Storytime. My last book is Jez Alborough's Some Dogs Do, about a little dog who is so happy he just lifts off the ground and flies. Then his classmates make fun and call him a liar, and he's sad, so he can't do it again. He's depressed at home until his dad shows him that he, too, can fly sometimes. "Can dogs fly? Is it true? Well, some dogs don't, but some dogs do."
I finish the story and a boy gleefully says, "My dog doesn't fly!" I asked him, "Maybe he flies when you're not around. How do you he doesn't?" Kid says, very cheerfully, "Because he's dead."
A couple of posts back, I said I’d be posting my review of Lynne Rae Perkins’ Criss Cross, this year’s Newbery medal winner. Then I’ve been stalling on it, because I just don’t know what to say about it.
I could go with basic plot synopsis, except that there’s not much of a plot. It’s a beautifully written, emotional book. Not much happens in the A-then-B-then-C sense, but it’s a novel of personal growth, emotional connections, and relationships. The book is about, on one level, two teenagers who have grown up together, and where their lives are taking them now. Debbie is desperately wishing and waiting for something, anything, to happen, however small a change it is. Hector attends an open-mic night with his sister and realizes how much he wants to learn to play guitar. Debbie starts working for an elderly neighbor and gets to know some new people. Hector takes guitar lessons with a group of fellow students in a church basement and gets to know some new people. Something, anything, happens and there are small changes. Debbie and Hector make—or miss, in one case—connections with people.
That’s about it, really. It sounds a bit dull, and at 337 pages, I don’t think it’ll be a big draw for a lot of kids. My library’s copy has gone out 4 times since March, and I know that at least two of them were to adults. (I’m pretty sure on a third; the fourth was a request from another library, so I have no idea.) It’s a pretty book, and it has a lot of emotional depth and development. It’s very well written. But it’s a really tough sell, even with the Newbery medal stamped on the cover.
So, this is my rant: What is going on with the Newbery committee lately? In recent years, the books that are awarded the Newbery medal—which is supposed to be awarded to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children (per ALA)--are (mostly) books that most kids won’t go near with a ten-foot pole. Every year, a couple of fifth- and sixth-grade classes are assigned book reports on Newbery winners, so they dutifully come here and ask for a book. The winners that get checked out are the ones where things happen: books that have some excitement, some mystery, some action. We’ll be lucky if we can move Criss Cross after the other books are all checked out.
It’s not every year ALSC picks dull titles. In 2004, they chose The Tale of Despereaux, which was a huge surprise to me on many levels. First, it moved. It was funny and exciting. And second, it’s really a book for kids, meaning it’s a fairly simple, straightforward story with a ton of appeal. I’m not arguing that all children’s books have to be uncomplicated, but I think a lot of authors forget that third- and fourth-graders aren’t the most sophisticated readers yet. Also, Despereaux isn’t about relationships (okay, the mouse is in love with a princess, but it’s hardly the same thing) and it’s not a Problem Novel. It’s not even historical. That it’s not any of those things really sets it apart from other recent winners.
Now, to be fair, a couple of recent winners—Kira Kira, A Single Shard, Bud, Not Buddy—have flown under my radar. I haven’t read them. Why? Frankly, because they sounded a bit dull. And that’s to my adult perspective, where I have a higher tolerance for internal (vs. external) action and conflict. A lot of these books just don’t move. The View From Saturday was one of my favorites (I haven’t read it now in a number of years; I’m afraid to know how it holds up), but I can definitely understand why kids of all ages veto it in favor of something else. Out of the Dust, the 1998 medal winner, was a brilliant, beautiful book, but it has very little kid appeal. Among the strikes against it are (a) it’s written in poems, (b) it’s historical fiction, (c) it’s the friggin’ dustbowl; you can hardly get more of a downer than that, and (d) the protagonist’s reaction in an emergency accidentally and inadvertently causes the deaths of her mom and baby brother, so there’s how we make this more depressing than the dustbowl. It’s a hard sell.
Scrolling through the past 15 (1990-current, so more like 17?) winners, I’m only seeing three (Holes, The Giver, and Despereaux) that are strong enough to circulate on their own. There are a few others (Midwife’s Apprentice, A Year Down Yonder) that we can circulate with some pushing. Some books appear on required reading lists, so Shiloh and Bud, Not Buddy are guaranteed to go out at least once a year. As for the rest, though? They sit, patiently waiting for the parents of their target audience to take them home and love them for who they are.
