I have good news to share with you.  At the June Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Champaign County Chapter meeting, my request for $1,600 to purchase new books, mainly Easy Readers, was approved!  I have another request; would you help to prepare these new books for our students?  I am hoping to gather several volunteers on Wednesday, August 20^th from 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.  A few other small projects could also be completed, some require standing and some are sitting jobs.  This is the first day of school for the 2008 – 2009 school year and has an 11:30 a.m. dismissal.  Start building your FAITH Hours!  Please meet me in the library!

Over the summer book donations were brought in by the Pitcher and Lange families, Faye Drews and Sherryl Marsh.  Thank you all very much!  Have you been wanting to read Coach Bruce Weber’s book Through My Eyes or Dr. Suess’ The Sleep Book?  Now you can because of our generous donors. 

                                                                                    Ronda Craig,

                                                                                    St. John Lutheran School Librarian

We had a tremendous response to the “Books by the Bushel” program again this year.  Forty-one new books were purchased for our school library by many supporters of reading and St. John Lutheran School.  There will be a display in the school office from Wednesday, April 2, 2008 through Wednesday April 9; please stop by and take a look.  Thank you to all who contributed to this event.

The Birthday Book Club has added some new members.  Marlyn E. and Kelly T. had books chosen in their honor.  We hope that you both enjoyed your birthday.

Recently book donations were brought in by Alex C., Richele M. and Faye Drews.  Thank you very much for thinking of our school library!

Mrs. Rivers recently hosted the Scholastic Book Fair (did you see her promoting it on Channel 3?) and several books were purchased for individual classrooms and also for the school library.  Many students chose good books to read at home.  A special thanks to those who donated books to our library: Micah L., Sara M., Christopher M., Donna Oestreicher, the Pelafos Family (two books) and Mrs. Rivers.  Thank you everyone who participated, in any way, with the Scholastic Book Fair.

The Junior League of Champaign – Urbana is offering the “Books by the Bushel” program again this year.  Please consider going to Pages for All Ages Bookstore, 1201 Savoy Plaza, Savoy, Friday, March 7 through Sunday, March 9, 2008.  There will be 49 great books for you to choose from that our school library would LOVE to own.  Pages is also giving a 20% price reduction!  At a later date the purchased books will be proudly displayed in the school office.  Inside of each book will be a book plate listing the donors’ name(s) and, if you wish, you may also dedicate the book to a loved one, a special teacher, an anniversary or an important occasion.

Over the past few weeks we have helped to celebrate Henry E.’s birthday through the Birthday Book Club program.  We also celebrated my daughter, Robin C.’s birthday. Robin turned 28 on January 28, 2008.  Robin was a student in the first class that our own Mr. Yagow taught here at St. John; this was school year 1990 – 1991.  To recognize this milestone and show my appreciation to Mr. Yagow, I asked Mr. Leffler to please present this book to him.  After all, since I was feeling quite old having a child that age, I wanted to share some of that “I can’t believe how quickly time flies by” feeling with Mr. Yagow.

Thank you to Linda Bruns-Wise and our good friend, Fay Drews, for your kind donations of books and magazines to our school library!

A huge THANK YOU goes to Mrs. Laurie McDonald, the third grader mother, for assisting in the library on Thursday afternoons.  This is the second year that she has been helping St. John students in the library.  Mrs. McDonald also volunteers with several other programs that help St. John to be the wonderful school that it is.  Thank you Mrs. McDonald and to ALL of the volunteers at St. John!
Curl up some place warm with a good book.

Sincerely,
Ronda Craig
School librarian