Reading Matters for T/Ls: Suggested Books for Discussion

Email mekdahl@vsb.bc.ca if you would like to have access for discussion in the Virtual Book Clulb.

Book 1: Middlesex

• ME: Have you read it? It's a must-read. It is also reviewed as a book suited for the YA reader. Question: Is this book going into your school library collection?  

Book 2: Lullabies for Little Criminals

• ME: A must-read for anyone teaching. It's certainly hard to put down!
• Meredyth: Absolutely fascinating.  I didn't want to read it ... then couldn't put it down!
• ME:  I think every Vancouver educator should read this book.  While it's set in Inner City Montreal, the novel's location serves to remind us that some children must every day wake up to and then go home to face the brutal and unrelenting realities of poverty and/or addictions.  Baby faces the task that is her life with a grim sense of humour and a self-reliance that can bring you to tears and have you in stitches from one page to the next.  Bless this courageous little character and her hard-core look at some difficult lives.
• EB:  Baby narraties -- it's heart-wrenching and captivating to read about a 12 year old who fends for herself in the Inner City of Montreal.  It's a little heart-breaking ... but I don't want to give anything away.

Book 3: The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

SylviaZ - After I finished reading this book, I sent a copy to both of my sisters. In this book, Thomas L. Friedman explains his paradigm of the world after 1999, when the Berlin Wall came down and the world wide web was invented. He calls the world flat because now all the former Communist countries are competing for the same jobs and life style that North America has enjoyed, and the web allows individuals to work anywhere in the word and participate on a fairly equal playing field. The whole world is flat (no walls separating us) and connected so that an individual can run his company like a big company, and a big company can personalize their service like a small company. Fascinating explanations on how Wal-Mart works, the out-sourcing of jobs to India and China, why Ireland has the best economy in Europe, etc. On page 124, he writes about Wikipedia, " It is not an accident that IBM today has a senior staffer who polices Wikipedia's references to IBM and makes sure that everything that gets in there is correct." He has important points about privacy and reputations and how young people need to protect theirs at a much earlier age. When I mentioned this to my friend, a lawyer, he told me thaht he always googles people before a deposition or meeting. He also googles his children, too!

Glenys - when I ws in vietnam ... it turned out that the book the vietnamese man was reading was this book in translation because the point is that not hierarchy but horizontal relationships are the new basis for goods, services, and intellectual production

Mary - we're into knowledge production ... 

Book 5: The Dark Heart of Italy

Mary - I have been interested in the topic of Berlusconi and the crazy political life in Italy for a long time. B. is a fascinating character - one of the richest men in Italy, owns most of the media, always tanned, many facelifts, totally superficial. How did this man managed to be elected so many times?