We Need Your Help!

Petitions for series to complete or continue are now available on the center bookcase in the IMC. Each series that I could identify in the IMC collection has a sheet listing the books in the series in order, along with the author's name, a list of genres, and a summary of the first book. Attached to this cover page are a couple of petition pages where you can sign your name if you want the IMC to keep that series going. The series have been grouped in brightly colored folders by the main genre of the series. So if you really like mysteries and adventure books for example, you can go to those folders and indicate your choices. The petitions will be available till the end of school in June. Then I will take them home and analyze your choices over the summer. In the fall I will begin purchasing missing or new additions to the series you have selected. Other series will be ignored. This is your chance to make your voice heard and show me what you want in the IMC collection.

There will be a form for new series that the IMC does not have where you and your friends can make new suggestions for me to look at. Please help!

Al Capone Returns

As the IMC begins asking students for their help in picking series to follow in the collection, I wanted to tell you about a new sequel to Al Capone Does My Shirts. Jennifer Choldenko has written Al Capone Shines My Shoes which continues the story of Moose and his family on Alcatraz Island in 1935 during the time when Al Capone was an inmate. While his father is a prison guard, Moose has to deal with friendship issues with Jimmy, Scout, Annie, and Piper. Now that his sister Natalie is attending a boarding school for "kids who have their wires crossed" possibly through Capone's influence, Moose finds that it is payback time. Capone wants Moose to do him a favor when Capone's wife comes to visit. Moose is challenged on how to accomplish this task without anyone knowing what's going on. Other inmates are introduced in this book like Willy One Arm and Buddy Boy who work at the warden's house and Seven Fingers who does repairs at the prison guards' houses. There are laughter and fear, schemes and chills for Moose and his friends. And there seems to be a third book coming. At a conference this year, the author indicated that she is working on another book. Since the third job that Capone had on Alcatraz was in the prison library, Choldenko suggests her next book may have a library theme.

Mission Accomplished

Before spring break I set myself the goal of finishing the 3 newest books I have purchased -- Fang, by James Patterson, This World We Live In, by Susan Beth Pfeffer, and Lockdown, by Walter Dean Myers. I finished those and they are all great. I will be donating them to Lakeview. I also finished what I call my purse book because I like to carry a book in my purse so I have something to read if I get stuck in a line or have to wait. I have been carrying with me The Mayor of Central Park, by Avi all through March. It is a fun book. Set in the year 1900, Oscar Westerwit, a squirrel, considers himself the mayor of all the animals in Central Park in New York City. He also considers himself an excellent baseball player and a wannabe actor in musical theater. Oscar's problems begin with the disappearance of his team's pitcher (and the best player on the team). Problems explode when Big Daddy Duds and his gun-toting rat thugs decide to move into Central Park and take it over. Baseball, romance, and war fill the pages of this delightful comedy. Sometimes it hard to remember that the characters are all animals. They walk , talk, and think like humans!