Our Dress Up Day!

I wrote about Literacy Week Day 5 on Saturday but had left my camera at school.  Here are some of the promised pictures, selected so as to not ruin any reputations...

Batgirl forgot to change into
her day-wear!

This needs no caption...

He kept the mask on all day! 

House Coloured Oompa Loompas

Batman popped in to help

Some of my lovely staff!

Sue picked our winner, my favourite,
but never fear, Batgirl caught him later...

Arch enemies meet in the library!

Literacy Week Day 5

The grand finale of literacy week was a character dress up day to raise money for Pelican Post ...or it will be for them if I can get in touch with them!  Some people made a brilliant effort, but of course I stupidly left the camera at school and so can't show you any until Monday!  Multicoloured Oompa Loompas popping up everywhere, Tinkerbell telling her story at break in the playground, Batgirl and Batman dishing out justice across the school, French classes writing about the characters they were dressed as (in French, obv), Winnie the Pooh was spotted hard at work, and three  life size Wallys turned up!  Kids were finding them as well as the original Wally, who is now relaxing on my sofa after a good week trekking around the school

Our final guest was Sue Ransom, author of the Small Blue Thing trilogy.

She came to talk to our remaining Year 9s, about writing, being published, and inspirations.  Even boys that can't sit still in a normal lesson asked questions and were interested in the answers.  After school was pretty hectic as we had the favourite costumes from each House, as well as lots of staff in their amazing outfits, in the library so that Sue could pick the fave...I'm not going to tell you who the character was because I want to share a picture with you on Monday...and then as it settled down in there a few stayed to have a chat with her about writing.

Overall I think we can say the week was a success!  Loyalty cards are being waved in the library, pupils that rarely come in have been begging me to borrow books by our guests, one of the year 10 boys that really struggles with reading is going to read Soul Beach with me a few chapters a day because he was so intrigued by the sound of it, some others (including a member of staff!) have been inspired to write their own stories, finished copies of the poems written with Neal Zetter on Monday are appearing on my desk, everyone is going to really miss the literary lunches (not that I had time to eat any of them...) and teachers have really enjoyed adding literacy activities to their normal lessons.  On Monday I shall draw a raffle for all the pupils that took part in the mini-challenges for a range of signed books, sweets and other literary related goodies that I've been squirrelling away.

Literacy Week Day 4

Take a look at days 1, 2 & 3 (I can't be bothered linking to them again, they're easy to find!) for what's been happening so far.

Again, little library things, literacy starter activities, story time around the school at break, and then today's wonderful guest Kate Harrison, the author of numerous grown up books who has recently added Young Adult fiction to her repertoire with the first two books of the Soul Beach trilogy out now...

She spent half of lunch break chatting with one of my pupil assistants at the desk about what he's reading, and then talked to a group of Year 10s about social networking and the inspiration of tribute sites to her books, as well as her experience of undercover work for the BBC (I heard a boy whispering at that point "she was a spy!").  She had a really tough group of kids - a lot of them were boys that I rarely see in the library - but they sat in awe and asked some great questions, giving a lovely round of applause at the end.  After school, as James and Moira did, she stayed in the library chatting with a small group of my regulars and they really enjoyed the chance for a more intimate conversation.  AND I remembered to take a picture and bring it home, hooray!

After I waved goodbye to Kate I had to get the library ready for our literacy evening.  HoI organised it and invited parents to listen to me, her, 2nd in Inclusion and an English teacher talk about reading/writing/speaking and listening.  We had 16 come, which for our school is pretty amazing, and they were really engaged with the activities we came up with.  I talked about Accelerated Reader, reading for pleasure, and how to find things in a library (we played Dewey Bingo).

I can't believe tomorrow is the last day of literacy week!  Our last author!  Wally finding his last hiding place!  Last chance for teachers to tell kids about the books that inspired them!  And it is a dress up day!  Soooo excited, and teachers have been really excited about planning their costumes and pupils have been talking about it all week...I've told them that if they want to come in jeans and a t-shirt that is fine but they have to tell me a character from a book or film that wears jeans and a t-shirt...pictures tomorrow, though we're going to the pub after school so you might have to wait until Saturday to find out how it goes, ha!

 

Literacy Week Day 3

Have a look at Day 1 and Day 2 before you read this...

