Morpheus Road: The Light Booktalk

I hope you enjoy this booktalk for local author D.J.MacHale’s book, Morpheus Road: The Light.

I can’t wait for the second installment of this trilogy, coming out April 19! In the meantime, check out this first installment at our library.

Would you like to record a booktalk of one of your favorite books to help inspire other readers? Contact me for help.

Happy Holidays from the Mira Costa Library!

Be sure to the click each of the ! bubbles and use your mouse to rotate the book around to enjoy the entire message.

What are you planning to read during the winter break? Right now, I’m in the middle of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, regarded as the first English novel. I somehow missed reading it when I was young, although I thoroughly enjoyed his Moll Flanders when I was in college. Next on my list is local author D.J. MacHale’s Merchant of Death, the first book in his Pendragon series. I just finished his scary page-turner mystery puzzler, The Light, the first book in his Morpheus Road Trilogy, and can’t wait for the next installment coming out April 19.

Please leave a comment about your winter break reading plans.

MCHS Library & TLC Featured in La Vista

la vistaMany thanks to La Vista and staff writer Diane Lee for the featuring the Mira Costa Library in the latest issue of the newspaper. You can read the article by picking up a copy of the paper at school, or on La Vista’s website. The article highlights some of the changes to the library this year and my plans for further changes to come. It also highlights our new library-support club – TLC: The Library Club. The library club is now officially chartered by ASB! Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, December 14.

New Library Website

New Library Website
New Library Website

At the beginning of the school year, I decided to build Mira Costa High School virtual library content on a wiki site. While wikis are great for sharing all sorts of information, and especially well-suited to sites with multiple contributors, I just wasn’t happy with how the site was working for the library. I wasn’t able to create easy links to all the content in one place and customize the format. I have therefore switched gears and created a new website for the library at mchslibrary.org. Please visit and let me know what you like and don’t like, and what you would like added. I want to keep developing the site to serve student, staff, and parent needs, so let me know how I can improve it for you. Expect to see regular changes and new content on the site. And, do please continue to visit this blog for the latest news about the library. This blog and the new website will work together to fill you in on all the resources, programs, and events at the library.

Calif. School Library Assoc. Conference

The library is closed today while I, your teacher librarian, attend California School Library Association (CSLA) and California Library Association’s “Navigating the New” in Sacramento today through Sunday. I am sorry you won’t be able to visit the Mira Costa Library today, but I know I will bring back many wonderful ideas and books for our school during this three-day conference. Today, I am a panelist for the “Smackdown! Fast and Furious Web 2.0” workshop along with fellow teacher librarians Marie Slim, Janet HasBrouck, and Deb Stanley. We will be sharing several dozen great online tools that can be used by students and teachers for both productivity and fun. Here’s a short “welcome to the session” I made using ZooBurst, one of the tools we will be sharing. It’s a great choice for storytelling or greeting cards:

After the workshop, I am also presenting a concurrent session on “Bring Asynchronous Conversation Alive with VoiceThread.” I will be talking about many different ways to use VoiceThread, for booktalks, asynchronous conversations, online presentations, portfolios, tutorials, promotions, and more. Check the last post for an example of a VoiceThread used to create a booktalk.

In addition to offering many presentations on topics of interest to school library people, the conference is also a wonderful place to network with colleagues and learn about their best practices. I already began my networking when I arrived Wednesday night and attended the CSLA State Board Meeting yesterday. During the last year, I served on the state board and Southern Section Board as Southern Section President. This year, I will continue on these boards as Past President. In this position, I have had wonderful opportunities to meet and learn from the very best representatives of the school library profession.

I will also be presenting one more session on Saturday. In this session, which I’ll be doing jointly with Sheryl Grabow-Weiss, we will be talking about CSLA’s Teen Learning 2.0 Tutorial, a self-paced tutorial teens can participate in to learn about Web 2.0 tools. I also plan to offer this tutorial to interested teens at Mira Costa in the coming months.

I will share more information about the conference in coming posts.

Events This Week

Please come visit the library this week to view our exhibit of lovely student displays for Dỉa de los Muertos. The displays were created by students in their Spanish classes. We also have portraits on display from Ms. Martin and Mr. Reichardt’s Art classes.

This Tuesday, November 9, TLC (The Library Club) will meet during lunch. Everyone is welcome to join this new club for students who love books and would like to support library programs. We will be going over the charter for the club in preparation for presenting it for ASB approval. We will also talk about club activities.

Announcing TLC: The Library Club

reading at the library

Do you love to read? Would you like a say in what the library buys and first pick at new books? Would you like to help plan and support library activities and special events? If so, please consider helping to found TLC: The Library Club. We will be having an organizational meeting of this new Mira Costa club on Tuesday, October 26 during lunch in the library. We will talk about club activities and work on establishing club officers. Please bring your lunch and arrive at the beginning of the lunch period. Light refreshments will be provided. If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Lofton.