TwentySevenLetters / B

MIT Weblog survey

MIT's doing a survey on blogging, as part of someone's dissertation. Don't you want to participate, too?

Duchess of Dork

Today was my first official vacation day. Hooray! Mostly I stayed home and got some things done, and didn’t do anything terribly exciting. Alexander had a rehearsal tonight up in Boston, so I was left to entertain myself for the evening. But what should I do? After some brief thought, I decided, “maybe I’ll go to the library!”

I’m a huge dork who apparently loves her job more than is healthy, if my best idea of what to do on my day off is, essentially, to go hang out at the office.

The Crossroads of Discipline and Hilarity

All of the Providence schools are now officially out for summer. How do I know? Because eleventy-million kids came in today, most of whom seem to have forgotten how to behave in public. Aside from the kids I had to tell not to walk on the stools or tables (tables!), I had to repeat “no running!” to another, I dunno, three hundred and fifty kids.

One of them, a girl of about nine, stopped and looked at me as if I were completely hopeless. “I’m not running,” she said, exasperation in her voice. “I’m scampering.”

Loose End Round-Up

I’m ashamed to admit that I still haven’t finished The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, which scrolling down tells me that I started June 1. I can’t even think of something else I read at the same time. I listened to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (which was great, of course) and Cornelia Funke’s The Thief Lord (which was eh; sort of what happens when a mediocre author reads Something Wicked This Way Comes and tries to rewrite it as a non-fantastic, non-Bradbury children’s/YA book featuring orphans in Venice).

Most of our stuff is unpacked and the dust is settling. Trash goes out tonight, so we can finally stop living with towering piles of cardboard and crap in every room. That makes me happy.

Best of Ray Bradbury : the graphic novel has gone out. Lots of the graphic novels that I ordered in January have finally started coming in (and going right back out). We have an almost-12-year-old from a large, apparently conservative Jewish family who comes in a lot and borrows a bunch of Tintin, so I suggested he look at the graphic novels downstairs for something else he might like. I figured he’d be interested in maybe some of the manga, or Spider-Man, or Bone, or even something like Fagin the Jew. His mom came in this morning asking that we burn Francesca Ghermandi’s The Wipeout. Not ban, burn. And she wouldn’t say why, specifically. (This was before I came in today.) Moral of the story: if you want to control what your kids take out from the library, stay with them at the library. He’s almost 12; he can use the teen collection if he wants.

Incidentally, The Wipeout is staying in the collection, but I’m hoping that Amelia Rules will come in soon, too.

And my triangulation essay is part of the current Webcomics Examiner. Readers, rest assured: I don’t really believe that the best webcomics are the ones that incorporate the most pop culture familiarity. Though I do think Cat and Girl At Sea is hilarious.

Lastly: scroll down to the bottom of the page and look at my ninja again. Because I love her and she deserves more attention. (Thanks, Bill!)

Books to Movies : Where Quality Goes Kaput

The teen summer reading program starts very soon—about a week and a half, actually. Which means that in about three weeks, I’ll have my first teen book-and-movie discussion. Which means that I need to pick some titles now.

I think I might do Peter Pan (actually Peter Pan and Wendy) first, with the 2003 live-action movie. I know one of my regular patrons was waiting for it and there’s no longer a wait list, so I might ask her how it was. (I can get around the whole privacy issue because she’d asked me a couple of times if it had come in yet, so it’s not like I don’t know she’d been waiting.) If I want to continue with the pirate theme, maybe I’d do The Princess Bride as the second discussion, but I’m not married to the idea.

But for the third (and maybe even the second!) discussion, I have no ideas. My core group will probably be about 12-15 years old, so I don’t want something that will seem too young for them at first glance (like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or Jumanji). The movie version has to be no more than PG-13, and I’d prefer just PG, since we have some fairly conservative parents around here and I don’t want a stupid PG-13 rating to kill my program. And I want whatever I pick to be gender-neutral, because I don’t think many boys would show up to talk about The Princess Diaries. (I’m not sure I would want to, myself.)

