John Hersey High School ARC

  Barbie and Oppenheimer were two of the biggest movies this summer.  Did you check them out?  Come down to the library to check out our books that will extend that experience!  Plus, we have an official ARC "Barbenheimer" playlist on Spotify.  Check it out!

Welcome back, everybody! There are some changes this year in the ARC. We have a new self-checkout station, so you can checkout books at any time. It's quick and easy!  Plus, you can print from your iPads and the help desk is now located in the "Yellow Zone" in the ARC! Check out this video for the updates! The ARC also has new hours. The ARC will now be open from 7:30 to 3:00 pm daily. For those of you who liked to hang out in the ARC after school will have to go to the commons. Stop down to the ARC to check things out!

Can you believe that summer is just about over? Hope you got a lot of good reading done this summer. Remember, you can check out a book anytime here in the library -- So come on down to get more books! There are some changes that are being made in the ARC this year. Just so you know, we will have new hours. Unfortunately, the ARC will NOT be open after school.  NEW ARC Hours:  Monday - Friday, 7:30am - 3:00pm   The Zones here in the ARC will still be enforced. What are the Zones? Check out this video: Want a refresher in how to find and check out a book? Watch this! Have a great year! Any questions, just come on down and ask!

Happy Pride Month, 2023! Although we celebrated earlier in the school year, this month marks the beginning of the gay rights movement by commemorating the Stonewall Riots of 1969 . We have many books in the ARC, but if you would like a book right now, why not go digital. Our SORA app has a wide variety of books featuring LBGTQ+ characters and themes. Open the SORA app on your iPad to download. Or, read on your computer or laptop by clicking here .  “There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it’s now okay to express ourselves publicly. We make that day by doing things publicly until it’s simply the way things are.”                   – Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin

Last semester, senior Warren Burdin produced an audio episode of his puppet series called "Rainbow and his Puppet Gang."  Episode 2 is now available. It is called "Two Puppets and an Infant." This episode features not just rainbow, but Dylan and Scorch as well. Take a listen below!

 Here is the Huskie Excellence Video for Spring, 2023.

Once again, the ARC is hosting Duck Watch 2023 -- a fundraiser created by Hersey SOS students. This year, the kids are raising money for pancreatic cancer research. There are 16 eggs. Which one will hatch first? The livestream can be found on our YouTube page . The current stream is embedded below. Click here if it is not available. The first duck should be hatching on May 8-9!

The ARCLight Student Film Festival has ended. The ballots have been cast. The winners have been announced. Go over to the ARCLight Student Film Festival site to see the complete list. The film with the most awards went to The Hole , a beautiful animated film from Poland, directed by Piotr Kaźmierczak. Hosted by JHHS senior, Ally Steger, the entire festival is available to watch on YouTube .  

Today is the day! Stream the ARCLight Student Film Festival below -- stream starts at 6:30, and the show begins at 7pm (Central). Download a program here . Plus, follow us on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook as well. 

  Episode 5 has dropped. Meet Grace Mosher. She is a Freshman at John Hersey High School. In 2nd grade, she was diagnosed with Alopecia. This is her story. You can listen to the podcast in your favorite podcast app. However, this is also a video podcast. Watch below or on Spotify. If you would like more information about alopecia, visit the following sites:  National Alopecia Areata Foundation ( https://www.naaf.org/ )  Children's Alopecia project ( https://www.childrensalopeciaproject.org/ )  All music in this podcast was licensed through Audioblocks and Envato Elements.

Since Pride Month falls in June, we at Hersey have been celebrating our LGBTQ+ Community every April. In addition to the music that is playing in the hallways, you can find a selection of books with LGBTQ+ characters and themes.  This years books can be found on the shelf behind the circulation desk. Plus, learn more about them here .  Here are some resources identified by the JHHS IDEA Team: GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network) The Trevor Project Defining the terms in LGBTQ+/The Queer Alphabet A Guide to Being an Ally to Transgender & Non-Binary Youth The Gender Unicorn

The new episode of the ARCLight Podcast has dropped! This is the touching story of Warren Burdin, a senior at John Hersey High School and a puppet performer. On this episode, we sit down with Warren and his puppets. He describes how he became a puppet performer and why. Let's make Warren famous!  This is our first video podcast. You can watch it below or on Spotify . Or, you can listen to it where ever you listen to podcasts.

On this, the third episode of Huskie History, Michal and Philip explore the life of Al Capone. But this episode is more than that. They also discuss pizza and the legendary Count Raphael Dante.  This is available wherever you listen to podcasts -- or, listen to it below!

The BEST thing about books is seeing life through the eyes of people who may not be like you. At Hersey, we celebrate the diversity of voices that make up the human experience. This is the last day of Black History Month. If you did not see the books we had on display, there is still time to check one out. Click on the images below to see the books we selected to celebrate not only Black History, but Disabilities Awareness Month and Women's History Month, too!

Senior Warren Burdin has several sock puppets. Earlier in the year, he came to the ARC with an idea: make children's radio episodes featuring his puppets as a spin off of his short subject series "Puppet Films" made with his company, Tell-A-Camera Pictures Inc.  He ended up writing a script and recruiting some teachers to provide various voices --- and voilà!  Rainbow and His Puppet Gang .  Here is the first episode, featuring Rainbow and Zap.

Michal and Philip are back for a new episode of Huskie History. This episode is called:  Balloon Tanks and Drugged-out Nazis: Stories of D-Day. In it, they discuss the planning behind D-day, and offer some great stories about balloon military equipment used to deceive German intelligence. Plus, they talk about the use of methamphetamines among nazi troops.  Listen below or in your favorite podcast app.

S03E03: Push Puppets, Adventures of the Musical Union and Elvis Costello’s Pizza: A Conversation with Erich Specht Erich Specht is a 1986 graduate of Hersey High School. He also attended River Trails back when it was a junior high. As the man behind the band Push Puppets, Erich came to the ARC Studio to talk about his life in music, the new Push Puppets album and played a few songs.  He also reminisced about his time at Hersey and the founding of a short-lived club called the Adventures of the Musical Union. Oh, and he also talked about a slice of pizza he got from Elvis Costello. Listen to the episode to understand this picture: More information about Erich Specht and Push Puppets can be found at https://www.pushpuppets.net .  Digital downloads are available on Bandcamp . The new album from the band is called Allegory Grey . You can also find the Push Puppets on Spotify . The episode features a lot of music references. Here is a list of the bands, artists and songs mentioned in the

I first read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus when I was in junior high. Like most people, I was indoctrinated first by the Hollywood iterations of the story and only knew “Frankenstein” as Boris Karloff, and was surprised by the novel and the way in which the ideas of monstrosity were not associated with the creature, but with Dr. Victor Frankenstein. In particular, I was taken by the humanity and intelligence of “the monster,” who articulately narrates a significant portion of the book.  The novel remains one of my favorites, and I have returned to it several times in my life. But the novel is problematic, in many ways. In particular, the characters outside of Victor and the “Monster” are never fully developed and their motivations and personalities are never fully explored in the epistolary nature of Shelley’s work. Unnatural Creatures , by Kris Waldherr, corrects this flaw and presents Frankenstein in its full human and emotional potential by focusing not on