The Westing Game. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. A Wrinkle in Time. Caddie Woodlawn. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle. Medal-winners from a bygone era, when the medal was awarded to books kids would actually want to read. These circulate to kids on their own. The Newbery committee, however, seems to believe that, for a book to be Worthwhile, it must have Great Meaning. It’s a good thing Ramona was around in 1982—Beverly Cleary’s plucky heroine wouldn’t stand a chance today.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been plowing through Projects like nobody’s business. Shelf-reading and shifting, weeding, repairs, donations—we’ve added more than 30 videos and DVDs to the collection, plus a bunch of other donated material, and had to make some room for it. I’ve been going over summer reading lists from various schools, figuring out what we own, and what we need to order (or reorder). In between, I’ve been doing the usual tasks—reference, circulation, and keeping up with the kids on the computers.
It’s this last one that’s really put me over the edge lately, I think. We have big groups of kids who all want to be on our five computers, and they all swear that they’re 12 (which means they don’t have to go downstairs to the adult computers—or worse, they can be in either place, a loophole we’re trying to close). Last night I had twelve people clustered around five computers. Since most of the girls had been on for a long time already (2+ hours) and the rest were known to be too old to use the children’s computers, I wasn’t letting them sign up for another slot. Which made them mad. Asking them to please not all cluster around the computers worked for about ten seconds, and then they were clustered again. Telling them to please not all cluster around worked for about a minute. Telling them that their options were to go to another part of the room or leave the building; do NOT all hang around the computers and Keep your voices DOWN, this is a LIBRARY worked for about 15 minutes at a time. This is progress.
It’s interesting that they seemed to think I’d relent if they laughed derisively at my efforts to yell at them, or if they whined and pleaded a lot. I know that I can’t really yell at anyone effectively—not to imply I’m a total marshmallow (only mostly), but my main obstacle is that when I get angry, I don’t yell—I cry. Which would make the situation about a million times worse, I think. I’d have a lot more patience with these young teens if they were in an actual teen space, certainly, but while they’re in the children’s room, this kind of crap just doesn’t fly with me.
I also suspect I’d be more tolerant if not for having worked three rainy Saturdays in a row, with the same kinds of issues (kids on the computers all day, not wanting to give up their turns for other kids, whining about getting back on, lying about their ages in order to use the computers). We’re so completely understaffed, particularly on weekends, that the computers are so much more hassle than we (or I, anyway) can really handle.
I think what we really (besides more staff, which I don’t really see happening) is software. Something like the CybraryN program would work nicely, I think. Patrons have to log on with their library cards, and if they’re too old or young to use certain computers, they just plain can’t. The software enforces time limits, and reminds people five minutes before their time is up. It has a print monitoring feature, so people aren’t just printing without realizing it (or without paying, if we control that part of it). I think having this software, or something like it, would make my life so much easier—I wouldn’t be devoting 90% of my time to hostessing.
Sadly, software costs money, so it isn’t going to happen. But it’s not going to stop me from bringing it up at the next meeting.
If it’s any consolation, I’ve been thinking about blogging. I just haven’t actually gotten around to, y’know, doing any. I know I usually make excuses about keeping busy, doing XYZ project, etc, etc. I make the same excuse now. Except I can even give specifics! I have lists! And charts! How very exciting!
Okay, no. I realize that. But it’s all things that need to be done in order to keep the Children’s Room in good order, and it’s all sorts of projects that keep falling to the wayside because, well, who feels like tackling them? However, once these projects make it to a list, well, then we can finish the projects and cross them off. And really? That’s pretty danged cool, in its nerdy little way.
So, the projects. Before my coworker went out on vacation, I’d tossed off some ideas, and she agreed that they sounded reasonable. So while she’s been out, I’ve been tackling some of those projects. I think I may have bitten off a bit more than I can comfortably chew, but I’m masticating as quickly as possible.
Enjoying some moderate popularity are our collections of the American Girls, Dear America, My Name is America, and Royal Diaries [not to be confused with the Princess Diaries] series. There are only about seven different authors for each series, which becomes frustrating when fifth-graders come in looking for a relatively-easy historical fiction book on either America or royalty. Wouldn’t it be easier, I’d suggested, if we grouped them all under “Dear America” or “Royal Diaries” or whatever series it is? Enter Project #1: rounding up all the books in each series, changing their call numbers in the catalog, stripping off their old spine labels and replacing them with their new designations (jF Dear, jF Royal, jF Amer, jF My), adding notes to the records of titles that are currently checked out, and reshelving in clusters.
