ms. larsen's classroom library: progress report

Back in September during the first week of classes, the school that my sister Ginny (or Ms. Larsen to her students) teaches at experienced flooding.  Everyone is/was safe, but classes were canceled for several days, and then held off-site for a couple more at a local high school.  They had to gut classrooms, and replace ceiling tiles and drywall in others. My sister's room was one of the ones affected.  The displacement, construction and confusion were a lot to deal with, but on top of that, much of her classroom library was destroyed.  I wrote a post about the whole thing at that time, and solicited titles of books I should send to replace what she lost.

The rest of this post is happy, I promise!  As you can see from the photos, Ginny has recreated the entire thing exactly as it was before the flooding.  She repainted the classroom and has done beautiful new chalkboard designs for each season.  AND, books!  I have been ordering and sending the titles you suggested in small batches directly to her school.  Some of you even sent your own copies!  THANK YOU!  As you can see, Ginny's library is back in business, and her students are reading a great new selection of titles recommended/donated by book bloggers.

I have still more books I plan to give her from my own collection, but I'll sort that out when I'm back in Seattle over the holidays.  In the meantime, check out this partial list of titles donated to Ms. Larsen's 9th Grade English classroom:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
Mexican WhiteBoy by Matt de la Pena
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
White Cat by Holly Black
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
The Only Alien on the Planet by Kristen D. Randle

I'll be scouring my fellow bloggers' "Best of 2013" lists for more titles to add to her collection.  In the meantime, if you have any further suggestions of books that belong in a 9th grade classroom (for self-directed reading), please mention them in the comments.  Ms. Larsen and I thank you!

how to replace a classroom library

I may be the book blogger in my family, but all of my siblings love to read, and my sister (and best friend!) Ginny is a huge fan of YA lit – and not only does she love reading it, she teaches it!  She’s a 9th grade English teacher in Washington State.  Ginny is an amazing teacher and inspiration, and this was her first week back teaching after an intense summer of volunteering.  Last night severe storms caused parts of the roof of her school to collapse, and classrooms flooded.  When she went in to work this morning, there was standing water 2" deep in her classroom, and part of the ceiling had fallen.

The good news is that she and her kids are safe – all of the major damage happened overnight.  They closed down the whole school, as around twelve classrooms were affected (here's the video news segment).  The bad news is that there’s a ton of work to do to make it safe for classes again, and part of that work means ripping out walls she’s spent hours decorating. 

The flooding also destroyed Ginny’s classroom library, which she has collected over the past 7 years (with my help!).  Her 300+ books were sitting at ground level and soaked up the water and debris.  Visualizing all of that hard work and those lost books made me cry, and I know I’m not even close to feeling what she feels, and I can’t imagine what her students will lose out on.

My heart is aching for her, and I need to do something to help. 

I can’t do anything about the walls of her room, but I can do something about the books.  I’m going to donate from my own shelves and fill a couple of boxes to send to her.  I’d also like to solicit your help, dear readers.  In the comments, please tell me what books you’d put in a 9th grade classroom library.  I’ll search for used copies of those titles on Amazon and other sites and put together a big order for Ginny and her kids.

Do you know other ways to help?  Please mention them!  Thank you!

(If by some miracle you’d also like to donate appropriate books, you can send them to Ferrucci Junior High in Puyallup, Washington, care of Miss Larsen.  The mailing address should be easily searchable on the interwebs.)

*All photos (before and after) by Ginny

get to know cecelia bedelia

I’ve mentioned before that I have younger-sister-slash-best-friend-ever; she’s the one who inspired me to start blogging.  Today, she’s posted on her blog about…ME.  So if you’re curious, head on over.  Warning: she loves me, so it’s biased. 

I'm on the left, Ginny's on the right

Aside from the odd post about family, Ginny does gorgeous crafts and nail art posts and is too funny, really, so if you’re into that, check out her blog.

on naming things (but especially book characters)

Don’t let the title of this post fool you. I am not writing a book. I sort of was for about half of National Novel Writing Month, but no more. This post is about names and likeability and originality. What that means in real world terms is that’s they’re actually just my random thoughts, but I want to let them out into the world, to see if any of you think the same things (sometimes).

I have an uncommon-ish sort of name: Cecelia. It doesn’t show up much in art or literature. Fanny Burney, a contemporary of Jane Austen, wrote a novel called Cecilia, which I own but have never read. Forgive me – it’s 1,200+ pages of romance, counter-romance and mystery. I tried that with Anna Karenina and failed miserably. But there’s also a Simon & Garfunkel song called Cecilia, and I’d estimate that half of the people I meet for the first time spontaneously serenade me with it – regardless of the strength or quality of their singing voices.

