It's Monday! What are you reading?

 A side benefit of attending the virtual #CTXLIBCAMP this summer was purchasing a signed copy of They Call Me Güero:  A Border Kid's Poems by David Bowles, a Pura Belpre Honor Book/ Bluebonnet Award nominee. 

Since I'm a fan of Cinco Puntos Press, I also bought a copy of The Everything I Have Lost by Sylvia Zéleny.

I didn't mean to purchase them as paired readings...but they are exactly that.  Two different perspectives about life in the border towns of Texas and Mexico--the former in the Valley, the latter in my former home of El Paso.  Güero and Julia are both in middle school, both twelve years old, and both use writing to record, reflect, and reminisce about their lives.  Güero is a free-form poet, and Julia, a diarist.  Family is central to their stories.  

Güero's poems are light in spirit.  A trip over the bridge to Mexico with his father introduces us to his world.  His description of border culture, the mix of Spanish and English, his father's words about the flow of culture uninterrupted by imposing border walls is joyous.  Güero's family celebrates the traditions of Mexico even as they are solidly rooted in the United States.  There is violence, but it is the school-bully kind, overshadowed by multicultural friendships and a librarian mentor.  Life on the border may include suspicious looks from border control agents, but for Güero, it is a good life.

Julia's diary entries are full of young teen angst and more questions than answers.  Her waning childhood innocence is blossoming into awareness of the very real violence present in her everyday life.  The story opens in Juárez with the family car being stolen--no one seems too surprised, just annoyed.  The anniversary of a pope's death prompts Julia to ask, "How did this guy die?  Was he shot in the street?  Did they light him on fire?  Was he kidnapped?  How did it go down?"  In her worldview, people don't just die--they are murdered.  When the family is awakened by the sound of bullets, she is comforted with the fact that her father owns a gun and can protect them.  Life in a border town is "living on the edge."

It's Monday, and I've got paired books at hand.  Are there books you would pair on your shelves?

  

It's Wednesday! What's happening in the AME Library?

 

We are straightening up the library and preparing for Grab & Go curbside book delivery to start on September 1st!  Ms Moss has been shifting shelves and making room for another box of world languages books that was delivered over the summer.  Our Arabic section now has dozens of titles to choose from; we received new books in Korean, Hindi, and even one in Bulgarian!

So how does curbside service work?  You place your books on hold using our online catalog, get an email that tells you your books are ready, and drive up to the school within a week to pick up your books! See the graphic below for details and links to our library website.    

Ms Margocs will be popping into your Google Meet classrooms over the next few days to say hello and give you more details about Grab & Go.  We're excited about getting books into the hands of our 'Dillo readers!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

 This ARC (advance readers copy) has been sitting on a to-read pile since the beginning of summer, so I decided to start it last night:

Looking at the cover, I wasn't expecting Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk to be historical fiction.  But that seems to be Wolk's genre of choice, and the story follows suit, set in Maine during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  

Ellie's urban life was turned upside down when people no longer had money for her tailor father's exquisitely made clothes and the school where her mother taught music.  Destitute, the family of five left the city for a parcel of land in the mountains, within walking distance of five other families who form a network of support.  They survived tent living long enough to build a cabin before winter.  

Ellie and her father adapted quickly to mountain living.  Their needs were met with the resources at hand, until Ellie's father had an accident that put him in a coma.  Now Ellie must do the trapping and fishing while her mother and sister tend to Ellie's little brother and home.  They don't see what Ellie sees in the natural beauty of the mountain--including wonderfully carved trinkets which seem to be left just for her in her favorite places.

Wolk's storytelling through Ellie's eyes is fresh and full of wonder, despite the backdrop of the Great Depression and the hard work of eking out a living in the wild.  I suspect harder times are coming in the story, but I am already certain that Ellie will face them head on and get the job done, her heart echoing the marvels of nature along the way.

It's Monday, and I'm drawn once again to an historical fiction novel for third/fourth grade on up.  What are you reading today?

It's Wednesday! What's happening in the AME Library?

