I don’t like this book, but I can see the appeal for teens. A bit too much ebonics for me. It was just to negative. Tyrell was a positive street book even tho he had some hard topics to deal with, I think Tyrell was just a better read to me. I checked out the reviews on amazon so I could see how other people felt about it after I read it. I guess I’m not alone in not liking it but a few people loved it. Thats all I have to say, maybe I will read a different book by this author because I have heard good things.

Living in the Bronx, unfortunately it is easy for teens to get caught up crime. Tyrell understands this, but is refusing to get involved in drug dealing. This makes for a great teen role model. I wonder how many teens can deal with the topics that this book brigs up, adolescence, relationships with family and friends, foster care system, homelessness, poverty, secrets, and struggling to stay in school. Im sure they can I should be asking how many adults can deal with these topics, teens are pretty resilient. I would of recommended this book to all of the teens at Tri-County because they had stories very similar to this. I also think that the students I worked with in Somers Ct would benefit from reading this book because it it just a good story. They may not be able to relate to it as much but they can still enjoy it.

            Tri-County Schools in Easthampton, Massachusetts is a behavioral special education school with about 120 students. That means the students that attend the school are labeled as behavioral problems. The student’s original school district pays anywhere from $50,000 to $60,000 a year for the student to attend Tri-County Schools. The ages range from 7 to 20 years old with the majority of the students attending the middle and high schools. The school is split into three wings for the Elementary, Middle and High schools. There is one library that services the three schools. It includes about 15 computers, a lot of bookshelves and a few tattered books. The majority of the books donated from surrounding schools and libraries. In the last few years the school has purchased quite a few book sets from Scholastic books. These are used for reading classes, so the whole class can be reading the same book at the same time. Scholastic books has also offered Tri-County Schools a grant to expand their library. For every book that Tri-County Schools buys Scholastic books will match that dollar for dollar. This is a great opportunity for the school to expand their library.

            For this collection development experiment I want to concentrate on the Middle and High schools section of the library but more specifically, I want to give the library a “behavioral section”. Currently the library has no order to it. It is not organized by Dewey or Cutter. It is alphabetized by author’s last name but there is no cataloging program. That means that the students can’t even check out a book. The current book borrowing policy is, a teacher can take their class to the library and the students can use the books in the library or take them back to the classroom but the teacher is responsible for the book. In other words no one knows where the books are and there is no way to track down a book if you need it or tell how long someone has had a book. Honestly it’s a stretch to call it a library. The book sets are on a sign out by teacher only so they have are easier to keep track of.

            I want to add a collection of books that these particular students would enjoy. These students are mostly foster children, or children who live in residential programs. They have been through more then most people can imagine. Sadly they think they are the only ones going through these tough times and feel there is no one to help them. Even though the teachers, counselors and other staff try to be there for the students as much as possible, there is such a high turn over rate for staff that it is hard for the students to become comfortable with the new people. My hope is having a collection of books that these students can relate to will help them through their hard times. This can provide an escape for the students. A while back the students were poled about what books they would be interested in reading. This is where the idea of behavioral books came from.

            I am not going to concentrate on the rest of the library because I think this is the most important section. This section currently does not exist so I am building it from scratch. 

Recently I have seen two book trailers. One for James Paterson’s The Final Warning and another was for Sundays at Tiffanies by Nicolas Sparks. The marketing was pretty good I saw the James Paterson trailer during an episode of Law and Order. The Nicolas Sparks I stumbled on when I was flipping channels this afternoon. I think Charmed was on. So they know their audiences well enough to predict what TV shows they will watch. The Nicolas Sparks trailer was kind of sappy and girly but the James Paterson trailer looked very exciting and adventurous. I wonder if the books will sell more copies and how well these will work. Has any one else seen these or other book trailers on TV? I think that the James Paterson trailer must be targeting adults because I don”t think many teens watch Law and Order but I bet they watch a lot of Charmed!