{"id":13921,"date":"2016-09-01T00:01:21","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T04:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=13921"},"modified":"2016-09-01T09:25:04","modified_gmt":"2016-09-01T13:25:04","slug":"surviving-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/surviving-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Surviving School"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of the summer, Children’s libraries will traditionally put together a picture book display about going back to school. Anxious, soon-to-be students can read these books and find their fears comforted, learn about the fun that awaits them, and tackle any number of school-related issues that might be keeping them from sleeping soundly at night.\u00a0This year we decided to try a different approach for our older patrons. Instead of comforting them, we highlighted books in which the schools in question were decidedly frightening. Our\u00a0You Wouldn’t Want to Go Here!\u00a0<\/strong>display has proved to be exceedingly popular. Students seem to appreciate the comparison between their relatively normal school life and the horrors that await them in some of the following books.<\/p>\n

\"sinister\"In Nikki Loftin’s 2012 tale\u00a0The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy<\/em><\/a> a strange new school appears in Lorelei’s town almost immediately after her original school burns to the ground. Though Splendid Academy seems perfect, the bowls of candy, extra butter at meal time, and lack of homework seem out of place. As the story progresses and Lorelei comes to see the true horror that awaits the students at Splendid, readers are treated to a chilling, action-packed adventure (with plenty of good snacks). This modern update on Hansel and Gretel casts the witch as a terrible principal who wants to eat her pupils. Even homework is more appealing than being eaten by a witch!<\/p>\n

\"rooskill\"A witch (or some other foul hell-creature) is also stalking the students at Rookskill Castle in Janet Fox’s\u00a0The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle<\/a><\/em>, 2016. Set in Britain during WWII, the story follows three siblings who are shipped to a boarding school in the misty Scottish countryside to keep them safe from the war. The eldest, sensible Kate, has always followed her country’s mantra to “keep calm and carry on” but is finding it harder and harder to cling to that saying as she discovers potential Nazi spies, strange children, ghosts, and a headmistress with a gleaming hunger in her eyes. Seamlessly blending horror, history, and magic, this thrilling tale has been delighting patrons in our library since its release.<\/p>\n

Other series which work well for this display include\u00a0The Iron Trial<\/a> (<\/em>who wants to go to school under the ground and never see daylight?),\u00a0The Girl Who Could Fly<\/a> (<\/em>the government has nefarious plans for your abilities), and any of the schools in dystopian societies like\u00a0The Giver<\/a>, The Museum of Thieves<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The Wall and the Wing<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

What schools do you enjoy reading about but would rather avoid IRL?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of the summer, Children’s libraries will traditionally put together a picture book display about going back to school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[236,47,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-elisabeth-gattullo","category-collection-development","category-evaluation-of-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}