Boot Camp by Todd Strasser

Garrett is in big trouble. Just because he feel in love with his teacher who is eight years older, his parents have sent him away to Harmony Lake, a boot camp for troubled teens in upstate New York. Forget all you've heard about boot camps, the reality is ten times worse.

Harmony Lake's purpose is to make kids obedient to their parents. Harmony Lake does this by stripiping away every right and dignity thier prisoners possess, and also by encouraging other kids to beat up the ones that don't conform. It's a brutal system, and it works. Garrett is finding out that nothing he does is right, and there is no faking compliance.

After being beaten repeatedly, put in Temporary Isolation too many times too count, and humiliated beyond belief, Garrett is wondering whether maybe, just maybe, he should think about giving in to these people. Otherwise he'll be here until he's eighteen, and that's several long years away.

But two inmantes have other ideas. Pauly and Sarah have been at Harmony Lake for almost two years, and although they've been beaten, their spirit is not broken. They've come up with a plan to escape. An incredibly stupid, risky plan. But the need Garrett's help. Is the freedom to be yourself worth the risk? Garrett isn't sure anymore, not after months of torture and brainwashing at Boot Camp.

Thank you to the School Advisory Council

The School Advisory Council voted on Tuesday night to donate just over $1000 to the Library Media Center to purchase new books and several playaway audio books. SAC has always been a great supporter of the LMC, and their help is greatly appreciated. I understand how difficult it is to fulfill many school requests with limited funds, and the committee went over each request in detail to determine where the funds could be used to benefit the school community the most. The money given to the media center is a huge boost to our budget and the students will enjoy the newest titles. Thanks to the support from the SAC and the teachers present.

Class book blog

I am very happy to be working with Ms. Pez and one of her English classes on a book blog. You can see it at http://www.pezbookgroup.blogspot.com. The students are answering questions about the different books they are reading. So far we have been having problems accessing the blog with the new school filters, but the studnets have been posting some good comments. I thing using blogs and other web 2.0 tools are a great way of engaging students. What do you think?