Just a typical afternoon in the Edith Hamilton Library. Happy Halloween!!

Author Elizabeth Wein to Visit Bryn Mawr

Author, Elizabeth Wein, spoke to Middle and Upper School students yesterday about the writing process, finding primary sources, the significance of illustrations in her work, and being a pilot. She then joined students in the Edith Hamilton Library to chat and sign books. Students asked great questions about writer's block, keeping a journal, and integrating real life experiences and memories into one's work. Elizabeth headed to Washington D.C. after lunch to meet astronaut, Cady Coleman.

Summer Reading 2015

All Upper School students are required to read four books during the summer. At least one of the four is a selection from the Upper School Student Nominated Books List. Remaining requirements for each grade are listed below.

Incoming Grade 9:

English Department: The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger. (Get the Back Bay Books edition, available from Amazon.com ISBN-10: 0316769177 or ISBN-13: 978-0316769174 )

Technology Department: The Innovators, by Walter Isaacson. You are required to read only the chapter on Ada Lovelace (pgs 7-33).

Math Department: Algebra Success in Twenty Minutes a Day is strongly recommended for all incoming 9th graders but not required, problem sets. 

Personal Choice: Choose one book from the Upper School Student Nominated Books List.

---

Incoming Grade 10

English Department: Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys W. W. Norton & Company; Reissue edition,  ISBN-10: 0393308804 or ISBN-13: 978-0393310481. Do NOT get the the Norton Critical Edition.  

History Department: (Modern World) Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe (paperback, $10.95)

AP World History: AP World History will read the grade wide book Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, and a selection of AP specific works. Dr. Riley will send a packet with the AP specific works over the summer.

French 4H."Rex" by Sempe-Gosciny and an additional reading/assignment to be determined. Get packet from Ms. McAndrew.

Spanish 4H:   Packet including listening exercise; questions; short story "La desesperación de las letras” by Ginés S. Cutillas ; and a short writing piece. Get packet from Ms. Gray. 

Personal Choice: Choose one book from the Upper School Student Nominated Books List. 

---

Incoming Grade 11:

Biology Department:  For both Biology and Honors Biology: Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollen (Paperback,  you are encouraged to purchase a used copy.)

English Department: The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien.  (Mariner Books; 1st edition, 2009)

Please note: Students taking English at Gilman must check their reading list. It is linked to our library webpage.

French 4H. "Rex" by Sempe-Gosciny and an additional reading/assignment to be determined. Get packet from Mme McAndrew.

Spanish 4H:   Packet including listening exercise; questions; short story "La desesperación de las letras” by Ginés S. Cutillas ; and a short writing piece. Get packet from Ms. Gray. 

AP French Language:  Packet including listening exercises; questions; grammar exercises; and a short writing piece.   See Dr. Barck.

AP Spanish Language:  Packet with various activities including a choice of short stories by Juan Rulfo, Isaac Aisemberg or Isabel Allende. Get packet from Mr. Mendaro.

Personal Choice: Choose one book from the Upper School Student Nominated Books List. 

Please note: If you are taking classes at Roland Park or Gilman, you must check their summer reading lists!

Incoming Grade 12:

All Upper School students are required to read four books during the summer. One of the four is a selection from the Upper School Student Nominated Books List. Students enrolled in more than one AP course should read AP choices first. Since many seniors choose electives elsewhere, the students are required by honor and, it is hoped, inclination to read four books (including one or more selections from the Student Nominated Summer Reading Book List, and from the combined lists of Departmental and AP). Teachers of BMS English and history electives have listed books which you should read if you are taking their courses. If taking Gilman or Roland Park courses, you should ask the faculty teaching those courses if they have pre-requisite reading. 

English Department Electives:

Creative Writing; Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (Paperback $10.50)

History Department Electives:

AP Economics: The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity by Russell Roberts. Princeton, 2008 (Paperback $11.50)

Baltimore Issues. Also called Charm City: Down to the Wire: Cop in the Hood by Peter Moskos (Paperback $12.87)

America in the World: The Post-American World:Release 2.0 , by Fareed Zakaria. W.W. Norton, (Paperback $9.35)

Legal Systems: In the Name of Honor: A Memoir by Mukhtar Mai. (Paperback $10.00 through Amazon)

World Languages and Cultures Electives:

French 4H: "Rex" by Sempe-Gosciny and an additional reading/assignment to be determined. Get packet from Mme McAndrew.

French Senior Honors Seminar: Students should see Mme McAndrew for a packet  that includes the story "La Belle et la Bête" by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1756) and some other activities.

Spanish 4H:   Packet including listening exercise; questions; short story "La desesperación de las letras” by Ginés S. Cutillas ; and a short writing piece. Get packet from Ms. Gray. 

Spanish Senior Honors Seminar: "En la ardiente oscuridad" (first two acts) by Antonio Buero-Vallejo. Get instruction sheet from Ms. Gray. Book available through the Bryn Mawrket.

