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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Oprah Winfrey, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 25 of 43
1. Elizabeth Gilbert Gives a Super Soul Sessions Speech On Curiosity

Do you intend to follow your passion in the new year? Elizabeth Gilbert gave a talk about curiosity at Oprah Winfrey’s “Super Soul Sessions” event.

The video embedded above features Gilbert’s speech, “The Flight of The Hummingbird — The Curiosity Driven Life.” For her, “without curiosity, there is no journey.”

Last year, we spoke with Gilbert and picked her brain for writing advice. In early 2014, she gave a talk on the TED stage about continuing to follow her passion for writing after experiencing both great failure and tremendous success. What do you think?

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2. Oprah to Launch a New Imprint at Flatiron Books

Oprah Winfrey (GalleyCat)Oprah Winfrey (pictured, via) will launch her own imprint at Macmillan’s Flatiron Books division. USA Today reports that the inaugural title to be published from Winfrey’s new imprint will be the media mogul’s very own memoir.

In The Life You Want, Winfrey will focus on her life story and share inspirational words. The book is slated for release in Jan. 2017.

Here’s more from The Associated Press: “Winfrey’s imprint doesn’t have a name yet, but will feature several nonfiction works each year. Winfrey has already generated numerous best-sellers in the past 20 years through her TV and online book club choices.” (via The Huffington Post)

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3. Maya Angelou Documentary Featured On Kickstarter

Bob HerculesRita Coburn Whack, and their team of filmmakers hope to raise $150,000 on Kickstarter for a documentary profiling the late Maya Angelou. For this project, the collaborators have interviewed several people who knew Dr. Angelou including President Bill Clinton, media mogul Oprah Winfrey, and her son Guy Johnson. We’ve embedded a video about the new project above.

Here’s more from the Kickstarter page: “Dr. Angelou has become a global symbol of peace, humility, and freedom–– but parts of her story are not well known. The Maya Angelou Documentary will reflect on how the events of history, culture, and the arts shaped Dr. Angelou’s life and how she, in turn, helped shape our own worldview through her autobiographical literature and activism. We hope to shed light on the untold aspects of her life and to educate audiences about her story.”

Welcome to our Kickstarter Publishing Project of the Week, a feature exploring how authors and publishers are using the fundraising site to raise money for book projects. If you want to start your own project, check out How To Use Kickstarter to Fund Your Publishing Project.

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4. New York Public Library Announces the 2015 Library Lions

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5. The woman who changed the world

Society owes a debt to Henrietta Lacks. Modern life benefits from long-term access to a small sample of her cells that contained incredibly unusual DNA. As Rebecca Skloot reports in her best-selling book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, the story that unfolded after Lacks died at the age of 31 is one of injustice, tragedy, bravery, innovation and scientific discovery.

The post The woman who changed the world appeared first on OUPblog.

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6. PBS to Air Updated Documentary on Harper Lee

HarperLeeThe team at PBS American Masters have updated a 2012 documentary on Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Harper Lee. According to an announcement on Facebook, the film will feature thoughts and comments from high-profile figures including Oprah Winfrey, Rosanna Cash, and Tom Brokaw.

Deadline.com reports that producer Mary McDonagh Murphy paid a personal visit to Lee in Monroeville, AL. During that meeting the 89 year old writer was presented with a new copy of the highly anticipated To Kill a Mockingbird sequel, Go Set a Watchman.

An airing will take place on Friday, July 10th from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Click here to watch a short preview from this nonfiction movie.

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7. Oprah Winfrey Chooses Ruby For Book Club 2.0

RubyOprah Winfrey revealed her fourth Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection, Ruby by Cynthia Bond. According to The Associated Press, Winfrey revealed that she fell in love with the novel after reading the first sentence.

Published by Hogarth (a Penguin Random House imprint), the story follows “a worldly, beautiful black woman, Ruby Bell, and her struggle not to be destroyed by her home community of Liberty Township.” Bond was influenced by the work she has done in the past with at-risk-youth and a traumatic event in her family’s history.

The paperback edition was released today. Winfrey has interviewed Bond and the full conversation will appear in the March 2015 issue of magazine. Click here to view a video that features Winfrey’s announcement.

