Alphabet Salad

HTSMC Step 7: Blog

2008-04-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

So it's only a tadpole of a blog, but here's a what I've been working on while I've been neglecting the salad: mtpmanga.blogspot.com.

I'm always looking for ways to motivate my mangakas to create some real work, rather than just doodles. Not that doodles aren't adorable, as well as an important stage in the development of plots, characters, and technique ... But I'm trying to cultivate my rep as a grueling taskmaster.

Wish I had a scanner, so I could show you less shadowy versions, but if you take a peek at the blog, you can see bits of what my darlings are drawing. I'll be posting my weekly prompt, and if lightning strikes and the stars are aligned, the kids will critique one another's coms. Cross your fingers!

HTSMC Step 6: Get Lost in Translation

2008-03-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

Did you know that during every 24-hour period Osaka changes from the second to third most populated city in Japan--and then back again?*

Today we did Osaka trivia, because Azumanga Daioh arrived, and it has a character from Osaka. She's treated like a freak by her classmates because of where she comes from. What's interesting is that since most Americans know little about Osaka, the translators had to find a way to convey the character's weirdness. So they gave her a mafioso big city way of talking (i.e. Fuhgeddaboudit, and how you doin?).

I had the kids read the relevant section and then tell me their impressions of Osaka. They figured it was full of gang bangers. Then I framed some trivia questions to give them a better picture--it's actually more of an industrial town. And interestingly, at least one reviewer opines that Osaka, being in the South of Japan, is more like the Southern part of the US. In that case, it would have made sense to give the character from Osaka a southern accent. Which would totally change the vibe.

The kids' prompt for this week was then to rewrite the scene, making the Osaka character from wherever they wanted--the South, Providence, the moon. I made mine from a library. Doesn't get much freakier than that, right?

*Since so many people go into the city to work, the daytime population is 3.7 million, but the nighttime population is 2.6 million. So during the day it's the second largest city in Japan, and at night it's the third.

Children's Book Hiatus: Frome-In

2008-03-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

Edith Wharton has never before struck me as funny, but she was priceless at the Frome-in. I doubt I'll ever again hear so many interpretations of the same novel over the course of a single evening. One laugh riot I had to share:

"It was right there I found your locket," he said, pushing his foot into a dense tuft of blueberry bushes."I never saw anybody with such sharp eyes!" she answered. She sat down on the tree-trunk in the sun and he sat down beside her. "You were as pretty as a picture in that pink hat," he said. She laughed with pleasure. "Oh, I guess it was the hat!" she rejoined. They had never before avowed their inclination so openly, and Ethan, for a moment, had the illusion that he was a free man, wooing the girl he meant to marry. He looked at her hair and longed to touch it again, and to tell her that it smelt of the woods; but he had never learned to say such things.

Seriously? Since when is telling someone she looks cute in a particular hat a declaration of love? Since when is "your hair smells woodsy" a suave compliment? I feel there's a number of possible interpretations for those lines, and maybe the tragedy of Ethan Frome is that the characters understood each other too well.

In fact, with that in mind, I vow to be grateful for misinterpretation, monosyllabic answers, and overanalysis, since besides inspiring so much fiction by women, it's so far saved me from becoming a parapalegic.

Children's Book Hiatu: Empire Falls

2008-03-12T07:14:00.000-07:00

So far in my children's books hiatus, I've read Richard Russo's Empire Falls, and I decided the basic difference between adult novels and YA novels is that more happens off camera. I'm on to The Brief Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz, which is ten times snappier, but still: much is relayed to you after the fact or by a third party. It doesn't happen before your very eyes. It's more about the process of discovering what has already happened than about what's happening right now.

But I shouldn't really make sweeping judgments. I'm sure there are thousands of examples to the contrary. I just think that teens live in the moment and adults are always trying to figure out their past, and it shows in their books.

I sort of like that slow revelation sort of plot line, but I do get an itchy feeling: I'm always thinking: this better be worth it. Because if the revelation isn't stunning enough, then the long development feels like a waste of my time. So was Empire Falls worth it?

Well, pretty much.

For those who haven't read it, it's about a dying mill town in Maine--specifically about a recently divorced, crazy-about-his-teenage-daughter Catholic dude who manages a diner for a controlling rich woman who owns half the town. The tension comes from wondering what she's planning next and figuring out why she's always half-thwarting, half-saving our main character.

The revelations are spread through out the book, and the plot is nicely symmetrical and economical: no wasted gestures or characters. And the author's memories of high school aren't romanticized, nor does he waste time categorizing everyone in the lunch room.

My only hesitation comes from the fact that as soon as Todd Strasser has written a book on a topic, it's dead for me, which means school shootings ceased to impress me a few years ago. But that's a small complaint.

The real pleasure of reading adult books for a time is that they last longer--they're engrossing. I can read on my couch for hours on a Sunday afternoon, and there's still more left on Monday. The book takes over my whole week, gets overlaid on my everyday, and gives me something to think about when I'm driving or waiting in line at the post office. Sort of like having an affair, maybe? Like cheating on reality? That's the thing about hardcore readers: you're never sure if they're really with you, because they live in two worlds at once.

Election Fever II

2008-03-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

I wrote a letter to the editor to my hometown newspaper supporting my dad's bid for library trustee. What's awesome about the letter is: I call Londonderry "L-town," I use the words "quality of life," and I hate on the Dewey Decimal System. I should be a speech writer.

Frome-in.

2008-03-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

Not sure how this will help save PPL, but far be it from me to question the power of Edith Wharton. I wish they spelled it without the hyphen, so you could pronounce it froh-main instead of frohm-inn.

Thanks to Harriet

2008-03-03T08:16:00.000-08:00

If you have 7 minutes, NPR's In Character series has a neat piece contrasting Nancy Drew and Harriet the Spy. It doesn't explore the lesbian themes with the same depth as Horn Book did last year, and maybe it makes Harriet sound like the first bratty protagonist to ever appear in a children's book (what about Mary Lennox?), but I liked.

It also made me think: with all the bratty, precocious, big-mouthed, rough and tumble kids populating children's books these days, would you have to write about a sweet Pollyanna or a Little Princess to make a wave? Certainly The Penderwicks got a decent amount of attention for doing just that.

Stuff White People Like

2008-03-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

So one time I was at this healing-from-racism conference, and the woman leading it was like, "Emily, I have a vision of you one day doing stand-up comedy about the neurosis of white people and helping us laugh at our selves." Laughter's the best medicine and all that, but I sort of think she was making fun of me? Also, I think she didn't watch much stand-up, or she'd know that they all talk about race.

Anyway, you'll be spared hearing all my, "I'm so white" jokes (like your mama jokes, but less funny and more neurotic), because there's a blog out there, recommended to me by the one, the only, Elizabeth, which does it better than I ever could: Stuff White People Like. If only I had read this blog before I tried to relive Dangerous Minds.

Are you worth it?

2008-03-01T07:13:00.000-08:00

I'm always looking for local grassroots efforts that work, since we all need models for how to influence people in power. I was starting to think "grassroots efforts" were just natural phenomena, and therefore impossible to model. But this week I've been reading the REIMA listserv like with the kind of interest I usually reserve for Megan Whalen Turner books, because the school librarians are on the move.

Since everyone's all Chicken Little about the economy, school administrators in a couple districts are considering laying off librarians. The only thing that stands between the administrators and their evil plan to deny children information literacy skills is a document from the 1960s called the Basic Education Plan, or BEP, which dictates staffing levels in libraries (among many other things).

Well, that and a legion of empowered and informed school librarians. Administrators may be asking for waivers, so they don't have to meet the BEP's requirements. But the librarians are prepared to prove that you can't cut library staff without reducing service levels. I wish I could sit in on their meeting next week, but I'll be at work, so I'll content myself with reading the e-mails and checking the wiki.

I also wish the people whose jobs are at risk here at PPL had as much data at their fingertips and the desire to pool it. When the director of the ALA Office For Diversity spoke at URI two years ago, she said, people are going to want to know why they have public libraries, but not public health care. We have to be prepared to prove our worth.

Want to help defend school library services? Write to these people:

Peter McWalters

Commissioner

Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

255 Westminster Street

Providence, RI 02903

Todd D. Flaherty

Deputy Commissioner
Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

255 Westminster Street

Providence, RI 02903

David V. Abbott

Deputy Commissioner

Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

255 Westminster Street

Providence, RI 02903

Board of Regents Members

Robert G. Flanders Jr., Esq., Chairman

Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education

c/o RI Department of Education
Attention: Sharon Osborne
255 Westminster Street, 5th floor
Providence, RI 02903

Patrick A. Guida, Esq., Vice-Chairman
Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education

c/o RI Department of Education
Attention: Sharon Osborne
255 Westminster Street, 5th floor
Providence, RI 02903

At Least Jezebel Agrees With Me

2008-02-22T08:08:00.000-08:00

Here's someone else who challenges the idea that embedding advertising in a book makes it "more authentic." A more authentic what? Advertisement? Certainly not a more authentic narrative. What is the narrative? "Buy this to become the real you"?

A collector's item!

2008-02-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

Someone spotted a very special Golden Compass bookmark in our library this week. It was innocently propped up in the bookmark dispenser, and had a very credible design of the golden compass on the front. But here's some of the text on the back (and I disciplined myself not to add commas where they were needed, so don't blame me for the inconsistent punctuation):

In Lyra's world, a person's soul lives on the outside of their body in the form of a daemon--a talking animal spirit that accompanies them through life, always close to its corporeal half. In our world the soul lives inside the body. It's the real you. In the real world demons try and get inside the body through lust, greed, lying, hatred, anger, etc. At death the soul will either go to perfect paradise where there is no suffering, loneliness, pain, or death, or it will go to a place called Hell. Forever. Demons want to take you to Hell and (in your mind) they will mock even the thought of each place.

If you want some for your library, be sure to click the image!

Am I a censor?

2008-02-20T08:31:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite lessons in middle school health class was the one where we got to look for subliminal messages in magazine ads. Were there really faint images of skulls in the ice cubes of alcohol ads? I can't remember now. It was all sort of conspiracy theory, which only made me like it more. I felt like a character on X-files. Foolish alcohol companies! You can't trick me into drinking myself to death! I'm wise to your games, scum!

What will health teachers do now that subliminal messages are passe? Well, here's an idea. They can have kids read YA books and count the references to brand names. I'm not kidding. I knew that Faye Weldon had paved the way to hell with her Bulgari Connection* seven years ago. And now, just as Sex in the City has given us Gossip Girls, Bulgari Connection has given us Cathy's Book.** And yesterday the NYT ran an article on a new series for middle school girls that's designed to be a vehicle for advertisers (via Bookshelves of Doom.)

The best part is, the PR newswire story emphasizes the author's social conscious, because she cares about, like, global warming, and wants to help girls "go green." Gak! I'm choking on the bitter irony! Instead of holding large companies accountable for green house gasses, let's promote their products in kids books at the same time as we tell kids that it's their responsibility to stop the global warming!***

But I'm already wondering: is it censorship if I refuse to buy the MacKenzie Blue series? I'm serious. I don't want it in my library, but what if girls come in asking for it? I don't buy Disney books, although I put donated books in my collection. Should this be part of future collection development policies if I'm already intentionally avoiding commercialized books? Do we, as librarians, have a position on commercialization? I don't want to play big brother to the kids who use my library, but I also don't want to hand them over to advertisers as a captive audience.

* Here's a review, for what it's worth.
** It should be noted that the product placement was removed from the paperback edition. Why? This is purely speculation, but I'm wondering if advertisers are only interested in promoting their products in a book for a limited amount of time. How long before Cover Girl's lipslicks are replaced by another product? Then, do you replace the product placement? Or just stop paying for the partnership, leading publishers to remove the references?
*** While I'm being facetious, check out the clever comments on the BBC's website re: The Bulgari Connection.

The reason for the the season

2008-02-14T09:09:00.000-08:00

So now that I'm a children's librarian, I feel effortlessly sanguine at the prospect of Valentines Day, because I know that the holiday is really about parents loving their children. Tortured affairs, highschool sweethearts, and secret admirers are all beside the point. And I have the book displays and storytime outlines to prove it.

Do you know how many books there are about parents loving their children even if their children are dirtbags? Mama, Do You Love Me?; I Love You Just the Way You Are; I Love You the Purplest; Love You Forever; Love You Like Crazy Cakes; Love You All Day Long; Guess How Much I Love You; Will You Take Care of Me; etc. etc. etc.

I've been reading books like that all week at my storytimes, and you know what? It doesn't work.

There's lots of professional literature about how storytime is a model for parents: here's how to read a book with your child! I've always been skeptical, because I feel that unless you're illiterate, you can figure this out for yourself. I think storytime is more about socialization and storytelling, but maybe that's just because I secretly wish I was a daytime TV star.

I'll reflect on the role of storytime more when I have something interesting to say. Right now, my thoughts are about as rich and complex as a monosyllable.

My point today is just that when I recommend books to parents, I'm thinking about what works at storytime, but that's not necessarily the best criteria. Storytime books need bang! wham! pow! pizzazz. But a parent who asks for a recommendation may be looking for something more cozy and reassuring. So I'm giving them Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus when they need one of those lovey-dovey ones I mentioned earlier.

Do writers imagine the setting in which their picture books are read? Are they considering the number of children who may be listening? Are they incorporating the performance aspect? Am I a diva? Probably. But this thinking gives me a new way to evaluate picture books that I might otherwise dismiss.

In the News

2008-02-13T08:10:00.000-08:00

Forgot to link to the ProJo article on the fundraising forum yesterday.

Also, I was debating whether or not to react to the reaction to the rape in New Bedford. I hear that in some communities, the pitchfork-weilding citizenry are on the march. That's not happening in my neighborhood, maybe because no one's under the impression that it's particularly safe. So instead of commenting myself, I direct you to the most avant suggestion I've read so far.

"Funders don't want to fill your pail; they want to light your fire."

2008-02-11T16:43:00.000-08:00

I went to the fundraising forum on my dinner break yesterday, and I really wish that what they'd handed me when I walked in was a glossary of terms as opposed to a chart about sustainable library funding.* The whole meeting reminded me of my days as an archivist (cue the harp music and image distortion), when I used to spend hours pouring over 18th century church records. You'd think that after all that pouring [CORRECTION: that should be poring, as one of my esteemed colleagues pointed out], I'd know the difference between a bequest and an endowment, but it's still sort of fuzzy.

But the meeting made me want to know. Here were two library directors, one from the Westerly Public Library and one from Hartford, who could rattle off fundraising strategies, statistics, and William Butler Yeats quotes with dazzling accuracy. They were passionate library advocates with tantalizing anecdotes that make you think, oh, if only I were so clever.

But enough gushing. As I was saying, fundraising is complicated, and has its own vocabulary. Fortunately, certain things transcend the vernacular, and here's what I took home:

"Library leadership needs to reach out to supporters." That's a quote from the director of the Hartford Public Library. She also said that she "put a public face on the library," making sure she was at the table when decisions were being made and partnering with organizations and individuals who could also be library advocates. Further, she recruited people to the development committee who she felt were "boundary spanners," as in people who could bring the gospel of library services to the people walking in darkness.
Every library is funded differently--in every city, in every state--so there's no one way to do funding. You have to employ a variety of strategies.

A few fun facts:

At the Westerly Public Library, they put a tip jar at the circulation desk for loose change, and they make $1,000 a year that way.
The Hartford Public Library has many funders who live outside the city. These people have some personal historical connection, and they care about the maintenance of the institution on principle.

There were about 25 people there, a couple library employees, two guys about my age who had a journalistic air about them, some recognizable PPL higher-ups, union peeps, and library reform stalwarts. I hardly think it attracted anyone besides the usual suspects, which is too bad, because I believe it would have been interesting to a wide variety of non-profit types.

