LGBT+ History Month – During February, the Pupil Library Committee and LGBT+ group pupils curated their own display for LGBT+ History Month, creating their own poster, bunting and selecting books to highlight from the Libraries collection. The school library also curated a digital booklist for Young Adult Fiction and Graphic Novels to add to Mr Lynch’s LGBT History Month interactive choice board, that enables pupils to learn about significant events, activists, and literary figures from the LGBTQ+ community. The Library also hosted an LGBT History Month quiz to highlight the history, social change, and figures with prizes to be won.

EAL Book Group – Our EAL book group completed two books. The House of Clouds by Lisa Thompson, a beautiful story that explores friendship, bereavement, and imagination. Our other book, Under the Skin by Cathy MacPhail, discusses bullying and refugee issues within a Scottish context. In the story, our main character Omar writes about how much he loves living in Scotland to his cousin Chat, which we modelled for our letter writing activity.

Reading Schools – The school library continues our Reading Schools journey. Our committee met to plan a wealth of activities for the upcoming World Book Day week. The Pupil Library Committee is heavily involved in this years WBD festivities, hosting pop-up Libraries, helping with arts and crafts workshops, and creating displays to promote an array of literary events taking place throughout March.

February Booklists:

February 2022 Booklists – BookTrust

Best new Children’s Books – Toppsta

Bookbug’s Books of the Month – Scottish Book Trust

Books of the Month – LoveReading4Kids

February Roundup – Love Reading

Book of the Month – Scholastic

Books of the Month – Waterstones

Children’s Book roundup – Guardian

Upcoming events:

African Festival of Emerging Writers (March 17^th-19^th) – ArifFesti (Cameroon)

British Science Week (March 11th) – British Science Week (UK)

Earth Hour (March 26th) – Earth Hours (International)

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (March 21st) – United Nations (International)

International Women’s Day (March 8th) – International Women’s Day (International)

Jaipur Literary Festival (March 5^th-14^th) – Jaipur Lit Fest (India)

LitFest 2022 Mini Children’s Festival (March 11^th-12^th) – LitFest (UK)

Shakespeare Week (March 21st) – Shakespeare Week (UK)

World Book Day (March 3^rd) – World Book Day (International)

World Poetry Day (March 21st) – UNESCO (International)

World Storytelling Day (March 21st) – (International)

Past events:

Alasdair Gray Day (February 25^th) – Gray Day (Scotland)

Emirates Literature Festival – (catch up on YouTube)  Emirates LitFest (UAE)

International Festival of Children’s and Youth Literature (Catch up on YouTube) – FESTILIJ (Spain)

Jewish Book Wee (February 26^th-March 6^th) – Jewish Book Week (UK)

Literary Awards & Prizes:

American Indian Youth Literature Award Winners – American Indian Library Association (USA)

Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Winners – Asian/Pacific American Library Association (USA)

Blue Peter Book Awards Shortlist – BBC/BookTrust (UK)

Bookbug Picture Book prize announced – Scottish Book Trust (Scotland)

Caldecott Medal Winners – American Library Association (USA)

Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Award Long Lists Announced – CILIP (UK)

The Klaus Flugge Prize Long List Announced – Klaus Flugge Prize (UK)

The Laugh Out Loud Book Awards 2022 (the Lollies) – Scholastic (UK)

Prémio Autores/ Authors Awards Winners – Sociedade Portuguesa De Autores (Portugal)

Waterstones Children’s Book Prize Shortlist 2022 – Waterstones (UK)

In the news:

17^th Century Buddhist Texts for the Illiterate: how ‘Buddhist Emoji’ made the Sutra Legible for those who couldn’t read – Open Culture

Bologna Children’s Book Fair (March 21-24^th) – Bologna Fiere (Italy)

The Book of Kells, has been digitised and put online – Open Culture

Campaign for every Scottish Secondary School to receive a copy of Me and White Supremacy (YA edition) by Layla F Saad successful – Lighthouse Bookshop (Edinburgh, Scotland)

The blog is back! Watch this space for monthly updates from Shawlands Academy School Library.   

 2021 Recap – What have we been up to?   

 eBooks & eAudiobooks:  The library continued to roll out the Libby app to all S1 pupils. The eBooks, audiobooks, and eMagazines supplement the physical stock in the library, offering pupils a broader range of formats and books, with accessibility features to make the reading experience more inclusive.   

Reading Schools accreditation: This year, the school library has signed-up Shawlands Academy to the Scottish Book Trust’s Reading Schools accreditation programme. The Reading Schools programme is committed to building a reading culture across the school community. With some Covid restrictions still in place, we are aiming for the core level certificate with the possibility of applying for silver or gold in the 2022-2023 school year. Our Reading Schools leadership committee have met in December to plan for the 2022 term and have discuss loads of exciting activities and initiatives to roll throughout the term. We’re currently accepting submissions for our ‘Ask Me What I’m Reading’ badges and official school bookmark to tie in with the programme. Pupils will vote on the designs throughout February and the winning designs will be created into badges and bookmarks to be distributed during World Book Day in March.   

 Throughout January and February, learners and staff will be offered the opportunity to complete a book personality quiz and library survey. The survey will help inform best practice and identify areas of improvement in the library and reading culture across the school. The book personality quiz is a fun way to engage people with reading out with their comfort zone by suggesting genres, authors, and books that they might like to try. Both the quiz and the survey will be delivered by the school librarian in classes and on Teams. Our PT of Family and Inclusion will also be including it in their newsletter.   