Day 3 of Literacy week, yaaay!  I had a complaint this morning from one of the teachers...having read my blog, he told me off for saying teachers are only going along with the week because HoI is telling them to.  He said they're doing it because everything we've suggested is fun!  So I apologise, I know it is true, we've got a great staff team and there is always a good proportion of them that will volunteer for anything I ask them to do...it is the case though that it has been quicker and easier to get things approved - I or HoI (or our 2nd in Inclusion, who has also helped with a lot of the preparation) have an idea, we like it, so HoI says she'll tell the Head we're doing it!  If I'd planned it alone I think it would be far more low key, for example I wouldn't dream of suggesting having an author a day and taking over that many lessons in close succession.

So we had the usual little challenges, teachers telling pupils about books that inspired them, Wally was hiding somewhere else and there was a special French story time at break and lunch in the library as it was European Day of Languages today.  Then after lunch our special guest was the wonderful Moira Young, coming to see some familiar faces as she visited us back in March to promote Blood Red Road.  The sequel came out in August, Rebel Heart, while I was warming the kids up (Moira got stuck in traffic on the way in) they laughed at me for being far too excited...but in a nice way, I think...

It felt a much more personal affair this time, talking about what inspired the landscapes in her books, and then after school a small group stayed behind to ask more questions - including a year 11 boy who had not borrowed a single book from the library until he met Moira in March and read her book and now reads a couple of books a week - and I took some pictures that I could have included here but I left the camera at school <sigh>

One of the brilliant ideas HoI had was getting our Canteen Manager in to her office to discuss a literary menu for the week.  Between the three of us we came up with some [slightly tenuous] links to meals that our kids would actually agree to eat! I made up some sheets of stickers with a picture of Oliver Jeffers's Book Eating Boy and each time a pupil chose the 'Literary Lunch' for the day they gave them a sticker to show me to swap for raffle tickets and House Points.

 

What more could I possibly have to share with you tomorrow?...

Literacy Week Day 2

Check out my post about day 1 here.

So the rest of this week will be less frantic for me as my mini-Where's Wally wasn't hiding in the library, the lovely ladies at reception were looking after him today and he'll be somewhere else tomorrow, and we only have visitors in the afternoon.  Saying that, I have a lot to catch up on that I've ignored while planning this week, and I do have to stay late on Thursday to talk at a parents' literacy evening, then Friday I'll be running around taking pictures of costumes...but today...

Before school and at break I had pupils doing my wordsearches/code breakers for the day (different mini-challenges every day) as well as the usual stuff.  I had a pretty stressful break because a Head of House has hidden golden tickets around the school and the kids are pestering me to find out where they are (I don't know, honest, but they won't believe me and so get stroppy!) but it was nice to see a few loyalty cards being stamped at the desk as books were borrowed and lots came and thanked me for the books.  One of the teachers came in to tell me that his group were opening the goody bags yesterday they were really excited and thought the books were awesome!  There was a lovely peaceful corner during break where one of our English teachers was reading a Carribean tale to an engrossed cross section of pupils.  I have three teachers reading stories at break each day this week, one in the library and the other two elsewhere in the school, and they're getting pretty good crowds from all year groups!

Our star guest for the day today was the lovely James Dawson, author of Hollow Pike.  I stupidly didn't take any pictures of him without my pupils in so can't share them on here...I shall remember to do better the rest of this week!  They loved him!  He came into the library during lunch break and a few of my regulars got a bit star struck, most of them would just look at him from a distance...then he held a crowd of 60 rowdy year 10s in the palm of his hand for an hour.  I'd warned him they take a while to settle down but they're generally not awful, but I was so impressed by how taken they were with him - when he read a few pages of Hollow Pike you could hear a pin drop and they asked some great questions.  The round of applause he got at the end sounded like it was 600 pupils not 60!  A few of them, along with some pupils that hadn't been in that lesson, came to the library after school to talk to him a bit more and he was brilliant with them.

We also had support from the lovely Tales on Moon Lane for a small book shop in the library after school, selling James's book along with a nice current selection of fiction, including, of course, those by the coming authors.  They've left me the books so that I can sell them at the other events during the week, even trusted me with their cash box...now locked away in a safe place and hovering in a paranoid corner of my mind for the rest of the week!