 

It's the last day of summer for students, and campuses all over our district are getting ready to open school in a virtual environment for the first time!  Librarians are serving as Schoology support for teachers and parents, so we've been busy learning about this new way to "do school".

The new Single Sign On for our district, ClassLink, makes it even easier to navigate to our library resources!  Some of the databases still need a password; that information will be updated soon in case that issue persists.  Below is an example of some of the library resources available.

If you attended Anderson Mill last year, your MackinVIA account is still active for the coming school year.  We will be adding our new students over the coming week.  We will be sharing instructional videos for accessing our online resources over the next two weeks.

Our library website is being updated, with new links and resources added daily.  Take a peek if you'd like to see some of the new changes. 

Curbside delivery of books will be coming in two weeks as well!  Stay tuned for instructions on how to use our online catalog to put books on hold.

Speaking of books...here's a look at some of the new books Ms Margocs unboxed last week.  We are really building up our Spanish language collection, thanks to Mrs Henson's last book orders before her retirement!  Can you tell that we love graphic novels?

A big shout-out to our library services director, Ms Uselman, our library assistant, Ms Moss, and our cafeteria monitor, Ms Norma for helping in the library today!  We got a lot of materials put away and a lot of books shelved.  Thank you!!

Ms Margocs had a bit of fun this week and updated her Bitmoji to reflect her new school colors.  Keep on reading, 'Dillos!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

Because of our tumultuous end of the school year in May, there are books piled and hidden everywhere in the library!  I was going through a cart and came across the graphic novel trilogy called March:

     

March:  Book One was published in 2013. The second in the series came out in 2015, and the third in 2016.  I remember the buzz when it was published, but because it seemed geared more for middle school on up, had not purchased them for my previous library.  With the passing of the author Congressman John Lewis, the books have come to top of many to-read piles again.  Lewis worked with his aide, Andrew Aydin, to write this memoir of his life as it is inextricably woven with the Civil Rights Movement, illustrated in fitting black-and-white framed graphic novel format by Nate Powell.

I read through books one and two this weekend.  March:  Book One opens with the day President Barack Obama was sworn into office; Lewis is talking about his humble beginnings as a sharecropper's son with inauguration attendees.  The story continues to alternate between Lewis' involvement in and knowledge of major events in the fight for equality and the Civil Rights milestone of Obama taking office.  Book One ends with the partial success of the sit-ins, with emphasis on "partial"; Book Two opens to show us that written law can't eradicate hate--a lesson we know all too well as illustrated by present day events.  The path of the movement also becomes more complicated in the second book, reminding us that while people may share goals, they may often disagree on the means to achieve them.

I would recommend March:  Book One for fifth grade on up; if a younger reader wants to continue through the series, I would recommend doing so with adult support to talk about the violence, hatred, and politics in the history of the Civil Rights Movement.  It is certainly, and unfortunately, a timely series.

It's the last Monday before school starts, and I'm reading nonfiction graphic novels.  How are you wrapping up your summer reading?

It's Wednesday! What's happening in the AME Library?

 

Well, 'Dillo Readers, not much is different in the library this week.  Ms Margocs is in the middle of training with teachers on the new system we're using for online learning, Schoology.  She has checked in all the returned books and is starting to put stuff back in the closet.  And she finally got around to opening a couple of boxes of new books that Mrs Henson left behind!

There's even more new books; we'll advertise those next week when Ms Margocs is back in the library.  In the meantime, the website will be updated for easier access to our online resources and directions for curbside checkout will be coming soon.

Keep on reading, 'Dillos!  

It's Monday! What are you reading?

 Not all the books that arrived at my house this spring and summer from publishers were advance readers copies; this one from Scholastic is already available for sale:

Ann Clare LeZotte did her research before writing Show Me a Sign, a historical fiction novel based in the 1800's on Martha's Vineyard in New England.  Ms LeZotte is deaf, and was intrigued when she learned about a Deaf community from that period. Because a large percentage of people were deaf by heredity, the entire village used sign language to communicate, hearing or not.

