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Hate List by Jennifer Brown

What a great debut novel by Jennifer Brown! Imagine you are madly in love with a brooding bad boy and you list the names of everyone you hate in a notebook. Valerie Leftman is this girl, a junior at Garvin High, who has loved Nick Levil for the last few years. They are outcasts and bullied by the popular teens in their school. Only problem is, Nick takes the hate list and begins shooting on May 2 of their junior year after one bully, Christy, breaks Val’s MP3 player. Val desperately tries to stop the shooting, only to be accidentally shot by Nick, who then turns the gun on himself. As Valerie recuperates in the hospital with her leg wound, and also in the in-patient psychiatric ward, she continually replays her relationship with Nick and how she didn’t see what he was planning. Nick had an unhappy home life and Val’s parent’s fights had become very bitter. Her mother is suffocating and distrustful after the shooting and her father is furious with her total lack of judgment. After spending her summer recuperating and seeing a shrink, Dr. Hieler, Valerie decides to return to her high school “to see what’s out there.” There are many students who hate her, but one student, Jessica (who Val dove in front of and saved) continually reaches out and gets Val involved in the senior time capsule project. Throughout her senior year, Val slowly lets go of her love for Nick, realizes her parent’s marriage will not survive, owns up to her role that tragic day, and how to move forward, forgive, apologize, and heal. This is a sad, depressing book with a truly redemptive ending.
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Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr

Samara Taylor is the fifteen year old daughter of a pastor workaholic and a mother who has been drinking so much, that she has landed herself into New Beginnings Recovery Center; her father wants to “officially tell” the congregation when he feels it is right, which is never. Sam is at a point in her life that she is questioning everything; the air conditioning is broken in their house, her ceiling fan is not working, it is the middle of a heat wave, the outside of the house looks like a disaster, all the while her father plunges himself into his congregation while Sam’s world is falling apart. Sam has been the one who has seen her mother drink because of the stress of being a pastor’s wife. Since Sam is the pastor’s daughter, she is part of the youth group and she is afraid of sharing, thinks she might be depressed, and is questioning why now that she is in high school, she is not feeling the understanding, friendship and bonding that she grew up believing existed in her community. Just as Sam is at her lowest, Jody Shaw, a sweet thirteen year old, disappears and the whole town is rocked to the core. There are searches in fields, house to house, and suspicions about suspects begin to permeate throughout the town. As Sam worries about what once was lost, she is also determined to talk to her mother in rehab, bring her home, and faithfully work on a family unit. This is a story of a young teen able to weather an internal storm of doubt and emerge a more secure, stronger daughter and friend. Students will love Zarr’s masterful storytelling, she weaves an engrossing tale of love and the power to heal.
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Isn't this a face and a cartoon you can trust to represent you in the PK-12 for ISTE Board of Directors?

Voting for the 2010-2011 ISTE Board of Directors will begin March 11 and end April 12, 2010.

Hi everyone! Well, I've never run for a position like this before (local sure, but not international!) so I'm not sure this blog is kosher...but I'm really passionate about working for the PK-12 Ed Tech peeps out there and I'm shameless enough to PLEASE ask for your vote! :-)

Here's where you can find out more information and can vote.

Voting for the 2010-2011 ISTE Board of Directors will begin March 11 and end
April 12, 2010.


I want to thank my good friend, mentor, and Maryland buddy Ms. Brenda Anderson for nominating me for a position on the ISTE Board. ....so Thank YOU dear amazing Brenda for not only believing in me but taking the time and effort to encourage me to step up and try and make a difference.

I also want to thank my good friend and mentor Joyce Valenza for supporting me in her award-winning recent Never Ending Search blog. She asked me to write up my goals and my vision for leadership within ISTE. I'm gonna re-post that here:

I was amazed and honored to be nominated for the board of directors of ISTE. Now more than ever, I passionately believe that we need to be seen as vital to our schools and the technology education of our most important customers - our kids. As a Media Specialist and a Technology Leader for over nineteen years, I think I am in a great position to see how to advance technology integration, digital citizenship, and helping our students create a digital footprint they can be proud of.

Innovative professional change is very important to me. I believe we need to support the effective use of technology in education to better the earning experience of the teachers and students.

I am also enthusiastic to bring in new members to the association and to foster those new members to contribute, participate, and join personal learning networks to create a more involved community of learners. Collaboration, innovation, approachable leadership, and building community bridges are central to my vision of leadership if I am elected to the board.

If you're reading this ISTE10 blog that means you're already committed to your own professional growth, and you're probably a change agent for your school and county, and I'm "preaching to the choir." For years I've been active with ISTE locally but meeting and working with Joyce Valenza and the geek squad has inspired me to step up and try and make some changes for us and for our profession - changes for the BEST!


Oh, and in the above paragraphs I realize there were WAY too many "I's" for my liking - But hey, it's not easy to write about one's vision of leadership without them...but if elected I promise that it will be about the we, us, and about the you. Thank you for your time and consideration! Cheers!

If you are a member of ISTE I really would appreciate your support....and though I am a teacher-librarian I am very appreciative and supportive of all my other subject area technology education colleagues, related arts, and support staff! - If you teach in a PK-12 School - I would be honored
to be your voice to ISTE and am very approachable for any concerns you have - you would have an eager advocate in me! Here's where you can find out more information and can vote.

Voting for the 2010-2011 ISTE Board of Directors will begin March 11 and end
April 12, 2010.


Follow me on Twitter
My Electronic Portfolio
My professional blog: TheDaringLibrarian
I also want to thank former MSET
president Julie Wray
for her support!

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\And if you're a SIGMS member please consider voting for Brenda Anderson for Professional Development chair! She's AWEsome! (and not just for nominating me! LOL) - for real she rocks!

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I have been lurking around the Social Justice CHallenge, adding whatever resources I can to help address the monthly issues. This month’s focus is on Domestic Violence and Child Abuse. A HUGE subject matter and sadly, one you won’t have any trouble finding any books, fiction or non-fiction, that address this awful plague. Take some time and look around the page set up with book, media and website recommendations. Decide what you’d like to read, watch or learn about this month. If you have more recommendations for us, let us know. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of domestic violence and child abuse?

What does domestic violence and child abuse mean to you personally? Thankfully I have not had intimate knowledge of domestic violence or child abuse. It is a topic that really makes me sad to think that children and families are torn apart by violence, the growing trend of domestic violence and the poor children who are powerless to stop it. They are innocent victims in all this. When I read the newspapers and they cover the most horrorific cases, many poor children under the "protection" of DHS that have died, it makes me want to cry and it also makes me really angry that children are dying everday!

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