Holiday Reading

The holiday break is a perfect time to do some reading.  Come into the library and browse our collection or search the catalog (http://catalog.uwcsea.edu.sg) for your favorite author.

Also note we have started to create some library guides to help lead you to great reads.  See:

• Books & Reading
• Middle School Reading Lists
• Red Dot Books

It's that time of year when "best books of 2012" lists are published.  Below are a few links you might find interesting.

• 2012 Best-of | Children -- Kirkus Book Reviews
  
  
• 2012 Best-of | Nonfiction -- Kirkus Book Reviews
  
  
• Goodreads | Best Books of 2012 (2172 books)
  Young adult literature - and adult
  
  
• Best books of 2012 | Books | The Guardian
  see lists in many different categories
  
  
• Christmas gifts 2012: the best children's books | Books | The Guardian
  
  
• 10 Best Books of 2012 - NYTimes.com
  "The year’s best books, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review. "
  
  
• 100 Notable Books of 2012 - NYTimes.com
  "The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review. "
  
  
• Most Overlooked Books of 2012: A Literary Mixtape - GalleyCat
  "free samples of the Most Overlooked Books of 2012"
  
  
• Cybils: 2012 Nominations Roundup
  "From October 1-15, book-loving bloggers and members of the public nominated a whopping 1074 eligible books across all categories of the Cybils. The category with the most books overall is, not surprisingly, Fantasy and Science Fiction, with a total of 287 books--122 in Middle Grade SFF and 165 in Teen SFF. Next comes Fiction Picture Books with 167 nominees, and Young Adult fiction with 147."
  
  
• Nonfiction Award | Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)
  
  
• Horn Book Fanfare 2012 — The Horn Book
  "Fanfare 2012, the Horn Book’s choices for the best children’s and YA books of the year."
  
  
• Goodreads | Best Books 2012 — Goodreads Choice Awards
  
  
• 2012 Nerdy Book Club Award Nominees « Nerdy Book Club
  
  

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The outside "Read & Recycle" shelves are another option - perfect for people planning to travel who don't want to be concerned about bringing a book back.  "Read & Recycle" books are meant to be passed on.  We have a wide selection of titles, from board books for babies to adult non-fiction.

Texts Worth Teaching: East Asia - January 19

On Saturday, January 19, 2013, there will be a one-day mini-conference on East Asian literature at the Centre for International Education, located here on the East campus.

Texts Worth Teaching: East Asia is a day of professional learning for teachers, librarians, and parents who are familiar with Western writers but who would like to know more about East Asian authors. Learn from some of the experts from this region, including Dr Kirpal Singh, poet, literary and cultural critic and university lecturer in English language and literature at SMU, along with Singapore's 2011 winner of the SEA Writer's Award, Robert Yeo as well as Holly Thompson, author and professor of creative writing at Yokohama City University. During the sharing sessions, you can hear what colleagues have to say as well as share with others an author you've read and feel is worth teaching. 

        

Target Audience: Anyone who would like to learn more about texts worth teaching from the East Asian region. Breakout sessions for Early Years (3-7 year olds), Younger Readers (7-10 year olds), Older Readers (10-14 year olds), Mature Readers (14 year olds - adult) and librarians

Fees: Early bird until 20 December: S$99 (US$85). From 21 December: S$120 (US$105) Includes access to the event as well as breakfast, snacks and lunch.

There is a 10% discount if you are registering five or more participants. There is a 15% discount for ten participants or more.

Click here for more information.

See also this Libguide which has a list of links to East Asian literature resources.

Several booksellers will be at the conference, including APD Books & Epigram Books, Ethos Books, and Monsoon Books.

Read Skilly's "Service is a Journey" for January

 

Our own Skilly's story of UWCSEA and service learning is the January book choice for the Parents Association Book Club.  

Come to the First Class Lounge on the upper level of the Kishore Mahbubani Library, January 16,  1 - 3 pm to discuss his book.  

