Author: Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin, adapted by Sarah Thomson
Title: Three Cups of Tea
Publisher: Puffin
Publication Date: 2009
Age range: 10 - 16
Genre: Nonfiction / Selective Biography
Rating: 1 2 3 4 5
Plot summary: This edition is adapted from the bestselling adult version, also called Three Cups of Tea. Greg Mortenson set out to climb K2 in Pakistan, the world’s second-highest mountain. His plan was to honour the memory of his sister, leaving a necklace that belonged to her at the summit. Mortenson didn’t make it to the summit, however, when all did not go as planned with his climbing party. On his way back down the mountain Mortenson got separated from his climbing party and stumbled, hungry and dehydrated, into the village of Korphe where he was treated as an honoured guest and taken care of though the people had little extra to give. Mortenson was grateful to his hosts, and observed a bit of village life during his recuperation in the village. He found out that the children in the village had no school, and shared a teacher with another mountain village, so that each group of children had an instructor only three days per week. On days when they had no teacher they would gather anyway and scratch out their math problems with sticks on the hard ground. Mortenson was amazed that the children had no facility or supplies to learn with, yet tried to learn whatever they could anyway. Mortenson promised to build Korphe a school, and returned to America to raise the money.
Mortenson sacrificed everything in his own life to raise the money needed to build a school for Korphe, and made some amazing friendships and connections along the way. His passion and dedication to the cause inspired other people to help raise money, including school children, fellow mountain climbers, and wealthy businessmen who wanted to give something back to the global community. Though it was a daunting task to get the school built in Korphe, as the village was nearly inaccessible, and a river had to be crossed to get the supplies into the village, Mortenson persevered. Ultimately, he was inspired to continue building schools in Pakistan and later Afghanistan. Mortenson believes wholeheartedly that by educating some of the world’s poorest children, he can play a role in promoting peace and strong communities.
Comments: This book is accessible and clearly written, and a wonderful read for young people who may be curious about children and youth in other parts of the world. There are a number of color photos inserted in the book for visual learners to get a better sense of what the landscape, people, and projects Mortenson has worked on are like. Life is so different in the communities that Mortenson worked with and visited, compared to North America. Reading about the willingness of very poor people to share everything they have is inspirational. The title refers to the regional proverb that when you first share a cup of tea, you are strangers. The next time you share tea you are friends. And the third time, you are family. Much of the bargaining and discussions Mortenson participates in take place over cups of tea, and Mortenson learns the value of taking the time to get to know a community rather than simply swooping in and trying to do what an outside perceives as best for the local people.
It is amazing what some of the children and teenagers would do to try to get some education, and incredible what their parents and communities would sacrifice to make that happen. Another large issue in the book is that of educating females; due to religious opinions that women should not be educated, Mortenson came up against certain obstacles in his quest to make sure that all children would get an education. His experience seemed to be that the communities and villages themselves generally wanted the girls to be educated, but sometimes there was a fear in the people that the regional religious leaders would find out and be angry. This is a fantastic book for juvenile and young adult readers, and hopefully they will gain an appreciation for how fortunate they are in receiving a guaranteed education in the western world, while considering how they too can help to promote peace and support giving an education to all who want and need it.
Dates Read: 26 March – 2 April
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Teens (website) - Wellington City Libraries
Author: Wellington City Libraries
Title: Teens
Age range: 13 - 17
Genre: Website
Rating: 1 2 3 4 5
Description: This website from New Zealand has been designed with teens in mind, but does not offer many obvious ways for teens to get involved with helping to influence the content. There is extensive coverage of environmental topics with lots of resources to external information and sites. The teen blog is updated once a day and often more (by library staff), with current events, highlighted collection materials, books on film coverage, new books and music, and video clips, such as a recent one highlighting Earth Hour. Entries on new books often have a brief synopsis of the title posted as well. The blog is colourful and interactive, with videos to click on and lots of links to items in the collection as well as tags to help with browsing (in both list and cloud formats). Plus users can comment on blog posts. The tone of the entries that I perused on the blog are light-hearted and fun, which I think would attract teens and hopefully keep them reading on a regular basis.
One section of the teen area of the library website is called ‘Foundations.’ This includes graffiti, MCing, DJing, and dancing information, but it is difficult to tell how current the content is, as no dates are given. Each section has a spotlight on (and sometimes comments from) a local artist or musician involved in the related activity. This looks like a relevant and fun area for teens to find info about these ‘Foundations,’ but keeping the information current might be a challenge. These topics are very current and if the information gets outdated it could detract from the credibility of the site as a whole.
There is a homework help section of the website, but it’s not immediately obvious because it’s not included in the home page series of highlighted links. It is included at the bottom in a less obvious horizontal list of links, as well as in a drop-down menu across the top under ‘Your library / Teens / Study stop’ – so there are three levels of menu to navigate before finding the study page this way. The coverage of subjects looks pretty basic, though the formatting is attractive once you’ve reached the page. All links go to external homework help websites.
Comments: Overall, this is an attractive teen website. There is a good use of space, without filling the whole page full of text and images. Even with a number of lists of links, archived posts, tags and books lists, the page doesn’t look crammed full of information, which could be off-putting. Some of the content is updated frequently, and some of it is impossible to date, so it is not clear how new it is. This website has a lot of promise and hopefully it will continue to get developed and promoted to teens so that they continue visiting and also perhaps get a chance to contribute in the future. There is an image linking to a page where teens can read about submitting their art work to be included on the site, but this art page is not linked through the regular menus as far as I can see, and so it is difficult to know how much activity is going on around this idea of including teen artist in the website content. It does appear that the library staff care about developing this section of the library website to appeal to teens, which is great!
