Poetry Reading in UL

This Friday, February 12 at 8:30 a.m. there will be a poetry reading in the library sponsored by the UL Creative Writing Club. Come read a poem or just listen to others read. The Valentine's Day theme is very loose—any poems are welcome! As always, Nutella and croissants will be served.

Music Space

Some libraries have maker space, so why not music space? We now have a guitar in the library. It's available for anyone to play any time. Come relieve stress and play some tunes. (Just keep things at a reasonable noise level and don't disturb others.)

Upper Learning Students,

Here's your chance to win a brand new Kindle Fire just for reading a book during winter break! Here's all you need to do.

GET COZY Read a book! Find one at the library, check out a library Kindle, or get one from anywhere you like. Take a look at all of the great choices in the Galloway Library or try out our OverDrive ebooks. 

GET POSEY Take a selfie of you and the book and caption it. Post it to Twitter with the hashtag #readlax OR just email it to Ms. Kochel

GET CHOSEY The most creative photo/caption (as selected by a team of UL students) will earn the creator a new Kindle Fire. Yay!

The bottom line...we know you are busy and don't have a lot of time to read for fun, so we hope you will take time during this break to relax and read something for your own enjoyment. 

If you have any questions, just let me know. Happy reading!

READ Posters Going Up

This year's READ posters are going up today. They were created by the Unbound Book Club (5th-8th graders) and also by some Upper Learning students. Thank you to the library interns for their fabulous Photoshopping (Kat and Shawn) and also for exceptional height (John). Come to the library and see them all soon!

Hunger Games Reaping Friday

It's time for the annual reaping. Twelve tributes will be chosen to compete in the Hunger Games on Friday, November 20. The last tribute standing will win movie tickets to any movie of their choice. Put your name in the jar in the library and come to the courtyard on Friday at noon!

Halloween Poetry Reading

This year the fall UL poetry reading will have a Halloween theme. All students and faculty are invited to come enjoy some nutella and croissants and some creepy poems. Feel free to come listen or to read a poem. This poetry reading is sponsored by the Creative Writing Club and will take place on Friday, Oct. 23 at 8:30 a.m. in the library.

Time to Be Sorted!

September 1st is the first day of school at Hogwarts, and in honor of this occasion you have the opportunity to be sorted into a Galloway House. Are you a Mathisdor, a Crarypuff, a Jemsbyrin, or a Redmondclaw?

Take the quiz to find out...then come to the library on Tuesday, Sept. 1 and put your name in your house jar. At town meeting we will draw names to see who are chosen as prefects from each house (and prefects get a prize!) 

https://quiz.tryinteract.com/#/the-galloway-school/1

Please share this link on social media so all UL students see it!

Andrew Smith at Galloway

It was a great thrill to welcome author Andrew Smith to Galloway this week. He spoke with our 10th and 11th graders about his writing career and his novels. Smith, a high school English teacher for 23 years, is on tour promoting The Alex Crow. He also talked to the students about his 2014 book Grasshopper Jungle, which is being made into a movie. Many students purchased autographed books. The Galloway library has copies of all of Smith's titles as well. Thanks to the Little Shop of Stories for sponsoring this visit.

Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers

The nominees for next year's Georgia Peach Book Award have now been announced. The committee met yesterday and released the titles. It was my third and final year serving on this committee, and as always, it was a great day of talking about books. Galloway has almost all of these in the library now, so feel free to come and get them. Take a closer look on our library Pinterest board.

We have an app!

We are very excited to announce that The Galloway Library App is ready for use! It is a handy way to get directly to all of our digital resources, including the library catalog, databases, eBooks and audiobooks, NoodleTools, Research Guides and more.

At the bottom of the screen you can see the Twitter feeds for Early Learning and Middle/Upper Learning, our Pinterest page, and a gallery of photos.

In addition to our app, there are numerous other free apps that can help you with your research and reading. Use our app to locate all those handy apps you might find useful.

This app was developed and designed by Library Intern and Galloway Senior Jack Walz. Please CLICK HERE to download the app to your device.

Reading Bowl Teams Compete

The ML Team: Anna, Talia, Rachel, Ms. Kochel, Ethan, Emi,
Ms. Hunter, and Julia

On Saturday, January 24, Galloway's ML and UL Reading Bowl Teams competed in the Fulton County Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl Competition at Riverwood High School. ML was respresented by a team made up of four sixth graders and two eighth graders. The ML team won several rounds and took fifth place out of 14 teams.