Maybe Holes, though I haven’t seen the movie yet. Tuck Everlasting would be an interesting discussion, since the movie is far more teen romance than the book. If I think I can keep some copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone in after Book 6 comes out, I might try to ride that wave straight into the beach.

I dunno. But I need to make a decision really soon, so we can get the marketing department to make some flyers for me. This program will suck if I forget to promote it.

Absence

I haven’t posted in a while, which I’m sure you’ve noticed. Excuse: I’ve been moving. We’re now completely out of the old place and settling into the new, but we’ve got a bunch of unpacking left, including several more boxes of books and cookware.

I think those two categories are the majority of what we moved, actually.

Anyway, blogging of worth will resume once we get some of these boxes out of here. A clean room is a clean mind. Or at least, one not quite so cluttered. And that will help a lot.

Graphic Novel Status Update

Current status of newly-purchased graphic novels, bringing the collection up to 56 titles (from 44) (please remember that these went out on the shelf Saturday afternoon, around 3 PM):

• Ranma ½, v.1: Requested; didn’t make it to shelf
• Fagin the Jew: checked out Saturday
• Naruto, v.1: Saturday
• Naruto, v.2: Monday
• Bone (One-volume edition): Monday
• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Monday
• Banana Fish, v.1: Monday
• Banana Fish, v.2: in
• Jimmy Corrigan: in
• GTO, v.1: in
• Watchmen: in
• Best of Ray Bradbury : the graphic novel: in

What this means: I made some good choices, and people mostly like them. And I need more shelf space, though if all the books go out all the time, I don't need to worry about how much room they take up…

YA Circulation Statistics, May ’05 / April ’05 / May ’04

• YA Fiction: 173 / 148 / 123
• YA Graphic Novel: 68 / 46 / 4
• YA Paperback: 82 / 88 / 70
• YA Non-fiction: 36 / 34 / 26

What this means: I rock at my job. Circulation is up significantly over last year, even over last month (except paperbacks). And it helps to remember that, at the time these stats were gathered, the GN collection numbered in the low 40s, and several of them were mis-catalogued as “Teen shelf fiction” for some reason, so the stat software only saw about 35 or 40 of the books.

Also, it’s worth noting that circulation in the adult fiction department dropped last month (1248, from 1282), and that the children’s circulation is down about 12% for the picture books, 15% for fiction, 2% for non-fiction, and 11% for paperbacks. The YA section is about the only section where growth is up.

I’m very excited. But I like looking at statistics, anyway. Because I’m a weirdo.

Lesson Plans are More Important Than Education

A girl just came in, looking for a recommendation. She looked familiar, so I asked if she was who I thought: “You like fantasy, right? Did I suggest Sabriel for you?” She said yes, so I asked what she thought of it (to get a baseline for further recommendations).

“Well…” she started hesitantly. “I started it, but… then my teacher saw me reading it. And he got mad, because it’s on our summer reading list for NEXT year. So if I read it now, he says I won’t get as much out of the class discussion, so I had to return it. He gets really mad when people read ahead.”

First: what the fuck?

Second: what the fuck??

So if I understand this teacher correctly, he would prefer his students not take initiative, and not read something they enjoy, because it might inspire ideas about it that aren’t the same as what he spoon-feeds them in class? He would rather his students not read quality books independently, so as not to interfere with his lesson plan a year in advance?

Now I know specifically whom to point to when someone asks me “why don’t teens read anymore?” I can tell them that it’s because of a jackass teacher (and I’m sure he’s not alone, which makes me deeply sad) who is afraid students won’t get as much out of his class if they read the book eighteen months early.

It sure is a good thing he caught her, before she ingested literature.

Odds and Ends

I haven’t been blogging much, and I thank my small but loyal audience for your continued patience. Rest assured that I’ve been doing things! ... just not much that I’ve blogged about.

First, the afore-mentioned triangulation essay. Sure, I had to write it in two hours, but I spent a lot of time thinking about it before trashing my entire first essay. (Hey, Joe Zabel! I almost wrote you two essays!)

