Ms. Pastorelle’s BAA biology class did a great project on Diseases and Syndromes.
Check out some of the Glogs that they created! Click on the links to see them larger on Glogster.
Maurice Sendak
You may notice that we have a new display on the bulletin board outside the library dedicated to Maurice Sendak. He is the author and illustrator of many favorite children’s books, including The Nutshell Library and Where The Wild Things Are. He passed away on May 8th, at the age of 83. Sendak may have written “children’s books,” but have you read one of his books recently? They’re never really just for kids. They’re for all ages.
Watch President Obama read Where The Wild Things Are
Do you have a favorite Maurice Sendak book? Let us know!
Environmental Awareness Project
The Fenway Omega 10th graders did an amazing project on Environmental Awareness.
They utilized the library’s new collection of Green Chem books (click the link to learn more about those) and created pamphlets to show exactly what sort of chemicals there are in our everyday life. Some of the items they researched were:
- Nail Polish Remover
- Coco Butter
- Eye shadow
- Facial Cleanser
- Sunscreen
- Shampoo
They even discovered that there can be dangerous chemicals in our drinking water!
Take a look at the display in the library of their work and see what products you are using every day that might be harmful to your health.
Here are some great examples! Click on the images to see them bigger.
100 Years of Fenway Park
When the Sox finally took the field for the first official game on April 20, 1912, some 27,000 fans saw the Red Sox prevail in a 7-6, extra-innings victory over the New York Highlanders (renamed the Yankees in 1913). Boston Mayor John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, a prominent member of the Royal Rooters fan club and grandfather of future President John F. Kennedy, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. (mlb.com)
Do you have a favorite story, book, or website about Fenway Park or the Red Sox that you would like to share? Please use the comment feature at the bottom. We’d love to hear your stories!
Read more about the Fenway Park and the Red Sox in these great books (all that can be found at your library!) and websites:
Fenway Park 100
Fenway Park: 100 years The official definitive history of America’s most beloved ballpark Major League Baseball
796.35 Boston
Faithful to Fenway : believing in Boston, baseball, and America’s most beloved ballpark
796.357 BOR
Boston believes : Fenway Park, a “lyrical little bandbox” — The birth of an urban ballpark : leisure, nostalgia, and the baseball creed — The ballpark at rest : the civic partnership between Boston, the Red Sox, and the Fenway faithful — Objects of faith and consumption : souvenirs, replicas, and other representations of Fenway Park — Some diamonds are not forever : debating the future of Fenway Park — Believe in Boston : Red Sox nation and the cultural power of place.
At Fenway : dispatches from Red Sox Nation
796.357 Shaughnessy
“An entertaining if sometimes self-indulgent yarn on the Red Sox mystique. He revels in recounting player controversies of the recent past while showing why the Red Sox are the first love of New Englanders. Regional fans will enjoy this tale that reads like a heralded feature in a Sunday newspaper’s sport section.” (Amazon)
’75 the Red Sox team that saved baseball
796.35 Nowlin
“In 1975, the Red Sox played in the most-watched World Series in history, an epic seven-game battle with Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine that captivated the nation’s attention and revived baseball’s lagging popularity. ’75 tells the stories of the lives of the 37 men who made up the Red Sox roster, from stars like Yaz, Pudge, and El Tiante, to the mop-up men and bench-warmers who were along for the wild ride. A score of authors, researchers, and baseball enthusiasts from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) have collaborated to present these biographies in a single volume.” (Amazon)
The 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox: Pandemonium on the Field
796.35 Nowlin
“When Jim Lonborg induced Minnesota’s Rich Rollins to pop up, and shortstop Rico Petrocelli stepped back and cradled the softly-looped fly ball, the ’67 Sox had done the impossible—they had overcome 100-to-1 odds, climbing out of ninth place the year before to capture the American League pennant. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of fans streamed out onto the Fenway infield mobbing Lonborg, who lost a shirt and his shoelaces as he struggled through the delirious crowd to get to the clubhouse. Two or three dozen fans climbed the backstop screen toward the broadcast booth. Others dismantled the scoreboard in left field. Many just tore out handfuls of grass and stuffed their pockets. It truly was, in the words of Red Sox radio announcer Ned Martin, pandemonium on the field. As Peter Gammons once wrote on this great season, The Red Sox were always New England’s team, yes, but it took the Impossible Dream of 1967 to turn it into a romanticized mystique and keep the legion of fans coming by the millions.” (Amazon)
Schnakenberg, Robert E. “Fenway Park.” St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Ed. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast. Vol. 2. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. 87-88. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.
