Library Ninja
Brandy Danner is a librarian specializing in young adult services.
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Let's all go to the movies!
I'm interrupting my book- and work-related updates to just say: I am so freakin' excited about the next Batman movie. It's a year off yet (IMDB lists the US release as July 18 2008), but the little bit that's been released so far looks really great. By "little bit" I mean this news brief, complete with a photo of Heath Ledger as the Joker, and he actually looks scary.
Adding to my excitement solely by its weirdness: Nestor Carbonell has been cast as the mayor of Gotham. I'm excited but a little scared his presence will take me out of the movie, as the main role I know him from is Batmanuel.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for my birthday this year, The Dark Knight next year... I was born at a great time to have birthday movie parties! (Who wants to buy me popcorn?)
Best book covers EVER
Hats off to Digital Manga Publishing for bringing us EduManga, complete with the best covers ever. Of special note: Anne Frank, who smiles out at the reader while her old pal AstroBoy gazes at her adoringly. Oh, but to notice that cover takes attention away from AstroBoy, who begs to be hugged by the traumatized child held in Mother Theresa's protective embrace. Beethoven, imploring AstroBoy to Talk To The Hand?
Oh, I love them ALL. I truly want these books to be astonishingly awful, though after the cover images, it will take a lot to astonish me.
Things I Learned Today By Doing Reference
(a) Boston Common, the first public park in (what became) America, was established in 1634 as a utilitarian common ground for grazing, militia formation, and public hangings.
(b) Pascal's Triangle is a concept in calculus that is related to Fibonacci numbers and other mathematical patterns and sequences. Not much is written about this, and 90% of the articles that are written are not available as full-text.
(c) Children enrolled in center-based day-cares have more immune system responses (i.e., get sick more often) than children in home-based day-cares. [NOTE: this is what the woman was researching; I don't know if it's actually true.]
(d) If a squirrel takes up residence in your car door, the average mechanic will charge $150 to repair the damage. This is why books like *Outwitting Squirrels* and *Outwitting Critters* are popular titles, and why it is useful to have an online subscription to Chilton's Automotive Repair, with drawings to show how to disassemble one's car door without paying a mechanic more than once.
(e) To a first-grader, birds and alligators are equally cool, and students should not be forced to choose between them for the purposes of reports. Sadly, there is no flying alligator.
We're back!
We’re back from Reading Vacation, and it was fantastic. I managed 10 books in 3 days—granted, they were all pretty quick reads; I didn’t bring along any of the 500-page slow-reading books on my shelf (yeah, I’m talking about YOU, Rick Moody and Jonathan Franzen). A good time was had by all. Reading, relaxing, eating potato chips… what could be a better way to spend the weekend?
With my physical to-be-read shelf nearing empty, I went through my virtual to-read shelves (An Amazon wish list and my GoodReads list) and ordered a bunch of stuff from the library. Some fiction, some non-fiction. I should have a nice robust shelf again! And this time they’ll all be free. Hooray!
I’m already back at work, which is always a pleasant transition after a vacation. At least it was pretty slow yesterday and I got a little more reading done. My summer program is just waiting on a few dates from the children’s department, but I’ve given them today as the drop-date—after today I consider my dates firm and they can work around me, since I’ve given them about six weeks of flexibility to my schedule. Hmph.
Enjoy the nice weather while it lasts—it’s supposed to be hot again this afternoon, a fact that does not please me.
Ick
I need to start by saying that the Withern Rise trilogy, by Michael Lawrence, has a really interesting premise (the Many Worlds theory), where Alaric accidentally found a way into Naia's reality--Naia being who he would have been, had he been born a girl. The premise is interesting, the writing is a little, um, not. But I keep reading anyway, because it's only a trilogy and I Must Know What Happens.
Here's the dedication from book three, The Underwood See:
For IE and MAS, my parents, who, by randomly introducing a particular sperm to a particular ovum, created (hopefully with pleasure) the eventual author of this trilogy, which is set in the very house in which the coupling took place.
Ick. Just... ick.
Nothing—and then some!
That’s about all that’s been going on.
