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Book Review: What I Want You to See

What I Want You to See

by Catherine Linka

Pub Date: 04 Feb 2020

read courtesy of Netgalley.com 

As a YA School Librarian, I try to read books from the perspective of my students. Although I've given this story a 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for its story, I can only see it being a 3 ⭐⭐⭐ for my high school students. I loved the story and the style of writing, but I'm just not sure it's the type of story my students would enjoy. It's hard to say what about it does this: perhaps part writing style, part narrow character/plot appeal. The ability of a reader to relate to the world of an artist might affect how receptive the reader will be to this story. If it weren't for an art teacher in my current school who works with encaustics (hot wax painting), I might have been more lost in the story. 

Personally, I liked the writing style; although, it did take a bit of getting used to; but once I did, I flew through the rest of the story. It isn't a "great literature" style, more like both sophisticated and terse at the same time. The juxtaposition of style matches the main character's, Sabine's, duality, a teenager who has to grow into adulthood alone.

Linka fleshed out believable characters with realistic dialogue. Her characters don't feel cookie cutter or stereotypical. She didn't have to exaggerate or embellish and thereby kept her characters true to themselves. Linka also accomplished something I find that quite a few of the authors I read have a problem doing: she provided a satisfying and not forced ending to the story.

I appreciated the internal dialogues Sabine has with herself regarding morality. She ended up doing something that was morally correct and personally difficult. I found myself questioning myself as to what I might have done and when I might have done it. I can ask no more from an author than this: I was engaged in the story!



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The school year is about to begin, and it will be an interesting one. I have been a teacher librarian for 7 years in practice and after this year I will be taking some time to concentrate on my own research and studies.

I have been enrolled in a Teacher Leadership program since Summer of 2008, and am finishing my second master's this year. My studies have been wonderful, exhilarating, and life changing and I don't want to stop. By definition, I guess this makes me an intrinsically motivated lifelong learner. And yet despite these flow like feelings I am increasingly frustrated (on good days) and downright ambivalent (on bad days) as a result of living two connected but separate academic lives.

In addition to my ongoing research and studies, I crave MOST of the activities and responsibilities inherent in my role as a high school librarian. And while my job and my scholarship are intricately woven together and seamlessly whole at times this is not always the case. The daily battles I fight on behalf of my teachers and students (access, funding, technology integration, and relevant instructional practices) suck the life energy out of my being as if I were Bella and bad educational policy was a vicious coven of nomad vampires. If I am to remain productive, creative, and, well, fun to be around, I can no longer serve two masters.

My year begins with an interesting dilemma that makes me think of Chris Cruncher's novel, Deadline. Ben Wolfe, the protagonist, has a year to live and must decide what projects will fill his remaining days. Unlike Ben, fortunately, I am not dying a physical death nor am I keeping my time limits secret from everyone around me. Like Ben, I need to decide how best to devote my limited resources. I have a lot of thoughts on this matter, but only two rules.

  1. I must intrinsically enjoy whatever I devote myself to achieving this year. Why? Because this means whatever I leave as my tangible legacy to the school will be AWESOME!

  2. Everything I do during my contacted time MUST be student centered. Each goal must begin and end with a litmus test of how to best to create optimal learning environments and structure individualized learning opportunities for all of my students, no exceptions. Given it is a school of 3000 teens, well, "enjoyable" isn't exclusively synonymous with "easy."

So, if you had one more year as an employed school librarian, and you knew it, what would you do with your time?

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Literacy Leads the Way

As a part of the literacy professional community, as a school librarian, I received an invitation through my school district to join other literacy professionals as a participant in Online Course Work targeting the theme Literacy Leads the Way.The overall objective is for literacy professionals to increase their literacy building expertise so as to provide appropriate activities to build reading fluency, develop oral language, world knowledge; and, to build listening/reading comprehension as well as to ensure wide exposure to literature lending supportive ideas for building inner dialogue for reading comprehending and written composition.Additionally, I am presently working on a media project with my library book club students. We are in the process of creating a DVD which exhibits the students discussing inclusive of props depicting their favorite books read for the Book Contest held in my district. The slide show will include voiced audio and music. The students are very excited and so am I!
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