A Quick "Hello" from the New Executive... and A Summer Challenge!

Dear Bookworms,

My name is Madeline and I am the new president of the uOttawa Bookworms for the 2013-2014 school year. I've been a member since I was in my first year here and now, entering into my fourth and final year, I feel so lucky to have been given the privilege to take on a bigger role in this amazing club. I wanted to post on the blog before summer really begins to introduce the new executive team of the Bookworms and to give you all a summer “challenge” so we will each have a unique experience to talk about when we reconvene in September for our first meeting of the year. The executive and I have collectively decided to not have meetings over the summer because 3 of the 4 of us are going overseas for part of it and it would be tricky to keep the club going when everyone’s schedules are so different than during the 8 months we are enrolled in classes.

Here is your executive for the next year! After their name and position is a fun book-related fact about that person so you can have a little bit of an idea of who they are even though you may not have met yet or do not know them very well.

President = Madeline Smolarz : “In the summer of 2009, I lived in Ireland in a couple different cities over the course of a month. When I was in Dublin, I visited Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells. It was the most breathtaking experience I have ever had with a book and I will never forget being in that dim room with the book laid out in a glass case in the middle, illuminated by a spotlight. I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself on the Emerald Isle.” ~ Madeline

Vice-President = Ashley Chen : She prefers light reading rather than the heavier, deeper stuff some of us love because she does so much memory work being in the sciences and likes to give her brain a break when she has down time to read. Fiction and fantasy are her genres of choice.

Secretary = Stella Chen : She really enjoys action-packed books, usually with science fiction or fantasy elements in them.

Treasurer = Hannah Fraser : “In 2010, my family and I went on a cruise of the Mediterranean. During this time, I was a right in the middle of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and loving the story. On the fifth day of the cruise, we arrived in Athens for a tour of the Acropolis, the temple of Zeus and all the various ruins. Being a huge lover of Greek mythology and having just read the Odyssey, this was an extremely exciting event for me. After our official tour was finished, my family and I stopped for a picnic on a high point of a trail that overlooked the city. While relaxing, I took out Percy Jackson and continued to read about the 'real life' Olympians while overlooking the Parthenon. It was definitely the coolest place I've ever read, and it suited the book extremely well!” ~ Hannah

Now for your summer challenge, bookworms. I know, you’ve been dying to know what it could be since I mentioned it way up there in the first paragraph. Well hold onto your hats because here it is... Read a book completely outside your preferred genre. Surprised? Shocked? Thrilled to get the green light to get to try something new? Well go for it, dear bookworms, because we’ll be discussing our respective experiences with the challenge in September when we sit down with our customary tea and baked goods. So there will be no set book for you to read over the summer; the choice is yours. I’m personally excited to read a thriller / mystery, far away from my historical fiction favourites.

I wish you all a happy, healthy, sunburn-free summer filled with friends, family, and fantastic books.

Yours in reading,

Madeline