The library’s been dead these past couple of weeks, probably because it finally stopped raining (note to self: cancel plans to finish ark-building) and the weather’s gotten really nice.
Even the school projects seem to be slacking off.
So, not much happening at work.
I’m caught up on all my projects, and what little bit I have—finishing my teen summer reading packets—has to wait until the children’s department finalizes their dates, so that mine are firm and I can go ahead and publish.
I have a meeting at the middle school in a couple of weeks to start pushing it, but until then, I’m at the “wait” part of “hurry up and.”
Our talented teen volunteer has been producing some clip-art images we can use for all our summer promotional needs.
Some of the science-themed pictures she’s been drawing are hilarious—so far, I’m partial to the one with the teen whose beaker just blew up in his face.
(Talented Teen Volunteer just came in and got very excited when I told her the series she’d asked about—
Ouran High School Host Club—was in for her.
She’s happily reading it now, and I interrupted her with a list of other suggested titles: which should I buy?
She looked over the list, asked for more
Revolutionary Girl Utena and
Cardcaptor Sakura, and then said “
Mars? That one was so romantic it made me barf.
And angsty.
It’s angsty and too romantic and it makes me barf.
Get these others instead.”)
I spent the majority of the weekend reading, which was a fabulous way to spend a weekend.
And I’m leaving Thursday morning for Reading Vacation, from which I’ll be back on Sunday, with a good chunk of books removed from my to-read shelf, I hope.
I just picked up a book this morning from my local library, in a different library network, because nobody in my network owns it yet (
The Underwood See by Michael Lawrence; third in a series with an interesting premise but kinda crappy writing).
The only other news I have is that I’m itchy. It’s not the dry-skin kind of itchy I dealt with all winter, and it doesn’t feel like heat rash. But there are a bunch of tiny red marks up and down one arm, like little bites from god knows what kind of insect. Just one arm. And Alexander’s fine, so I assume it’s not something living in our apartment. No new detergents, soaps, foods, or anything else. Just random speckly itchiness. Complaints, complaints.
Three days until Reading Vacation!
Good news & other things
No excuses for the 11-day lapse this time, other than I've just been lazy.
We've been pretty busy with reference lately--lots of interesting questions, some annoying questions, some just plain dumb. Personal favorite was this interaction:
"Where are your biographies?"
"Names starting with 'A' start right here, and then it goes alphabetically around to here. Is there someone in particular you're looking for?"
"Robinson Crusoe."
".... Are you looking for the book, or a biography of Daniel Defoe?"
"oh... um, I guess the book."
My summer reading program is pretty much set. There are a couple of dates for craft programs that are still up in the air, because the children's room is trying to line up performances that might conflict. I've given them a drop-date of May 15, after which my dates are firm and they can work around me. I've scheduled 3 "performers"--2 sessions of the Henna artist, Rory Raven talking about the paranormal and skepticism, and--this one I just set up yesterday--a forensic investigator with the Mass State Police Crime Lab. He says his thing is a little talk in the beginning about what he does, possibly a Powerpoint presentation, and an interactive exhibit of his tools and the sorts of work that he does. That's going to be an evening thing--in part because I think I'll get more kids that way, and also because then my dates won't get shot to hell if he ends up in court that day. (It was his suggestion, for just that reason.) Teen Summer Reading, Down to a Science. I hope I can get some kids to come, with all this stuff! (I dunno; I think forensic investigation should be a draw...)
For the good news: my director told me this morning that she got a phone call yesterday from someone on the board of library commissioners. Basically this person was just saying that we'd have to reallocate the money we'd budgeted for me to go to PLA '08, since we can't use federal funds for it. Which is sad, because I wanted to go. But this person also said that, while they're not making any decisions yet, our grant application was very strong ("and if it's her first grant, she should be very proud--it's really good!"), and we're one of the frontrunners. They did send some apps back for rewrites, but ours was not one of them, because we know how to write clearly and follow directions, I guess. Anyway, we won't know until the summer, but our chances look really good. This commissioner said she was optimistic, anyway. Hooray!
Been reading lots. Check Goodreads.com to see what I thought of it all!
