Skyview Middle School Library

This week’s featured book is Nyxia, by Scott Reintgen. This trilogy is available at the Skyview Library. The video is slightly over 15 minutes, so it’s in two parts. Listen to the first chapter here (part 1) and here (part 2)!

Genre: Science Fiction

Description: What would you be willing to risk for a lifetime of fortune?

Emmett Atwater isn’t just leaving Detroit; he’s leaving Earth. Why the Babel Corporation recruited him is a mystery, but the number of zeroes on their contract has him boarding their lightship and hoping to return to Earth with enough money to take care of his family. Forever.

Before long, Emmett discovers that he is one of ten recruits, all of whom have troubled pasts and are a long way from home. Now each recruit must earn the right to travel down to the planet of Eden—a planet that Babel has kept hidden—where they will mine a substance called Nyxia that has quietly become the most valuable material in the universe.

But Babel’s ship is full of secrets. And Emmett will face the ultimate choice: win the fortune at any cost, or find a way to fight that won’t forever compromise what it means to be human.

Join me as I read the first chapter in this week’s book, Keeper of the Lost Cities, the first book in a series by Shannon Messenger.  Listen to the first chapter! If you’d like to read the rest of it, it’s available at the Skyview Library, and through Sora at the KPBSD digital library and the Alaska Digital Library.

Genre: Fantasy Fiction

Description: Twelve-year-old Sophie Foster has a secret. She’s a Telepath—someone who hears the thoughts of everyone around her. It’s a talent she’s never known how to explain.

Everything changes the day she meets Fitz, a mysterious boy who appears out of nowhere and also reads minds. She discovers there’s a place she does belong, and that staying with her family will place her in grave danger. In the blink of an eye, Sophie is forced to leave behind everything and start a new life in a place that is vastly different from anything she has ever known.

Sophie has new rules to learn and new skills to master, and not everyone is thrilled that she has come “home.” There are secrets buried deep in Sophie’s memory—secrets about who she really is and why she was hidden among humans—that other people desperately want. Would even kill for.

Just for fun, here are a couple of free printable holiday themed coloring pages. Enjoy.

Snow Globe

Christmas Tree

This week I’m reading the first chapter of A Christmas Carol. This book can be found at KPBSD’s digital library, through the Sora app if you’d like to finish reading it! If you don’t know how to use Sora, click here. This week’s recording is in two parts. I hope you enjoy it.

Part one

Part two

I’m starting something new called First Chapter Fridays. Every Friday I’ll be featuring a book that you can either check out from the Skyview Library, or on Sora, or both. I will read the first chapter, and if it’s interesting to you, you can place a hold and check it out. 

Today’s read has a holiday theme & is called Very Rich by Polly Horvath. It’s only available at the Skyview library. Listen to the first chapter.

There’s nothing like curling up under a blanket by the fire on a snowy winter’s evening and reading a good book. Check out this list of holiday reads available at the Skyview Library. Here’s everything you need to know about how to check out a book while everyone is remote. Don’t forget, your username is your student ID number WITHOUT the zero, and your password is your last name.

If you would like to see a book added to the library book shelves, please CLICK HERE to add your recommendations!

If you would like to see a book from the BOOK FAIR fair added to the library collection, just add a note to this wish list in Padlet and let me know. I can try to make it happen.

Padlet Book Fair Wish List

Start shopping now for books from the online book fair! Books ship directly to your home for free on orders over $30 ($4.99 flat rate shipping if under $30). Your purchases help support the Skyview Library. If you don’t want to buy a book, I’ve created a library wish list so that YOU can select books you’d like to see in the library. From the Wish List, simply find a book, click “Add to List” and it will be automatically saved.

Big Library Read connects readers around the world with the same book at the same time. Borrow Reverie today through Sora with no holds or waiting. Available through Nov. 16. Note: Contains mature themes. Ages 14 & up.

Description: All Kane Montgomery knows for certain is that the police found him half-dead in the river. He can’t remember how he got there, what happened after, and why his life seems so different now. And it’s not just Kane who’s different, the world feels off, reality itself seems different. So when three of his classmates claim to be his friends and the only people who can tell him what’s truly going on, he doesn’t know what to believe or who he can trust. But as he and the others are dragged into unimaginable worlds that materialize out of nowhere—the gym warps into a subterranean temple, a historical home nearby blooms into a Victorian romance rife with scandal and sorcery—Kane realizes that nothing in his life is an accident, and only he can stop their world from unraveling.