What I Read on My Vacation (on the Kindle)

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
After consulting with the Visiting Professor of Florin Studies here at Lander University, I feel I will have to read S. Morgenstern's original papers before I can make any definitive statements about Goldman's rewrite.
I just hope his son recovered from the description in the book. I'm not at all surprised his marriage dissolved, considering the autobiographical scenes. As far as the Kindle went, although all other books worked fine, this one gave me problems. The Kindle simply refused to remember where I had left off reading after some point. It was difficult to find my last location, unless I memorized the location at the bottom, which is not that much different from how I handle books if I haven't got a bookmark.
This reminds me, one thing that makes library books an improvement on the Kindle: I can slip my room key into the date due pocket when I go to the pool! I was at a total loss of where to keep my room key this week! At last, I put it in the pocket of my cosmetic bag which I later used to tote the 50 SPF sunscreen when I went to lay out while housekeeping tidied the room. I didn't want to carry that much, but there you are. If I'm just going for a swim, the key and a paperback is all I need. The paperback keeps me company (and hides the key) until I've dried off enough to go back to the room.




A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
Early Wodehouse. Not sure why he thought a 48 year old man would be a total dodderer (along the lines of the third earl of Emsworth).




Adventures of Sally by P.G. Wodehouse

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
What a period piece! Sally is a dance hostess who finally comes into her fortune. Dance hostessing/taxi dancing has fallen by the wayside as careers go. I met a woman in NYC who went undercover as a taxi dancer to write an expose. Wodehouse also gives us a view of putting together a theatrical venture in the 1920s, what with the talentless beauties who get lead roles by sleeping with the producer - that doesn't happen anymore! Imagine that it only took $5,000 to put on a show!




Three Men and a Maid by P.G. Wodehouse

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I liked that it didn't have a pat solution. In later years I think Wodehouse made everything very, very tidy and while it was always very satisfying, this ending is more realistic. The heroine discovers that the man she thought was heroic, wasn't. She went from liking him and then didn't like him and in the end his only recourse is to wear her down. I've had this tried on me, in fact.


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Not for the Faint-Hearted

Guts : The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books by Gary Paulsen

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
Just not my type of book. Everyone wanted to know what Paulsen's true-life experiences were that gave him grist for his adventure story mill and this is the result. Whatever you do, don't read the first chapter if you're about to take a plane trip.
His story about the blizzard during the Iditarod makes me want to eradicate the concept. Fortunately, toward the end he tried to eat turtle eggs and got what was coming to him.
This is an excellent companion to his adventure stories, such as Hatchet, but precisely the sort of thing I don't enjoy. Strange, because he can also write stories as funny as Patrick McManus (see Harris and Me) and there's a terrific opportunity to inject humor in the scene where as a 16 year old he tries to get a 200 lb. buck home.
Definitely a guy read. Also, it seems to be just thrown together because it's just one anecdote after another.


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[Insert epithet here]

The Franchise Babe: A Novel by Dan Jenkins

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
It looked to me from the cover (as pictured) that they were trying to appeal to the sort of readers that like Carl Hiaasen or Tom/Tim/Jim Whatsis* - the Florida mystery guys. And who would that be, marfita? Oh, you know - Guys.

There isn't much of a mystery - that's more of an aside really. The story (and real mystery) is about how Dan Jenkins can get away with being deliberately politically incorrect by having his First Person spouting as much Republican WASP Country Club rhetoric passing as humor while the love interest winces, but still loves him.

I recommend this to anyone WITH a six-figure income, a three-car garage, and a country club membership or for someone who is HOPING for that life. You'll be absofrickinlootly delighted.

You know what I thought the best part was? The final golf tournament. And, you know what? I hate golf. It was genuinely exciting and I was really pulling for the vapid teenager.




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* I meant Tim Dorsey, just actually forgot his name. Usually enjoy his books as well as Hiaasen's, although I might like Hiaasen's a teensy bit better.

Write About It!/Ga Children's Lit Conference

Miriam ("Mimi") Rutland is a published author of a series of books about Miss Pistachio. Her session on teaching writing realistic fiction to kids using their own experiences interested me because of the Be Creative theme of this summer's reading program. I was already thinking about a poetry workshop. Maybe I could do this also or instead - maybe I should just go lie down.

Rutland uses a storyboard approach in her 3rd-5th grade writing clubs. She has them think of three people that are important to them, then three events: vacation, birthday, lost tooth. They have to pick one of the people (who doesn't have to be connected with the event) and describe the person: what they look like, what sort of personality. Then you put the person together with one of the events ... and embellish. Add little bits, like spices.

