Someone put a hamburger in the library’s book drop last night after we closed.
Really?!?!?!
The Lightning Thief…again…
It’s great that the book group members have nominated, voted on, and then chosen all of the books they have read and will be reading this school year, but this month I’m feeling a little gloomy personally about their choices. Notice that I said “personally,” because I’m only talking about me – I think the choices are great for the kids in the groups. Today we’re discussing The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, a book that has gotten a lot of reluctant boy readers very jazzed about reading. And then they go on to read the rest of the series, and then other books, and it’s all good. The Lightning Thief also introduces readers to Greek mythology, inspiring some to then go to the source and read “real” Greek mythology, which is very cool. But, and this is where my personal opinion comes in, we’ve discussed this particular book in several book groups over the past few years, and I’m totally sick of discussing this book. I’ve read it so many times that I didn’t even bother to re-read it this weekend – especially since I thought I might be nauseous if I did. I have nothing against this book, I’m just tired of it. And it doesn’t really lead to great book group discussions, at least it hasn’t in the past.
So maybe I should have told the kids that we wouldn’t be reading it…but that doesn’t seem fair. I wanted them to have ownership of their book choices, and the entire group was excited about this book. If I had come in and said, “No, we’re not discussing that book,” then the whole tenor of the book selection process would have changed. Which means that we’re discussing it today, and that it will probably come up again in some future group. Arrgh.
And then the 6th grade choice for this month is another well-worn book group book, The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. Yawn. Again.
Tangled
Huge crowd last night for the library Family Movie Night showing of Tangled. It was so nice to see so many people having a great time at the library, for a free movie with great community spirit. At one point mid-way through the movie, a father came up to me and introduced himself, then said, “This is great! This is so great!! This is reminding me why we decided to move to this town in the first place!!” And it might have been the lighting, but I could swear his eyes were a little misty.
Of course, after the movie was over, it looked like there had been a popcorn explosion, and there were empty water bottles strewn all over the floor. Luckily, there were six able bodied teen volunteers who made short work of the clean-up (and, it should be noted, they also did a terrific job before the movie filling 120 small bags with popcorn).
The only downside of the night for me was that I didn’t like the movie. At all. I know it’s gotten good reviews, and I know that kids adore it, but I didn’t like characters, the plot, or the singing. I guess I’ve gotten old and grumpy and those Disney musical animated features just don’t do it for me anymore. But my opinion really doesn’t matter, since the kids and their parents had a fantastic time; last night was a true small town event, with kids lying on their bellies on the floor next to their friends and their parents sitting in the seats sharing gossip and laughs with their friends. Awesome.
Talking about Terrier and Fantasy and Books and Reading…
In my last post, I talked about my struggles with the book Terrier by Tamora Pierce. Today was the meeting of the teen book group, and I hadn’t finished reading the book; I only got to page 248 out of 561, which is a shameful thing. I thought about my options: I could lie to the teens and tell them I read the whole book, or I could fudge my way through the book group, not lying outright but also not confessing my sin, or I could tell them the truth. I chose the truthful option – I respect these teens, and they deserve the truth. (Actually, every teen deserves to hear the truth from adults in situations like this, but that’s a topic for another day.)
Only half of the group made it to today’s meeting, due to play rehearsals and illness, but that half of the group had all read the book, some of them twice, and were very well-prepared to discuss it. J—-, the teen who nominated Terrier as a book group choice, started off the meeting by saying that one of the teens who didn’t attend today’s meeting had not finished the book, “How could she not finish??!?!?! This is such a great book!!! How could she put it down without finishing?!?!?” To which I gently cleared my throat and pointed to my bookmark sitting happily at page 248. J—–, bless her soul, figured out what I was telling them, and said, “Well, for Abby it’s different – she has a full-time job.” What a sweetie, that J—–, trying to give me some wiggle room. But I told them, no, it’s not just that I work full-time and have had two oral surgeries in recent weeks; it’s because I don’t like high fantasy. And that got us off and running on a great hour-long conversation about this book and high fantasy and books that we want to re-read and books that just don’t cut it for us.
