MJHS Media Center
February 2019
Author Kendra Fortmeyer to Visit MJHS!
Book Synopsis:
Have you ever felt like part of you is missing?
Morgan Stone was born with a hole in her middle: perfectly smooth patch of nothing where a something should be. After seventeen years of fear and shame, doctors and nurses, “peculiar” not “perfect,” she has had enough of hiding.
Feisty, feminist and downright different, Hole in the Middle is the story of what happens when a girl who is anything but normal confronts a world obsessed with body image and celebrity.
Check out these primary sources at BlackPast.org
Historic Black Churches Project
Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project
Full text primary source documents
Major speeches of black activists & leaders
Black History Month Lessons from NEA
To help you integrate Black History Month into your classroom, NEA offers multiple relevant, subject-specific selection of lesson plans for grades 9-12.
- African American Scientists and Inventors
- The Great Migration
- Rhythm & Improv: Jazz and Poetry
- Variation in Human Skin Color
- African American English
- The Invisible Man
- Smithsonian Jazz Mixer
- The Underground Railroad
- The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow
New Books! How Exciting!
We'll Fly Away
Luke and Toby have always had each other’s backs. But then one choice—or maybe it is a series of choices—sets them down an irrevocable path. We’ll Fly Away weaves together Luke and Toby’s senior year of high school with letters Luke writes to Toby later—from death row.
Best friends since childhood, Luke and Toby have dreamed of one thing: getting out of their dead-end town. Soon they finally will, riding the tails of Luke’s wrestling scholarship, never looking back. If they don’t drift apart first. If Toby’s abusive dad, or Luke’s unreliable mom, or anything else their complicated lives throw at them doesn’t get in the way.
Tense and emotional, this hard-hitting novel explores family abuse, sex, love, and friendship, and how far people will go to protect those they love. For fans of Jason Reynolds, Marieke Nijkamp, and NPR’s Serial podcast.
Quiet Power: The Strengths of Introverts
The original book focused on the workplace, and Susan realized that a version for and about kids was also badly needed. This book is all about kids' world—school, extracurriculars, family life, and friendship. You’ll read about actual kids who have tackled the challenges of not being extroverted and who have made a mark in their own quiet way. You’ll hear Susan Cain’s own story, and you’ll be able to make use of the tips at the end of each chapter. There’s even a guide at the end of the book for parents and teachers.
This insightful, accessible, and empowering book, illustrated with amusing comic-style art, will be eye-opening to extroverts and introverts alike.
Bridge of Clay
NPR Podcast Challenge
NPR Podcast Challenge
NPR is hosting its first-ever student podcast challenge. Winners will receive visits from the media organization's journalists before the end of the school year. The winning podcasts will also be included in segments of NPR's shows, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, during the spring.
These downloadable and streaming audio files can cover any topic, but NPR had some suggestions in its official rules:
- Stories about the school or community that others would want to hear;
- A moment from history that every student should know;
- A debate on a topic of importance to students;
- What in the world students want to change; or
- Coverage of something "that kids understand and grownups don't."
The contest is open to students in grades 5 through 12. The recordings must run between three and 12 minutes and not include music. Entries don't have to be class projects, but students will need the help of a teacher to submit their entries (since an account needs to be set up for SoundCloud, to upload the submissions).
Let me know if you'd like help creating your student podcasts.
More than 50,000 books, films and songs are now in the public domain
Jan. 1st didn't just mark the start of the new year; it was also the first so-called Public Domain Day in more than two decades, meaning that several works of literature from 1923 are now free from copyright for anyone who wants to use them.
More than 50,000 books, films and musical compositions are now officially in the public domain and can be published or adapted without permission from the copyright holder, according to the U.S. Copyright Office.
The copyrights on the works were originally slated to expire in 1999, but the U.S. Congress thwarted that with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, passed in 1998. Named after the late entertainer and congressman, the act, which was lobbied for heavily by the Walt Disney Co., added 20 years to the copyrights of works published before 1978.
Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a partial list of works that are now copyright-free. It includes some big names: Agatha Christie's "The Murder on the Links," P.G. Wodehouse's "The Inimitable Jeeves" and Virginia Woolf's "Jacob's Room" are now officially in the public domain.
Also included is Robert Frost's "New Hampshire," a poetry collection that includes one of his most famous poems, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Other authors with works now in the public domain are Edgar Rice Burroughs, Aldous Huxley, Winston Churchill and Edith Wharton.
Films and works of music are also affected by the copyright expiration, most notably Cecil B. DeMille's movie "The Ten Commandments" and Frank Silver and Irving Cohn's song "Yes! We Have No Bananas."
For literary fans interested in getting their hands on some new public-domain works, Motherboard has a list of websites where the books can be downloaded, including the Literature Network and Authorama.
Source: https://www.latimes.com/books/la-et-jc-public-domain-additions-2019-20190103-story.html
Los Angeles Times By MICHAEL SCHAUB JAN 03, 2019
The Walter Awards - Have you heard?
The Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature, also known as “The Walter,” celebrates the legacy of author Walter Dean Myers (1937-2014). Myers served as the third National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2012-2013), authored over a hundred titles, and won countless awards, including two Newbery Honors, five Coretta Scott King Awards, the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, and was a three-time National Book Award finalist. Throughout his prolific, lauded career, Myers was a life-long champion of diversity in children’s and young adult books.
Inaugurated in 2016, the annual Walter Dean Myers Awards for Outstanding Children's Literature recognize diverse authors (or co-authors) whose works feature diverse main characters and address diversity in a meaningful way. Two to four Honor Books are also named annually. We Need Diverse Books defines “diverse” to be one or more of the following: a person of color, Native American, LGBTQIA, a person with a disability, and/or a member of a marginalized religious or cultural minority in the United States.
2019 Walter Winner - Ghost Boys
Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that's been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing.
Soon Jerome meets another ghost: Emmett Till, a boy from a very different time but similar circumstances. Emmett helps Jerome process what has happened, on a journey towards recognizing how historical racism may have led to the events that ended his life. Jerome also meets Sarah, the daughter of the police officer, who grapples with her father's actions.
Once again Jewell Parker Rhodes deftly weaves historical and socio-political layers into a gripping and poignant story about how children and families face the complexities of today's world, and how one boy grows to understand American blackness in the aftermath of his own death.
Sponsored by: We Need Diverse Books
OUR MISSION STATEMENT
Putting more books featuring diverse characters into the hands of all children.
OUR VISION
A world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book.
OUR DEFINITION OF DIVERSITY
We recognize all diverse experiences, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, Native, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities*, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities.
2019 Walter Winner - Monday's Not Coming
Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried.
When she doesn’t show for the second day, or second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. Not after last year’s rumors and not with her grades on the line. Now Claudia needs her best—and only—friend more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday’s sister April is even less help.
As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?
MJHS Media Center
Email: jennifer.still@atlanta.k12.ga.us
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