Tune in tomorrow for more exciting literacy happenings!  I'll have a bit more time so I might show you my literary menus

Literacy Week Day 1

The idea of having a week of literacy related activities in September was suggested by our Head of Inclusion (HoI), who became my line manager as of this term, in June and we started planning immediately.  Initially, she wanted every child to get a goody bag with stationery in it, maybe an author visit, and for departments to have a literacy focus in lessons that week...I think what we came up with is bigger than either of us anticipated on our minuscule budget!  Firstly, at the end of term I set a competition to design a logo for literacy week.  The picture below was drawn by one of our (now) year 10 girls.  This is on all the posters around the school and was stuck onto each of the goody bags.

I sent an email to a few of my contacts in childrens' publishing, begging for goodies &/or authors that might be available.  As far as guests were concerned, after some very enthusiastic responses I realised we'd be able to have someone every day (more about them later...).  Scholastic did wonders with a huge number of bookmarks, posters, postcards and sample chapters from some brilliant recent books and smaller amounts came from elsewhere.  HoI asked if I could get a book for every pupil, again Scholastic saved me with their online warehouse sale at the end of last term, and I went to Makro and bought a huge pile of sweets.  I also had a bunch of loyalty cards made for the library, I was so excited when they arrived, and we put a newspaper (at the last minute this morning) and small leaflet about punctuation and grammar in there as well as a bunch of stationery.  It took about 5 hours last week to pack 350 bags, the only time I've been relieved by our decreasing roll, they were given out at the end of today by tutors and I had a swapshop in the library for anyone that wanted to change their book.  I had a choice of about 12 titles and had considered literacy levels and interest when I put them in the bags but about 20 pupils came and changed them.

During the day today we had workshops with all of year 8 and one group of year 10 with Neal Zetter, a performance poet who works around London in schools and libraries for a very reasonable rate.  We were writing poems about food and just about every pupil got involved regardless of academic ability.  In fact, the lower ability group seemed to enjoy it most, and produced arguably the best poems, staying engaged and on task the whole time.  Neal did say before he came that 1hour sessions was his absolute minimum length of time, he prefers 90minutes, and that could be part of why the low ability session was a greater success as we stayed together across 2 periods.  I highly recommend getting in touch with Neal if you want to do something a bit different!

 

The best thing about this literacy week being 'sponsored' by the HoI is that she has the authority to get people to do things ;-) so every member of staff is getting involved somehow.  We have teachers reading stories at three locations every breaktime, literary themed lunches being served (I'll tell you more another day), literacy related starter activities happening in every department as well as a number of them organising their own competiitons...

 

There is so much more happening, I'll share later in the week!

