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Here are my flickr photos from the first day.
Anyway, we are going to the zoo. It is a nice zoo because it is small. It only takes an hour to an hour and a half to see all of the animals. There is a great playground right beside the zoo, too. Probably later this summer, I will take him to Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia. If you have gathered by now that I love zoos, you are correct! I have visited the Jacksonville Zoo, Charleston Landing, Charleston Aquarium, Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, Greenville Zoo, Ripley's Aquarium in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina Zoo, Atlanta Zoo, Minneapolis Zoo, Houston Zoo, Vienna Zoo (yes as in Austria), and the Salzburg Zoo (again in Austria).
To see the Greenville Zoo, go to Greenville Zoo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a wonderful book!!! I loved everything and everyone in this book, especially Lucky! Cynthia Lord's characters, setting, and oh those blueberries make for such a great read. Lily and her blind dog, Lucky live in Maine and meet Salma, a migrant worker. Salma becomes a very special friend to Lily and helps her as she tries new things. I loved growing close to Lily, Lucky, and her family and her intense wish to help Lucky regain his sight. I also enjoyed learning about the hardship of being a migrant worker, but Salma's love of art, family, and wishing for a better life were just a few things I wanted for Salma. I highly recommend this book to dog lovers, too; it will be a great read aloud to a class and also a great book to curl up with too!
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My rating: 5 of 5 stars
When I saw Marissa Meyer's One Hundred Book Challenge, she had read all three of Veronica Rossi's books in the first quarter of the year, one right after the other. Now I know why!!! I finished the first book, Under the Never Sky, last night and jumped right into the 2nd book, Through the Ever Night. To say I am in love with this story, the main characters Aria and Perry and their "relationship", their quests, and everything and everyone in this fascinating dystopian world is an understatement. Rossi has spun a mesmerizing world of Scires, Seers, life as a Savage and life as a Dweller with fear, love, and passion driving the lives of Aria and Perry. I am so looking forward to reading all three of these books, one right after the other!!!
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If anyone was an AP and/or HSAP testing site and has managed to convince the school to move the testing out of the library, how did you do it?
Yes, we do huge PR. I send out a monthly newsletter (one page, front only, two columns), we send emails about new items in the collection, collaborate, etc. The circulation numbers have increased greatly in the two years we (yes, both of the librarians <I am one, too> have been at SHS for two years) have been there.
The principal is very supportive of our program. We also have a great working relationship with the literacy coach. I have read comments about literacy coaches on LMNet. Sounds like it is more of a problem in the elementary schools especially with the "reading rooms" or "book rooms" or whatever they are calling the area the literacy coach is in charge of. We just have the coach, and he does not have his own separate collection.
I am not saying that the individual does a bad job. I am not saying they do not try to do their best. I am saying that they have no idea of what librarianship entails and so we get shortchanged occasionally. Their aren't many of us in our district so I do understand why they haven't hired a coordinator but might I suggest one of the librarians with an MLS or who has the experience to provide appropriate guidance, support, and professional development required of librarians.
OK, here goes.
I'm Becky and I'm a little stressed at the moment because this is graduation eve for my stepson. There are about a million family members at our house right now and they're not likely to leave any time soon. The good news is that we'll get to see Stefan play in the 2A HS All Star Baseball game on Sunday.
I'm librarian for Center MS/HS/Public library. It's pretty tiny, but becoming mightier all the time. Looking forward to reading my cohort's posts.
By Guest Blogger Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean and Still Summer
There are these phrases that spring from the pens of pundits and spread outward through the culture.
"Yuppie" (the derivation of which scarcely anyone considers anymore, but which was supposed coined by erstwhile essayist Bob Greene to mean Young Upwardly Mobile Person) is a good example. There are scads of other such phrases: Both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were called "Teflon presidents," in that it seemed they go do wrong and have the wrong slip off them as easily as a fried egg slides off Teflon..(our current president must be the Saran Wrap president because he never even gets the egg on him in the first place). "Gaydar" was created long ago to describe the ability to sense someone's homosexual orientation.
"Chick lit" once meant a certain kind of writing.
It was, of course, by a woman. And it was originally used to describe a story based on topics that, while important, might not change the world -- from dating to Botox to minor infidelity to dating to the importance of girlfriends in crises involving dating to the married-man-dilemma to dating to body angst to dating. Reading "chick lit" ( some of which is very skillfully written indeed) one was a sort of guilty pleasure, accepted as such and described as such.
Now this parasol has grown larger, to the size of a pop-up tent that is used to cover a much wider slice of writing.
Now, the term chick lit often is used to describe anything written by a chick -- that is, by a woman. It doesn't matter what the story is. It can be a narrative of any description, from historical fiction to domestic drama to psychological suspense. I suppose the exceptions are FBI and police procedurals and medical thrillers. The exception is, it seems, if the writer is not a European American. If she is writing after living under the burka or comes from a war-torn nation or is an African lawyer writing about a topic as harrowing as genital mutilation, no critic will call what she writes "chick lit." Such subjects are so serious they might well have been written by actual men.
