Rockport Public Library hosts the following book clubs. We would be happy to have you join us.
Sunday Book Chat
The Book Chat will meet on May 19 at 1:00 p.m.
to discuss Louise Erdrich's The Round House
.
From
Publishers Weekly:
Erdrich, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, sets her newest in 1988 in an Ojibwe community in North Dakota; the story pulses with urgency as she probes the moral and legal ramifications of a terrible act of violence.
When tribal enrollment expert Geraldine Coutts is viciously attacked, her ordeal is made even more devastating by the legal ambiguities surrounding the location and perpetrator of the assault-did the attack occur on tribal, federal, or state land? Is the aggressor white or Indian? As Geraldine becomes enveloped by depression, her husband, Bazil (the tribal judge), and their 13-year-old son, Joe, try desperately to identify her assailant and bring him to justice.
The teen quickly grows frustrated with the slow pace of the law, so Joe and three friends take matters into their own hands. But revenge exacts a tragic price, and Joe is jarringly ushered into an adult realm of anguished guilt and ineffable sadness. Through Joe's narration, which is by turns raunchy and emotionally immediate, Erdrich perceptively chronicles the attack's disastrous effect on the family's domestic life, their community, and Joe's own premature introduction to a violent world.
—
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Current Issues
Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning by Charles Schwann and Bernice McGarvey will be the topic for the next meeting of the Current Issues Book Group on Wednesday, May 29 at 3:00 p.m. in the Trustees Room.
Book Description
Meeting the individual learning needs of every learner, every hour, of every day although espoused by educators, has only been a dream.....an impossible dream for educators facing student-teacher ratios of 25 to 1. But, alas, it is now a reality....a reality that is hiding in plain sight.
Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning(MCL) describes a detailed vision of how schools can change from the present outdated Industrial Age, assembly line structure to a mass customized learning structure with the capacity to meet the individual learning needs of every learner.....that's every learner, not some, not most, but every learner. iTunes, Amazon.com, Verizon, Wikipedia, and Google (to name a few) are doing it right now. They prove to us daily that mass customization is effective and efficient and...well...doable. Let's marry those powerful, customizing technologies with the power mission of educators to personalize learning. Everyone wins. The learner wins. And when the learner wins, so do educators, parents, society, and the economy. Inevitable provides a solid rationale for the structural change, identifies the proven technologies of today that make the vision doable, details the potential MCL has to motivate learners to high achievement, describes teacher roles that are highly professional, and outlines and concretely describes what school systems must do to make MCL a reality. The authors of Inevitable use a "weight bearing wall" metaphor to identify the Industrial Age walls (practices) that prevent us from meeting individual learner needs. Leaders are then shown how new customizing technology walls can replace those Industrial Age walls . . . and the roof will not fall in! Yes, leaders can operate a MCL system and still remain in control! The transformational change of MCL becomes clear, logical, and believable. Mass Customizing Learning is necessary and ..... well.... Inevitable . . . and this book describes how to do it. History Book Club
The History Book Club will meet on Wednesday, May 29, at 7:00 p.m. to discuss people and events in Africa from 1900 to 2013. You are invited to read any nonfiction book on the topic and come and join the lively discussion.Possible topics include:
- Independence movements of the 1960s
- Zimbabwe and Mugabe
- South Africa and Mandela
- Uganda and Idi Amin
- Rwanda
- The Congo
- Algeria
- Tunisia
- Angola
- Niger
Poetry Group
The Poetry Readers will resume their monthly meetings in September. For further information, please contact Suellen Wedmore at 978-546-3754.
Rockport Book Group The Rockport Book groups' daytime group meets the first Thursday of every month, the evening group meets the second Wednesday of every month. For information on how to join this group or to start your own group please contact Elizabeth Reed; book group coordinator by email: elizabethreed@verizon.net
Shakespeare Readers
The Shakespeare Readers' next meeting will be in September. Enjoy the summer!