For some not-so-light summer reading:
_Reading the Naked Truth: Literacy, Legislation, and Lies_ by Gerald
Coles
_Big Brother and National Reading Curriculum_ by Richard Allington et
al.
Both books take close looks at the National Reading Panel (NRP) report
"Teaching Children to Read." They are both highly critical of the
panel's methods and conclusion and raise lots of troubling questions
about current federal legislation and its effects on literacy education.
Allington's book includes a chapter by Stephen Krashen. The current
rush to get "hooked on phonics" could have serious implications for
library funding and staffing so I think these books are must-reads.
For a non-library related book I recommend _Fat Land: How Americans
Became the Fattest People in the World_ by Greg Critser. The author
pays special attention to juvenile obesity and its attendant health
problems (e.g. the juvenile diabetes epidemic). He discusses the
explosion of the fast food industry and the super-sizing phenomenon, the
lack of emphasis on P.E. in schools, outsourcing food services in
schools, and the sweetener high fructose corn syrup. He looks at the
biology, psychology and sociology of fat. As I approach forty at an
alarming speed (both in age and waist size) I found this book
fascinating and disturbing. You will never look at a bottle of soda the
same way.
----
Tony Doyle, Librarian
Livingston High School, Livingston, CA
tdoyle@muhsd.k12.ca.us
<Http://www.lhs.muhsd.k12.ca.us/library/index.htm>
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get
people to stop reading them."-- Ray Bradbury
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