Library events, Summer reading

Whooosh

Just like that, summer reading has now truly begun.

With the 4th of July occuring right in the middle of last week, I assumed that we would have a slow start to summer reading this year: lots of families out of town those first two weeks.  In fact, I didn’t schedule a single event last week, which was oddly calm.  But this week is another matter.  Monday was the meeting of the 5th grade book group, yesterday was an appearance by Professor Readalot, today Alex Andrews from Music Together will be singing with the youngest kids in the morning, this afternoon I’ll be running a puppet-making workshop, and then tomorrow evening will be a showing of the movie “Happy Feet.”  Phew.

Professor Readalot, real name Greg McAdams, was a huge hit again this year.  When he came last summer, I was really blown away by his ability to hold the attention of a large group of kids, as well as his masterful crowd control.  Lots of parents commented favorably on his performance, too, so he was an obvious choice as an “ask-back” this summer, and one of my choices for a Cultural Council grant.  So it was no surprise when he pulled off another flawless performance yesterday.

The beauty of Greg’s performance lies in the mixture of comedy, magic, and library-specific booktalking and gentle discussion of how to handle library books.  He uses humor that exactly appeals to kids, even to kids as young as three or four, and they were giggling their heads off throughout his show yesterday.  Yet he never let the crowd get out of control: he starts off his show with a quick discussion of not talking when he’s talking, and that if he needs to keep asking kids to be quiet, then there will be less time for a show  (unfortunately, though, his request for decorum was lost on a couple of parents, who chatted throughout the whole show, despite his direct appeal for parents to be quiet – he even made eye contact with the chatty pair!).  More importantly, Greg knows how to bring the group dynamic quickly back down after a raucous laugh, and possesses the ability to take the room from 60 back down to 0 in a few seconds.  Pretty cool talent.

So it was a really fun time yesterday, with a full house of attendees.  It will be interesting to see what the attendance is this morning for Alex Andrews.  Alex has a huge following, but her following was a bit discouraged last summer by the lack of air conditioning at the old library.  Put 40 moms and 40 babies in a small room in the middle of a hot summer without air conditioning – not a good thing.  Pretty rank.  We’ll see how many show up today, for the air-conditioned comfort of Volunteers Hall!

Book groups, Children's literature

Artemis Fowl

The 5th grade book group lobbied hard for Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer to be the book for their summer meeting, and we finally had our discussion about it on Monday afternoon.  Uncharacteristically, only four of the eight kids in the group showed up (must be summer), which inhibited the discussion a bit.  M—, a bright and well-spoken young man, openly expressed his frustration that the conversation wasn’t as lively with fewer people.  He missed having eight people waving their hands in the air, anxious to be heard.  He also missed the three boys who didn’t attend on Monday, leaving him as the only boy in the group.  (Luckily he has healthy self-esteem, and being the only boy didn’t really faze him one bit.)  But we had a good conversation about this highly popular book, and I feel like I better understand why it and the rest of the books in the series are so popular. 

While I enjoyed reading the book, it’s not the best or most memorable book that I have read recently.  When my brother saw the book on my coffee table two weeks ago, he said that he had been disappointed in it, that it hadn’t lived up to his expectations, and I agree with that view.  Artemis Fowl  is definitely engaging, and the plot moves along at a good clip, but I couldn’t quite see why this series has reached phenomenon status with kids.

Silly me.  Within the first few minutes of discussion at the book group, the kids made it abundantly clear to me why they love the series:

1) The protagonist is a twelve-year-old criminal mastermind.  Or, as M— put it, “He’s 12!  And he’s a mastermind!”

2) Artemis Fowl has a bodyguard.  M— announced that he would also like a bodyguard.  “How cool would that be?”

3) Action.  The plot nevers stops moving.

4) Technology.  T— talked at length about being intrigued by all the advanced fairy technology.

5)  Holly Short, a girl fairy with brains and attitude.  The girls especially liked Holly’s character.

A— did mention things she really didn’t like about the book, the most major of which is the book’s structure.  A— hates (and I do mean hates) that the story keeps flip-flopping from Artemis’s storyline to Holly’s storyline, then to the storyline back at the fairy base camp.  She prefers stories that “flow” in one even unbroken narrative line.  So we talked a bit about style and structure and how authors assemble their books.  It will be interesting to see how A—‘s views on literature change as she enters 6th grade in the fall.