She says that the hardest thing to do is to start. Sometimes they need to have realistic explained to them (no flying cars or talking animals). Sometimes they need to brainstorm a special event: going to the beach, visiting a friend's house, making a new friend.

And she made us go through the process. She read some of the paragraphs we wrote "anonymously." She was careful to praise what she thought was good or interesting about the paragraphs, which of course reminded me of Mrs. Smith in Kindergarten and how she squashed a classmate's clay cat and told her she had done it all wrong and to "Start Over!" I had been looking at her method of dividing the clay into pieces and making the cat (we all had to make a cat that day - no creativity in that class!) out of them the same way you'd assemble a snowman: ball with smaller ball on top, tiny balls pinched into ears, another piece rolled into a long tail, etc. I looked at my cat, all pinched here and there and messy looking and then at her neatly assembled one and had been at the point redoing mine when Mrs. Smith waddled over in her grey wool suit, ruffled blouse, and black orthopedic shoes and squashed the snowcat flat. It's a lesson for all of us who work with kids. [Not to put too fine a point on it, the lesson is: Don't Do That!]

Rutland's presentation was simple and organized and fit exactly in the time allotted. So maybe there should be short sessions and longer sessions.

Reading Illustration/GA Children's Lit Conference

Art project done in conjunction with the book Flotsam by David Wiesner.

Shane Rayburn and Megan Reeves collaborated on a project to help first graders relate to reading through the illustrations in a terrific picture book. Flotsam is a wordless picture book that can't possibly be daunting to a struggling reader. I've used Flotsam in a storytime before (and I could have sworn I blogged about that, but I can't find it now), showing the pictures and talking about the story. Wiesner himself talked about the making of this Caldecott Award winner at the conference last year.

These children made art. They had disposable cameras to take home to take pictures of people and things important to them. Then each one had a Polaroid picture taken, holding the previous photo (if there was one), just like in the story. They painted a picture of themselves (enjoined to "use the whole page" and to leave the hands and arms where they could hold the pictures. One of the pictures they took at home was added to the painting as well as the picture of the child holding one of the Polaroid photos.

Okay, now I want to do something like this during the summer reading program ...

Storytime Goodies/GA Children's Lit Conference

One of the concurrent sessions was given by Kaleema Abdurrahman, who simply did not have enough time to share all she knew about fun ways to share books with children. This session was packed. They had to bring in more chairs.

Abdurrahman makes her own feltboards (to change the shape, size, color, make them more portable) and uses sandpaper for the backing, which is an interesting alternative to, say, velcro.
She works with stick puppets in something she calls Box Theatre, a medium sized box from which the top, back, and a bit from the sides has been removed. Inside, at the top of the front she has put the foam double-sided tape to hold the stick puppets still, when necessary. She replaces the protective paper on the exposed side to keep it fresh. OMG, what one cannot learn from this woman!

I had never heard of a magnetboard. Maybe that's what that white thing is on the back of our store-bought (I feel so wasteful now!) flannelboards. Does Abdurrahman buy some expensive magnetboard? No way! She brings in a cookie sheet and uses the back. She showed us the front side to prove it was actually used for baking cookies as well. Now you can put sandpaper and magnet tape on your shapes!

Here's an idea, before putting up posters, put some booktape in the corners (where you plan to use other tapes or adhesives) to protect the poster.

She also makes her own story aprons, tree trunks out of Pringle's cans for the squirrel puppet, a toilet paper tube for a candle to do "Jack Be Nimble" - and demonstrated for us jumping over it. You can just picture a whole roomful of kids jumping over the paper and cardboard candle. She hangs scenery around her neck and

She decorated a peanut can to look like a dog and then wrote the titles of stories about dogs on paper "bones" she put inside the can. Children could draw out a bone to determine what story would be told next. She made story cards out of discarded books (we have a couple of these).

And her Humpty-Dumpty egg with a fake "yoke" inside was a hilarious idea. Oh, and I laughed out loud when she did "Ten in the Bed" with the Little One (babydoll) in a homemade bed who was overcrowded with toys and she just tossed a toy out for each verse.

Some of these sessions should be a bit longer.

Georgia Children's Literature Conference, March 2009

Bryan Collier briefly at the podium to attach his lavalier mike. HA! Got 'im!

