Hot Titles in the GKHS library

The hottest titles in the GKHS library for 2014/15 school year.

	Title	Author	Circ. #
1	Through the Woods (graphic novel)	Carroll, Emily	44
2	This One Summer (graphic novel)	Tamaki, Mariko	34
3	Eleanor and Park	Rowell, Rainbow	32
4	The Fault in Our Stars	Green, John	32
5	Looking for Alaska	Green, John	30
6	Half Bad	Green, Sally	29
7	The Maze Runner	Dashner, James	29
8	I’ll Give You the Sun	Nelson, Jandy	28
9	Stolen	Christopher, Lucy	28
10	The Crossover	Alexander, Kwame	26
11	Say What You Will	McGovern, Connie	25
12	The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim	Johnston, EK	25
13	The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender	Walton, Leslye	25
14	The Family Romanov (Biography)	Fleming, Candace	24
15	Girls Like Us	Giles, Gail	22
16	Brown Girl Dreaming (Memoir)	Woodsen, Jacqueline	21
17	Me and Earl and the Dying Girl	Andrews, Jesse	21
18	Allegiant	Roth, Veronica	20
19	The Impossible Knife of Memory	Anderson, Laurie Halse	20
20	A Long Way Gone	Beah, Ishmael	20
21	We Were Liars	Lockhart, E.	20
22	The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian	Alexie, Sherman	19
23	Uglies	Westerfeld, Scott	18
24	The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy	Hattemer, Kate	18
25	The Islands at the End of the World	Aslan, Austin	17
26	Paper Towns	Green, John	17
27	The Perks of Being a Wallflower	Chbosky, Stephen	17
28	The 5th Wave	Yancey, Richard	16
29	The Scorch Trials	Dashner, James	16
30	Divided We Fall	Reedy, Trent	15
31	Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future	King, A.S.	15
32	House of Hades	Riordan, Rick	15
33	Otherbound	Duyvis, Corinne	14
34	An Abundance of Katherines	Green, John	14
35	The Blood of Olympus	Riordan, Rick	14
36	Cinder	Meyer, Marissa	14
37	Four: a Divergent story	Roth, Veronica	14
38	Grasshopper Jungle	Smith, Andrew	14
39	Insurgent	Roth, Veronica	14
40	Speak	Anderson, Laurie Halse	14
41	Thirteen Reasons Why	Asher, Jay	14

Surprises: I continue to be surprised that books like The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), Stolen (2010), Uglies (2005), Thirteen Reasons Why (2007), Speak (2000) and just about any book by Rick Riordan continue to be in the top 50 books years after they were published. I think that there is a bit of a cult following for some of these books. They may also just be the books that students tell other students about. 

Not surprised: On the other hand I am not surprised that nearly all of John Green's book top the list. Girls come to the library just to read his books and they tell each other to read them. The Fault in Our Stars is the first book on the list that students had no ulterior motive to check out. It wasn't a summer reading book, it wasn't assigned by anyone, and it wasn't a Mock Printz selection. Students just wanted to read it.

Notes: I have multiple copies of most of the books but if the list is adjusted for copies, (circulations per book not title,) the two graphic novels would still come in #1 and 2, then Half Bad (14.5), I'll Give You the Sun (14), The Blood of Olympus (14), Divergent (14), Grasshopper Jungle (14), Four (14), and 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith (13) would round out the list. With the exception of the Riordan book all of these books have a publication date of 2014, telling me that students really do want to read the new stuff, too, and are willing to wait in line, if necessary, to read it.


What books are you shocked/delighted to see on the list? What books are you shocked/delighted that are NOT on the list?

If you are a librarian, what were your top titles of this school year?

Please comment below!  Thank you.
 

End of the school year Haiku

 Haiku to memorialize the end of the 2015/16 school year

Wonderful TAs

Teacher Assistants,

Megan and Kaylee, come back---

help given as gift.