And on top of that, my sister is called Virginia, or Ginny for short. Very slightly more common than Cecelia, but still an old-fashioned name, and rare in literature. It’s really no surprise then that when we find a novel, not to mention a GOOD novel, with one of our names in it, that we get a little excited. I can think of three shining examples of this (though I’m sure there are more and I’m just forgetting them).

The first is Kristen D. Randle’s The Only Alien on the Planet. The main character is Virginia, but she goes by Ginny, just as my sister does. I simply loved that book, and would have done so regardless of what the character’s name was. But since her name was Ginny, I could read it, discover its merit, and then pass it on to my sister, all the while knowing that she wouldn’t be able to resist a good book AND a character with her name (this was at a point where she refused to read anything I’d read).

And the second case is Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword. The main character’s name in this novel is Harry – which is my dad’s name – and she’s a bit of a tomboy. But the book starts slowly, and I may have never gotten into the intense and adventurous bit if I hadn’t been caught by the mention of a ship called the Cecilia in the first couple pages. It’s the little things that keep you reading sometimes, and I’m very glad that I did read that book – it’s become a comfortable standard and McKinley one of my favorite authors of all time.

And the third example – another book that I haven’t read but have always meant to (as it was co-written by two seriously talented/favorite authors) is Sorcery and Cecelia, by Caroline Stevermer and Patricia C. Wrede. I’ve always wanted to cross-examine these authors, and ask how they came up with Cecelia – I mean, the name with my less-common spelling and everything! And also why I was unlucky enough at age 9 to have my mother find that book in my library stack and disapprove of it on sight. May have had something to do with ‘Sorcery’ in the title…but still. No excuse for why I haven’t read it since!

So – I have a few questions. Have you ever seen your name in a book? Did it make an impression? Were you more willing to like the book? If you haven’t found your name in a book yet, which genre will it most likely be found in?

Tell me your name and character stories!

may day, mayday, birthday!

It’s my sister Virginia’s (see her blog here) 24^th birthday today, and I sort of promised her a birthday blog post. I’ve been pondering all day, and haven’t come up with anything worthy of her. But to summarize how much she means to me, and as a tribute to her many virtues…below is my Introduction to Ginny.

Ginny is a really amazing person. She’s my best friend, my sister, my childhood buddy, my travel companion, and an example for everyone in her exuberance, creativity, compassion, and drive. I always joke that Ginny is the ‘next Martha Stewart’ because she always has new ideas, creative outlets, and the energy to accomplish all her goals and commitments. I mean, she’s not perfect, but she’s pretty close. And my mom calls her ‘Mom Number Three’ (myself being Mom Number Two, of course), because she grew up helping me be responsible for our rambunctious brothers (and we took/still take our job as older sisters VERY seriously). Ginny is really funny, a good storyteller, a faithful friend, and a tried and true sister.

The mutual adoration and friendship thing hasn’t always been the status quo, however. Before Ginny was born, I had been AN ONLY CHILD (maybe also a slightly spoiled one) for sixteen months. So when my parents brought her home from the hospital, I was distraught. In fact, I broke out in hives and threw up. And when they put her in a tiny cradle and left the room, I apparently HIT her (this is only conjecture and family history I am repeating, of course), and then soothed her when she started crying, and repeated the process. BUT, soon afterwards I became fond of her, and even had a pet name for her. Donny. I can’t explain it. Virginia…Donny…doesn’t fit, I know. I tend to call her Ginny or Gin these days.

We fought often as kids, but I think a perfect summary of our relationship is the example of separate bedrooms. When Ginny turned eight, she asked for her own room. We had always shared up until that point, and so she got her wish. It only took a few days for me to feel completely miserable. Ginny was fine (I think), but I was lonely. I packed up my blankets and tried to sleep on her floor. I think she eventually took pity on me and let me sleep in her bed, where my mother later found us and asked Why on earth wasn’t I in my own room? My answer summed it up: I just missed her.

We still fought, and sometimes do even to this day, but each of us loves and misses the other, and there’s no doubt about that. So…on to a Tribute of Ginny (and below, a photo of us in Brazil last summer).

Ginny is really good (better than me!) at: scoring goals in water polo, swimming breaststroke, throwing heavy objects (shotput), teaching English, making money (and saving money), buying and wearing cool clothes, being creative (arts of all kinds), telling jokes, telling stories, being consistent in her spiritual devotions, making people laugh, spilling spaghetti sauce (oops!), making fast friends really quickly, baking awesome chocolate chip cookies, playing video games, getting the boys to follow her directions, and lots of other things that I’m overlooking at the moment.

But you get the idea. My sister = awesome, and I wish her a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!