February 2022

We had a friendly competition going with the students at Cranston's Park View Middle School. Prizes were generously donated by OverDrive and our BMS Student Council. Students could read and report out on a title using this form. Mrs. Van Leer, our amazing BMS Library assistant, took each student's recommendation and curated it in this slide deck that we kept looping all day in the library. Students read 1,141 titles and reported out on 178 Sora titles! BMS beat Park View Middle School by reading 159 more books during the competition. Way to go, BMS!

Weekly winners of $10 gift cards or Sora shirts were:

1. Tilly Smirnov

2. Parker Hennings

3. Fatimah Diallo

4. Ela Er

5. Elizabeth Bahena

6. Emily Peluso

Winner of a Sora shirt for most submissions:

• Alma Taub

The grand prize winner of the Overdrive donated tablet was:

JILL BANKA!

Ms. Rodrigues, our Student Assistance Counselor, has a display in the library for the month of February to bring awareness and education to students and adults who care for them. The display of books featuring family members who suffer from addiction, is designed to bring attention to the 1 in 4 children who live in families with alcoholism or addiction. There is a Q & A section, informational brochures, and information on how to contact Ms. Rodrigues. She is available to meet with students Monday-Thursday in the counseling suite.

Ms. Rodrigues provided valuable information to the staff as well:

Here are just a few facts from http://www.nacoa.net/pdfs/addicted.pdf stating how a parent’s drinking can affect a student’s education:

1. In general, children of alcoholic parents do less well on academic measures. They also have higher rates of school absenteeism and are more likely to leave school, be retained, or be referred to the school psychologist than are children of nonalcoholic parents.

1. Children of addicted parents exhibit symptoms of depression and anxiety more than do children from non-addicted families.

1. Research on behavioral problems demonstrated by children of alcoholics has revealed some of the following traits: lack of empathy for other persons; decreased social adequacy and interpersonal adaptability; low self-esteem; and lack of control over the environment.

Grade 8 came into the library (and virtually on our DL snow day) for a lesson on citing our sources. We used this resource to help guide our work.

Students had the opportunity to take a seat, relax, and color for service learning. All of these homemade cards were purposely left blank so that caregivers and health care workers can jot a kind message to someone in their charge in a hospital or nursing home setting. Students created 47 cards to be shipped for this worthwhile endeavor.

February 2, 2022 was World Read Aloud Day. Author Kate Messner coordinates the oppportunity for educators to sign up for a 20 minute slot to virtually meet an author. When I saw that Kate Albus was on the list, I immediately reached out. A Place to Hang the Moon was my favorite read of 2021 and I've been talking this title up to everyone I know. She emailed back that day and we worked it out to have a session before school so that we could have a book club to get their questions answered. Students and adults in the building read and took part in this special opportunity. We discovered that February 2 was the one-year birthday of this World War II historical fiction novel. Kate Albus is as delightful as you would imagine after reading her writing. It was a terrific treat, and we are all looking forward to her next historical fiction novel to come out!