We will also be shadowing the Stan Lee Excelsior Awards where we will look at and read 8 shortlisted Graphic Novela and Manga. The eight books on the shortlist are now available in the library for borrowing by any pupil whether attending the club or not.

If you read them you will be asked to fill out a simple evaluation form and give each book a rating (marks out of 5). There is also space to write a comment about the book if you wish. Forms are available from Mrs Sinclair or can be downloaded from the Resources section of the Award website.

STAR WARS: BLOOD TIES  by Tom Taylor and Chris Scalf (Dark Horse) ISBN: 978-0857681294

GATE 7 by CLAMP (Dark Horse) ISBN: 978-1595828064

WUTHERING HEIGHTS (Quick Text version) by Emily Bronte, Sean M. Wilson and John M. Burns (Classical Comics) ISBN: 978-1906332884

FF (Volume 1) by Jonathan Hickman, Steve Epting and Barry Kitson (Marvel) ISBN: 978-0785151449

MARINEMAN: A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEPTH by Ian Churchill (Image) ISBN: 978-1607063995

SITA: DAUGHTER OF THE EARTH by Saraswati Nagpal and Manikandan (Campfire)ISBN: 978-9380741253

CHIMICHANGA by Eric Powell (Dark Horse) ISBN: 978-1595827555

GREEN LANTERN: SECRET ORIGIN by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis (DC) ISBN: 978-0857682819

Try out:

Dark Callling by Darren Shan

Vortex by Chris Ryan

Boys Don’t Cry by Malorie Blackman

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all SALibrary blog readers a very Merry Christmas & Happy New Year when it comes round. Have A great Holiday! FS.

Click on the image to go to the link:

To help our pupils, here is a guide to using the local studies section in the school library.

So, the Book Fair has begun and is set up in the Senior Fiction section and is appropriately decorated for Christmas. Trade has been a tad on the slow side, but we will put it down to the late arrival and the weather related school closure. The fair will now run all this week so will be a good opportunity for some last minute Christmas shopping for stocking fillers.

S1 pupils have embarked on yet another research project (they have been busy this term) - the aptly named ‘Extreme Weather’, given the fact that the Orkney Islands suffered hurricane force winds on Thursday night. It was a classic ‘eye of the storm’ scenario with the weather being ‘dead’ calm for most of Thursday afternoon then the winds suddenly picking up, with a force that this librarian does not really want to experience in a hurry, in the evening. Thankfully Orkney pretty much stood up well to the onslaught, although due to the continuing winds and forecast for snow (where was it?) the school was closed to pupils on Friday giving staff some time to catch up on any backlogs – shelving in my case and a little indulgence in starting to decorate the library for Christmas which the pupil librarians will complete today at interval.

The postponed Manga club inaugural meeting will now take place this Friday 16th Dec at 12:40 in the library.

Rehearsals are ongoing for the school carol service in Stromness Church on Monday 19th Dec (evening) with instrumentalists and pupil/staff choir and of course our music department staff putting in a lot of work.

It is hard to believe it is nearly the end of another (extremely) busy year and 2012 is around the corner, but no time to stop and rest, still more shelving to do, classes to teach info lit skills to, book processing, shelf tidying, Glow[ing] (our Scottish education intranet), meetings to attend…

S1 pupils are continuing to work on library induction and Reading Record activities during their library periods. In fact, S1 have been busy [fullstop] in the library. November saw them doing research for their History project on Ancient Civilisations, putting into practice some of the skills learned during library induction and learning some new research skills. They are now doing research for their Geography project on ‘Extreme Weather’ (of which we have had our fair share of during the last couple of weeks including 130mph wind gusts recorded at Hammers Hill).

S2 pupils are doing a History Project on Hudson Bay and John Rae and your erstwhile Librarian has spent some time researching on the internet and added to the archive box on the topic produced by the Orkney Library & Archive last year. Web links for this project are available via Livebinders in a binder called Hudson’s Bay Company.

New Manga novels have been added to library stock and you can expect more new books to be added each week. These will be on the new books display. A small donation of magazines from a teacher has been received as well as some from the librarian (horsey ones, xBox, Historic Scotland, Top Gear, to name a handful). Please do suggest ideas for new books – remember, it is your library!

The small team of pupil Librarians continues to meet on a Monday interval and attend to duties during lunchtimes. Any pupils can colunteer to help in the library – good experience for CV and a great way to have a say in the running of he library. Pupil Librarian training can count towards Youth Achievement Awards and further detail can be obtained from the librarian.

A senior pupil has run a small Warhammer group during some lunchtimes and an S4 pupil, is going to help run a Manga Club, starting on Friday 9th November.

A book fair is running this week (if the books arrive) giving a good opportunity to get some Christmas shopping in for books or stationery. Commission is received by the library on any sales (if we make the target) and this is a great way to get more resources for the library. Do support this event.

So, it has been a busy term so far and with three weeks to go there is a lot more to do.

The annual ‘Poetry Picnic’ took place on October 6th with around 25 pupils coming along to the library to partake of some poetry reading, games and snacks.

After the October holidays an informal version of ‘Spooky Happenings’ too place in the reading zone with about 20 pupils attending and taking turns reading ’30 second Horrors’ from Mrs Sinclair’s Kindle.