I couldn't stay for the Q&A, but I walked out thinking, this totally confirmed what I think. Which may be a sign that I'm becoming sort of stuck in my position, which is: why doesn't PPL make more information available to its employees and the public? I know that there are some limitations on what you can or want to say when you're battling it out with the city. But I think PPL could do more to remind people how important the library is, or to warn them of threats to library services. Where's our "public face"?

*OK, I admit it: I really wish they'd handed me a cup of coffee and a nice glazed donut, but if it had to be a paper product ...

The Children's Book Hiatus Draws Near

2008-02-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

OK, here's what I'm reading so far (but I reserve the right to weed):

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card (Because my sister described it using the two magic words: characterization and symbolism).
Empire Falls, by Richard Russo.
American Pyscho, by Bret Easton Ellis (But only if I can find a copy without a movie cover. I hate movie covers.)
New England White, by Stephen L. Carter.
The Abstinence Teacher, by Tom Perrotta.
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junto Diaz (which has been championed by Kelly at Big A Little A for Chasing Ray's You Should Read This award category).
His Illegal Self, by Peter Carey. (Did anyone read Theft? Because it's the second most satisfying book I read last year, the most satisfying being Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which had this really unexpected vigilante twist. I love vigilantes. I know they're kind of scary, but. Yeah.)

So I've got sci-fi, horror, mystery, plus some "concrete realism," (or whatever the trendy word for grown-up realistic fiction is). I've got a couple of ideas for non-fiction, but I'm not ready to declare them.

But observe: all of these books were written by men! How did this happen? Help!

Wait, there's more!

2008-02-07T12:53:00.000-08:00

Everybody's ooooooh and aaaaaaah over the Manga Bibles, and now there's a Manga Mecha Bible! Mecha meaning, basically, there are giant robots in it. The best part of this post is the response from the publishers, including such gems as "Whether we succeed or fail is ultimately up to God’s providence."

There's also an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Dallas Middaugh critiques (and partially misrepresents) it, pointing out some common stereotypes (Manga=Porn), and giving us a peek at yet another Manga Bible published in Japan. (via Manga Blog.)

HTSMC Step 5: Make Dojinshi

2008-02-07T10:16:00.001-08:00

This would have been more useful if I put it up earlier, but I didn't realize until last night that Fruits Basket revolves around the Chinese Zodiac, thus making it the perfect theme for my Manga club meeting on Chinese New Year!

For the uninitiated, Fruits Basket is about a girl who decides to live in a tent so that she won't have to inconvenience anyone even the teeniest bit after her mother dies. However, she is discovered by a family of boys who turn into animals of the Zodiac everytime they're hugged by members of the opposite sex. They invite the girl to keep house for them (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves much?) and help them keep their secret. If she doesn't keep the secret, her memory could be erased by the mysterious head of the family. Woo-ha-ha-ha!

So today at Manga Circle we will be discovering our own Chinese Zodiac alter-egos and writing Dojinshi (which I explain here). That's right: I'm going to have them write themselves into Fruits Basket. Ed Young has a really gorgeous picture book about the Legend of the Chinese Zodiac which focuses on the interaction between the cat and the rat, which is also essential to the plot of Fruits Basket. I'm using that to diagnose people.

I, by the way, was born in the year of the Boar. Some books say the year of the Pig, but I prefer Boar. It's more distinguished. I get along with Rabbits and Goats, but not other Boars. Grrrrr.

Wait, do boars growl? They don't just oink, do they? How embarassing.

Bible Bashing

2008-02-06T09:39:00.001-08:00

I've been wanting to post about the bizarre variety of teen Bibles on the market for ages, but I felt like I could never do it justice. Probably because most of what I want to say is self-evident. Like, OMG, they're totally just trying to make money, those filthy money-grubbing money-makers!

Well, yeah. Plus, the New Yorker already said it better.

But duty calls, because the Manga Bibles from Tyndale (Manga Messiah), Zondervan (Manga Bible Vol. 1-3)*, and Hodder and Stoughton** (Manga Bible NT Raw and Extreme) are finally in the hands of reviewers. Here are two astute reviews that came out this week, plus an older ComicMix review of Hodder and Stoughton's version which I particularly like:

"The Manga Bible could have taken some pointers from Osamu Tezuka’s eight-volume Buddha; that tells the life story of one religious figure at about sixteen times the length that The Manga Bible uses to cover several thousand years and two entire religions."

Of course, I think the problem isn't just the difference in length, it's the difference in purpose. NT Raw is propoganda. Buddah is something else.

And speaking of propoganda, Ekklesia noticed that the Manga Messiah rewrites the Gospel story to remove any anti-family themes. Who knew the Bible was anti-family? I mean, that could mess up the whole Christian right agenda!

Also fresh this week, there's an article on repackaging the Bible at the Sydney Morning Herald. Here's a squirm-worthy point: although there's plenty of money to translate the Bible into Manga, there are still indigenous people that don't have Bibles in their own languages. Apparently, sales of the kriol Holi Bailbul are just "modest."

Back to more lucrative schemes: Biblezines! I wonder if there are any libraries that actually subscribe to these. I can't guess what goes on in communities that put evolution warning stickers on their Biology textbooks. If I had to pick one, I would definitely go with REAL, which retells Bible stories in the "language of the streets."

If anyone is still reading, here's my original thought on the subject: These "Bibles" rip off both their text and their style from other, in a sense, cultures, in order to make money, thus performing a gross act of colonization in the literary criticism sense of the word. Neither Manga nor the Bible deserves this treatment.

*Actually, this one has been out for a while, but people are re-reviewing it with the newers ones.
**I guess this is related to Doubleday in the U.S.

The World Will End on October 23, 1962!!

2008-02-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

Next week, I plan to conduct an informal poll among kids who come into my library to find out if they care about the cold war. I mean, it's history, so it doesn't necessarily matter if it's trendy or not. But to me, the cold war is like the scrunchie. There's no kitsch. No nostalgia. It's just outdated. Bolsheviks? Bomb shelters? Don't those words make you feel sort of ... embarassed?

I just read a book about the Cold War: Rex Zero and the End of the World, by Tim Wynne-Jones. I was hoping it would actually be about the apocalypse. Instead, it's about how when you're a kid, the world is scary because you only half-understand what you're hearing. Especially when some people are speaking in French and other people are beating you up because you say "garage" as though it rhymed with "carriage."

Rex Zero moves to a new neighborhood in Canada and makes friends with kids who believe that a circus panther is loose in the local park. They do lots of 1960s golden era stuff like ride their bikes and catch tadpoles in jars and buy rootbeer at the drug store, and sometimes, they worry about the A-Bomb and the H-Bomb. It's a solid book (summery mood, stuff happens, the title is totally superhero-esque), but I couldn't help comparing it to The Fire-Eaters, by David Almond.

The Fire-Eaters takes place during the same time period but is set in an old coal mining town in Ireland. And it's just soooooooooo much more disturbing. There's a black windswept coastline, a mysterious lingering illness, and a guy who sticks sharp metal things into his body. So in the end, when everyone gathers on the beach to have an end-of-the-world bonfire, you sort of wonder if something terrible is going to happen, even though, obviously, the world didn't actually end in the 60s.

But both of these books are part of a movement away from cozily reassuring historical fiction for kids. Though The Fire-Eaters is definitely eerier (say that out loud--it sounds weird), they both represent the kiddy paranoia that runs rampant on hot summer days when there's not enough to do and the news reports are bleak. And if the Horn Book award for Fiction is any indicator, carnival-esque historical kidlit is going to be the done thing. Marc Aronson said something similar in his January SLJ column. Make history scary! Give it teeth and claws! It's not just a reality check, it's a question of good taste. Without its urgency, recent history just sounds dated.

SLJ is reading my mind

2008-01-29T17:52:00.000-08:00

What, am I their poster girl this month? Sorry, I'm just really into my professional literature. Anyway, there's an article about putting your list of YA-books-to-read aside, and reading something for adults. Which is what I've been casually planning to do for a while. So I'm declaring March Children's Book Hiatus Month, and I need suggestions for my adult reading pleasure. I'm particularly interested in stuff than came out this year and titles I can recommend to attractive guys who ask for reader's advisory. Just kidding. Sort of. I'm not above resorting to Novelist, but I like the personal touch. So, what's good?

Watch me relate everything back to high school

2008-01-29T11:31:00.001-08:00

This month's SLJ editorial is on the library as a third space. Obviously this is a trend: emphasizing the physical character of the library since it's (often perceived to be) in competition with more disembodied resources (not that I'm naming any names, Google).

Which brings me back to my "the library is not your hangout place!" rant. I can only drool over images like the ones in Looks Like Teen Spirit (unfortunately, the pics aren't online), so I get angsty about one group of people's hanging-out affecting another person's hanging-out. But all these third space articles seem to suggest our only hope for survival is to encourage people to hang out.

The other thing that got me thinking about this is that I have an intern from a local high school "shadowing" me, and I wanted to give him some articles about the role of libraries in society. I was looking for my all-time favorite article about libraries: "Lock the Library! Rowdy Students Are Taking Over!" And that's when I discovered "Times Topics!"

So maybe everyone else was already aware that the NYTimes used, basically, subject headings, and that you could find a suite of articles on topics ranging from "Extraterrestrial Life" to "Lighthouses and Lightships" without even touching that maverick keyword search, but I was unaware.

This is particularly relevant for children's librarians, because newspaper articles are some of the most accessible resources for young readers. They're short and they have 8th grade reading levels, tops. But I also want to recommend, to all information professionals, the "Libraries and Librarians" topic, as it provides an interesting glimpse of the profile of librarians in the news.

In fact, from "Hip Shushers" to "Lock the Library," all the best articles are there. It's like one of those slideshows at the end of the school year, or summer camp. You know, with the Greenday song in the background and the pictures of the same four people over and over and the inside jokes that must all have happened while you were eating your lunch in the bathroom, not to mention the huge picture of someone's nostril. Why is there always a huge picture of someone's nostril?

Whatever. All I can say is, good times, good times.

What's Straighter Than a Pirate?

2008-01-28T12:39:00.000-08:00

Today I offer two examples of the kind of prose I wish I could write:

(1)First, from Freak Show, by James St. James:

Although my sexuality is largely theoretical at this point, I hope that I don't actually LOOK gay--you know, all pursed and twittery with big, bulgy, "gay" eyes. It's a new school after all. I need to test the waters first before I break out the tiaras and leg warmers. I've given this a lot of thought, as you can imagine.

OKAY, HERE IT IS. MY OUTFIT:
Don't worry.
It's totally masculine.
Swarthy, even.
Nobody will suspect a thing.
I'm going with the whole retro-newwave/Vivienne Westwood/pirate look. Fab, right? What's straighter than a pirate? ... I want the look to say: I'm not gay; I just flew in from Williamsburg. Where I had sex with girls! Many of them! The kind with boobs! So please don't punch me!

Yep, this is basically the story of a teenage drag queen taking a Florida school by storm. Billy Bloom weaves (embroiders?) a tale that's just too too to be true. But it's very detailed: from the composition of the spitballs hurled at him to the structural elements of the make-up he applies. The narrative is a little bit e.e.cummings, a little bit Perez Hilton, a dreamy meditation on the universe followed by Action! Action! Action! And I don't know if I've ever read a book that better captured the ostentatious moodiness of adolescence.

And the cover has an uncanny attraction for 9-year-old girls. I had to remove it from the clutches of more than one pre-pubescent.*

(2)Second, the Fine Lines feature at Jezebel. It revists 1980s teen novels like The Grounding of Group Six. This week the spotlight's on Jacob Have I Loved. But instead of being timely, I refer you to the analysis of Little House in the Big Woods (subtitled "I play with a pig bladder like it's a balloon!"):

Did you know that a black doctor saves the lives of the entire Ingalls family in Little House on the Prairie?

Es verdad. (There is also a not-particularly-sublimated gay sex scene in The Great Gatsby, but no one asked me about that.) I state this not because these are the most salient points at hand-or even points, really-but because I cannot figure out any other way to enter into a discussion of THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK OF OUR TIME.

It's like gushing over books, only with sophistication and maturity.

*I gave them Lily B. on the Brink of Cool as an alternatve. I haven't read it yet, but it's also pink.

Fundraiser, fundraiser, make me a match! Find me a find! Catch me a catch!

2008-01-25T09:16:00.000-08:00

There's a pointed and well written letter to the editor in today's Providence Journal. Of course, I like the slant, since it's the same as mine. It also says that "The mayor, under the new agreement between the city and PPL, is expected to serve as the honorary chair of a new fundraiser for the library." Maybe by pretending this is going to happen, we can make it happen?

That actually worked for my sister when she wanted to get a cat. Instead of asking my mom for a cat, she started asking, "When we get a cat, what will we name it?" So I'm all for asking the city and PPL, "when we get a fundraiser, who will we appeal to?* how will we communicate with them? what information will we communicate in order to motivate them? and how will we establish accountability so the funds are used as advertised?"

Whether or not we can actually expect a fundraiser, it is in the memorandum of agreement between PPL and the city. Voila: "The Mayor of the City of Providence will serve as an honorary chair of a fundraising appeal for branch libraries and will identify and recruit an appropriate individual to serve as the other co-chair. The city and the PPL will agree on the use of the funds to be raised in this appeal based on the recommendation of the Library Partnership Advisory Committee. " Page 6, people.

At the community meetings last year, PPL administration talked about its fundraising efforts, but if you check the language above, it puts the mayor on the hook and PPL off--as far as fundraising for the branches goes--which is unfortunate, because I want everybody to be on the hook like it's a coat check. Just like I want everyone to have a website with lots and lots of information (I'm just dying to stalk the Library Partnership Advisory Board online...)

Anyway, here's a discussion question: What is PPL? A central library with branches? Or branches with a central headquarters?

Also, I'm not sure when Library Reform updated their webpage, but they did.** And it has a very scary picture of children with scissors and gluesticks covered by a big red X!!!

*I know, I know, it should actually read: "To whom will we appeal?" But I always feel snooty correcting my own grammar.
**Is it because I was an archivist that I get frustrated when things aren't dated?

Is it just me

2008-01-22T15:48:00.000-08:00

Or is there something very romance novel about this cover?

What's the Native American equivalent of blacksploitation, anyway?

All I know is I have too man y book s about young white women being taken captive by American Indians. When girls check these out, I always try to talk them into checking out Saturnali a, too. Unfortunately, Saturnalia doesn't have as provocative a cover.

Just checking

2008-01-19T14:18:00.000-08:00

So it's been fun checking in with the kiddie music blogosphere, especially the Lovely Miss Davis. She's got this list of, let's see, I want to get this right, ah yes, The Top 20 Kids Albums for Parents Who Can't Stand Kids Music, and #1 on her list is #2 on my list of most popular.

Being more expert-ish than me, she has an explanation for what makes this CD so seminal:

No! is important in that it's one of the first albums that effectively reached parents of our generation and got us excited about kids' music. It has served as an entry point for many families into the kindie-rock genre, and I consider it a landmark in the recent evolution of kids' music.

Phew! Good think I have it in my collection, huh?

Is it a boy or a girl?

2008-01-19T08:10:00.000-08:00

In two days, my blog will be 9 months old, and even though I know that pregnancy actually lasts 9.5 months, the 9-month mark seems significant. In honor of the end of gestation, I am featuring a post from my first week of development, ambitiously titled "I Have an Idea for Jay-Z's Next Album." This ill-advised title is evidence that I'm still secretly competing with my friend who writes for Vibe.

It's a fairly one-sided competition.

Anyway, I bought a batch of CDs using the review resources in my word-to-Jay-Z post, and I'm now happy to report on which are the most popular:

1. Buzz, Buzz by Laurie Berkner. Laurie Berkner falls into the chipper folkie category, which makes her slightly less annoying than the robot children category.

2. No! by They Might Be Giants. Yes, there is a hipster parent contingent in my neighborhood.

3. Music for Little Ears: Authentic Lullabies from Around the World. This one, I love. It's soft, rhythmic, and takes you down deep. There are also English translations of all the songs.