After defining high fantasy, we found out that only one of these teens dislikes high fantasy as much as I do, and that teen commented on how much fantasy we had read in the book group this year. Which is true, and is something that has been bothering me; in the group in years past I used to always aim for a mix of genres, but that usually involved me choosing all the books. This year I had wanted the teens to have control of the choices, and we ended up with all fantasy. Maybe, I suggested, we should read some realistic fiction or historical fiction or a mystery this summer, and the consensus was that was a good idea. I have a great mystery in mind that I’d love to foist upon the group, so perhaps that will be our choice.
And then the conversation veered towards books that we choose to read over and over again. Some of the members of this group are very fast readers, and plow through dozens upon dozens of books, and thus end up re-reading many books. The Harry Potter books were popular choices for re-reading with these girls, and also certain books out of the Lightning Thief series (as I remember, the third and fourth in the series were labelled by the group as not being worth a second read, but the rest past the test). The main reason given for choosing to read a book again was to discover a new element of the plot that had been missed before; or perhaps a book had been read before but was not very memorable, so another reading of it actually seemed fresh. I mentioned that there are very few books I like to read over and over, and the only adult books that come to mind are Jane Austen’s novels – and that I read them again to savor her use of language.
I wish, as always, that I could remember verbatim all that was said in today’s group; but I don’t. I do know that I did very, very little talking in the hour-long meeting, and that today’s meeting was the epitome of an excellent book group. Everyone contributed, we stayed mostly on topic (but all deviations were quite interesting), and civility was the rule of the day – no one even thought about talking over anyone else. I love this group of teens (and yes, I did very much miss the teens who were absent today), and am so honored to be connected with this bunch of articulate, critical thinkers who love to read. I’ll be so sad to see our two 9th graders graduate after the meeting in May – they’ll be moving on to Lisa’s book group for 10th to 12th graders this summer – and I’ll be hopeful that the rising 7th graders who will be joining the group in July will continue the streak of excellent, thoughtful discussion that has been the cornerstone of this teen book group for these past five years.
Terrier
I’ve been struggling – struggling, I tell you – to get through Tamora Pierce’s book Terrier, first in the Beka Cooper series. It’s not that I don’t like the book, because I do, it’s just that I have SUCH a hard time reading high fantasy, and really long high fantasy (Terrier is 563 pages) just compounds the misery for me. Misery is actually too strong a word; discomfort might be better. Or perhaps I should go back to that word struggle.
Pierce is a good writer, and I know many teens who devour her books. And in fact, I’m reading Terrier because it’s the next Teen Book Group book, for our meeting on Tuesday – it was nominated by one of the group’s most dedicated readers, and the rest of the group almost unanimously chose it as one of this year’s books. I’ve already heard from another group member who loved the book so much that she asked me to request the second book in the series for her.
But as for me, well, the problem with me and high fantasy is that I just can’t get fully immersed in an author’s created world. I get frustrated by words that I have to look up in the appended glossary, and annoyed by needing to refer to the inevitable endpaper maps of the land. It’s not just Pierce’s high fantasy, it’s any high fantasy. Simply put, I’m the wrong person to read this genre because I’m a little too firmly rooted in reality and too unwilling to jump into an imaginary world.
And I’m only on page 150, with two good reading days to go before the book group meets. And I need to do our taxes in those two days. I’m in TROUBLE, and the teens in the group are bound to figure out that I wasn’t able to get through the entire book. I’ll just have to tell them it’s not for lack of trying. Sigh.
Bathroom project, part three
These photos bring us up to the present in the continuing saga of the bathroom renovation. Drywall has been put up, lally columns have been installed in the basement to hoist the floor back up (the source of the crumbling vinyl floor tile that initiated the whole project), electrical is finished, the floor leveling compound is down, and Jim has installed the cement backer board that will support the awesome new floor tile.
