Battle of the Books

Well, we are in the last days of our Battle of the Books and the gloves are off! Which title is our school's favorite? The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult? The two library aides who suggested these books are getting crazier by the minute. I think I may need a lock on the ballot box!

This craziness came about because of my following the School Library Journal's second annual Battle of the Books. When I was looking for a contest for School Library Month, one of my student aides suggested our own battle, with each aide suggesting their favorite books. We started with 12 and had 4 brackets.

Bracket 1: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with The Hunger Games beating out my favorite wizard. I was very worried that the 2 Harrys would split the vote, but HG won fair and square.

Bracket 2: Generation Dead, Catcher in the Rye, and Geektastic. More people knew Catcher in the Rye so it moved on.

Bracket 3: The Host, The Book Thief, and My Sister's Keeper. This one I was not as sure of. The Host would get many of the Twilight votes (no Twilight because my one student aide just wanted it in there to increase his chance of winning, not because it was his actual favorite) but My Sister's Keeper has been extremely popular. And MSK received the most votes to enter the semi-finals.

Bracket 4 - Gone With the Wind, Unwind, and Johnny Got His Gun. Unwind ran away with this round.

The Semi-Finals:
The Hunger Games easily beat Catcher in the Rye.
My Sister's Keeper was ahead of Unwind, though not for lack of trying by my student aides to influence votes. Ahh, politics in action.

The Final Round!
Voting ends tomorrow and my two student aides are actively lobbying for votes, even wanting to take ballots out around the school. This could get interesting! I must say this has been my most popular contest yet with over 150 people voting in at least one of the rounds. All students who vote are entered into a drawing for no library late fees until the end of School Library Month 2011 which is a popular prize.

Hopefully I'll be able to survive the voting madness!

Florida Teens Read

We are in the middle of our reading for the Florida Teens Read program, and there are rarely any books left on the shelf! It is a very popular list this year. One student has already read all 15 titles, and several students are getting close.

Here is the list:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Generation Dead by Daniel Waters
Gym Candy by Carl Deuker
Homeboyz by Alan Sitomer
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
The Market by J.M Steele
Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham
Shift by Jennifer Bradbury
Suck It Up by Brian Meehl
Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
Three Little Words: A Memoir by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Unwind by Neal Shusterman

My prediction? (So far I've been 3 for 3!) The Hunger Games followed by Unwind. Voting is the month of April so we'll see if I'm right!

A Belated Welcome Back

Welcome back! I've finally made time to sit and blog (the 5 minutes a day I'm not running around). This year will be a difficult year in many areas, finance, time management, assessment and more. I'm working solo this year, but luckily I have many wonderful student aides helping me.

Upcoming events:

• The Florida Association of Media in Education conference next week in Orlando
• Florida Teens Read has some awesome books this year!
• Poetry Out Loud will be starting soon
• Teens Read Week
• Banned Books Week
• Book club starting (first book to read will be Thirteen Reasons Why)

Please be aware that the library will be closed one lunch, alternating each day.

Here's to a great year!

New Books

Our last shipment has arrived for the school year. Hard to believe! We have Breaking Dawn in Spanish, Audacity of Hope and Dreams From My Father by President Obama, Homeboyz, Hip-Hop High School, and the Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez by Alan Sitomer, the Other Queen by Phillipa Gregory, Psychology Demystified, Unwind by Neal Shusterman, the House of Night series by P.C. Cast, What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell and many others!

Unfortunately I also had to buy replacement copies of many books due to students leaving the district with books still checked out. I have lost approximately $1000 this way this year (it's been a bad year for that). With only $4300 in my budget, this is a huge chunk. I'll be doing massive fundraising next year!

Come in and check out our new book shelf! There's a book for everyone!

Win No Library Late Fees for a Year!

Hate paying late fees! You only have a few days left to win a free ride on late fees until April 2010! It's easy, just write a book review on our Destiny Library Card Catalog or on our Media Center Web Page. You may enter multiple times by reviewing more than one book. One lucky person will be chosen to have NO late fees until 2010. It could be you!

Superintendent's Awards

The last day of reading for the Superintendent's Ultimate Reading Award is today! Remember that 15 titles is the minimum number of books to read. Books read in class and for reading logs as well as books that you listened to count! If you read more than 15 add them to your list too as I count up how many books we read as a school and put the total number read on your certificate. Your reading list needs to be handed in to me on Mon. Apr. 20.

The award ceremony is on Fri. May 15 in the Media Center and Cafeteria from 8 to 8:30ish.

National Library Week

It is the last day of our fine amnesty week in celebration of National Library Week. We have had many late books returned and the students are very happy to have their fines waived. Several students have even told us that we shouldn't waive the fees as we need the money. True we would have collected more late fees but I'd rather have the books returned. And we have received some that were checked out last school year!

But on Monday it is back to normal so last chance to get your late books in!

Florida Teens Read Voting

It is now time to vote for your favorite Florida Teens Read book! Go here to vote. Voting is open until April 30th. You must have read a minimum of 3 of the following books in order to vote: Avalon High, Boot Camp, The Christopher Killer, City of Bones, Deadline, Firestorm, Incantation, Life As We Knew It, A Long Way Gone, The Nature of Jade, Street Love, Thirteen Reasons Why, A Thousand Splendid Suns, What Happened to Cass McBride, and Wicked Lovely.

Which will be the winner of this coveted award? You decide!

New Books

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Sometimes I have problems getting to the sign in page for Blogger, I don't know if it is our filters or not.

Okay, on to the news. We have been getting boxes of new books in lately. We have new manga titles such as D.N. Angel and GodChild. We have a set of college football books, and some new forensic science books as well. New fiction titles include Avalon High by Meg Cabot, Deadline by Chris Crutcher, Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay, Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan, and Looking for J.J. by Anne Cassidy. Keep looking at our new book shelf as more books are arriving all the time.

Happy reading!