And based on a recent surge, I expect great things from these in 2008:

1. Soy Una Pizza by Charlotte Diamond. OK, don't be scared by the cover. I know she's like "Hold still while I shove this pizza down your throat!" But she's actually very tame. The songs on this one are a perfect mix of the familiar and the predictable. Learn 'em in a snap whether you speak Spanish or not.

2. African Playground by Putumayo. It's African, it's playful, it's probably playing at a coffee store near you ... what's not to love?

And then there's my favorite, even if it's not exactly circing up a storm .... for future Broadway stars and aspiring Von Trapps ... introducing the charming, the endearing, the darling, the winking, only slightly wrinkled John Lithgow (!!) and his show-stopping pick-me-up: The Sunny Side of the Street. Real Broadway tunes discretely tailored for the petite.

It meets my top 3 criteria for good kids CDs: 1) no robot children, 2) clever lyrics--but not the kind that go over kids' heads, like this horrible offender, and 3) swinging sing-a-long-ability.

Let's see some jazz hands, people.

HTSMC Step 4: Teaching Character Development

2008-01-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

And by character development, I mean literary characters.

I don't mean it in the U.S. Army sense of the word.

Right. So I got this idea from my favorite Manga drawing book. The idea is that character development isn't static, so the best way to do it isn't by making a list of your characters' qualities or favorite after-school activitities.

Instead, you think about how your character would react in a situation, and that helps you to get to know your character the same way you would get to know a real person--actions speak louder than words and all that.

So now I'm starting each Manga meeting by giving the kids a prompt, like what would your character do

if a rock was falling on her head?
if someone unexpected declared his or her undying love?
if he was falsely accused of stealing something?

The kids are ridiculously creative. In reaction to the rock falling, we had characters deflecting rocks with their iron skulls, pulling someone else over to stand under the rock, and reaching above their heads to stop the rock with their bare hands. Oh, and one character just, you know, stepped out of the way.

The great thing about this, for me, is that I'm going to reuse the situations as prompts for my drama club. If I were to write an equation describing how this will affect my planning time, I would use division. But I can't be any more exact, because that would involve math.

Repeat After Me

2008-01-16T10:47:00.000-08:00

So when I first flipped through Chicky Chicky Chook Chook, by Cathy MacLennan, I think my reaction was, well, it's no Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. The story of a bunch of chickens, bees, and kittens getting caught in a rainstorm is told in lines of rhymey-rhymey nonsense like "Fizzy, fizzy, buzz, buzz, fizz, fizz buzz."

But today at storyhour, I used the book to illustrate this week's pair of opposites: wet and dry, and it worked brilliantly thanks to a kid who talks to himself. I'm not kidding. He has this running commentary going through just about everything, and today, as soon as I read the first line ("Chicky, chicky, chook, chook") he repeated it to himself, and then all the other kids did, too.

So we read the whole book like a call-and-response poem, and between lines, I could have heard a pin drop! It reminded me of seeing this Hatian playwright's one-woman show in college. She explained how storytelling in her culture always includes reactions from the audience, and in fact, a story starts with the teller saying krik!, and the audience answering krak!*

I've had kids repeat one line in a book before, but never the whole book, and I really liked the way it flowed. The other thing I liked was that when we finished the book, the kids looked at the adults who brought them and were like, You hear me read that book? I read that!

So I'm making a list of other books that could work that way. There are a couple of train ones, plus Vroomaloom Zoom ... I'll put others in the comments as they occur to me.

*If you're like, isn't that a book? The answer is, yes. By Edwidge Danticat.

Fanfare

2008-01-15T13:43:00.000-08:00

So much going on!

First of all, Mother Reader has the best coverage of the reaction to the Newbury , Caldecott , etc. Because of the snow day yesterday, I, to my profound embarassment, had to be informed of the winners by a dapper parent who was at my door when we opened, hoping to snatch my copies of the winners. I'm a little sad that Kadir Nelson didn't cash in, but I kind of like the Caldecott committee for picking such a genre-bender.

Second, the Daily Dose suggests you attend a Library Trustees Meeting. Sort of.

Third, I got an e-mail press release about the 2008 American Indian Youth Literature Award. The ALSC website hasn't been updated, but here are the winners, quoted directly from the press release (The YA title is no surprise--it's been showing up everywhere):

Picture Book

Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom by Tim Tingle, illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridge. Cinco Puntos Press, 2006.

A beautifully inspired story of a friendship between Martha Tom, a Choctaw girl and Li' Mo, a slave boy and how their relationship brought wholeness and freedom to Mo's family and also to many slaves. Bridge's illustrations enhance the story by resonating the joy of friendship, the light of faith, and the leadership of children.

Middle School

Counting Coup: Becoming a Crow Chief on the Reservation and Beyond, by Joseph Medicine Crow. National Geographic, 2006.

This appealing autobiography of Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow (Absarokee) is a winner with the young and old. The author recounts his adventures and training as a traditional Crow warrior and his service as a decorated World War II veteran. Walk, run and ride with him as you learn first-hand

about real-life on the Crow reservation before during and after encounters with newcomers. In a text that is not preachy, but and honest read, Joseph Medicine Crow tell how he over came many challenges to fulfill is role as Chief of the Crow Nation.

Young Adult

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Little Brown Publishers, 2007.

A realistic, bitter-sweet yet, humorous look at the life of Arnold, a Spokane Indian teenager making his way in life on the reservation while attending an all white high school. Alexie brings to life the challenges many young native people experience as they learn to navigate and balance Indian life in a modern world. Part autobiography, Alexie's Arnold reminds us of the complexities of coming of age, bigotry, bullies, loyalty to family and the meaning of love.

Patches for kids who smoke David Pelzer

2008-01-11T13:12:00.000-08:00

You know when you get a reader's advisory question from a kid who obviously knows what he wants and isn't afraid to tell you when a book is a "no," and you still have to pull about 15 books of the shelf to get him to articulate exactly what he wants?

Those are my favorite. I just had a kid come in and ask me if I had any books like the David Pelzer books. So I took him over to YA and laid 15 books on the table (OK, really it was only 11) and he picked out four and told me exactly what he liked about them.

Since kids come in all the time for that David Pelzer deliciousness, I thought it was worth mentioning which books were take-homes:

Going, K.L. Saint Iggy. "Because his mom is addicted to Meth."
Rapp, Adam. Under the Wolf, Under the Dog. "Because the kids live on the streets."
Mickaelsen, Ben. Touching Spirit Bear.* "Because it goes through the juvenile justice system process."
Shaw, Susan. The Boy in the Basement. "Because it sounds a lot like A Child Called It."

I should note that Breathing Underwater, by Alex Flinn, Rules of Survival, by Nancy Werlin, and You Don't Know Me, by David Klass, were checked out, so it's possible those would have tempted him.

I also really wanted to figure out a way to give him a Jake Coburn or Kevin Brooks book, because, well, I just love them, but unfortunately, neither of those authors has written specifically about child abuse or homelessness, which seem to be the fascinations.

*I feel a little guilty about this one, because the Native American lore in it is totally lore, as in 100% bonafide made-up nonsense. But the book is really popular, so I just tell kids that the Native American stuff is made-up by crazy white people.

Speak of the Devil

2008-01-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

Apparently, I am the devil. According to Wednesday's Projo article, "at the same time it is warning of the layoffs, the library has hired at least five librarians recently, angering the union that represents the library employees."

I'm pretty sure* that I'm one of those librarians, and I don't want to seem like a piker, so let me just point out that these librarians, with the exception of one, weren't hired to create new positions. They were hired to fill existing positions --they're not replacing the specialists.

Anyway, the specialists' positions are important, and it's a crime to terminate them. But PPL doesn't want to touch the endowment and the city hasn't done anything to raise funds. And no one else is doing anything because no one thinks they're really going to do anything. So of course everyone at the Childrens' Roundtable today was relating it to The Boy Who Cried Wolf, because we relate everything to picture books.

I don't have much to add to what I said last time, except that in one place, the article says the positions will end in March, and in another place, it says the money will run out in May. Oh, and the last press release on the PPL website is: Providence Public Library Receives $106,230 Grant from The Champlin Foundations.

Oh yeah, and it sucks to read in the newspaper that you're getting fired, before you hear anything about it from your employer.

*Note that I said "pretty sure," because I don't want to be guilty of spreading disinformation. Since no one's officially informing us of anything, I don't know much of anything for a fact. How's that for a disclaimer?

All things visual and sequential

2008-01-10T06:35:00.000-08:00

Everyone's talking about the Cybils, and I was particularly interested in the Graphic Novels shortlist, since I'm busying selecting all things visual and sequential. I started with a list that a very skinny boy made for me in the middle of a dinner party. And since then, I've found a couple other pretty terrific selection tools, so I thought I'd share.

First of all, did everyone else already know that Diamond Bookshelf listed the top-selling Manga and other Graphic Novels every month? And here I was, thinking you needed to subscribe to ITV2.

But more importantly, look what's at Bookslut! An interview with Robin Brenner! About her new book Understanding Manga! So good, it's sure to make you love Manga more than penguins and giant robots, plus you'll get answers to questions like "Should manga get more of a free pass for gratuitous violence and sexism?"

Then there's the "17 Sensational, Free and Downloadable Graphic Novels" over at Daily Bits. These aren't graphic novels that are only available online, but rather novels that are also delivered in formats ranging from books to Sony Playstation Portables. What I'm saying is, you can get a sneak preview of stuff you might also be interested in collecting. Personally, I recommend Fables.

The Excelsior File reviewed some TOON offerings: graphic novles for early readers. My favorite year-end-best-of-thingy is a tie between the one at Warren Peace and the one at Popcultureshoc k (my fave category: "best use of animals"). Percocious Curmudgeon has a list of the most fun graphic novels (lots of stuff for kiddies), and Comics and More has a list of the worst.

The Death of Sush

2008-01-09T11:48:00.000-08:00

So today was one of those days when I got shushed by a patron. I definitely get shushed more than I shush, and it's also definitely generational.

In fact, last night I was having a heated conversation with one of our, er, regulars, and he said, "No offense, but the library is like my hang-out place." And I explained in super-fast lecture mode that the library isn't a hang-out place, it's a learning and thinking place, and I would not hesitate to kick him out if he prevented other people from learning and thinking.*

This kid was about 12, and his "hang-out place" comment got me thinking that maybe young people's perception of the library is truly different from their parents' and grandparents'**, and that's a good thing.

My mom recently sent me an article from the Boston Globe that would seem to support my theory. The article reports that 18- to 29-year-olds are more likely to use the library to solve problems than any other age group. I believe the article was based on a Pew study that my roommate passed on to me. The study is, in a word, awesome. And the Globe article points out that "young adults are the ones likely to have visited libraries as teens and seen their transformation into electronic information hubs."

In other words, they love us for our computers.

Or in other words, they don't think of us as a book morgue.

So I'm crossing my fingers that, maybe, in a few years, people will be so used to the bustle and noise of their friendly neighborhood internet-cafe-cum-free-videostore-with-books-on-the-side that they'll stop shushing me. Which would be great. Really. Thanks.

*It's possible some of you now think I'm a heinous bitch, but you probably don't work in an urban library. Yes, I hung out in the library when I was a teen, but I was actually looking at books and reading and stuff. Not sexually harassing middle school girls.

**Or maybe their homelives suck more.

Veronica Mars: Savior of the races?

2008-01-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'm previewing TV shows (I love you Netflix!) to see what would be worth buying for the library. I got my first Veronica Mars installment this week, and I expected to be delighted (similiar setting to my beloved OC, but more crime-solving). But I was actually kind of disturbed.

In episode 1, Veronica cuts a black boy down from the flagpole where he's been duct taped by a local motorcycle gang, and the following week (or hour, in my case), she rescues the Latino leader of the biker gang from a chain gang. Or at least from cleaning up trash next to the highway.

And yeah, she's been kicked out of the white, upper class incrowd, but she was kicked out. She didn't, like, realize they were racist, classist meanies and then start sitting at another lunch table. And she totally still wants her ex. And she's dating a guy who owns a yacht.

I asked a teenage friend what she thought, and she said it was going to give white girls the idea that with a tazer and a dog named "backup," they could brave the mean streets of LA. It'd be like those kids who imitate the moves on the WWF and then kill each other in the living room. Scary.

Election Fever!

2008-01-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

The Pheonix officially trashed my entire state this week. Not Rhode Island. My real state. I especially like this part:

[C]redit New Hampshire and Iowa for an almost pathological determination to take any steps necessary to maintain their privileged role. “This is their life,” says University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. "They’ll hold their contests right after July 4 the year before the election if they have to — they don’t care, as long as they’re first."

The article suggests it would be more fair to let other states have a crack at being first. But my point is: nothing short of total revolution will make this country's political process more fair. Who are we kidding? So why call off the carnival?

Anyway, mulling over carnivals and revolutions reminded me that there are a surprising number of books about kids running for president. My favorites are probably Tashijan's Vote for Larry, and Gutman's The Kid Who Ran for President.

And then there's the whole YA obsession with presidential offspring. Personally, I think it's all about the body guards. The uncontested champion in that arena is Ellen Emerson White's trilogy, but there's also First Boy, by Gary Schmidt, and First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover, by Mitali Perkins.

OK, I'm starting to feel a display here. For books that are about the political process in the grass roots sense of the word, I like Amy Timberlake's That Lucy Moon Girl (there was a spiffy review of it on A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy) and my old fave, E.L. Konigburg's T-Back, T-shirt, Coat, and Suit.

And then when I throw in all the books about high school elections, not to mention the non-fiction books about actual elections, I think I could probably fill all my display areas. Yes! As long as I don't end up taking all the books home to see if they talk about the New Hampshire primary ...

Kwanzaa!

2007-12-28T08:57:00.001-08:00

I'm proud to announce that my Kwanzaa display includes a number of titles from the incredibly thoughtful list at A Wrung Sponge. Incidentally, I've decided to add almost everything Kadir Nelson has illustrated to my collection of award winning picture books. He did win the Coretta Scott King Award last year, and Henry's Freedom Box has turned up on a number of Caldecott lists. I mean, how can you resist this face?

Children's Librarian Shout Out!

2007-12-28T06:43:00.000-08:00

I saw Juno last night, and out of nowhere it got me with a children's librarian reference!

There's this rant about how cute jocks secretly want freaky girls with horn-rimmed glasses and goth make-up who want to grow up to be children's librarians. Children's librarians! How specific.

I cackled so loud the hecklers behind me told me to quiet down. Please. This from the guys who thought she was beating off with a pregnancy test.

So much to live up to

2007-12-22T06:45:00.000-08:00

My roommate alerted me to the fact that Sony has edited its e-book ad campaign. Slightly. So is this more or less offensive than the original?

Pesticide for the lily complex

2007-12-19T10:37:00.000-08:00

I'm sick of Christmas, so it's time for a review in honor of Kwanzaa! Sweet Thang, by newcomer Allison Whittenberg, wins the prize for most infuriating brat of the year. Tracy John, Charmaine Upshaw's little cousin, is a "turtle-necked, corduroy-pants-wearing, angel-faced little creep," but he's so adorable that no one believes Charmaine when she says he's a devil child. Plus, his buttery skin reminds Charmaine how dark she is, and, as she puts it: "the joys of black were not distributed equally. The near-whites like Tracy John and Dinah hogged them all" (59).

The babysitting scenes between these two are as funny as anything in a TV sitcom. My personal favorite is the time Charmaine is driven to stab Tracy John with a pen.

The romantic subplot is admittedly predictable: Charmaine crushes on the "African Greek God" Demetrius, but he prefers the light-skinned Lena Horne-look-alike, so Charmaine finally realizes he's using her to do his homework and switches her affections to a less attractive but more socially conscious classmate. But do tween girls ever really get sick of that plot?

