Hat and blouses in school colors

Completed just in time for school pictures this past week at Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts: a couple of blouses, and a “newsboy” hat in the school colors of black, white and gold. Over the summer, I was given an unused stash of various quilting fabrics, and these projects made good use of it. The blouses each come from commercial patterns (shown in the photograph), while the hat is based on piecework I used to do for Hat People in southern Oregon.

‘Helmet liners’ sewn with patch-work

Reverse-engineered Jonathan’s “helmet liner,” to produce these new articles for him to wear over his hair during exercise. I’m especially proud of the black-and-white, for which I pieced together various squares of fabric — part of a long-term, lifelong-benefit result of being taught Home Ec in high school.

YALSA ‘Teens’ Top Ten,’ voting open

Voting opened Aug. 15 for the “Teens’ Top Ten,” a list of books compiled each year by the Young Adult Library Services Association. The nominators are members of teen book groups in 15 school and public libraries.

Young people ages 12 to 18 can vote now through Teen Read Week (Oct. 7 to 13). Look for these titles at your local public library, and consider casting your vote. The top vote-getters will become the official “Teens’ Top Ten” for 2018.

Free books attract readers

Nothing like a free-book cart to really draw a crowd, shown here outside the library at Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts. One of our teachers recently cleared out old chapter-books from her shelves and brought the books to me in the library to help with re-homing them. I put them out on a movable cart, and have been rolling it outside during recesses. It was gratifying to see both children and adults stopping to browse the selection and even to take books away with them.

‘Ghosted’ by Leslie Margolis

I wanted to read this book because it’s from the perspective of the mean girl -- a perspective that I think is important to understand if we’re to combat bullying.

Why do people engage in bullying behavior? What needs or desires does it speak to? What would it take to get them to stop?

In the case of Ghosted, the bully point-of-view character is a girl named Ellie.

First of all, what I like about this book is the idea that someone can change. Who you are now does not define you forever. That said, I didn’t find it believable when Ellie changed for the better.