Booked and OVERbooked.

If you recall, I had a ninja spy injury in the fall that may or may not have occurred while jumping from building to building while being chased by spies from Belarus. After this, a federal agency I can't name decided to upgrade my foot, and I had surgery to install an accelerometer and GPS unit on March 22. There were some issues syncing the two units, and a TON of training involved at undisclosed government facilities, some of which caused me to be absent from school because of the air travel involved. 

Since then, I've also had to experiment with the USB port in my foot, which SHOULD allow me to download books directly into my brain, but the software has been glitchy and not as successful as I would like. Between that, recruiting students for foot upgrades (that result in a variety of crutches and fun orthopedic shoes), and planning a major mission to London this summer, my reading and reviewing has suffered.

The last day of school is 25 May. Before then, I need to get all of the library books back, inventory the collection, get equipment back from teachers, clean out the back room and overhead projectors, and set up and stock a Makerspace in my library.

Bionics is a highly complicated science. Please bear with me while we work to upgrade to Librarian 3.0!

(And yes, this is the story I tell the students. Since I averred all fall that I was a certified Magical Unicorn, they just shake their heads and back away slowly!)




Alexander, Kwame. Booked.
April 5th 2016 by HMH Books for Young Readers

The Crossover was very, very popular with my students and definitely deserved the Newbery award. This was okay-- every middle school library should have a copy, because readers who enjoyed The Crossover will beg and plead until they have this one. 

Afraid readers won't like this one quite as well, though. I know I didn't. My issues are somewhat quibbling-- I have few requests for soccer books, Nick was worried about bullies and his parents' marriage problems, which are both overdone in middle grade literature, and then he is hospitalized and learns to not hate reading when his hipster librarian brings him books to read in the hospital. (And he reads Out of the Dust in order to connect with a girl!) Great things all, and I imagine that the cool librarian is Mr. Alexander's thank you note to librarians and teachers everywhere, but this just didn't "wow" me the way that The Crossover did. 

Keep in mind the beginning of the post; it is possible that very little is wowing me these days!