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Teen Read Week is just six weeks away. Yikes! Bad enough that summer is over, but does fall have to come so fast? Fortunately YALSA has put together a great web site to help with the planning. And with Get Active @ your library® as the theme, there's a lot you can do.
PS. Do you know PW Comics Week? I've included this week's issue below. It's a great (and fun) way to keep up with what's happening in the comics world. If you like what you see, subscribe here. It's free!
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| Interview |
| SLJ talks to Jimmy Gownley of Kids Love Comics |
| Comic books continue to be hot: some $450 million blam! pow! thwak! was sold in the United States in 2005. Their popularity has spurred public libraries to stock their shelves with comics, but some school libraries, under pressure to meet the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act, have been more hesitant to handle noneducational materials.
Kids Love Comics aims to change that. Founded by authors Jimmy Gownley (Amelia Rules! [ibooks]) and Harold Buchholz (Apathy Kat [Wild Lion]), the nonprofit advocacy group is assembling a catalog of titles aimed specifically at kid audiences that get the group's "seal of approval." Gownley spoke to SLJ about the criteria for inclusion and his long personal history advocating—okay, reading—comics in schools.
How did Kids for Comics get started?
Harold Buchholz and I both just have a passion for comics. We wanted to get them out to kids. In Amelia, I printed that if any reader sent in $200, I would do a watercolor of their favorite character, and that the money would go to this purpose. I raised about $2,500—that was 15 or 16 watercolors. We put it all into a fund and met up here in Harrisburg with creators, retailers, and editors and hammered out what the organization was going to be.
read more... |
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| TechTrends |
Say Google to All That
To google or not to Google? That may no longer be a question writers can ask given the search engine's recent spate of letters warning users not to corrupt their trademarked name by wielding it as a generic verb.
"Our brand is very important to us, and as I'm sure you'll understand, we want to make sure that when people use 'Google,' they are referring to the services our company provides and not to Internet searching in general," reads the letter Google recently sent to various media organizations, reportedly including the Washington Post. Google declined to say which companies had received its letter.
The move may follow the recent addition of "Google" as a verb in both the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary. Both definitions, however, make it clear that the word only refers to a search on Google itself—and not its competitors such as Yahoo or MSN.
read more... |
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BOOKS
What the Moon Saw by Laura Resau
From SLJ September 2006 (Starred Review)
Gr 5-9–Out of the blue, 14-year-old Clara Luna receives a letter from her grandparents inviting her to spend the summer with them in Mexico....
VIDEO/DVD
Time Out on Anger Management: Learning Self-Control
Gr 3-6–Designed to help students manage their anger through self-control, this video provides four anger management strategies.... |
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AUDIO
A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life
Gr 7 Up–Simone's junior year of high school proceeds with common teen issues such as alcohol, a first boyfriend, and sex in Dana Reinhardt's fast-paced novel (Wendy Lamb Books, 2006).... |
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STARRED REVIEWS
Grades 5 & Up Fiction for September
- Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters by Lesley M. M. Blume
- The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: A Fable by John Boyne
- Saint Iggy by K. L. Going
- Horns & Wrinkles by Joseph Helgerson
- Firestormby David Klass
- Bread and Roses, Too by Katherine Paterson
- What the Moon Saw by Laura Resau
- The Unresolved by T. K. Welsh
- The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin
Read these reviews and more in our review database. (Reviews are available to subscribers.) |
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| News and Views |
| Librarians of Color to Convene in Dallas |
| The American Library Association's five caucus associations of color have never before met together. But 2006 changes that—dramatically. This October the associations will pool their expertise, commitment, and passion at a Dallas-based conference.
The first Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC) will run October 11 to 15 and will include the American Indian Library Association, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, the Chinese American Librarians Association, and REFORMA, the National Association to Provide Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking. read more... |
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| NYC Shops for School Libraries |
| The back-to-school shopping crush is well under way, and in New York City someone with the last name of Kennedy is helping to funnel hundreds of thousands of those shopping dollars to the Big Apple's public school libraries.
Caroline Kennedy is vice chair of New York's Fund for Public Schools, a 20-year-old organization that, among other projects, over the last three years has raised $3.8 million for NYC libraries. For the third year, the Fund is cosponsoring Shop 4 Class, a promotion running from August 25 to September 8. During this period, retailers like Hugo Boss, Sam Ash Music Stores, and J&R Music will donate a portion of their proceeds to the Fund's libraries project, REACH (Revitalizing Education for Adolescents and Children). Individual store donations can range from $1,000 to $10,000.
read more... |
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| Teacher-Librarians a Requirement in Iowa (Again) |
| Because of a "clerical error" in 1995, a long-standing requirement that each Iowa school district have a media specialist somehow was left out of the state's education law. Now, 11 years later, it's finally back.
