December Meeting: Legos and Comic Strip App

We had a smaller than normal group for our December meeting due to some conflicting commitments, but the Bookshoppers in attendance made some awesome creations inspired by our book, Illegal, a graphic novel by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin.

Our book discussion over pizza was somber. This was not an uplifting book, and several people noted the super sad ending and expressed a preference for books with happier endings. It is a fictionalized account of a refugee boy's long and dangerous journey from Ghana to Europe in search of his older brother and sister. We talked a little bit about why it's important to read books like this and how some Bookshoppers felt like they always seemed to be talking about refugees in school and out of school. We also talked about the title and if it's okay to call someone illegal.

After that serious but productive discussion, we split into two groups to recreate scenes from the book using Legos. Interestingly enough, both groups chose to portray the same scene independently. Granted, it's a highly emotional scene toward the end of the book involving an overturned boat, a tragic loss, and a helicopter rescue. Once the scene had been set, each group had an iPad with the free Comic Strip app loaded on in order to take pictures and create a short comic of the scene. There were some frustrating bugs, all the more frustrating because our meeting was almost over by the time each group was happy with the way their scene had come out and ready to start taking pictures. But the app is pretty easy to navigate and allows you to add fun captions and sound effects and filters. Below are some pictures documenting the creative process as well as the final comics.

Mickey's Helicopter

Avery, Amy, and Arsalan's Lego Scene

Avery, Amy, and Arsalan's Lego Scene

Avery, Amy, and Arsalan's Lego Scene

Naseem's Boat Scene

Naseem's Boat Scene

Naseem's Boat Scene

Mickey working on a comic strip

Avery and Amy working on a comic strip

Avery and Amy's Comic Strip

Avery's Comic Strip

Mickey's Comic Strip

Naseem's Comic Strip

Our next meeting will be on Monday, January 7th, and we will be reading Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish, by Pablo Cartaya. Maya will be running the remainder of the meetings for this school year while I am off on maternity leave, but I'll keep checking the blog to see all the amazing things Bookshop is working on!

November Meeting: Zines and Punk Rock

Happy November! We had a lively meeting full of pizza, introductions and re-introductions, chatting, punk rock, and crafting. Maya Escobar, one of the other youth services librarians here at the Main Library, attended the meeting since she will be taking over Bookshop while I am off on maternity leave from January-June. I know the Bookshop crew will be in great hands with her at the helm!

After brief introductions for Maya and one new Bookshopper, we chatted a bit about the book, The First Rule of Punk, commiserating with Malú about being moved across the country at the beginning of 7th grade and about having VERY different hobbies and interests from her mom. Most of us could relate to that...

Then we turned on a punk rock playlist created by the book's author, Celia C. Pérez, to set the mood and dove into creating our own mini zines. For those who haven't read the book and aren't familiar with zines, according to Merriam-Webster, a zine is "a noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject matter." Although we didn't have as much time or as many materials as Malú had in creating her awesome zines sprinkled throughout the book, the Bookshoppers were able to get a good start on some fabulous zines. Sneak peeks of the process and zines below!

Michelle: My Life 

Isaac: Shoes

Sean: Dungeons & Dragons

Gabriel: Shrunken Heads

Mickey: Heads

Naseem: Cambridge/Boston Sports Teams

Avery: Music

Arsalan: Space, Constellations, and Stars

Amy: Friends

Maya: Bugs

Emily: Maine

Our next meeting will be on Monday, December 3rd. We are reading Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, a graphic novelization of the journey of a young refugee fleeing Ghana in search of his brother and sister. See you then!

October Meeting: Introductions and Tinkercad

We had a fabulous first meeting of the school year, with six returning members and three new members in attendance. After chatting and eating pizza for a bit, we did a quick icebreaker activity to learn more about each other. We learned that some Bookshoppers are participating in Bookshop because they like reading and doing makerspace-type activities, while others are here because their parents signed them up (points for honesty!). Some members are looking forward most to the books we'll be reading this year in Bookshop, while others are most excited about doing fun games in our meetings and hopefully eating lots of sugar and marshmallows. Outside of Bookshop, we learned that one member's favorite books of all time are the Tokyo Ghoul manga series, and we've also got some sports lovers: two baseball players and a basketball player. Thanks for sharing, crew!

After briefly going over what to expect for the year, we voted on our December book and moved right into our activity for the meeting: adapting a library card holder in Tinkercad to be printed on the library's 3D printer. Each Bookshopper was able to personalize and adapt the library card holder sample below by adding different text and/or shapes.

Once finished with that, they were able to try creating a 3D object from scratch. Below are images of the final, printed library card holders they created as well as some of the fun other things they designed in Tinkercad.

By Naseem

By Sean

By Gabriel

Our next meeting will be on Monday, November 5th, and we are reading The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez. Malú, the main character, is a talented artist so we will use her zine creations in the book to inspire our own zines. See you next month!

June Meeting: Booktalks and Food Scenes

We had a blast and got all sugared up at our final meeting of the school year this past Monday. Each Bookshopper had brought a book to share to give us all some ideas of good things to read over the summer, and it was a great mix of books; titles and more included later in this post.

After booktalking each book, we had a little series of friendly Minute to Win It competitions. First up: Cookie Face. Each person had one minute to try to get a cookie from their forehead to their mouth without using their hands. See the pictures below for some of the hilarity. Three Bookshoppers were successful, but it is HARD.

Next up: Marshmallow Toss. Each competitor had one minute to get as many marshmallows in a cup as they could, only throwing one at a time and sitting a set distance away. The high score was an impressive 12 marshmallows!

Last but not least: Suck It Up. Everyone had one minute to move 25 M&Ms from one plate to another plate using only a straw. Five Bookshoppers did it successfully, one in under 30 seconds!

Then we moved on to our main activity: using delicious treats to create scenes from the books we shared. Everyone got very creative with frosting, graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate chips, gummy bears, skittles, and pretzels. Pictures of the process are below.

And the final products!

Avery: Dog from The Complete Dog Breed Book by DK

Christopher: Siege of Leningrad from Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson

Gabriel: Rafting down the river from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Arsalan: Mr. Snake from The Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey

Yao: Priyanka from Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani

Isaac: Rafting underground in The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau and Dallas Middaugh

Carson: Shelter, rover, and Mars dust from The Martian by Andy Weir

Hima: Skull from Addison Cooke and the Treasure of the Incas by Jonathan W. Stokes

Amy: Boat and flood from The Book of Dust: The Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

After sharing (and maybe eating a little bit) from the creations, everyone filled out a quick survey to give me feedback about the program this year and then got to pick out a free book to take home and keep.

It was a fabulous last meeting, and we will definitely miss Carson and Christopher next year as they move on to high school. Keep in touch over the summer, and if you'll be going into 6th, 7th, or 8th grade in the fall, don't forget to visit the us, reading blog to write reviews about all of the awesome books you're reading over the summer. Each review means a chance to win a Porter Square Books gift card, a Kindle Fire, and/or an Audio Listening Pack that includes a waterproof Bluetooth speaker, headphones, and a headphone splitter.

Have a wonderful summer, and I'll be in touch in late August with information about next year's Bookshop program.