February Book Club

Happy Valentines Day to all who celebrate, and a happy Wednesday to everyone else! This month’s book club featured recommendations from romance, historical fiction, horror, mystery, fantasy, magical realism, self-help, and biography. For a full list of all the books we’ve talked about in book club, check out our goodreads page here.

Ms. Melinson kicked off the meeting discussing her current read: Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo, which is a multi-generational story of a magically gifted family. She brought up two books for those disinclined towards the romance genre: The Forest of Hands and Teeth, which is a zombie horror novel, and City of Thieves, a tragic and hilarious war fiction novel set in WWII. In addition, she recommended her favorite books with a romance element, The Night Circus and The Starless Sea, both fantasy novels by Erin Morgenstern.

On the topic of books with romance, Ms. Z-S recommended Stardust by Neil Gaiman, which is the romantasy she picks up whenever she finds herself in a reading slump. She also brought the book club’s attention to Last Night at the Telegraph Club, which is a queer historical romance set in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the Red Scare, and The Infinity Particle, a science fiction graphic novel about a budding romance between a scientist and an artificial intelligence personal assistant.

Jess has been reading Twisted Hate by Ana Huang, the third installment in an enemies-to-lovers romance series that she can’t put down. Juliana is in the process of reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Jordyn mentioned that she is reading through our complete Sherlock Holmes collection one bit at a time on any day she forgets to bring a book from home.

Ms. Perla just finished up America Ferrera’s America Like Me, a biography collection of first-person stories from famous people about growing up between cultures. She is also reading The Searcher, a mystery novel by Tana French, and re-visiting Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be, which is what she describes as the guiding light for college counseling here at Country Day.

Several students mentioned titles they look forward to reading, but haven’t cracked open quite yet. Rachel finally ordered A Princess Bride, heralded by some as the greatest love story ever told. She loves the movie (is it possible not to?) and also enjoyed the audiobook, so she’s excited to get started on the physical copy. Suketa wants to read Tiny Habits, a self-help book all about how small changes in your life can have big impacts. Jordyn just picked up Vagabonds! because it contains one of her favorite tropes, that of found family. Hopefully the mid-winter break will give all of us the opportunity to tear through our teetering TBR piles.

Weeks in Review: 1/8-2/1

Happy Groundhog Day! It may be rainy and grey today, but that big ol’ rodent predicts we’ll be enjoying the sunshine soon enough. The past few weeks here in the Matthews have certainly kept us on our toes.

Ms. Melinson provided tea and cookies for students on the rainiest and dreariest days we saw.

On Monday, January 8th, we hosted a Queer Joy Panel moderated by Mr. Hinojosa. Queer students, faculty, and staff spoke up about their experiences of joy. Mr. Hinojosa has organized a similar event for several years now in conjunction with the culmination of his Senior English class unit on The Laramie Project. Each year, he opens the event up to the community at large, and each year more of the the community attends. This year saw a positively packed audience. Next year might be standing room only! 

The Room of Requirement saw quite a bit of club action these past few weeks. The high school restarted the Among Us club and immediately got to business sussing out the imposter. We promise it wasn’t us; in fact, we definitely saw red vent by electrical. Model UN has continued to convene as well. These *model* students sure do impress us! The Glass Knife Staff are ramping up their efforts to complete the school’s literary magazine in time for the Seniors’ last day here at Country Day.

During Finals week, the library pendulum swung between chaos and crickets faster than we could say “good luck!” to those on their way to examinations. Congratulations to the entire upper school for making it through the first semester!

Ms. Perla led several C-Day meetings to help prepare our Juniors for the ever-encroaching college application and high school graduation process. At one such meeting, she asked the students to literally visualize themselves at college through a drawing exercise. How incredible is it that the students have such a helpful guide through this grueling process?

We hosted the Sophomores for another moratorium related to the Sophomore Project. With their research papers in the rearview mirror, they are now embarking on the exciting journey to turn these papers into presentations. Students who did well on their presentations last year stopped by to offer a few tricks of the trade, including Grace who gave presenting tips from Mock Trial. In order to prepare for making the best presentations they could, Ms. Leavy had the students prepare precisely the inverse. These purposefully-horrendous projects gave everyone a good laugh.

The Leadership Lunch series continued on Wednesday, January 31st. Katie and Ishaan conducted an interview with Jenny about her semester spent at Oxbow art school.

Ms. Melinson’s advisory broke from their donut tradition; they had all kinds of other sweet treats. On February 1st, Dr. Pam attended to discuss microagressions and how to respond to them with the group.

