Town School for Boys Library

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)

Since our library has over 24,000 books (really!), it is sometimes hard to find the exact book — or even the exact shelf — you’re looking for. This is why we’re working on attaching labels to each and every shelf in the library. For example, the first two shelves in the non-fiction (true books) section of the library are now labeled “unsolved mysteries” and “questions & answers,” since these are the topics that books on these shelves cover. Here’s a picture of our newly-labeled sports section, just to give you an idea:

Hey Bone fans! Book #7 has arrived!  If you would like to borrow Ghost Circles, the latest full-color version of Jeff Smith’s hugely popular Bone series, stop by the library and put your name on the sign-up sheet on our front door.  We have two copies of the book, so we hope you won’t have to wait too long before it’s your turn.

Speaking of madly popular books, we also have just a few more You Wouldn’t Want To books available.  If you’re curious about exactly why you wouldn’t want to be an Aztec sacrifice, or why you wouldn’t want to be an American colonist, come check them out.

Believe it or not, Ms. Wolfram and Ms. Alonso have finally cracked the code and figured out who our mystery authors are.

But what about you? Are you as clever as your two librarians? Can you solve this puzzle too? Read the comments on the previous entry and see if you can decode the authors’ clues.

By the way, we’re pretty sure that Nibbler and Bernadette are not the authors.

Behind the Bookshelf
Snowboarder Mouse
Mouse’s War
The Mystery of Mouseopolis

Do you recognize these titles? We sure don’t! Before this week, we’d never heard of them before.  And then all of a sudden, we started finding book after books after book hidden in the library’s shelves. They’re strange little books: beautifully written and illustrated, but mysteriously small in size, almost as if they were written by a mouse.  (It kind of reminds us of the book Library Mouse, by Daniel Kirk, in which a mouse named Sam secretly writes books at night and puts them out on the shelves for children to find.)  But who could have written our books?  Could Bernadette and Nibbler have done it?  And if so, why would they hide them on our shelves, rather than giving them to us to catalog and label?

Hmm…we are totally mystified.

If you have any idea who might be writing these wonderful books, perhaps you could leave us a clue in the comments area on this blog.

As many of you have already discovered, the library is now home to two white mice named Bernadette and Nibbler.

Bernadette and Nibbler live in a plastic aquarium on Ms. Wolfram’s desk. Since mice are nocturnal and need lots of shut-eye, they spend most of their days sleeping, but early in the morning and late in the afternoon they tend to wake up and play on their wheels. The rest of their time is spent snuggled inside their log, which they have carefully lined with shredded newspaper, to make it private and cozy.

Since the best way to get to know someone is by listening, we decided to interview our two newest arrivals and see what they could tell us about themselves. Here’s what they had to say:

Bernadette: I’m thrilled to be here in the library, since I’ve always loved reading. My very favorite book is probably Stuart Little, but I also loved The Marzipan Pig, by Russell Hoban. Aside from napping, running on wheels, and building nests, I also enjoy listening to my iPod (my favorite band is Modest Mouse) and yoga.

Nibbler: Hi guys. I’m kind of shy, so you probably won’t see as much of me as you will of Bernadette. She spends a lot of time out on the wheel, but I usually stay indoors during the day. While I’m inside my log, I do a lot of reading. I’m glad that Ms. Wolfram’s been giving us shredded newspaper to bed down in, since it is very important to me to keep up with current events. I used to like to read the news online, but our wireless reception inside this aquarium is unfortunately not that great.

So that’s what Nibbler and Bernadette have to say about themselves. I’m sure they will have plenty more to contribute to life in the library over the next few months — perhaps they will even share a book review or two with us sometime!

There’s something new in the library, and it’s not a book, for once.  Can you guess what it is?

Here are some hints:

It has four tiny feet, a long tail, and a face full of whiskers.

Its fur is white, and its eyes are pink.

It runs on a wheel and drinks water from a bottle.

It rhymes with “house.”

Have you figured it out yet?