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.

Climbing K2

My Kindle2 came in the mail yesterday (27 Feb.), just one day after Daniel's Amazon Prime account got his delivered. Not too bad!
I was shaking in delight and the mailman teasingly almost didn't hand it to me because he could see how anxious I was (I was on my way back to work when I saw that the mailboxes on the opposite side of the street had their flags down) and we all know what bastards the Post Office turns people into. The nice FedEx lady delivered one of my Harry Potter books on a Saturday morning and just beamed because she was making so many people happy that day.
In my excitement, I am pinning people down and showing it to them. It's not like the cell phone I'm ashamed to admit I have, this is cool. I tell people I got it for my husband who I believe doesn't read as much as he used to because his vision has gotten very poor. He'll be lucky to even smell it.
Anyway, I'm still all crazy about this gizmo and then I read Roy Blount Jr.'s op/ed in the New York Times about how the audio function of the K2 is ripping off authors ... or has the potential for same.
I have yet to listen to a book read by the K2 because I didn't buy it to listen to it. I'm here for the e-paper. The audio function may be yards better than the computer-generated reading done on the Gutenberg Project books, but when you get down to it, you don't buy the audiobooks just to hear someone drone through the book. You (or rather, I) buy them for the performance. Jim Dale brought Harry Potter to life for millions. Stephen Briggs is currently making Terry Pratchett's Discworld come to life. When I went to the Kindle Store, I looked at the Discworld books that I love so much ... and eventually rejected them because I already own both book and audiobook forms of most of them. And if I want to hear them read, I want Nigel Planer or Briggs (or even Tony Robinson who does a brilliant job with the unfortunately abridged versions) read them, not some computer. I want a performance, and that's what an audio-book is.
Where else can I listen to these Kindle-reads? Plug them into the car audio system for long trips? With one of those droning voices? I don't think so. On an airplane? What? Do I look like I have noise-cancellation headphones?!
No, the audio function on the K2 is a toy, a gadget. I bought the K2 for the e-paper. I enjoy reading. I can see using the audio function only if my eyes wear plum-out.
I'm glad that (the ordinarily cuddly) Mr. Blount is looking after his fellow authors and he's right to bring this to our attention, but it's just a sales gimmick, not a threat to audio rights. It can't be sold separately from the text. It's ephemeral and, let's face it, not that great. You should have heard the Gutenberg audio try to come to grips with the broad Yorkshire accents in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Any human could have done a better job with one lip tied behind their back. Of course, after a while even I managed to get into the story and ignore the hideous struggles with apostrophes.
Before I could finish this post (currently 28 February), Amazon.com seems to have balked. Sigh, just when I think I'm finally ahead of the curve! They will apparently leave it up to the author to allow or disallow this function on each book. Boy, that was fast! I would have thought that the lawyers would have worked all that out in advance, but apparently not - or else one side did not think far enough ahead while the other cagily did. Hmmmm.
A friend has pointed out that this audio function is no different that the book's purchaser reading it aloud. Good gravy, I hope I can read better than that!
I have since listened to the audio on the Kindle ... and it's no better than the Gutenberg reader. My favorite bit was rendering the Ms. (as in Ms. Smith) as "Millisecond Smith." This was from a book currently in print.
I now listen to the text-to-speech partly for the hilarity of these mistakes and partly because I get so into the material that when the time comes to drive somewhere, an appointment or something, I can't give up reading and I don't have to! I just turn on the text-to-read while I'm driving! You know, Mr. Blount, I'd never have discovered the joy of this function if you hadn't brought it to my attention.

Aww, Just SHOOT him, fer cryin' out loud!

Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
audiobook version

I should have checked out the hardcopy as well, because I got partway through and then just wanted to get it over with.

There is a lot that's good about this book. It's not often we get to see a Moscow police procedural, or at least I don't. I'm hoping this has given me insights into the Russian character and the current conditions in Russia, but I don't have enough information on the author to vet his depictions.

Again, the only problem I have is that it's not my sort of "thing."

