Thursday, January 30, 2014

Book Bucket List | Academy Award Nominations... for movies based on books

Break out the champagne and $10,000 dresses, the Academy Awards are just around the corner!  The awards this year feature quite a few movies based on books.  Luckily, our libraries carry these titles, so you can find out what the original stories were like before they were made into the year's best films.

The film, Philomena, is based on the book of the same name follows the story of Philomena Lee, who was forced to give up her child for adoption in Ireland because she was unmarried.  Fifty years later, she joins forces with a journalist to find out what happened to her son.  This film is nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress for Judi Dench.  This book is available to our patrons from our Link+ system.

12 Years as a Slave by Solomon Northup was made into a movie this past year featuring some of the best acting, editing, and screenwriting of the year.  It's nominated for numerous awards including Best Picture.  It is the true story of Solomon Northup written by him in 1853.  Northup was living as a free man in New York, but was later kidnapped and sold into slavery in New Orleans.  The book is Northup's memoir of his experiences as a slave and what it took for him to reunite with his family.


Catching the Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort was made into the Wolf of Wall Street film by Martin Scorsese.  It's up for a ton of awards too, so everything will have some stiff competition.  This second book by Belfort was written after he spent two years in prison for securities fraud.  This book holds Belfort's reflections of what he did including all of the crazy illegal activities he partook in.


Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Learning | How about that weather?


This certainly has been a strange winter. Here in San Joaquin County, we are used to colder days, with rain and fog. After all, winter is supposed to be our wet season.

"Snow Roller," taken on January 27, 2014.
From Miranda Granche's photostream
 on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved.
While denizens of the San Joaquin Valley are enjoying unseasonably pleasant weather (but wishing for rain, because of the drought,) other parts of the United States are wishing they had a respite from the dreaded Polar Vortex.  So much snow and ice! You have seen it on the news, and in the social media. Even places that normally do not have freezing temperatures in the winter are getting snow.

A few days ago, one of my Facebook friends in Ohio posted pictures of a snow phenomenon I had never heard about: snow rollers. Some people call them snow tumbleweeds

If conditions are just right, the wind will make snowballs, all by itself. I found an article called "Mother Nature's snow balls" on one of SSJCPL's databases (EBSCO Host's Academic Search Premiere,) which explains that a combination of above-freezing temperatures and strong winds allow the softened snow to roll into balls.

"Snow rollers, snowballs made by the wind," 
from Duncan Rawlinson's photostream 
on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved.
You can read about snow rollers and other oddities of weather if you request the following title through SSJCPL's Link+ program:

Strange But True Weather, by Stacy B. Davids

You'll find a picture of a tumbleweed in The Cowboy ABC, by Chris Demarest.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Just Life | Your Appearance Matters

I recently read the following article; " When teachers favor attractive kids" on CNN. 

In a nutshell, it mentions that attractive kids have an easier time in school. As soon as I read the article, I forwarded it to my kid's teacher as a precaution.

We all judge people by their looks but my kid doesn't think so. " I am a tomboy mom, I don't care about my look," she tells me.

Do tomboys show up to school disheveled and untidy?

I have my job cut out for me. Let's hope she won't show up to her first job interview in her pajamas.

 



Here are a few books on this topic:

Wear this, toss that! : hundreds of fashion and beauty swaps that save your looks, save your budget & save you time

Oh no she didn't : the top 100 style mistakes women make and how to avoid them

Fashion 101 : a crash course in clothing

Signing off until next Monday- Panteha