Enter Project #2. These books had been all spread out through the Fiction collection, and now we’re trying to cram 15-20 books together in the “D” section, and another 10 after the Harry Potter books. This takes some serious shifting. Wouldn’t it be easier, thought I, if the fiction collection were in good order before we start moving things around, so we can keep authors together on the shelves? Enter Project #3, shelf-reading, which I did concurrently with Project #2.
But the shelf-reading! Co-worker and I tend to concentrate our efforts on where we can be and still see the desk, if anyone needs assistance. This means we tend to do the same sections over and over again (fiction and paperbacks). Wouldn't it be easier, I asked myself, if I stopped looking for efficiency and just left things alone? Enter Project #4: I made up a chart, with the collection broken down into a million categories, to initial and date when you’ve shelf-read that section. My hope is that seeing, in writing, what’s done and not done will give our shelver the kick in the pants he needs to actually do his job now and then. We’ll see.
Other projects that aren’t so caught up in each other involve things like shelf-reading the picture books (project 5) so we can weed out the unnecessary triplicate copies (project 6) and shift them all to give them room (project 7), and do the same for the non-fiction collection (projects 8-10).
So, yeah, I’m keeping busy. I did virtually nothing at home all weekend, though, except sit on the couch reading for hours. I plowed through six books in 48 hours (9 of which I spent at work, not reading!). It helps that 4 of them were under 130 pages each (the Al books, by Constance Greene; I read them as a kid and enjoyed them, but they’re pretty bland as an adult) and a fifth was another children’s book (Criss Cross, by Lynne Rae Perkins; watch this space for my quasi-review in the context of Why Doesn’t The Newbery Committee Pick Books Kids Will Enjoy Anymore). The last was Jonathan Lethem’s Men and Cartoons, a collection of 11 short stories. Go read it. It’s awesome, and a really fast read besides. Today I just started Jonathan Franzen’s Strong Motion. I expect it will take me some time to finish, as I got through only about 15 pages on my lunch hour, but I’m enjoying it already. Sometimes it’s nice to read realistic fiction about grown-ups, even if it does read slowly.
Weather.com says it’s 68° outside. That sounds lovely. Inside the library, it’s currently 86°, according to the thermometer on the desk. The air conditioning, I’m told, will be turned on… on Monday. There are no portable fans in the building, and since it’s Saturday, there are no maintenance people around to call and beg for mercy. The windows in this building don’t open, as a way of minimizing heat transfer with the outside world, so I’m keeping 20 more degrees inside than there are outside. (Which was fantastic in November, but not so much today.)
I’m here for 4 more hours today, with no possibility of a break because we’re completely understaffed today. I’m offering to waive all fines for any patrons who bring me popsicles. So far, nobody has taken me up on it. I think they're just unwilling to come up here a second time.
It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I read fine)
Grown-up books! About apocalypse!
Jonathan Lethem, Amnesia Moon. Wow. I first found Lethem by chance, though I don’t remember exactly how—either Amazon.com recommended one of his books or I was just binging on Jonathans (at the same time I first read As She Climbed Across the Table, my to-be-read shelf contained Jonathan Carroll, Jonathan Franzen, and a Michael Cunningham novel in which the main character was named Jonathan), or a big-box bookstore put it on display… who remembers. Anyway, the point is, I’ve completely fallen in love with this author. And all the other Jonathans. There’s a good chance I’d even give Oprah books a chance if the author is a Jonathan. (Note: Franzen’s The Corrections was almost an Oprah book, until he expressed his mixed feelings and there was a big kerfuffle between Franzen and Oprah. So, there you go.)
Ahem. Amnesia Moon.
Chaos is living in an abandoned movie theater in post-apocalypse Wyoming, eating what canned goods he can find and washing it down with distilled alcohol. He’s afraid to sleep, for the dreams that haunt him: dreams of people he can’t remember, of places he’s never been. Dreams that aren’t his, but are still shaping his reality. He remembers virtually nothing from before; Hatfork, Wyoming, has been this way for five years and that’s all there is to it. Until, in a sudden burst of initiative, he sets out on the road in a stolen car packed with canned goods and water, with a 13-year-old girl covered head to toe in fine white hair for company.
