Thursday 22 March 2012

Read & Recycle @ UWCSEA East


Need something to read over the spring break? 


Feel free to take a book from the "Read & Recycle" bookshelves outside the Kishore Mahbubani Library on the main plaza.  

We have books for all ages -- board books for babies, picture books, early readers, beginning chapter books, novels, nonfiction, travel guides,  business & economics textbooks, cookbooks, old Readers Digest magazines, etc.
The shelves outside the secondary library are part of a new service activity for handling second-hand book donations and supporting literacy.  High school students will be supervising primary school students in managing the process and keeping the shelves in order.

We only ask that you return the books that we have labeled specifically "Read & Recycle" (see photo below of the label) when you are done reading them so others may enjoy them.  But if you don't, we'll never know.  This is a total honor system.  We just want books to circulate.

NB:  Books with NO label are free for the taking.  You can take them home for good or read and pass on to others. 

How it works
Deliver your book donations to one of the libraries -- or place in the secondary library's Return Box outside the front door.

Books will be sorted into four categories.
  • Suitable for the school library;
  • Suitable for a global concern;'
  • Likely to be of interest to several people -- these books will get a "Read & Recycle" sticker and we expect people to return them after reading -- or pass them on to someone else;
  • Unlikely to be that popular -- these books will not get a sticker and will be free for the taking.  (These books are ones that need a good home.)
Money donations in appreciation of this service will be accepted, with proceeds going towards new books for children in Cambodia and Indonesia.  Twice a year there will be a book sale when all "Read & Recycle" books will be cleared.

Questions?  Contact Ms. Katie Day in the secondary library (kda@uwcsea.edu.sg / 8233-2922).

Sunday 18 March 2012

And the Red Dot Book Award winners are....

With 14 schools participating in the voting and over 7,000 votes cast in total, the winners for the Red Dot Book Awards in Singapore as a whole are:

Early Years

Younger Readers
Older Readers
Mature Readers

Within our campus, the winners were almost identical to the Singapore-wide ones.  The only difference was in the Younger Readers category, our students liked "Lunch Lady" better:


and in the Mature Readers category, "Stitches" was tied with "Ship Breaker".

The Readers Cup competition will be held on May 10, 2012, at our campus.

Titles (a subset of the shortlists for Younger, Older, and Mature readers) for the Readers Cup event will be announced within the next few days (as we know you're all anxious to start working).  Watch for more details about how the teams will be selected.

What about next year's Red Dot shortlists?  Well, we've already set up Goodreads Listopia lists to collect suggestions.  And our goal is to collect and consider these long lists by June -- and announce the shortlists BEFORE the June/July break.  So you can be reading over the summer.

NB:  To put a book on the suggestion list, you do have to have a Goodreads account.

Click below to access each of the lists -- and add whatever books you want.  I've populated the lists -- to start with -- with books from the Panda Book Awards (the China equivalent of the Red Dot awards) and the Sakura Medal (the Japanese equivalent).  Books should have been published in English in 2009, 2010, 2011, or 2012.


Questions?  Come ask Ms. Day in the secondary library -- or email me (kda@uwcsea.edu.sg).