I was just looking at Craigslist and a local nursing home was looking for someone to help catalog their collection of 200 books. Wow maybe I should email them about Library thing. One of my colleagues told me that I should give my tech god husband a name. Problem is there is no goddess of books in mythology Athena/Minerva, the goddess of wisdom is the closest. The only one that could be close to technology I think could be the Roman god, Janus, god of gates, doors, and new beginnings. Maybe new beginnings is technology and there have always been Luddites and neo-Luddites who were and are against it. Well I'll just me the goddess of books and my husband can be the tech god or god of technology.
Well back to Library thing. I looked up a few young adult books that are near and dear to me. The White Mountains by John Christopher. I read all of his books in the Tripod Series (When the Tripods came, The White Mountains, City of Gold and Lead, and Pool of Fire..This series is so similar to The Matrix movies. This book was introduced to me in library school as a coming of age book. Will lives in futuristic England, he is about to be "capped" ( when children become adults they receive a metal cap on their head and are slaves to the Tripods), but he decides to make a joruney to the White Mountains (Switerzland) where he will be free. 364 others chose it too.
Books I like that deal with American Indians teens are: DogWolf by Alden Carter and A Woman in her Tribe by Margaret A. Robinson. Annette and Pete are mixed bloods who live both in the white world and Indian world. They both are unsure about their place in society until their elderly Grandparents help them to find that link. Both of these books are special to me, because Annette is a Nookta from Canada and Pete is Metis ( mixed blood French and Indian). In Canada, I was considered to be Metis. The books are not so well-known because Dogwolf only has 5 others choosing it and A Woman in her Tribe only has one other.
I have always been fascinated with the Falashas (Ethiopian jews). I am not Jewish, but my first teaching job was at a Jewish school and I have some dear eldery friends who are Jewish. I met a Falasha at SJSU who adopted by an American rabbi and his wife. The Return by Sonia Levitin follows Josas, Desta, and Alamaz as they escape from Ethiopia to Israel. The most powerful scene in the book is the end. Operation Moses has stopped. Desta goes to the Wailing Wall and prays and feels touched by God. She feels that she has returned home. The Falashas believe that they are descendants of the Queen of Sheba and are often called Queen of Sheba's heirs. Only chosen by 11 others.
Last on my list is Summer Hawk by Deborah Savage. Taylor hates leaving Philadelphia for the country town of Alton, Pennsylvania. She finds an injured baby hawk and forms a friendship with a wildlife biologist and a boy she can't stand at first and learns about love, forgiveness, and raptors. Only chosen by 5 others.
I showed this to my Techgod. He was amazed and things maybe we can catalog our home library collection. He was like wow there even are pictures of some books and maybe you could swap the book with someone. This tool could be used for Classroom teachers to catalog their classroom libraries. Also many schools have reading incentives contests. Why not have students set up a library thing catalog and catalog the books as they read them along with writing a short summary for each book?
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