The UL Team: Cameron, Sophia, Molly, John, and Jennifer

The UL team, consisting of five UL students, took fourth place in the high school division. All the team members read some new and interesting books and enjoyed spending the day with other students who love to read.

Winter Break Makeover

The ML/UL library is getting new paint and carpet over the winter break. These are some of the colors you will see when we return in January. In order to get the job done, professional movers will be in the library starting on Dec. 12 moving computers, books, and shelves out of the carpeted areas of the library. Books will be unavailable starting Dec. 13, so stock up this week for the winter break. Students will still be able to walk through the library but most of the furniture will be gone. UL students can study for finals in The Portal, the ATL, and in the Chaddick Lobby. If you are interested in digital audiobooks or eBooks over the winter break, be sure to click here to learn about our FollettShelf and OverDrive collections.

Halloween Happenings

Halloween was a big day in the Galloway Library. It started with a poetry reading sponsored by the Creative Writing Club. As always, we heard some thought-provoking poems, some written by our own students. The highlight for me was Mr. Gerl's performance of "What Do I Make?"




At lunch we took the library to the ML Commons and checked out books from there. Thanks to John and Cameron, UL students, who helped us out.


And finally, we hosted author Adam Gidwitz, who spoke to our 4th-6th graders. We have many fans of A Tale Dark and Grimm. What a great storyteller! Thank you so much to The Little Shop of Stories for sending him our way.

Many Galloway students are fans of Neal Shusterman's Unwind book series. The final installment, Undivided, was released yesterday. Our biggest superfan had it read by 6 a.m. I Tweeted this out and it was retweeted by Neal Shusterman himself. The library has 2 print copies of the book and can put it on library Kindles as well. Come by if you want to read Undivided.

Book Clubs are Up and Running

The 2014-2015 Unbound Book Club

We have had several book club meetings in the last two weeks. The UL book club has 25 student members and four teachers participating. Unbound Book Club has 38 ML students on the roster, and Untitled Book Club has 12 seventh and eighth graders. We are thrilled to have so many readers among us. As you can see from the pictures, our groups are pretty equally split between boys and girls as well. You can follow all of our book clubs on the Galloway Library Student Center webpage.

Poetry Reading

Senior Donovan D. reads an original poem

Our morning poetry reading was big success. We heard many original poems from students, as well as poems read in German, Spanish, French, Latin, and Arabic. I'm keeping a folder in the library of the poems that were read so stop by if you want to read some of them. Thanks to all who attended—especially our wonderful UL teachers who are so supportive.

Teach an Old Person

The 10th graders are researching pop culture topics and explaining them to Mrs. Klein and Ms. Kochel (the "old people"). We have already learned about IceJJfish, Yik Yak, and the nae nae. We can't wait to learn more and see what "container" is best for educating us about the topics. See the whole project at our Pop Culture Research Guide here: http://gallowayschool.libguides.com/pop

"Where Are You Reading" Photo Contest

One of many great photos—see them all here

This year the Galloway Library sponsored our 4th annual Spring Break Photo Contest for Middle Learning students. We included Upper Learning students in the contest for the first time, and some teachers participated as well. We had 91 photos entered—and you can see them all in our Photo Gallery. Winners and honorable mentions are noted in the slideshow. Thanks to everyone who entered—you made it very difficult to choose the winners.

Book Bling Day

Today we celebrated Book Bling Day with lots of beads being given out throughout Middle Learning. We also kicked off our Double Dog DEAR by challenging advisors to read books picked by their advisories. And we are having our annual Spring Break Photo Contest for both ML and UL students. Have a great break and take your picture reading!

Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Halse Anderson with Lily M., 10th grader

We were so honored to welcome Laurie Halse Anderson at Galloway last week. She spoke in the theater to our 8th, 9th and 10th graders. Lily M. gave her a fabulous introduction and had the opportunity to show Laurie the Speak book trailer she made in eighth grade. Laurie autographed a lot of books and spoke personally with many students. She was entertaining, educational, and gracious to everyone she met. Thank you, Little Shop of Stories for sending her our way. See more photos on our Galloway Library Student Center website.