Monthly Archives: May 2009

Book groups, Children

A big thank you

I shouldn’t pick favorites, but – I LOVE the sixth grade book group.  These kids have been in my book groups since I started them three years ago, and this group constantly amazes me with their good humor, great discussion skills, and literary insights.

At last Tuesday’s book group, two of the kids surprised me with a card and two cookies.  Here’s what the card says:

Thank You!  (heart shape here)

Dear Abby,

Just a quick thank you for how awesome you’ve been.  U ROCK!

Sincerely,

M—– & S————  🙂

(I gave the cookies 🙂 )

And then, down the inside left of the card:

Awesome

Bodacious

Bodacious x2

Young

Now there’s a few things a girl likes to hear!  Not just bodacious, but bodacious times two, AND I’m awesome and young.  That card TOTALLY made my day.  Thanks, girls!

Library events, Summer reading

June? Already? ~ Summer preview

Thankfully, school in the town in which I work is running through June 26 this year, because something strange happened to May – it disappeared almost before it started.  Being out sick, quite unexpectedly, for a week certainly didn’t help my summer planning any, but also it does feel like May skipped by a bit too fast this year.

With June almost here, I’m in my usual pre-summer reading frenzy: ordering prizes, asking for donations for raffle items (not a job I relish this year, in this economy), and prettying up the summer calendar before printing out and folding a million copies of that calendar.  On top of my usual summer planning, I also now have some additional planning to tackle: I’ve decided to run storytimes through the summer this year, and that means creating a summer’s worth of new storytime plans and feltboard stories to match.

For all the work, though, I realized yesterday that it’s going to be a great summer.  We have the acclaimed magician Bonaparte coming for a performance; musician and early childhood educator Hugh Hanley (Hugh is a local favorite) will give a “Circle of Songs” singalong; Jim Cruise, aka the Spoon Man, who has a fabulous national reputation, will “spoon” the crowd; the Boston Museum of Science will be visiting with their “Science Magic” program; and the Massachusetts Audubon Society will be visiting with two mystery guest animals to present a program on Wild Animals of the Farm.  And, of course there will be library-run book groups, storytimes (infant, toddler, preschool, pajama, and Saturday storytimes), movie nights (5 family movies this summer:  Bolt, Inkheart, Hotel for Dogs, Oliver and Company, and Madagascar Escape 2 Africa), an all ages Tie Dye event, and the Ice Cream Social and Finale Picnic.  Very busy, and LOTS of fun stuff.

So those of you who are patrons of my library now have a sneak preview of what’s coming this summer!  A nice little bonus for reading my blog – you know things that the rest of town won’t know until my first school visit on June 11!  Happy almost summer!

Pop culture

Edward Scissorhands

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At KMart yesterday, there was a large bin of DVDs for sale for $5.00 each, which seemed like a wonderful alternative to driving all the way across town through rush hour traffic to rent a DVD for $4.00.  (Not the usual approach my anti-clutter self takes, especially given the size of our house, but it worked for yesterday.)

So I bought two movies, Bee Season and Edward Scissorhands.  Last night was the first time I’ve ever watched Edward Scissorhands, and I really enjoyed it, though less for the story and more for the visuals and some of the acting.  I understand that it’s a “fable,” and that you’re supposed to suspend disbelief and roll with the story, but I still can’t accept the fact that The Inventor would create such a perfectly human creature without giving that creature real hands.  I know that The Inventor was inspired to create Edward after holding up a heart-shaped cookie in front of one of his other inventions, a robot which sliced and diced lettuce with his scissor hands.  But Edward is unlike that robot in every way, except for those scissorhands.  Why would the inventor saddle his creature with such a handicap?  Why would he spend time reading poetry to the young creature rather than attach “real” hands to his arms???

That aside, I love Vincent Price as the Inventor, and Johnny Depp as Edward.  And Dianne Wiest makes a lovely and believable Peg.  And I love the colors – every shade of pastel you can imagine, which juxtapose so nicely with Edward’s black and white ensemble.  And, of course, Edward’s topiary creations are just plain awesome, especially the topiary sea monster at the mansion.  I found myself paying little attention to the storyline, and instead focused my energy on enjoying the visual feast laid out by Tim Burton.