The characters, while more than two dimensional are drawn with a heavy pen. The reporter is not only Jewish ... but hunchbacked as well. The love interest is a doctor AND has Chernobyl scars. The filmmaker doesn't just make porn, he documents his own gang-rapes (in other words, he's not just pathetic, he's stupid). All this serves to make the narrative more "gritty," I suppose.

Setting the mystery in Russia gives the author a chance to explore all those hard-boiled 1950s-type scenes, but with a fresh coat of paint: cell phones, exotic locales, etc. Still, it boils down to people trying to kill the detective, the detective being misunderstood, losing the girl, getting the girl back, losing the girl, the obligatory hellacious family life that made him completely different from both parents (which seems so unlikely). All in all, it was good -

but setting up the gun assembling scene? That just killed it. The gun is now on the stage and I was just waiting for it to pay off. Hurry up, Smith, let's just get the gun put together and get it over with. It was pure torture waiting for that.

And, bad guy has a gun, why suddenly decided to use a shovel? Why bury someone to come BACK and kill them? I just wanted to bang my head on the dashboard. And he'd been doing so well up to then. (In my mind I drift back to that great scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Jones rolls his eyes and just shoots someone. The story goes that the scene was changed from a whip-duel because Ford was ill, but this was just sooo much better. Shoot them! You have a gun! USE IIIIIIT!)

Otherwise, it was pretty good. Reader was okay, but should probably lay off the whiskey and cigarettes.


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And That's the Truth! (phhhhbbblllllt!)

Truer Than True Romance: Classic Love Comics Retold! by Jeanne Martinet

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Whatta great scam! Take the old True Romance comics you read as a child that ruined your prospects for happiness by setting up unrealistic expectations in the romance department and, using the same artwork, totally rewrite them! This merited some actual guffaws! And that was just from the original material that was provided for the contrast! I mean, it took me several minutes to get it through my thick head that "NY Restaurant Menu Typist" was a career in the original, not the parody!
Ahhh, this really took the bad taste out of my mouth from the previous graphic graphic novels!


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Posts When Her Heart Stops Hammering

The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
This falls into that category of Wow, Good But Don't Make Me Read It Again. I'm familiar with "Der Sandman" by E. T. A. Hoffmann but I took a chance on this book anyway. O Weh's mir!

This was a bit gruesome for me and I'm sorta glad it normally hides in the Adult Graphic Novels because "graphic" really describes it. Okay, you have to use a bit of your imagination to finish the picture, but ...

I'd like to know if stories like this satisfy the reptilian part of our brain and when order is restored, we can then feel satisfied that a) we got to enjoy something really violent, grotesque, bloody, gratuitous and b) we know that it is wrong and those people are punished and we're better than that.

Or does this just encourage some of us to go out and do it?

Can't be the latter, or I'd run out now and find people's eyes to gouge out instead of huddling under an afghan hoping I can get the imagery out of my head.

Neil Gaiman, do you actually make this stuff up or do you just hunt for it in headlines? I don't know which is worse.

The story, though, is artfully crafted. There does seem to be a bit of extraneous storytelling (the guy who lives forever) that doesn't seem to have anything to do with this particular plotline. I don't think I'll be picking up any more of these to try to work that out, though.

The artwork doesn't have the grace and clarity of American Born Chinese and the layout strains the limits of my ability to follow. Parts of the narrative are not nicely laid out left to right, but we are talking about dreams. And I'm wondering ... is the Sandman drawing based on Gaiman?

Phew!

Well! Back to that nice, fluffy Stalin's Ghost! Only one serial killer there!


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Same Old Same Old ... Yum

Death of a Gentle Lady by M.C. Beaton

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is the reading version of Raisinets: nothing surprising in the bag, same old wrinkles larded up with familiar flavors, but gawd doncha love 'em?

Hamish's star system of babes grows ever larger, and while they have to die to escape his gravitational pull, they never seem to get close enough for a satisfactory relationship. I know I've said over and over that if you've got the sexual tension thing going, your biggest mistake is ruining it with a happy couple (see Sayers's Lord Peter series and the old Remington Steele program), however, it's been 20-some books now, Ms. Beaton! Time to move on! It's just painful now seeing all these women floating around him like so much debris.

