Librarian Nancy Pearl's Under-The-Radar Gift Books

I always like reading Nancy Pearl's book reviews, or listening to her on NPR. She never fails to introduce me to at least one or several titles, which I have not heard of or seen on other book lists. Click on the link below to view or listen to her latest reading recommendations:

Nancy Pearl 2009 Under-the-Radar Gift Books

Tricks

I read Tricks by Ellen Hopkins, which is a novel written in prose form. The five teenage characters are real, facing some major hardships of life, and making choices. Their choices lead them to a life they never imagined in Las Vegas - Sin City as they each refer to this place they call home.

The story is disturbing. It is disturbing in that these characters and their experiences say so much about our culture, our priorities, and what we expect of ourselves as a community, as adults, as parents, and as teenagers.

What these characters learn to do and,ultimately, want to do, for another dollar, another high, another sense of superficial self-worth is beyond the capacities of even these teens.

How these individuals became intwined with a world beyond their maturity and capabilities is disturbing. If they had any foundation for making choic.es, and making good choices, it crumbled. How they found themselves in certain situations, even they don't know the answer. However, if these characters were to look to when and in what state they made the decision that lead them to where they wore a mask, they would regret what they did, what they said, and what they thought would be better "on the other side."

I hope that such situations can change, maybe end, and that more teenagers are part of strong families, supportive schools, and have access to adults to whom they can turn for direction and guidance.

I hope that our culture will someday reflect on its priorities, its needs, and acknowledge that what might be an "underworld" or another "sin city" across the country does exist. Such places and poeple need help, self-cofidence, and a hug; not prosecution.

Tis the Season for Lists and More Lists - Enjoy !

Complete Holiday Book Recommendations from NPR

Season's Readings: Top Picks From Indie Booksellers by Susan Stamberg

Best Young Adult Fiction Of 2009 by Jonathan Hunt

Best Books for Young Adults

Mobile phones predicted to help learning

Will Richardson shared this video on a recent blog post where he states that:
# In the next five years, every phone will be an iPhone. (And let’s not forget that there are already over 100,000 apps for that little sucker, many of them with relevance to the classroom.)
# We’ll soon be seeing what Steve Rubel is calling a “dumb shell” that takes the book idea in that video and creates a netbook sized (at least) keyboard and screen that your phone simply plugs into.

He then asks the question:
"If at some point in the fairly near future just about every high school kid is going to have a device that connects to the Internet, how much longer can we ask them to stuff it in their lockers at the beginning of the day?"

He concludes with this thought:
"When do we stop trying to fight the inevitable and start thinking about how to embrace it? Or, as Doug Johnson so eloquently suggests, when are we gonna saddle this horse and ride it?"

Steve Dembo's blog post quotes a Notre Dame High School Headmaster,Mr Haigh who said there was "little logic in allowing pupils to use a netbook in school while banning mobile phones, many of which could access the internet, record sound and take digital photographs." Dembo concludes by saying that
fighting to keep cell phones hidden or banned in schools is a battle that schools can’t win.

Luckily New Trier has come to the wisdom that things change; with smart cell phone devices here to stay and adoption rates are racing towards 100+%, teachers need to be proactive and think of creative ways to adapt their lessons to accomodate new avenues for learning.

Real-Life Story of a Child Who Lived in the Library

Today's New York Times features a story about Sharon Washington, who lived with her family in 3 different New York library apartments above the library. While her custodian father fed the basement furnace with coal (don't let that furnace go out!), she "stoked her love for books upstairs... Read this charming story.

Best of 2009 lists are starting to appear

Here is the 100 Notable Books of 2009 from the New York Times.

What we are Reading and Recommending at AM Exchange

Recently our librarians (including Beth who is at library school) held a booktalk on favorite books and we shared our selections between campuses via Skype. As far as we know, that was the first time the technology had been used between our two campuses. The list of books we reviewed is on LibraryThing here. The local public libraries also contributed by supplying some additional information on suggestions for children’s books (Northbrook) and about the Kindles which are available for local patrons (Winnetka Public Library). Please see a librarian if you have questions or suggestions. We will be updating the LibraryThing list periodically.

100 Useful Links for eBook Lovers

Here are 100 useful links for ebook lovers.

Born Digital resources

As we continue reading Born Digital, here are a couple of links which might be of interest in our journey of understanding the first generation of digital natives: main website with information about the book and links to the project's resources; and a pbs-sponsored webinar featuring John Palfrey (scroll down to "Teaching and Learning with Digital Natives") with links to both audio and video versions.