So I’m nineteen years behind in seeing this movie, but it stands the test of time well, and I’m actually glad that I purchased it and that it will live in our DVD library.  It’s always good to add a few movies here and there to Jim’s music DVD collection; helpful when I’m home sick, or when we just need something to watch on a Saturday evening.

Etc.

Almost time for an outing

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My 48 hours of house arrest are almost over – yay!!  I still look like heck, and my lungs still sound, well, interesting, but I’m getting ready for my big outing this afternoon.

“Abby, you’ve just been sick for days!  Where are you going next?”

“I’m going to KMART!!!!”

Yes, indeed, I’m going to KMart.  To buy more Kleenex.  I estimate that I’ve used up at least four boxes of Kleenex over the last week, and it’s definitely time to refill the Kleenex stockpile.  And maybe look at some plants, too.  We could stand a few more of those gorgeous $6.79 hydrangeas.

And someday, hopefully soon, I’ll get back to writing about children’s literature on this blog.  But to be honest, children’s books and my job have been pretty far from my mind this last week.  Here’s to the power of phlegm: it made me take a real break from work for a change.

Pop culture

Not to brag, but…

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I totally called it.  Totally.  Kris Allen won last night, just like I’ve been predicting for a while.  An excellent outcome for both Adam and Kris – a year from now, they’ll both be doing very well, and I can guarantee that Adam’s first CD will definitely be living in our house.

And the finale last night was pretty good – no great surprises like last year (George Michael) and the year before (Prince), but still a lot of Jim’s and my favorites: Queen, Rod Stewart, Kiss (or should it be KISS?), Jason Mraz…it was a pleasant way to spend an evening.  And now I have my Tuesday and Wednesday nights back to spend reading, something I haven’t done much of since Idol started back up.

Etc.

On being home sick…

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First, let me just say that I do NOT have swine flu.  Not a chance.  It’s just a nasty cold.

I saw the nurse practitioner today, and she didn’t like the sound of my lungs, or my story of being completely fatigued after walking up the three flights of stairs to get to my appointment, or the fact that I look more like an exhausted ghost than a human right now.  So I’ve been prescribed a steroid inhaler (yuck, I really really hate those steroid inhalers – awful times ten, especially considering what they do to my voice) and antibiotics and 48 hours of at-home rest.  Which means that I won’t be back at work until Tuesday, since the library is now closed on Fridays, and since Monday is Memorial Day.

I’m not really very good at this being at home sick for a long period of time stuff.  I’m bored, bored, bored, but too sick to want to read a book.  So I’ve been watching tons of bad daytime television with my laptop by my side so that I can see right away if anyone loves me enough to email me. 

If I’d known that I’d be home sick for this long a period of time, I’d have planned ahead and gathered together all the fluffy chick flicks I could find and thus made slightly better use of my at-home time.  But as it is, I’m watching a lot of judge shows (I really think those lawsuits are kind of made up just so people can get on t.v.) and those crappy Maury Povich-Steve Wilkos type of bare-all shows (yesterday I learned that you can be bulimic and alcoholic at the same time, and thanked my lucky stars that I don’t have that type of problem in my life.  Thank God.).

I’ll be really really really really glad when I’m healthy again.  REALLY glad.

Etc., Pop culture

One way to tell you’re sick…

So I’m home sick today, and I just figured out how bad it is:

I’m watching the Today show while resting my ghost-white self on the couch, and Lisa Rinna has now been on the show twice (let’s not even start on why I’m watching all fifteen hours of the Today show) promoting her new book Rinnavation.  And I found myself a moment ago logging on to Amazon, thinking to myself, “I simply MUST have a copy of this book!!!”

Luckily some shred of sense still exists in my virus-ridden body, and that shred caused me to look and see if my library system owns the book.  Still frightening that I wanted to request the book from the library, but at least I saved myself from owning it.  And more good sense kicked in when I saw that neither the library system for which I work owns the book, nor the library system for the town I live in – “Hmmm,” I thought, “If none of those libraries owns the book, maybe it’s no good…hmmmm.”

It’s definitely time to turn off the computer, have some cranberry juice, and get over this blasted cold.  I need my intelligence back.

Pop culture

Idol

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I haven’t written much about American Idol this year on my blog, but no worries – I’m as big a fan as ever, and my Idol viewing has cut dramatically into my blog writing time.