This time Hamish goes outside the EU for fresh meat. Blair goes totally over the top. The victim is as unpleasant as ever, and an outsider (or Lochdubh would be a ghost town by now). And Beaton stoops to having the village put on a production of "Macbeth." Even using the same formulaic sentences (Hamish always going sibilant when angry - can guarantee that sentence will be worked into every single solitary book), the same failed relationships, the same characters (except murderers and murderees), Beaton somehow prevents this stuff from going completely stale. The villagers should only be two-dimensional cartoons, but I see them as whole for some reason. Maybe it's from seeing just one of the tv series with Robert Carlyle (totally wrong physically for Macbeth but so darn cute in that).

Oddly, I can't abide the Agatha Raisin stories, but I'll line up for these packets of sticky sweets each time.


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This man is soooo adorable .. when he's not playing a psychopath.

Newbery Winner

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really like books that don't flash the answers right at you. If I were a kid reading this, some of it wouldn't be quite so obvious (Ms. Lupescu, f'rinstance). And while we didn't get beaten over the head with the answers, the clues were obvious to Ms. Smarty-Pants-Me.
Some unfortunate Harry Potter parallels come up (unfortunate in that some know-it-all like me would say there were Harry Potter parallels: 11 year epiphany meaning it is now time to go to school, family killed, prophecy of a child defeating some evil power, blah-blah, yadda-yaddah). All of this is unfortunate because no one sat around saying dismissively, "Oh that Harry Potter story sounds just like The lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones." Now any story with supernatural elements and a kid in it is going to sound like Harry Potter.

But this book is not like Harry Potter. It's a one-off story that takes Bod from toddler to adulthood. He is raised by kindly folk (for the most part) and we learn it takes a whole graveyard to raise a child - ho ho ho. I love the fiddly details, ghosts that are introduced by the inscriptions on their headstones: "Thomes Pennyworth here he lyes in the certainty of the moft glorious refurrection was already waiting." There is much to like about the book even though this isn't really my type of book. I actually burst into tears when I heard on NPR that Gaiman won the Newbery ... even though I'd already heard about it from the ALA feed into Second Life. In fact, I was pretty much crying over all the awards that day. That the audiobook for Terry Pratchett's Nation had won an award really tore me up.

I came to Neil Gaiman through reading Terry Pratchett. They collaborated on a book and I've slowly worked into some of the Gaiman oeuvre. There is a lot of creative work that I think is brilliant, but I don't have to read/watch again (the original "Alfie" comes to mind) and this book falls into that category. If you know a kid who needs a quality book - especially those hard-to-find-reading-material-for creatures, boys - this would be a prime candidate. (Most of them will appreciate the girl in the book being trundled off and her memory erased.) [Suddenly Marf remembers she has a great-neph who loves Goosebumps and is in need of reading material - heh heh!:]

Our library's copy of this book is in the teen area - which comprises Grade 6 and up. I'm not sure about placement of this book. I suppose because everyone is murdered in the first few pages someone decided this should be a teen book, but it's no worse than the Grimm's folktales of fingers being cut off and people rolled in barrels studded with nails. We're more sensitive these days to exposing kids to violence, even though it's offstage (the murders were done before the book starts although the murderer still has one more to kill). I imagine someone picked this up, read the first two pages and tossed it aside saying "Teen book!" and that was that. Pish and tosh, say I.

Also, let me say that I have nothing against serial books or comics and I think kids should have access to plenty of that but an occasional "meaty" book like this is nice to stretch them. Please, please, though don't denigrate trashy reading and force kids to read hard stuff all the time!


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It's Not Your Father's Boobtube Anymore

Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Video games are getting more complicated and so are tv shows - and that makes our brains work harder, so Johnson says. [I suspect I read this before because it all sounded really familiar.] Guess it's that entropy thing again - You start out really simple and then things get all complicated and disordered. Our brains have to make sense of non-linear shows like The Sopranos or video games such as ... The Sims, I guess - not sure. I'm not really a gamer. And I don't call Second Life a game. I do understand that once you've defeated a game, you no longer have interest in it and need to move on to another challenge.