Pupil Library Committee: This year, the school library has created the Pupil Library Committee to help provide young people’s voice in the stock and library service. So far, we have 50+ volunteers from all year groups Several committee members are tying it into to their Saltire and Duke of Edinburgh Awards. Duties include shelving and organising stock, selecting books to be featured in the library’s monthly newsletters, create and deliver quizzes/activities, and curate monthly displays for Interfaith Week, Black History Month, and World Space Week. Some members of the PLC have also been heavily involved in stock selection, focusing on graphic novels, thrillers, and enhancing our Equality & Empowerment collections. Some PLC members are also included on the Reading Schools committee and their ideas have been crucial towards embedding a pupil-led reading culture throughout the school. We’ll be posting more about this in future blog posts.  

Book Week Scotland: The library hosted pupil-led activities throughout Book Week Scotland in November 2021. Committee members created and delivered their own Manga Quiz during lunches throughout the week. Committee members also designed and compiled Book Week Scotland Book Boxes full of pupil recommendations that were delivered to teacher bases. Staff were delighted to receive their free copy of the official Book Week Scotland book, Celebrate, gifted by PLC members.   

EAL book group: We’ve continued our EAL book group this year. The project is funded by the Scottish Library and Information Council on behalf of the Scottish Government through their Scottish Library Improvement Fund, which support innovative projects in the school library sector. The EAL project is aimed at pupils who are developing their English literacy skills whilst also placing an emphasis at valuing home/original languages and multilingualism. In addition to reading books and completing literacy-based activities, pupils are invited to create multilingual signage for the library and contribute book reviews to school library newsletter and magazine. In November, our group met the fabulous graphic novel duo, Metaphrog, who discussed their books, illustrations and creative journey.   

The project also supported Shawlands Academy’s first ‘Community Languages’ collection, a section devoted to books and resources in languages other than English. Many thanks to GCC EAL and Dyslexia Unit as well as Multilingual Library Scotland for their recommendations.  We’re excited for the upcoming Languages Week Scotland and International Mother Language Day (Feb 21st), where our group will be looking at an array of international book awards and festivals for young people. On a city-wide level, our group is collaborating with other EAL book groups to create a pupil-led Glasgow Guide by and for pupils. Work on the guide is still ongoing and we’ve commissioned Metaphrog to design the cover and background.   

Seed Library: The School Library is collaborating with MCR Pathways and Fare Scotland to develop a seed library for the school and for the school garden with resources and support from the Royal Horticultural Society. The MCR Pathways and Fare Scotland coordinators work with a group of young people to build practical gardening skills as well as learn about sustainability and the environment. The seed library, though still in development, will be pupil created and led, focusing on seeds derived from the school garden as well as providing information about how to grow food at home.   

Professional Development Library: This year saw the implementation of the Professional Development Library, curated by Mrs Torbett and housed in the school library. School staff can now access a range of professional reading to help develop and enhance existing skills. Mrs Torbett also runs a staff professional reading group and takes book requests from staff. In addition to the in-house collection, The Glasgow Libraries’ eResource, ProQuest, offers professional and trade journals and articles which can provide staff with recent research and analysis in their discipline.   

Workshops: Throughout the Autumn period, the school library visited several classrooms to deliver bespoke workshops to BGE, Higher, and Advanced Higher classes. The workshops introduced pupils to a number for quality, online resources to supplement their studies. These included the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, National Museums Scotland, the Natural History Museum, ProQuest and Gale Literature Resource Center. Staff from the Mitchell Library’s Business & IP Center were also invited to deliver a session on copyright and intellectual property to the school’s S2 Enterprise class in November.  

Primary visit: We were delighted to arrange a special class visit with a small P6 class from Shawlands Primary as part of their transition programme. Children were introduced to the school library and stock through a book tasting session.   

Library publications: This year, the school library has continued its monthly newsletter, packed with book lists, reviews and the latest news in the YA literary world. An interactive format is posted in each year group Team’s Library Channel. The Glasgow School Library service has also continued its quarterly digital magazine, Swatch. In it, you can find author interviews, guest features, book lists, crafts, quizzes and more. The upcoming issue will be released in March. Links to past issues are below.   

 Winter 21 Autumn 21 Summer 21 Spring 21 Winter 20 Autumn 20  

January/February book lists:

Best books of the year 2021 – BBC

Best new books January – Book Trust

Best new children’s books February – Toppsta

Bookbug book of the month January – Scottish Book Trust

Book of the month February – Scholastic

Debuts of the month February – LoveReadingforKids

Great Books Guide 2021 – Book Trust

Monthly Roundup January – Love Reading

Top 10 Audiobooks February – Love Reading

UK Public Library Authorities ‘ top eBooks, audiobooks and digital magazines borrowed in 2021 – Overdrive

Waterstones Books of the Month February– Waterstones

Literary & cultural calendar book lists:

Veganuary: Veganuary, Vegan Society

Martin Luther King Jr Day (17^th): Book Riot, The King Centre, Reading Rockets,

 Holocaust Memorial Day (27^th): BookTrust (YA, Middle Grade), Holocaust Memorial Trust/World Book Day, Penguin Random House, Reading Agency (2020), Scholastic

In the news…

Bookbug Picture Book Prize shortlist announced 

Branford Boase Award Longlist Announced

Costa Book Award winners announced 

Games review February – Metacritic

“The Last Cuentista” wins 2022 Newbery Medal; “Watercress” earns Caldecott; “Firekeeper’s Daughter” wins the Printz – School Library Journal

National Storytelling Week 

Read for Empathy Collections 2022 Announced

Tennesse School Board Bans Pulitzer Prize Winning Maus, Becomes #1 Bestseller  -Open Culture

Terry Pratchett Estate backs Jack Monroe’s idea for ‘Vimes Boots’ poverty index -Guardian

T.S. Eliot Prize winner announced

Upcoming film releases for 2021 – IMDB

What is entering the public domain in 2022? – Public Domain Review