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8. Queen Sugar To Be Adapted Into An OWN Series

Queen SugarOprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay will join forces to create an adaptation of Natalie Baszile’s book, Queen Sugar.

NPR.org reports that Baszile’s debut novel follows “a woman living in Los Angeles who moves to her father’s 800-acre sugar cane farm in Louisiana after his death.” Penguin Random House published it on February 2014.

In the past, Winfrey made an appearance in the film Selma which DuVernay directed. For this new project, both Winfrey and DuVernay will serve as executive producers. Winfrey will also take on a recurring acting role which marks “the first time she’s acted in an OWN series.” DuVernay has been tasked with additional duties as director and writer.

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9. Barbara Walters Declares George R.R. Martin to Be a Fascinating Person

georgerrmartinGeorge R.R. Martin has made it onto the 2014 edition of Barbara Walters’10 Most Fascinating People.”

Martin earned his place on Walters’ list due to the great popularity of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series and the Game of Thrones TV adaptation; both projects have made a serious mark in pop culture history.

The nine other people alongside Martin include Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, Chelsea Handler, Neil Patrick Harris, Scarlett Johansson, Taylor Swift, Michael Strahan, David Koch, and Amal Clooney. (via The Huffington Post)

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10. Jonathan Franzen to Publish New Novel in 2015

Franzen 200Jonathan Franzen (pictured, via) has been working a new novel entitled Purity.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux will publish the book in September 2015. Philip Weinstein will share an analysis of Purity in his forthcoming biography, Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage.

Here’s more from The New York Times: “The story centers on a young woman named Purity Tyler, or Pip, who doesn’t know who her father is and sets out to uncover his identity. The narrative stretches from contemporary America to South America to East Germany before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and hinges on the mystery of Pip’s family history and her relationship with a charismatic hacker and whistleblower.”

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11. Who Would Usher Recruit For a Book Club?

UsherUsher headlined the “Bigger Than Words” webcast at Scholastic headquarters. The Grammy Award-winning recording artist (pictured, via) took part to support the “Open a World of Possible” literacy initiative.

During the event, one kid in the audience asked Usher who he would recruit for a book club. The entertainer named actor Morgan Freeman, actress Scarlett Johansson, media mogul Oprah Winfrey, and cartoon superstar SpongeBob SquarePants.

Usher later sat for an interview with Vulture and confessed that he forgot to mention that he also wants Sean Connery to be a member of his book club. Follow this link to watch a full replay of the webcast.

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12. HarperCollins Releases an Enhanced eBook Edition of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

To Kill a MockingbirdHarperCollins has published an enhanced eBook edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

The company released the normal To Kill a Mockingbird eBook back in July 2014. The enhancement features on this digital book include a radio interview with Lee, footage from the 1962 film adaptation, audiobook clips performed by Sissy Spacek, and snippets from the Hey Boo documentary with appearances from Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw, and Anna Quindlen.

According to The Associated Press, “HarperCollins spokeswoman Tina Andreadis says the new Mockingbird edition had received 6,500 pre-orders, far more than for the usual ‘enhanced’ book. She says the publisher has sold 80,000 copies of the regular eBook, a figure comparable to print sales. Total worldwide sales exceed 30 million copies since the book’s 1960 release. Both eBook editions are priced at $8.99.”

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13. Elizabeth Gilbert Talks Inspiration in a ‘Super Soul Sunday’ Short Film

Writer Elizabeth Gilbert starred in an Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday short film discussing the inspiration for her most recent novel, The Signature of All Things.

Some of the items that helped Gilbert to shape the story include a 1783 edition of Captain Cook’s Voyages from her family library, a 16th century theory concocted by a German mystic, and her own life philosophy on passion. We’ve embedded the entire short film in the video above—what do you think?

For the past few weeks, Gilbert has been appearing at a few of the stops on “Oprah’s The Life You Want” tour. Recently, she sat with Oprah Winfrey for a Super Soul Sunday interview. Follow this link to watch clips from the interview.

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14. Oprah Winfrey, Dav Pilkey, & David Mitchel Debut On the Indie Bestseller List

Captain UnderpantsWe’ve collected the books debuting on Indiebound’s Indie Bestseller List for the week ending September 13, 2014–a sneak peek at the books everybody will be talking about next month.

