January Library Update

January has been a busy month. We came back from winter break and hit the ground running.

This week we celebrated Lunar New Year. Thank you to Ms. Jia's class for helping decorate the library windows for the New Year. There is a chain link snake craft station in the library so students can add to the decorations in honor of it being the year of the wood snake.

This year the Bissell Grogan symposium theme was Building Community & Civil Discourse.

Our keynote speaker, Jason Craige Harris, gave tools for having tough conversations using humility, empathy, and curiosity. We had workshops that offered additional tools and scenarios from government professionals, such as lawyers, judges, and town representatives, to educators, including Facing History and Ourselves and National SEED Project facilitators—even a partner dance instructor who was in Mad Hot Ballroom. There are books on display in the library to keep the learning going.

As the Upper School prepares to go on Winterim trips, students are preparing by learning more about the location they are going to. What better way to prepare to go to a new place than to immerse yourself in a place through a book. I have made a display of fiction and non-fiction books that take place in the countries that students will be visiting during Winterim. I have also made a collection in Sora, so that students can bring the books with them while still keeping their luggage light.

January's reading challenge was to read a book about someone who is different than you. This is kind of a give away as it can be any book with a person, as you are the only you. However I made a display of great biographies and memoirs to provide some inspiration for options. The February challenge will be to read a nonfiction book, so students can grab one from this display for their February book choice as well.

On Monday the ALA youth media awards were announced, and I live streamed it in the library. One of my favorite awards to follow is the Coretta Scott King Award which has an author and illustrator award. With these awards, you never really know what books are being considered by the committee since it can be any book created by African American author in the previous year. I was very happy to see that our library already had 3 out of 4 of the winners in our collection.

I was also happy to see Tiffany D. Jackson won the Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award in writing for young adults. Jackson's murder mystery books are most popular with Brimmer students; I enjoy her romance literature.