Welcome Autumn!

Well, October is upon us and therefore we are fully into fall. The weather has turned around quite nicely and we are enjoying beautiful weather. Let's hope it continues for a while!

I did promise a review of Kate Morton's book, but I must confess that I have been side-tracked by my new Nintendo DS game; Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. Yes, I am sad to admit that your librarian loves, love, loves, Professor Layton games and I find them quite addictive! So, I have put my night-time reading off in order to help Layton and Luke solve the mystery. I think that I'm coming close to the end, so I'm sure that I'll be back at my reading by the weekend.

Mrs. Harder has been with us now for over a week and she has been busy! She is creating some really cool bulletin board displays for the library and she's got a couple finished already, so come and have a look. One is 3D, which is really neat. I'm hopeless at bulletin boards, so I'm so glad she enjoys doing them. She is doing a fantastic job, so please pop in and introduce yourself.

I will be getting the Halloween display with scary stories organized this week, so if you are a person who likes a good fright, stop in and sign out a book that will keep you up at night!!

Have a safe and fun Thanksgiving weekend and enjoy the beautiful fall weather!

Happy Reading,
Miss Bell

What a crazy month!!

September is almost over and it has been a busy month for the library! As I mentioned in my previous post, I went to Chapters in Regina and I did my first large book buy for the year. Since then, I've been so busy cataloging and getting them ready for our readers to borrow. We have put half of them out on the display table and the other half are just about ready for circulation so check back often.

Another great thing that has happened at the library is we have a new Library Technician, Mrs. Sheila Harder. Today is her first day and she is doing a fantastic job. She will be training for the next week or so, so drop by the library and say hello.


I also want to mention a book that I finished reading this month called "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton. Ms. Morton is an Australian writer and this is her second book. It is set in Australia and on the Cornish coast in England. It also bounces between different time periods.

"On the eve of the first world war, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her - but the Authoress has disappeared without a trace.

On the night of her twenty-first birthday, Nell O'Connor learns a secret that will change her life forever. Decades later, she embarks upon a search for the truth that leads her to the windswept Cornish coast and the strange and beautiful Blackhurst Manor, once owned by the aristocratic Mountrachet family.

On Nell's death, her grand-daughter, Cassandra, comes into an unexpected inheritance. Cliff Cottage and its forgotten garden are notorious amongst the Cornish locals for the secrets they hold - secrets about the doomed Mountrachet family and their ward Eliza Makepeace, a writer of dark Victorian fairytales. It is here that Cassandra will finally uncover the truth about the family, and solve the century-old mystery of a little girl lost." from www.katemorton.com

It is a nice mixture of mystery, historical fiction and a quest. I really enjoyed reading it and even though it is not classified as Young Adult Fiction, it is a very good read and I highly recommend it. I'm reading Kate Morton's first book "The House at Riverton" and so far it is very good as well.

Happy Reading,
Miss Bell

And....We're Back!!

Welcome to another school year at the lovely Weyburn Comprehensive. I would especially like to welcome the new grade 10 students and anyone else who is new to the building! I hope that your time here is productive and fun.

We had a rocky start-up this year and I had a lot of trouble with my library program. I forgot that I got an upgrade to a higher edition and I acidentally deleted my administrator and librarian accounts when I was deleting students from last year- whoops! Thanks to our techies and the people at Kelowna Software, we are now up and funny and fully functional.

A big change to our library is that we will have a new librarian soon. Our previous library tech resigned over the summer and is pursuing other employment opportunities. We wish her the best of luck!!

On Friday and I am heading into Regina to do my large Chapters order. I always buy a lot of new books right at the beginning of the school year so that if you are a reader, you have lots to look forward to through out the semester. I do order fiction later on, but this is always the first big push! By next week look out for our New Books signs and the display table that we will have set up to showcase our new arrivals. If you have any book suggestions, please come by and see me and I can add it to my list!

Thanks for reading,
Miss Bell

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Novel, by Alan Bradley was a very enthusiastic recommendation from my mother. She thought that many teenagers (and adults) would really like this book, especially if they enjoyed reading mystery fiction.

Meet eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison.

It is the summer of 1950-and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia's family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned on its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. "I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contratry. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life."

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told tale of deceptions- and a rich literary delight.

"Impressive as a sleuth and enchanting as a mad scientist, Flavia is most endearing as a little girl who has learned how to amuse herself in a big lonely house." The New York Times Book Review

"First-time mystery novelist Alan Bradley's fictional setting of Bishop's Lacey joins Agatha Christie's St. Mary Mead and Arthur Conan Doyle's London as delightful destinations for readers....That isn't thunder you hear. It's the sound of mystery fans scurrying to the bookstore." Winnipeg Free Press



Happy Reading!
I can't wait to read this!! I will post my thoughts when I finish reading it!!

New Titles

The books have been catalogued and processed and are ready for reading!! I thought that I would highlight some of the new books that we have in the library:

#1- Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox.

"Michael J. Fox gained fame playing Alex P. Keaton on the sitcom Family Ties. His many other acting successes include the Back to the Future trilogy, and his award-winning role in Spin City, from which he retired in 2000. That same year, he launched the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, which has leapt to the forefront of the effort to find a cure. He is the author of a previous book, the #1 best seller Lucky Man, and lives with his family in New York City." (From the back of the book)

This is an memoir that Michael has written to record his struggles with Parkinson's Disease and how his positive attitude has helped him and his family cope.

New Books are here!!

Usually by this time of year, I am out of budget and have to wait until the fall to get new fiction books into the library- not this year! I had some budget left and I made a quick trip into Chapters-Indigo during the Easter break. I have two boxes of books (not a lot for me, but I had to be careful) and I will start cataloging them and getting them ready for everyone this week. I'll post some of the books on the blog and if you can, stop by the tables near the circulation desk if you are walking by the library.

Happy Reading!!

Book Talk!!

A goal that I have for my new library blog is to be able to highlight different books that I have added to our library collection. The budget year has drawn to a close so I don't have any "new" books to feature, but I have chosen three books that students and staff have told me are good reads to highlight. Eventually, I would like to have students and/or staff members submitting reviews for me to post on the blog.

Here goes the first round of book talks!!

Book #1
Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help by Douglas Anthony Cooper.

This book caught my eye when I was doing some school shopping at Chapters. It would fall under the supernatural category. The main character, Milrose Munce, is a special kind of teenager; he can see and speak to ghosts. He attends an unconventional school where all his best friends are dead! Some were killed in science experiments that went wrong in the third floor science labs and others were gifted athletes who lost their lives on the playing field.

Milrose gets into a lot of trouble at school and after another detention he is sent to see Massimo Natica for "professional help". Massimo tells the school that he can change Milrose and his best friend, a ghost named Arabella, from maladjusted teens into perfect angels. Along the way Milrose and Arabella discover that Massimo and his colleagues are not as they seem and have ulterior motives for the kids and the school... Milrose and his friends must stop them!

I am going to read this book over the next couple of days and I will give my review. If anyone else has read this, I would be interested to know your opinion.

Happy Reading!!

Welcome to Bell's Book Blurb

Thank you for stopping by my new WCS Library blog. I hope that a few people will actually stop by and take a look at some of the new things we have going on and some of the new material in the library.

If you have any comments, questions or ideas, please send me an email or stop by!

Miss Bell