Besides, the focus of the story is Charmaine's change-of-heart toward her cousin, and that transformation is more complicated and 100% in character.

The book has lots of other perks, too: funky 1970s patterns, homey dinner table conversations, and Charmaine's cutting ovservations. Oh, and Kwanzaa! As Charmaine prepares to emcee the Kwanzaa festival at her church, she makes personal connections to the principles of the holiday. And it's only a leeeeeeeeetle bit preachy. And you can forgive an author for wanting girls to get the moral of the story, right? Not to oversimplify things, but there are already too many girls out there trying to attain bizarre standards of beauty.

HTSMC Step 3: How about a little friendly competition?

2007-12-19T09:27:00.000-08:00

I just couldn't leave that depressing post at the top of my page. So here are links to a brilliant way to teach Go using a 9X9 board instead of the whole 19X19 spread. For those who don't know, Go is a Japanese board game that's featured in the Manga and Anime series Hikaru No Go, which is surprisingly entertaining for a series about a 6th grader learning to play a board game.

If you have kids that like chess and kids that like Manga, this might be the perfect program. There are instructions for the capturing game on the Hikaru No Go DVD, but you can also find them here, here, and here. Making your own Go boards is quite a project. Or you could just make little 9X9 boards with markers and cardboard. Or buy the real thing. Want to beat the kids? Practice online. I'm going to try running a Go program over Christmas break ...

Punching the kids in the stomach

2007-12-18T18:02:00.000-08:00

I've been lax in my reporting on the continued PPL fund-scrabbling. There isn't enough money to do what needs to be done, so here's the plan: eliminate the children's specialists in March. It's brilliant, really. I mean, which patrons are least likely to make the city and library feel their wrath? How bout school children? Sweet.

Apparently, the municipal library services board (without any power) was set up last year, and they've created this letter that people can sign and send to the mayor expressing their disapproval. You can pick up a copy of the letter at most branches (I think). Here are the facts in case anyone wants to pen his or her own:

At the 3 large branches, childrens services are offered by a children's librarian and a children's specialist (someone with loads of experience but no masters degree) , but at each of the 6 small branches, there is no separate children's librarian. There is one adult librarian and one children's specialist.

But after March, there will be just an adult librarian and a clerk working the circulation desk. Not only is that level of staffing (2 people!) ludicrous, but it precludes children's programming which requires the attention of the librarian.

The letter that the board has created points out that

only $100,000 are required to continue the specialist's positions to the end of the year.
PPL can't effectively fundraise, because people won't give their money unless they know it will go to the branches--not just some general fund.
the Mayor agreed "to serve as an honorary chair of a fund-raising appeal for the branches" last summer.
now is the time to raise funds!

If you would like to make a similar point to the Mayor, his address is

City Hall
25 Dorrance St.
Providence, RI
02903

Enough hating

2007-12-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

I think the reason How Ya Like Me Now, by Brendan Halpin, sat on the floor of my bedroom for 2 months was because it had a video game console on the front. At least I think that's a game console. Is that what you call that? You can see the problem.

But I'm so glad I finally ran out of books with angry female warriors on the cover, because How Ya Like Me Now was exactly what I needed: a smart book about a white suburban boy getting transplanted to a city, where he attends a business-like charter school with his cousin and avoids phone calls from his oxycotin-addicted Mom.

What's awesome about this book is the way it complicates the urban/suburban dichotomy (hey, remember this?). For example, Eddie is from the suburbs, but he's the one with a drug addict in the family. Alex lives in the city, but his school has better test scores. Plus, there's dialogue like this:

"Yo, Alex, man, we figured your cousin would be white, but Left Eye is literally white! Can't see his face next to a wall!"
"Kid could be completely invisible in a snow storm!" Savona added.
"Homeboy makes Michael Jackson look black!" Kelvin added (30).

I like how Eddie copes with the culture of an urban school, where, as a white person, he's in the minority. Like, instead of trying to crack on people, he affects a super proper way of talking: "I will now discontinue my fronting. I sincerely hope to hit that... as you may or may not be aware, I am the mack" (139).

But this book isn't, like, about race. It's more about the two cousins trying to get girls, finish their marketing project, beat each other at Madden, and keep their parents out of their business--especially Eddie's mom who's getting out of rehab and threatening to "be a family again." Ack! Now here's a book I could hand to any kid without embarassment. Finally!

Preaching to the choir

2007-12-17T10:38:00.000-08:00

OK, so I tried to read Alan Lawrence Sitomer's Hip-Hop High School, and I admit the slang is pretty fresh, but who's the guy writing for? Check out this passage:

It's like I speak two languages. In my head I talk a normal king of English, but when I chat with my friends or any of my peers I rap to them in this kind of ghetto slang ... Like, I never say 'with.' I say 'wit.' And I don't say 'that." I say 'dat.' And I sort of slur my 'what's up' too and turn it into 'wazzup' ... if you talk too proper, you might get jumped by a crew of four or five. That's because people will think you're trying to act white (5).

So if Sitomer's writing for urban teens, why is he explaining code-switching like it's rocket science? Did the publishers make him put it in there for the white kids? Is he trying to reassure kids that everyone's doing it? Or is it just another example of YA writers forgetting who they're writing for?

It's like when writers explain how there are categories at school: jocks, geeks, preps, etc. Do they think they're writing for feral children? Who doesn't know about the categories? And on top of that, who actually makes up cute names for the categories? Sorry, Tina Fey, but that's such an adult thing. The only people we made up cute names for were the guys we had crushes on.

Happy Belated Santa Lucia Day!

2007-12-14T07:11:00.000-08:00

Shockingly, this book is not in my collection! It is, as far as I know, the only children's book that features tomtens, which are Scandanavian gnome-ish creatures with red ski caps.

It isn't easy to find information about tomtens. Type it into Google and you know what you get? Knitting patterns. People think Scandanavia=wool sweaters the way they think Mexico=pinatas.

So now I'm all worked up, because how come brownies and elves and faeries and all manner of magical creatures are getting all this play in Holly Black books, and no one's writing about little men in wool sweaters who can't pronounce the letter J? Where is the Terry Pratchett of Scandanavia?
This all started because yesterday was Santa Lucia Day, which many girls of the 80s were introduced to via the Kirsten doll. I was going to make a list of recommended books with Scandanavian themes, but then we had a snowday, and then I got distacted by this awesome article about how Santa Lucia day is a beauty pageant in Sweden these days. Check this out:

"Staunchly opposed to privilege, Sweden has always sought to avoid ranking people, which is why beauty contests and ‘homecoming queen’ events are rare. The Lucia celebration, however, has been an exception."

Anyway, the list is still coming. Just you wait!

What's in a label?

2007-12-13T07:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I discovered to my chagrin that I may be part of the conspiracy to dumb down American kids so they won't be able to compete with Asian engineers.

As mentioned before, I'm weeding children's chapter books (a.k.a JFs), and yesterday I found myself moving a bunch of books to YA. Now, these books weren't circing in JF and they mostly had protagonists who were in their teens, so it seemed a sensible move, but at the same time, I remember reading some of these books as a child. Examples:

The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
The Moon by Night by Madeliene L'Engle
Songs of Faith by Angela Johnson
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

So I started to worry that I was dumbing down my JFs. But then it occured to me: are we still adjusting to the advent of YA as a category? Were these books originally categorized as children's books because the YA category was still in its development stages?

To answer that question I'd have to do, like, history and numbers. So I'm going to let the question just sort of float. But I also discovered that the blessed cataloging dept. has put the Lightning Thief in kids and The Titan's Curse in YA. They've put The Wee Free Men in YA and A Hat Full of Sky in kids. Not to mention the fact that I seem to have copies of Stargirl in every section of my library including the 100s.

At least I'm not the only one who's confused.

Damned by Faint Praise

2007-12-13T07:11:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite words: Litotes:–noun, plural -tes. Rhetoric. understatement, esp. that in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary, as in "not bad at all."

I mention this because over at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy, they're making a list of YA Books for Boys that deserve to be described as something other than "not strictly girl books."

Corporate Sponsored Storytimes?

2007-12-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

OK, how weird is this: one of the moms at my storytime brought me these free Clorox Bleach Parent Newsletters. She thought I might want to hand them out as part of a storytime on sickness etiquette, like sneezing into your elbow. Apparently, she's on Clorox's mailing list and they send her free toilet brushes.

HTSMC Step 2: Consult Drawing Books

2007-12-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

I always hate it when people do all those one-word sentences like: Best. Idea. Ever. But I can think of only one way to describe Shojo Beat's Manga Artist Academy: Best. Manga. Drawing Book. Ever.

But I'm a little insecure, because I don't know if I should put a period between Drawing and Book.

Two things make this book different from the 1-2-3-learn-to-draw variety: First of all, it's written in Manga format. It reads right to left and follows a little panda through the adventure of creating a marketable Manga. It includes advice like this: "Love is the magical essence that eventually glues your audience to your work!" But it also gets into the nitty gritty of proportion, perspective, etc.

Second, it tells you how to develop your craft rather than how to draw a particular character by putting lines here, here, and here.

And that's why this book is my new secret Manga club cookbook. Today we started with the first piece of advice: "It's always good to have a role model in the beginning." In other words, copy the masters! So I photocopied a page of Manga and cut it into pieces, and I gave each kid a piece of the picture. Then I had them draw their piece at about four times the original size. We put all their pieces together and it looked ... pretty bad.

But what I like about projects like this is the element of tension: What is this actually a picture of? Will my piece fit with everyone else's? Will everyone laugh at me?

Actually, I always participate in these activities, so if anything gets laughed at, it's definitely my feeble efforts.

Now, I ask you

2007-11-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

Is this culturally accurate?

Quote from one of my favorite library kids

2007-11-30T12:10:00.000-08:00

"When life hands you lemons, cut them in half and squirt them in someone's eyes."

The girl's secret guide to saving sparkly mermaids vol 1: the complicated case of the ghostly pirates, or How to be popular with superheroes

2007-11-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

I'm weeding children's chapter books, and I have discovered two ways publishers can guarantee a book will never circulate: 1) give it an abstract cover. 2) fail to include a description of what happens in the book. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

Why make these mistakes unless they're trying to sabotage a writer? It's not rocket science. On the other hand, here's a list of 10 things you can put on the cover of a book (regardless of its content) that will make it move.

1. Sparkles. Or shiny swirls.
2. Animals with sad eyes.
3. Any reference to Superheroes or special powers.
4. Graffiti font.
5. Any combination of the following words: girl, popular, secret, complicated, life, game, rules, notebook.
6. The words "How to" followed by something ridiculous, like train dragons or eat worms.
7. The mottled pattern of a composition notebook.
8. Fairies or mermaids (strangely, unicorns have fallen out of favor).
9. Large reptiles.
10. The words haunting, ghost, scare, or triple-dare.

Foster care remains popular, but terminal illness and paralysis are still circ-killers. Another cardinal rule: the more books in the series, the better it circulates. Familiarity doesn't actually breed contempt. It breeds readers.

Stay tuned for my list of suggested titles for young adult books, beginning with Chicken Soup for the Teenage Child Called It.

How to Start a Manga Club Step 1: Buy Wired

2007-11-16T10:51:00.000-08:00

HTSMC. Hmmmm. Shall we pronounce it "Hot Smack"? The series should really be called How to Start a Manga Club When You're Not Even Sure How to Pronounce it. (All the cool people seem to be saying "MAHN-ga" instead of "MAYNE-ga.")

To be more clear: I knew almost nothing about Manga until a few weeks ago, and now I'm running a club at my library, and since I'm not the only person asking the question, "What do you actually do at a Manga club?" I thought I'd answer the question by sharing what I'm doing.

First of all, I'm buying this month's issue of Wired. Actually, I already did that last night. Yes! I can check step 1 off my list! This month's issue has a history of Manga written in Manga format. It also has an article on the boom of fan fiction-type Manga (also known as copyright in fringement, right?).

I used the dojinshi article to spawn a short discussion about copying and copyright at our Manga club meeting yesterday. Like I said, the discussion was short. Very short. But they were busy with their drawings, so I comfort myself.

I also gave them some dialogue from the first volume of Samurai Champloo (more on this particular series soon) and told them to imagine what was happening and then draw it. When they had finished, we compared one another's interpretations and then looked at the original. This was supposed to demonstrate something about the interdependence between words and images in comics. Only I never really explained that. We just had fun. Here's the dialogue:

Hey man, your hand!
Hand? My hand!
One dumpling for one hand.
At these prices, I'll never get full.

Related: Quill and Quire compares the Japanese publishing industry's compromise with dojinshi (amature Manga) to DC Comic's online agenda. (via Mangablog.)

What we talk about when we talk about race

2007-11-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

You can tell a journalist wrote Adam Canfield of the Slash, because it's jam-packed with issues we talked about in J-101, from media consolidation to anonymous sources. It's not a tall tale in the Maniac Magee sense of the word, but it plays like one. The adults are caricatures and the kids operate like they've never heard of "grounded" or "bedtime."

I'm not sure kids really care about that kind of authenticity, though. I mean, don't they all wish they had the mobility, vocabulary, and independence of TV show kids? Hell, I wish I had all that. Anyway, the plot to this story's great, and the dialogue is, dare I say, snappy.

But there's another thing that's a little weird in an is-it-just-me kind of way. The main characters are named Adam and Jennifer, and 1/2 way through the story, the two get on a bus, and Adam realizes he's the only white person on the bus, and I realize that Jennifer is African-American. OK, maybe I'm obtuse, but I think the writer's trying to be tricky.

Then a woman on the bus gives them a speech about the beauty of two different colored children being friends and how that's going to change the world. What I like about the scene is Adam's feelings of disorientation. It's like suddenly he sees his own life from a different perspective--like it suddenly occurs to him that there is a different perspective. But I don't like the way the people on the bus appear for his enlightenment and then disappear again.

Lately I've read a few books that touch on white privilege (A Summer of Kings, Ethan Suspended) and they come dangerously close to celebrating the innocence of white kids, like, awwww, isn't it cute they don't know anything about racism? But it isn't cute, and they do know stuff. They just also know that they aren't supposed to talk about it. And until we get white kids talking about race, we're not going to be able to change what they think they know.

Tell it

2007-11-10T07:15:00.000-08:00

I love comments like this: "Have you noticed how many picture books are on the subject of jazz? Nothing wrong with it, but how many kids these days listen to jazz?" Exactly. They listen to rap. Thanks for the reality check. Of course, I just like to be contrary, and that's not what this blog is all about. It's about spotlighting childrens books by and about African-Americans. (Checked out their first post via Motherreader.) But it appeals to my contrary sensibilities as well as that nervous need for more information about what's available for kids of color. So yeah, bookmark this, people.

Journalism strikes again!

2007-11-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

When I first saw this headline, I wondered how it was possible to ban a short story without banning a whole book. Turns out the story was just removed from the curriculum. The book was never banned from the library.

The most amusing part of this article is the comment about how it's better for students to learn about pornographic acts with animals in school than out of school. Why do people always make themselves so ridiculous in situations like this?

Turbosluts and class bitches

2007-10-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

You know how Amazon lists the "key phrases" in each book it displays? Well, #3 on the list for Carol Plum-Ucci's The Body of Christopher Creed is "turboslut." Besides being a tasty piece of 90s slang, "Turboslut" tells us something about Plum-Ucci: she loves to endear us to the bad girls.

The Body of Christopher Creed has shown up on a number of summer reading lists in Providence, because educators think it's a quick-pick-with-issues. The plot revolves around a boy who is tortured by his classmates for 11 years until he suddenly disappears, leaving a mysterious e-mail that's either a suicide note or just a dig at his mom.

But forget Chris, because the truly interesting character is Ali, a.k.a. class slut. She's the cheerleader who can't keep her skirt down, and just being seen with her can get a boy in trouble with his girlfriend. But by the end of the novel, we're sympathizing with Ali, to the point where we want to tear out the hair (and earrings) of the girls who gossip about her.