There are videos I watch over and over to get all the little references out of, which is what they aim for now, the after-market where it's not enough to watch something once, but over and over so you have to buy the whole video, watch it endlessly, watch it with all the foreign dubbings and subtitles (okay, maybe that's just me), and then blog about it or go to some website where they hash over the finest details (ever go to any of the Harry Potter fan websites?) and write fan fiction. Isn't that just a more adult version of the Whole Reading method?


Good writer; I enjoy his stuff.


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As an afterthought, I really enjoy the Goodreads site which allows me to copy my whole review I wrote there and paste it in a regular blog, bringing the cover along with it! Yay!

shelfmonkeys

I haven't cartooned in a while (other than the one of Michael Stevens taking a picture of himself in a bathroom - what's that all about, Michael?!). I usually do it to relieve stress, but I think that I've been under such stress the past year or so that I just haven't been able to do it. I hope it's starting to let up and I can do a few of these every now and then.
This was an error I made today. The little girl survived and her mom actually thought her bug-eyes were funny. What happens is, the headphones plugs are pulled out just a tiny bit and then the connection is broken and the sound comes straight from the CPU. This drives me absolutely insane. It's especially bad when both game computers are going like this at the same time. I allow it when more than one kid or a kid and a parent are using it together. Otherwise, I rise like thunder and pointedly poke the plug back in.
This time, some previous user had turned the volume all the way up on the headphones, undoubtedly because the volume seemed low (coming as it was from the CPU into ears blocked with headphones).
Oopsie!

Lookybook

I read about this website in the December School Library Journal and thought I'd take a look at it, having just recently reviewed some children's books on Goodreads (and here, of course, but more on Goodreads). I thought, "Oh, goody! A site that will let someone page through books and look at the illustrations!" but within seconds I was disappointed that two worthy author/illustrators were not on their list. /me goes all frowny-face. I know they can't have every author or illustrator listed (and they do have some great ones), but no Tedd Arnold?! Gah! How can I wax eloquent on the fun illustrations in The Roly-Poly Spider? There are currently only about 300 titles available. I might wait a while for the list to grow before using this website.

In the meantime, though, is this cool or is this cool? ...


As of April, Lookybook is no more. :(

On the Lighter Side ...

The Roly Poly Spider by Jill Sardegna

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have to review this book because I don't want people to think I go around looking for things (books, people, just ... things) that annoy me so I can excoriate them on the web. I do, I just don't want you to think that's all I do.

There are some books I like, really like, and this is one of them. I just used it today in a storytime and, as per usual, it went over great. I love it, kids love it, the rest of you can go soak your heads.

What is not to like about this book? First of all, you can pair it with the fingerplay "Eensy-Weensy Spider" (don't try to tell me it's "itsy-bitsy" - my mommy was never wrong) and if you sing the book, it scans perfectly. It's gross, it's funny, and I love Tedd Arnold's illustrations.

What did I learn from this book? Well, the lesson therein that I share with all the children is: "We Don't Eat Our Friends." 'Nuff said. Always keep a copy of this on hand. I do.


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Just Something That Annoyed Me This Morning

The Real Winner: North South Books by C. Neugebauer

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
Preachy, lame, didactic (but with cute pictures)- I don't think any competitive child would be convinced that winning isn't everything (and this book is preachin' to the choir) from reading this load of tapioca.

Rocky (the raccoon - and the author's probably lucky Sir Paul doesn't come gunning for her on that) has to win every race and complains if someone else is ahead with a predictable "Not fair!" His dopey do-good companion keeps stopping to rescue other animals allowing Rocky to win. In the end, Rocky seems to have learned his lesson with a fishing competition. The first one to get a fish wins! Rocky won't stop until he gets one, and when he does (SPOILER ALERT - as if anyone cares) the fish is too small. He's disappointed. He throws the fish back. Allegedly it's to let the little fish grow, emulating the altruistic behavior of Hippo-boy, but we all know it's only because it was too small to be worth keeping and that any real raccoon would have just eaten it as an appetizer.


