Ciao!

I am headed off to the wilderness of Rhode Island at the end of the summer. I hope that you all exercise all that I taught you about research and flying under the teacher radar.

Of course I hope most of all that you keep reading.

It's been fun for four years. Thank you all very much! R Powell, Librarian

There is Book Hope!

I am poking my head above the book avalanche in order to tell you to

TURN IN YOUR BOOKS!

For those of you who are panicking at the thought of the last two weeks of school without a book, take hope. And use the book swap cart. These aren't library books. You can take one, bring it back if you want to, leave another if you want to. You don't have to check out. It's on the honor system.

This is another way to be a reader - trade books with your friends. They are often the best recommenders, anyway!

Beach Reads...

I've put up the new Summer Reading list, for those of you begging me for something new to read.

It's got all the new Battle of the Books titles, plus a bunch of stuff that my librarian friends and I have read and think are fabulous! Since you didn't ask, my favorites are Keeper, Sabriel (always), and The Lightning Thief.

Don't forget that you can read all of these and get credit at the Chapel Hill Library Summer Reading Program - Ms. Karin and Ms. Krystal have some great prizes lined up. [I'm working on the link, people. Check back]

Wiki-whatty?

As we launch in the thrilling world of 20th and 21st Century I-SEARCH in eighth grade (one of my favorite projects), the question keeps coming up, "What about Wikipedia?"

This is what: "Go for it, it's a great source." It's fabulous, guys. Really. Anyone in the world can write or contribute to almost any article. Therefore it has lots of topics that the big encyclopedias don't cover. It's super for an overview before you dive into the other sources. And it makes the citation for you. Cool!

And you get to use your critical brain while you read and you get to compare it to lots of other sources. Which is a good idea whether you're using Wikipedia, or World Book or, even me! Like the poor sixth grader who totally trusted me (hey, you did too, once upon a time) that the death of Duke Franz Ferdinand started WWII. Which just shows that I didn't read An Abundance of Katherines closely enough the first time. John Green, forgive me! I know now that it's WWI! Poor sixer kept looking and looking, instead of thinking, "You know, Ms Powell might just be wrong about that one little thing."

Think here, people!

6+G: Tough Choices

The new bookclub choice for 6+G is Tangerine by Edward Bloor. Fantastic soccer action, a little bit of mystery and lots of questions to talk about between you sixth graders and your parents. We won't have a repeat of an unnamed historical fiction book that didn't work. That's right: Ms. Kuykendal picked this one!

We'll meet June 5th in the library from 6-7:30pm. It will be my last bookclub at Culbreth so bring everyone!

Golden Compass Movie

Have you guys seen this?
There's a section where you can complete a quiz to see your deamon and its name!
Cool!

Visit Rome!

Time travel to 400 C.E. and see what Rome looked like at its best! This really cool site shows a virtual reality of the Roman Forum.
I love the bit where you can look at the present in one window and look at the model of the past in the other!