THE AMBIDEXTROUS LIBRARIAN

WONDER (R.J. PALACIO) This book lives up to its name.  Totally.  I had heard about it and seen it kicking around at my previous school, and then the Grade 5 teacher at my current school requested it.  Good choice - all school libraries SHOULD HAVE THIS BOOK.  Yes the CAPS is for EMPHASIS. August (Auggie) was born with some pretty serious facial defects.  He gets stared at - like, most of the time.  And it's not "nice" staring, it's staring in shock and horror, can't-believe-what-I'm-seeing staring.  Auggie for the most part has learnt to ignore it, but it still gets under his skin, and still makes him dread going into situations with new people. So the idea of going to school for the first time? Utterly terrifying.  LOTS of new people, everywhere, and he is stuck with them for hours a day, and they will all stare, and comment, and pretend to look away, and talk about him behind his back.  Auggie knows exactly what it will be like and...

Young Adult Books - Infographics (Link) The link above is to a whole bunch of Infographics about YA literature trends, facts and figures.  Also thrown in are a couple of great book recommendation graphics.  I need to print out the "Book a Day" for the School Library! So it seems that 55% of YA books are purchased by people over the age of 18.  I am guessing that probably has to do with parents being the ones with the bucks!  And will we EVER move on from the Dystopia???? Enjoy!

CROW COUNTRY (KATE CONSTABLE) I tried, I really did.  It has a CBC Council Shortlist medal on it and everything.  But I just couldn't make it to the finish line. It was a good concept, mother and girl move out to the country, girl discovers old Aboriginal site of significance and is mystically and magically drawn into the stories that the land has to tell - as told by the crows.  She is also drawn back in time to witness a crime against the people of the land many, many years ago - and she must decipher what it is the crows want, so the same mistakes aren't made again (or something along those lines - like I said, I didn't make it to the end!). I am not sure why this story didn't hold my attention.  I really wanted it to.  Perhaps the plot didn't move fast enough?  The main character, Sadie, wasn't really all that interesting?  The crows weren't quite a strong enough feature of the narrative?  None of these reasons seem to really hit the na...

WHAT DO GUYS ACTUALLY WANT TO READ? Why don't guys want to read as much as girls?  There has been SO MUCH discussion on the topic, and I'm not sure if we are really making any progress as a whole.  Guys are pretty active, and I know the really active girls at my school aren't that interested in reading, either.  They want to be out and about and stimulated in a kind of visceral and physical sense, I guess.  It's kind of hard to get that from a book, unless it's an action packed thriller with lots of plot twists and fast paced movement and all the other tactics that action/adventure novels use to get your heart racing.  And so that's pretty much the first thing that I've noticed about boy readers.  It's gotta be fast, and interesting, and adventurous, and thrilling.  They have to be able to FEEL the book, not in an emotional way but in a way that gets their heart racing a little bit, gives them a bit of a sense of moving around, running... ...