The real reason not to be like Rocky is that he's such a whiner. It's fine to be competitive (hark at me! - everyone who knows me well is checking the authorship of this review on the strength of that one comment), kids really enjoy it and people love winners. The only one who doesn't enjoy it and is shunned is the one that loses all the time and whines about it. I should know. I was a professional loser for most of my young life and now find it really difficult to compete even though I am capable of winning at some things. "No one loves a whiner!" I was always told.


So what's my complaint: it's an unrealistic children's story about talking animals? Is this another one of my tempests in a teaball? No, it's not the right message and the characterization is garbled. Here's the competition message in a nut's (me) shell: Winners should learn to be gracious, losers should learn to not give up hope, and the mediocre should just get over it.

A better choice for a book about competitiveness is Mia Hamm's Winners Never Quit.



View all my reviews.

Does My Head Look Big In This?

Instinctively I have picked up a book that fits in perfectly (almost) with my cross-cultural theme: Does My Head Look Big In This by Randa Abdel-Fattah. The owner of the titular head has made the decision to wear the hijab, the headscarf worn by some Muslim women, in the middle of a school year. She realizes that this will only serve to make her stand out even more in her elite prep school in Australia, but she was inspired by Rachel on the television program Friends, when that character showed the courage to wear a hideous bridesmaid's dress at a wedding. Yes, it was just that lame. She made a decision about her faith and culture based on a sit-com episode, but such is the way life works, dunnit?

Appearing to be a challenging read at 360 pages, Abdel-Fattah manages to make this story (Amal is described as "hilarious" but not all that funny to me) warm-hearted, thought-provoking, and quick to read. All manner of Muslims (well, at least a nice cross-section) are portrayed from the Must Assimilate At All Costs to the This Is What Being Muslim Meant In My Village 20 Years Ago. Amal, the titular headowner, can get a bit shrill about what it means to be a modern, Australian-born Muslim, but she is just sixteen and if she didn't scream about how unfair everything was, how believable would she be?

This book is a good fictional introduction to Islam for the Clueless Teen. See? Amal is just like you, obsessed with boys, make-up, clothes (which ones go with her hijab), her hair (even if you can't see it anymore), zits, school, and the magazine Cosmo. Yes, it's a chick book, despite some token sports. We're dealing with the extreme emotions of the teen here. Even Adam, her male friend interest, is willing to talk about his feelings (although he complains about it). The story references the World Trade Center attacks and the bombing of the club in Indonesia. We see Amal cope with the fallout of the latter in the news, which have made her a lightning rod for the hostilities.

More tragically, she watches one of her closest friends badgered by her mother to stop spending so much time on her studies and pick one of the men being constantly paraded in front of her for a husband, get married, and have children. The girl instead has dreams of becoming a doctor, which her mother finds shameful. Her homelife is further darkened by her brother, who is into drugs, alcohol, and fast women. My reaction came right out of "Earth Girls Are Easy": Leave home, kid! It was not that surprising that she did, after being dragged home from a restaurant dinner party in honor of her birthday.

Being "hilarious," everything works out at the end. Polly-Amal helps bring her crabby neighbor and son back together. Okay, it's not as blatant as that. But will her "fat" friend finds true love without having to become anorexic? Will Amal's debate team win? Should Australia become a republic? Will Leila be found beaten and dead or will she return to her repressive home ... and then be found beaten and dead? Does Adam like Amal? Is she leading him on? Will she ever get over her big head? Tune in!

Being teen oriented, there is no shortage of angst, conflict, and pop culture references. On the whole, though, it's an interesting book and another great springboard for discussions on diversity and tolerance.

Melvin Beederman: Superhero

The Curse of the Bologna Sandwich by Greg Trine and Rhode Montijo.

At first I thought the author (The author writes the book, the author writes the book, Hi-Ho Librario, the author writes the book) had never been to Los Angeles, because the buildings aren't that tall, but that might just be my east coast elitism. Melvin Beederman is a superkid with more brains than superpowers. He can't always jump a tall building (even the ones in LA) in a single bound; it may take more. But unfortunately, he can always see everyone's underwear. And we all know how funny "underwear" is!
This first book in a series seems to be aimed at the Captain Underpants crowd. But there is a twist! There's a girl in it! What happens when Melvin graduates superhero school and goes to his first assignment (But I thought Los Angeles had a superhero!), only to lose his cape?
Rhode Montijo provides the amusing illustrations (The illlustrator draws-) of what is definitely a Melvin.