In The She, which I liked even better, Plum-Ucci gets us to like Grey, a Queen Bee who drugs unsuspecting freshmen at parties and take cracks at the one-legged girl in class. Seriously.

That's Plum-Ucci's real claim to fame: she teaches readers that even turbosluts and bitches have backstories. Now I'm looking forward to checking out What Happened to Lani Garver. Who will Plum-Ucci trick me into liking next? The girl who sits on a toilet with asprin and vodka, calling her friends, threatening suicide? The girl who started the petition to kick me out of our lunch table? Or will I recognize myself this time?

your slang is whack

2007-10-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

I cracked open A Sky Full of Stars by Rene Saldana, Jr., hoping for some eye-popping action that would appeal to boys. After all, it's about a kid who gambles on his best friend in an underground boxing match. The front flap promised Spanglish, fight scenes, card sharps, prize money and 1964 Fold Galaxies. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the first chapter, because of lines like this: "What kind of friend pops a buddy in the schnozz for no good reason?" (2).

OK. No self-respecting person under the age of 50 says schnozz. My Dad says schnozz. I actually remember him accusing this high school friend of mine, CJ, of leaving a "schnozz print" on the windshield of his car. And it's OK for my Dad to say schnozz, because he's a 1950s boy straight outta Stand By Me. He sounds good saying schnozz. But not the pre-teens of today, people. They say, "Yo, I thought you was my boy. Why you trying to get dumb?" They don't even mention schnozzes.

I'm not bringing this up so I can hate on Saldana. (He's in Guys Write for Guys Read. I'm sure he has a lot going for him.) I have the same problem with Carol Gorman, who, in her recent effort, Games, has one kid trash-talk another by comparing him to Yosemite Sam. Yosemite Sam? Really? And I see this in alot of books for boys. I guess it's OK for girls to talk in Standard English (always hated the caps on that), but guys are supposed to use slang and sound tough. So authors give it their best shot, but they're not even on the court.

I mean, if you don't know any kids, you can at least watch TV, right?

How do you like your coffee?

2007-10-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

So I'm worried that my storytimes are really white, and I don't know if reading books with pretty colored kids is enough to make my programs welcoming to everyone. So I was researching children's rhymes from difference cultures and I found this site: CocoJams, which documents African-American children's rhymes.

The webmaster and brain-mother of the site, Azizi Powell, has a scholarly background and a smart way of moderating other people's contributions. And my favorite part was discovering that some of the jumprope rhymes I used to sing were literally white-washed. Check this out. I grew up singing:

I like coffee, I like tea
I like the boys and the boys like me!

Apparently, some other girls were singing:

I like coffee, I like tea
I like a black boy and he likes me
So step back, white boy, you don't shine
I'll get a black boy to beat your behind.

Should've known the real things was more raw than what we sang in the suburbs ...

I feel so exposed!

2007-10-11T14:04:00.000-07:00

Amazingly, this Emily also takes on the combined Army, Navy, Air Force, and Special Forces--all in defense of her rabbit! Reminds me of summer camp ...

Oh, the drama

2007-09-25T15:16:00.001-07:00

So I actually wrote this post months ago, right about my "Acting Up" club performed its first, um, performance: The Case of the President's Laser Protected Disappearing Time Machine. Yesterday, the Acting Club met again for the first time since the performance, and once again I found myself wondering why I didn't blog about the process. I think it was because we met on Fridays and afterwards, I always kind of wanted to die. Anyway, here are some observations that I noted after the first performance:

Usually, I come up with programs and then market them, but this program was actually the brainchild of two girls who come to the library every Friday to do things like check the circulation on their favorite sci-fi novels and research a family tree. And at first I kind of put them off, but they wore me down to the point that I put a handwritten sign-up sheet on the table, and told them we'd do it if they could get 10 kids to sign up. (That's the most I've ever had attend any of my brainchildren.)

There were 10 names in three days. Lesson learned.

Then I wanted to also attract kids who might not sign up for a drama club, so I created a poster that said "Don't worry--no one has to wear tights ..." and called the group the "Acting Up" club. I forgot that even middle school kids are developmentally unlikely to take things figuratively. Three boys reported for duty the first day and actually thought they were in the wrong place when someone said "drama club." They were like, "Hell no, we here to act up."

I made everything up as I went along, including rules, so we ended up with a three-part code:

No flying kicks.

No simulating sex with Beyonce.

No questioning people's sexuality or gender.

I wanted to write one of those vote-for-who-did-it-surprise-ending-mysteries like Shear Madness or The Mystery of Edwin Drood. So I had the kids choose the setting and then the crime and then develop characters. And for setting they chose the Whitehouse, and then they wanted the crime to be the theft of the American flag from the oval office to protest the election of the first black President ... and I went upstairs and explained this to my boss, insisting that the whole thing wasn't a cover for my radical political organizing and it was all Their Idea. I admit I was a little relieved when the following week, they had changed their collective and mysterious mind and wanted the stolen item to be a time machine ... or a wheel of cheese.

Three weeks into the program, one of the stars of our play was kicked out of the library for a month. I tried to talk to him out front one day, but he just leaned against the bike rack and wouldn't look me in the eye. Apparently, he got all up in the face of one of the librarians, swearing, etc., and nothing I could do would get him reinstated until he'd done the time.

A week before the performance, while I was at ALA, one of the teen employees ran a last rehearsal, and every one of my kids showed up (including the kid who was in exile for awhile) and then every one of them got kicked out of the library. Yeah. For real.

On the day of the performance I baked 50 chocolate chip muffins (with the oven at 200 for the first 10 minutes because I'm scatterbrained); collected an assortment of hats, scarves, and props; said a prayer that the time machine would remain intact; and went to the library. Everything went swimmingly during our lightning-fast-top-secret-whispered rehearsal, except that The Scientist didn't show. I called his mom and she still had to pick him up for basketball practice.

It killed me, because this kid was brilliant. He designed the time machine, pronounced words like "perambulate" without flinching, and knew how to swear in Nigerian. But halfway through the second act, when I was in the middle of playing his role and mine (which was hard, because I kept having to change hats and switch which side of the table I was sitting on so I could interrogate myself), he showed! And the whole play stopped and the audience applauded and we went back to the beginning of Act II, and he got to take the time machine home with him.

So I'm uploading the script in case anyone really cares. I'm also mentally composing a list of things I learned that are hopefully transferrable, and I'll add that soon. I read/skimmed a number of books on teaching drama before I started the program, but I found that they were focused on the art of it, and I was just trying to get a show off the ground (art schmart). And in the end, I think I succeeded in that much. If nothing else, I made 50 muffins, right?

From the cutting room floor

2007-09-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

Just found this on K.L. Going's website: a deleted scene. Iggy learns about personal schoppers at Saks. So true: "The thing about robbers is they’re never around when you need them."

Judging

2007-09-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

I'm always interested in how kids decide whether or not they're going to like a book. Obviously, cover art is criteria #1. Last night I was reading Saint Iggy while a bunch of kids at church were playing Around the World, having dance competitions, and waiting to sucker me into driving them home. And they stole the book from me when I was two pages from the end, still wondering if K.L. Going was going to be bold enough to go tragic, and they started reading it aloud to each other.

But even after reading a couple paragraphs, they still insisted they wouldn't read the book because it was fantasy. I explained to them that it was not fantasy, no one had special powers, and the colorful wings Iggy's wearing on the front of the novel are metaphorical. Still. They were having none of it.

And it reminded me of something a middle school librarian told me when I visited her library: books are status symbols. They're like accessories. And maybe that's why the kids wouldn't read Saint Iggy: because it looked like a fantasy, and therefore, even if it wasn't a fantasy novel, it would make them look like a fantasy reader.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into this? Anyway, I won't tell you how it ended, but I do highly recommend Saint Iggy. It's a bleak little Christmas story that would be a beautiful film shot on a handheld digital camera. Imagine a city in winter: cops, churches, high rises, abandonded-buildings-cum-crack-houses.

Iggy's on this quixotic quest to make an important contribution to society in time to save himself from being kicked out of school. But he gets entangled in the schemes of the local meth dealer, an idealistic law school drop-out, and a lovely, lonely rich woman who longs for her son like Iggy longs for his mother. (Don't worry: no Mrs. Robinson action.)

And since I'm on a meth-addicted mom kick, my next read is Harry Sue, which is just as good as she said it was.

Confessions

2007-09-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

So I was reading Finding Lubchenko by Michael Simmons at the laundromat Sunday and it was so yawn. It was like reading a technical manual. It begins with an elaborate explanation of how the main character is boosting computers from his Dad's company, and continues with an elaborate explanation of how he gets entangled in an international bioterrorism plot. It's like explanations within explanations, and I'm like That's a plot? That's character development?

But today I was reading the new Horn Book on my break. Specifically, I was reading an interview with Jon Scieszka, and it was all about how we value the way girls read rather than the way boys read. Here's the quote that zinged me:

"That's a different way boys experience books, and part of why they enjoy nonfiction, certainly. There's something about boys amassing expertise and being in charge of that knowledge, whether it's about all the dinosaurs in the world or every kind of truck there is on the planet."

And I realized that Finding Lubchenko isn't a pathetic excuse for a narrative--it's a narrative that will resonate with people who are systems thinkers, who like order and control, who like to know why, and who like to categorize things and do them step-by-step, people who like to take things apart and then put them back together.

This describes many boys. So all the time I'm hearing about how boys are discriminated against when required reading is determined, and I theoretically agree, but I still don't admit the ways in which I participate in that discrimination, because it doesn't even occur to me. So now I admit it: I am biased against books that explain everything. There. I said it.

Books that have been stolen in the last two months

2007-09-10T17:37:00.001-07:00

Obviously, this list is not comprehensive, but I went looking for a couple books today--only to discover that (alas!) they had gone astray. Since we all know that "missing" status is one indicator of popularity, I figured this was worth sharing:

Suitcase, by Mildred Pitts Walter.
The Moves Make the Man, by Bruce Brooks.
The Skin I'm In, by Sharon Flake.
The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, by Walter Dean Myers.
Don't Let the Pigeons Drive the Bus, by Mo Willems.

I assume some of them were on summer reading lists--like The Greatest. But still.

And of course, the book Hold My Gold: the White Girls' Guide to the Hip-Hop World remains M.I.A., apparently never to be replaced. Sigh. Now how will I learn the correct translation of the following phrase?

Meg Murray gets a make-over, but not in a bad teen movie way

2007-09-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

That reminds me: I saw Square Fish's new covers for the Time Quintet at ALA. I always pictured Megan as a pre-Paris Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, not a folk art angel. But I do like the old-fashioned Russian fairy tale quality of the new designs. Allegorical. Like iconography.

Troubling a star

2007-09-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Madeline L'Engle has died. Her Newbury winner, A Wrinkle in Time, was #22 on the ALA's list of 100 most frequently challenged books for 1990-2000. You have to admire an author who was simultaneously accused of promoting "religious themes" (usually code for Christian) and encouraging Satan-worship.

My favorite thing about L'Engel was that she had a few characters (Canon Tallis in particular) who made surprise appearances half-way through books in which you weren't expecting them. If you'd read one of her other books, you'd know who the strange man with no eyebrows was as soon as he hummed that familiar tune on the trans-Atlantic flight. Otherwise, you'd be just as creeped out as Adam Eddington.

I had always hoped there'd be another installment in the adventures of Vicky Austin and Adam Eddington. And what about true love for Poly O'Keefe? Is it unreasonable to hope for an unpublished manuscript?

Mmmmmmmm, delicious

2007-09-06T17:23:00.001-07:00

Listen, I would never want to be a hater without offering a constructive alternative. And since I was definitely hating in my last post, here is a list of vampire books, with reasons why each of my selections is better than anything by Stephenie Meyer:

The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause. Because flawed, dangerous, and fragile vampires are much more alluring than ones made of unresistant metallic material that blinds you when the light hits it.

Sweetblood by Pete Hautman. Because people posing as Vampires can be more threatening than the real thing. (Plus this book relates a fascinating and possibly specious theory on the origin of the Vampire myth. Anyone interested in what happens when diabetes goes untreated?)

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova. (Adult fiction, but the narrator is a teenager at the time when the story takes place.) Because the plot unfolds like those elaborate fortune tellers you used to make in middle school. And each time you lift a corner, you're in another splendid and sinister setting, from France to Romania to Istanbul.

Peeps, by Scott Westerfield. Because if you're going to make stuff up, you might as well go all the way and invent a new, urban flesh-eating creature that does what old fashioned vampires did: exorcise the writers' anxiety about sex.

Thirsty, by M.T. Anderson. Because nothing is more revolting than eating a helping of human flesh casserole and licking your own blood off your face.

The Return of Alpahbet Salad!

2007-09-03T05:35:00.001-07:00

I would like to congratulate myself. (You should try it. It's very satisfying). My librarian status is once again certified by a paycheck. I've also joined the Rhode Island Teen Book Award nominating committee. I'm going to be reading books for middle school students.

I don't know if the proceedings of this committee are supposed to be clandestine, but I intend to comment on my experience, because I think the world needs to know how New Moon by Stephenie Meyer could ever be nominated for a statewide award by librarians.

I can understand why teenage girls would vote for it, but how did it get nominated? Your intrepid reporter intends to investigate.

In case you haven't read it, here are my objections: Either Meyer doesn't know anything about Vampire lore or she just doesn't care. Instead of shriveling in the sun, her vampires radiate brilliant light. Her characters exhibit never-before-observed psychological phenomena (Caution: dating Vampires may cause you to hear voices during death-defying teenage hijinks), and worst of all, the book has a made-up Native American tribe! Of people who turn into werewolves!

I know it's fiction. You're allowed to make stuff up. But these are cheap tricks--like the one where the character wakes up at the end of the book and discovers it was all a dream.

And you can't just make up a Native American tribe, OK? Native Americans have been dehumanized enough in children's literature.

Telegrams from ALA Part IV: Freaks of Nature

2007-07-02T05:25:00.000-07:00

And so much for posting images of the covers so you could judge them. I walked away with over 20 books/ARC/galleys and I have the bruises on my shoulder to prove it. I read two books on the train, and both were delicious.

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr is like reading the long lost cousin of a Holly Black novel. The mood feels borrowed--like you're filling in the blanks using what you've already imagined from reading other urban fantasy--and the characters aren't the minature masterpieces that Holly Black creates--honestly, that woman sketches characters the way those guys at Faneuil Hall write your name on a grain of rice. Tiny details. Stunning precision.

But Marr's novel is notable because it offers an alternative to the borderline-rape-wish romantic plots of many urban fantasy novels. It's that whole what's-the-difference-between-seduction-and-rape issue. We all know no means no, but does yes always mean yes? What if you've consumed fairy wine and danced to fairy music? What if you're bound by an ancient curse?

Marr's novel stars a Catholic High School girl chosen by a fairy king to be a fairy queen. But this girl, Aislinn, doesn't just pretend to resist his irresistable charms. She breaks out the salt, the holy water, and the pepper spray. And when that doesn't work, she engages in no-holds-barred negotiations for power.

I thought I was detecting a women's studies major undercurrent, and then I read this interview, in which Marr talks about issues of "volition." She's obviously 100% savvy about the messages we're sending young women when we make it seem attractive to be bound by ancient curses to dangerous, mercurial (and devestatingly sexy) men.

But she does it in the most non-preachy way possible: she creates an even more attractive, totally mortal, totally respectful male character to compete with said fairy king. Sure, it's just another woman's fantasy of a man, but at least it's a women's studies major's fantasy of a man.

My only remaining question: does the title intentionally reference that landmark of New England slang, the use of "wicked" as a qualifier? Or is it just a juxtaposition of two words describing fairies?
The second book was one I've been dying to get my hands on ever since I heard it existed. It's called Evolution, Me, & Other Freaks of Nature, by Robin Brande, and it's the best representation of psycho Christian teenagers since Saved.