(Debuted at #1 in Hardcover Fiction) The Bone Clocks by David Mitchel: “Following a terrible fight with her mother over her boyfriend, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her family and her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as ‘the radio people,’ Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena.” (September 2014)

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15. Elizabeth Gilbert Shares Weird Advice on Passion

Elizabeth GilbertEat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert appeared at the Atlanta stop for Oprah Winfrey’s The Life You Want Weekend. Gilbert revealed on Facebook that she gave a presentation urging attendees to be “the hero of your own life’s story.”

During a Q&A with Winfrey and other guest speakers, Gilbert shared some odd advice on passion. For those who do not have a defined passion, Gilbert thinks it would be best to “follow your curiosity” because “it might lead you to your passion or it might not.”

Follow this link to check out an album of pictures on Facebook. The Huffington Post has uploaded a video clip that features Gilbert doling out this advice. Do you agree with Gilbert’s recommendation?

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16. Maya Angelou Honored by Michelle Obama, Oprah & Bill Clinton

Over the weekend, friends and family gathered at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. to honor the author and poet Maya Angelou, who passed away in May. Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama were among the featured speakers at the event. We've embedded the video for you to watch.

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17. Oprah Winfrey Will Narrate Her New Audiobook

Oprah Winfrey will narrate her upcoming audiobook What I Know For Sure. The  audiobook from from Macmillan Audio is based on the column in O, The Oprah Magazine which spawned from an interview with  film critic Gene Siskel, who asked her, "What do you know for sure?" The book is a collection of her best reflections from this column which have been edited and revised for the book. "We are thrilled that Oprah Winfrey will be reading her audiobook," stated Mary Beth Roche, President and Publisher at Macmillan Audio. "Throughout her career, Oprah has created unparalleled connections with millions of people. Listeners to the audiobook will appreciate hearing the thoughtful insights shared in this book in Oprah’s own voice. It is sure to be one of the most powerful and sought after audiobooks of the year." The audiobook goes on sale on September 2nd.

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18. BookExpo America Team Dances to ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams

What books make you happy?

The BookExpo America (BEA) team is “Happy (To Read).” The video embedded above showcases BEA staff members dancing with books to Pharrell Williams’ Oscar-nominated song, “Happy.”

continued…

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19. Flatiron Books to Publish Oprah’s New Book in September

flatironFlatiron Books will publish Oprah Winfrey‘s new book What I Know For Sure in September. The book will be the first publication from Macmillan’s new non-fiction imprint Flatiron Books.

The book will include a collection of essays that Winfrey published over fourteen years in the O, The Oprah Magazine column “What I Know For Sure.”

The writing has been revised and updated for the new book. ”…the essays offer a rare, powerful, and intimate glimpse into Oprah’s inner life—her thoughts, struggles, and dreams—while providing readers a guide to becoming their best selves,” explains the press release. “Candid, moving, exhilarating, uplifting, and frequently humorous, the words Oprah shares in What I Know For Sure shimmer with the sort of truth that readers will turn to again and again.”

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20. 2013 Library Lions Unveiled

nyplThe New York Public Library has revealed the 2013 Library Lions.

The five honorees include New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Katherine Boo, MacArthur Genius Junot Diaz, and noted essayist Marilynn Robinson. Tony Award-winning composer Stephen Sondheim. The Library Lions Gala for this year’s honorees will be held on November 4, 2013.

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21. Kitty Kelley to Write Book About the Women of the U.S. Senate

Oprah Winfrey and Frank Sinatra biographer Kitty Kelley has landed a book deal to write about the women of the U.S. Senate. Publication has been set for Spring 2016.

The book will look at the 113th Congress, but focus on the “divinely diverse and one-fifth female” U.S. Senate. WSK Management CEO Wayne Kabak negotiated the deal with publisher Jamie Raab. Raab will also edit the book.

Kelley explained in the release: “As a woman who cheers the accomplishments of other women on both sides of the aisle, I come to this project with a positive bias, and I am eager to learn if the combined talents and collegiality of women will make a difference in the way our laws are made and the country’s business is conducted. More importantly, through in-depth reporting I will try to answer the question that so many are asking: can the presence of women break the ugly gridlock now choking Congress?”