Testing

Attempting to embed video from YouTube to a post:

Put Down the Book! (and back away slowly)

Donna Washington in a rare moment of quiet and calm ...

The only thing I knew of worth attending SCLA for this year was the session with Donna Washington, storyteller, and I wouldn't have recognized it in the program if I hadn't gotten a note from my youthlib listserv about it. Why doesn't SCLA at least post vivid descriptions of the sessions on the website? They might not have all the info when the schedule is originally made up, but I went back time and again to find info about the sessions that would make me want to attend them and there was nothing. Friday at 9am only said, "Put down the book: YSS and Trustees, Cathy Pruett/Donna Washington" - that's it! The important bit, Donna Washington, was hidden at the bottom.
Anyway, I was really excited to go to her session and I wasn't disappointed. Donna Washington has been a storyteller since she graduated from college. She was pinpointed as a possible storyteller and then trained to be one. It is all she has ever done. She knows whereof she speaks.
Her first advice was to get a house husband (check!) if you can find one (amen!).
From birth to puberty, a child is geared to language acquisition. They watch the face and body, especially the mouth. (I start watching her mouth now.)
After puberty, they launch into sex mode and language learning goes out the window, but integration of language (collating) kicks in. So it's almost useless to have them writing papers before then.
It's important to look in the eyes of each of your listeners. This is something you can't do when you are reading from the book and your listeners can't look back because they're staring at the book.
They've probably heard your story or the book, but how are you going to tell it? What is this person going to bring that's new to a familiar story? Are you going to just use a flat face? Hope not. Physicalize the good, the bad, and the ugly. How you tell it is more important than what you tell.
Tongue-twisters: they're looking at the mouth and repeating what they hear. (Donna adds "purple" to the Peter Piper tongue-twister, improving the rhythm beyond all knowing. Try it:
Peter Piper picked a peck of purple pickled peppers. Somehow that one word makes it easier.)
The Economy of Gestures: choose your gestures and be consistent. Don't move all over the stage. It takes energy and makes the story into one about you running around. She never moves from the spot when she tells stories, but leaves the listeners with the impression she ran all over the stage.
You can be gigantic in a really small space.
Don't steeple your fingers or put your hands in your pockets.
She performed (with our help, of course) The Squeaky Door.
OMG! Look at that grownup doing that!
The Secret to Sound Effects: people will believe what it is if you tell them that's what it is. (Remember the moose on A Prairie Home Companion: Errrnnh! And the Eland: Errrnnh! and the wapiti: Errrnnh! and the springbok: Errrnnh!)
Don't let your accents fade out. Consistency again!
Just do it!
We performed a few simple activities: Telling a part of a story to a partner (from a short selected list) and then describing what you liked about what the other person did; telling a part of a story and concentrating on your movements (whoah! that was hard); and creating a sound effect and letting everyone else guess what it was. We have terrible trouble following directions, so this should prepare us for working with children!
A few simple rules:
Do not memorize. If you memorize, it sounds memorized.
Do not stop if you've forgotten something. (Yeah, and don't make a face either.) If you get lost in a story, ask the listeners. "Who knows what Epaminondas has in his hands now?" "Butter!" Yessss!
Do not bring a kid up to put in the story. The ones not picked will remember not being picked. :( If they can't do what you want them to do, they get embarrassed. It's cruel - just don't do it.
If you tell a story from another culture, be sure you know what it's about, especially if someone from that culture is there. Don't change it to make it make sense to you. "I can't believe you did that to that story!"
You will never have control over what kids are going to do or say. Live with it.
K through second grade will need to be told in advance that something is going to be scary. (Although, sometimes they freak out too much.)
Give kids opportunities to burst out by participating. Make it as interactive as possible.
Now this is really cool: you go to her website, and there you will see a link to BookHive, which is on the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Public Library site. At that location, you will be able to hear stories told by Donna Washington as well as other talented storytellers, along with suggested reading (if you like that story, you'll like this book!). Dang! PLCMC has all the great ideas! Double Dang!

