Back to School

Welcome back! And welcome to the new First Year. You'll be using the new Read To Succeed blog as part of your Library periods in English (together with S2) - http://www.jhareadtosucceed.blogspot.com/. Please feel free to use the JHA Library blog too for any books or Library-related discussion. I'd really like to get some pupils' views / reviews / suggestions on this blog - if you have anything you'd like to contribute you can either comment on my posts, give me a paper copy, or save a word file on the Library area of the server. Just remember to label it with your name and class.

Ayrshire Readers' Cup Final

Well done to the JHA team for scoring a very creditable 32 points out of 50 in the five rounds of the Reader's Cup. We were never more than a few points from the top of the leaderboard, finishing just 5 points behind the winners, Cumnock Academy.

The climax of the competition was very exciting, with a tie-break question for the joint leaders Loudoun and Cumnock. It was a tricky question, so congratulations to the Cumnock team for their dramatic victory.

Thanks to all the teams and supporters who made it a very enjoyable afternoon, and particularly to Ms Smith at Loudoun for organising the event and East Ayrshire Libraries for supporting it.

In the pic of our brilliant team - from left, Paige, Caera, Calum and Ross - well done!

Staff Book Group

The Group met on 1st May to discuss 'Little Face' and decide on the next books. Most thought 'Little Face' was quite good as a quick page-turner. I found the ending to be a big let down though. After being led along by the mystery element of the plot it fizzled out and became a bit farcical!




The next book is 'In the Country of Men' by Hisham Matar. This is the story of a young boy growing up in Tripoli, Libya. Please post any running commentaries here (although don't give away anything that might spoil it for others!).


At the meeting we also chose the next book which will probably be the last of this term. 'Suite Francaise' by Irene Nemirovsky was written in Paris during WW2 but was only recently published to great acclaim.

Carnegie Shortlist Announced!

The Carnegie shortlist has been announced and in a flash the books are in the Library! They will be read by the Friday Library Group first but if you're not in the group and would like to read one please speak to me and I'll reserve you a copy. See the list opposite. I'd like reviews to be sent to the Shadowing site but you can also send them to me to post on this blog. Let me know what you think of the shortlisted books - are they boring, too old, too serious, or what? Comments here please!

Shadowing the Carnegie at JHA

The JHA Library Group is waiting in eager anticipation for the Carnegie shortlist announcement on 20 April. We already have some of the longlist titles which the group have been reading, but the real excitment starts with the shortlist announcement. Once we get these books in we'll be able to post reviews on the Carnegie website (www.ckg.org.uk) and hopefully put some reviews / recommendations here too.

The pic shows a few members of the group gearing up for the Shadowing process. You can see the excitement of these keen readers! :)

If anyone who is not in the Library Group would like to review books for the Carnegie website or indeed for this blog, I would be happy to receive them!

Spring Reads

March has been a busy month for the JHA Library Group. We have attended 3 author events in 3 weeks. First we went to St Joseph's Academy to see Cathy Cassidy who spoke about her writing and tried to embarass the boys. Did it work? I think so ... Then we hosted an event featuring the storyteller Michael Kerins, who entertained us with tales of his Glasgow upbringing as well as stuff about the ancient Spartans. And last but not least we visited Kilmarnock Academy to see the rather demented and very funny author Jonathan Meres. Go to www.kilmarnockacademy.co.uk to see some great pics of this event.

Welcome!

This is the new JHA Library blog. Here you'll find lots of information, news and pics about JHA, the Library, books and stuff in general. Please feel free to comment on any of the postings. More will follow very soon ...