Need a copy?  The library has a couple of them, but you can buy your own at Reception.  (P.S. it would make a great holiday present for a member of your family....)

Questions?  Contact Preeti - preeti_khandelwal@yahoo.com

Metaphors... the beauty & necessity....

Last month the TOK (Theory of Knowledge) department ran a day on "beauty" - where various teachers offered up their ideals and examples of beauty to the Grade 11 students.

I was inspired by one of my favorite poems - by Wallace Stevens - to offer up the beauty of the perfect metaphor -- made apparent by offering up some examples of bad metaphors.



Here are some books in our East campus library that explore the power of metaphors, similes, and analogies.

East Library UWCSEA's favorite books »

The dangers of Book Clubs

I think book clubs don't really become a hazard until you've left academia. While growing up within the school environment, "book clubs" are presented in the form of literature circles and the like. But they're enforced. Not voluntary.

It's only when you're out in the real world that you are confronted with "book club behavior" -- which this video demonstrates all too humorously.



The good news is the monthly GoodReads @ UWCSEA Parents book group is nothing like this.  We come together casually to share books we've read, want to read, have read about, etc.  Here's a bookshelf of all the titles our wide-ranging conversation touched upon this past week.

Want to buy or price-check some books?

Two new online book vendor sites that have quickly become as important to me as Book Depository and OpenTrolley.

It's a book price comparison site for Singapore, which opened on August 24 of this year.

Forget about switching between Internet browser tabs - you can now shop on just one tab with oo.sg, a website that consolidates the best deals from 9 websites. With literary offerings from power e-retailers such as Amazon, Kinokuniya, Popular, Betterworldbooks, Bookdepository, Fishpond, Noqstore, and Opentrolley.

Yes, you type in a title or ISBN and it tells you the cheapest cost - including shipping costs.

One of the book sources it uses is

a free worldwide-shipping book supplier, very similar to Book Depository.  In fact, I'm noticing that they're coming in slightly cheaper than Book Depository most of the time.

I also like how they provide the Kinokuniya costs, where possible.

Parent Volunteers?

Want to volunteer?

We love help and this year we are looking for people to commit to one three-hour shift per week in one of the libraries.  Ideally, we would have two volunteers in each library every morning and every afternoon.

This weekly commitment will allow us to train people, as necessary, in tasks beyond the basic. The first priority is to re-shelve books, especially in the Primary Library, which has a greater volume of circulation. Second is to help us get books shelf-ready, whether by labeling or stamping. There will always something to do.

If you have given us your contact details previously, then you should have recently had an email from Nadine Bailey, the Parents Association coordinator of the Friends of the Libraries group.  If you didn't, please let her know.

Here is our current schedule of weekly volunteers.

If you can't do a regular weekly slot, but are still interested in joining the group, please do.  There will be other ways to contribute.

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Image: Rubber Stamp Tree by Jeffrey Beall
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31437555@N00/458846356/

NLB Annual Book Sale - Sep. 15/16

For those of you book-lovers new to Singapore, this is an annual second-hand sale to watch for.

We're talking about an event that can attract 60,000+ people, with hundreds of thousands of books (no joke) available at bargain prices.  In past years there was a 60-book limit per person, but now it's unlimited.  People queue outside with roller-luggage well before the doors open.  Don't let that put you off.  It's worth it.

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NLB Library Book Sale 2012

Sat, 15 Sep – Sun, 16 Sep 2012
9.30am – 7pm
Singapore Expo, Hall 5B

Free Admission

Price of books:
Books in all four languages will be on sale.

• English and Chinese books will cost $2 per copy
• Malay and Tamil books will cost $1 per copy

Categorisation of books:
The books are categorised under ‘Adults’, ‘Young People’ and ‘Children’. Under each category, they are sub-categorised into ‘Fiction’ and ‘Non-Fiction’.

Limit to purchases:
There is no limit to the number of items you can purchase.

Payment:
Payment can be made by NETS, CashCard or cash.

