How to find books

It used to be easy to find a good book. We'd just wonder the stacks at our local library until something caught our eye. That's changing. Our library seems to be moving away from the printed page. It's all about meeting space, video games, and computers now. The children's stacks are being reduced to almost 50% of what they where. The emphasis in the stacks seems be on newer books, best sellers, and media tie-ins. We could find all that at the local chain book store. The library is not about bibliophiles anymore.

So where do we go to find good books? How to we find those favorites and classics that we don't know about yet? Well, librarians are still a good source. So far our local library hasn't done away with them completely. (Bitter? Me? Ha!)

There are the meta-books, books about books, like Jim Trelease's "Read Aloud Handbook", and Esme Raji Codell's "How to Get Your Child to Love Reading". There are books with great reading lists like Susan Wise Bauer's "The Well Trained Mind" and Oliver DeMille's "A Thomas Jefferson Education". There are also websites that can help you search out books similar to those you already like. I know about the Literature Map and Scholastic's Book Wizard. After that I just pick the brains of my favorite people.

I look in many places and then try to put the books on hold, either at the local library (which is becoming harder, what with the stacks being reduced and all) or through Prospector or through Inter-Library-Loan (ILL). If I can't get what I want that way, I have to consider buying it. If I want it bad enough I will. That's what I did to get Isaac Asimov's arithmetic books "Asimov on Numbers", "Quick and Easy Math", and "Realm of Algebra". I've used Alibris for out of print titles.

How about you? How do you find your next favorite book? Where do you go to get it?

September's Books

• The Undervalued Self, by Elaine N. Aron
• Just in Case, by Kathy Harrison
• Stuffed & Starved, by Raj Patel
• A Visual History of the English Bible, by Donald L. Brake
• Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar, by James Marcus Bach
• An Ice Cold Grave, by Charlaine Harris
• Grave Surprise, by Charlaine Harris

Way behind?

I have been negligent in my postings. I have several have unfinished posts, and I have no idea when, or if, I'll get back to them. So I thought I'd share with you a recent find.

I'm sure many of you will have already heard of Paul Graham. After reading some of his essays, I feel sure I should have discovered him before. He may or may not realize it, but he's an unschooler at heart. Certainly he inspired me to write this post. He's definitely not going to win any popularity contests. He's subversive. I like that.

August's books

• City of Thieves, by David Benioff
• Positive Options for Children with Asthma, by O.P. Jaggi
• Literary Feasts, by Sean Brand
• The Undervalued Self, by Elaine N. Aron
• Grave Sight, by Charlaine Harris
• Parent's Guide to Raising a Gifted Child
  

A quick rant

If you follow this blog you know we've got an exchange student. What I haven't mentioned is that he's a pretty good tennis player and is playing for his school.

Tennis is a fall sport for boys around here. That means that our student leaves the house at 6:30am to catch the bus to go to school at 7:30am. He get's done at 2:50 and reports for tennis practice from 3:30-5:30. My wonderful husband picks him up at 5:30 and gets him home for dinner at 6pm. He does his homework after dinner and has (maybe) an hour to visit before he gets to bed at 9:30pm or 10pm, just to do it all over again the next day. It's tiring just thinking about his schedule!

Relating to tennis and sports, he noted that for days that there are away matches, he's excused from class early so as to catch the bus to the match. He was amazed yesterday when his teacher actually reminded him 5 minutes before it was necessary that he should be leaving to catch the bus to the match. A different teacher changed a due date since he might not have time to finish his homework due to a tennis match. "I see how important American's value sports compared to academics" he said. Ya, I guess I see that too.

Traveling on the bus yesterday an assistant coach had a word with him. Our student was told that he should be putting more time and energy into tennis. She pointed out that school here wasn't that hard compared to what he was used to, and that the tennis season was so short and intense it should be a higher priority than school.

OMG! You've got to be kidding. Right? These are still growing bodies. They are being pushed to the limit with 2 hour practices 5 days a week, plus matches, in the Colorado August heat (90+ degrees as often as not) and he's being told to give more? From where I ask? These kids are asked - told even - to play through injuries, miss class, delay school work, miss family events, and then are being told by an authority figure to give even more?

Our student wants to play tennis. I can see that the camaraderie he has with team mates is invaluable. The chance to make new friends, improve his skills, be part of a team... these are all good things. But to value these above a student's health, intellectual growth, and community involvement is short sighted and not in the best interest of the student.

I am ashamed of our educational system and embarrassed by the values made evident by it's actions.