Day: October 31, 2014

title: Love is the Drug

author: Alaya Dawn Johnson

date:Arthur A. Levine; September, 2004

main character: Emily Bird

Emily Bird was raised not to ask questions. She has perfect hair, the perfect boyfriend, and a perfect Ivy-League future. But a chance meeting with Roosevelt David, a homeland security agent, at a party for Washington DC’s elite leads to Bird waking up in a hospital, days later, with no memory of the end of the night.

Meanwhile, the world has fallen apart: A deadly flu virus is sweeping the nation, forcing quarantines, curfews, even martial law. And Roosevelt is certain that Bird knows something. Something about the virus–something about her parents’ top secret scientific work–something she shouldn’t know.

The only one Bird can trust is Coffee, a quiet, outsider genius who deals drugs to their classmates and is a firm believer in conspiracy theories. And he believes in Bird. But as…

On the heels of her successful young adult novels, Coe Booth recently released Just Like a Brother, a middle grade novel about two foster brothers, Jerrod and Kevon.

Jarrett doesn’t trust Kevon.

But he’s got to share a room with him anyway.

It was one thing when Jarrett’s mom took care of foster babies who needed help. But this time it’s different. This time the baby who needs help has an older brother — a kid Jarrett’s age named Kevon.

Everyone thinks Jarrett and Kevon should be friends — but that’s not gonna happen. Not when Kevon’s acting like he’s better than Jarrett — and not when Jarrett finds out Kevon’s keeping some major secrets.

Jarrett doesn’t think it’s fair that he has to share his room, his friends, and his life with some stranger. He’s gotta do something about it — but what?

KINDA LIKE BROTHERS is the…

A few patrons have asked about Black-Eyed Susan books lately, so we created a display. The Maryland Association of School Librarians started this book award back in 1992 and I love the fact that students get a chance to vote on the titles that win.

To create the display, I used BCPL‘s website because they have a list of the winners and the nominated books from 2011 to the present year, for the picture books on up to high school. A display of just the winners wouldn’t fill the display, plus a lot of the recent winners are checked out anyway.

Good luck to Jacqueline Woodson‘s This is the Rope in the picture book category this year.

I can’t seem to avoid doing presentations in just about all of my library classes. My User Instruction (LBSC 702) is no exception. We all had to present a database of our choice for ten minutes. I’m glad it’s over with, but the one positive point of doing this assignment is that I got a chance to explore Oxford African American Studies Center’s database. The scenario I presented to the class was of a 9th grade class visiting their high school media specialist for research help for a paper on the writers of the Harlem Renaissance.