Recent Reads

When seventeen-year-old Peter Houghton decides to get revenge on peers who have bullied him since his first days of school, he chooses to take a gun to school and kills ten people. Set in Sterling, New Hampshire, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult investigates the impact a high school shooting has on the surrounding community. Picoult realistically portrays the detrimental effects social hierarchies may pose on students in public schools. At the end of this novel, Peter’s mother asks, "Everyone would remember Peter for nineteen minutes of his life, but what about the other nine million?" Complete with dynamic character relationships, this is a must read for those working in America’s schools.

Kindle vs. iPhone?

Take a look at the article published in today’s Christian Science Monitor entitled “What’s Hot on iPhone? Books, books, books!” The article claims the creation of book-related apps has exceeded the number of apps created for games for the fourth-straight month! With so many using iPhones and iPod touch devices, will the Kindle seize to exist?

Ideas from the YALSA blog

How can librarians act to embrace the idea that of the school library as a destination place – where it’s OK for teens go to hang out and spend time? What makes a library more than a supermarket where students grab things they need and run? Could these ideas shared on the YALSA blog work?

* Hours that go beyond the traditional 9 to 5 or 9 to 9 model? Do successful hangout places for teens open early and stay open late?
* Staff across library departments that is welcoming, interested, and willing to build relationships?
* Flexible furniture that is easy to move around and that promotes sitting and talking with friends and peers?
* Space that actually has space for moving around, standing and talking, and even sitting on the floor?
* More than a collection of books and what’s in the collection (books, media, technology, etc.) is of interest to teens 2009/2010 and not just favorites of current or past librarians, staff, parents, etc.?
* A place where teens know their ideas are welcome, supported, and even acted upon?

How Everything Changed

Watch the video promotion of a new book ordered at the New Trier Library.

From Kirkus:
"An enormously entertaining cultural and social history...Without preaching, Collins shows the sexism that women (and men) once accepted as the norm, and she backs up her often eye-opening stories with hard facts and solid statistics.... Collins can be deadly serious and great fun to read at the same time. A revelatory book for readers of both sexes, and sure to become required reading for any American women's-studies course."

Examining Christianity from a Buddhist Perspective

Now available in paperback, Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian by Paul F. Knitter intrigues me since I believe no single dogma/belief system can explain the human condition or reason for human existence.

A professor at Harvard Divinity School says this book:
"Radiates wisdom and warmth. Is it possible to become more fully Christian by taking most seriously the Buddhist path -- becoming Buddhist in order to live more fully the Christian life? Agree or not with Paul's answer, we can be most grateful to him for pressing the question and making so very clear the possibilities and risks along the way." Francis X. Clooney

Two what extent will online piracy impact the ebook industry?

In 1999, when the music industry was "Napsterized" by free file sharing, music CD sales dramatically declined; a three year study in 16 countries shows that 95% of music downloads are unauthorized. The free service RapidShare appears to account for most of the current piracy in ebooks. Read Randall Stross' article "Will Books be Napsterized?" in today's NY Times Business Section.

The Power of Books and Librarians. . .

An inspiring story from the NPR series "Story Corp" about a young man whose life was changed by books and his local librarian. Enjoy!

Recent Reads...

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Set in 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi, The Help is told through the perspective of a white woman, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, and two black maids, Aibileen and Minny. Having just graduated from Ole Miss, Skeeter is determined, much to her mother’s dismay, to become a writer. She goes against her family and friends’ beliefs, and with the help of primarily Aibileen and Minny, she anonymously authors a book to represent the treatment of black help in the 1960’s. Although she is ostracized by those around her, she remains relentless.
Personally, I was shocked by the irony of this time; black help was entrusted to raise white children, but in all other regards they were oppressed and given limited rights. I also found Stockett’s afterword especially poignant. She tells of her own experience growing up in Jackson, Mississippi, during this same time period, in a family with hired help. I highly recommended this book to all! Check out Amazon’s review.

Older Podcasts You May Want to Share

Listen to Stephanie Meyer's 2006 National Book Fest podcast.

Stephenie Meyer's debut novel, "Twilight" (2005), was "released to critical acclaim and became a New York Times Editor's Choice, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, one of American Library Association's Ten Best Books for Young Adults and Top Ten Books for Reluctant Readers, and a Teen People Hot List pick. It has been translated into 20 languages". In the podcast she speaks about her unlikely rise as a best selling author and her new book is "New Moon" (2006), the sequel to "Twilight."

You may also have missed Neil Gaiman's podcast: 2008 National Book Festival

Neil Gaiman,top writer of modern comics and a best-selling novelist...."He was the creator-writer of the monthly cult DC Comics series Sandman, which won many awards, including a World Fantasy Award. He is the author of the critically acclaimed "American Gods," awarded the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, SFX and Locus awards, and his novel "Stardust" was a winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award as one of 2000's top 10 adult novels for young adults."

