CGHS Library

The Replacement (FIC Yovanoff)

"Everyone has a point of origin. A place they come from

Some people's places are just simpler than others'.

I don't remember any of this, but my sister, Emma, swears it's true and I believe her. This is the story she used to tell me at night, when I would climb out of bed and sneak down the hall to her room.

The baby in the crib: crying, in that anxious, fussy way. His face is shiny between the bars. The man comes in the window--bony, wearing a black coat--and grabs the baby up. He slips back out over the sill, slides the window down, pops the screen back in. Is gone. There's something else in the crib.

In the story, Emma's four years old. She gets out of bed and pads across the floor in her footie pajamas. When she reaches her hand between the bars, the thing in the crib moves closer. It tries to bite her and she takes her hand out again but doesn't back away. They spend all night looking at each other in the dark. In the morning, the thing is still crouched on the lamb-and-duckling mattress pad, staring at her. It isn't her brother.

It's me." (pg. 12 and 13)

Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement is a great book. I loved the characters, loved the plot, loved it all. Though I realize the book is not for everyone because the characters are too realistically confused and awkward at times, it is for those of use who really are confused and awkward. Having a basic working knowledge of Fairy Lore (no, not THAT kind) helps too, though you can pick that up as you go along.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (FIC Riggs)

“Ricky punched my shoulder in a manner meant to be encouraging but that nearly snapped my rotator cuff. ‘Don’t worry, Special Ed. There’s always tomorrow.’

He called me Special Ed because I was in a few gifted classes, which were, technically speaking, part of our school’s special-education curriculum, a subtlety of nomenclature that Ricky found endlessly amusing. That was our friendship: equal parts irritation and cooperation. The cooperation part was an unofficial brains-for-brawn trade agreement we’d worked out in which I helped him not fail English and he helped me not get killed by the roided-out sociopaths who prowled the halls of our school. That he made my parents deeply uncomfortable was merely a bonus. He was, I suppose, my best friend, which is a less pathetic way of saying he was my only friend.” (pg. 26)

I finally read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children because it appeared on the bestseller list and people on the internet were raving about it. The premise and plot are interesting because author Ransom Riggs uses vintage photos to illustrate the book. However, I was not terribly captivated by the writing and found it rather slow going at times. The characters were flat, and I never really cared much about them or what was happening to them. Many beginning authors let the level of action drop in the middle, and Riggs is no different. I was afraid before I began reading that the book would be too creepy for me, but it turns out that Riggs could have ramped up the creepiness just to keep me awake.

Chances are better than average, though, that you will disagree with me, so you might want to give this book a whirl if you want something a little different. Tim Burton is also working on a movie which has an excellent chance of being better than the book. (MHouse)

Online Art History Textbook

Believe It or Not

Credibility 1:

Science for Life
Iowa Source

Credibility 2:

Yeti King Crab

Credibility 3:

A Wrong Diagnosis
Mayo Clinic Diagnosis

Credibility 4:

Huffington Post
Fox News

Credibility 5:

Mythbusters
Moon Hoax

 

 

 

Credible

"what they say makes sense to me"

Informative

 “this site has a ton of information on this topic” 

 Authoritative

 “this page is from an agency of the government that deals with these issues all the time” 

 Useful

 “not everything on here is correct, but everything I’ve tried has worked out really well….” 

Page Turners

The Educational Enhancement Fund donated $350 for new books this winter. We bought some thrillers and series fiction.

Pictured are: Kylee Burns, Payton Wirtjes, Dwayne Tucker,
Sheyenne Bassler, Ashley Loff, Mary Alsobrooks

Photos, Editing, and Collage by MHouse

iPads In the Library

The Educational Enhancement Fund donated two iPads to the CGHS Library. They are set up with a variety of apps, including the Kindle app, with a few popular books loaded to start. 

Katy DeWeese and Skyler Stevenson were the first two people to check out the iPads on Tuesday.

Photos by MHouse

More Cool Bookends

Taylor Alderman

Erica Hecht

Grace Wohlschlegel

Photos by Taylor Alderman and Zak Wohlschlegel; Editing by Taylor Alderman

App Advice for the Appalled

If you use an iPad or are thinking of buying one, AppStart is the first place you should go on the web and the first app you should download onto your new device. Wading through 500,000 apps, many of which are not that well designed, is not my idea of a good time. AppStart helped me understand what an iPad is designed to do, what it does best, and how to make it work for me.

New Louis L'Amour (FIC L'Amour)

If you are a fan of the western, there is no better place to start than a Louis L'Amour short story or novel. CGHS Library has a variety of L'Amour books, but the ones we had were becoming yellowed and ratty, so we recently purchased some new copies and some additional books. We also have the first three volumes of the new editions of short stories with more on the way. One of the display cases is filled with them and, as always, if there is something particular you want that we do not have, ask.