National Poetry Month (Featuring the Beat Generation)
April is National Poetry Month.
What is National Poetry Month? National Poetry Month is a month-long, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets. The concept is to widen the attention of individuals and the media—to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern. We hope to increase the visibility and availability of poetry in popular culture while acknowledging and celebrating poetry’s ability to sustain itself in the many places where it is practiced and appreciated.
More information can be found here.
Do you have a favorite poem that you would like to share?
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We’ve decided to feature the Beat Generation! Have you ever heard of them?
“Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.”
― Jack Kerouac
“The Beat Generation was a group of American post-World War II writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Central elements of “Beat” culture included experimentation with drugs, alternative forms of sexuality, an interest in Eastern religion, a rejection of materialism, and the idealizing of exuberant, unexpurgated means of expression and being.” (From Wiki)
The Beat Generation did not just focus on poetry. They created art and wrote books too.
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Poetry as Insurgent Art [I am signaling you through the flames]
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
I am signaling you through the flames.
The North Pole is not where it used to be.
Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.
Civilization self-destructs.
Nemesis is knocking at the door.
What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?
The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.
If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic.
You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words….
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Siwashing It Out Once in Suislaw Forest
by Gary Snyder
I slept under rhododendron
All night blossoms fell
Shivering on a sheet of cardboard
Feet stuck in my pack
Hands deep in my pockets
Barely able to sleep.
I remembered when we were in school
Sleeping together in a big warm bed
We were the youngest lovers
When we broke up we were still nineteen
Now our friends are married
You teach school back east
I dont mind living this way
Green hills the long blue beach
But sometimes sleeping in the open
I think back when I had you.
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You can read more Beat Poetry here.
School Library Month
April is School Library Month!
“What a school thinks about its library is a measure of what it thinks about education.”
–Harold Howe (former U.S. Commissioner of Education)
Did you know that by having and using your school library, you’ll do better in school? You’ll also do better on your SATs.
“An abundance of evidence strongly supports the connection between student achievement and the presence of school libraries with qualified school library media specialists. When library media specialists work with teachers to support learning opportunities with books, computer resources, and more, students learn more, get better grades, and score higher on standardized test scores than their peers in schools without good libraries” (U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science).
The same report goes on to state that “At each grade level, schools with library programs have higher
Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) scores.” Isn’t that great?
Do more research, here are some links:
School Libraries and MCAS Scores
School Libraries Work
School Libraries Count
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Did you know that librarians stand up for your rights?
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”—Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
Here is the Library Bill of Rights:
The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.
I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. Libraries that make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
Adopted June 19, 1939, by the ALA Council; amended October 14, 1944; June 18, 1948; February 2, 1961; June 27, 1967; January 23, 1980; inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 23, 1996.
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Did you know that being a school library teacher requires a Master’s degree and certification as a teacher from the state?
This is why you see so many different student teacher librarians at BAA/Fenway. They’re all working on their degrees! Many of them are Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) students. Our student teacher librarians come from all different states and undergraduate college backgrounds.
Thinking about maybe becoming a librarian? Check out these links:
Libraries Matter
Me? A Librarian?
Top 10 reasons to become a librarian
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What else would you like to know about School Libraries? Feel free to ask!
