Week in Review: School’s out for summer!

Here we are at the end of another school year. Students wrapped up their finals on Monday then had Tuesday off. They were back for a minimum day on Wednesday to sell back their textbooks and clean out their lockers. Our favorite library dog-in-training, Quaffle, stopped by to wish us a happy summer vacation. Later on Wednesday, after the AP Art presentations, copies of this year’s The Glass Knife were handed out. We think it came out great!

We hope you have a wonderful summer and read some good books!

May Book Club

We held our final Book Club of the 2017-18 school year on Wednesday. Ms. Melinson started us off with some her summer reading choices, The Stranger by Albert Camus and Warlight, from the same author as The English Patient, one of her favorite books. She then went on to talk about some of our new additions to the library, The Burning Maze (the latest in the Trials of Apollo series), A Court of Frost and Starlight (a novella to tide you over until next year when the newest Sarah J. Maas book comes out), The Belles (for fans of The Selection), Leah on the Offbeat (follow-up to Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda), Vincent & Theo, Obsidio, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, and Munmun, and The Remains of the Day (as recommended by Ms. Fels).

Jackson shared that he plans to read Game of Thrones over the summer. Heloise read Stardust (and watched the movie, but the book was better) and loved it and then started reading American Gods. Ms. Nellis started reading Barracoon, a fascinating book about the last man smuggled illegally into the United States as part of the slave trade. Ms. Fels read No Man’s Land by Simon Tolkien and talked about her growing retirement reading list. Ms. Fels said No Man’s Land was an interesting World War I novel and described the author’s writing as pretty good, but not quite as good as the author’s grandfather’s, J.R.R. Tolkien. Doctora Portillo was reading Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories, and was enjoying it. She plans on reading biographies and autobiographies this summer.

Be sure to check out our Goodreads page for summer reading inspiration. Happy reading!

Week in Review: Book Clubs edition

While the school year is winding down, the library is still hoping with activity. On Tuesday we wrapped up our Summer Reading book talks with the incoming 6th graders. You can find out Summer Reading information here. On Wednesday we had back-to-back Book Clubs. First up was Ms. Nellis’ AP U.S. History class. Students read a historical fiction novel and then related what they learned in class to the historical aspects of the novel. And much like our usual Book Club, snacks were involved! At lunchtime we had our regular monthly Book Club where students and faculty discussed what they planned to read over the summer, which you can read about here.

Thursday and Friday saw final exams for the high schoolers. When they weren’t testing in the gym, they were in the library debriefing with their classmates or outside of the library munching on snacks provided by the Parent’s Association. To wrap up the week, the seniors returned on Friday to take care of some senior business and attend seminars.