is mind-blowing (you can even zoom in one eye in Rembrandt's Night Watch - they won't let you get that close in the museum!).

Seriously, getting this close just wouldn't happen.

Artist information, data about the work itself, and links to more works by that artist are provided when you click on the white "i" information icon on the right side of the screen.

My one issue with this site is the inability to search among all of the galleries. For example, one of the art club members wanted to see something by pointillist Georges Seurat and I could not find a way to search for his works in all the museums contained in Art Project. However, a work-around would be to do a Google site search, such as "Seurat site:googleartproject.com" in the main Google web search.

That one gripe notwithstanding, it is a wonderful resource that allows detailed viewing of artwork for anyone with an internet connection, and hopefully the coming months will bring even more artwork and galleries.

Rick Riordan on "The lost hero"

One of the new books at the library is The lost hero by Rick Riordan, which is the beginning of a new series based in the same world as his Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. It sounds great!

Food for thought

This 3-minute video about the rising global population is certainly worth watching.

7 Billion, National Geographic Magazine from Jamie Lee Godfrey on Vimeo.

I like big books

This is pretty great, I have to say.

November links

Help Tim Burton write a story!

Tim Burton, darkly creative film writer/director/producer known for films such as The nightmare before Christmas and the version of Charlie and the chocolate factory that starred Johnny Depp, is writing a short story between November 22nd and December 6th using Tweets submitted by Twitter members. This type of story creation is called Exquisite Corpse, or Cadavre Exquis, and is written line by line: one contributor writes a sentence, then passes it on to another writer who adds another sentence, and so on.

Burton's Cadavre Exquis begins as follows: "Stainboy, using his obvious expertise, was called in to investigate mysterious glowing goo on the gallery floor." As of this morning, there are 19 sentences contributed by members of the Twitter community, and there is still over a week to join in. Have a go!