Earlier this fall, I tweeted Jennifer Mathieu to see if she would come and speak to our writing club. Well, yesterday SHE DID! It was so great. Our students had come up with great questions and we had an intimate group and were able to ask her all kinds of things. We were so excited to find out that she has a new book coming out this next summer called Devoted. Several of our girls and a mom had the chance to read The Truth About Alice (her first novel) and it was passed around quickly! I am so grateful to Jennifer for taking time out of her busy schedule to come visit us, bring us bookmarks, and answer all of our questions! You can find out more information about her at: http://www.jennifermathieu.com/.
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Last weekend I made a stop at Half-Price Books in Rice Village and I found so many great treasures. They even had a clearance section with books for $1! I picked up Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass and have really enjoyed reading it. It tells the story of three main characters and how their lives meet as they camp out together to watch the stars. It's a fun read because it alternates between different points of view. I would highly recommend it!
Our Fall Book Fair is here and boy, are we excited?! The theme is Sir Read a Lot so we made a castle, had our amazing theater teacher sew costumes and decided to have lots of fun! Today was our first day and we will be going strong until this Friday. I am very thankful for our book fair coordinator, the many parent volunteers, and our students! Check out more information and even order online at our Scholastic Book Fair Website!
One of my favorite authors released the sequel to her book, I'll Be There, this summer! This is a great story of friendship, family, love and protection. Holly Goldberg Sloan is a talented author and I wish I could sit down and have coffee with each of the characters in her novels. Check them out - both great reads! This summer, Ms. Logan and I had the opportunity to attend the Scholastic Reading Summit in Houston and hear from many great speakers, including Donalyn Miller. Ms. Logan and I learned so much and even got autographed copies of Donalyn's newest book, Reading in the Wild. If you are not familiar with her books, check them out! You can find her books at http://bookwhisperer.com/. Ms. Ayala, the language arts teachers, and myself are so excited to welcome you back to a new school year! We cannot wait to share some of the great information we have learned over the summer...and most of all share books we read! You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. A.A. Milne So you would think with summer and extra time on my hands I would be posting more, but I have not. The good news is that I finished The Truth About Alice it was a great read. I was so impressed with Jennifer Mathieu and the voice of high school students she captured in this book. I've read quite a few others since then so my "bad book streak" is officially finished! I've even made it through a nonfiction read by Brene Brown called The Gifts of Imperfection. Her book talks about living wholeheartedly and the challenges we face in our society. For this perfectionist -me- (gulp!) this book challenged me greatly in good and tough ways. I think I will do some light chick-lit reading next!https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability
Confession #1: I usually read a ton of new books in the summer, but this summer I just can't get motivated.
Confession #2: Since I finished Kiera Cass' The Selection series, I haven't felt drawn to a particular book. Confession #3: I've abandoned 3 -count them - 3 books so far this summer! Good News: I finished Corey Whaley's book Where Things Come Back and my faith is beginning to be restored in books. Yes it had confusing chapters with alternating cities and points of view, BUT it turned out to be very delicately woven together. Confession #4: I am afraid the next book I read won't be so great so to ensure that it is...I am going with a highly recommended mystery. I'll be reading...The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu. I'll post when I finish. ;) To end our year, we held a Scholastic Buy One, Get One Free Book Fair! It was a huge success and the kids really enjoyed it! Teachers and staff too. ;-) We couldn't keep some of the most popular books in stock, but we had book deliveries everyday so that helped a ton. Our SBMS family was generous and donated books to help students read for the summer. In SBISD every student has summer reading assignments at the secondary level. So Mrs. Kroger and I worked together shopping at the book fair. Scholastic Warehouse and Katy Budget Books so that our students would have great books to read for their summertime. I am overwhelmed once again with the generosity of our community and so thankful that I have the privilege to be a part of this campus. Some of our most popular requests were The Mazerunner, The Fault in Our Stars, Uglies, Matched, The Selection, and Divergent. Luckily we were able to find copies of these books to share with students. Another great thing we got to do was have lunches every day the last week of school for students to come in to the library, eat, receive a book, and the best part - a cookie! I have never seen so many happy faces or cookie hungry middle schoolers! Thanks to all our great volunteers - Mrs. Kroger for heading up donations, Mrs. Gentry for being book fair chairperson, and Mrs. Bahde for her help here during book fair and lunches! We have a great community! On April 26, 2014, I had the privilege of escorting ten of our SBMS students to the Teen Book Con at Alief Taylor HIgh School with the help of Mrs. Cornforth, Ms. Ayala, and Ms. Fontenot. Over thirty authors came ready to answer questions, talk about their books and connect with teens. It was amazing!
Laurie Halse Anderson was the opening keynote speaker and then there were different author panels throughout the day. Matt de la Pena closed everything out with a final keynote and then the teens got in line for author autographs. Thank you to Blue Willow Bookshop for sponsoring such an amazing event, the incredible authors and chaperons that helped with the event! We had so much fun all together and the students are looking forward to next year. Check out the pictures below for some of the action from our events! Last week I had the privilege of attending the Texas Library Conference in San Antonio, TX. It was a week full of fun, authors, old friends, and new books! My boyfriend, Rich, was able to come along and talk with authors as he is an aspiring writer. We had the opportunity to hear James Patterson on the opening afternoon talk about his experiences as a writer. He also expressed his appreciation for librarians, and I truly appreciated that! We visited the exhibit hall and met Kami Garcia, co-author of Beautiful Creatures. She has a new stand alone novel called Unbreakable, and I am excited to read it! We also were able to meet up with our amazing book vendor, Mackin, and their owners treated us to a lovely gathering. Dianne has helped me buy great books for our library over the past two years, and I am thankful to have such great support! For our closing speaker, we got to hear Henry Winkler, better known as "The Fonz," talk about his childhood as a struggling reader. He has a book series about a character named Hank Zipzer who goes through many similar struggles that Mr. Winkler did as a young student. He read us part of the book and it was so neat to hear him read aloud after so many years of struggling. I truly felt appreciated as a librarian, teacher, and educator. I am so blessed that my campus provided the opportunity for me to go. I didn't worry about the library at all because Ms. Ayala did a great job keeping the library in shape! I'm looking forward to next year's conference in Austin! |
AuthorMs. Smith, SBMS PhotosArchives
January 2017
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