Town School for Boys Library

We’re building our collection of books for new readers! Our library has thousands of great picture books, chapter books and non-fiction books for all levels of readers, but those first steps into reading can be intimidating. The series We Both Read aims to make the transition easier by offering alternating text for parent and child.

Titles include:

• My Car Trip
• Frank and the Balloon
• Baseball Fever
• The Mighty Little Lion Hunter
• Just 5 more minutes!

Come check them out!

In Chapter 6 of The Golden Rat, we meet a “salt girl,” a child whose job is to wash dead fish in a bucket, salt them, and wrap them in lotus leaves.  What do you think this little girl’s backstory is?  Who is she? Where does she come from? Does she have parents? A family?  Where does she live?  What does she eat?  How does she survive?  Use your imaginations!

And we’re back!

We’re thrilled that the school year has started and the Town School Library is once again a busy, noisy place.  There have been a few changes and improvements over the summer, and as usual, we have tons of brand new books.  Some of the changes you may notice include:

• A board-gaming area in the reference section.   Towards the end of last year, we started buying board games for boys who wanted an alternative to playing sports outside during recess.  So far, we have Monopoly, Harry Pottery trivia, and Runebound, and we’re definitely looking to build up this collection.  If you have any specific game requests, let us know.  We’ve also created shelf space for boys to save unfinished games, since most good games take at least two or three recess periods to finish.

• Our Junior Fiction section is better than ever.  We cleaned out and donated a number of the older books that were no longer appealing to kids, and we’ve bought a huge stack of new, colorful, and engaging short chapter books.  Come take a look!

• New magazines!  This year, we’ll be subscribing to a number of different magazines, including Game Informer, Mad Magazine for Kids, Cricket, MLS Magazine (soccer!), ESPN Magazine, Slam, and Time Magazine for Kids.  You’ll find all current issues of these magazines in the hanging racks next to the back windows.  Boys are welcome to borrow magazines overnight.

• As you may know, the library has lots of videos.  In previous years, only teachers were able to borrow these, but this year we have decided to let kids and parents check them out, too.  Boys can borrow videos on Fridays and must return them the following Monday.

• Looking to donate a book to the library?  Check out our new Amazon wishlist!  We’ll be using this wishlist as part of our new, improved Birthday Book program, coordinated by parent volunteers Tammy Leong and Akemi Tsuruyama.  And while we’re on the topic, if you’re a Town family member and are interested in volunteering in the library, feel free to contact our new volunteer coordinator, Tina Tunney.

• And last but hardly least, MICE!  Sadly, one of our library mice — Bernadette — died this summer.  As of last week, however, Nibbler has two new companions: a black mouse named Frances, and a grey-and-white mouse named Lucy.

As you listen to the read-aloud, think about these questions.  Then add your responses as comments to this post.

Would you rather be friends with Adam or Jennifer? Why?

Do you think Phoebe is a good reporter?  Why or why not?

What do you think will happen to Adam and Jennifer when Mrs. Marris finds out about the story they are doing?

Okay, 5th grade: here’s the idea. As you listen to today’s read-aloud, add a comment to this blog entry by clicking on “comments” and entering in the required info. You do NOT need to give a real e-mail address, or a website.

Some things you might want to comment on:

• How does Mrs. Boland want to change Tremble? What do you think of her plans?

• Why doesn’t Jennifer want to accept the reward for the return of the cow? What would you do in her position?

• How do you think Jennifer and Adam will prove that Marris stole the $75,000 gift and used it for herself?

You can also respond to other people’s comments, so long as you do so politely.

April 22nd is Earth Day, a day for reflecting on ways we can all help protect our planet. In honor of the holiday, the library is highlighting some of the environment-themed books on our shelves. Take a look at this week’s spotlighted books:

The Down-to Earth Guide to Global Warming, by Laurie David and Cambria Gordon Global warming is having some unexpected and very nasty effects. For instance, poison ivy is growing bigger and itchier. The maple syrup season is shortening, leading to less deliciousness on your breakfast pancakes. Disease-carrying mosquitoes are moving further and further north, bringing Lyme disease, malaria, West Nile Virus, and yellow fever to places where these diseased once did not exist. Read about more scary stuff that happens as the earth warms up, and how you can help prevent further climate change.

Why Are the Ice Caps Melting: The Dangers of Global Warming, by Anne Rockwell The earth is warming up, the ice caps are melting, the polar bears are disappearing. But it’s not too late! There’s still stuff you can do to stop the amount of harmful greenhouse gases in our atmosphere from increasing. This book explains exactly why the earth is warming up and suggests some simple ways kids and adults can help fight this climate change.

You’ll find these books on the “Spotlight On” table, right up front near the entrance to the library.

So, library patrons (and fifth-grade scavenger hunters), what are you doing to save the earth? Leave a comment and let us know!

What are we up to in our library classes these days?  Here are just a few of the things the boys have been working on.

Third- and fourth-graders have recently learned to use library databases to search for information.  They now know how to hunt for facts on Searchasaurus, a database that stores digital versions of magazine, newspaper, and encyclopedia articles.   The third grade is busy creating a science and politics magazine, with each boy writing his own carefully-researched article based on information he found through Searchasaurus.

Here’s a screen-shot of Searchasaurus.  Isn’t it pretty?

The fifth graders already know how to use Searchasaurus, but they’re about to get some serious practice using it and other library databases to answer scavenger hunt questions.  Some of them may be posting comments on this blog entry in order to get credit for one of the scavenger hunt items. We’d be curious to hear what they have to say about Searchasaurus, and whether they think it is a useful tool.  (It’s okay to say no, guys.)

The sixth grade is also working on an online research project, but they will be using the internet, rather than just library databases.  Their task is to plan a fantasy vacation on a bare-bones budget.  In order to complete this project, they’ll need to rely heavily on the website evaluation skills they’ve developed this year.

April is National Poetry Month, and you can be the poet!  Even though March isn’t quite over yet, we’re already in poetry-writing mode.  Today we posted two magnetic boards on the library door and stuck magnetic poetry pieces all over one of them.  Come create your own magnetic poems, and maybe we’ll even post the results on the library blog!

Not in the mood for a 250-page book?  Take a gander at our short story collection, which just moved into a new home on top of the rolling fiction shelves (see photo below).   We have collections of funny stories, scary stories, sad stories, adventure stories — any type of story you’re looking for, we’ve got it here, in a short and sweet form.

The library just got 800 million brand new books!

Okay, okay. Not quite 800 million. We admit, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But we did get a whole lot of new books — four boxes full, to be specific!

Among these books are some fantastic new graphic novels that you might enjoy. Read about them below.

	Tiny Tyrant, by Lewis Trondheim and Fabrice Parme In Portocristo, anything six-year-old King Ethelbert says goes, no matter how bizarre or harebrained. He transports himself back in time to meet a dinosaur, swaps his country’s kids for Ethelbert robots, tests his bodyguard’s mettle by putting a price on his own head, and shrinks the world down to his size.
	Goosebumps Graphix: Creepy Creatures. The fantastically popular Goosebumps books are now available in graphic novel form! This collection includes “The Werewolf of Fever Swamp,” “The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight,” and “The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena.”
	Big Fat Little Lit by Art Spiegelman. A collection of very silly short stories presented in comic book format. Includes some games and activities.
	Spiderman: Forces of NatureIt’s wall-to-wall mayhem in the Mighty Marvel Manner with four original tales of everybody’s favorite teenage wall-crawler! Featuring the Grey Gargoyle and Hydro-Man.