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22. Oprah’s Book Club 2.0: The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

At Bookfinds we are all thrilled that Oprah is back making book club selections. Her second pick, following the critically acclaimed WILD by Cheryl Strayed is a debut novel by Ayana Mathis, The Twelves Tribes of Hattie. The televised interview with Ayana will appear on OWN’s Super Soul Sunday, February 3rd. The New York Times Book Review recently featured the latest Oprah 2.0 pick on their cover. Interestingly, there was no mention of Oprah or her book club in the review. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, by Ayana Mathis (RH/Knopf) was reviewed by Isabel Wilkerson, the author of the prize-winning, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, (Random House, 2010).”

Wilkerson wrote that Twelve Tribes was ”raw and intimate…a brutal and poetic allegory of a family beset by tribulations…Mathis tempers the more operatic elements with tenderness and knowing glimpses into the human heart struggling to love…deeply felt.” She says “The story it tells works at the rough edges of history, residing not so much within the migration itself as within a brutal and poetic allegory of a family beset by tribulations.”

Oprah is working on making her newest version of the book club much more interactive online. She is offering lots of videos and reading group questions on her website, devoting a Twitter page to discussions and leading a Goodreads forum. Here you can join the Official Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 group on Goodreads

Below are a few of the glowing endorsements that The Twelve Tribes of Hattie has received.
“The opening pages of Ayana’s debut took my breath away. I can’t remember when I read anything that moved me in quite this way, besides the work of Toni Morrison.”
-Oprah Winfrey

“Lush yet deliberate…elegant and sure…a complex and deeply humane story of a mother’s ferocious love and failures at loving…In the vivid specificity of Mathis’s tale, she is telling a universal story, and it is profoundly consoling.”
-Laura Collins-Hughes, The Boston Globe

“Mathis never loses touch with the geography and the changing national culture through which her characters move. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is infused with African Americans’ conflicted attitudes about the North and the South during the Great Migration…In the long family arc that Mathis describes, the painful life of one remarkably resilient woman is placed against the hopes and struggles of millions of African Americans who held this nation to its promise…One of the best [novels] of 2012.”
-Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“A triumph…a stone-cold stunner of a novel…magnificently structured, and a sentence-by-sentence treasure – lyric, direct, and true.”
-David Daley, Salon

“The influence of Toni Morrison will be evident in this remarkable page-turner of a novel that spans decades and covers dreams lost, found, and denied.”
-Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune, “Editor’s Choice”

“This brutal, illuminating version of the twentieth century African-American experience belongs alongside those of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Zora Neale Hurston.”
-Marion Winik, Newsday

“A poetic novel…that focuses less on American progress than on the small but powerful moments that are strung together, like beads on a necklace, to make one long strand of a family’s history…Like Toni Morrison, the author has a gift for showing just how heavily history weighs on families, as a learned sense of hope or despair gets passed down from parents to children and dreams die little by little, generation after generation. But if the endless heartbreaks sound melodramatic, Mathis earns your sympathy by making the rare moments of happiness feel simple and true.”
-Entertainment Weekly, Grade: A-

“A stirring, soulful novel that spans 60 years and is told in many rich and varied voices. It’s the story of one formidable woman, and of her children-the ‘tribes’-at different stages of their sprawling lives. It’s the story of the Great Migration, and of its ripping, aching effects across the 20th century…The Twelve Tribes of Hattiewallops you from the first chapter, but the book’s emotional power grows with the story as the decades pass and the scope of this family’s life is revealed.”
-Shelf Awareness

“Hypnotic…evocative, ambitious…encompassing Dickinson, Morrison, and the poetry of Rita Dove…Mathis understands both heritage and craft.”
-The Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Mathis’ writing is beautiful and confident; she moves from one voice and scene to the next with ease and creates rich characters and vivid settings. She gets to the heart of these people, gets their voices just right and gives each one a unique perspective and personality…Literary readers will enjoy the craftsmanship and emotional reach, and it’s a natural choice for book clubs with lots to talk about…It’s a beautiful work with more than a dash of heartbreak and hope.”
-Boston Bibliophile