My favorite this year?  Adam Lambert, of course.

My pick for winner this year?  I actually think Kris Allen will win, and that’s just fine.  Kris is a talented, creative guy, and he deserves to have a great career.  And if Adam comes in second, he can make a better, less-rushed, album than if he won. 

So who’s tuning in on Tuesday and Wednesday nights with me?

Storytime, Summer reading

What a week…

It’s that busy time of year again, as the school year winds down and I prepare for class visits to promote summer reading and get ready for the summer reading program.

This past week, I had my regularly scheduled five storytimes in four days, and in addition a preschool class visited on Monday for a storytime, a Boy Scout troop visited late Monday afternoon to earn their communications badges, and another preschool class visited on Wednesday, joining in with my Mother Goose on the Loose Wednesday storytime.  And, of course, I tutored Monday and Wednesday nights and am on my way to tutor again this afternoon.

It was a fun week, to be sure (though I’m working tomorrow, too, so the week isn’t over yet), but also occasionally challenging.  The Monday preschool visit was awesome, since there were only ten kids and their teachers, and I could present two of my favorite preschool stories:  Bark, George by Jules Feiffer and my feltboard version of Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown.  The kids and I all had a lot of fun – there’s no better feeling than sharing a favorite book with a receptive audience.

The Boy Scout visit also went well, with many of the six boys asking terrific questions and looking like they were engaged for my one hour presentation.  My presentation covered the Dewey Decimal System; how books are ordered and catalogued in the library; a lesson on how to search the library’s catalog, whether from home or in the library building; and a quick best-of-the-best tour of the library building.  I know for sure that I reached several of the boys, and I feel like I did a pretty good job making some potentially very dry material a bit more palatable.  (No one has ever accused the Dewey Decimal System of knocking the socks off of a fourth grade boy…)

And the preschool storytime on Wednesday was almost great, but we were definitely short on space.  Forty-three adults and kids, plus me, don’t quite fit well in our lovely story room.  Room was tight, with the carpet squares butted right up against one another, and the lack of personal space took its toll on some of the kids.  For the most part, though, we had a great time, and it was fun for me to realize that I’ve now internalized the Mother Goose on the Loose program in a way that enables me to adapt it on the fly for a situation like this crowded room full of kids who were a bit too old for MGOL.  Internalization of a program means that I can move beyond mere memorization of the rhymes and such and to a different level that is more interactive and reactive to the attendees of the day – much like the way I’ve been able to internalize the Wilson Reading System and become a much better tutor in the process.

And now I need to spend tomorrow reading book reviews, finalizing the summer reading prize order from Toysmith, preparing Monday’s toddler storytime, and writing lesson plans for the next three toddler storytimes.  (And a million other little pre-summer reading details that need to be tended to RIGHT NOW.)  And, of course, I’ll help patrons through the course of the day.  No problem, right?  I just wish I weren’t coming down with a cold…

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Tired and uninspired

I know I have no right to complain, since I’m employed and love my job, but I’m going to complain a little bit anyway.  Lately I’ve been hitting one of those low-ebb periods in life, where getting out of bed in the morning seems like a heck of a lot of work.  I bring a lot of work home with me: preparation for toddler storytimes (I’ve run out of the plans I created last year and am back creating new ones at home to add to my storytime library); preparation for book groups – and last week’s book selection of Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams consumed a whole lot of reading time…though I DID love the book; and plenty of errand running, like buying bagels for book group meetings, purchasing felt for storytimes (that I buy with my own money, by the way), and buying a gazillion bags of popcorn and millions of cases of water for movie nights. 

And then there’s the prep for my tutoring, which suddenly has become more involved since Josie graduated from the Wilson Reading System and I need to study up on Latin and Greek roots, prefixes, and suffixes (not something that’s easily crammed, either, let me tell you).

And then, as I write this on Sunday, I’m listening to some of the neighborhood kids – the loud, ill-behaved ones – SCREAM at each other.  SCREAM – SCREAM – SCREAM.  No rest for weary Abby.

So I’m tired.  Very tired.  And uninspired.  Blah, really.

I know I’ll get my mojo back, and my enthusiasm, but for right now I’m just tired.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.