Ms. Frandrup’s 6th grade science classes have begun their science careers research projects. They came in on several days to learn how to perform research using databases, websites, and books from Ms. Melinson and Ms. Z-S. They made sure to emphasize proper citation in their research, so these students should be well prepared for academic integrity moving forward. They also got to listen to a real life biology professor from Sac State present to them about the life of a science researcher and professor.

Next week, we’ll have three different authors visiting, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Stay tuned for updates on all our adventures here at the Matthews Library. Cheers and happy Friday! We hope you find some good dogs to pet, beautiful art to enjoy, and a cozy book to read soon 🙂

Week in Review: January 2nd-5th

Welcome back after break Country Day! We hit the ground running this first week of 2024.

With finals season looming for students and faculty alike, the Matthews Library played host to scores of individuals studying, collaborating, grading, and de-stressing. Ms. Adams created a beautiful and helpful finals preparation guide, pictured below. At her advisory meeting, Ms. Melinson provided a copy to each of her advisees. Anyone can feel free stop by the library office for their very own copy.

On Wednesday we hosted our first high school book club of 2024. Check out this post for more info about what we talked about! (Hint: books may have been involved.)

On Friday we hosted the alumni lunch. The classes of 2023 and 2024 gathered together along with faculty to enjoy a meal together before the alumni panel in the MP room. Huge props to Ms. Perla for everything she did to make this event happen.

Happy New Year. For those of you looking to read more this year, consider finding a book bingo that looks interesting to you and challenging yourself to get blackout by the year’s end!

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Weeks in Review: November 27th-December 15th

We’ve hosted and accomplished quite a lot during these weeks between the Fall and Winter breaks here at the Matthews Library.

Upon return from our week off, the Sophomores delved right into work on their research projects. With support from Ms. Melinson and Ms. Leavy, many made remarkable progress, with a few seeming to finally understand that they would indeed need to both research and write in order to produce a research paper.

Ms. Melinson organized a beautiful and sweet birthday celebration for Ms. Z-S, complete with a delicious berry pie, several adorable mushroom-themed gifts, and matching aprons for the whole library department.

Ms. Perla met with the Juniors at lunch to preview what will come for them with the post-Country Day planning that senior year entails.

That Tuesday, alumni Kaeleigh and Alyssa Valverde met with the BFFs over a tasty lunch. The sisters talked about life after Country Day, the importance of finding a college that works for you over getting the name brand experience, and the challenge of balancing work with school.

Mr. Comer’s Latin classes performed a Toga Walk on Wednesday. If fashion really is cyclical then we can’t wait for these bad boys to come back into vogue.

We hosted a leadership lunch on Wednesday as well. Imani and Jackie presented about their internship with Breakthrough Sacramento’s Substance Abuse Awareness and Policy program. They gave a similar presentation about the dangers of drugs and alcohol on teens at the Elevate Youth California Conference in October.

Ms. Melinson’s advisory returned to their traditional delicious donuts for their meeting on the last day of November.

For Be a Banana Week students and staffulty filled a kindness box with positive anecdotes, vibes, and experiences.

On Monday December 4th we got a visit from Ruby absolutely rocking a new sweater. Some students hunkered down and got a lot of homework done while others spent a bit more of their unstructured time in the library socializing. Students also weighed in on the topic of favorite meals on the Room of Requirement’s whiteboard. Did they miss any noteworthy meals?

English 10 performed scenes from the play Twilight by Anna Deavere Smith on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, Octagon lead a roundtable on college admissions in the Room of Requirement, and Ms. Parrish outfitted her cubicle with absolutely incredible gingerbread house themed decorations.

We hosted High School Book Club at lunch on Wednesday. For a summary of what we talked about check out this post.

That Friday, the sophomores had a workday aimed at helping them to complete their research projects, due only a few days from then.

During the final week before winter vacation the Matthews Library remained ever-full of students, stressing and socializing alike.

On Wednesday the 13th of December the Sophomores submitted their *almost* final drafts to Turnitin, a website service which checks for plagiarized and AI-written text. The sophomores then had until Friday to correct any issues caught by Turnitin. Over the next few days, they flooded our office for support from Ms. Melinson to address the concerns Turnitin flagged. As of midnight on Friday the Sophomores should be complete with this intensive research and writing assignment. We can’t wait to read what they’ve produced! Stay tuned for updates on their progress towards presenting their research in the new year.

