New Books are always exciting

One of the best parts of this job, at least for me, is the whole process of adding books to the Library's collection.  This long process begins in the fall when my budget is given to me.  ( Perhaps in another post I will discuss this topic more thoroughly, but I would like to say thank you to Mrs. Gassi for allowing the Library to have its full amount.)

Once I know how much I get to spend, I can begin the fun part of buying materials.  Twice a year I attend a huge library resource fair.  This is usually held down at the CNE.  It is a book lover's paradise.  A giant room filled with wonderful books, and if only I could buy them all!!!

I spend the whole day walking back and forth between the different book sellers, browsing through their newest titles, and talking with them about the best books for you, the students at SAM.  I return to school with boxes of books.

Cataloguing the books is the next step, and it is usually the longest and most tedious part of this process. Fortunately this part has been made easier by the great support people in the Library Department, as now, when I buy the books I can begin the cataloguing process right there.  This has cut the processing time down, and gets the books into the hands of readers more quickly.

Which brings me to today....NEW BOOKS ARE BEING PUT ON THE SHELVES THIS WEEK!!!!

Yes, the labeling stickers have arrived, and I have been working to get those new books out there for all the SAM community to enjoy.

Here are some of the titles that have recently gone out onto the shelves:

 The Silver Six by AJ Lieberman and Darren Rawlings

The New Normal by Ashley Little










Plus a whole lot of new graphic novels.

I will write more about these new books in the future, but why wait.  Come on in and check them out for yourselves.

Kids' Lit. Quiz Results

The sun was shining as the SAM Kids' Lit. Team left the school, heading toward Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School, the site of the first heat in this year's Kids' Lit. Quiz Canadian competition. There were two teams competing and three other team members who would be watching and cheering from the sidelines. We arrived at the competition and were ushered in to the gym where the teams were shown to their tables.  The rest of us took our seats in the audience and waited for the competition to begin.

The Quiz Master, Wayne Mills, traveled to Toronto from Aukland, New Zealand.  As usual, he prepared more than 100 questions for this competition.  As he pointed out at the beginning of the competition, he doesn't write a question about a book unless he's read the book himself.  That's a lot of reading!



There were ten rounds of ten questions.  The categories, this year, were: Beverages, Birds, Brothers and Sisters, Constructions, Fables, Fish, Ghosts, Illness, Legends and Non-Fiction. The teams only learned what the categories were when they sat down at their respective tables just before the competition began.  Each team had to quickly decide which category they felt would do the best in, because that category could then be chosen as the one round they would double their score.  Team A chose to double their score in the  Brothers and Sisters round, and Team B chose the Fables round.

The afternoon passed quickly as the Quizmaster hurled questions at the teams as well as the audience.  Yes, at the end of each round, Wayne had a question for people in the audience.  The first person to answer the question was given a $5.00 gift card for the awesome bookstore Mabel's Fables. Also, speaking of prizes, each person on the team that scored highest in each round was given a book.  I am pleased to announce that both the SAM teams scored highest in one of the rounds.  And, if that wasn't enough, in between rounds, the Quizmaster had,  for the competitors, special questions that he took from last year's World Championship.  The first student to correctly answer these questions won $5.00, cash!  Two of our SAM students were happy recipients of this prize.

At the end of the afternoon the SAM teams did very well.

Team A scored 72.5 / 110 to finish in 7th place.

Team B scored 74.5 / 110 to finish in 6th place.











I am very proud of all the Kids' Lit Quiz team members.  They came out to train every week and in the end they did very well.

Special thanks to Mrs. Gassi for supporting the team and helping to drive us to the competition.

Kids' Lit. Quiz

We've been training for months, and we have one more training session before our competition.  Training?  How do you train for Childrens' Literature?  Let me go back a bit.

About three years ago, I got wind of an opportunity for the students here at SAM.  A new competition was being introduced to Canada, and it was a competition in the sport of reading. Yes, the "Sport of Reading"! How could I, as a teacher-librarian, not participate in such an event?  I indicated my interest and in the fall of that year, the necessary information was forwarded to me, and the training began.

Can reading be a sport?  I guess it has to do with how you define sport.  This event involves months of preparation all leading toward a team competition.  Sounds like sport to me.

As we trained, we learned that this event has been happening around the world for several years.  It all started with an education Prof. in New Zealand who saw a need for a competitive event that would appeal to kids who were, perhaps not interested in athletics.  He then created a new kind of sport.

There has been a consistent group of 11 students who have been training for this competition.  Each week we meet during lunchtime and try to answer questions.  The difficult thing is that there are so many books to read!

Last Thursday, another team visited us from Jean Augustine Girls' Leadership Academy.  We had a small competition with forty questions.  The teams were fairly close, but one of the SAM teams came out on top.

Our competition is next Monday.  Check back to see how we did.

Literacy Night

SAM happily welcomed Toronto author Lesley Livingston last Wednesday, January 15, as SAM hosted our first Literacy Night.  Parents and students were able to learn about reading and writing strategies for both the English and French streams.  In addition there was a presentation on how to help motivate students to read more.  The climax of the evening was a presentation by Lesley in the library where she spoke to an audience of about 50 people.

Lesley shared with us some of her journey as a writer, but more importantly she spoke about the importance of reading within her own life and career.

The evening was a great success.  Families left with prizes of books and games, and the wonderful taste of cookies and hot chocolate.  

We hope to do this again next year.

The books we Read

I recently read this article, entitled Darkness too Visible in The Wall Street Journal, and thought that it raised many important issues for me as a Teacher-Librarian. I think it is worth sharing so that all of us can better understand some of the issues that are quite apparent in YA literature these days.

Are the themes within these books to dark? Do we have a responsibility to be discussing these issues?

I will need to think about the points the author raises, and give a more detailed response at a later time.

World Read-a-Loud Day

Today is a day to celebrate the wonderful activity that has filled so many lives with joy: The reading aloud of great words.

So take time today to read aloud to someone.

Read a favourite story.

Read a thought provoking article.

Read a poem.

Whatever you choose to read-a-loud today, know you are continuing a tradition that has helped generations of people learn to love reading.

Kids Lit Quiz

Well, after long moths of training, we sent our team to the Canadian finals of the Kids Literary Quiz. This is a competition that began in New Zealand and has now spread around the world. This is the second year that SAM has sent a team to this event. I am proud to say that our team (Janaan, Jenny, Rachel, Michelle, Gabrielle, Aloka and Ka Lee) did very well. They finished with 76 points out of a possible 110. This was good enough for us to place 10th. (This placing is calculated by allowing all teams with the same score to be in the same place.) There were actually 14 teams ahead of us.

This year's competition saw schools from across southern Ontario competing in this fabulous sport of reading.

Check out the article, "Toronto School's ace Kids Lit Quiz," that was written about it in the Toronto Star.

This is an awesome way to promote reading. I am already thinking about ways to prepare for next year.