The Hawthorne High School’s Library Media Center is all geared up for April with many new book displays and activities. The displays feature books highlighting National Poetry Month, Math Awareness Month, Earth Day, Arbor Day, National Volunteer Week and much more.
With April being National Poetry Month, books of poems, such as The Best Poems of the English Language and The New York Times bestselling novel Crank, which is written entirely in a poetic format, are being displayed.
HHS has declared April 24, 2013 The Joys of Poetry Day!, and several events have been planned. Before school and during lunch, students can meet outdoors in the courtyard for “Poems on the Pavement,” in which each student will claim a sidewalk square on which to write a poem and artistically decorate with chalk. There will also be “Poems in Surprise Places,” in which students are asked to shock friends and teachers by placing poems in surprising places such as lockers or lunch bags, and so on. The day will end with a Poetry Party in the Media Center with a “Poetry Read-aloud” and “Pass it on Poetry,” where each student will write one line of an original poem, not knowing what others will be writing. Everyone’s lines will be combined at the end to compose a new, unique poem.
Students will also get the chance to celebrate the birthday of a famous poet, William Shakespeare. Books on his life and writings are also on display in order to commemorate Shakespeare’s birthday on April 23. Students who enter the library on the great playright and poet’s birthday will be invited to test their knowledge in the “I Know my Shakespeare” quiz. Students with correct answers will be entered in a drawing for a book light at the end of the day.
The Media Center is also recognizing Math Awareness Month with April’s Library Media Center monthly contest being a math challenge question. The winner of the drawing on April 30 will receive two tickets to the Hawthorne Movie Theater. Additionally, the Library Media Center is displaying a range of biographies of “Math Magicians” such as Galileo, DaVinci, Einstein, and Newton, along with books containing mathematical problems and puzzles.
On top of this, displays with books about the earth’s environment and how people can better care for it, have been set-up for Earth Day and Arbor Day. Some of the books include The Natural World, Global Resources, Destruction of Earth’s Resources, and Endangered Species. Students are also welcomed to take home a Green Map of Hawthorne for themselves.
The Library Media Center will also be celebrating National Volunteer Week from April 21 to 27. Students are encouraged to donate their service to others, and a list of volunteer groups within HHS will be on display. The book, Student’s Guide to Volunteering, is also being featured in order to inspire different ways students can step up and help out.
April is also an exciting month as the HHS Library Media Center received a donation of 52 new books from 1992 HHS alum Michelle Fadlalla Leo, who is now the Director of Marketing of Education and Library at Simon & Schuster Publishing in New York City. Each week, five of the new books will be put on display.
To wrap up the news on April in the Library Media Center, all new students who entered HHS this year were given new library cards for the Louis Bay II Library, which will give the students access to all the databases provided through the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.
The Student Art Gallery in the Reading Lounge Café continues to feature artwork from Danielle Russo’s Art II class, and Joey Carradori’s Graphic Design class.
The HHS Library Media Center has also begun to investigate the possibility of bringing in eBooks and eBook readers in the near future. All students took an online survey to offer their feelings about this change of direction in book acquisitions.
When asked what she believes will be most popular among students in April, Theresa DiGeronimo, the School Library Media Specialist, said that, “Students have jumped on the new math challenge contest and the daily math puzzles. I think they will also enjoy the events planned to celebrate National Poetry Month, which will be on April 24.”