This afternoon is the first meeting of the library’s Scrabble club, and the suspense is killing me. Will I be the only one there, playing Scrabble by myself? Will there be so big a crowd that we don’t have room for everyone? Well, ok, that’s obviously not going to happen, but I honestly have no idea what to expect today. I’m used to running programs that have pre-registration, which means that I have a pretty good idea of how many people will show up. But we decided to run the Scrabble club as a drop-in program, to encourage last-minute decisions to attend, and thus I have no clue what the meeting will be like. But if you’re in town, do come by and play with us, 1:30 at the library! We have the Scrabble boards and a couple of dictionaries – all you need to bring is yourself (all ability levels welcome).
My new word
Jim and I played Scrabble tonight – and I had a lousy combo of letters. Towards the end of the game, I was getting frustrated, and decided to see if I could get away with adding an “t” to an existing word, to create this word (and yes, I presented the definition with the word):
Mewt adj (myut): a cat that cannot meow
Strangely enough, Jim wouldn’t accept the word. But he did laugh. The cats, however, were not amused.
Time to give up?
When I choose books for us to read in the 5th, 6th, and teen book groups at the library, I usually pick new (or newish) books, but I do like to mix in an occasional classic book. And often parents will ask me if I’ll have the kids reading any classics, and I do like to say, “Yes, we will read X this year.”
One of my favorite classic books for the 5th graders is Five Children and It by E. Nesbit, which was originally published in 1902 and has a long reach of influence: Edward Eager was inspired by Nesbit’s book to write his own classic fantasy in 1957, Half Magic, and J.K. Rowling has been quoted as saying that Nesbit is the author who has most influenced her work. And there is the 2004 movie version of the book, starring Kenneth Branagh, which is quite different from the book in many important respects (making it all the more interesting when comparing and contrasting in the book group discussion).
Past book groups have loved, or at least enjoyed and respected, Nesbit’s book, and we have had many great discussions that were inspired by this book. But today’s group of fifth graders at book group were less than thrilled by the book. And this is a group of really good readers, kids who love to read and don’t have to be prodded to do it. Out of the six kids who attended today, not a single one had read the entire book, and only two had read as much as fifty pages. The moms of those two who read the most each told me that their child just did-not-like-the-book-at-all, and the moms didn’t want to force the issue, considering that their kids do love to read, and are in the book group because they enjoy discussing books.
So now my question is: is it time to give up on Five Children and It? Has it seen its glory days? Is it no longer relevant to today’s kids? Perhaps 108 years is an eternity in the world of children’s books – perhaps a fifth grader simply doesn’t have the life experience and exposure to history to be able to fully grasp the societal differences in a book written that long ago, when there were no cars, no televisions, no iPods, and when children had a very different role in society. Not to mention that the language probably feels stilted and wooden to kids who are used to contemporary books that are cranked out with more of an eye to plot than literary style.
I hate to give up on a book that’s really quite good, and that does have such a significant sphere of influence. But I think I may have to tuck it away on the back of my shelf of book group books, and maybe I’ll have to find some newer children’s classics to use in future. It’s sad, in a way, but it’s also how children’s literature works: children’s books do have shorter lifespans than adult books (when talking about their appeal to children, that is, not adults), and that’s just the way it goes. End of story. So to speak.
Currently reading…
Just a quick post tonight, of the books that I’m currently reading:
The Cats of Sanctuary House by Sister Mary Winifred ~ A sweet book (bought at the bargain price of $3.99 at the Concord Bookshop), with snippets about some of the many cats that the Sister has adopted over the years.
Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities by Martha C. Nussbaum ~ Very interesting – well worth reading if you’re worried, like I am, about the direction our educational system is taking.
Halt’s Peril by John Flanagan ~ Yup, I’m addicted to the Ranger’s Apprentice series…this is book 9 in the series, which is the furthest I’ve ever read into a series…
Tiling: Expert Advice to Get the Job Done Right by Sunset Books ~ Ever hopeful, we are. So the bathroom floor didn’t get started, let alone finished, this August like we had planned. There’s always this winter, right?
And I really should also review Five Children and It by E. Nesbit before tomorrow’s 5th grade book group…off I go!
Week in review
It was a crazy busy week (my favorite kind), with lots of attendees at the three infant storytimes, some book ordering, the first fall meeting of the Teen Book Group, and a bit of light at the end of my work tunnel.
Attendance at the infant storytime (for which I use the Mother Goose on the Loose curriculum) continues to be very strong, which makes me happy. I love seeing my old friends who are growing up (some have even graduated to the Storytime for 2’s & 3’s) and also meeting all of the new friends who have found the storytime. On Tuesday we smashed a record: the youngest storytime attendee EVER! This baby girl, younger sibling to two storytime regulars, came for her first storytime at the tender age of five days old. That’s right, five days old. She is very, very cute, and her older siblings are sweet as ever and seem to be handling their new sister with great grace.
