If you or your child(ren) borrowed a stack of library books for the June / July holiday, please note that they were due on August 8th. Please help us restock our shelves by bringing books back so others may borrow them. Many of our books are in storage during the construction project, so the more books we have in circulation in our temporary space, the better for everyone. Thanks for your help!

Whether you are returning or new, stop by the library (currently situated in the Palm Pavilion during the construction project) to stock up on some fantastic regional reads. In addition to having a wide array of guidebooks and field guides for South Central Africa (with the newest ones arriving in our shipment shortly), we also have an excellent selection of regional fiction & non-fiction reads. Topping the charts in this area is the great Zambian novel The Old Drift (2019) by Zambian author Namwali Serpell. On the penultimate day of school last year, we were honored to have Ms. Serpell join us in Tiyende Pamodzi Theatre for a reading from her acclaimed novel and a presentation about the history of Zambia's space program. Our AISL Poet Laureate for the 2019-20 school year, Laura (class of 2020), introduced our esteemed guest and a group of National Honor Society students served as greeters and ushers for the evening. Barefeet Theatre, a local arts group, performed a spoken word piece based on the mosquito chorus from The Old Drift. The event concluded with a book signing by the author. We have multiple copies in the library for checkout.
 
If you are looking for some titles to get you started with regional reads, here is a shortlist:

1. The Old Drift by Namwalli Serpell
2. The Garden of Burning Sand by Corbin Addison
3. The Eye of the Leopard by Henning Mankell
4. The Africa House by Christina Lamb
5. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
6. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
7. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
8. Black Moses by Alan Mabanckou
9. The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah
10. The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu

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Welcome to all our families, both returning and new! The AISL Library & Discovery Center team is excited to kick off the year in our new temporary space in the beautiful Palm Pavilion. At the end of last year we moved much of the library’s contents into three large shipping containers for the campus development project and shifted a smaller collection into our Pavilion space.
 
If you haven’t stopped by yet to say hello or to open a parent account, please do so! We’d love to show you around and hear about what you’re reading and share exciting projects we have going on with your children’s classes.
 
To those of you who frequent our coffee bar, do not fear! The machines are now located in the kitchenette off the Palm Pavilion, which may be entered from the door off the outside deck. You can enjoy a cappuccino out under an umbrella table or inside on a comfy couch.
 
Though much of our physical library may be in storage, today’s library transcends any brick and mortar facility as it is a program & approach to inquiry woven into all student learning at AISL. Our robust virtual libraries are available 24/7 and the password is the same as the one for our parent portal. Our two teacher-librarians, Ms. Jill Daley in the Primary School and Ms. Terry Maguire in the Secondary School, work closely with teachers to support student learning in the classrooms and in the library. Mr. Sam Chabi and Mr. Lunyunge Sinyenga, our library assistants, also support student learning and are a wealth of information about Zambian culture. Our entire staff is always ready to recommend great reads both to students and to our parent community. Additionally, our library hosts special events throughout the year including Coffee Houses, Banned Book Week, Computer Science Education Week, Cultural Days, Holiday Crafts, Poetry Week & Poem-In-Your Pocket, Comic Con, book fairs, visiting authors (in person and via Skype), and more!
 
Our hours are as follows:
Monday-Thursday: 07:15-16:30
Friday: 07:15-14:30
Saturday: 09:00-14:00
​Vacation hours on a limited basis- posted the week before each break
 
Welcome back, everyone! We look forward to a great year with the entire AISL community.

The AISL library staff and some fabulous secondary student volunteers have been working hard to pack up the library in advance of the building work being done across the holiday. Moving 24,000 books and all the shelving and furnishings is quite a process! Fortunately, our returning students and community members checked out towering holiday stacks of books, which lightened our load and will keep everyone reading. We will be opening a smaller-scale library in the Palm Pavilion at the start of the year (with the coffee bar!) until the construction work is done. Please visit us there in August. We look forward to welcoming everyone back and will have approximately 1500 new titles for you to browse when our annual shipment arrives!

The results are in! AISL secondary students who participated in our reading challenge this year voted on their top choice for the MS Leopard's Paw book award and the HS Leopard's Eye book award. Students read two of the four (or five for HS contenders) short-listed books (the short-lists were created by students) and then voted via Google Forms for what they felt was the best book in the AISL library. At this week's assembly AISL middle school students Ethan and Scott announced the Leopard's Paw winner and AISL high school student Matteo announced the Leopard's Eye winner. The winners were no surprises! Put these incredible titles on your to be read list if you haven't read them already.

Please join us beginning at 17:00 on Wednesday, 12 June in the Tiyende Pamodzi Theater (note the venue change from the Pavilion due to some of our relocation projects) for an evening with Zambian author Namwali Serpell. Ms. Serpell's novel The Old Drift, which spans four generations of Zambian history, has garnered rave reviews from all over the globe. Ms. Serpell is coming to us directly from the airport, so we are hoping for on-time flights!  This will be a relaxed evening with some entertainment, a cash bar, and complimentary tea & coffee. Admission is free and is open to the AISL Community and friends. Ms. Serpell is hosting public talks later in the week; please see her website for details. Note that Ms. Serpell's novel is a work of adult fiction, so its main appeal will most likely be for students going into Grade 11 and up.

We will have 30 more copies of The Old Drift for sale at the event in case you'd like to purchase additional ones for the book-signing. The cost is 150 kwacha (cash) payable directly to Penguin Randomhouse publishers.

Though the timing of this event is not ideal given that the next day is the last day for students and many families are preparing to board planes, we didn't want to miss the opportunity to connect our community with this prodigious talent. We hope you can come! 

It's time to make your reading stack for the long holiday! Please pass by the library to check out up to 10 items for the long break (for returning patrons with clear records). Books will be due back the first day of school, which is 8 August 2019. Secondary students will be taking their stacks home through Monday of next week. After that we are packing up the shelves for the shift into the storage containers for the re-roofing of the library. The selection is fantastic as so much has come back over the past week. Help us empty out our shelves by stocking up on great reads!

Audiobooksync has another fantastic line-up of free audio downloads! Don't forget that you need to have Overdrive installed on your device (which is free) and that you need to download the books the week they are available (in other words, you will not be able to get books from previous weeks). One of the free downloads coming up the week of 30 May is Wild Bird by Wendelin Van Draanen, which is awesome YA realistic fiction! Need help? Ask any member of our AISL Library Team.

Please join us Wednesday, 12 June from 17:00-18:30 in the Palm Pavilion for an evening with Zambian author Namwali Serpell. We will have entertainment, tea, coffee, and a cash bar. Ms. Serpell's new novel, The Old Drift, has met with rave reviews and international acclaim. The novel spans four generations of Zambian history including the building of Kariba Dam, the Zambian Space Program, and even recent political events. The writing is spectacular.

The AISL library has eight copies left for anyone who missed ordering the first time around. Penguin Randomhouse Publishers will have 32 more copies for sale the evening of her visit. The copies are 150 kwacha each (paperback).

This event is open to the AISL Community and friends. The novel is a work of adult fiction and, as such, would not have much appeal to students other than our 11th and 12th grade DP Literature or DP Language & Literature students (Grade 10 students also welcome).  Ms. Serpell will be visiting other venues in Lusaka later in the week. For more information, please see her book tour schedule. We hope to see you there!