Information on Singapore Expo:
For information on Singapore Expo, including directions, please visit their website at:
http://singaporeexpo.com.sg/

Enquiries:
For enquiries, please contact us at 6332 3255 or email: helpdesk@nlb.gov.sg

Get the mobile app for our library catalog

Repeat post:

There's an app for our Library Catalogue!

Click on the link above or search the App store (either Apple or Android) for   
Destiny Quest

 and download the FREE app to search our catalog.

You'll need to know our library URL:  http://catalog.uwcsea.edu.sg

Scroll down to East Secondary library and you're in!

Log into your account with your regular UWCSEA id / password
to see what books you have out.

Learn about the features of the new app.

Read & Recycle @ UWCSEA East

Need something to read over the spring break? 


Feel free to take a book from the "Read & Recycle" bookshelves outside the Kishore Mahbubani Library on the main plaza.  

We have books for all ages -- board books for babies, picture books, early readers, beginning chapter books, novels, nonfiction, travel guides,  business & economics textbooks, cookbooks, old Readers Digest magazines, etc.

The shelves outside the secondary library are part of a new service activity for handling second-hand book donations and supporting literacy.  High school students will be supervising primary school students in managing the process and keeping the shelves in order.

We only ask that you return the books that we have labeled specifically "Read & Recycle" (see photo below of the label) when you are done reading them so others may enjoy them.  But if you don't, we'll never know.  This is a total honor system.  We just want books to circulate.

NB:  Books with NO label are free for the taking.  You can take them home for good or read and pass on to others. 

How it works

Deliver your book donations to one of the libraries -- or place in the secondary library's Return Box outside the front door.

Books will be sorted into four categories.

• Suitable for the school library;
• Suitable for a global concern;'
• Likely to be of interest to several people -- these books will get a "Read & Recycle" sticker and we expect people to return them after reading -- or pass them on to someone else;
• Unlikely to be that popular -- these books will not get a sticker and will be free for the taking.  (These books are ones that need a good home.)

Money donations in appreciation of this service will be accepted, with proceeds going towards new books for children in Cambodia and Indonesia.  Twice a year there will be a book sale when all "Read & Recycle" books will be cleared.

Questions?  Contact Ms. Katie Day in the secondary library (kda@uwcsea.edu.sg / 8233-2922).

And the Red Dot Book Award winners are....

With 14 schools participating in the voting and over 7,000 votes cast in total, the winners for the Red Dot Book Awards in Singapore as a whole are:

Early Years

Younger Readers

Older Readers

Mature Readers

Within our campus, the winners were almost identical to the Singapore-wide ones.  The only difference was in the Younger Readers category, our students liked "Lunch Lady" better:

and in the Mature Readers category, "Stitches" was tied with "Ship Breaker".

The Readers Cup competition will be held on May 10, 2012, at our campus.

Titles (a subset of the shortlists for Younger, Older, and Mature readers) for the Readers Cup event will be announced within the next few days (as we know you're all anxious to start working).  Watch for more details about how the teams will be selected.

What about next year's Red Dot shortlists?  Well, we've already set up Goodreads Listopia lists to collect suggestions.  And our goal is to collect and consider these long lists by June -- and announce the shortlists BEFORE the June/July break.  So you can be reading over the summer.

NB:  To put a book on the suggestion list, you do have to have a Goodreads account.

Click below to access each of the lists -- and add whatever books you want.  I've populated the lists -- to start with -- with books from the Panda Book Awards (the China equivalent of the Red Dot awards) and the Sakura Medal (the Japanese equivalent).  Books should have been published in English in 2009, 2010, 2011, or 2012.

• Early Readers 2013 - LONG LIST
• Younger Readers 2013 - LONG LIST
• Older Readers 2013 - LONG LIST
• Mature Readers 2013 - LONG LIST

Questions?  Come ask Ms. Day in the secondary library -- or email me (kda@uwcsea.edu.sg).

March: A Month of Rich & Mindful Reading

The whole month of March will be focused on reading in the school.

Here is an overview slideshow, presented by Ms. Day in the middle/high school assemblies.


