It's hard to believe we're coming up to Thanksgiving, after which comes the roller coaster of winter holidays, and the end of another year. This week all classes will be hearing books about Thanksgiving, the opportunity America has long afforded for newcomers to this country to build a better life, and thankfulness.

Congratulations to Pennekamp student Arya Samimi, second-place winner in the County of Los Angeles public library bookmark contest! Arya and other winners will be honored before the Manhattan Beach City Council, and his winning bookmark will be distributed at public libraries in the coming year. Good job, Arya!

The book club for 4th-grade students meets this Friday, November 18, at lunch recess. Club members should eat lunch first and wear their "READ" wristbands. We will discuss and rate The Lightning Thief and choose a new reading selection for the coming month. All members and interested students are welcome (even those who didn't finish the book!). 

The book club for 5th-grade students is reading Belly Up, by Stuart Gibbs. The club meets again on December 9. I will have a half-dozen copies for students to purchase by Monday afternoon. Thanks to Pages: A Bookstore for obtaining and discounting copies for our club members.

Scholastic orders are due this Friday, November 17. Points generated through Scholastic orders allow the library to acquire many high-interest titles at no cost. Thank you for ordering from Scholastic!

If you would like to see some of the book's recently added to the library's collection, please visit the New Books page of this website.

The week after the Thanksgiving break, our book fair takes place! Students will visit the book fair that week instead of library (except for DK students, who still visit the library). That week is also teacher conference week, so students will be on a minimum day schedule. The library will be open regular hours, but please note: students cannot wait in the library while parents attend conferences unless they are supervised by an adult. Parents may wish to partner with other parents to watch each other's children; and with adult supervision, students are certainly welcome to visit the library until 3:00 p.m. during teacher conference week.

I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We have a short week this week. Thursday is a no-school day (happy Rosh Hashanah!), and Friday is a work day for MBUSD staff but not a school day for students. If you are looking for a good picture book related to Rosh Hashanah, recommended is New Year at the Pier, by April Halprin Wayland, a local author who was last year's Author's Week guest.

Scholastic book club flyers will go home in this week's Tuesday envelopes. Please return your orders to the library or school office by October 13; your merchandise will be distributed on or before October 31. Thanks go to the unbelievably great library volunteers who prepared the flyers!

Coming up are the book clubs for students in grades 4 and 5. This year each grade will have its own club meeting, and meetings will be (roughly) once a month at lunch. Club members will receive a membership wristband for joining. Grade 5 meets the first time on October 7, and the meeting day will be the first Friday of each month; grade 4 meets the first time on October 14, with the ongoing meeting day being the second Friday of each month. (Some adjustments may be necessary to accommodate school vacations.) At our first meetings we will choose our first reading selection and make plans for future meetings.

This is Banned Books Week. To learn more about it and our First Amendment freedoms, visit the American Library Association's "Banned Books Week" page.

On display in the library this week and next will be books recently added to the library's collection, the vast majority of which were purchased with PTA funds. Thank you, PTA, for our beautiful new books!

Classes will visit the library as usual on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. 5th-grade classes usually come on Thursday and Friday, so they will not be visiting the library this week. Themes this week are as follows: DK--friendship; K--apples; 1st--seasons; 2nd--bees & pollination; 3rd--national symbols; 4th--Caesar Chavez, in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15).  To see specific titles, take a look at this week's Weely Readalouds post. 

This week offers an array of special events to commemorate with reading. Monday is Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day, Wednesday is United Nations International Day of Peace, Friday is the Autumn Equinox, and Saturday is Punctuation Day. September 15 to October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month. Our students are studying colors, seasons, plant life cycles, California, and Native American legends, among other things! Having decorated their "library cards" and practiced using the paintsticks, the kindergarteners will begin checking out books this week.

Volunteers begin their circulation shifts this week. Thanks to these marvelous parents and grandparents for generously donating their time to keep our library the organized and helpful place we want it to be.

The library will be offering two book clubs this year, one for 4th-graders and one for 5th-graders. The clubs will be once a month on Fridays at lunch.

The first meeting of the book club for 5th-graders will be October 7. Students must eat lunch before coming to the meeting, as food and drinks are not allowed in the library. At the first meeting, students will sign up, receive a wrist band, and choose a reading selection for that month. On November 4, the 5th-grade book club will meet again to discuss our first selection and choose the next.

The 4th-grade book club will have its initial meeting on October 14. It will have the same format as the 5th-grade club, and more reminders will follow as the date approaches.

On display this week in the library are Native American legends. Next week, books recently added to the library's collection will be on display! The vast majority of these books were purchased with PTA funds donated generously by our Pennekamp families. Thank you, PTA members; and the students thank you--they are already clamoring for their new books about pets, science, history, and other popular topics. PTA is by far the largest funding source for books purchased to expand and update our library collection. Thank you, PTA!

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.