Please click into the individual blog post, as the links are currently not visible on the library page, (formatting issue being investigated).
I hope you all enjoyed the Easter break. Ramadan commenced last week, so may I say Ramadan Mubarak to those who are observing the holy month of Ramadan.
Nice to see some of you, albeit briefly as you pick up books via the 'Click and Collect' service. For those of you who haven't tried it out yet, here is the link to our new library catalogue. Key in SUT, to search for our school. Books reserved before lunchtime, will be available for collection after school on the same day. If you don't see a book you are searching for listed, please let us know and we will consider adding it to our wishlist. Sora will continue to be available in parallel for those of you who prefer ebooks or audiobooks, plus it may offer a wider choice of titles to those on our shelves here.
And please may we remind you to return books to the Library lobby as soon as possible. All books borrowed last term are now overdue, so outstanding loans have jumped up to over 300.
This week's top tip is for our school library Reading Cloud catalogue. You may use the Who Next? functionality to get recommendations of other authors to try based on your favourite author.
Book Spotlight!
This week's Book Spotlight focuses on Silence is Not an Option by Stuart Lawrence, which was published earlier this month. Stuart is the younger brother of Stephen Lawrence, who at age 18, was murdered in an unprovoked racist attack on 22 April 1993. Yesterday was the 28th anniversary of Stephen's death and thousands of people along with the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation paid tribute to him, celebrating his life and legacy.
Stuart is an educator and motivational speaker, dedicated to helping to transform the life chances of young people. His book is aimed at inspiring you to Stand Up, Speak Out and Be The Difference and is interspersed with reflections on his brother Stephen's life and murder. You may see a very brief video on Moon Lane TV by Stuart here and read an interview in the Guardian. Also I have saved a copy of the teaching resource pack for this book on the P drive in the P:\LIBRARY folder.
There are also plenty of other books which have been written either about Stephen Lawrence or on themes related to the Legacy of Change. I have saved a copy of both the Stephen Lawrence Day Secondary Annotated Reading List and the Stephen Lawrence Schools Booklet on the P drive in the P:\LIBRARY folder.
The latest edition of the Scholastic Teen Book Club catalogue is being distributed to you and more titles are available to browse online. There are some great book offers including Silence is Not an Option. You order and pay online, but collect in school with no p&p costs. The order deadline is Monday 17 May. Orders usually arrive in school a few days later.
Another event celebrated globally yesterday is Earth Day. They have a quiz on Environmental Literacy plus plenty more ideas for promoting Climate Literacy. Here are some of their suggestions of books to read, but you'll need to page down for age appropriate titles. Interestingly I saw a recent article in The Times that universities are starting to offer Climate Change degrees.
Book Award News from the 2021 GLLI (Global Literature in Libraries Initiative) Translated YA Book Prize. The purpose of this initiative is to increase the visibility of international works which have been translated into English so that more readers can enjoy the breadth of diversity in these books. So the joint winners of the 2021 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize are two titles celebrating contemporary gay life in Brazil – Here the Whole Time by Vitor Martins and Where We Go from Here by Lucas Rocha. Both books have been translated from Portuguese by Larissa Helena.
The UKLA Book Awards Shortlists 2021 have also been announced this month. These awards are judged by teachers.
This evening is World Book Night, the adult version of World Book Day and upper school may enjoy some of events. I'm going to highlight the session where former Nobel Laureate in Literature Kazuo Ishiguro will be in conversation with Kate Mosse. Kazuo Ishiguro's latest bestseller Klara and the Sun was published last month.
The first session of our book club for shadowing the 2021 CILIP Carnegie Medal will be next Wednesday after school in the library. The shadowing scheme is where young people get the chance to read and vote on their choice for the winning book from the shortlisted titles. If anyone else is interested in being involved, then do please email us or come along to the first session. You may read as few or many of the titles as you wish.
What I've been reading over Easter!
In readiness for the Carnegie Shadowing, I read two of the shortlisted books over Easter. The first was The Girl who Speaks Bear by Sophie Anderson. This links in another of her titles - The House with Chicken Legs which was last term's book for Y7 Reading Support group. And the second was Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds, a collection of interlinked short stories set on the walk home from school (US rather than UK).
I also borrowed the audio version of another of the shortlisted titles Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk from Sora. A hard call to decide my favourite between The Girl Who Speaks Bear and Echo Mountain. What have you read recently?
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Now for a round-up of some other ideas, resources and articles.
This month is National Poetry Writing Month known as NaPoWriMo. I've found a challenge to write an Erasure Poem, which is a poem found within another text.
Here is this month's selection of free teen reads from publishers Simon & Schuster.
The Royal Mail is running a Heroes Stamp Design Competition, open to those aged upto 14.
There is a competition here to write a short story on the theme of Food Discovery. Closes 30 April.
For those of you who haven't logged into Sora yet, here is a reminder of how to borrow library ebooks via Sora. But if you are having any difficulties accessing Sora, then I will be happy to help you.
There is a link to the Sora app on the pupil page of the school website or at the top of the sidebar here on the library page. Download the Sora app or explore in browser https://soraapp.com Enter the setup code uksecondary if asked, select Sutton Grammar School and sign in with your school Google login and email password. And in the meantime, here is a Getting Started video guide or there is a PDF version on the P drive in the P:\LIBRARY\Sora folder.
Don't forget that we will happily accept all book-related contributions from students and staff to our blog. And please email us your suggestions for what you would like to see on our blog, or if you wish to be involved with a podcast book chat or one of our Reading Groups. In particular, as regards the podcasts, we would love to hear if you have any ideas or editorial experience you wish to tell us about.
April is National Pet Month, so I've created you a fun crossword based on books featuring animals, although not all would make good pets.
Crossword created at puzzle-maker.com