Hot date

My husband and I

spend Friday night here in school,

boxing up old books.

Boxes

Frito Lay, Snow-Isle,

Josten's yearbooks, Springboard,

we take all boxes.

Reading in Bed

Go to bed early.

Perfect time to read... asleep

after one page...zzzz

Teachers leaving at end of year

Every year some

teachers leave and don't return.

I always feel sad.

Salmon dinner

Daughter on meal duty-

Salmon, potatoes, and beets,

Strawberry shortcake

Socialize

Socialize, have fun!

Bunch of tired librarians

gather, share stories.

Check out my end-of-the year haiku for 2013, and 2012. 

TTT: The Most Anticipated Releases of 2015

Top Ten Tuesday:

There's only one book I'm seriously anxious to  read which will be released later this year:

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Written before To Kill a Mockingbird, put on the back-burner and then forgotten. Now, decades later, the world will finally get to read their second novel by the amazing Harper Lee.  Will we love it as much as her masterpiece? We'll find out July 14th.

Sunday Salon, June 7th

Fiddling around with the camera yesterday, I got this great close-up of lobelia in our hanging planter.

Weather: Beautiful and warm (hot)--- 80 °F; 27°C

Summer is near: yesterday I spent the better part of the day on our back porch just reveling in the glorious weather, admiring the flowers, and trying to capture a photo of a hummingbird at our feeder.

This is the only shot I got of a hummingbird. Can you see it's tail feathers?

Here is the shot Don captured (much better.) I believe this is a female Anna's Hummingbird.

Animals: our pets were nearby most of the day, too.

Muffy. Photo by Carly Bennett

Demi enjoying the sun. Photo by Carly Bennett

Ichiro. Waiting by the back door. Photo by Don Bennett.

Reading vs textbooks: This time of year my job consists mainly of textbook returns, consequently I am usually too tired to read when I get home, therefore I am still working on the same books I was reading last week. A few years I wrote this haiku about this time of year. It is true again this year:

End of day drive home.

Listen to audiobook.

Only literary fix.

Hot date: Don and I had a hot date on Friday night...back up to school to box up textbooks we are surplussing this year. Woot. Woot. One should never say that we aren't romantic.

Sweet Peas, one of my favorite flowers.

Strawberries and sweet peas: We went to the Farmer's Market yesterday and came home with an armload of vegetables, strawberries, and a bunch of sweet peas (flowers.) Later in the day, after things cooled off a bit, Don and I made two batches of strawberry freezer jam.

Puyallup Valley strawberries. They are delicious and sweet, but very fragile.

Youth Sunday: Today was Youth Sunday at our church where all the Sunday School Groups and Youth Group participants had a role in the service.  My favorite was when the preschoolers belted out Jesus Loves Me. He does!

Legalism: today was also the last day of the adult class I taught on the topic of God's Grace. Today we discussed legalism. Our discussion was very insightful. If you want to gain some insights as to what Jesus thought about legalism, read Matthew 23. Wow. Those are some harsh words to the Pharisees...people wanting to keep rules instead of being open to God's grace.

Time to head outside for some fun in the sun! What are you doing today?

Flowering sage. Photo by me.

Friday Quotes, June 5th

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. 
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. 
 
Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now: 

Book: The Same Sky by Amanda Eyre Ward

Book Beginnings: 

Carla: My mother left when I was five years old.

Friday 56:

...one night Humberto cut a line down the center of his palm with a broken Fanta bottle and made me do the same. We pressed our bloody hands together and promised each other we'd never sniff Resistol. I have kept my promise.

My thoughts: This is a story told by two women living very different lives. Carla, who is quoted twice above, is from Honduras and lives in abject poverty. Her mother left her to go to the USA for work. Alice lives in Texas and has just about everything anyone could want except a baby. I am finding the story very disturbing. Resistol is glue. These impoverished children sniff it to keep the hunger pangs down. Sad.