Sharing A Wrinkle In Time

Posted on January 24, 2012

Click through to see the facebook page for A Wrinkle in Time.

My love of A Wrinkle In Time has been documented before on this blog, and because I love it so much, it is one of those books that I can’t share lightly, and I have to be careful not to put it in the hands of a reader who isn’t ready for it. Usually when I suggest books to kids, it doesn’t hurt my feelings if they decide they don’t want it, but if a kid were to reject Wrinkle, I’d be ineffably sad. (I was recently talking with a parent whose daughter was reading A Wrinkle In Time for a school assignment, and struggling with reading it. I wasn’t sure what to tell her. Every book its reader, and every reader its book; perhaps, sad though it sounds, she just wasn’t one of this book’s many and ardent readers.)

But I have to do something to celebrate this book’s 50th anniversary, so I’m going to throw a big book party. I’m looking to have an event in the fall, maybe October or November, so that the chance of somewhat dark and stormy weather will be increased. I’m thinking this will definitely be a family/all ages event, because I am sure there are some parents and grandparents out there who have some warm feelings about this book.

There will definitely have to be a buffet of all of the different kinds of sandwiches that the Murrays eat in the beginning of the book, and some hot chocolate. I also think having my fellow librarians and volunteers dress in costume as various characters would add a lot of fun to the event.

I want to booktalk Wrinkle and a bunch of L’Engle’s other books, and of course read aloud that first amazing chapter. We could also tie in When You Reach Me, which, as a contemporary Newbery winner, might pull in additional readers to the story. We’ll also booktalk other great fantasy and science fiction titles for kids.

How will you be celebrating the anniversary of this wonderful book?

My other posts about Wrinkle: It was a Dark and Stormy Night and How it All Began.

Read what other bloggers are saying about A Wrinkle in Time.

gift books/best of hybrid

Posted on December 15, 2011

I have a new post up over at the BEA Librarian blog about books for gift-giving, which is also kind of my best of 2011 post. Or at the very least, some books I liked a lot.

story hacker

Posted on November 10, 2011

So this week on of the books I was using for my outreach storytimes wasn’t quite working for my groups for some reason. It seemed to be missing a crucial action in the text, which made it not quite pop for the children. It was as though there was a three step action sequence missing step two. So the second time I went out with it, I added the text I thought it needed (“and they pulled, and they pulled, and they pulled, but!”), replete with action, and read the rest of the text verbatim, and the kids seemed much more engaged with the story and seemed to understand it more.

I’m always a little conflicted when I do this. Part of me is a text purist, and I try to not abridge or omit if I can help it, because it seems a little bit like censoring to me. But when I’m performing a storytime–and I am performing in the belt it out, jazz hands, shuffle ball step sense of the word–I sometimes feel that to deliver the material well, a bit of improvisation is in order.

So, storytimers, do you do this? How often? And how do you feel about it?

picture book-a-loo

Posted on October 29, 2011

I’ve had a pile of picture books that I’ve been meaning to talk about, so here we go, in no particular order:

A Wild Father’s Day by Sean Callahan

Inspired by a card that reads “Have a Wild Father’s Day,” the dad and two kids in this book act like various animals–running like cheetahs, swimming like dolphins, and swinging like monkeys. The text and art are both simple and bold. It would have been nice if the family had been more multicultural, but as it stands this book would work well in a family themed toddler storytime–because all the action will keep kids engaged and moving–or in a Father’s Day storytime for any age. Review copy provided by publisher.

Rapunzel illustrated and retold by Sarah Gibb

Now that Rapunzel has been Disneyfied it might be harder to get a beautiful book like this into the hands of princess crazy readers, which is a shame. Still, Gibb’s bright, stylized art* is akin to some of the best of Disney (it reminds me a lot of Sleeping Beauty, actually), so if you try hand-selling it to Disney-fanatics you’re very likely to succeed. The retelling itself is serviceable, and definitely suited towards a more tender audience (while I, jaded adult that I am, am more of a fan of versions with the questionable sex and twin babies). I am pleased to report that the prince’s eyes are still destroyed by thorns and healed with tears, so I’ll graciously accept the absence of the sex in a children’s picture book. Review copy provided by publisher. *You can see some of the art over at SLJ.