“An exploration of race, gander, and struggle…Mathis writes with power and insight. Though less lyrical, she is a more accessible writer than Toni Morrison.”
-USA Today

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is a vibrant and compassionate portrait of a family hardened and scattered by circumstance and yet deeply a family. Its language is elegant in its purity and rigor. The characters are full of life, mingled thing that it is, and dignified by the writer’s judicious tenderness towards them. This first novel is a work of rare maturity.”
-Marilynne Robinson

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is beautiful and necessary from the very first sentence. The human lives it renders are on every page lowdown and glorious, fallen and redeemed, and all at the same time. They would be too heartbreaking to follow, in fact, were they not observed in such a generous and artful spirit of hope, in a spirit of mercy, in the spirit of love. Ayana Mathis has written a treasure of a novel.”
-Paul Harding

“Writing with stunning authority, clarity, and courage, debut novelist Mathis pivots forward in time, spotlighting intensely dramatic episodes in the lives of Hattie’s nine subsequent children (and one grandchild to make the ‘twelve tribes’), galvanizing crises that expose the crushed dreams and anguished legacy of the Great Migration….Mathis writes with blazing insight into the complexities of sexuality, marriage, family relationships, backbone, fraudulence, and racism in a molten novel of lives racked with suffering yet suffused with beauty.”
-Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred)

“Remarkable…Mathis weaves this story with confidence, proving herself a gifted and powerful writer.”
-Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Cutting, emotional…pure heartbreak…though Mathis has inherited some of Toni Morrison’s poetic intonation, her own prose is appealingly earthbound and plainspoken, and the book’s structure is ingenious…an excellent debut.”
-Kirkus Reviews (starred)

 

SUMMARY:

A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family.

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented.  Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave.  She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation.

Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream, Mathis’s first novel heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

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23. Oprah Winfrey Picks The Twelve Tribes of Hattie as Her Book Club 2.0 Selection

Oprah Winfrey revealed her second Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis. Published by Knopf, the book “tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one indomitable heroine.”

Winfrey explained her choice: “The opening pages of Ayana’s debut took my breath away … I can’t remember when I read anything that moved me in quite this way, besides the work of Toni Morrison.”

Winfrey will release an Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 edition of the book. She will interview Mathis on Sunday, February 3 at 11 a.m. ET/PT on OWN’s “Super Soul Sunday,” but the episode will air on Oprah.com and OWN’s Facebook page and on Oprah Radio’s “Oprah’s Soul Series” on Sirius radio.

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24. September Eureka Moments

Even if you don’t work in a school media center, I’m guessing your life still tends to run on an academic schedule when you work with teens. So welcome to the new school year! Here’s what I think might be interesting, useful, or intriguing to you and your patrons this month.

