First Author Visit

East Valley HS had our first ever author visit on October 8, 2009. We won the 2008 Ed Pert Award from California Readers and the last part of the award is a visit by a California Author. We chose Caroline Arnold. She has published over 140 books in mostly fact format. Our library had nine before her visit and we purchased a few more and had them autographed for our school.

Ms. Arnold was prompt, organized, friendly, knowledgeable and patient. She spoke to seven classes of history students and even stayed after school to sign books for teachers. A lovely lady who shared her experiences with travel, choosing a career, editing process, and the creation of some of her artwork.

Banned Book Week

We just celebrated Banned Book Week in the EVHS library with a large display of banned classics and books challenged in the last year. And it is true what they say, "If you want a teenager to do something, tell them they aren't allowed to do it." We had great circulation and lots of interest in why was this book banned?

I talked about Banned Book Week in my freshman library orientation and the freshman class took off and ran with it! Obvoius favorites were the Bunny Suicide books and Rennison's Full Frontal Snogging, but I really enjoyed the renewed interest in reading and the busy open lunch periods with over 100 students per day.

Now to prep for our Author VIsit from California readers and get read for Teen Read Week.