E-mergency by Tom Lichtenheld and Ezra Fields-Meyer

I can see this book being prominently featured in a future session of my Beginning Reader Storytime. Here’s the publisher’s description:

It’s an E-mergency! The letter E took a tumble and the only way to get her back on her foot is for people to stop using her. But who can take her place? The other letters have to make a decision ASAP. Z is too sleepy and Y asks way too many questions. Thankfully, O rolls in to try and save the day. Now E can rost up and got bottor . . . as long as ovorybody follows the rulos. Chock-full of verbal and visual puns, this zany book is sure to tickle both the brain and the funny bone.

This book would make a great pairing with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and even Dr. Suess’s ABC. A Call for a New Alphabet by Jef Czeka would be a good title to send home with kids. Review copy from publisher.

Tom’s co-author, Ezra, has an interesting story (also taken from the publisher’s website):

Ezra Fields-Meyer is a high school student and an expert on animated movies and animals. He is the creator of the animated short “Alphabet House,” which inspired this book[.]

Here’s the short, if you’re interested:

A Dog is a Dog by Stephen Shaskan

Wow. This book is…bizarre. In the best way. You know I like weird (Square Cat, another weird picture book, is one of my more recent favorites and would pair well in a storytime with this book) and Shaskan’s first picture book has weirdness in spades.

It starts off innocently enough, telling us “[a] dog is a dog, whether naughty or nice. Whether it suns on the beach, or glides on the ice. A dog is a dog, if it’s skinny or fat. A dog is a dog unless it’s a….CAT!” (You can see the charmingly horrific image of a cat crawling out of a dog suit here at the publisher’s website.)

My new favorite thing to do with picture books is to read them aloud to a trio of eighth graders who tend to hang out at the youth desk after school. These kids are awesome and funny and appreciate Doctor Who, so they’re the perfect test audience for quirky picture books like this. The general consensus: awesome. And messed up. But mostly awesome.

This would be a good book to toss into a costume/imagination storytime, or pair it with other multiple level picture books like Cow,Too and There Are Cats in this Book. Review copy provided by publisher.

boundtracks: any which wall & “summer evening”

Posted on April 20, 2011

Boundtracks, a music and book pairing for multi-media enjoyment:

“Summer Evening” written by Greg Brown, performed by Gillian Welch*

“On a summer evenin’ when the corn’s head-high,/ And there’s more lightnin’ bugs than stars in the sky.
Ah, you get the feelin’ things may be alright,/ On a summer evenin’ before the dark of night.”

Any Which Wall, written by Laurel Snyder

“It was summer in Iowa…” and there was magic, and it started with a wall…

*The entire album Going Driftless would pair well with this book, in fact.

antici….pation.

Posted on March 21, 2011

Did I ever show these pictures to you, dear readers?

Right before the Ugly Truth came out, we put give-away copies into our locked display case, to ~~taunt~~ entice the children to attend our release party. This was my manager’s idea, actually, and it’s one of my favorite displays my library has done.

How do you use displays to interact with your library patrons?

book battles

Posted on March 17, 2011

There are quite a few book battles going on right now, for practically every reading taste.

SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ books is going strong, and focuses on children’s books from the past year, including chapter books, nonfiction, and graphic novels. I particularly enjoyed match 3, with judge Barry Lyga. My Two Barrys (Barries?)–I’d watch that sitcom. A replacement for Two and a Half Men, perhaps?

Out of Print Books is hosting 2011 Book Madness, with a focus on classic (out of print) books. Each bracket is also sponsored by a different library, which is an added layer of wonderfulness. Lots of voting discussions going on at their facebook page as well. Out of Print is a very cool organization that creates gorgeous t-shirts with book cover designs, and for each shirt they sell, one book is donated to a community in need through their partner Books For Africa.

The Morning News (presented by Field Notes) is also hosting a book battle, focusing on contemporary literary adult fiction. I’m not overly familiar with The Morning News, but I really love their multi-purpose Frankenreview.

There’s also the ongoing battle over e-books, but that doesn’t really interest me overly much; if you want to investigate that battle, go see Toby over at theanalogdivide.

