Read Your Way to the Big Game!

Gettys Middle School students can join students across South Carolina in a reading contest. Two students in South Carolina will win 4 tickets, sideline passes, and pregame activities for the Palmetto Bowl! If we have over 70% of our school participating, we will be entered to win $2000 for our school library and a teacher could win $500 for their classroom.

You can't win if you don't read!

How can you win?

1. Pick up a reading log from your advisory teacher and start reading. (OR you can print this form.)
2. Record each book title and author. You can choose any books as long as they are at an appropriate reading level for you.
3. Turn your reading log in to your ELA teacher BY OCTOBER 29th!!
4. Keep your fingers crossed until the Education Oversight Committee announces the two lucky winners from South Carolina.

Below is the letter to Parents and Families:

Parents and Families!
Help your child qualify to win Palmetto Bowl tickets by participating in EOC's Read Your Way to the Big Game contest!

The SC Education Oversight Committee believes reading is a child's key to success in school and life. That's why the EOC is emphasizing reading through its Read Your Way to the Big Game contest. The goal of the contest is to get your child excited about reading!

Entering your child in the contest is simple! Make sure your child reads six reading-level appropriate books, complete the book list and return it to your child's teacher for a chance to win.

All students who meet the six-book challenge qualify for the drawing for the grand prize: a chance to win a trip to the Palmetto Bowl.

There will be two winners - one for USC and one for Clemson. Each winner will receive four tickets, sideline passes, and pre-game activities. Students must choose a team and can only enter once. Participation is limited to students in South Carolina elementary and middle public schools. All students will receive a bookmark.

Pick a team--USC ir Clemson--and start reading TODAY!

Library Orientation

If you haven't already done so, or you'd just like to look around again, be sure to view the GMS media center orientation:

Welcome to 2015-16!

It's great to be back in the library for another jam-up year ahead. There'll be plenty of new Purrfect Picks, we've added a Selfie Station, and there are Kindle Paperwhites waiting for you!

Championship Round!

The Media Center March Madness Battle of the Books enters its final week today! The results are in, and the two books you have chosen will fight for the title of 2015 Book of the Year!

Here are the two Championship Round finalists:

The Raft, about a girl named Robbie who struggles to survive with the co-pilot after their plane crashes in the Pacific Ocean and they are left on a raft in shark-infested waters with only one bag of Skittles.

AND

The Ghost of Graylock, in which Neil Cady, his sister, and their new friends set out to explore Graylock Hall, an abandoned psychiatric hospital which is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of Nurse Janet.

Remember to vote at the March Madness table in the cafeteria or in the media center April 7th and 8th. The 2015 Battle of the Books Tournament winner will be announced on Monday, April 13th!

March Madness: Final Four!

The Media Center March Madness Battle of the Books enters Week Three today! Last week you voted for The Final Four, and the results are in! The books you chose are now fighting for a place in the Championship Round. Here are the 2015 Final Four:

Bracket 1: The Raft vs. The Revealers


Bracket 2: Pop Vs. The Ghost of Graylock



Remember to vote at the March Madness table in the cafeteria or in the media center tomorrow and Wednesday. The Battle of the Books Tournament finalists will be announced on Monday, April 6th!

Help Your Child Be a Better Reader

Growing Great Readers

March Madness: Elite Eight!

The Media Center March Madness Battle of the Books enters Week Two today! The Sweet Sixteen have been narrowed down to the Elite Eight, thanks to hundreds of student votes, and now it’s time to choose the Final Four. Everyone can vote in the media center and the cafeteria tomorrow and Wednesday.

Here are the Elite Eight titles:

• Bracket 1: The Raft vs. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
• Bracket 2: The Compound vs. The Revealers
• Bracket 3: Pop vs. How to Survive Middle School
• Bracket 4: The Ghost of Graylock vs. Eleven Birthdays

The Final Four will be announced on Monday, March 23!

March Madness!

March is National Reading Month, and what better way to celebrate than with a Media Center March Madness Battle of the Books?

The brackets are in place, and it's up to Gettys students and teachers to vote for the 2015 Book of the Year! First round voting will take place March 10th and 11th in the cafeteria during all lunches. Here are your Sweet Sixteen contenders:

• The Raft vs. The Great Wide Sea: which one floats your boat?
• Calpurnia Tate vs. Meggy Swann: two strong girls fight it out!
• The Compound vs. Incarceron: crazy dad in an underground bunker or a living prison which consumes its inmates—it’s your call!
• Bystander vs. The Revealers: two books about bullies; which one will come out on top?
• Crackback vs. Pop: one of these football novels will score a touchdown!
• How to Survive Middle School vs. Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Not Reading: which of these how-to manuals will get the job done?
• Eight Keys vs. Eleven Birthdays: two books with numbers in the title. Could one of them become Number One?
• Jade Green vs. The Ghost of Graylock: creepy, spooky, scary—let the spirit move you to vote for one of them!