I use the example of Tom Perrotta's novel 'Little Children' for several reasons -- among them that it recently was made into a feature film.
Tom Perrotta wrote a very good and wry and funny and poignant book about suburban life, about a stay-home dad and various mothers both over-ambitious and predatory. Critics wrote, "What is Tom Perrotta but an American Chekhov, whose characters even at their most ridiculous seem blessed and ennobled by a luminous human aura?" and ""Suburban comedies don't come any sharper."
But they do; and women write them.
When women write them, readers and analysts don't marvel at the writer's ability to "get inside" the mores and behaviors and (ahem) "feelings" of suburbia any more than they did when John Updike started doing this a long time ago.
Women are supposed to be able to do that.
When women write them, there is an absence of congratulatory acclaim, of the kind Perrotta enjoyed -- although he is a wonderful and versatile writer.
When men write such books, they never are called "chick lit," although usually the main difference is that the word "feel" is never used or even described and the affect in a book written by any man is flatter (there is, therefore, as in the Hemingway fallacy, a greater presumption of genius).
Now, I don't think of myself as a chick who writes chick lit, although I am undeniably a chick. Actually, I probably am not a chick, since I think of this term as reserved for people who might also be called "babes," people who are younger than I and wondering what to wear clubbing or to the winter formal. But I'm a woman and a writer of sorts and so I hear this term often, directed at my work.
I write stories; and many of the stories have women in them. They are (therefore) chick-chick lit...by a chick about chicks. But they are considered chick lit even when some of the main characters are men -- partially, I think, because these men may have feelings, even if they don't express them as a woman would. For example, if they were to lose their wives and children in a great fire, they would not react simply by staring a the horizon or scrubbing at a spot of dust on one of their shoes (which is what I mean about that "flat" thing, the sure sign of genius, as is the refusal to use quotation marks). If always BY a chick and FEATURING at least one chick, my books are not always for chicks (at least not entirely); although chicks (women) purchase more than 80% of all books, presumably while men are staring at the horizon, wondering why they never got to go to sea or war (not my idea, but Dr. Johnson's).
In any case, although I would like to say that this has to stop, it's not going to because it's a convenient way for anything written by a women to be wadded up inside an apron and dismissed -- by observers who are men and also, regrettably, other women. Nathaniel Hawthorne came right out and said that he considered women writers (among them Charlotte Bronte) annoying scribblers who oughtn't to be allowed to persevere. We have come a long way since then.
We aren't as honest.
Jackie's first YA novel, 'Now You See Her' -- the tale of a driven young actress who fakes her own abduction - is now on sale. 'Still Summer,' the suspenseful story of four women stranded at sea, appears in hardcover in August, 2007, as well as the new form paperback of 'Cage of Stars.'

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved listening to this amazing audiobook! Mare Barrow is a Red who lives in a crushing world of poverty serving the ruling class known as the Silvers. When she makes a mistake as a thief, she is catapulted into the world of the Silvers and "imprisoned" as the Silver Princess hiding her red blood lineage (she is jeeringly called The Little Lightning Girl because she can create fire and electricity within her body and hands). I loved the romance, the worlds, the plot, and the truly evil characters Aveyard weaves into this drop dead action novel complete with magical powers, rebellion, and surprising duplicity. I am rooting for Mare in the sequel and I have to admit it is driving me nuts waiting. Come join in the twitter chat with #2jennsbookclub on 11/12 at 8pm EST!
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My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I listened to the awesome narration of Cruel Beauty on Audible by Elizabeth Knowleton. There were times as I listened that took too long to get to the story. The Beauty and the Beast aspect kept me listening as Nyx has been promised since birth to the Gentle Lord (who is really a demon) as his bride by her father. There was so much mythology that weighed down the story for me. I liked the Ignifex and Shade story lines but Nyx's feelings did not always ring true and strong. Wish I could say more about this fantasy and love triangle...
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20702041-hold-tight-don-t-let-go" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Hold Tight, Don't Let Go: A Novel of Haiti" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1397635116m/20702041.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20702041-hold-tight-don-t-let-go">Hold Tight, Don't Let Go: A Novel of Haiti</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7812989.Laura_Rose_Wagner">Laura Rose Wagner</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1393823813">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This novel of Haiti was oh so good- from a simple life, to total destruction with the 1/12/2010 earthquake. Laura Rose Wagner does a masterful job with characters, plot, and words (sweet, harsh, the whole gamut of expression) describing the close relationship between Magdalie and Nadine before and as their world ends. I learned so much about Haitian customs, beliefs and language as I was immersed in Magdalie's life (with and after Nadine goes to Miami)in the Port au Prince camp. Life becomes very hard for Magdalie but through hope, honesty, new friends, she shows the resilience of the Haitian people to rise above destruction and survive. Highly recommended! Please feel free to join the twitter chat Thursday 10/1 at 8pm EST with #2jennsbookclub.
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