Pictured below are the fresh insulation, the yucky wallpaper that we found in the foyer (since we’re renovating the foyer and the bathroom together), the drywall, an action shot of Jim applying the mortar before putting down the backer board (I think he was a wee bit annoyed with me at that moment), and the wood floor that we found in the foyer underneath the vinyl tile. We did decide to cover up that wood floor, mostly because we had already bought and paid for the ceramic tile, but also because it was in poor shape and kinda ugly. And, important note for Jean and others who visit our house: there now is a light switch for the bathroom that is guest friendly, right by the door from the foyer! Yay! (Click on images to enlarge.)
Movie Night Rescheduled
Hard to believe that we have a winter storm warning out for tomorrow, but we do…and the forecasts are just vague enough that we have decided to reschedule the Family Movie Night that was supposed to take place tomorrow at the library to next Friday, April 8, at 6:30. Everyone who pre-registered for the movie received an email earlier this afternoon with this information, but I’m hoping to catch any potential drop-in attendees with a media blast of the rescheduled date. Remember to pre-register for next week, since seats are limited and we’re almost at capacity now! Licensing restrictions prevent me from listing the name of the movie here, but call the children’s room for more information.
Pippa
The vet came by yesterday for another check of Pippa, our fifteen-ish year old tuxedo cat. At her annual exam in February, Dr. Reiner told us that Pippa now has old-age kidney problems, and gave us a prescription to try the special kidney health food made by Science Diet. We filled the prescription, presented it to Pippa with fanfare, and…Pippa does NOT like the food. The least picky cat in the world has decided to be picky about the food that could keep her healthy. In the month and a half since we started her on the food, she’s lost weight and developed an even shabbier looking coat and skin than she had before, and she’s become a heat-seeker, lying on the hot air vents if the woodstove isn’t running.
So yesterday Dr. Reiner examined Pippa to see if she had an abdominal tumor (thankfully she does not), and also examined Ophy to see if she could get a urine sample to try to solve the mystery of why Ophy is pulling out the glorious long fur at the base of her tail (but she couldn’t feel Ophy’s bladder through the layer of fat that Ophy has put on from eating Pippa’s uneaten food). Jim was at home yesterday with Dr. Reiner, and he called me on my lunch break to let me talk to her. I pussy-footed around asking what I wanted to know, which is: how much longer do we have with Pippa? And of course there’s no real answer to that question.
But it’s clear that Pippa’s time is short now. Dr. Reiner told us to put Pippa back on regular food, since she’s obviously on hunger strike because she doesn’t like the kidney food. And we need to be sure that Pippa is getting enough water, which at the moment she does on her own, but in the future we may need to give her fluids under her skin (not quite sure how that would work). I asked Dr. Reiner what we should look for as signs that it was time to call her back in again to, um, see Pippa; the signs are vomiting, weight loss, and something else that I promptly forgot.
My goal these days is to have as much quality time with Pippa as possible. I spend time every morning brushing her, since she doesn’t groom herself as well anymore, and she loves that. And then we play together, sometimes twice a day, and for our short play sessions she’s as frisky as a kitten (until she gets tired, but she is an old lady now). And until spring hits, the woodstove will be cranked so that Pippa can enjoy her favorite spot on the ottoman by the stove. And, of course, my lap is always available for snuggling and ear scratching when I’m home.
It’s all about making Pippa’s last days as enjoyable and as full of love as possible, and also ensuring that Pippa’s exit from this world is full of grace and dignity. When life becomes too much for her, when her body decides that it can’t keep things going anymore, then we’ll call Dr. Reiner and have Pippa put to sleep at home with all the love and tenderness that this former street cat from Maynard who fed her six kittens out of a dumpster deserves. She’s a good kitty, and we love her.
The day after…
And it’s all done – the third annual Lego Expo is over.
This one is all a blur to me, unfortunately. I walked around the Expo like a stupid tourist who only takes photos of their trip and doesn’t take the time to actually experience the trip. I got photos of every kid’s model, to put into the Shutterfly album for the library collection, but I only actually looked at a couple of the models that the kids made – the result of being exhausted and a wee little bit still in pain. What a shame, since I really love seeing the awesome creativity of the kids.