The photos this year are only slightly better than those last year, but there was one huge problem. For the most part, the presenters did not stand behind the podium where there was a spotlight to make them seen. They were given cordless mikes so they could roam all over the stage - except, of course, somewhere in the light. My supervisor and I sat up fairly close, and they were still fuzzy. Photos were just about impossible.

This was a lean year for the Conference. We heard from other librarians that some people could not get the funding to attend. There was no money for a storyteller at the final "Storyteller's Luncheon," so someone volunteered and did an excellent job. The conference itself had to ask the speakers if they could adjust their fees. The Buehners came all the way from Utah to accept the picture book award. I note that the winner of the children's book award did not attend. Perhaps there was a schedule conflict - we'll give that person the benefit of the doubt. [Raises eyebrow and pinches lips like Church Lady.] Other speakers were Paul Janeczko, Peter Sis (looking oh, so european with his jacket casually over his shoulders), Bryan Collier, and Gail Carson Levine. I remember last year that I wasn't so sure what the authors could do for me, but I was very impressed. It was the same this year.


Peter Janeczko made me want to do a series of workshops this summer on poetry writing.


Sis and his children - who don't appreciate his stories of the bad old days!
Peter Sis described his life and the development of his art.

Bryan Collier told how he made the decision between a possible career in sports or one in art. We think he made the right choice! He led us through the process of making the illustrations for Rosa by Nikki Giovanni. He made the effort to travel to Montgomery and experience the heat, which came out in the yellow of the illustrations. Everyone had heard the story of Rosa Parks who wouldn't give up her seat that day because she was tired - well, of course she was tired! Who wouldn't be in that heat? He interviews people as well, all for illustration.


Levine is not only in the dark, she doesn't stop moving for a second!

Gail Carson Levine was almost not an author at all. She had taken a creative writing course and her teacher had written "Your trouble is you're pedestrian" on one of her stories. It created the negative voice in her that took decades to overcome. She gave up writing entirely and went into art. Now she dedicates some time each summer to help kids find their own positive inner voice, creating more writers. She described the research that went into her latest book, Ever.


Mark and Caralyn Buehner express their gratitude for the award and describe the making of the book, Dex, the Heart of a Hero.

Cholera in the Time of Love

The Anatomy of Deception by Lawrence Goldstone

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
As a period mystery, this was a good one. I had one small problem with the plot - and maybe it's from recently reading about cholera in Ghost Map - but it was an impossibility that a doctor of that time would not treat what he believed to be cholera with the proven treatment of drinking untainted water to rehydrate. The author even referenced the discovery of the cause. I found myself screaming at the book things like, "No, no, nooo! You don't understand cholera at allllll!"

Oh, and the plot was about icky things, just to remind us that Victorian times were not some pure and halcyon days we've lost forever. The resolution was a bit clunky although nicely "shocking." I had made the mistake of turning to the back to see if there was some historical info and got hit in the face with a spoiler. So, Don't do that!


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Love That Crazy Eddie Muldoon!

Real Ponies Don't Go Oink! by Patrick F. McManus

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
There are two gut-wrenchingly funny stories in this book: "A Good Deed Gone Wrong," which I can't even think about without laughing, so I'm not going into it now, and "Zumbo and the Misty Mountain Ghosts." I love McManus's stuff. Some of the stories are funnier than others, but most of them make me laugh out loud. McManus, like Wodehouse, will set up a slapstick scene and then turn it around, or turn it inside out, and then walk you through each angle of the pratfall or of the flying pie, milking it for all it's worth.

I had people coming out to look at me to find out why I was laughing so uncontrollably. My husband has walked through the house and come out to the porch to see what was so damn funny.

And I don't even like huntin' and fishin' stories! I hope this man's a millionaire. He deserves it.


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Plum with a Wand*

Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
That some things (like that mystery that started with the woman who was killed by ... nevermind) are a bit too intense for me. I had to stop this fairly frequently to calm down. The dangers and threats just a little bit too relentless. Rachel is a witch - but one who just seems to attract trouble. Outside of home, they're out to kill her; inside, her roommate can barely contain her vamplust. PICK ONNNNNE! Give the reader some respiiiiiite! After some time, I've decided I like the bad guy and the demon. I hope to see more of both of them - if I decide to continue with this series. First, I think I will need to read some fluffy stuff for a while.

Say, Anatomy of Deception.

*The heroine reminds me of Stephanie Plum, caught between a rock and a hard- ... [fill in the rest yourownself]. She's less silly, the comedy relief is less evident, and she's more capable, both as a witch and in law enforcement.


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Having Too Much Fun

Here I am having too much fun.