AP Courses :

AP Biology: Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species, by Sean Carroll ( Paperback, you are encouraged to purchase a used copy.)

AP Economics: The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity by Russell Roberts. Princeton, 2008 (Paperback $11.50)

AP English Bright Lights, Big City, By Jay McInerney (Paperback $9.71)

AP Environmental Science: How the Earthquake Bird Got Its Name and Other Unbalanced Nature by H. H. Shugart (Paperback,  you may purchase a used copy.)

AP French Language: Packet including listening exercises; questions; grammar exercises; and a short writing piece.   See Dr. Barck.

AP Physics C: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character, ed. By Edward Hutchins. W.W. Norton. (Paperback, you are encouraged to purchase a used copy.)

AP Spanish Language:  Packet with various activities including a choice of short stories by Juan Rulfo, Isaac Aisemberg or Isabel Allende. Get packet from Mr. Mendaro.

AP Statistics: How to Lie with Statistics, by Darrell Huff. (W.W. Norton, $11.00)

Please note: If you are taking classes at Roland Park or Gilman, you must check their summer reading lists!

May 2015

Unforgettable Lines

April 12-18 is National Library Week, and to celebrate we are asking students, faculty and staff from all divisions to share a favorite line from a book. We have begun putting faculty and staff favorites on display in the window outside of the Library. They include lines in several languages and come from authors as varied as Dr. Seuss and Rabelais. Now we invite you to post a favorite line on the black display panels in the Library.  You may write it on paper  or print it, and you may embellish it if you wish. I hope that you will join us in filling the Library with unforgettable lines!  

New Audio Books Available Through Overdrive

The following audio books are now available through our Overdrive e-Book and Audio Collection.  To access the collection, use your full e-mail address when prompted for a password.  If you are interested in listening to or reading a book that is not currently in Overdrive contact Mrs. Rickert-Wilbur.

• All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel (unabridged) National Book Award Finalist From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure's reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum's most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure's converge.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe 

A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.  Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

Everything I Never Told You

A haunting debut novel about a mixed-race family living in 1970s Ohio and the tragedy that will either be their undoing or their salvation

Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet ...

So begins the story in this exquisite debut novel about a Chinese American family living in a small town in 1970s Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue—in Marilyn's case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James' case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party.

When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. James, consumed by guilt, sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to find a responsible party, no matter what the cost. Lydia's older brother, Nathan, is certain the neighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it's the youngest of the family, Hannah, who observes far more than anyone realizes—and who may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened.

A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

Frog Music: A Novel (unabridged)

Emma Donoghue's explosive new novel, based on an unsolved murder.

Summer of 1876. San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman called Jenny Bonnet is shot dead.

The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny's murderer to justice—if he doesn't track her down first.

The story Blanche struggles to piece together is one of free-love bohemians, desperate paupers, and arrogant millionaires; of jealous men, icy women, and damaged children. It's the secret life of Jenny herself, a notorious character who breaks the law every morning by getting dressed: a charmer as slippery as the frogs she hunts.

In thrilling, cinematic style, Frog Music digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue's lyrical tale of love and bloodshed captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One of the twentieth century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning career.

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility, the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth—these universal themes dominate the novel. Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an account of the history of the human race.

The Secret History

The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

In this brilliant debut novel, Donna Tartt gives us a richly textured and hypnotic story of golden youth corrupted by its own moral arrogance.

Richard Papen had never been to New England before his nineteenth year. Then he arrived at Hampeden College and quickly became seduced by the sweet, dark rhythms of campus life - in particular by an elite group of five students, Greek scholars, worldly, self-assured, and at first glance, highly unapproachable.

Yet as Richard was accepted and drawn into their inner circle, he learned a terrifying secret that bound them to one another...a secret about an incident in the woods in the dead of night where an ancient rite was brought to brutal life...and lead to a gruesome death. And that was just the beginning...

It's cold outside! Curl up with a good e-book.

This weekend why not try our new e-book platform, Overdrive? Overdrive is free to all Bryn Mawr students, faculty and staff. We have a solid collection of  fiction and non-fiction, and we can add new titles at your request.   Just go to Overdrive e-Book Collection and type in your e-mail address. Books download easily to most devices. 

 (The Martian is highly recommended by the Letri)

Valentines Day Fun.

Recently, the Upper School Book Club and their advisor, Mr. Metsopoulos,  met in the Library to select some  favorite books for students and faculty. Each book was decorated with a Valentine's Day motif and placed on display to be checked out. Several of the students also wrapped books for the Middle School Book Match-Up Event. Book Match-Up is Ms. Hruban's twist on Blind Date with a Book. Over sixty girls participated  by requesting, matching and wrapping books. Many students stopped by this week  just to make Valentines for their friends and loved ones.