On Monday, we began the day with a sad note, as Susan and I arrived in the morning to find a dead bird lying on the ground next to the front door of the library. Joanne, our in-house intrepid animal patrol person (Joanne has NO fear – she blows me away with her fearlessness) wasn’t due in until the afternoon, so Susan and I looked at each other, and I said that I would take care of the bird. Using a snow shovel and a guide for voters, I scooped the bird up and placed it in the garden area behind the stone benches. It was a very, very pretty little bird, and not a species that I recognized. When Joanne came in for work later, we told her about the bird, and I took her out to see it. She thought it was a type of thrush, and ended up taking the bird’s body home to identify it. Turns out it was a Swainson’s Thrush, which Joanne told me are currently migrating. We figure it hit one of the large windows and died upon impact. Very sad, but what a pretty little bird.
On Tuesday, the Teen Book Group met, minus several members who had field hockey or soccer games, and discussed a book I chose for them, Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. Though it is a good book, it’s not a great book, and only one of the teens finished reading it (the rest of them read about half of the book). But there was a little bit of method in my madness of choosing this book: I had just read the book for my own edification, and decided I’d give myself a bit of a break by choosing a book to discuss that I’d actually already read; and, more importantly, I was hoping to inspire the teens to come up with some book suggestions of their own. My earlier email pleas for book suggestions had disappeared into the ether, with no response, so I figured that if I chose a fairly good book for the October meeting, but not a great book, that the teens would decide to help me out with some titles of books that they actually want to read and discuss. The trick was that the book had to be good enough to get them to come to the meeting, but not good enough for them to trust me to choose the books for the rest of the year. Sneaky, huh? It worked, too – we have enough book suggestions to last us through the summer. But I don’t want to discourage anyone from reading Mortal Engines, because it is a good read, best for a more mature reader (translation: adults will like this book more than teens) and for someone who really likes science fiction and is willing to try out a bit of steampunk.
The week was also successful in other ways, as I work to get caught up after being out for those many days. The Cultural Council grant application is finished, a bunch of books have made their way down to Susan for processing, and an order for new books has been placed. My desk is as clean as it gets, storytimes are planned out for the next four weeks, my first class visit has been scheduled, and the feeling of panic has subsided down to the usual stressed-but-ok feeling. Phew. And now, with a long weekend ahead, I’m planning to make some feltboard stories…and to enjoy the gorgeous weather that has finally arrived.
Reapproaching normal…
After this long blog hiatus, I’m finally feeling like I’m reapproaching normal (though I’m sure my two siblings will argue that I’ve never been normal…), and it seems like a new blog entry is in order.
August and early September were a bit tough for me, and that’s all that I’ll say here, but since returning to work on September 7 I’ve been working hard and getting myself caught up. I have lots of goals for myself this year, some of them my “official” goals for my annual review, others just things that I’d personally like to accomplish:
- I’ve been creating all new lesson plans and feltboard stories for my Toddler Storytime, so that I can feel more excited about the storytime myself, and hopefully pass that excitement on to the kids and their parents. I’ve also renamed this storytime, since it turns out that the word “toddler” has negative connotations for parents of three-year-olds; by the time a child is three, a parent no longer thinks of him or her as a toddler, though the age combination of two and three year olds in this storytime has been fantastic. The two year olds are just learning the drill, the three year olds are serving as role models for the younger kids while gaining in confidence themselves. It’s a really wonderful age grouping, and I decided that the name of the storytime needed to be less limiting – so it has been renamed, rather blandly perhaps, but descriptively, the “Storytime for 2’s & 3’s.”
- All those new lesson plans for the Storytime for 2’s & 3’s have inspired me to create some new feltboard stories for exclusive use in the Preschool/Pre-K storytime. These kids LOVE feltboard stories, and I realized that I need to be using feltboard stories every week with them, rather than every third week as I had been doing. And, while the feltboard stories that I use for the younger group serve well for the kids ages four and up, the older kids deserve to have some feltboard stories of their very own. I’ve created a list of books that will translate well to felt, and now I’m going to chip away at creating new feltboard stories on the weekend (as always, in my own time, with my own materials, so that the feltboard creations belong to me and not the library).
- With my library director’s enthusiastic blessing, I’ve created a new once-monthly Scrabble Club, inspired by the many, many other libraries in the country who already run successful Scrabble Clubs. Our first meeting is on a Saturday afternoon in mid-October, open to all ages and all ability levels, and I’m really, really excited about it. Hopefully there are enough Scrabble enthusiasts in town to get this program rolling, and to sustain it for a long time.
- Jennifer and I got inspired recently, and rearranged the children’s room, moving the Advanced Reader collection (for grades 5 & 6 and up) to a corner location in the high-stacks section of the children’s room. This collection was starting to outgrow its original spot in the center, low-stacks portion of the children’s room, so a move was necessary, though labor and sneeze intensive. A nice side benefit of this move is that the Juvenile fiction collection, now located in that center section, is receiving more attention and more traffic that it did previously. And another nice side benefit was that a lot of shelves got dusted in the course of the shift. (We won’t talk about the asthma attack that came later…dust mask next time!)
