Book Review: Have a Little Faith

When Mitch Albom’s Rabbi asks him to write his eulogy, he feels both humbled and uneasy about honoring a “man of God” who has touched and inspired so many people. Although Albom has known “the Reb” since he was a child, he wants to be sure he captures the true character of the Rabbi, Albert Lewis. Thus begins the treasured relationship which Albom has with Rabbi Lewis for eight years. As he interviews and spends time with him, Albom realizes that the Rabbi is an incredibly giving and forgiving person who has a tremendous amount of love for people and life. Paralleling his visits with Rabbi Lewis, Albom befriends Henry Convington, a Detroit pastor who is a former drug addict and criminal. As Albom witnesses Convington’s unselfishness and devotion to helping the homeless and needy, Albom clearly sees that faith can be found in all religions. This is a wonderfully inspiring true story which stresses the importance of community and of the power of tolerance.

Mitch Albom speaks with Katie Couric about "Have a Little Faith":

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New MacBooks Have Arrived!

Great news! On Friday we had 30 new MacBooks delivered to our library! Are you a "PC" kind of person? No worries: these are dual-boot which means that you can boot-up in either the Windows or Mac platform with the click of your touchpad.

Since there has been some confusion about how to save to the network on a Mac, I've provided a mini-tutorial below which guides you through the steps. You can also find this tutorial on our library website.Saving On Macs

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Review: Picking Cotton

Picking Cotton is the true story of Ronald Cotton, a black man accused of raping a white, college-aged woman in the 1980’s. The victim, Jennifer Thompson, picks Cotton out of a line-up and has no question in her mind that this was the man who broke into her apartment and raped her as she lay in bed. Eleven years after Cotton is sentenced to life in prison, new DNA evidence proves that, without a doubt, Cotton could not have been the man who committed the crime.

The book is jointly written by Cotton and Thompson, with the help of writer, Erin Torneo. In alternating chapters, we hear about both Thompson’s mental anguish and Cotton’s denial to freedom. The reader can easily sympathize with both “victims” and can’t help but feel that the system has failed them both. The positive side of the story is that after Cotton is released from prison, Thompson gets in touch with Cotton, and they both form an alliance towards changing the way in which suspects are identified. In fact, you may have seen the two of them on TV as they spread their message across the nation. (See the 60 minutes clip below).
The website for Picking Cotton has a lot of interesting information as well, including the actual case files, a book trailer, and an eye-witness test to see how well you do at identifying suspects (I failed miserably!) Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson have a compelling story which everyone must hear!


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Follow Authors on Twitter

I've been using Twitter for a few years now to extend my PLN and to stay updated on news and events related to education and technology. In many ways, it has replaced my RSS subscriptions since my "peeps" tweet about the latest article, new novel release or Web 2.0 tool that I may want to know about. At the beginning of the school year, I created a Twitter account for my library, LibraryLines, so that I could broadcast any library news to all of my followers. True, I don't have many followers to LibraryLines yet, but I sincerely believe that Twitter's popularity will grow and that eventually students and parents will realize its many benefits. Twitter is not all about "what are you doing?" as it has advertised in the past, but more about "what can you share?"

And now, with newly released Twitter lists, Twitter has even more to share! Over the weekend I busily created lists of librarians and lists of authors whom I follow. Now I can quickly sort my tweets by category and , even better, share my lists with others.
So here, my friends, is my small but growing list of authors on Twitter. Find out where writers are touring, what books they are working on, what they are blogging, or simply what their passions are. It's truly a wonderful look into to the lives of authors.

By the way, the highlight of my weekend was when I saw that Ishmael Beah reciprocated my follow by also following me. Pretty cool stuff!