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/