LeZotte skillfully weaves Deafness through her depiction of the island in the 1800s.  There is a grieved loss; racial and cultural tensions run high among English, Wampanoag, freedmen, and Irish; and land disputes are played out between Native Americans and settlers, even generations after landing.  In this setting, LeZotte gives us Mary Lambert, a Deaf girl descended from the founder of her village, born to a Deaf father and hearing mother.  Mary tends to focus on the similarities among people instead of their differences, even as she is acutely aware of the latter.  When a scientist arrives from England intent on finding out why so many of the village inhabitants inherited Deafness, Mary learns that many outsiders see that difference as a disability, a concept she's never considered.  

The dust jacket blurb hints that Mary will soon be personally involved in the scientist's research...but I'm not quite there yet.  I am enjoying Mary's narration in Show Me a Sign, and quickly became used to LeZotte's choice to denote the interpretation of signing in the usual methods for dialogue.  

It's Monday, and I'm reading historical fiction that has me thinking about our current societal attitudes toward Deafness, as well as my own feelings.  Is Deafness a disability, or difference?  One denotes inescapable dependence/ less than, the other a facet of a diverse world/ the same as.  Mary has me thinking it's the latter.

It's Wednesday! What's happening in the AME Library?

What's new in the AME Library?  An AME library intern is back as the librarian!  Mrs Henson is enjoying her first days of school as a RETIRED librarian (I hope she's sleeping in a bit!).  Ms Margocs interned under Mrs Henson during the 2011-2012 school year, while she was teaching in a resource classroom there.  She has been at Sommer Elementary School here in Round Rock ISD for the last seven years, and is ready to follow in Mrs Henson's footsteps as your new librarian!  

You may be wondering how library will "work" under our current circumstances.  Right now, Ms Margocs has three priorities:

1)  Learn as much as she can about Schoology.  Training happens today and tomorrow; after that Ms Margocs will be working with Ms Foster to train and support the teachers with this new LMS (learning management system).  There will be a Schoology page for the library, too.

2)  Clean up the library!  Mrs Henson had to clear out her office AND the closet for the school's new HVAC and electrical update.  Teachers have also returned materials over the summer.  There is stuff everywhere!

3)  Make video tutorials for our online resources--how to check out e-books and use our databases.  You may remember how to do that from at-home learning in the spring, but if not, the videos will be available for you to reference whenever you need them.

Within a few weeks of school starting, we'll be offering curbside checkout for library books!  We will also have a new way of returning books that allows us to quarantine them for four days--long enough for COVID19 germs to be undetectable.  (Follow the link to see the study that helped us make this decision.)

The RRISD librarians have already started planning and working together to provide read-alouds and lessons .  Ms Margocs will be working with our AME teachers to find ways to incorporate library time in both virtual and face-to-face settings following district and state safety guidelines.  The library is more than just that room full of books--it is a service that can travel to your classroom, the school driveway, and over the internet.

Ms Margocs is looking forward to serving you as your librarian this year!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

Ms Margocs pulled another advance readers copy from the generous folks at Penguin/Random House:

Jamila has just moved into the neighborhood, and wants nothing more than to play basketball on the public court.  Her mother wants her to attend the same science camp that her older brothers went to when they were her age--and hated.  When Jamila meets Shirley at a garage sale and finds out she's being forced to go to a dance camp she doesn't like, they come up with a plan--and convince their mothers that they can watch out for each other at the basketball court.

Shirley isn't so great at making friends, but she is super-observant and great at solving mysteries.  Soon Jamila joins her in finding a missing pet gecko.  The clues lead them all over the neighborhood, breaking Jamila's promise to stay at the basketball courts and getting her in trouble with her mother.  Will Jamila get to spend time with Shirley again?  Will the gecko be found and returned?

This graphic novel has a diverse cast of kid characters who are all different in their own ways, yet representative of so many neighborhoods--immigrants, latchkey siblings, misunderstood bullies, teen lifeguards with attitudes, even a cancer survivor.  Their differences play a part in the story, but aren't the focus of this mystery.

If you're a fan of graphic novels like Roller Girl or Smile, then Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer by Gillian Goerz should be added to your to-read pile!

It's Ms Margocs' last Monday of summer break!  Time to plan reading for evenings and weekends.  Have you finished your summer reading pile yet?