Talking in the Library

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is amazing because it's tightly focused on the extremely difficult to discuss issue of race and how we all perceive and act on our prejudices, yet the plot, tone, and characters are so engaging, accessible and just plain good natured that you keep on reading. Ifemelu is a charismatic young Igbo woman who grows up in Nigeria who moves to the US to go to college, and settles here for a while. She starts a popular, almost humorous blog about racial perceptions from an NAB (non-American black) in her new adopted country. Never content to follow the herd, she searches hard for her identity, work, love, and for what feels right for her as an individual. You will love this woman and cheer her on through her struggles. As a white reader I learned a lot about race perceptions, particularly how race is always an issue for black people in American society. As Ifemelu says, she was never black before she left Nigeria.

When I heard the theme of the American Association of School Librarians conference was "Anytime, Anywhere Learning, " I knew I had to go. I've been living "anywhere anytime" learning for months, creating and teaching my first online course, Research and Technology (required for all freshmen--more about this in another post), this fall. Naturally I was hoping the conference would focus on online learning and I was a little disappointed. Instead we learned about and discussed different ways of learning in the library. My takeaways from the conference: The Weston High School library program is pushing the boundaries of library services and instruction. It's fascinating to see the different paths library programs take to meet the needs of their students. I have a plan to develop my leadership. The annual AASL Websites and Apps for Teaching and Learning are now a touchstone for my technology training and use The Storify below gives you a tweet narrat

Saint Monkey by Jacinda Townsend My rating: 5 of 5 stars I'm going to take a risk here and predict that Saint Monkey will become a classic. Pookie and Audrey are first neighbors, then lifelong frenemies. Actually, "frenemy" describes merely the surface of their relationship. They are star crossed soul mates bound tightly together, testing, loving, hurting, disappointing and seeking each other throughout their entire lives. Born in the "Colored" part of a tiny Appalachian town in Kentucky during the 40s, they have big dreams. Pookie will go to Hollywood. Audrey is afraid that she doesn't have the guts to do it herself. The story is told in their voices, in alternating chapters. They are both unreliable narrators, so readers have to fill in the blanks and wonder why the girls tell their stories the way they do. I often thought about who was more alone, who was more loved, who loved best, who knew themselves the most. Audrey "escapes" and gets a

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block My rating: 4 of 5 stars I love everything by Francesca Lia Block and was happy to enter her LA fantasy world again. I like dystopia, too, so imagine my surprise when I realized this is Block's dystopian effort beautifully embellished with her fantastical characters, images and visions. Pen is a teenaged girl whose idyllic existence in Venice, CA is abruptly ended by the big one--a catastrophic earthquake called The Earth Shaker. For her safety she has to leave her home and find a new existence. On the journey she finds companions, sees some really freaky stuff, falls in love and and and....you'll have to read it to find out! View all my reviews