In this podcast he speaks about his latest YA novel The Graveyard Book (2008)which took him the longest to write of any of his books.

Life imitating Art?

I read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother last year and would highly recommend it, as do authors Neil Gaiman and Scott Westerfeld. The main character, Marcus, is detained and questioned by Homeland Security mostly for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was struck by parallels to the real life detention and recent questioning by Homeland Security of a Pomona College student -- prompted in part by his having some Arabic flash cards in his backpack at the airport. Here's the Wall Street Journal article. While plenty of references are being made to Orwell's 1984, this story will also make an interesting twist to my next book talk about Doctorow's excellent work.

"Best Book of the Year ... so far" from amazon.com

Follow the link to see short summaries of the 10 books which amazon.com identifies as "Best Books of the Year ... so far" I have read The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton and agree with the Booklist reviewer who describes it as "a sprawling, old-fashioned novel, .... just the thing for readers who like multigenerational sagas with a touch of mystery".

The main page also links to more fiction, non-fiction and "hidden gem" favorites.

Nominations for the Man Booker Prize

The British literary Man Booker Prize, first awarded in 1969, promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year. See complete information archive of the Man Booker Prize since inception in 1969.

Chair of judges, James Naughtie, comments:

"We're thrilled to be able to announce such a strong shortlist, so enticing that it will certainly give us a headache when we come to select the winner. The choice will be a difficult one. There is thundering narrative, great inventiveness, poetry and sharp human insight in abundance.

"These are six writers on the top of their form. They've given us great enjoyment already, and it's a measure of our confidence in their books that all of us are looking forward to reading them yet again before we decide on the prizewinner. What more could we ask?"

The list of six nominees includes:

A S Byatt The Children's Book (Random House, Chatto and Windus)

J M Coetzee Summertime (Random House, Harvill Secker)

Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze (Random House, Jonathan Cape)

Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)

Simon Mawer The Glass Room (Little, Brown)

Sarah Waters The Little Stranger (Little, Brown, Virago)

The Library of Congress Celebrates the Joy of Reading

The 2009 National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on Saturday, September 26, 2009, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., between 7th and 14th streets from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The festival is free and open to the public.

The first batch of podcast interviews with 2009 National Book Festival authors are now online here, on iTunes here (link opens in iTunes client). These podcasts are automatically loaded to your iTunes library; all you do is click save.

Included in the first round are Junot Diaz, Rickey Minor, James Patterson, George Pelecanos, Nicholas Sparks and David Wroblewski–with more to come. They’re all free!

View an alphabetical list of all featured authors.

List of the most downloaded audio ebooks

ResourceShelf has shared the vendor OverDrive's list the ‘Most Downloaded Books from the Library’ for August 2009. Click to see the complete lists.

“The Time Traveler’s Wife” was number one on the adult fiction list and “Julie and Julia” by Julie Powell topped the eBook adult nonfiction list no doubt a reflection of the recent movie releases.

Tracy Kidder's new book: "Strength in What Remains"

The summer read for New Trier's new Integrated Global Studies School (IGSS) is Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, a non-fiction selection about Dr. Paul Farmer, infectious disease specialist, who has made a difference in Haiti by greatly improving public health for those afflicted with tuberculosis. Kidder's latest book focuses on an immigrant from Burundi who has made a difference in Burundi by establishing a health clinic there.


Watch the interview with Tracy Kidder as he discusses his new book, about Deo from Burundi who has worked to establish a public health facility in his native land, Burundi.

Read an excerpt from Tracy Kidder's Strength in What Remains [PDF].

Comic Books and Graphic Novels

According to the Association of College and Research Libraries, (ACRL) scholarship and interest in comic books and graphic novels is on the rise and Internet resources developed for researchers are numerous. They provide a list of valuable resources on their wiki which may help librarians with developing this genre.

Frank McCourt Touched Our Lives with his Stories

Yesterday's and today's NY Times have wonderful remembrance pieces for Frank McCourt who died on Sunday. His memoirs were tough and humorous at the same time. I loved Angela's Ashes, 'Tis and Teacher Man. Probably enjoyed the trials and tribulations of 'Tis the most.

Listen to the NPR tribute and several related interviews with Frank McCourt who speaks about his works: Angela's Ashes and 'Tis.

Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson

Just listened to a National Public Radio interview with Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired magazine. It sounds fascinating.