Hello, my name is Marf and I work in the children's room of a public library. The photo above is me with some puppets. I wish I had video, but I just don't have time for putting something like that together. But I bet people would watch it. I have had requests to go to other libraries and demonstrate how I use puppets, but I can't get away because of scheduling.

This is my job: buying puppets with taxpayer's money and playing with puppets during worktime. One half hour every other month or so, kids get to watch me play with them. We spend this money on puppets and my time because free puppet shows like this bring parents and children into the library.

Long about fifth grade, coming to a puppet show at the library starts to seem uncool. This is patently ridiculous thinking because I put in sly bits that appeal to the adults in the room and go right over a younger child's head. Adults tell me how much they enjoy our puppet shows. I have to appeal to them because they're the ones that drive the children to the library. But there is always the older kid who thinks this stuff is beneath him and starts digging in his heels about going to the library. The pre-teens and teens get their hormones on and the next thing you know, nothing an adult says is right.

Librarians have been casting around for decades for a way to entice these kids back into the library and one of the the ways they hit upon was video games. Some librarians (married to someone with a better income, no doubt) already had some cool video games at home that they could bring to work and share one night with the kids. The rest of us had no idea what these things were. Let's face it, most of the librarians are girls and most of us tend to think of girlie activities. Gaming does not always rise to the top of our fluffy little brains. I've been to demos at state library sponsored functions where a librarian talks about bring her son's Dance Dance Revolution pad and game to the library and how popular that was. But funding being what it is, some of the more rural libraries can't afford to invest in expensive games we don't even know how to play, much less set up.

Here's where our state library helps us out. They buy the games that are most popular for this sort of thing and then loan them out to their public libraries. But that still leaves us sort of in the dark as to how to use them or set them up. Most of us here need an IT guy just to take a new PC out of a box and set it up. Who ya gonna ask about how this goes together? The state library in Nebraska came up with an elegant solution. They made a promotional video showing how they set up the games (Rock Band right out of a new box) and how they are played and posted them on YouTube, a social site that hosts videos, so that the librarians in their state could preview the new acquisition and decide if it looked like something they were brave enough to try, because these gaming night things really work. They certainly made it look easy! And they sure look like they'll know what they're talking about if someone calls them and asks how it hooks up.

Pure genius! Unfortunately, someone mistook this for librarians having too much fun. The state auditor in Nebraska decided that buying, videoing, and distributing these games was inappropriate use of public funds. Further, use of social sites by librarians was also a waste of tax money. I can understand that in these difficult times, people are looking for ways to save money, but this was very little money and you have to look at the bigger picture.

The internet is a place where our customers spend more and more of their time. We buy bookmobiles to go to our patrons. We set up branches to put our libraries closer to our patrons. Our presence in blogs, on Flickr, and elsewhere on social sites (even Second Life, a virtual world I've bored people about elsewhere)is another way to make us accessible to our customers.

Social networking, by the way, can be used to save money. What wastes more time and money: librarians from all over the state driving to the state library for a class on how to use some new technology or each librarian sitting at a computer and watching a 10 minute video of the important stuff? Which leaves a smaller carbon footprint? The librarian would have to watch that video a whole lot of times to even come close to the expenses of driving, parking, having lunch (because there's no point in having someone drive for over an hour just to demonstrate something for 20 minutes - they have to work up a whole half day's worth of instruction), and the compensation for the hours wasted in travel time.

I use YouTube (well, not very often, but I know how and I have an account), I blog (look around you, this is a blog) which I use to share information, I created a social network on Ning for sharing ideas about programming for children in libraries, and I follow other librarians on Twitter (where I learned about this idiotic auditor in Nebraska). In a previous post I blogged all my notes from a conference I attended so that not only my co-workers but anyone else could learn what I learned. In another post I blogged about a conference I attended virtually in Second Life from my home that I would not have been able to attend at all. As far as I'm concerned, our state library should be using social networking more, especially Second Life which could save loads on travel costs to the annual conference. At least they had the good sense to introduce us all to the concepts. They probably don't use the social tools more because every year they have to cut back on their budget and everyone there is wearing so many hats they can't see straight anymore.

So, Marf, what's your point?

My point is, there is hardly any difference between my puppets and the video games. They are both used to entice a certain age group to the library and not everyone knows how to use them. A quick demonstration of how easy it is encourages the neophyte. And my final point? Well, that the Nebraska auditor is an ass, of course, and now I expect our state auditor to come after me and my puppets. Thank you so much, Nebraska taxpayer, for making our jobs just a little bit more horrible.