On the road, Chaos and Melinda find other pockets of civilization: not everyone is living in projection booths. Some towns register citizens according to their luck profiles, some are completely enveloped by a dense green fog. As Chaos puts some distance between himself and Hatfork, his dreams become his own—dreams in which he’s a man named Moon, with a sketchy past and dimly-remembered friends—and he is a strong enough Dreamer to shape reality for himself.
The basic premise of the landscape—small, isolated towns, each subject to its own rules and culture, while a traveler passes through—reminds me a lot of Kino’s Journey, though Amnesia Moon has more of an overall plot. I could call it a typical road story, about physical travels and an emotional journey of self-discovery, but besides that just being a lame, cliché description of some really bad books, it just doesn’t do this title—or author—justice. This is only the second title of his that I’ve read (though I’ve two collections of his short stories on my to-be-read shelf), and I’ll admit that I liked As She Climbed Across the Table better, but I’d still not hesitate to recommend this one.
My current read: Orson Scott Card, Folk of the Fringe. It’s a book of short stories—more like novellas, really—of a post-apocalyptic world. I’m only about halfway through the first one (of five) now, so I can’t say much about it yet, but I’m enjoying it a lot. It’s nice to be reminded sometimes that Card used to be a good writer, even if his most recent efforts (specifically, the last in the Ender-companion Shadow series, Shadow of the Giant) have been too long and, frankly, dull. But that’s another post—I don’t want to infect this one with my bitter disappointment in what could have been a fantastic ending.
An announcement to the general public: the lyric is “if you’re happy and you know it, and you really want to show it.” It’s not “then your face will surely show it.” Think about it. If you face will surely show it, we don’t need to do all the clapping and stopping and shouting of “hooray,” now, do we?
And we can knock off that passive-aggressive I'm-going-to-sing-over-you-and-correct-you nonsense, when the room of three-year-olds is following my lead, not yours, yes? So we can knock off the dirty looks as well? Thank you.
A couple of people I know have started blogs specifically for their book reviews and/or reading logs. This is unfortunate in that I’d been kind of toying with the idea in the back of my head, maybe putting all of my reviews and critique into a separate blog, and keep this one focused on what’s actually happening at the library. But then I realized that if I move all of my book reviews into a separate place, I’ll have almost no content here.
So, without further ado: more reviews!
Scott Westerfeld, Blue Noon. This is the third (and final) installment in Westerfeld’s Midnighters trilogy, and had the potential to be a real clunker. I mean, giant, ancient monsters are poised to attack while the extra, secret hour hidden at midnight expands to let the monsters through. Only a group of five untrained teens can stop it and save the town, the surrounding areas, and maybe even the state!
Yes, this could be a clunker. I was pleasantly surprised, though, to find out that it wasn’t. Blue Noon picks up right where the second book (Touching Darkness) leaves off, and I mean right where—it took me a chapter or so to remember just what was going on at the close of the last one, because there was no painstaking recap of The Action Thus Far. Instead, Westerfeld jumps right back in, with one character still furious with another over a violation of personal boundaries, our main character (Jessica) still grounded and being spied upon by her little sister, and the Seer of the group wrestling with some pretty powerful inner demons. Literally.
Westerfeld never fails to amaze me, now that I’ve read all of his YA fiction to date. He has a good ear for dialogue, and with the possible exception of one word in Peeps that he used about seven hundred times (and truthfully, I can’t recall now what it was--anathema, maybe?), I’ve never once cringed at his writing. His ideas are creative and well-executed, and for someone who writes as many different sci-fi books as he does, it’s impressive (to me, anyway) that he hasn’t overlapped ideas or dialogue among them.
In another week or so, the last book of the Uglies trilogy comes out in hardback. To my knowledge, Uglies and Pretties were both straight to paperback, but Specials will only be in hardback for now. Nobody in my library system seems to have ordered it yet—at least, it’s not in the catalog yet—so I guess I’m going to have to wait to read it. I will eventually spend my own money on all three books and get my own copies, but I’m far too eager to read it to wait that long.
I swear, I do know how to read books over a seventh-grade reading level, and subsequent posts will prove that, I hope. When I get around to writing them, anyway.
