<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7896527-throne-of-glass" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1)" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1335819760m/7896527.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7896527-throne-of-glass">Throne of Glass</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3433047.Sarah_J_Maas">Sarah J. Maas</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1430934908">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
OMG!!! Loved this first book by Sarah J. Maas! I was rooted to my kindle and the drama that ensued as assassin Celaena Sardothien fights to win her freedom as the King's CHampion Assassin is gripping. I hated the King, loved Chaol, Prince Dorian, and the visiting Princess Nehemia. There is magic, supernatural beings, evil, lying, romance---all the elements put together PERFECTLY by Sarah J. Maas. Celaena is a strong female protagonist who is confident of her assassin abilities but she also must hide her true identity from all but a few in the castle. Her few meetings with the king were torture for me because Celaena is truly terrified of the King and when she is around him, she is not the hero we know she is. The king has evil intentions and I can't wait to see his demise...hopefully in Book 2! I would definitely call this a crossover book/series- adults will love the action, suspense and adventure, just like teens.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/62411-bjneary">View all my reviews</a>
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The 5th Wave by Rick YanceyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved listening to narrators Brandon Espinoza and Phoebe Strole as they alternated Cassie and Zombie's struggles to stay alive in a world that has gone through many waves and they are barely standing but still surviving the 5th Wave. I loved Cassie's strength and devotion to getting her brother Sammy back and I ached for Zombie's trials as he survives Vosh and Resnick's harsh tactics and battles back to save Nugget. If you want a story that is hair raising, desperate, but has strong characters; you will love this audiobook and I have just ordered his 2nd book in the series, The Infinite Wave, can't wait to begin listening!!!
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The Aftermath by Jen AlexanderMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Aftermath by Jen Alexander
Many thanks to NetGalley for this advance reader copy! Never being a fan of the unreliable narrator, I found this book to be quite confusing as Claudia struggles to find out who she is. Is she a fearless character in a videogame, The Aftermath, or is she a person who is being manipulated by a another person who is a gamer in a dystopian world where you become a pawn in a game if you have been determined to contain a violence gene? As a fan of dystopian novels, I liked the pace of the novel, the angst of the characters, the missions, and the friendships in the clans. There will be teens who put this book down because it is so confusing for a large part of the novel. There will also be teens who can’t put this book down because it speaks to their love of videogames and brings an added depth to the characters and begs the question, what if this could really happen to us?
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Torn Away by Jennifer Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and LittleBrown Books for Young Readers! What a riveting and engrossing book about family, finding yourself, and daring to believe after a tornado rips your life apart. Jennifer Brown’s description of the tornado as it affects Jersey Cameron’s life is so riveting. Jersey is a teen who unequivocally loves her mom, tolerates her stepfather, and finds her little sister very annoying. But all that changes when a tornado takes away her home, her mother, and little sister. As Jersey tries to understand why her mother is gone and her little sister, Marin, will never bug her to dance the East Coast Swing together ever again, her stepfather sends her to live with her father, Clay’s family, where she is unwelcome, taunted, and lives on the back porch. What crushes her even more is that Jersey is beginning to learn things about her mother; things she never told her, and things she kept from her. When she can no longer tolerate Clay’s family, she runs. Imagine her surprise when she learns her mother’s parents exist and bring Jersey to live with them. How will Jersey make this transition? Jennifer Brown does a great job building the tension, anger, and abandonment that Jersey constantly feels and while you root for Jersey building a lasting relationship with Grandpa Barry and Grandma Patty; it is the way Jersey hangs tough and does not give up on her hopes that will bring tears to your eyes and a warm place in your heart for her wonderful, simple, loving grandparents.
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Nailed by Patrick JonesMy rating: 5 of 5 stars Just like hos other book, Things Change, Nailed is such a great book in character study. Bret Hendricks is a kid who loves to act in the school plays, is not a jock, and likes to piss his father off by not showing any interest in fixing cars. As a result, Bret is constantly being "nailed" by his father - the nail that sticks out the farthest, gets hammered the hardest. He has a really sympathetic mom, who he confides him and trusts. He has great freinds in his band, Alex and Sean and he in totally in love with Kylee and feels at home each time he has dinner with her parents, the Edmonds. Bujt life in school is very difficult for Bret, with the constant bullying of Hitchins who calls him a "faggot" and pushes him down and hits him when no one is looking. Even when Bret goes to the principal and guidance counselor, they don't understand or totally believe Bret's assertions. So Bret gets loud, in trouble and if he messes up one more time, he will be expelled. It is only by fighting back the right way, that Bret gets the courage to take a stand. A terrific read for the reluctant reader, for the kid who is bullied and an honest look into the workings of high school. View all my reviews >>
Greetings,
I am new to this but I hope to make some good friends and gain some new ideas to use in my library. I am a Middle School Librarian. We were a year-round school until last year. This is my first full summer off in 15 years. I have to say I really love having the time to play. This summer I am playing with a vengance. I have taken on the musical directorship of a local community theater's production of "Oklahoma". I am having a grand time!!!!!