Driving the plot is the youth group of a super-church (the kind with bowling allies and food courts). The teens in this group get their marching orders from a minister zealous to root out evil in the form of Biology teachers and possibly homosexual high school kids. But Mena, our main character, has recently been kicked out of the group (for some initially unknown sin), so she is suddenly on the other side of the looking glass. And she doesn't like what she sees.

Now that her old friends are calling her Judas and hip-checking her in the hallways, Mena makes friends with her adorably nerdy lab partner and his magnetic big sister, who is the editor of the school newspaper and who happens to be just as zealous as the minister, but with a radically different political agenda. So the question is, does Mena have to "choose sides" or can she find some middle ground? And should she tell the newspaper editor every damning thing she knows?

The narrative reveals how difficult it is for Christian teens to have normal high school social lives without a) lying to their parents or b) getting mocked by their peers. No wonder they band together. But of course, the book also demonstrates that real friendships often transcend social barriers. It's a relief to be around people who are like us, but we only evolve when we interact with people who are different.

I kind of wish this book mixed up the format a little. The plot is full of blog posts, letters, newspaper articles, and science reports, so why not change the design on certain pages and show us the "primary documents," so to speak? And OK, while I'm criticizing things, the pastor of the super church is definitely a caricature. But the symapthetic portrait of his daughter, Bethany, mostly makes up for that. I wish there could have been a scene between Mena and Bethany ...

Alright, I'm going to stop before I start writing fan fiction here. Maybe there will be a sequel ... about Mena and her lab partner dating across religious differences ... No, for real, I'm stopping.

Oh, the drama

2007-06-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

So I actually wrote this post months ago, right about my "Acting Up" club performed its first, um, performance: The Case of the President's Laser Protected Disappearing Time Machine. And in retrospect, I have no idea why I didn't blog about the process. I think it was because we met on Fridays and afterwards, I always kind of wanted to die. Here are some highlights:

Usually, I come up with programs and then market them, but this program was actually the brainchild of two girls who come to the library every Friday to do things like check the circulation on their favorite sci-fi novels and research a family tree. And at first I kind of put them off, but they wore me down to the point that I put a handwritten sign-up sheet on the table, and told them we'd do it if they could get 10 kids to sign up. (That's the most I've ever had attend any of my brainchildren.)

There were 10 names in three days. Lesson learned.

Then I wanted to also attract kids who might not sign up for a drama club, so I created a poster that said "Don't worry--no one has to wear tights ..." and called the group the "Acting Up" club. I forgot that even middle school kids are developmentally unlikely to take things figuratively. Three boys reported for duty the first day and actually thought they were in the wrong place when someone said "drama club." They were like, "Hell no, we here to act up."

I made everything up as I went along, including rules, so we ended up with a three-part code:

No flying kicks.

No simulating sex with Beyonce.

No questioning people's sexuality or gender.

Telegrams from ALA Part III: Author Readings

2007-06-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

So Monday I stalked Cecil Castellucci, who everyone apparently calls "Ceci." What's funny is that I first pegged her for one of her own fans. I was waiting for her to read at the live author's stage or whatever they were calling it (probably not that, because it begs the question, where's the dead author's stage?), and I saw this pipsqueak woman with hair died in chunks of black and whitish blue, big shoes that made tromping noises, and a black messenger bag that looked like it weighed as much as she did. I was like, Oh, that is so obviously what I would expect a Cecil Castellucci fan to look like. And then it turned out to be Cecil Castellucci.And then to add to the fact that I've been badmouthing her new book Beige, stalking her at ALA, and sporting a copy of The Plain Janes like it's a brand-name handbag, I volunteered to help her with her spontaneous reader's theater performance of The Plain Janes. I played "arty" or "main Jane." In my defense, I am a huge fan of Boy Proof and, now The Plain Janes, so it's not like I don't support her. I just also like to spy on her and hold her work to really high standards.

For those who aren't stalking Cecil, The Plain Janes is the first in a new series of graphic novels for young women--they're obvious "quick picks" with characters that will appeal to the kind of girls who let me sit at their lunch table in high school: highlighters for nail polish, Kool Ade for hair dye, black ribbons for chokers, and Tae Kwon Do masters for boyfriends. Those kind of girls. I read the entire first installment while in line to get True to the Game signed by Teri Woods. (She wrote, for the future patrons of my imaginary library, who I obviously think are theives: "Please stop stealing the books out the library. Please, OK. Believe. Teri Woods.")

Anyway, the point of this post is that I like to listen to authors read their work because then I can decide whether I would invite them to speak at my school. Which is like window shopping, becuase I don't have a school. But I would definitely invite Cecil Castellucci to my imaginary school.

I would maybe invite Carolyn Mackler, because her book The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things has universal girl appeal. I think it's the frank treatment of the relationship between Virginia and Froggy: he comes over after school to feel her up but doesn't acknowledge her in public, which she accepts because her weight makes her think she's not worthy of a more attentive boyfriend. However, Mackler was very young Mom, which is cool, but I wanted her to have more street appeal. She's the kind of person who skips over the bad words in her own novel.

I don't think I would invite Nick Hornby, even though he has a non-American accent, because I have my doubts about the appeal of Slam, his foray into YA lit. Don't get me wrong: it's a funny and totally relateable topic: teenage fatherhood. But it's also a nightmare. I mean, the part Hornby read on Monday included commentary on the way diapers smell. It's not exactly escapist literature, and I don't know how many teenage boys are scanning the shelves for a naturalistic portrait of young parenthood. (If you can call a Tony Hawk poster that transports the main character into the future "naturalistic.")

I didn't get to hear Catherine Gilbert Murdock speak/read, so I can't say if I would invite her or not. But if I had read The Off Season before I attended the conference, (instead I read 78% of it last night between 12 and 3 a.m.), I would have dropped everything and been there. Because it's one of the best books I've read this year--better than Dairy Queen. I would kill to know if Murdock had the sequel planned when she wrote the first one. Because all the issues you care about at the end of book 1 (will D.J. and Brian stay together even though they play on rival football teams? Will Amber and D.J. ever be comfortable around each other again now that Amber has confessed her crush?) seem monumentally unimportant by the end of book 2.

Because Murdock doesn't just resolve the conflicts in the first book: she rotates your perspective so that you see the conflicts from a totally different angle. You do a 180. And it's cathartic the way books about abandoned horses were cathartic when I was in third grade. Murdock makes you care about the fate of every member of this family of football-loving Wisconsin cattle farmers. And despite the fact that it's set in just the kind of setting that usually renders a book unsaleable to my urban audience (farms), I think I could get them to read it, because this girl is a brilliant athlete and there's something universal about the sports team experience. Much as I hate to admit it.

So to bring this full-circle, The Off Season is the kind of book that makes me feel OK about not really praising Beige. Because it's really important to have genuine praise leftover for the likes of Catherine Gilbert Murdock.

Telegrams from ALA Part II: Printz Awards

2007-06-28T14:44:00.000-07:00

Look! I'm on Brotherhood 2.0! Of course, I'm sitting about 2/3 of the way back in a hall that sat, like, 300 people, so even I can't distinguish my bushy head. But I'm there.

John Green spoke at the Printz Award reception, because he was an honorable mention this year, and his speech was the second most super. The first most super was M.T. Anderson's. In fact, M.T. Anderson was the whole reason I was there, because he astounds me.

I remember book-talking Fee d at Woonsocket High School: I started by saying that the story takes place in the near future, and people are getting "feeds" instealled so they can access the internet mentally. That's right: they check e-mail, chat, watch movies, listen to music, get bombarded by banner ads, etc. in their minds.

And the classful of freshmen, who had been sitting there comatose through my description of a book by Jess Mowry and The Bell Jar (which I admit was a long shot, although I said it was like Smashed or Katie.com with penny loafers and electroshock therapy), reacted instantly with a chorus of "Cool! I want that!" I stared at them in amazement--they wanted the Internet in their brains? -- until finally one boy, sitting in the corner with his desk at an angle that said I am so not one of you, just spat, "Yo. That's whack."

And that sort of silenced them.

Anyway, it wasn't the reaction I was expecting, but in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have been surprised.

So M.T. Anderson's speech was so brilliant and poetic that I can't properly summarize it. I hope there's a transcript floating around somewhere. But his point was the racism isn't a thing of the past. He wrote The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. !: The Pox Party because he wanted to demonstrate how the ideas swirling around the American Revolution are still swirling and still relevant. And if you haven't read the book--it does have an intimidating title--you should know that he somehow renders the familiar American history unfamiliar--strange, absurd, exotic, and shocking. It's like a carnivale version of 1776.

He said that historical fiction sometimes makes us feel "safe and righteous": "We seem superior to the dead. For one thing, they're dead. We're alive. We must know something they don't." Then he said that the question we should ask is: "What are we doing that our grandchildren ... will look at and gasp?" And his example of something gasp-worthy was "standardized" tests. He talked about how his girlfriend worked in an urban school where, during the week of standardized testing, number of students were shot. So how can you compare her kids' scores to the scores of safe, well-fed, comfortable middle class suburban kids? Fire off a couple rounds over their heads and then have them take the test. Then you can make comparisons.

John Green, who was honorable mention for An Abundance of Katherines, talked about the inspiration behind the Arab character in his book, a real-live roommate of his, also named Hassan. He talked about how Hassan used to rant against Fox News coverage of the war in Iraq and told this really funny story about misinterpreted graffiti that I know I'm going to screw up, so you'll just have to wait til a transcript of the speech is posted here.

I think an alternate title for the speech (not that I know what the original title is) could be "Against Narrative," because in the same way that Susan Sontag attacked the idea that images must have to say something in "Against Interpretation," I think John Green attacked the idea that stories have to make sense. He said that the problem with narrative is that we'd rather believe "lies that make sense than truth that doesn't." In other words, by creating believable stories, we make reality less believable--at a time when it's really important to face the truth.

Not that he was really attacking narrative. Just saying that we need to question it. And I may be taking this farther than he did in his speech, but obviously, it got me thinking.

Telegrams from ALA Part I: Gaming

2007-06-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

OK, the real reason I didn't post these during ALA is because my laptop is permanently on the fritz. But pretend I was submitting these over a literal wire, and that's why they're delayed. It's so much more romantic that way.

The most compelling workshop I attended was also the one that I least wanted to have anything to do with. It was about holding a video game tournament in your library, which I had no intention of ever doing. But it was the only kid-related workshop during that time slot, and I wanted to get my money's worth.

So it turned out to be fabulous. The presenters were Eli Neiburger and Erin Helmrich from the Ann Arbour District Library, where there's a whole gaming season with eagerly awaited weekend-long tournaments for a range of ages. Not only did the presenters succeed in eviscerating my prejudice against video games in libraries, they offered a beautiful model for promoting teen programming (it's all about branding) and a plan for taking over the world.

I don't want to steal their thunder, since one of them has a book coming out next month, but check the powerpoint (in PDF) to get a glimpse of how brilliant and organized their tournaments are (People, they have commentators, post-game interviews, instant replay on the big screen ... like it's a football game or American Idol ... so cool) and check this basic "menu" of resources for getting started.

And here are my favorite points:

"We can't be all things to all people, but we should have something for everyone." In other words, the question isn't whether or not we should have something for gamers. It's a question of how we can most effectively serve them with our budget. And the answer is ...

Buy the software and equipment for game tournaments rather than building a circulating collection of video games. A single game reaches a max of 52 people a year, assuming you check it out for a week, while a tournament brings in more than 50 kids each time it's held.

The introduction of the wii has also made gaming more accessible. For the first time, it's bringing in seniors who want to simulate bowling--not just teens and twenties who want to crash race cars. We better get ready for the influx of new users.

And this was my favorite point: you don't have to know anything about gaming to start a program like this. What you do have to do is reach out to people in the gaming community--which might include local teens, college students, or people who work in another department of the library.

It was interesting, because after the workshop, there were a series of annoying questions that were all along the lines of: but what if you don't know anything about gaming? I mean, the presenters had to find 5 or 6 different ways to say: find someone in the gaming community to provide leadership.

It reminded me of the challenge of Spanish-language outreach among libraries where none of the employees speak Spanish. Still, the librarians want to come up with their own initiatives rather than letting the local community take charge. I'm beginning to believe that the secret to success if often giving up a measure of control.

Where your mouth is

2007-06-16T07:52:00.001-07:00

I'm alittle late with this, but in case you don't read the ProJo religiously, here's a bullet point summary of the June 14 article:

The city and PPL signed a contract, but the city council has to approve it.
The city is contributing $3.3 million this year, with cost of living increases every year following.
They're establishing something called a Library Partnership Advisory Committee. I assume this is a variation on the theme of "Municipal Library Services Board." In the words of the article, this board will "oversee finances across the library system, though the body would have no authority over the PPL’s trustees."* So what exactly do they have authority over? City/state money? Can the trustees trump them there, too?
Ten people are being laid off.
Fox Point, Smith Hill, Olneyville, South Providence and Wanskuck will be open 28½ hours a week instead of 30, and all branches will be closed for lunch and dinner (because there will no longer be enough staff to cover breaks).

Ignore the rah-rah nut graph about "ending a years-long dispute over library service and establishing the first written agreement in the history of their 100-year relationship." Seriously, does anyone really think the problems are over?

*I hear that there's already some formula for how to populate this board, but no one can tell me exactly what it is or how people will be selected. But don't worry, there are going to be representatives of the people.

Summer Reading: Damn the man, save Isaura

2007-06-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

My lil sis recommended Pucker, by Melanie Gideon, and it wasn't until two days after I finished reading it that I realized what made the book so disturbing. I mean, besides this part (If your name is Emily's Mom, don't read this. Seriously. It describes someone's face being burned off.):

"The top layers of my skin hung from my face like a giant sheet of wax. Cook would later tell me that I had no idea my face was aflame. I was cupping my chin as if I had just vomited and was trying to get to the bathroom before it splattered all over the floor" (28-29).

OK, so obviously, this book is about a burn victim, but it's a little more complicated than that, because, specifically, this book is about a burn victim from a distopian world called Isaura whose mother drags him through a portal to America (hospitals! McDonalds! motorcycles!). There she supports the two of them by reading people's futures from the comfort of her creepy, invalid bedroom. Then on page 5 she tells her son, now 17-year-old Thomas, that he's going to have to go back to Isaura and get something she left behind. It's actually a body part, but I don't want to get into that here.

Thomas figures he can sneak back into Isaura because Isaurians have a creepy policy of targetting desperate, suicidal, disfigured, terminally ill people and making them an offer: Come do manual labor for Isuara and we'll cure your disability. But you have to stay in Isaura. And do whatever we tell you. Forever.

Thomas crosses the border with a pair of conjoined twins, a girl whose skin can't be exposed to sunlight, an obese man, and a woman in a wheel chair. But he gets sidetracked from the mission his mother has assigned him, because as soon as his face is healed, he's hot, and all the girls want to make out with him. Except, of course, the one girl he wants.

What's so disturbing about the book is that Isaura is your classic distopia--rigid, idyllic, static. People are neatly stratified, technology is firmly resisted, and books are strictly forbidden. Everyone's "happy." It's just the kind of society whose elaborate facade is supposed to be ripped off by a noble freedom fighter to reveal the dirty machinations going on behind the scenes. But at the end of the novel, the facade is still intact. Thomas thinks the government is up to something shady, but what he perceives as a political plot turns out to be a very personal betrayal.

I don't want to spoil anything here, but I really want other people to read this and tell me if it doesn't confirm the paranoid teenage conclusions that 1) you can't change the world and 2) everyone is watching you. Not to mention, 3) your parents really did do something to ruin your life when you were about 5 years old so you should just blame all your problems on them.

That isn't exactly a criticism. I appreciate the deep pessimism of this book. In fact, I was a little disappointed that the ending wasn't even darker, as well as a little more drawn out and painful. As it is, it's the kind of book that creeps up on you, makes you a little uncomfortable, and leaves you a little dissatisfied. If I thought the author did all that intentionally, I'd be even more impressed.