Ms. Perla hosted another C-Day meeting for the Seniors at lunchtime on Wednesday. As seniors complete their application submissions and those who applied Early Decision begin hearing back from schools, we wish them the best of luck. This process isn’t easy, but you’re almost there!

After school the IDEA committee convened along with students who attended the Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC) and adults who went to the People of Color Conference (POCC).

On both Wednesday and Thursday Ms. Melinson prepared tea for the High School students in our offices. Jaq went a bit of an untraditional route by putting a piece of fudge in his hot water to create a “chocolate bomb,” but everyone else enjoyed our selection of teas.

The Santa Paws gift deliverers stopped by our doors on Thursday morning. Lucky us!

Ms. Melinson’s advisory enjoyed Mochi donuts and cookie decorating on Thursday. Double the treats for double the fun! Throughout the week, the students added kind notes and mysterious hints to secret envelopes addressed to another student in the advisory. The secrets were revealed on Thursday!

Mr. Comer lead his Latin classes (and a few volunteers) on a bout of Saturnalia caroling that included a much-enjoyed stop at the Matthews Library.

Both the Matthews and Winters Libraries put up some wintery displays that you can check out below! Ms. Z-S brought some chocolate treats for staffulty to enjoy, and we were honored with a visit from Baby Z. We hope you have a joyful vacation full of laughter, good food, and reading galore. We’ll see you in the 2024!

October Book Club

Ms. Melinson kicked off our meeting this month with a mix of four very different book recommendations. Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball by John Chad is a remarkable example of a nonfiction graphic novel (although it’s nonfiction, calling it a “graphic book” might raise eyebrows unnecessarily) with beautiful color saturation and engaging pages. It is Chad’s love letter to the pinball community. Chad himself has a Country Day connection by way of his wife, Ms. Kahn. Ms. Melinson’s next recommendation, The Woman in the Castello, also has a Country Day connection. The author is an alum! Using the pen name Kelsey James, she writes a cinematic and spooky gothic mystery about an American actress in the 1960s filming a horror movie on location in a crumbling castle outside of Rome. While adults are the intended audience, the book is available here in the Matthews Library for any more mature high schoolers looking to see what incredible things our alum can come up with.

Ms. Melinson went on to recommend Three Dark Crowns, a novel she added to our collection with certain triplets in mind. The gothic fantasy tells of a lineage of queens who birth a set of triplets every generation: magical triplets who, beginning on their sixteenth birthday, must fight to the death in order to determine who will ascend the throne. Upon learning of this book, Jordyn checked it out immediately. Hopefully she’ll have a review of it for us during our November meeting! Finally, Ms. Melinson drew our attention to Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World Shell by Shattered Shell by Sy Montgomery. Montgomery is an author and naturalist many Country Dayers are already familiar with from the Scientists in the Field books she authored. With plenty of pictures by science illustrator Matt Patterson, this book tells the story of two suburban women’s basement turtle rescue operation and with it probes at questions of how we can heal our relationship with time itself. This and many other titles by this author/illustrator duo are available for check out here on our shelves!

Ms. Z-S discussed her current read, Plain Bad Heroines by the author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post. In her adult novel debut, Emily Danforth combines dark academia, gothic horror, and Hollywood satire.

Radha has moved from business books to scientific topics and has now begun her historical journey with The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher (or Guy Dude as Radha likes to call him). She recommends the book for anyone who enjoys narrative nonfiction.

Imani picked up Beast Boy Loves Raven from our new books pile. It is the third installment in the graphic novel series written by Kami Garcia and illustrated by Gabriel Picolo. She enjoyed it so much that she checked out all the other books in the series, tearing through them and returning them the next morning. They are now back on our shelves for anyone else looking for an action-packed graphic novel series about teen superheroes just trying to survive high school.

Chloe has been devouring manga and light novels using the Viz media app subscription service. Any voracious manga and light novel enjoyers might want to look into these kinds of subscriptions. They can be really convenient and save you money and shelf space.

Liam is interested in reading Death by Black Hole by Neil deGrasse Tyson as he finds the notion of dying (and therefore maybe living) forever through the time dilation effect quite intriguing. He isn’t sure if he’d want to experience unending death/life himself, though.

Our meeting this month included a lively discussion regarding banned books. We are saddened (also shocked, horrified, and scared) by these various and nationwide efforts to restrict young peoples’ access to information, especially considering that books which cover LGBTQ+ topics and/or include POC voices have been specifically targeted. Ms. Melinson brought up her concern that librarians in certain places can now be arrested for trying to provide young people with knowledge on diverse subjects. We are also glad to know that many resources across the states exist to help fight this censorship, including the NY Public Library’s program which provides free access to banned books for all teens in the country. The general consensus agreed that parents can absolutely work with libraries to protect their own children from content that would not be appropriate for them to peruse, but this does not give parents the right to make the decision and remove such content for all students.

