Hillsborough
Library

Welcome to the Hillsborough Campus Library

The Hillsborough Campus Library serves the Lower and Middle schools by supporting reading and research skills, promoting literacy and reading comprehension growth, and nurturing a community of dedicated, passionate readers who find lifelong joy in reading. The library is a place where every student can find books that they love and resonate with. Additionally, library programs enrich students’ lives by exposing them to literature and art from diverse cultures and times.

Our collection is shaped by a desire to offer balanced information, excellent writing, varied perspectives, multicultural exposure, and different genres. Students have access to a wide range of print and digital resources to use for inquiry-based projects, which expand their capacity to explore, select, understand, and evaluate information, and aligns with an important part of Nueva’s mission: to help develop self-motivated, disciplined learners with high-level critical and creative thinking skills.

In 2024, the library was revitalized and expanded to create a hub for the humanities designed for collaboration, creativity, and interdisciplinary learning. You can read more about the expansion project in the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of the Nueva Magazine.

Structured Word Inquiry

Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) is a core piece of Nueva’s language arts and English curriculum in the Lower School: students analyze and diagram words and their various components, building their lexical understanding and proficiency. Investigating words also helps students make sense of and improve their spelling.

Programs, Publications, and Special Events

LS Weekly Visits

Lit Club

In Middle School, students get curricular time devoted to developing a love of reading—and to practice reading strategies and literary analysis—in Lit Club. Meeting weekly in teacher-led groups of around 15, students read books chosen around a theme: examples include books that have been adapted into movies, graphic novels, and science fiction. Lit Club has been a Nueva tradition since 1982 and holds deep meaning and joy for our community. Through its emphasis on finding joy in reading as well as strengthening critical thinking and textual interpretation, the Lit Club program has had a community-wide impact on lifelong reading habits for students and adults, including establishment of the annual NPA Book Fair and an Adult Lit Club which meets monthly during the school year.

Book Fair

For a week each spring, the library is transformed into a bookstore by parent volunteers, who curate faculty favorites and other selections tailored for Nueva readers of all kinds: emergent, precocious, selective, voracious, series-obsessed, and adventurous. The fair not only celebrates the community’s love of reading, it also raises money for the school—20% percent of sales go to Nueva’s literacy programs, and the Fair partners with local independent bookseller Books, Inc. Additionally, through the Library Book Fair Fund, students receiving financial assistance automatically receive Book Fair funds to spend.

Literary Magazine

The Mav Mind Journal of Art and Literature is Nueva’s middle-school literary magazine, entirely designed, edited, and produced by students. A project which aims to showcase Nueva’s creative talent, The Mav Mind is a twice-yearly magazine full of nonfiction, short stories, longform fiction, poetry, visual art, and more. It is available both online and in print. Read some issues of The Mav Mind here, here, and here.

Meet the Library Staff

Mohini Dela Peña

she/her
Lower and Middle School Librarian
mdelapena@nuevaschool.org

Gina Du Par

she/her
Hillsborough Library Assistant
gdupar@nuevaschool.org

Christina Huth

she/her
Library and Administrative Assistant
chuth@nuevaschool.org