Date Viewed: 3 April 2009
Title: Teens
Age range: 13 - 17
Genre: Website
Rating: 1 2 3 4 5
Description: This website from New Zealand has been designed with teens in mind, but does not offer many obvious ways for teens to get involved with helping to influence the content. There is extensive coverage of environmental topics with lots of resources to external information and sites. The teen blog is updated once a day and often more (by library staff), with current events, highlighted collection materials, books on film coverage, new books and music, and video clips, such as a recent one highlighting Earth Hour. Entries on new books often have a brief synopsis of the title posted as well. The blog is colourful and interactive, with videos to click on and lots of links to items in the collection as well as tags to help with browsing (in both list and cloud formats). Plus users can comment on blog posts. The tone of the entries that I perused on the blog are light-hearted and fun, which I think would attract teens and hopefully keep them reading on a regular basis.
One section of the teen area of the library website is called ‘Foundations.’ This includes graffiti, MCing, DJing, and dancing information, but it is difficult to tell how current the content is, as no dates are given. Each section has a spotlight on (and sometimes comments from) a local artist or musician involved in the related activity. This looks like a relevant and fun area for teens to find info about these ‘Foundations,’ but keeping the information current might be a challenge. These topics are very current and if the information gets outdated it could detract from the credibility of the site as a whole.
There is a homework help section of the website, but it’s not immediately obvious because it’s not included in the home page series of highlighted links. It is included at the bottom in a less obvious horizontal list of links, as well as in a drop-down menu across the top under ‘Your library / Teens / Study stop’ – so there are three levels of menu to navigate before finding the study page this way. The coverage of subjects looks pretty basic, though the formatting is attractive once you’ve reached the page. All links go to external homework help websites.
Comments: Overall, this is an attractive teen website. There is a good use of space, without filling the whole page full of text and images. Even with a number of lists of links, archived posts, tags and books lists, the page doesn’t look crammed full of information, which could be off-putting. Some of the content is updated frequently, and some of it is impossible to date, so it is not clear how new it is. This website has a lot of promise and hopefully it will continue to get developed and promoted to teens so that they continue visiting and also perhaps get a chance to contribute in the future. There is an image linking to a page where teens can read about submitting their art work to be included on the site, but this art page is not linked through the regular menus as far as I can see, and so it is difficult to know how much activity is going on around this idea of including teen artist in the website content. It does appear that the library staff care about developing this section of the library website to appeal to teens, which is great!
Date Viewed: 3 April 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Ramp – Toronto Public Library
Author: Toronto Public Library
Title: Ramp
Age range: 13 - 19
Genre: Website
Rating: 1 2 3 4 5
Description & Comments: Toronto Public Library’s (TPL) website for teens has great coverage of a lot of relevant topics for teens, from extensive and detailed homework help and resources, to links for entertainment of all sorts, there is enough here for any teenager to find something interesting. TPL also provides a great forum for teens to interact with each other and to contribute to the content of the site. The home page features a book of the week suggestion, and having frequently updated content is crucial to keeping patrons coming back, I think. By providing information related to travel and employment, as well as university life and financial resources, TPL has really created one-stop-shopping for teens looking for information about many aspects of their life and future options. Where possible, TPL also highlights their collection related to the many themes on the site, for example by providing an annotated and illustrated bibliography of travel books that might appeal to teens in their travel section. There is extensive content related to health and fitness for teens, presented in an appealing way. The website comes across as authoritative because they’ve included so much information. I also like the page of ideas for free/cheap date destinations in Toronto!
Another great thing about the website is that there are lots of ways for teens to contribute and show off their creativity. Several branches of the TPL system put out their own zines. TPL is keeping things fun and fresh with lots of updated content and a wide range of ideas for what teens are interested in. This website is fantastic! It provides a great example for other library systems to look to as a guide for providing teens with relevant and interactive content.
Date Viewed: 2 April 2009
Title: Ramp
Age range: 13 - 19
Genre: Website
Rating: 1 2 3 4 5
Description & Comments: Toronto Public Library’s (TPL) website for teens has great coverage of a lot of relevant topics for teens, from extensive and detailed homework help and resources, to links for entertainment of all sorts, there is enough here for any teenager to find something interesting. TPL also provides a great forum for teens to interact with each other and to contribute to the content of the site. The home page features a book of the week suggestion, and having frequently updated content is crucial to keeping patrons coming back, I think. By providing information related to travel and employment, as well as university life and financial resources, TPL has really created one-stop-shopping for teens looking for information about many aspects of their life and future options. Where possible, TPL also highlights their collection related to the many themes on the site, for example by providing an annotated and illustrated bibliography of travel books that might appeal to teens in their travel section. There is extensive content related to health and fitness for teens, presented in an appealing way. The website comes across as authoritative because they’ve included so much information. I also like the page of ideas for free/cheap date destinations in Toronto!
Another great thing about the website is that there are lots of ways for teens to contribute and show off their creativity. Several branches of the TPL system put out their own zines. TPL is keeping things fun and fresh with lots of updated content and a wide range of ideas for what teens are interested in. This website is fantastic! It provides a great example for other library systems to look to as a guide for providing teens with relevant and interactive content.
Date Viewed: 2 April 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)