Description from Publisher's Weekly:

"Starred Review. In the digital marketplace, the most effective price is no price at all, argues Anderson (The Long Tail). He illustrates how savvy businesses are raking it in with indirect routes from product to revenue with such models as cross-subsidies (giving away a DVR to sell cable service) and freemiums (offering Flickr for free while selling the superior FlickrPro to serious users). New media models have allowed successes like Obama's campaign billboards on Xbox Live, Webkinz dolls and Radiohead's name-your-own-price experiment with its latest album. A generational and global shift is at play—those below 30 won't pay for information, knowing it will be available somewhere for free, and in China, piracy accounts for about 95% of music consumption—to the delight of artists and labels, who profit off free publicity through concerts and merchandising. Anderson provides a thorough overview of the history of pricing and commerce, the mental transaction costs that differentiate zero and any other price into two entirely different markets, the psychology of digital piracy and the open-source war between Microsoft and Linux. As in Anderson's previous book, the thought-provoking material is matched by a delivery that is nothing short of scintillating."

However, after looking for other reviews, I ran across a blog post from the Virginia Quarterly Review: "Chris Anderson’s Free Contains Apparent Plagiarism" by Waldo Jaquith on June 23rd, 2009. Jaquith gives many examples of material that is lifted straight from Wikipedia with no citations. He plans to source this material prior to publication; his excuses seem quite lame considering he is a professional journalist.
Could be a teachable moment for students.

2008 Most-Challenged Books Named

The ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) recently revised the list of the 10 most challenged books for 2008.

Four books are added to the list:

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya ; Uncle Bobby's Wedding by Sarah S Brannen; The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini; Flashcards of My Life by Charise Mericle Harper.



Read the full list with a synopsis of each book.

As librarians we must continue to be vigilant in protecting our readers' First Amendment rights.

John Berendt's City of Falling Angels

Just finished reading City of Falling Angels. It was a compelling read and felt like a 400 page Vanity Fair article with all the gossip and tales of the rich and famous. I was introduced to the Fenice Opera house which burned in 1996 just days before Berendt arrived in Venice. He stayed on for about 9 years to investigate the fire while getting to know the Venetians and ex-pats on an intimate basis. I was particularly intrigued about the life and works of Ezra Pound who lived in Rapallo and Venice. I even borrowed the PBS video of Pound's biography to enhance my understanding of his poetry.

Like Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil, Falling Angels is a window into Venice, a city steeped in art, history, tradition, and customs unknown to most outsiders. I learned that Venetians always tell you the opposite of what they mean. Hmmm....should be interesting as I am leaving for Italy tomorrow and will stay at both Rapallo and Venice.

While I already have tickets to see the Doges Palace, I doubt that it will be the most interesting place in Venice. I am much more interested in the Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli and other places richly described by Berendt as one of the "Save Venice" restoration projects. It's quite a page turner and fitting as a summer read.

Ready Set Read. . .

Have you started a summer reading list? Here are a few titles, recommended by New Trier's Librarians and Northfield's Staff Book Club, to start with or add to your list. No doubt all of our lists will be longer than we have days of summer!

If you want more ideas be sure to browse/click on the links to the left of this post.

Happy Reading and Relaxing!
New Trier Library Staff

Abraham Lincoln High School Book Awards 2010
The Baron in the Trees
The Book Thief
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WAO
The Floor of the Sky
Gang Leader for a Day
The Girls From Ames
The Help
Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan
The Madonnas of Leningrad
Mountains Beyond Mountains
Mudbound
People of the Book
Olive Kitteridge
Summer World: A Season of Bounty

Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners

Use LibraryThing to explore the 125+ titles recently designated as Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners, 2009 by the American Library Association.

Use this link to explore those titles and the 2009 Alex Award Winners (given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults) and the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award winners (given to 5 books this year that exemplify literary excellence in young adult literature).

If you click on the Tags column, the award winners will be listed first, followed by the Outstanding Books which will be grouped into one of 5 broad categories: Arts and Humanities; History and Cultures; Literature and Language Arts; Science and Technology; and Social Sciences. The entire list can also be sorted by Title or by Author (again, simply click on the relevant column). A user can also display covers or tags and clicking on a cover will link to another page with more information about an individual book and pricing and reviews from amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, etc.

Enjoy!

UberAbe2009

We have a winner. . .

and she is Susan S.

Recently New Trier's North Field Library Department sponsored a "Win This Twilight Poster Contest." We asked students to post their thoughts to the question: Was the movie as good as the book? Susan's name was randomly drawn from those who responded. Congratulations Susan!

Read all the comments below

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Finally got around to reading this one over winter break. This serious tale about the formation a "book club" during WW II during the German occupation of the island of Guernsey is made more palpable by the love story embedded within. A worthwhile read.

Judy Gressel