By Mrs. Kunkel, School Librarian
Posted Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Library News: Oct/Nov 2007
There's a lot happening in the HCS Library. In this article, Mrs. Kunkle fills us in on what happened in October and what is planned for November.

During the month of October, we have had fun reading Marven of the Great North Woods by Kathryn Lasky. This non-fiction story takes place in Minnesota in 1918, during one of the worst influenza outbreaks in U.S. history. To keep him from catching the sickness, Marven's parents send him hours north away from home to a logging camp. Once there, he is given the job of doing payroll and waking up the workers at the break of dawn. Homesick and worried about his family, he is befriended by Jean Louis, a French-Canadian lumberjack. Marven is not able to return home and be with his family for four long months.

In addition to learning the difference between fiction and nonfiction and a few French words and phrases, we learned that the author, Kathryn Lasky is Marven’s daughter. The students’ project for this book was to illustrate their version of the main characters, and I was amazed by their artistic abilities and retention of the story details.

In November, we will be reading Molly's Pilgrim, a fiction selection about a young Jewish girl who emigrates from Russia to America. She is faced with overcoming her fears as she starts a new school, where she has no friends and is just learning English. Molly’s teacher asks the students to make their own Pilgrim doll for a Thanksgiving project, but when Molly brings her doll to school, the other children ridicule and make fun of her because they think that she did not do the project correctly. The teacher shows the children how they are wrong in what they are doing, and they begin to see how they have been treating Molly. We will be talking about being thankful for what God has given us, showing kindness towards others, and how our words can hurt other people’s feelings.

One last note, we are excited to announce that we have added a brand new set of books to our library. Fifty U.S. State books from Heinemann Publishing each filled with useful information are now available to the fifth grade students to use for their upcoming state reports. We have also added some Native American books for the first and fourth grade studies. We hope to continue to stock our library with new books throughout the year for our students to use for their class projects as well as to foster their love of reading. Thank you for supporting our school book fair.
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May you reap God's harvest of blessings this season.