All in all, the meeting was a success, despite the low attendance, and I better understand the popularity of these books (rather an essential part of my job).

Next week, the Teen Book Group will be discussing Monsoon Summer.

Blog administration

Blog update

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My apologies for not having uploaded all of my past posts (those that were almost lost when my original blog crashed): I’ve been waiting for a rainy weekend day to complete the tedious process of transferring each old entry from Word to Notepad to WordPress.  But it’s been a beautiful, dry, sunny summer, and Jim and I are making the most of the good weather to finish the house painting and the installation of the new windows.  Here’s a heartfelt promise that I’ll use the next rainy Saturday or Sunday to move some posts back into the land of the reading!

Young adult book review

The White Darkness, part 2

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After attending the Picnic in the Park on the 4th of July, Jim and I went home to relax – so of course I pulled out Geraldine McCaughrean’s The White Darkness and spent the rest of the day reading.  It’s hardly a relaxing book, though – definitely a thriller of the best sort.  And I couldn’t put it down until I had finished it.  For me, there are two obvious signs that I’ve read an excellent book:  1) I can’t put it down, and 2) I don’t cheat and read the ending first.  The White Darkness meets both criteria, and then some.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about this book without giving away the plot or the ending, because this is a book that ALL of you should definitely read.  A quick summary, which really doesn’t begin to describe the book, is that Sym Wates is a British fourteen-year-old who has an obsession with Titus Oates, a man who died years earlier as part of Scott’s South Pole expedition.  Oates lives in her head, and serves as her friend, confidante, and chaste lover.  Needless to say, Sym’s obsession sets her apart from her peers, and causes her some social trauma.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.  The real bulk of the story occurs not in England, but in Antarctica, with action, drama, danger, bad guys, and Sym’s emerging sense of self.  Oates travels with her to Antarctica, providing one more layer to this intriguing story.

And that’s all I’ll say about the plot, since you really need to read this book.  But it’s not just the plot that makes this a great read; McCaughrean’s vividly descriptive writing style is what really blew me away.  For instance, this passage that describes their travel across a frozen Antarctic plain:

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the surface would change to sastrugi or a royal icing of frozen snow.  There would be sharp steps up, or one side of the van would lurch over a solidified snowdrift.  For the most part it was a shining lake of platinum puddled with mirror-bright patches of platelet-snowflakes – as if a billion sequins had been squandered over the ice.  Sometimes – the worst times – there would be a sharp step down, and my internal organs would cram together under my rib cage like sheep in a slaughterhouse, terrified.  (pp 158 – 159)

I love that image of the sheep in the slaughterhouse, and the way that McCaughrean’s words made me feel as though I was on this journey, too, in this frozen alien world that I’ve only ever seen in photos or film, but never experienced directly.  That’s no small feat of writing.

Needless to say, I’ll be suggesting to my teen book group that we read this one in the fall.  Hopefully they’ll be intrigued, but if they’re not, I may have to strong-arm them into reading this one; I know they’ll forgive me for the strong-arming once they’ve been sucked into the plot and pace of this terrific book.

Children

The confidence of youth

There’s a cute little curly-headed girl who loves to come talk to me at the library.  She’s just finished first grade, has a charming British accent, and always carries a stuffed animal with her (Cheetah used to be her favorite, but now it’s a flattened, angular yellow teddy bear from IKEA).  She always half-glides, half-bounces up to the children’s desk with a big grin on her face, and with the confidence that surely I’ve been waiting all week to talk to her.  At the last two movie nights, she has joined me at my odd seat near the door (I’ve had to position my chair in front of the glass that’s next to the door, since kids kept walking into the glass) and chatted to me throughout the movie, telling me about her stuffed animal, the movie, just about anything.  Her mother just smiles patiently from across the room, occasionally rolling her eyes at her daughter’s social nature.

This little girl isn’t the only one like this, though.  I’ve been thinking lately about all of the kids who come beaming into the children’s room, knowing that I know them and want to talk with them.  And then there are the kids who used to have that confidence, but who no longer do: in particular, I think of one little boy who has just finished kindergarten, and who barely raises his eyes from the floor when he comes into the children’s room now.  He used to talk to me for a half hour at a time, but it’s hard to get three words out of him now.