#cpd23 Thing 15

Thing 15: Attending, presenting at and organising seminars, conferences and other events
I really enjoy attending events - author events organised by publicists/bookshops/librarians, skills training organised by CILIP or the SLA, networking events organised by CILIP YLG.
Money: Although a lot of them are a lot of money, especially for training, every month there are free events somewhere. Living in London makes it easier to find them, and being on the YLG London committee means I get invited to some fun things. In 2006 I applied for and got sponsorship by YLG London to attend the annual national conference so that's a good way for new professionals to get to these events if you keep your eye out for such things (although now I'm part of the London committee and know we can't afford to sponsor people any more). This year the joint SLA, SLG and YLG conference was during half term and on the off chance I asked my Headmaster whether the school could pay a contribution. He said as I was going in my own time (I'm term time only) the school would pay it all! I wasn't expecting that at all but if you don't ask you don't get! All companies/schools have funds for cpd for each employee so if you make a good enough argument for something you have a good chance of getting it.
Making the most: I don't think I can put anything better than the conference advice linked to in the #cpd23 blog - I did all these things for the joint conference apart from making time to visit the local area as I thought being away from home alone for the conference was long enough. I have very slowly got better at the networking aspect - finding people I 'knew' from twitter was a good start, as well as the YLG London committee members that came too of course! I've met a few of the publicists a few times now as well so it is nice to catch up with them, but this is only because I take advantage of as many free evening events around London as I am able to get to.
The idea of speaking at an event is slightly terrifiying, I'm fine talking in front of a group of pupils but talking in front of grownups is a completely different kettle of fish. It is definitely worth plucking up the courage though.
What to talk about: One of the things I've put in my PPDP is to do a session at one of the YLG London training days about the regular library lessons I've had with year 7s and how to fit them into any structure. I had a 10minute slot in a whole staff meeting at school last term and rushed through my presentation, a good number of the staff knew beforehand I was nervous, but it was really well received and boosted my confidence in public speaking. The purpose of the slot was to remind teachers of the role of the library in the school, how I can support them and how I need them to help me with promoting reading across the school.  I think it really had an impact.
Applying: As far as those two events are concerned, as part of the committee I can suggest it in a meeting, and at school it was through a line manager. For other organisations though, maybe one day! One of the break out sessions I attended at the last conference made me think 'I could do better than this' so who knows, as my confidence grows it'll be a future as a consultant perhaps ;-)
Presenting: I prefer to work from notes, in fact I have a terrible habit of writing exactly what I want to say and just reading it out, but I try to look up and do it from memory and glance at the script as a safety net.  I don't trust myself to remember everything I need to say, no matter how many times I rehearse it I will panic on the spot, and I'm pretty good at writing in the way I speak so it doesn't sound too much like I'm just reading an essay...hopefully! [After I wrote that I read Bethan's post about using a script - that is exactly what I do]  I did have a powerpoint for the staff meeting, no moving images or clipart, just some key statements and pictures. I reckoned if they're looking at the powerpoint they're not looking at me!   I always use Arial font because it was ingrained in me in public libraries that it is the most legible font so carrying it between operating systems should never be a problem.  I also had them rolling in the aisles with laughter, honestly!  I didn't want it to be serious and boring, I wanted them to pay attention all the way through, so I enjoyed putting my sarcastic self deprecating humour into the presentation.  I like Phil Bradley's closing paragraph to his post about public speaking:

"People won't remember what you said. They won't remember what you taught them. They remember how you made them feel. If you're enthusiastic, keen, interested and having fun, the chances are very high that they will as well"

All through this Thing I've talked about YLG Committee membership - but how else does one get experience in helping organise professional events? Saying that, at school I have organised a number of author events, the library's contribution to open evenings, and a couple of events in the library about reading for pleasure for adults associated with the school (parents/staff/governors). It hasn't been too terrible, as long as you keep on top of things, just make sure everyone that needs to know anything knows it with enough notice, and prepare the scene and props well! I'm sure the larger the event the more stressful the planning but just keep calm and carry on...

Teen Librarian Monthly article

Just a quick note to point you to April's Teen Librarian Monthly because I wrote an article for it about how the Department 19 by Will Hill inspired some of my pupils!

World Book Day

I work in a secondary school so World Book Day is a little more low-key than I imagine it is in primary schools - I love the idea of dressing like book characters and doing book related things all day but I can't take pupils off timetable very often and without an excellent reason and I'm not sure that my cool teens would be prepared to dress up!  So I try to do something that doesn't take too much preparation, doesn't disturb teaching at all, and is good fun.  I tend to have a week of little things happening e.g. a pairs competition (find and match up the pairs around the library - different ones each day), or sevens (find seven words/names and tell me the link), quizzes, text tales (write a story in 140 characters)...this year was the simplest yet, but in some ways the most effective.  

I was allowed to take the year 7s off timetable to meet an author on the Monday, Sam Gayton, to talk about his book The Snow Merchant.  They really enjoyed listening to Sam read some of the story and got really involved when he discussed the process of illustrating his characters (the pictures in the book are lovely).  He also treated us to a sneak preview of his new book, a sequel to Gulliver's Travels!

Then a small challenge in the library: each break something new on the whiteboard for the kids to write their responses to:

I also had "worst book I've read" but most pupils put down books they've read in English - a good demonstration of why I didn't choose to do English beyond G.C.S.E. - so I didn't take a photo!  My final one, lunch break on Friday, was "my favourite book" but a teacher rubbed it off while I went to have my lunch before coming back with my camera :-(  We had a great time discussing their answers, I gave a raffle ticket to each pupil that put an answer, except to one of my favourite Year11s who insisted on putting 'OCR science revision guide' as his answer to every question, except for the 'best boyfriend' one for which he put himself :-)