Summer Reading: Rampant paranoia and other newsflashes

2007-06-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to start with a disclaimer and then continue with an excuse, but damn, it's hard to write an intelligent review of a dumb book. And The Tattooed Rats by Jerry B. Jenkins is dumb. I know, I know, it's by Jerry B. Jenkins. Obviously, it's not rocket science. Jenkins probably doesn't believe in rocket science -- or evolution or contraception or affirmative action. But surely there's more to the book than the author's political agenda, right?

The Tattooed Rats imagines a near future in which Christianity is outlawed because it causes dissension, prejudice, and violence. Christians hideout in old shopping centers and underground bunkers--or they disperse themselves in terrorist-like cells and meet in secret to worship. The tattooed rats in the title are a clique/faction/cell that get "tats" and infiltrate the mental health facilities of the World Peace Alliance, the big-brother organization in charge. (The Tattooed Rats is actually the first in the "Renegade Spirit" series, and I picked it up because the second book came out last month.)

Jenkins has some clever ideas but he never develops them into interesting scenes. In fact, the narrative reads like a hack screen play: all dialogue, no setting, no exposition. On top of that, Jenkins plays cheap tricks like dropping you in the middle of a conversation that sounds like two teens talking about dating, but really, they're chatting about their relationship with Jesus. The characters are as interchangeable as the chicks in bad slasher flicks. And the more you read, the more paranoid he sounds.

This novel is part of a tradition of Christian writing that focuses on spiritual warfare, personifying the forces of evil and often pitting them against everyday characters the readers are supposed to identify with. This tradition includes brilliant allegories like The Book of the Dun Cow and Madeliene L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time Trilogy, not to mention The Lord of the Rings. But all of those books had something that Jenkins' work lacks: a compelling, vital, and chilling villain.

Jenkins' villains are Stepford wives who cook soy casseroles; neurotic teachers who forbid their students to ask questions; popular teens who can be bribed with headbands and lip gloss; frigid government agents like that sadistic woman in The Crying Game; and (my personal favorite) dinosaur-like demons who zip into human costumes to do the devil's work. That's right, Jenkins is ripping off Frank E. Peretti, the Stephen King of Christian fiction. The worst part is, the demons don't even appear until about half-way through the book.

That's why Jenkins sounds paranoid rather than prescient: his concept of evil is ridiculously didactic and reductive. He's from a clan of Christians who attack biology textbooks and contraception rather than poverty and racism. One can see why Christians and people in general feel duty bound to battle the culture around them--if by "culture" you mean violence, imperialism, the objectification of women's bodies, etc. But Jenkins wants to influence culture rather than just resist it, and that's what makes him scary.

Except I'm not scared of Jerry B. Jenkins, and I resist the urge to be, because I don't want to end up as paranoid as he is--or as confused about what's really a threat to free speech and a just society.

Just today I was on the phone with another librarian, asking her to hold Till We Have Faces for a patron at my branch. And her response is, "Oh, it always makes me nervous when people want C.S. Lewis books." Which I thought was pretty paranoid on her part. So I guess there are would-be censors on both sides of every issue. To those people, I would like to say: Books are not the enemy. Not biology text books. Not Harry Potter books. Not C.S. Lewis books. Not even these damn Jenkins books.

Roses are red/pink slips are pink/we'll be blue in July/if it's as bad as I think

2007-06-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

Today was the day we were supposed to know what the city and PPL had decided to do. You should have seen me digging through the pile of junk mail in my front hall, looking for that pink slip. It didn't come.

But that doesn't mean I still have a job. It just means that the city and PPL missed the deadline for making a decision. Translation: all the branches will be closed in 30 days unless the city makes a move.

The "Transition Team" is meeting one more time on June 7 at 4 p.m. Meetings are open to the public ...

Summer Reading List: Double Your Pleasure

2007-05-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

So my brother doesn't know this yet, but in return for playing keys in his band, I was going to make him help me write a YA book about the punk/hardcore scene--one that didn't characterize punks as kitschy sidekicks or drug-addled dead-beat dads (see Beige by Cecil Castelluci or Born to Rock by Gordon Korman). But then Rachel Cohn and David Levithan beat me to it.

There are already enough books by author-voyeurs who have no real love for punk--who just use it as a hook, a backdrop, a jacket cover. But Cohn and Levithan aren't pimping youth culture. They're tangled in the back seat making out with it.

Basically, the plot of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is this: two teenage music whores spend all night in the city trying to get to third base, get over their exes, and get a ride home. The prose is headlong-she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not-stream-of-consciousness. The chapters alternate between the perspectives of Nick and Norah, and the whole story takes place over the course of about 10 hours, max. You feel everything they feel: the taxi screeching to a halt, the blood rushing to their body parts.

And I really appreciate the Virginia Woolf-esque attention to detail, because it allows the authors to distinguish between the many styles of people living in the wake of the first few waves of punk. Which leads me to my next rant:

People who write about punk for YAs often focus on the commercial tailspin, which reminds me of the way some people identify hip-hop exclusively with its worst excesses. Before punk was a category like "easy listening" or "gospel," it was a phenomenon, a movement, a whole community of people to whom the phrase "mainstream success" was an oxymoron. But now, punk has an evil twin: the H&M version of itself (see Avril Lavigne). And the two are not always easily distinguishable. But focusing on the commodified part of punk culture is misleading in two ways:

It overlooks the diversity of expression that characterizes the phenomenon (i.e. it's not just music: it's art, dress, dance, technology, code of honor; and it's not just tight pants, patches, and mohawks: it's Loretta Lynn in a floral print dress and bouffant);

also, it validates the corporate-appropriated acts rather than the pioneers. (If you think Blink-182 is punk, please don't ever write a book about the punk scene.)

Cohn and Levithan's characters aren't purists. They're straight-edge; they drink Starbucks; they don't care what people wear; they notice every one's accessories; they claim that nothing's more punk than jazz (18), except maybe elevator music (29); they wear pleather; they love their exes; they make ironic comments about "product endorsements by Nike and IBM" (125); then they endorse iPods, Ben and Jerry's, Tiffany windows (69), CVS (71), Oreos (92), Jagermeister (132), Manolo Blahniks (151), and Pepsi (161).

But here's what I really love: they don't think punk is dead. They consider themselves responsible for keeping it alive. They were, like, seven years old when Green Day sang "Do you have the time to listen to me whine ...", but they aren't nostalgic for simpler, purer times. They're active in a current scene. Nick is the only straight musician in a queercore band with no drummer. I'm not sure that's technically possible, but it's absurdly, existentially true-to-life.

But here's what you, as a reader, care about: Nick and Norah are two parts witty to one part cheesy. When they try too hard, it only sounds more authentic ("She's hanging onto the guy ... like she's auditioning to be a pocket on his jacket" (22).). And the supporting characters reveal themselves as philosophical, canine, flirtatious, obtuse. My favorite is Toni, a cross-dressing burlesque theater bouncer in a priest's costume. In fact, I'm going to close with some relationship advice from this ulikely oracle: "There's no such thing as ready ... There's only willing" (62).

Wish you were here

2007-05-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

So lately I have been seeking inspiration from the mesmerizing fish tank at Jacky's Galaxie, my favorite Asian take-out place. (You can get a lunch combo with crab rangoon, chicken wings, fried rice, and nime chow for $5.) And it occurred to me while staring into it today that I should reflect on what I learned by stalking PPL through all those community meetings.

Otherwise, how will I ever talk other people into attending these kind of meetings? Most people thought the poster sessions were meaningless window dressing or face-saving last ditches. They told me that a) this happened, like, all the time, and it wasn't like this time was different or anything would ever really change or the libraries would actually be closed, and b) the meetings weren't about listening to the public--they were about telling the public what to think.

And I'm not saying they're wrong. But by attending those meetings, I learned that there are ways to subvert, redirect, disrupt, and transform them. And there are definitely ways to learn from them. So this is why I can honestly say, wish you were here. Because these are the techniques I observed and plan to use in the future:

Change the seating arrangement. I learned this from the senior citizens who insisted they weren't about to risk their knees, ankles, and hips traipsing up to those easels. They demanded chairs and as soon as they got them, they demanded that the PPL reps come to them, and soon the whole meeting went from cocktail party to sit-down dinner, and it was a lot easier for people to listen to each other.
Don't tell anyone who you are. It makes you harder to dismiss by categorization (i.e. oh, she's one of those people). If people see you actively approaching others and talking to them, they're going to start to wonder who you are, what group you represent, etc., and you'd be surprised who will come to you.
Ask questions of the wrong people. And by "wrong," I mean anyone who didn't organize the meeting and expect to mc it. This could be a random bystander or another member of the organization who hasn't been groomed for the cameras.

Dig up old documents. Like mission statements. Anything that will help you hold the organization accountable to its own principles or expose idiosyncrasies in the way the organization interprets them.

Speak your own language. Obviously, I'm thinking of the people who spoke Spanish, but that's only one example. The point is not to let the people who organized the meeting choose the vocabulary you use. Call it like it is. Make them translate.
Bring children. They ask the best, so-simple-they're-impossible-to-answer questions and make adults who refuse to answer them look like storybook villains.

Introduce yourself. You can usually pick out the politicians and trustees by their shoulder pads, but they often don't introduce themselves. It's great fun to shake hands and ask them what brings them to such-and-such-place tonight. (This may seem to contradict #2, but what I really meant above is that you shouldn't ally yourself with a particular group--don't make yourself too easy to categorize--I didn't mean that you shouldn't tell people your name.)

Ask what you can do. At the risk of sounding like JFK, I'd like to point out that it's really disconcerting to people in power when you show them that you didn't just come to criticize. You came to be involved. It's a way of saying, this isn't over when you leave tonight.

Resisting puns about the blind v. the visionary

2007-05-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

Last night's grand finale featured cameos by Peter Mancini, Lisa Churchville, and others. The articulate and well-informed audience as if by mutual consent raised one essential question: Why is PPL so committed to the main library and so ready to abandon the branches?

They eventually got a good answer. (Answers like this make you wonder why PPL passes up opportunities to make allies out of the public as opposed to enemies--and maybe enemies is an overstatement, but the first few meetings certainly didn't engender much goodwill--why is there so little communication between the private nonprofit and the people it serves?) The answer was that the city wants its money to go to the branches as opposed to the main library, so the current structure--with PPL funding the main library and public funds going to the outlying branches--is as much a product of city priorities as PPL priorities.

The problem remains that the branches are no one's priority, but now it looks like the branches will remain open. It's "services" (read: reference librarians) that are going to be cut.

I had to leave early--in the middle of a lively debate about the Springfield model versus the New York City model (for combining public and private funds to support public libraries)--but I did learn alittle about the Board's interpretation of its mission statement, and no, it includes no specific commitment to the branches. But there is one line I like: "We constantly reassess our services and methods and try to see ourselves through the public’s eyes. " So how do they see themselves now?

West Side Story

2007-05-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

Well, you have to give PPL credit for improving their game. Since Knight Memorial, they've had a Spanish translator all their own, and at Smith Hill they actually got to use him. They had the Spanish-speaking crowd on one side of the library and English-speakers on the other, and the only drama of the evening came when someone from the English side of the tracks wandered over to Spanishville, and the translator apparently thought he'd only been hired to translate one-way.

Dale had a pretty receptive audience of people who admitted that before they just hadn't understood the unique arrangement between PPL and the city. They professed themselves now prepared to take the issue up with their city council people. However, one woman flummoxed Dale by asking if there was some way people could be involved in the current contract negotiations between PPL and the city. Dale reflected and decided that no, there really wasn't any way the people could be involved in telling the city what level of library services they wanted.

There was also one precocious kid with a crew cut (circa age 8) who sipped coffee from a styrofoam cup and, after informing Date that he read the newspaper every day and was therefore in the know, inquired as to the fate of his beloved branch. Dale told him no one was talking about closing the branches. I tried to give the kid a sympathetic look, since I know full well that no one in this cold, cruel world takes you seriously if you look to be under the age of 20. Even if you're white, male, crew-cutted, and drinking coffee.

Ultimately, the question is, who will advocate for the branches if neither the city nor PPL considers itself responsible?

That 3.3. mil

2007-05-15T15:53:00.000-07:00

Here's what PPL proposes to do with it. Looks like the city and PPL are going to have a contractual relationship.

Good Knight and Good Luck

2007-05-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

I suppose it was inevitable, but it was honestly unplanned. Usually I rehearse my impassioned speeches in the bathroom mirror and make sure I'm wearing something other than a t-shirt and flip-flops when I deliver them. But there I was, talking to one of the immaculately dressed trustees, feeling crestfallen by the tiny turnout at Knight Memorial Library, and when she asked me what I thought about fundraising strategies for the branches, I momentarily teetered on my imaginary soap box and told her what I thought.

But let me rewind. When I walked into the Knight Memorial meeting, I was greeted by a woman I hadn't seen before, who made small talk, offered cookies, and steered me toward a carefully selected PPL rep. You'd think I'd be tired of talking to Tonia and Dale, but I learn something new every time.

This time I learned (or realized, because it should have been obvious, but wasn't) that all of PPL's proposed "options of continuing branch services" separate city-and-state money from PPL money. What PPL is offering is to let the city (and/or representatives from the public) manage city-and-state funds. What PPL is not offering is to let anyone besides the trustees participate in what the private nonprofit does with its funds. And apparently, what the private nonprofit wants to do with its funds is channel all of them into the downtown library. So all of their solutions cut the branch libraries off from the main library--and from the precious endowment.

So fastforward to me and the trustee. She said she thought that fundraising for the branches would have to be done separately from fundraising for the downtown library. And that's when, right hand atremble, I said (or thought I was saying, because of course I don't remember exactly what came out) ...

...that I became a librarian because I wanted to equalize access and remove disparities in society, and by funding the downtown library and excluding the branches, the trustees are choosing to reinforce disparities. They are priveleging people who can access the main branch and cutting off families and many working people, and most of all children. And if fundraising for the branches is done separately, then the wealthy communities will have better resources--and that's obviously already true, if you look at Rochambeau--and then libraries will just be part of the process of cacifiying socio-economic differences and dividing us and depriving people.

When you say things like that, that you really believe, you do it in sort of a glow of embarassment and earnestness, and later the memory is a little fuzzy. It doesn't help when the trustee tells you that you look about sixteen, which is probably your own fault for coming in flip-flops, but you were on the phone with your friend from Alaska until just 8 minutes before the meeting.

Anyway. I also learned that the union has the list of 53 employees PPL is planning to let go. The union is holding on to the list rather than issuing pink slips because they hope no one will actually have to go. But I should know about my own fate by June 1. As I left, the trustee wished me good luck. As though she had nothing to do with what happened. Which seems to be what everyone at PPL thinks: that it has nothing to do with them.

Summer Reading List: Boys will be

2007-05-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

As I told my lil sister on the phone last night, it's been a bad week for men. The next elderly gentleman who comes into the library and calls me "honey," "sweetie," or "girl" is going to get it. Except not now, because I read a book that perfectly captures the y-chromosome cluelessness and kinda makes it seem endearing again.

Imagine that two years after the end of Because of Winn Dixie, Dunlap Dewberry declares his love for India Opal Buloni. That's the feeling I got from The Summer Sherman Loved Me, by Jane St. Anthony. It's not quite as gothic as Kate DiCamillo's work (if you haven't read her 2004 Newbury acceptance speech on darkness in children's lit, get your hands on a copy of the July-August 2004 Horn Book and flip to page 395.), but it has the same smoky southern charm, eccentric neighbors, and percocious first-person narrator.