Crafty Thursday

For the second week in a row I've been sub'ing in the Homeschooler program. They do a craft activity whilst I ruin their childhood with the 1947 Newbery award-winner Miss Hickory. I say ruin their childhood because wait until they get to the part where Squirrel - I can't go on. Oh, the horror! Already Squirrel has been eyeing Miss Hickory's head and popping up unannounced and uninvited in her bed (I'm not making this up, y'all!) to "keep her warm," he claims. It has become apparent that Fawn's mother is off to the local deer processor. Fawn's father is probably already on someone's wall. Miss Hickory is rendered homeless by a selfish chipmonk ("monk" indeed!). Poor drab Miss Hen-Pheasant has told her tale of abandonment by Cock-Pheasant, probably on account of her moping, lack of intelligence, and low self-esteem. Miss Hickory has advised her to throw the bum out if he comes back.

Fortunately for their sakes, the kids had these nice, colorful beads to play with while I droned on and on about this forest soap opera. Fortunately for me, their regular host will be back to finish this story about a little stick-woman who gets her head torn off by her down-stairs neighbor leaving her body to stagger about and come to the "happy" conclusion that it would never have to do any of that "hard thinking" again. This book is perfect for Halloween! It's chock full of horrors!


Carolyn Sherwin Bailey's Miss Hickory

Update on Sherman Alexie, 2007 winner National Book Award for Young People's Literature

I was catching up on my sex advice recently by reading my favorite advice column when I noticed a question about a Native American fetish that was answered by the above-named author. Because one of the most popular features of this blog seems to be reviews of YA books (notably Alexie's below), I'm not going to link to it, hilarious as it was. I'm sure, though, that any middle-schooler worth his or her cheetohs can track it down with no trouble. If anyone my age is interested, send me a note and I'll point you in the right direction.
All you middle-schoolers might be more interested in his book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian...considering there might possibly be something naughty in there, eh? Might actually be worth reading it - the whole thing, you know, not just culling my blog for plot information so you can fake a book report.
Who do you think you're fooling when you do that, eh? I bet you make your mom type it up for you, too, because you're too busy with soccer practice. When I was a girl, we used to have to cross the trackless mud floes to get to school, uphill both ways. We had to write our own book reports by actually reading most of the book and when I say "write" I mean actually write it out on paper with an actual pen we had to make from a quill off of an eagle we trapped with our bare hands (which explains why they were on the verge of extinction). Then we had to gather berries and crush them for ink, unless berries were out of season and then we had to use our own blood.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. We didn't have these fancy computer things when I was a girl where you could look up other people's homework and just cut and paste it into a document. Teachers actually taught stuff, too, instead of spending three quarters of the year teaching us to pass some stupid test to make sure no politico was left behind in the race for government funds. I went back for my 20th college reunion about (mumble mumble) years ago and one of my professors said that ours was the last class that could actually think. We challenged her on that. "Oh, you say that to all the alums!" we chided. "Nope," she said, "it's true. The students now can spew out facts, but they can't make sense of them or use them in any way. They can't draw conclusions."
So, what conclusion do I draw from this? Oh, man, our future is soo effed!

Stormpulse!

Main view ... oh no! There's Ike!


Maximum zoom on the area, with historical view (on the right) and forecast models (at left). Hi, Ike! Ike says: Hmm, Texas, Mississippi, N'Awlins - so many places, so little time!

First of all, I'm soooo happy that the Learning 2.1 blog is posting again! And what a cool site this is! Track your favorite storm! Check out the forecast models! Look up past storms! There are also satellite images, which I'd pull up and paste into here, but they'd probably make me throw up! This map is scary enough. It's reminding me of that video with the 500km asteroid hitting the earth.
I think I have to go lie down now.

