Schooliblit

Saturday, May 3, 2003

Recent Reading
I proctored SATs this morning, and between reading out directions and walking the room to make sure everyone was filling in the correct part of the answer sheet, I was able to finish one book and start another. The book I finished was Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion, which has won all kinds of awards, including the 2002 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

I remember really enjoying The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by her, and it's one I recommend often to students who might like something different (although I can never remember the order of the body parts -- is it eye first or ear?). This latest one is also excellent. I must remember to check out A Girl Named Disaster as well.
The book I started (and finished later at home) was Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah. It's been on my list for a long time, and I wanted to see how it compared to Beverley Naidoo's The Other Side of Truth. It's obviously for older readers than Naidoo's book. (The copy in our middle/high library was transferred over from the elementary library.) I enjoyed it. The main character reminded me of some of the African refugees I have known in Cairo and in Moscow -- smart and honest and incredibly strong, especially given all that they have experienced.

Sheesh! I hope this blog will help me reflect and write more critically about the books I'm reading. I've never been good at reviewing books because I either like a book or don't like it, and I'm not good at articulating why either way.
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We Do Plenty
This post from the blog Just What Does a Librarian Do? illustrates why I think libraries should give blogs a try. They really do help you add content, rather than forcing you to focus on the process of adding content (which is usually such a barrier).

"I quickly added two links to the weblog I maintain for the school to which I am liaison. I like the weblog because it allows me to push out all the wonderful new resources I hear about that I wouldn't otherwise be able to be adding to resource guides. There's just too much. So far it doesn't seem like that many people actually read the weblog, though plenty of folks are aware of it and are excited about the idea. The links I added today came to me via the Internet Scout Report and BoingBoing. I did some quick research looking into RSS feeds, something for the future. I also realized that if I add a google search to the weblog it will become an effective research tool, for me at least. So when patron questions come up, I could do a quick search of the weblog to see if I had ever posted any relevant resources there. Good idea." [The Shifted Librarian]
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