Included as part of the Student Achievement and Teacher Quality Program signed into law by Governor Tom Vilsack on July 1, the mandate requires that each school district have a licensed teacher-librarian. (Districts can get a waiver until 2011 if they already have a staff media specialist who is pursuing certification, or if the librarian or media specialist has an MLS degree but is not certified to teach.)
read more... |
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| Short Takes: Bomb-making, Harassment Suit |
A Florida high school student was permanently expelled after a librarian caught the teen searching on the Internet for instructions to build a chemical pressure bomb. According to The Ledger of Lakeland, FL, the librarian alerted police. Though booted from the school, the student was not charged with a crime. School officials did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Kansas parents are suing the school district they say didn't protect their daughter against the predations of a librarian now in jail for sex-related charges involving the girl. The unnamed parents are going after Kansas City's Piper School District for $575,000, charging that the school failed to guarantee the girl's right to an education free of discrimination based on gender, required by Title IX of the Educational Amendment of 1972.
read more... |
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| Remarkable Reads |
| Fresh Christian Fiction |
There are a handful of authors currently dominating the teenage Christian fiction shelves due to their prolific serial output—Melody Carlson, Robin Gunn Jones, Stephanie Perry Moore, Laura Peyton Roberts, and Martha Finley among them. For readers who may be growing tired of their favorite series, the following titles will provide some different voices in the genre.
FARNES, Catherine. The Slide. JourneyForth. 2003. pap. $7.49. ISBN 1-57924-967-1.
Gr 9 Up–The last thing teenage Taren wants is for her prodigal father to butt into her life. She goes on her church's youth group camping trip with the hopes of avoiding any thoughts or discussion of him. Guess who shows up? This action story with a sometimes-heavy message on reconciliation and redemption will be appreciated by young evangelicals looking for some physical as well as spiritual tension.
read more... |
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| Shameless SLJ Promotions |
Become a Media Reviewer, Earn Big Bucks (Not)
OK, so the money isn't great. In fact, there's no pay involved. But here's an easy way to give your library free access to the latest, coolest DVDs and audiobooks: Volunteer as a multimedia reviewer for SLJ.
SLJ is recruiting school and public librarians to critique the newest K-12 DVDs and audiobooks. Reviewers not only have the opportunity to donate review materials to their own libraries, but they're performing a valuable service. SLJ reviews help librarians nationwide sort through the mass of new products constantly coming onto the market.
Volunteer reviewers should be able to capsulize a DVD or audiobook's "story" and value in 250 words or less. Interested librarians may obtain a reviewer questionnaire by e-mailing SLJ's multimedia review editor, Phyllis Levy Mandell, at pmandell@reedbusiness.com.
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| Librarian's Internet |
| September Is Apple Month |
| northcanton.sparcc.org/~greentown/Apples/appleunit.htm |
| September is the month when ripe, juicy apples are falling off the trees. Start out the new school year by discovering a whole bushel of apple-themed cross-curricular class and library activities.This wonderful site was created by Pattie Knox, a technology support specialist for North Canton (OH) City Schools. Here you'll find lots of lesson plans, printables, online games, and links to other teacher-created materials. Don't miss "Apple Bytes," a collaborative Internet project that showcases teacher- and student-created ideas, games, and projects. From this one site (and its links) you can find all the best apple info on the Web! It's a real pip!—Gail Junion-Metz |
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| Teen Services Librarian |
Deschutes Public Library System
Central Oregon - La Pine & Sunriver Area
Love working with teens? If so, consider blending a creative position with a life that is surrounded by a thriving area full of cultural activities in a wonderland of endless outdoor activities.
read more...
To see all positions available through the SLJ Career Center, click here...
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It's impossible to discuss the impact of manga on the American comics market without talking about Tokyopop and its CEO, Stuart Levy. The 39-year-old entrepreneur describes himself as a "weird creative person who understands business." He's a Georgetown law school grad, fluent in Japanese, who's worked as a graphic designer and mutimedia producer in Japan. While there he got the manga bug and went on to found Tokyopop in Los Angeles in 1997.
The "aboriginal science fiction" setting of McNeil’s long-running serial is a framework for an enormous range of stories, and this eighth collection is romance—from the point of view of the kind of guy who usually leaves women’s apartments through the window. Jaeger Ayers is a ritual sin eater for a tribal religion, a hot-looking lowlife from the country on the loose in a big city and a total tomcat. Maybe he brings out the worst kinks, fetishes and neuroses in women, as he describes them in hilarious, R-rated terms to a friend; maybe his experiences with them are just a reflection of his own macho unreliability. The story’s got a marvelous, unusual
tone—light comedy with flashes of chilling psychological darkness—and McNeil’s artwork is a joy, meticulously observing each of her characters’ expressions and body language. She packs every panel with details that suggest how her invented culture works, like a professional bathgiver with tiny bars of soap-on-a-rope for earrings. A lot of what McNeil does is world building, fleshing out the ethnography and technology of her imaginary society, but it’s a natural extension of her characters’ amorous collisions and near-misses. (Aug.) 