By the time we ended the meeting, we had consumed all the brownies, but certainly had not concluded these discussions. Stop by next month to join the dialogue!

P.S. Here is a list of all books discussed during book club.

Week in Review: College apps, All-read lectures, Summer Reading Raffle, Book Club, Ancil Hoffman, and more!

It was the first five-day week of the school year, and here in the Matthews Library we found plenty to fill our days.

On Monday, Ms. Perla spoke with the seniors about the ongoing college applications process. Stay strong seniors; you’ve got this!

Mr. French and Mr. Arns presented to each of the high school classes Monday-Thursday on how to have a compassionate debate. They used the summer all-read The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green as the backdrop for this presentation.

Freshmen learned the Ancil Hoffman Day Capture the Flag rules on Tuesday during lunch. This knowledge must have come in handy because their team won the game on Friday!

On Wednesday we celebrated the Middle School students who participated in our summer reading activities with a raffle. Check out what our students got up to here.

Wednesday was our first High School book club of the year. Find out what we talked about and get some excellent book recommendations here.

Friday was Ancil Hoffman day! Congratulations to the black team for their win. We hope everyone had a wonderful day out in the sunshine!

Week in Review: We All Had a Passport Lunch

 

It was a week of weeklong projects. All week long the sophomores presented their Sophomore Projects to their peers and teachers. The Top Ten presenters will participate in the Sophomore Symposium in April where they’ll present to a panel of judges including teachers and former winners. Also all week the Glass Knife staff have been having their board meetings to discuss what pieces should go in this year’s book that will be produced in April and May and distributed in June. The seventh graders checked in on their March Madness book brackets each day this week. As the books progressed through the brackets, the students whose books moved forward each day received a piece of candy. In the end it came down to Ava’s review of Berlin Boxing Club and Natalie’s review of Broken Memory. Both were strong, but on Thursday we found out Natalie won the bragging rights.

On Monday Ms. Eustace’s 8th grade English class came in the library to research World War II technology in preparation for their upcoming papers and speeches on the same subjects. On Wednesday Ms. Eustace was back, this time with her 6th grade English classes. The 6th graders are beginning their Passion Projects and came to the library to brainstorm possible ideas.

Friday was the High School Passport Lunch where students buy a passport (with proceeds going to our sister schools in Rulindo) to visit different classrooms and sample a variety of dishes from around the world. In the library, Ms. Melinson’s advisory had noodle dishes and drinks from around the world.

Week in Review: World Food Day

We had a Middle Schooler-free week this week as the 6th-8th graders were away on their trips. And while the Middle Schoolers are away…the High Schoolers will continue to take over the library! Just kidding 😀 😉

On Monday Mr. Crabb’s 10th graders were in for a Sophomore Project work day. On Tuesday we honored World Food Day by hosting Amber Stott, CEO and Chief Food Genius at The Food Literacy Center. Amber spoke to students about what food literacy is, how our food choices have an impact on things like the economy and the environment, and the work the Food Literacy Center does with local schools.

On Wednesday we had our monthly Book Club, which you can read about here. On Thursday Mr. Wells’ 10th graders were in to work on notecards and find books for their Sophomore Project and Ms. Nellis’ 9th graders were in for their Ancient Egypt research project. In between classes, Ms. Melinson was interviewed by Pre-K students about her job and role in the Country Day community. On Friday Mr. Crabb’s 10th graders were back to learn about databases, keywords, and how to use Wikipedia in a research project.

 

 

Week in Review: Thanksgiving Edition

On Monday we had a Leadership Lunch featuring Amalie talking about her experience over the summer as part of Team USA’s swim team. In her presentation, Amalie highlighted her team and the importance of supporting each other. On Tuesday our favorite Saint Bernard, Quaffle, bestowed us with her happy, fluffy presence. On Wednesday Dr. Fisher was in with his 10th graders to cover proper interviewing techniques so the kiddos are prepared to conduct interviews for their Sophomore Projects. The week ended on a thankful note as the high schoolers and their advisors feasted on turkey sandwiches, sparkling cider, and apple pie in the high school quad.

A historical lunch

On Tuesday we had a hysterically historical lunch with some of the lower and middle school history teachers where we discussed history and what to expect in the new school year.