Historical Fiction
Have you ever wanted to read a book that was just like one you used to read when you were younger? Well, it’s practically a guarantee that you’ll be able to find a teenage or adult book that’s similar to a children’s book or series you used to read and love. Try checking out books from the library that are similar to ones you used to read! This week’s selection is historical fiction – books with fictional stories mixed with factual historical information.
If you liked series that covered a wide variety of topics, like the Dear America or American Girl series, you may like these books:
Witness / Karen Hesse – A history-inspired novel, told in the voices of eleven characters, about two young girls, one Jewish and the other African-American, who come to the attention of the newly formed Ku Klux Klan in a small Vermont town in 1924.
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation – Various diaries, letters, and other manuscripts chronicle the experiences of Octavian, a young African American, as he is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War.
Bull Run, by Paul Fleischman – Northerners, Southerners, generals, couriers, dreaming boys, and worried sisters describe the glory, the horror, the thrill, and the disillusionment of the first battle of the Civil War.
If you liked Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry, or other books about the Holocaust, then take a look at:
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak – Death narrates the story of Liesel–a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding.
Behind the Bedroom Wall, by Laura Williams – Ten-year-old Korinna must decide whether to report her parents to her Hitler youth group when she discovers that they are hiding Jews in a secret space behind Korinna’s bedroom wall.
Young adult books about civil rights that are similar to The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963, and Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry:
To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee – Two children in a small southern town are thrust into an adult world of racial bigotry and hatred when their lawyer father chooses to defend a black man unjustly accused of raping a white girl.
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow – After being interrogated by the Department of Homeland Security after a major terrorist attack on San Francisco, Marcus is released into what is now a police state and uses his expertise in computer hacking to set things right.
In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez – A fictionalized account of four sisters in the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship of General Trujillo.
Books about early American history, like My Brother Sam is Dead, Johnny Tremain or Little House on the Prairie:
Fever, 1793, by Laurie Halse Anderson – In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic.
Someone Knows My Name, by Lawrence Hill – Dreaming of escaping her life of slavery in South Carolina and returning to her African home, slave Aminata Diallo is thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War during which she helps create a list of black people who have been honored for their service to the king.
Other historical fiction titles you may be interested in:
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick – When twelve-year-old Hugo, an orphan living and repairing clocks within the walls of a Paris train station in 1931, meets a mysterious toyseller and his goddaughter, his undercover life and his biggest secret are jeopardized.
The Grave, by James Heneghan – Thirteen-year-old Tom, an unhappy foster child in Liverpool, falls into a massive open grave and is transported to Ireland in 1847, where he finds himself in the midst of the deadly potato famine.
Keep checking back on the blog to find new lists of books you can check out from the library that are similar to some childhood favorites!
Immigration
History classes are learning about immigration. A great place to start your research is our pathfinder: http://baafhslib.org/Pathfinders/immigration.htm
(We’re working on updating it, so when that is complete, you’ll see a new link.)
A new site discovered is: http://www.inmotionaame.org/home.cfm
From the site:
The African-American Migration Experience
New societies, new peoples, and new communities usually originate in acts of migration. Someone or ones decide to move from one place to another. They choose a new destination and sever their ties with their traditional community or society as they set out in search of new opportunities, new challenges, new lives, and new life worlds. Most societies in human history have a migration narrative in their stories of origin. All communities in American society trace their origins in the United States to one or more migration experiences. America, after all, is “a nation of immigrants.”
A really wonderful database for your research is Gale’s U.S. History in Context.
Ms. D’Ambruoso found this image very interesting, since her family came from Italy around the same time as this picture:
Another site that you might want to check out is HistoryPin. This site has all sorts of pictures from around the world that people have uploaded. You can search by a town and see pictures from that town (or at least nearby). You can also add your own.
Check out this one from the Dominican Republic from 1900-1920:
(Cite: Robertanddeaana. “Historypin by We Are What We Do.” Historypin |. Web. 02 Mar. 2012. <http://www.historypin.com/photos/>.)
One more cool thing to help out for all research papers is Citation Maker. You just enter in the basic information, and it will put your citations into MLA format for you.