March 5-9th is the Primary School Book Week, parts of which will involve the participation of secondary school students, e.g.,

• Poem-in-your-Pocket Tuesday -- when everyone on campus should come prepared to share a poem, whether memorized in their head or on a piece of paper in their pocket;
• Read-Aloud Wednesday when secondary school students will be paired with infant and junior school students for a read-aloud session;
• Red Dot Book Award voting, which runs for a week -- for more information, see reddotawards.com; 
• Dress-Up Friday -- when everyone comes to school dressed as a character from a book or story -- click here for some photos of teachers in previous years and a list of ideas;

Shhhhh.....

Today the library will be completely silent (unless a teacher instructs a student to speak) in support of the high school students who have volunteered to (try to) not speak all day in solidarity with those who are voiceless in the world.

Get an App for our Library Catalog

There's an app for our Library Catalogue!

Click on the link above or search the App store (either Apple or Android) for   
Destiny Quest

 and download the FREE app to search our catalog.

You'll need to know our library URL:  http://catalog.uwcsea.edu.sg

Scroll down to  and you're in!

Learn about the features of the new app.

Writer Neil Humphreys visiting us Monday, Jan 9th

Neil Humphreys is one of Singapore’s best-selling authors.

His works on Singapore - Notes from an Even Smaller Island (2001), Scribbles from the Same Island (2003), and Final Notes from a Great Island: A Farewell Tour of Singapore (2006), and the omnibus Complete Notes from Singapore (2007) – are among the most popular titles in the past decade. His fifth book, Be My Baby, (2008) chronicled his journey to parenthood and was his first international best-seller. Humphreys then penned two novels – Match Fixer (2010) and Premier Leech (2011) – to critical acclaim in the UK. Both books were best-sellers in Singapore. Humphreys has now sold more than 130,000 books and is currently working on a new Singapore title.   All titles are available for loan in the school library.

He has also penned a screenplay for his Singapore trilogy and done a little script polishing for Asian-American director Wayne Wang. He has also completed a film treatment for Match Fixer and a screenplay based on his original Singapore trilogy. Humphreys has written extensively for The Straits Times, TODAY, The New Paper, Men’s Health and Young Parents in Singapore, The Age and the Geelong Advertiser in Australia and for Ex-Hammers, a retro magazine about his beloved West Ham United in the UK.

He currently lives in Bedok with his family and hopes his daughter will learn conversational Mandarin so she can teach her Dad.

Find more information and related links on the Neil Humphreys's LibGuide 

Writers' Fortnight, Jan 9-20

 Update:  read the report on Writers' Fortnight in the online Dunia [7-Feb-12]

High school students will be participating in Writers' Fortnight during English classes in the first two weeks of Term 2.

On Monday, January 9, travel writer and novelist Neil Humphreys will be speaking to all Grade 7-10 students during periods 3 and 4 in the Auditorium.  All are welcome to come and hear him speak.  Afterwards, he will be selling and signing books in the Plaza during lunch time.

Other visiting authors you might wish to come along and meet:

ESPN Star Sports commentator and sports biographer Steve Dawson will be speaking twice on Wednesday, January 11th -- periods 3 and 4 and periods 5 in the Auditorium.

Military thriller novelist Mukul Deva will be speaking twice on Wednesday, January 18th -- periods 1 and 2 and periods 3 and 4 in the Auditorium

Other writers appearing over the two-week period will include Alison Jean Lester, Jacyntha England, and Simon May.

For more information, contact Kate Levy, Head of English and ESOL (kal@uwcsea.edu.sg).

Writers' Fortnight

Notes from an Even Smaller Island

by Neil Humphreys

Final Notes From a Great Island

by Neil Humphreys

Scribbles from the Same Island

by Neil Humphreys

Complete Notes from Singapore: The Omnibus Edition

by Neil Humphreys

Match Fixer

by Neil Humphreys

Be My Baby: On the Road to Fatherhood

by Neil Humphreys