My library does its own version of the SLJ book battle. We have a huge bulletin board in our department that we post the brackets on, and kids vote during Children’s Book Week. When we get down to two books, we have a party with a book cake that has the two finalists frosted on it. We book talk and celebrate the two finalists and then announce the ultimate winner, and devour the cake-y likenesses. It’s a ton of fun and I highly recommend you try it at your library.

Anything I’m missing?

-Miss Julie

an open letter to Stephen King

Posted on March 10, 2011

aka Uncle Stevie.

Dear Mr. King,

One cold, dark night in my twelfth year, I had nothing left to read. I’d read through all of my own books, all of my assigned reading for school, and all of my father’s back issues of Analog and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Desperate for a story, I began rummaging through my mother’s bookcase and came across an enormous book in a slip-case, bound in red. It was your novel The Eyes of the Dragon.

I took the book out of its case and saw that one corner had been chewed by something with sharp teeth. (That night I thought that it was part of the book’s design; it wasn’t until years later that I asked my mother about it and she told me our dog, Blackie, had chewed on the package left by the UPS man–shades of Cujo–when it had been delivered.) The illustration I remember most was the one of the mouse hollowed out by the burning poison. The stark, eerily beautiful black and white ink drawings were the perfect complement to that story I found there, and I read early into the morning, loathe to close my eyes and go to sleep.

That was the right book at the right time for me. I didn’t have the best of childhoods–farm life was hard, money was tight, and my parents were both struggling with personal demons–but when I was reading, none of that mattered. And when I was reading that book, that large, heavy book, so full of magic, I felt protected—like it was a shield that would keep me safe from my own life and take me to another world entirely.

I identified most strongly with Thomas. Poor, unloved, fat, manipulated Thomas, who loved the bitter taste of his own heart; Thomas, who tried so hard to do good but was so easily led astray. These lines about Thomas resonated with me deeply when I was young:

Thomas was not exactly a good boy, but you must not think that made him a bad boy. He was sometimes a sad boy, often a confused boy [...], and often a jealous boy, but he wasn’t a bad boy.

I felt like Thomas most days. Sad, confused, jealous of my classmates who had normal households and normal parents who were able to hug them and tell them they were loved and take care of them. I watched them as cravenly as Thomas watched his father in his secret moments, wanting what they had, wondering what they had done to deserve such happy, pleasant lives, while I suffered in quiet misery. It was all too easy for me to understand how Thomas could do the things he did…it was all too easy for me to see myself doing such things, if the opportunity presented itself. That book showed me that my feelings didn’t make me a bad person, just a person whose feelings had been badly used.

I eventually read all of your books that my mother had, Mr. King, but that book–and the Dark Tower books*–always remained the most special in my heart, because it was there when I needed it most, and it had been something special belonging to my mother.

After she died in 2007, I often thought of that grand, beautiful copy of The Eyes of the Dragon that I no longer had; it had been lost when our house burned down the year I was fourteen. Instead I re-read my battered paperback copy, and cried for Peter’s and Thomas’ losses as well as my own.

I am writing this letter to thank you, Mr. King. Thank you for writing a story that saved my life. Thank you for all of your many other books that are an unbreakable connection to my past and my mother. Thank you, most of all, for teaching me that people who PEEK at the END of books are not to be trusted.

Sincerely,

Miss Julie

*I waited so patiently for Thomas and Dennis to re-appear in a grand fashion; I will not be one of those beggars who makes demands of Uncle Stevie, but, oh, I am still so very fond of poor, sad Thomas, and fain would know how he fares these days.

Tales of the Madman Underground: a love letter

Posted on February 7, 2011

I fall in love with books the same way I fall in love with people– deeply, unabashedly and without any pretense of dignity. This post is a love letter, and like the gushing of any girl newly in love, it may ramble here and there, but I hope you’ll indulge me.

One book that I fell for, hard, during my youth, is John Barnes’ One For the Morning Glory, an utterly unique fantasy novel that will nevertheless remind readers of The Princess Bride and the Prydain Chronicles. Tales of the Madman Underground is nothing like that book, but I’ve still fallen head over heels for it, which is a testament to Barnes’ versatility and skill as an author.