Of course, these four items are but a few of the things that I’ve been working on this past month, but they are the most interesting and notable. On this weekend’s schedule: re-reading Tuesday’s Teen Book Group Book, Mortal Engine by Philip Reeve, making a feltboard story for the “Playing” storytime, and enjoying the gorgeous weather that they say is coming for the weekend. And maybe a blog entry or two, to get me back on schedule with my blogging…
Blog Break
Obviously, I haven’t been posting many blog entries this month, and have decided to take a blog break for a little bit due to a health issue that has been dragging on and dragging me down. With any luck, I’ll be healthy and posting again sooner rather than later…
Ophy the star
Yes, I know, I already posted this on my Facebook page, AND I forwarded the email to a bunch of different people, BUT I still have to brag here on my blog about my famous cat. Ophy, aka Ophelia, has been named this week’s Pet of the Week by the Humane Society of the United States. Ophy and I have tried for this honor before, unsuccessfully, but this time we (I mean she, of course…) made it within two weeks of our (I mean her) entry submission. Here’s the link for any who are interested: Pet of the Week.
Of course, I’m sure that the HSUS does this Pet of the Week honor to help boost donations to their very worthy cause, so hopefully Ophy will be able to drum up a few dollars for them. (Which reminds me, it’s time for me to make our yearly donation to the HSUS.)
And just a note on our submission being accepted this time around…I’m feeling fairly clever, because after studying the Pets of the Week emails for a couple of years, I figured out that submissions that have some relevance to the work done by the HSUS are the ones that get accepted. So, since Ophy and I care about cats being kept indoors, and since I often find myself counseling new cat owners (or cat owners who are less patient than I) about “destructive behaviors” like carpet scratching, I figured that including those two items in Ophy’s profile would help our chances. Seems that it did, too!
Now I just have to figure out a way to get Pippa featured, since Ophy’s fame is causing a bit of a rift between them. This could be tougher, since what Pippa cares about is food, especially her twice daily Fancy Feast treat laden with her anti-thyroid meds, and Pippa’s main bad habit is that she can be a bit of a cranky pants (to everyone but me, of course). I’m not sure those traits are all that appealing, or that any fame and celebrity can be based upon crankiness and fondness of food. Not in the cat world, at least (unless you’re Morris, and I think that’s been done).
Meanwhile, let’s raise a glass of catnip to Ophy, star for a week!
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
On Monday the 6th Grade Book Group and I discussed The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly, and we all agreed that we like and appreciate the book. It’s not a typical piece of juvenile fiction, since the action is internal rather than external, and there isn’t any huge drama. And, of course, it’s historical fiction, which is a nice change of pace for me (and, I think, for the kids) from the usual fantasy fare.
My favorite part of the book is that Kelly addresses the relationship between Calpurnia and her somewhat crotchety grandfather with perception and gentleness. Their relationship truly evolves, as the title suggests, and feels genuine. No one establishes a strong bond overnight in real life, and I love that Calpurnia and her grandfather take their time getting to know each other.
The kids in the book group liked the scientific aspect of the story, and enjoyed Calpurnia’s intellectual curiosity and drive to know more. And we also talked about the role of women in Texas in 1899 and 1900 (the time of the story), and how hard it would be to be a girl like Calpurnia: a girl who wants to be a scientist and not a “lady.”
Towards the end of the group meeting, we talked about the Newbery Honor that this book won. This particular group has now read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (the 2010 Newbery Medal winner), Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (a 2010 Newbery Honor winner), and The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, which was a 2010 Newbery Honor winner. I asked the group, given that they had read three of the top-awarded books of the last year, which they would have chosen as the Newbery Medal winner if they had been on the committee. Their answer? Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, in a unanimous vote. Their second choice was Calpurnia Tate, and, while they gave props to When You Reach Me for creativity, they all agreed that they didn’t think it was the best book of the three. I completely agree with the kids here (and I swear that I didn’t influence their decision AT ALL!!).
At any rate, if you have not yet read The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, you should. I’m purposefully not describing much of the story in this post because I don’t want to wreak the reading experience for you. Which means your assignment is to go read this book, now!
Just three weeks to go…
Somehow, maybe because of all the heat and humidity, this summer reading program has seemed the longest ever. I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way: we’ve had a lot of great events and storytimes and book groups and kids coming in to get their prizes. But I keep thinking we must almost be done, and then we’re not…
Like every other summer I’ve worked at the library, I’ve been working like a dog, often staying late (and yes, I stay late for free – there’s no overtime, no worries) and only finishing dinner at 8:30 or 9:00 at night, especially if Jim is at band practice that night. At some point, I promise that I will sit down and write a good lengthy post on each of the performers who has come this summer, but so far I’ve only found the time to write about Yo-Yo People and the World Class Frisbee Show.
For today, my plan is to read tomorrow’s 6th Grade Book Group book, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly. I had actually forgotten that I needed to read the book for tomorrow until about ten minutes ago – ooooops! And then tomorrow starts the beginning of the third-to-last week of summer reading! Hooray!!!!