Town School for Boys Library

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.

Congratulations to Abe S., in 4B, for his victory in the January/February Factfinder Challenge!  Lots of students entered this contest, but this time, Abe was the only boy to answer all four questions correctly.  Nice going, Abe!

Thank you to everyone who entered this last contest.  Keep your eyes peeled for new questions, coming soon!

In the rest of the country, today was merely Valentine’s Day.  But here at Town, we also celebrated Dress Like a Celebrity/ Athlete/ Teacher Day.  We had a lot of football players, Harry Potters, and a couple terrific teacher costumes.  One costume in particular was a big hit in the library: Pat from 4B dressed up as Nibbler, the library mouse!  Here’s a picture of him holding his “tail.”  They don’t show up too well in this photo, but Pat’s even wearing red goggles to mimic Nibbler’s bright red eyes!

The books keep on coming! Every day seems to bring yet another carton of brand new books, all covered and ready to hit the shelves. Most of the books we buy are pretty new — published in the last year or so. But sometimes we pick up brand new copies of old favorites. Here are two that you might have missed.

George’s Marvelous Medicine, by Roald Dahl. 89 pages.

George has the nastiest grandmother in the world. She is, Roald Dahl explains, “a grizzly old grunion of a grandmother.” So what does George do? He concocts the strangest, most disgusting, most magical medicine for old Grandma that he can possibly imagine. If you like The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Twits, you’ll love this gross-out classic!

The Worst Witch at School, by Jill Murphy. 175 pages.

Mildred Hubble goes to school at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches, where she’s supposed to learn potions, chanting, and broomstick flying. Unfortunately, Mildred isn’t much good at any of these classes. Actually, the only thing she’s any good at all is getting into trouble. She’s very good at that! Who else but Mildred would accidentally turn their worst enemy into a pig?

Which books are the most popular among Town School students?  We checked our circulation records, and it turns out that between September, 2007 and today, the following five books won the prize for most frequently borrowed.  I’ve included each book’s call number, in case you’re curious about where to locate it on our shelves.

1.  I, Jack, by Patricia Finney  (J FIC FIN)

2.  Bone 1: Out from Boneville, by Jeff Smith  (J FIC SMI)

3. Half Moon Investigations, by Eoin Colfer (FIC COL)

4. Anime Mania: How to Draw Characters for Japanese Animation, by Christopher Hart (741.5 HAR)

5. You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Civil War Soldier, by Thomas Ratcliff (973.7 RAT)