Second, moving. Moving like a big movey thing. We’re finally moving down to Providence, now that I’ve been working there for just over five months. We’ve been lugging stuff down (who knew we had so much crap?) and throwing stuff out and purging and purging, and sadly (for the wallet) binging on new stuff we need, like throw rugs and furniture. Our new apartment will be big and spacious and bright and happy. (All those placing bets on how long before we start complaining how cramped we are: line forms to the right, folks.)

Minor point of no consequence: MS Word is insisting that I change the above sentence, because my grammar is all wrong. It believes I should have written “how cramped us are.” Is there any universe in which that’s correct?

Third, content. Still thinking on my spiffy new booklist of underrated titles for upper-elementary readers (grades 3-6, really). ONE person responded to my plea. Aren’t the rest of you ashamed of yourselves? Surely you must have a favorite book from childhood that you’d like to share.

Fourth, the Teen Summer Reading Program. Yesterday I ordered 40 board-game keychains from Playthings Past—30 as participation prizes, plus 10 Clue keychains as prizes for the Murder Mystery program. I link Playthings Past because they’re the most awesome company ever. An hour after I placed my order, I got a phone call that they were out of stock on some of the ones I’d picked, but they found an extra few Boggle ones; did I want them to swap them in? Why, yes! And today—today!—a box arrived, packed with 40 keychains. Did I mention that I placed the order yesterday? And that they arrived today? And their customer service people called me? And that I think this company is awesome, and you should buy stuff from them? Because you should.

Fifth, reading. Because I can, and I want to. Current audio book: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in preparation for Book 6 (shipping from Canada). Ink-on-paper book: um… also some of the same Harry Potter, since I won’t have time for all 23 CDs in the car before the big move, but I think I’ve been able to skip far enough ahead. Today I started Terry Pratchett’s The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, but I’ve only read the first 10 pages or so. I have no opinion yet, since I wasn’t paying that much attention anyway. (Stupid doctor’s office waiting rooms.) Jonathan Carroll’s White Apples, which is what happens when Neil Gaiman and Sean Stewart get spliced together into a new race of superhuman überwriters. (I mean that in a good way.) And Jules Feiffer’s A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears, which will take you all of a half an afternoon to read and you’ll laugh the whole way through it, so make sure you find that one.

I think that’s all my reading for the last two weeks or so. I may have lost track a little.

Sixth: I’ve had a couple of ideas for lengthy blog posts that I just haven’t gotten around to writing yet, but rest assured that they’re cooking in the back of my head, and you’ll see them soon-ish.

Seventh: Back in March, I was given a blank purchase order to go to New England Mobile Book Fair. I was finally allowed to go last Friday. I hope I spent less than what I was supposed to ($1500 YA; $1500 kids), because if I went over budget I’ll be in trouble. But there’s lots of very cool stuff coming, most of which I can’t remember. Comics-wise, several of Summer’s manga recommendations. (Thanks, Summer!) When I get around to picking them up and processing them for the library, I’ll post some of the highlights, but after picking out about $3000 worth of paperback books, my brain gets a little funny around the edges.

Examiner Challenge : 2 days to go!

I’ve finished my first draft of the Webcomics Examiner’s Triangulation Challenge. It’s awaiting some serious editing, and it’s due Friday night, so I need to get on that, I guess. It turned out to be more of a challenge than I’d anticipated, since my Grand Theory of Webcomics changed significantly between when I started thinking about it to when I sat down and did it. Well, maybe it didn’t change, exactly, but I did drop out a significant portion that I wasn’t going to be able to cover. It was the sort of thing that sounds brilliant in my head, but is asinine on paper.

I also ended up referencing four comics instead of three. I think I turned it into a Squaration Challenge, instead of triangulation. Though one comic was used as a minor counterpoint, so maybe we should just imagine it as a pyramid instead. I dunno.

Have you written YOUR essay yet? Well, why not?