But I know that there were some really great models: listening to the judges deliberate, I was impressed by their enthusiasm and respect for what the kids had created. It’s always fun for me to hear the judges – five for each of the two older groups this year – talk about the kids’ models and decide how to distribute the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place ribbons. I try to keep my mouth shut during the deliberations, and simply serve as the secretary, keeping track of the names that each judge puts out as ribbon contenders and collating the Certificates of Achievement with the place ribbons [each child who attends gets a Certificate, and some also get ribbons]. This year, the judges for the middle group of ages six to eight decided that they wanted to give out ribbons specific to each age – one first place, one second place, and one third place for the six year olds, and also the seven year olds, and then the eight year olds. What a lovely solution; that’s one that I’ll put in my notes for next year and propose for the judges next year, if they don’t come up with it themselves.
But it’s funny how my role as the children’s librarian running the Lego Expo is so very different from my old role years ago as the manager of the Toy Shop at the store’s Lego Expo. Back in the day, my boss, the store’s owner, did all the hard work coordinating the location, setup, refreshments, and judges, and I got to do the easier tasks of checking kids in as they arrived, passing out t-shirts, and judging. Yes, I got to be a judge back then, and I loved it – loved it. I loved the kids’ stories about their models, I loved really getting to talk one on one with the kids and take a lot of time to look at their models, and I loved taking what I knew of Lego sets (which was a lot in those days) and seeing how the kids had used specialized components in unique and totally innovative ways that went way beyond what the Lego designers had officially intended.
Obviously, as the town’s children’s librarian, my purpose at the library Lego Expo is completely different; I need to be the organizational force, the non-judgemental smiling face that makes sure everyone is happy and settled in. Which is still cool, and if I were more up to snuff this year, I would have had a great time like I did the last two years. So hopefully next year my health (dental and otherwise) will be normal, and I’ll have more fun.
One last important item: a big, big thank you to all of the judges and the volunteers and most especially my fabulous coworkers, Jennifer, Margaret, and Emma, for making the day a huge happy success for all. 🙂
Shouldn’t I be panicked?
Tomorrow is the third annual Lego Expo, and, oddly enough, I’m not panicking. Which doesn’t make sense, since enrollment is the highest it has ever been, and this year I have a serious lack of volunteers. In years past, I’ve had more volunteers than necessary, but this year my Special Programs Volunteers were mostly unavailable. C—- and M—– and perhaps also M—– will be volunteering, and Jennifer and her daughter are coming in to help out (thank GOODNESS), but that’s many fewer hands than usual, and I’m still a bit puffy and pained from Wednesday’s surgery, meaning that I may not be as energetic as usual.
But I’m not panicking. Weird.
One thing that has helped enormously is that I wrote up a four page single space document after last year’s Lego Expo with reminders to myself about what went well and what needed to be changed. I also typed up an Expo preparation check-list last year, and that has been very helpful for keeping me focused on what needs to be done, and reassuring me that I haven’t forgotten some key detail. All those prep errands have been run: the Lego raffle sets purchased last Friday, the refreshments purchased today (except for the mini cookies, which I’ll get tonight), and the extra tables put in the back of my car. I’ve stockpiled all the paperwork and clipboards and raffle jars and pencils and certificates of achievement and raffle tickets in convenient boxes in my office, ready to be ferried upstairs in the morning. I sent out all of the reminder emails yesterday, to the judges and participants and volunteers. I walked Jennifer through those piles yesterday, so that I wasn’t the only one who knew what it was all about.
And I’ll be getting to the library at 8:00 tomorrow morning to move the tables upstairs in a leisurely fashion before the library opens at 10:00. I even just got my hair highlighted and cut today so that I can run out of the house in a more efficient manner tomorrow (8:00 AM is not my best time of day, and the hair has been difficult and blechy lately).
So I’m not panicked, yet, and I’m thinking that the organizational systems that I figured out and documented from the first two years of the Expo is the reason I’m feeling a little more relaxed this year. Last year I realized that it’s not enough to organize an event, you also have to put your thought processes in writing so that the logic behind the organization is clear for the next year, whether for your future self to refer to, or for another person to look at and see how things work. Yet another reason that I feel so strongly about leaving a clear paper trail in one’s professional life!