I always like to do something that can get the whole school involved on the day itself.  In previous years I've asked for staff to volunteer to wear a badge so that the pupils have to find them and discover the links (e.g. character & their book, job and book title), created a form that the kids have to fill out during the day, and then had prizes for the completed entries handed in.  This year I made it as easy as was humanly possible - I put a sticky label in the pigeon holes of every member of staff on wednesday afternoon and sent them an email saying they need to write their favourite childhood book on it and wear it all day thursday.  On thursday morning I gave the kids that were in the library a form with 2 columns - staff name and book title - and told them to harrass any staff they saw without a label...word spread, lots more forms were collected from me throughout the day.   All except 2 teachers took part and some of them pupils had nearly 70 staff members written on their pages!  I gave raffle tickets out - the more answers the more tickets - and at the end of the day I had a queue of about 1/4 of the pupils in the school with pages of responses.  It took me 40minutes to get through them all and, including those for the whiteboard questions, I gave out over 800 raffle tickets!  All I had for prizes were small chocolates, some boxes of maltesers and half a dozen books, but still, they love winning anything...it doesn't have to cost a lot of money or take a huge amount of time to get everyone involved and recognising the Library

YLG London CKG Nominations evening

This evening the Youth Libraries Group London is meeting to decide which books they will put forward as a group vote for the CILIP Carnegie Greenaway awards awards this year.  The committee has decided on a shortlist and each of us is going to tout one or two of them to the rest of the group.  The Kate Greenaway award is for an outstanding picture book, as I don't see many picture books nowadays I'll enjoy watching the others pitch them.  I'm nominating My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece by Annabel Pitcher  for the Carnegie, which is for an outstanding piece of literature for children or young people - here's my pitch:

Her first book, it is for a younger audience than many other Carnegie contenders or past winners, has a lovely simple and accessible style.

It is a story about a family coping, or not, with the death of Jamie's older sister Rose in a terrorist attach a few years before we meet them.  Mum deals with it by running off with a member of her support group, Rose's twin sister Jas deals by rebelling against their parents' image of her.  Dad deals with it by turning to drink, and turning against Muslims who he blames for his daughter's death.

Jamie, our protagonist, is too young really to remember Rose, and believes his Dad when he says that moving to the Lake District will be a fresh start, until Rose's urn goes straight on the mantlepiece and he finds empty vodka bottles in the recycling.

To make matters worse, in his new school he is sat next to <gasp> a Muslim girl who, shock horror, turns out to be lovely.  We follow his innur turmoil as he tries to reconcile his feelings for her with the opinions of his father, and as she turns into his best friend, trying to keep her a secret.

It is a very moving and well written book, a perfect candidate for the Carnegie!

The others being put forward for the Carnegie are:

My Name is Mina - David Almond

0.4 - Mike Lancaster 

Small Change for Stuart – Lissa Evans

Noah Barleywater Runs Away – John Boyne

One Dog and His Boy – Iva Ibbotson

I've read My Name is Mina and Noah Barleywater, have you read any yet?  I'll let you know whether I can persuade a room full of Librarians that my choice is the right choice!

Indigo event at Orion

Ok, small admission, I started my blog 2 weeks earlier than I had planned to because my good friend MattLibrarian told me if I had it up and running in time I could go with him to the Indigo Bloggers event at Orion Publishers on Tuesday 12th July...of course I couldn't resist that offer (and thanks to Nina at Orion for allowing me to tag along), and so turned up on the evening feeling like a total fraud!  Funnily enough though I recognised loads of the bloggers from author events that I've been invited to through being on the YLG London Committee, a number of them I follow and they follow my mini-reviews on twitter already, so they were very nice about my virgin status :-)

It was a fantastic evening, four authors with books due to be published on this new teen imprint were there to talk about their books, some of which I was really pleased to nab proof copies of:

Marcus Sedgwick kicked off talking about how he got the idea for his new book, Midwinter Blood:

Have you ever had the feeling that you've lived another life? Been somewhere that has felt totally familiar, even though you've never been there before, or felt that you know someone well, even though you are meeting them for the first time? It happens. In 2073 on the remote and secretive island of Blessed, where rumour has it that no one ages and no children are born, a visiting journalist, Eric Seven, and a young local woman known as Merle are ritually slain. Their deaths echo a moment ten centuries before, when, in the dark of the moon, a king was slain, tragically torn from his queen. Their souls search to be reunited, and as mother and son, artist and child, forbidden lovers, victims of a vampire they come close to finding what they've lost. In a novel comprising seven parts, each influenced by a moon - the flower moon, the harvest moon, the hunter's moon, the blood moon - this is the story of Eric and Merle whose souls have been searching for each other since their untimely parting. Beautifully imagined, intricately and cleverly structured, this is a heart-wrenching and breathtaking love story with the hallmark Sedgwick gothic touches of atmosphere, blood-spilling and sacrifice*

It sounds pretty immense, which is what you expect from Marcus so I hope it lives up to it!  While mingling on the terrace after the event I had a really nice chat with him about libraries and reading, such a nice man, and was ever so slightly gushy-fan when he signed my copy for me...