But what I really love is the awkward way Sherman shows his ardor for Margaret: cruel practical jokes, filched roses, gluey kisses. But the clincher is when he names his pet baby squirrel "Little Margaret." When Margaret first witnesses the creature's circus tricks, she thinks:"The squirrel was cute, in the same creepy way that a dressed-up mouse in a book can be cute ... Was Sherman insulting me? I couldn't be sure. I didn't want to care" (69-70).

There's something about this scene that is exactly right. Boys seem puzzled about how to express their feelings, and for some reason the result of their brainstorming is often absurd and a little predatory. But we give them a break because it's such a cry for help. Or maybe because we want to be loved, even if we would like to give them a little coaching on how best to love us.

But don't tell the kids all this stuff. Just tell them about the rule-breaking midnight bike rides, near-death experiences, Jell-O snacks, and relay races. Tell them how Margaret's best friend, Grace, nick-names Sherman "the vermin," and how Margaret is forever offering her twin sisters to other parents. Tell them that reading this book is the only way they'll find out what an "eye ball cleaning party" is. (Guesses, anyone?)

From glorious to glamorous

2007-05-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

So at Olneyville I met (although I didn't realize it) the gentleman in charge of the library show at Firehouse 13. There's not a ton of info on the website, so here's the call for artists' work that was on the RISCA blog (although the deadline was April 13). I was first informed of this show by someone who wanted to know if I could get bootleg library cards for people from out of state--since the ads say you have to have a PPL card to get in. Very VIP. Anyway, I thought a gallery of library artwork was deliciously kitchsy, but now that I know it's also in support of our glorious cause, I thought I'd plug it, too.

El poder de la palabra

2007-05-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

At Olneyville, the PPL reps tried the same strategy of setting up easels with the four options for branch services and inviting people to ask questions. Unfortunately, none of the PPL reps spoke Spanish. This proved problematic, since all of the community members in attendance spoke Spanish first and foremost. (I speak a few words of Spanish, so I admit that this is pot=kettle=black. Still, I could say "nombre" and "numero de telephono," so I did get the contact info of the most vocal community members.) Fortunately, one of the Olneyville librarians spoke Spanish, so the entire meeting was channeled through her.

Sadly, the cocktail atmosphere was completely disrupted by the fact that all the people who showed up for the meeting couldn't possibly squeeze into the teensy meeting room in the back of the library. Everything overflowed into the space in front of the circulation desk, and no one was able to enjoy the delicious decaf coffee. Dale Thompson was forced to personally answer questions about everything from fundraising to handicap access to why the library was spending so may dollars on those fascist, newfangled computer machines (???).

There was strong representation from the community (circa 30 people) and a real push by at least one woman to provide people with a petition to sign, or at least some formal way to show their support for branch libraries.

Word is that the PPL financial committee has crafted a tentative budget (subject to approval by who knows how many groups and individuals) that accepts the 3.3 mil from the city. The discussion now has to do with whether they'll cut people or branches to stay in the black. There's some formula for dividing the overhead costs by the different branches and calculating the price tag of each branch. This budget would probably involve 10-12 layoffs rather than 60, so that explains why no one (to my knowledge) has actually received pink slips yet.

What do PPL community meetings have in common with the 4th of July?

2007-05-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

You'll have to bring your lawn chairs if you want to sit down and watch the show.

Apparently, Providence Public Library wants its community meetings to have the ambiance of 1950s cocktail parties. They have four representatives standing next to easels explaining the four options for continuing branch services. Dale Thompson invites "the people" to come up and ask questions. There aren't any chairs set up, so everyone has to sort of mingle. I guess it's easier to deal with people one-on-one than in an angry rabble.

In other words, these aren't meetings. They're poster sessions. With cookies, flowers, and coffee. Decaf, of course.

I went to the first poster session on Monday at Mount Pleasant Public and people were pretty frustruated because the easels, handouts, and socratic convos with PPL reps didn't actually make the situation any easier to understand. People want to know who's responsible for keeping the branches open. PPL says its the city; the city says it's PPL.

Michael Solomon and Joseph DeLuca, the city councilmen for the neighborhood, were in attendance, but there was no chit-chat between Thompson and the gentlemen. The standoff continues. I'm going to Olneyville's meeting tonight. And I'm really looking forward to Monday's meeting at Knight Memorial, because I have high hopes that South Providence will represent itself well.

And if you're wondering about that angry rabble, check out http://libraryreformgroup.org/.

Defying Categorization

2007-05-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for the handouts and bibliography for the presentation I gave at the Massachusetts Library Association Conference on Thursday, click here, and thanks for attending.

Soundtrack for crusading white girls

2007-04-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

Any white girl from the granola suburbs of New Hampshire who says she doesn't hear the Coolio track from "Dangerous Minds" playing in her head when she walks through the doors of that urban high school (built in the early-Golden Era "Comprehensive" style) is lying. You can say: "I don't subscribe to those stereotypes. They just get delivered to my mailbox with the junk mail and the notices that more sex offenders are moving into my neighborhood." But you're the target market. I'm the target market. I'm "that girl."

So when I walked through the aforementioned doors, I was engrossed with worry that stereotypes of "inner city school kids" would affect my perception of the students. But it didn't even occur to me that stereotypes would also affect the kids' perception of me. Turns out stereotypes are more progressively equal-opportunity than most federal jobs.

It started the moment I introduced myself as "Miss Brown," and a kindergartener said adorably, "You're not Miss Brown. You're miss white." Soon the kids were following me around going, "cool!" "totally!" "OK!" "whatever!" "awesome!" They were calling me Cinderella and singing the Barbie song. And I, who had always considered myself a serious, articulate brunette, found myself asking friends, "Does my hair look blonde to you?" "Do I sound like an airhead on my voicemail?"

Of course the stereotype of the white blonde bimbo hasn't had a debilitating affect on my perception of myself, my job opportunities, etc. I'm not claiming to be the victim here. But the experience taught me how far I have to go in terms of shaking off whiteness. Because I was thinking people of color were the only ones who get stereotyped. Oooops.

Flashback to the first time I watched the Original Kings of Comedy, and I had to watch it with subtitles. And I heard the comedians doing impressions of white people, and I suddenly realized that being white was its own thing, with its own way of walking, talking, dressing, thinking. It wasn't monolithic, but it was whiteness, it wasn't just normalcy. But apparently that's a lesson that Bernie Mac and the "inner city school kids" will have to teach me over and over and over.

So I don't have a solution to these problems yet, but what I do have a is a playlist for white student teachers in the city so they don't have to hum Gangsta's Paradise anymore. Deconstruct them for yourselves. Decoder ring not included.

De La Soul: Ghetto Thang: "Lies are pointed strong into your skull/Deep within your brain against the wall/To hide or just erase the glowing note/Of how to use the ghetto as a scapegoat."
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: The Message: Listen to his son explain why he wants to drop out and tell me where the quotation marks are supposed to go.
Kanye West: We Don't Care: Kanye, on disproportionality: "We scream, rock, blows, weed park/so now we smart/We aint retards the way teachers thought/Hold up hold fast we make mo'cash/Now tell my momma i belong in the slow class."
Gil Scott-Heron: Message to the Messengers: OK, so he's talking to rappers, here, but the advice is good for you, too: "Be sure you know the real deal about past situations,/and ain't just repeatin' what you heard on the local t.v. stations."
Lauryn Hill: Every Ghetto, Every City: Most of this song was Greek to me when it first came out, but I remember being like, "Yeah! I write my friends' names on my jeans with a marker, too!" -- Even though I didn't.
The Coup: I Ain't The Nigga: It's amazing all the alternatives they come up with: jigger, ninja, Niagra Falls ... Just in case you were getting desensitized.
Public Enemy: Don't Believe the Hype: Title speaks for itself.
Nas: One Love: Nas is having a Hamlet moment. Listening to this track is like reading his notebook, unedited, without the self-aggrandizing Zorro-esque flourishes.
Wycelf: Year of the Dragon (Street Jeopardy): This one has it all: braces, fat laces, yellow cheese buses, and after school shootings. Like One Love, it's a made-for-TV-movie of a song that I can't resist, but the real message is that in a violent culture no one is safe--whether they're inside or outside of the "wrong neighborhood."
Jeru the Damaja: You Can't Stop the Prophet: OK, so not only is this about a superhero who fights ignorance, but it mentions the library.

I'm tempted to add Ludacris's What's Your Fantasy, for the sake of my college friend who put it on every single mix CD she made (in case of a Ludacris emergency). This means that on one trip to Boston (was that the one when I crashed her car?), I listened to the song 11 times. So I can tell you that it actually does reference education and libraries.

Like the after-Christmas sale, only with poems

2007-04-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

So Poetry month is actually almost over, but here's my bibliography for it anyway (made for teachers at Woonsocket High School).

Top Websites for Teaching Poetry

Online Poetry Classroom
http://www.onlinepoetryclassroom.org/
This is a division of the Academy of American Poets (http://www.poets.org/) for educators. It has lesson plans, a list of the best poems to teach, and information about the how and why of poetry month. It’s linked to poets.org, so you can access short biographies, selected poems, audio, and critical essays on American poets and movements. You can also sign up for a poem-a-day e-mail for the month of April.

Library of Congress Poetry Page
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/
Check this site for online exhibits and webcasts that pair poetry with primary documents from the library of congress collections, as well as info about state and national poet laureates. Also check out the Poetry 180, a collection of new poems (“full-text available online!”) specifically selected for high school students by former laureate Billy Collins. With titles like “Fat is not a Fairy Tale,” “Cartoon Physics,” “Hate Poem,” and “The Death of Santa Claus,” these poems defy expectations.

The Poetry Foundation
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/
This is the U.S. Mecca of poetry. Click on “Children” in the top left menu box to get lesson plans designed by none other than Maya Angelou, as well as reviews of children’s poetry collections, and an archive of poems organized by age and theme (if you don’t see it, click on “Poetry Tool” in the Archive menu box).

Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Project
http://www.poetryoutloud.org/
This is the site of a national contest that challenges students to perform poetry –not just read it. Search the archive using keywords to find full-text of brilliant poems for reading out loud. There’s also audio of some poems read by actors like Anthony Hopkins and James Earl Jones. Go to the teacher’s guide for information about having a recitation contest in the classroom, as well as a few lesson plans.

Slam Poetry on Web English Teacher
http://www.webenglishteacher.com/poetryslam.html
This site links to FAQs, history, and how-to. If you already know a little about slam poetry, proceed straight to http://www.poetryslam.com/ and go to the poets gallery to read about past winners and (more importantly) listen to mp3s of them slamming. You can also visit the related blog, http://www.livepoets.com/, to hear more.

PBS News Hour Special on Poetry
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/poetry/
If you’re looking for some short and sweet introductory essays for your students to read, this is the place. Just a few paragraphs long, these essays on appreciating poetry use simple language and striking imagery—just like the medium they describe.

Will this poem make me look fat?

2007-04-21T09:02:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched a tape of myself introducing a poetry project to students at Woonsocket High School. (This is for my beginning teacher portfolio. I don't just tape myself for kicks.) Tough crowd. It actually looks like I'm presenting to a crowd of comatose car crash victims. But I did eventually get them reading poems and looking for material for their project--mostly by pretending to be grading them when really I was just writing their names down on a random piece of paper with a dry erase marker.

Anyway, I collected citations for the poems they looked at and, after analyzing the data using an ineffable methodology, I came to these conclusions:

High school students ...

basically think poetry should sound like poetry (in other words, rhyme).
still like nonsense poems.
are shocked by poems with "swear words" or references to body fluids. Body parts are OK, just not fluids.
like poems written by other teenagers and are more likely to read these poems critically.
love the Tupac, Aaliyah, and Atwone Fisher collections.
are surprised to find poems about things like going to the pool, talking on the phone, skipping class, and accidentally having sex.
like their poems to be certified as "good" by experts--hence the popularity of Shakespeare, Longfellow, Neruda, and Robert Frost.
think that poems are written for specific groups of people. There are poems for girls, for children, for men (see Rudyard Kipling), for English majors, for gay people, for black people, and for old people. And if you try to give a high school student a collection of poems that's not "famous, overused, and misunderstood poems that rhyme, by old white men, a few women, and maybe some Rainer Maria Rilke," he has to check and make sure it falls in the right category--or he will actually give you some obvious piece of information, such as, "But I'm not a girl," or "I'm not Asian" (you need to be Asian to read haiku? really?).
prefer writing poetry to reading it. (I really want to know why it occurs to them to write poetry when they generally refuse to read it. Is the desire to write poetry something universal and subconscious? Does it meet a basic human need? Do people figure out how to do it the way they figure out how to have sex, even without experience or instructions, even if they were raised by wolves?)
are afraid to read poems out loud.
have a strong sense of ownership toward poems they can relate to. They'll tell you "that's my poem," the way they tell the DJ, their friends, or their car radio, "that's my song!"
are most receptive to poems that have appeared in films.

When you think about it, poetry actually taps into one of adolescents' greatest fears: the fear of being tricked into confessing something embarrassing. Poetry has all these inside jokes, allusions, metaphors, euphemisms, and double entendres. When students choose poems to read in front of the class, they want to be sure they're not accidentally communicating something embarrassing.

It's like when someone goes, "what is that under there?" and you go, "under where?" and they go, "You just said underwear!" I mean, that's the elementary school version. If you're in high school, they'll find some way to get you to admit that you only have one testicle or you're giving fellatio to your math teacher. And I think high school students are afraid that these poems are going to trick them in the same way. They're not comfortable with ambiguity, and that's why I probably shouldn't have used this poem as an example.

I have an idea for Jay-Z's next album ...

2007-04-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

So I'm working on updating the library's children's audio collection, and it turns out that there's been an explosion of kiddie rock to go with the explosion of hipster parents (or yupsters). I know, I'm behind the curve. I just wish I were time-wasteful enough to illustrate "the explosion of hipster parents" with a violent animation. Instead, I've made a list of sites that review and recommend children's CDs.

However, the list seems incomplete, because I have yet to locate the aging O.G.s who are blogging about children's music. Is it possible that the most commercial genre of popular music has yet to tap into the under-10 market? Or is it just that urban kids don't need kids music, because they're already rocking bootlegs of stuff that's parental advisory-certified? Is this the best we can do?

For now, I'm going to order the soundtrack to Jump In! and hope that my constituents don't consider it passé by the time it's cataloged ...

Review Sources for Children’s Music

Bill Board Kid’s Chart
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/charts/chart_display.jsp?f=Top+Kid+Audio&pageNumber=Top+1-10&g=Albums

About.com Guide to Children's Music
http://kidsmusic.about.com/
New reviews and lists on different topics published regularly. Reviews are signed by Fran Grauman, but no biographical information is provided.

Pickleberry Pie/Children’s Music Network
http://www.childrensmusic.org/
This public charitable organization hosts annual children’s music web awards. Their annual report explains how kids vote.

Common Sense Media
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/music-reviews/
This non-profit organization has a manifesto in the "about us" section. It basically says that they support media literacy—not censorship. They provide information about questionable content like sex, violence, and commercialism, and they allow users to post. Reviews are signed but no biographical information is provided.

Zooglobble
http://www.zooglobble.com/ and http://zooglobble.blogspot.com/
Reviews by guru Stefan Shepherd. Hear him get name-dropped on NPR, Salon.com, etc., etc.

Kids Music that Rocks
http://kidsmusicthatrocks.blogspot.com/
Reviews by a New York Public Library Children’s Librarian in blog format. My fave.

Small Ages
http://smallages.blogspot.com/
Reviews by Clea Hantman, children’s and YA author and doting mommy. A meandering and refreshing mix of music that's OK with kids, whether it was marketed to them or not.

The Lovely Mrs. Davis Tells You What to Think
http://lovelydavis.blogspot.com/
Reviews by a mom in Bolling Green, Ohio (seriously), who makes a good case for her credentials in the “about me” section. She’s worked with people at Zooglobble and Spare the Rock and has her own “review guidelines.”

Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child
http://sparetherock.com/
Playlists from a kids’ rock radio show on Valley Free Radio.