With the end of the school year approaching, the last of this school year's new books are being added to the library's collection. Click here to see what's new in our library. Please come by the library this week to see many of our new books on display. Sincere thanks to the Manhattan Beach Historical Society for funding the purchase of new history-related titles and to the Pennekamp PTA for its continued funding of the library collection. 

The book club meeting last week was a big success. The reading selection for our next meeting will be Cosmic, by Frank Cottrell Boyce. We did not select a book from the district's summer pleasure reading list, which is not quite finished yet. From among three suggestions, Cosmic was chosen in a very close vote by club members in attendance.

Earth Day, April 22, is the focus of most class visits this week. Our school will be participating in environmental activities all week, and this week's reading selections will educate and inspire on that topic as well, especially concerning the ocean environment and the problem of trash production.

On Thursday, April 21, staff members from the Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium will be visiting the library to talk about caring for the ocean environment. Classes who come to library on Thursday (Barney, Rumble, Price, and Moreno) will be treated to this special event. 

There are so many special days and events coming up, it's hard to know where to start.

April is National Poetry Month. With grades DK, K, 2nd, 4th, and 5th I will be reading poetry books. Thursday, April 14, is Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day. The library is creating a poster of students (or grown-ups!) who choose to participate. Bring your poem Monday through Thursday to be photographed for the poster, and enjoy sharing your poem with others on Thursday. Create your own poem with the "Instant Poetry Forms" online poetry generator (from Educational Technology Training Center).

April is also School Library Month, and April 10 to 16 is National Library Week. Grades 1 and 3 will be hearing books about libraries this week. In particular, Wednesday is National Bookmobile Day, so the choice for grade 3--That Book Woman, by Heather Henson--has extra relevance. Started in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration, the Pack Horse Library Project, (the subject of That Book Woman) brought books to individuals and small communities in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky. Today hundreds of bookmobiles across the United States serve small and rural communities, and library books are carried elsewhere in the world by bus, by boat, and on the backs of camels and elephants (as illustrated in My Librarian Is a Camel, by Margriet Ruurs).

Next Wednesday, April 20, the library book club for students in grades 4 and 5 meets. Club members, please finish our selection--Keeper, by Kathi Appelt, before the meeting. 

Next Friday, April 22, is Earth Day. Saturday, April 16, from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. is the 19th Annual Earth Day Celebration and Concert at Polliwog Park.

Next week (April 18 to 24) is also Screen-Free Week (sometimes referred to as Screen-Time Awareness Week and formerly as TV Turnoff Week). During this week people are urged to turn off their screens and enjoy other activities: have a picnic, ride a bike, play a board game, take a walk, or just have a conversation--there are a lot of fun activities that don't involve using a screen. You could even read a book!

Finally, acclaimed author D. J. MacHale (writer of the Pendragon series and The Monster Princess) will be appearing on April 19 at 7:00 p.m. at Pages: A Bookstore, located at 904 Manhattan Avenue, in downtown Manhattan Beach. This event takes place on the publication date of Book 2: The Black, the next volume in MacHale's new Morpheus Road series, so it should be a packed house and a really exciting evening. If you have never taken your son or daughter to meet a real-live author, this might be just the event, especially for students from grade 4 through high school, to whom the Pendragon and Morpheus Road series tend to appeal.