We then heard from Sara Grant who introduced us to her first YA novel, Dark Parties:

Sixteen-year-old Neva has been trapped since birth. She was born and raised under the Protectosphere, in an isolated nation ruled by fear, lies, and xenophobia. A shield "protects" them from the outside world, but also locks the citizens inside. But there's nothing left on the outside, ever since the world collapsed from violent warfare. Or so the government says...
Neva and her best friend Sanna believe the government is lying and stage a "dark party" to recruit members for their underground rebellion. But as Neva begins to uncover the truth, she realizes she must question everything she's ever known, including the people she loves the most*

I really liked the sound of this book, and it was another I mananaged to get a copy of that she signed for me later on while chatting about meeting children and signing bookmarks...

Kate Harrison next told us a bit of her background as a journalist and her reasons for writing Soul Beach:

When Alice Forster receives an email from her dead sister she assumes it must be a sick practical joke. Then an invitation arrives to the virtual world of Soul Beach, an idyllic online paradise of sun, sea and sand where Alice can finally talk to her sister again - and discover a new world of friendships, secrets and maybe even love . . . . But why is Soul Beach only inhabited by the young, the beautiful and the dead? Who really murdered Megan Forster? And could Alice be next? The first book in an intriguing and compelling trilogy centred around the mystery of Megan Forster's death*

I didn't get a copy of this book but not because I don't think it sounds good, I'm sure it will go down really well at my school so I shall definitely be putting it on my next order...

Last but definitely not least, Sally Gardner teased us with the opening chapter to her new novel for older teens, The Double Shadow:

Arnold Ruben has created a memory machine, a utopia housed in a picture palace, where the happiest memories replay forever, a haven in which he and his precious daughter can shelter from the war-clouds gathering over 1937 Britain. But on the day of her seventeenth birthday Amaryllis leaves Warlock Hall and the world she has known and wakes to find herself in a desolate and disturbing place. Something has gone terribly wrong with her father's plan. Against the tense backdrop of the second World War Sally Gardner explores families and what binds them, fathers and daughters, past histories, passions and cruelty, love and devastation in a novel rich in character and beautifully crafted*

I loved listening to her read, so much so that I plucked up the courage afterwards to tell her that I think she should read her own audiobooks!  While she signed my copy we had a really interesting conversation, along with Matt, about children's and YA literature and the difference between being able to read a book and being ready to read about the subject covered, and how subject should or shouldn't be softened for a younger market.

We were also told about some other books in the pipeline for the Indigo imprint, some that have been published before but are being repackaged for the YA market but some completely new books, including:

Shelter by Harlan Coben - I picked up a copy because I always like to see how an 'adult' author manages the cross-over into YA
The Hunting Ground by Cliff McNish - had to take this because I love Breathe and Savannah Gray
Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding - one I read a while ago and really enjoyed
An Act of Love by Alan Gibbons - no copies to run off with but one that I really want to read
Firespell by Chloe Neill - bought for my Library ages ago and it is in and out pretty regularly
Darkness Falls by Mia James - sequel to By Midnight, another that is popular with my girls
White Cat by Holly Black - I read it a while ago and I'm afraid I didn't like it much...can't remember why though, which probably says something!
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher - LOVED this book when I read it a few months ago - wasn't what I expected at all - they're planning a completely new look for the cover that wasn't ready to present yet so I will be interested to see how it turns out.

Next week is the last week of term for my school so I'm looking forward to being able to spend a bit more time doing reviews longer than 140characters, although I find it very difficult sometimes to get beyond 'I really liked it'...after spending so long encouraging children to write book reviews you'd think I'd be really good at it! Anyway, here goes...

*book summaries taken from Goodreads