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November.  Sometimes quite a dreary month.  Dank, drizzly, dark. I love all those D words.  Lots of things happen in November.  We often see mustaches growing, there are Christmas craft fairs (most years), and crazy people around the world hunker down in front of their laptops to write a novel.  Yes, November is National Novel Writing Month.  Your chance to sign up to put down 50,000 words on paper (in Read More …

There has been rain.  Quite a lot of rain.  And the temperature has been dropping.  But it’s still good to get out and appreciate the beautiful place we live.  Here around Burnaby Mountain, there is a lot of green.  And trails for walking.  Nature to be enjoyed up close.  I did that on the weekend, meeting a friend to walk at Barnet Marine Park.  When I got home, I was Read More …

Well.  We have made it through September.  School start this year was … different.  And our school days are … different.  And yet, it takes little time before things feel familiar, before the different doesn’t feel so different.  This year has been a voyage without travel as we’ve all lived through unprecedented times.  So I’ve decided that here at the Burnaby Mountain Learning Commons, although we can’t get in a Read More …

  Juneteenth was a week ago.  But it’s never too late to learn more about it and to work towards becoming an antiracist.  I just discovered this great website, BlkFreedom, created to commemorate and celebrate the 150th anniversary of this important day.  Now that school is over for the summer, you have plenty of time to watch a few of the films from the links a few posts ago, and Read More …

    We’ve almost made it.  Friday is the last day for classes, summer starts officially on Saturday, and the sun is actually shining today!!!  So what will you do with ten (yes, 10!) weeks of summer vacation?  Why not participate in the public library’s teen summer reading club, now that you can pick up (real, paper) books at the library?  There are book recommendations to be had, reviews to be Read More …

   Just a reminder: if you have any books from the school library, please return them when you return your text books / clean out your locker / come to class or for an appointment with a teacher / to do your Capstone presentation.  This is the traditional ‘return all library materials’ time of year. But there is good news.  You can now put items on hold from the Burnaby Read More …

Coraline.  So if you like a little bit of horror and fantasy, try this one.  So far, readers include Neil Gaiman, LeVar Burton, Rosario Dawson, and Dakota Fanning. Brought to you by the New York Public Library.

If you’ve been following my blog posts at all, you know I’m something of a Harry Potter fan.  But not only Harry Potter.  I really love J.K. Rowling’s writing.  She also is writing a series about a private detective, Cormoran Strike.  We have the books in our library.  Very not Harry Potter but great in a different way. Ms. Rowling has just released, online, a brand new book, The Ickabog.  Read More …

Historica Canada is one of my favourite organizations.  It is the home of The Canadian Encyclopedia.  It runs Encounters with Canada, a program that brings students (even from Burnaby Mountain) to Ottawa.  In its own words, “We’re the Canada people; we offer programs that you can use to explore, learn and reflect on our history, and what it means to be Canadian”. During this time, when students can’t travel to Read More …

This morning, I was thinking about reading.  Something I’ve always loved to do.  But over the last weeks I have sometimes felt like I couldn’t settle to any one book.  It’s like my attention span has taken a nose dive.  So I’ve looked for alternatives.  I do have plenty of old-fashioned paper books, but sometimes that hasn’t worked.  I have spent quite a bit of time listening to audiobooks.  That Read More …