Also my school has gone down in students drastically because the district opened and new middle school. This is not a bad thing. I am hoping to lure more teachers into the libarary to do projects with me and to teach more research classes. So I am looking for ideas that I can use.
Cheers
Deb
The K12 Online conference is coming soon, in October!
If you haven't participated before, K12 Online is a conference that takes place entirely online, over a two week period in October.
For more information, check out: http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=84
And there are some sample video presentations here as well: http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=104
I'll be posting more about it on my blog as well (I'm on the publicity committee!)
Project Name: On the Trail of the First People
URL: http://eev.liu.edu/KK/na/index.htm
Description: On the Trail of the First People is an online, collaborative standards-based social studies unit that seeks to incorporate information literacy skills with communicative technologies for 4th and 5th grades researching Native Americans. Classrooms located inthe Northeast, Southeast, Plains, Southwest, California, Far PacificNorthwest, and the Far North are invited to research tribes indigenousto their area and then share their knowledge with all through the useof Wikis, Blogs and Social Mapping. Register soon - project begins in soon! Contact project coordinator, Karen Kliegman kkliegman@gmail.com, to register.
Technology and the world wide web are fomenting a major paradigm shift in education. Gone are the days of Dewey, Hirsch and Bloom, the idea that knowledge can be categorized and compartmentalized, that the "educated" person knows a core set of facts/ideas carried through time by series of experts charged with enlightening the masses and initiating the unknowing into the heady atmosphere of intellectual elitism. This world is run like the Encylopedia Britannica (or the OED), where a core set of editors decide what is important and significant, than pass that information on to the rest of us. With the WWW and 2.0, our neat, graphically organized flow charts of knowledge became a whole lot messier. Social tagging and wikipedias break down the direct, linear flow of ideas into a far more randomly connected (and interconnected) web of relationships.
While working to understand more about wikis, blogs, and Education 2.0, I've increasingly realized that as we adopt and adapt these technologies, the earlier movement towards student-centered education is no longer creeping along, but running madly downhill. While the "sage on the stage" vs. "guide on the side" pedagogical controversy has been around for yonks, technology is forcing educators to give up control and allow students to construct their own meaning through collaboration and social interaction. The introverted, Hamlet-like scholar, immersed in learning the Trivium, is a thing of the past. Textbooks, if not obsolete, are merely the jumping off points for students to explore and engage in active learning. For example, WashingtonWatch just started a wiki that "allows public editing of information about the bills pending in Congress." What a great opportunity for Civics classes! (http://www.washingtonwatch.com/wiki) Ironically, this comes at a time NCLB puts increasing stress on meeting standards and traditional methods of teaching. I just read that a member of Congress is trying to ban the Wikipedia and other social networking sites from schools. Now, I have problems with Wiki, but it's a great teaching tool and denying complete access to social networking tools seems not only backwards, but draconian.
This increased randomness and student-centered learning makes the LMS more important than ever before as education struggles to catch up with technology. Face it, students (and many adults) are clueless about information problem solving. Thus, as teachers struggle to adapt to changing pedagogical strategies, we need to be ready with ideas, support and enthusiasm. Now, I'm old fashioned enough to believe there are some things an educated, literate individual needs to know. Though I'd be hard-pressed to give reasons the average teenager would accept! I was trying to explain the dichotomy to my fiancee (core knowledge vs. individualized learning) and he wisely asked why I was seeing them as oppositional. Good point. Yet I think that, in the educational field, we DO see them as diametrically opposed. ( I can teach content, or I can be touchy-feely with the kids, but I don't have time for both!) However, we need to MAKE time for both and work out solid strategies for students not merely to learn core curriculum, but to synthesize it, creating their own meaning.
On looking back over this, it seems pretty garbled! I'm still trying to work it out in my own head!
Actually, on second thought, I'll just upload them here, (one of those Duh! moments!). Still, the blog posts give detail/background, and are too long to cross post, so I hope you'll check it out!
Jeri
Download documentary.doc
Typethe name you want others to see, no password required, and click"Login". Then type in the yellow box asking for where you can hear thelive show. Others there will tell you the location of the stream andhow to access it. During a show, you will hear live audio and be ableto interact in the chat room with others.See you there!
There is always so much new to learn! How exciting and how overwhelming at the same time. At least I have accepted the fact that I will never catch up and I am learning to be adept at "treading water" :) And we are all "in the same boat".
What at time we live in today and how wonderful are the opportunities to communicate on whatever level of depth we choose and/or can handle.
The world is ours for the taking. I feel powerful and weak all at the same time.
I post, therefore I am.
