Oh, Canada!

Happy October, everybody!  It's been a great start to the school year here in the Uni High Library, and today I got to put up another awesome display to try to keep our readers reading.

You might not know this, but the second Monday in October is Canada's Thanksgiving.  What better way to celebrate the awesome Canadians that have shaped pop and literary landscapes than to devote a book display to them???

To say I had fun doing this is, well, an understatement.  Here's the method to my madness...

I searched various online sites for Canadian authors.  Goodreads' Listopia is always a good place to start, and I also did a basic Google search.  I also found a great site which listed a lot of famous Canadians, aptly entitled Famous Canadians.  From there I started to make scratch notes in my Thinkin' Notebook.  (Yes, that's what it's called.)

Now the real fun started.  I created a powerpoint to be my visuals for the display.  The powerpoint is all about the things we wouldn't have without Canadians.  My favorite is, "Without Canadians We Wouldn't Have...Hey, Girl! Memes."  Oh, Ryan Gosling.  Thank you for being Canadian.

The display is made of books we have in our collection, and this time I got to integrate a non-fiction source (even though I know no one will check it out, it makes the display well-rounded) and a few graphic novels.  (I had no idea the guy that wrote Scott Pilgrim or the guy that wrote Shoeless Joe is Canadian.  Thanks, Google search!)  I was sad we didn't have any Michael Ondaatje in our collection, because The English Patient is one of my favorite books, but I did learn about some new authors (the aforementioned Bryan Lee O'Malley and the crew behind Kill Shakespeare), so that makes this display very satisfying and worthwhile. 

One last observation: Canadian authors like to use their initials--L.M. Montgomery, E.K. Johnston, W.P. Kinsella.  Just a Canadian thing I guess.