  • If your teens are interested in what’s new in the going green movement, have them look more globally to see what’s going on. In coastal Ecuador, young people from farming families are heading up efforts to save, cultivate, and redistribute heirloom seeds to revitalize the environment and help farmers prosper. Part of an organization called FOCCAHL, 20-year-old Cesar Guale Vasquez travels throughout nearby areas collecting seeds from farmers and also hosts swapping events so that farmers can trade seeds with each other in order to have more vibrant and diverse crops. Now take that for inspiration and add to it your own library’s resources on climate change, farming, and nutrition and plan an interesting program that combines science with activism and see what your advisory board wants to do with it. Many libraries now are creating their own seed libraries, and whether they’re for wildflowers or corn, they can be a great way to bring communities together, get young people to work with older people, and freshen up your local environment while doing your small part to keep the world cleaner and greener.
    Matthews, J. (2012). Ecuador’s seed savior. World Ark, May 2012: 10-15.
  • At the beginning of the school year, many teens are interested in refining or experimenting with their personal style. There is generally no shortage of mainstream fashion and beauty advice in the magazines and books you have in your collection already, but there might be a population you’re missing, and they’re getting bigger and more vocal. While the natural hair trend has been growing for years, the recent O Magazine cover presenting Oprah Winfrey with her hair relaxer-free has sparked a lot of talk. The social news web is blowing up with discussions of hegemony (the prevalence of hair relaxers in the African American community has been linked to unrealistic standards of white beauty), harassment (nearly everyone with natural curls, regardless of race, has experienced strangers touching their hair without asking first), and self image (who decides what’s beautiful, and is it more important to do what you think is pretty on you or to make a political statement with your hair?). Take a look at the reports of the Oprah cover at Sociological Images and Jezebel (it’s worth taking a look at the comments, too, but they’re probably NSFW and can get heated), and then consider hosting a discussion club or making a display of books on beauty. If you’re not sure where to start, I suggest Naturally Curly, one of the premiere websites (with social components, news, and shopping) for natural hair of all textures.
  • STEM, STEM, STEM. Everybody wants students to engage with science, technology, engineering and math. Federal money is pumped into it. Grants support it. But do teens and tweens care for it? In a study of middle school students, researchers analyzed both boys’ and girls’ wishful identification with scientists on television shows to see what factors influenced positive feelings (possibly indicating an interest in pursuing a science career or hobby). They found that boys were more likely to identify with male scientists and girls with female scientists, which is unsurprising. What was more interesting is that the genre of the television show affected the positive feelings. Scientist characters on dramas were more likely to elicit wishful identification than those on cartoons or educational programs. What can you do with this information? Plenty. For your next film screening, try a drama or documentary that presents scientists in a good light, like Cool It, And the Band Played On, or Einstein and Eddington. If you want to take a crack at those who think that being good at science or math makes you a loser, connect STEM with the things teens already love, like working out, YouTube, and the Web by taking a look at the 35 fittest people in tech, videos by Vi Hart, who turns mathematical concepts and history into snarky audiovisual narratives, or how-tos at Lifehacker.
    Steinke, J., et al. (2011). Gender Differences in Adolescents’ Wishful Identification With Scientist Characters on Television. Science Communication, 34(2): 163-199.
  • Whether you’re in library school or you’ve been working for years, you might find Hack Library School’s new starter kit series interesting, especially their post on services to children. Anyone want to volunteer to write the starter kit for youth services? On a related note, Teen Librarian Toolbox has a post on what to do about all that stuff they don’t teach you in library school (I’m taking notes).
  • If you’ve been trying to find a way to collaborate with nearby schools, see if you can get an advisory group to have a meeting with local teachers (it might be a good idea to make sure that the teachers are not teachers of the teens in your group so as to encourage openness and honesty) and start a dialogue. The topic? Standardized tests. Students may feel like teachers are against them, while teachers probably feel as if it’s administrators who are forcing them to be uncreative. So how do you get all sides to understand each other when schools are still tied to federal standards? For background information, try the journal Rethinking Schools‘ spring 2012 issue, which featured a special section on standardized tests. After a good discussion, maybe everyone can take fun “standardized tests” on personality types, books, or any other fun topics. Then see if students, teachers, and you can work together and form some sort of coalition that bridges the gaps between inside- and outside-of-school education, engagement, and issues. Start a collaborative blog. Take turns hosting book clubs at different places that feel like home to the different stakeholders in your group. What might be an interesting year-long project is to get everyone in the group to develop their ultimate standardized test to replace the ones they’re taking or proctoring in school. What skills do teachers and students think are most important to have before leaving the K-12 system? What topics do people in the real world need to know? Is it better to test knowledge orally? With essays? With student-led, student-designed creative projects? With their perspectives and your skills with information seeking, along with your vast collections, you should be able to create a really interesting partnership. And if you need more inspiration, check out these roundups of education blogs by both students and teachers, both here and here.

What are your plans for this upcoming academic year? As always, your questions, comments and suggestions are welcomed and encouraged!

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25. Oprah Winfrey Relaunches Her Book Club with ‘Wild’ by Cheryl Strayed

Oprah Winfrey relaunched her book club today, celebrating Wild by Cheryl Strayed in a video about “Book Club 2.0.” The New York Times broke the news with a Winfrey video and story.

“I was reading this book. As a real book. Holding up the book. I was on the edge of my seat reading the book and I was like, ‘Where is The Oprah Winfrey Show when you need to announce and tell everybody about this book? I need the book club.’ So I created Book Club 2.0 for this book, Wild by Cheryl Strayed!” cheered Winfrey, waving the book in a video presentation.

The new club will feature social media components, annotated eBooks and be tied in with Winfrey’s cable station.

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