The Elite Eight will be announced on Monday, March 16th!

Book Fair Success

The 2014 Book Fair was held October 27-31 and was a tremendous success! We met our goal of a 5% increase over last year's sales, and made a profit of $1724.94! The Easley Book Club once again sponsored Book Bucks gifts for dozens of lucky students and it seemed like everyone who came found something they wanted. Many thanks got to Mrs. Desai, who once again manned the register for the entire week. She is a Volunteer Superstar!

The calm before the storm . . .

Mrs. Desai is an amazing volunteer!

Minecraft books were HOT!

There is something for everyone at the GMS Book Fair!

Fall in Love with a New Book!

We've added many new series books this month. Look for books one through five of the new Erin Hunter Survivors series. There's also How They Choked, the sequel to How They Croaked, both by Georgia Bragg. Look for the third book in Lemony Snicket's All the Wrong Questions series: File Under 13 Suspicious Incidents. There's are two new James Patterson books called Middle School: How I Survived Bullies, Broccoli, and Snake Hill and I, Even Funnier. There are so many more!

It's Book Fair Week!

Are you ready for the best Book Fair ever?  This year's Gettys Middle School Book Fair has more teen titles than ever before! Will be open from 8 to 3 every day, and don't forget that you can shop online all the way through November 9!

October New Arrivals

Wow! They may not look like much on the cart, but this is a jam-up collection of new books! Check out some of the titles: Guinness World Records 2015; Chupacabra, Loch Ness Monster, and Pacific Giants, by J. Flitcroft; Full Ride, by Margaret Peterson Haddix; Cress, Book Three of the Lunar Chronicles, by Melissa Meyer; Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz; Books 1-5 of the new Survivors series, by Erin Hunter; and much much more! Stay tuned for details, or come on in and check 'em out.

Scare Up a Good Read at the Library!

Buwahahahaaaaaaa . . . It's that time of year again, when leaves are starting to curl up and die, chill winds are swirling down alleys and across abandoned lots, and friends are daring each other to knock on the door of that creepy house at the end of the road. That's right . . .  October is nearly upon us, and it's time to get ready for another spooktacular Halloween. Get a head start by checking out some of the creepy books the library has for you!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrr . . .

September 19 is my favorite holiday. It's Talk Like a Pirate Day! Check out great pirate books at the library:

Purr-fect Picks are Here!

I'm so pleased to announce Purr-fect Picks, a collection within the collection for readers in a hurry, unsure of where to start, or just looking for a great book! Click on the video link below to find out about Purr-fect Picks!

Read An eBook Day!

September 18th is Read An eBook Day! Read an eBook Day is a celebration of modern storytelling. Be a part of the festivities by checking your favorite eBook out from the library, sharing your reading stories, entering to win prizes or just simply setting aside some time to read. Celebrate with your fellow readers!

To check out eBooks from the GMS Library, you'll need your student username and password to log into Destiny. If you're on a laptop or dektop, use this link. If you're on a mobile device, get the Destiny Quest App and the Brytewave K-12 Edtion App from the App Store or Google Play. For the Destiny Quest setup you'll need to use destiny.pickens.k12.sc.us, and for Brytewave please type in wbb27719.follettshelf.com. For both apps, you'll want to stay logged in so you don't have to type everything in each time. Once you're set up, go to Follett Shelf, browse for an eBook, and check it out!

New Library Orientation

If you haven't already done so, or you'd just like to look around again, be sure to view the GMS media center orientation:

Welcome to 2014-15!

It's a whole new world in the GMS media center this year! I have so many new things to share with you: ebooks, Destiny Quest, Brytewave ebook reader, Remind, QR codes, other cool apps, and lots more. We're not packing, we're not moving, we're not under construction--woohoo!! There have been lots of changes, but we're still all about getting great stuff to read and being an awesome place for learning. I hope you'll stay tuned online and in the media center, and rediscover what a great place the library can be!

Seventh Graders Sizzle!

On March 14, a record 99 7th grade students attended Seventh Grade Sizzlers voting parties in the media center. There was plenty of music, food, and fun! Students voted for their favorite Sizzlers book and competed in an exciting Jeopardy challenge. The winning books were:

1. Stolen Children and Matched (tie)
2. Ruined
3. Chains

Participants also posted 637 comments on the Seventh Grade Sizzlers website during the 7-week program. Great work, everyone!

Readers' Choice Celebrations!

On Tuesday, March 12, 102 (!!!) 8th grade students came to the media center to celebrate their completion of Readers' Choice for 2012-13. Thay had 7 weeks to read and pass AR tests on 3 books from a great selection of books. They also posted an amazing total of  437 comments on the books at the Readers' Choice website! The top three books were:

1. The Compound
2. The Running Dream, Pop, and Between Shades of Gray (tie)
3. Incarceron and Trapped (tie)