Parent? Teacher?

Have we got good news for you!

A new school year is upon us, and Sno-Isle Libraries has an entire web page of resources for parents and teachers and the children you care about.

How many teachers are aware of Assignment Alert? Let Sno-Isle librarians help you gather materials for your students’ projects. All we need is for you to fill out the form indicating your needs – books, databases, other resources -- and give us some time to fulfill your request!

Clicking on HelpNow directs you to the BrainFuse online tutoring center. Here K-12 students can take advantage of the trained and vetted tutors 7 days a week until 10:00 p.m., as well as many other services such as the writing lab – students submit a file of their paper and it is critiqued and returned within 24 hours!

Parents can find suggestions for selecting books for their children as well. The Homework Help page also has links to librarian-created booklists, tips for locating books of a certain reading level, and helpful information about keeping kids safe on the Internet.

So let us help you with your homework – click on Homework Help in the “Research” box on the left margin of the Sno-Isle home page,Sno-Isle home page, and start exploring!

The Egg and I

Actually, this post has less to do with the lowly egg than with what came first – the chicken.

I love chickens!

Chickens have always charmed and fascinated me with their comforting, throaty little sounds as they scratch around the yard, with their occasional bouts of chicken “hysteria,” with their amazing rainbow of breeds. Besides, who doesn’t love fluffy, peeping, vulnerable baby chicks? And roosters simply crack me up with their preening and bluster!

Apparently I’m not the only person to find chickens so fascinating, judging from the number of famous chickens throughout history. Here are just a few examples:

Super Chicken – alter ego of Henry Cabot Henhouse III, this superhero raced to the scene of the crime in his Super Coupe (“Coop?”) and always prevailed. I was much enamored of this cartoon show and can still sing the theme song on request (“…when you think that you will take a lickin’, buck buck buck buck!”).

Foghorn Leghorn – a large and over-confident cartoon rooster with a memorable voice (and complete disregard for the opinions of other characters), he was never the same after the death of voicemaster Mel Blanc.

Camilla – Gonzo’s love interest on the Muppet Show, she was a hen of few words (“bock bock”) with sultry blue eyelids that distinguished her from other less attractive chickens.

Of course there are also the San Diego Chicken, the Funky Chicken, Chicken Little, Robot Chicken and undoubtedly countless others who have stood out from the flock, but time doesn’t permit me to discuss them all now.

If you have the good taste to share my love of chickens, I can recommend some interesting books from the Sno-Isle catalog in which to peruse the pleasures of poultry:

The Fairest Fowl : Portraits of Championship Chickens , photographs by Tamara Staples ; essay by Ira Glass ; text by Christa Velbel

Extra Extraordinary Chickens , Stephen Green-Armytage

Home to Roost : a Backyard Farmer Chases Chickens through the Ages , Bob Sheasley

Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance :Reflections on Keeping Chickens , Martin Gurdon

Last but not least, blogger and Make magazine founder Mark Frauenfelder writes fondly of learning to keep chickens in his book Made by Hand : Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World .

Enjoy, and may your chickens always come home to roost!

The Arrival

The Arrival is a marvelous graphic novel by Shaun Tan. It truly is a "graphic" novel, having no text whatsoever. It should have great appeal for teens, not only because of the format, but also because the pictures are so beautifully realized. It is an immigrant's story: a man living in a place haunted by the shadows of a dragon's tail packs his things, leaves his family, and takes an amazing journey to a new land. It is a totally foreign place -- to the reader as well as to the traveller -- with alien pets, foods, and language. Nothing is familiar, which is why this book is so incredibly seductive. We watch him make friends, learn to navigate his new environment, build a home in preparation for the arrival of the rest of the family. Even the "Ellis Island" part of his journey is documented in a series of evocative images.

If we think of images as another language, it is possible to forget the "but it's not really reading" message that is bound to come up, and explore the poignant story that these "mere" images can tell.

Introductions...

I'm a librarian, interested in books and teens and the fortuitous collision of the twain. The Japanese word "ronin" is roughly translated as "drifting", and was used to describe wandering samurai who owed no fealty to a particular lord. As a reader, I am undisciplined and all over the place -- right now I have 74 items charged on my library card, and am simultaneously reading about five of them. I'm trying to learn more about the manga and anime cultures, am becoming more and more interested in graphic novels in general, and I try to keep up with what's recently published in young adult fiction.

From time to time I'll share short reviews, request suggestions, and put up some links to sites that pertain to literature and kids. Feel free to comment, I welcome any feedback!