KIS Book Fair 2015

“Books are the tickets leading to another world”

All students of KIS Jeju (elementary - middle - highschool) filled up the elementary school PAC,

set up like a mini-book store by What the Book?, and international book store located in Itaewon,

Seoul. Before the school year of 2014-15 ends, the KIS Jeju Spring Book Fair, held in 30th of

April and 1st of May, was the perfect opportunity for students to browse and choose the pieces

that they would be studying their next school year curriculums as well as meet the

recommendations from librarians and teachers, and even purchase them with cheaper prices.

The main purpose of the Book fair at KIS Jeju, says Miss Michelle Cave the librarian at school, is

to encourage students to enjoy reading and developing an interest in reading for leisure. The

Spring Book Fair is an opportunity for students to choose books that they can read over the

Summer break as it is important to keep reading in English during this time because for many

students, there will be less exposure to written and spoken English. Whilst KIS has lots of

fantastic books in libraries to borrow and read, the Book Fair gives students access to new

released books and some that may not be in KIS library collections.

The books at the fair were prudently selected for distinctive literary and classical skills for

students. The selections that were considered by a collaboration of What the Book? and KIS

librarians (Miss Melanie Sobool, Michelle Cave) include copies of the newest best sellers,

nominees and winners of Newbery awards, the Morning calm medals, Caldecott medals and

more recommendations.

The collection held a lot of excellent young adult fiction available. Miss Cave, who has read most

of the books that were at the fair, recommended the Morning Calm nominees selections by

librarians from international schools in Korea as suitable for students at KISJ.

Summer is coming up, and miss Cave is sure the Morning Calm selections will be appealing to

the students. Students are busy. Especially high school students can’t have spare time to read for

leisure.”Reading is a way to escape from those things that are stressing you…”, says miss Cave.

“It could only be for five minutes, or five hours but it enables you to go to a new place and have

a new experience. If you don’t want to read the words, listen to audio books.” All teachers and

librarians at KISJ are concerned about their stressing out students. Reading will be a ticket to

escape, and go to another world.

“When we read and write, we become super heroes, mermaids, wizards, angels, grown-ups and

crazy creatures.”

Special Thanks to Miss Michelle Cave for her amazing support and participation to the interview.

Recommendations by librarians

Morning Calm High School nominations:

https://morningcalmmedal.wordpress.com/

• The Shadow Hero - Gene Luen Yang & Sonny Liew (Graphic novel)

• The young Elites - Marie Lu (Fantasy)

• She is not invisible - Marcus Sedgwick (Mystery)

• This is what happy looks like - Jennifer E. Smith (Realistic fiction)

• The story of Owen: Dragon slayer of Trondheim - E.K. Johnston (Fantasy)

Some other books that would be great summer reading are:

• I am Malala - Malala Yousafzai (Biography)

• The Queen of Tearling - Erica Johansen (Fantasy)

• Glory O’Brien’s history of the future - A.S. King (Realistic fiction)

• Avalon - Mindee Arnett (Science Fiction)

• H2O - Virginia Bergin (Science Fiction)

• Both of Me - Jonathan Friesen (Adventure)

• Belzar - Meg Wolitzer (Realistic fiction)

• Lucky Us - Amy Bloom (Historical fiction)

• Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling (Fantasy)

• Percy Jackson series - Rick Rioden (Fantasy)