What I’m reading : Mort(e)

While much of my reading is Tween and Young Adult fiction, I also enjoy Science Fiction and Fantasy for an adult readership. One of the books I am currently reading is Mort(e) by Robert Repino.

Giant ants have masterminded an uprising by surface animals, whose intelligence has been boosted and who now possess the ability to walk upright on their hind legs.

The warrior Mort(e), formerly a housecat named Sebastian, searches for his lost companion, a dog named Sheba, while a mysterious prophecy tells of animals and humans joining forces to overthrow the ants.

The Case of the Burgled Bundle, by Michael Hutchinson

Video book review: The Mighty Muskrats — Chickadee, Atim, Otter, and Sam — are on the case after the Treaty Bundle — centerpiece of a four-day-long ceremony among the National Assembly of Cree Peoples — is stolen. The Case of the Burgled Bundle stands as a particularly strong entry in author Michael Hutchinson’s Mighty Muskrats series. It offers a gripping, tight mystery that I think really speaks to Hutchinson’s deft ability as a writer.

With COVID-19, inmates’ access to books is gaining greater attention

While COVID-19 has wrought many changes in library and information science, one positive development may be growing attention to inmates’ access to reading materials, as observed in recent actions by the American Library Association (ALA). My concern is if these efforts are tied too closely to COVID-19, then any concessions granted during the pandemic may lose ground once the pandemic is behind us.

Rotary ‘Dictionaries for Kids’

The Rotary Club of Santa Rosa is giving a brand new dictionary to every third-grade student in Santa Rosa City Schools. This gift to our families is part of a distribution of more than 30,000 dictionaries from Sonoma County to the Oregon border — more than 2,000 dictionaries in Santa Rosa alone.

Sonoma Storysharing Project

Here’s an opportunity that could be just the thing for our creative community at Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts: The Sonoma County Office of Education and CoBUILD-at-home is inviting Sonoma County students to share a story of how COVID19 has impacted them, or their community, through a wide range of expressive avenues, such as drawing or sketching, painting, photography, short film making, oral history or interview. Stories should be submitted by Friday, May 7, 2021. https://sites.google.com/scoe.org/cobuildselstorysharing/home