His loss of self-confidence has come earlier than most kids, but there’s definitely a time in our childhood when we move from standing tall and secure to doubting ourselves and questioning our place in the world.  If only we could hang on to that sense of self for all of our lives – imagine what a different place the world would be, and how much happier all of our lives would be. 

Charitable Summer Reading, Young adult book review

The White Darkness

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A quick note on my current book:

I’m loving The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean.  I’ve been a fan of McCaughrean’s writing ever since reading  A Pack of Lies years ago, and am finding The White Darkness to be as masterful a piece of literature as A Pack of Lies.  Unexpected, quirky, intelligent, engaging: it’s awesome, and I’ve only just begun it.

Current summer reading hour total, for those of you who have made Heifer pledges based on the hours I read:  4 hours.  🙂

Librarianship, Summer reading

Swimmingly

After a few rough patches in the first week of using the e*vanced Summer Reader software, we’ve finally hit smooth sailing with the summer reading logs.  I had to make a few adjustments (book reviews are no longer required from the children who use the online log, sadly) and had to learn the ins and outs of the software, and, most importantly, had to learn how to accomodate the kids who didn’t want to use the online log.  But it’s all working now, and in the long run, I think it’s substantially easier to operate than the traditional paper clock-face summer logs.

And the statistics are fabulous.  Now I can run reports and see the distribution of hours read – the concentration is in the rising fourth grade population – and really get a sense of which kids are intrigued by summer reading, which are enthusiastic, and which could give it a pass.   I can run reports on prizes awarded, total number of hours read, number of kids registered: you get the idea.  I can also read the book reviews that the kids have written, and get a sense of what the most popular books are at this moment. 

All of these statistics will help me to do my job better, help me to do next year’s summer reading outreach, and help me to plan a truly phenomenal summer reading program for next year.  If you’re a children’s librarian and haven’t tried this software out, or if your region/state doesn’t yet offer the software, do investigate it.  It’s a terrific tool and makes our job easier.

Librarianship, Library move

Caught up?

Could it be?  Is it possible?  Has it happened?

For the last two and a half months, I’ve felt more than a little behind, the way I used to feel when running track races in high school (clearly I never made varsity).  Pant, pant, pant.  Can’t quite catch up. 

After being closed for a month for the library move, then being swarmed with business in the new building, then the preparations for the summer reading program – well, my office looked like a combination of a storage area and dumping ground.  Not good.  And my hyper-organized self was miserable.  All I wanted was to get rid of the piles of books and catalogs and reams of lists that were stacked on my office desk.  It didn’t seem too possible.

But then there was yesterday.  I got in a half hour early (I love getting to work early now…I must be aging), and by Renee’s arrival in my room at 1, I was actually caught up.  Well, ok, my office was clean.  I’ll be fully caught up by the end of next week.  But most of my to-be-done piles are taken care of, and it no longer feels like I’ll never be caught up.  So now we have our fabulous new building, AND the rhythm of my work is starting to fall into a manageable pace.  Aaaaaah.

Librarianship

What is…

…a children’s librarian?

What is it that we do each day? 

This time of year, I feel a bit like the cruise director on the Happy Reading Ship (I’m not knocking this role, by the way -  it’s a lot of fun). 

Come September, I’ll feel like Serious Book Ordering Lady.

By November, as school projects are in full swing, I’ll be wearing my Children’s Reference Question hat.

Some afternoons, after school, I feel like the school’s Adjunct Guidance Counselor as I help kids with school problems and social interactions.

Tuesday mornings at 10:30, through the school year, I’m a Singing Fool leading rounds of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and other youthful hits.

Grumpy Friday evenings at closing time, I’m the Who-Elected-Me-To-Clean-Up-After-Your-Child? Lady.

But mostly, I’m really, really happy, and never, ever bored.  The children’s librarian from Maynard came to visit me and my library on Thursday, and at one point he announced with great passion and vim:  “This is the BEST JOB IN THE WORLD!!  I LOVE being a children’s librarian!!!!” 

I totally agree.

Reflections on children, literature, libraries, and life…and cats.