I will admit that I actually haven’t finished the entire book; it’s a long one, and I’m taking my time with it. You might say that I’m enjoying the early stages of being smitten to the fullest. The novel is very episodic but cohesive, thanks to the strength of the main character’s voice. It’s the story of Karl Shoemaker, a teen with an extremely fucked up home life, and the interconnected tales of other members of the Madman Underground, which is the nickname for a group of teens who attend therapy together during the school day. Karl is a brutally honest narrator who tells his story with black humor and a lot of profanity.

Madman reminded me strongly of The Catcher in the Rye, but while I can’t STAND Holden Caulfield, I would love to have Karl as my secret mentally disturbed high school boyfriend. For teachers who want to explore those classic themes of alienation and teen angst, but can’t stand Holden either, I think Madman would be an excellent substitution or alternative for any curriculum or reading list. The book’s profanity might make it a hard sell in schools, though, which is as shame.

There’s a great scene with a teacher explaining about how to read Huckleberry Finn that I think should become a mandatory introduction during any study of that novel. The teacher, Gratz, says that there are wrong ways to read Huckleberry Finn, one of which is the Hollywood way, which portrays the story as being about “[...] all=American boys on a road trip on a raft (211).” The second wrong way to read it, Gratz says, is as a racist novel:

‘[...T]here is a very important character in the book called Nigger Jim. And because of that fact we will say the word ‘nigger’ pretty often in this class. And when you talk about Jim and the way he is treated, sometimes you’re going to have to say the word ‘nigger.”

‘So understand me. First of all and mot important, we don’t ever call anyone a ‘nigger.’ Not in this class. Not anywhere. When we have to discuss the idea, we always quote the word ‘nigger.’ [...] It is okay to say that thus and so is what those very prejudiced white people meant when they said the word ‘nigger,’ and that they meant it about Jim. [...]‘

‘[...T]o show the evil of racism to anyone, you have to use the words that the racists use. And some groups out there insist that Huckleberry Finn is a racist book, and that a teacher who teaches it must be racist, and even that the students who read it will automatically become racists, all because’–he whispered dramatically–’it…has…that…word!” (213-14).

I read that passage (which I’ve vastly abbreviated) shortly after the “search and replace” Huckleberry Finn debacle, and I put the book down so I could clap. This is an extremely brave statement to make, and I applaud both the author and the fictional teacher for taking that risk.

We talk a lot about keeping kids safe. We put them in booster seats, we keep them away from plastic bags, we rate our movies, and we bowlderize great fiction for their benefit, because apparently exposure to ideas is equivalent to being thrown through a windshield or choking on a hot dog. But you know what? We can’t keep kids safe. We can try, yes, and we should, but sometimes they need to be exposed to danger. Until I read Don’t Hurt Laurie!, I didn’t know that anyone else knew the pain of being physically abused by someone they loved and who loved them. I didn’t know that help was available. I didn’t know that I was alone, until I found that book, and took solace in it. I read that thing to tatters, and it helped me survive. Some people want to label literature that explores difficult topics as triggering and not think any more about it. In my case, triggering literature may very well have kept me from pulling a trigger.

Not every book is suitable for every reader. While I eagerly seek out and devour tales of the broken, beaten, ravaged and raped, and find solace in accompanying them on their difficult journeys, others may not find comfort in those journeys, and might wish to avoid them. That’s why we have book reviews and blurbs on the back covers, so that readers may make informed choices. That’s why people curate lists on a given topic, to point people in a direction. That’s why most lists have a focus and a theme and criteria to be followed. That’s the sort of list that is useful to readers, and the sort of list that librarians excel at making.

Love is rare enough in this world. We should do all that we can to give the right book to the right reader at the right time, and avoid, at all costs, keeping books from readers, even in the most passive of ways. Without lists, blog posts, and professional reviews, I wouldn’t have found my new favorite book, and my life would be poorer for that.

I’ll end with a short list of books that have broken my heart, in the best way possible:

Tender Morsels
Deerskin
Blue Plate Special
Jacob Have I Loved

Hi Miss Julie!

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