It's the Big One! The Big One-Oh

This book by Dean Pitchford had a lot going against it. It's written by a Broadway "star" and songwriter. It has glowing comments by literary greats like Jamie Lee Curtis and John Lithgow on the front and back covers. As much as I'd like to trash this book for being part of the Famous People Who Think They Can Write Children's Books Conspiracy*, I'm afraid I'll have to admit that this is a cute book. There isn't even a huge amount of exaggeration in it, well, except that a nine year old would make "veal osso buco with shallots in a red wine reduction" ... or even be able to pronounce that. Y'all, I do know humor when it's presented. I suspect that bit (and the bit where his mom refers to it as "beef stew") was thrown in to amuse the adult readers. Other than the culinary exploits of Chef Charley, age nine, I can see all of this happening. Man, I can just hear the high-pitched squealing!
My child's heart aches for a kid with no friends. Hell, even I had friends as a child and I had to make new ones each time we moved. Charley Maplewood has to navigate the undertow of bullies, kid politics, and the unfamiliar choke-hold of puppylove, all of which Pitchford handles with humor and grace. His father is literally distant (working in another country) and unable to remember his son's correct birthdate. His mother is over-worked and has bad taste in boyfriends. And if he's going to learn about love from watching his sister in action, well, he's in for a rocky ride down the pike.
I would recommend this book for boys, because there's enough gross-out in it to appeal to them. Girls, of course, would read anything, but they'll relate to the depth of emotional development and even some, like Jennifer, Charley's unbidden admirer, will relish the ghoulish bits. I know I would think it was cool to live next door to someone who made special effects.

* I don't have anything against Curtis's books or Lithgow - but who died and made them Literary Critics? It's the Madonna and Katie Couric books that make me all frowny-faced when I shelve them, which isn't very often - ha ha ha.

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt

This was in my shelf-reading area (along with Bully-Be-Gone, see below) and looked interesting. The jacket blurb reminded me of David Sedaris's story of his foray into Shakespearean acting when he was a kid. As the title indicates, it is typical teen hyperbole where everything is about them and their own petty problems. There are no wars. Holling is just the only non-catechism student in his class, causing his teacher to find something to do with him on Wednesday afternoons. Because she tries giving him away, giving him icky chores, and finally caves in and forces him to read Shakespeare, he thinks she hates him.
Schmidt must be my age or a year or two younger. I remember all this Viet Nam angst and I certainly heard about generation clashes (which just didn't happen between me and my parents but I knew it must be going on because I saw it on television). There are some things, though, that I'm pretty sure did not happen, but I guess had to be written this way for the sake of the story. I am from New York and while we had air-raid drills my kindergarten year (none of the "duck-and-cover" nonsense from earlier in the Cold War), it was all over after then, so I doubt it continuing in 1968. Teachers were not delivered telegrams about the life or death status of their loved ones in the service in their classrooms. Any right-thinking administrator would call the teacher to the office to be given news in relative privacy with adult support ... if indeed the message goes there at all.
And one other thing bothered me.
Mrs. Baker and Holling read together "The Merchant of Venice" and have a fine discussion about it. They discuss what happens to Shylock and Mrs. Baker finishes by telling Holling that this is the reason this play is called a tragedy. I flipped to the back blurb about the author to confirm what I had read about him before. He is a college English teacher. Shylock's position in society and his losses at the end of the play notwithstanding, "The Merchant of Venice" was classified as a comedy at its first printing. Today we might refer to it as a "problem play," but the merchant of the title not only doesn't lose his pound of flesh, he gets the girl at the end. It might be a tragedy for Shylock, but the play itself is not called a tragedy.
This does not spoil the overall book, which is chock full of pathos that brought this reader to tears even as she resisted it. The book is not without humor as Holling relates how he suffers numerous "humiliations" such as playing Ariel, a fairy, in a scene from "The Tempest." I have to agree that playing a fairy, even in a Shakespeare play, would sink a teenage boy's macho rankings in the herd, much more so with tights and feathers on his bottom. (I also heartily disbelieve that any performance of any Shakespeare would move his peers to tears, but that's why they call it "fiction." I'm beginning to feel sorry for Mickey Mantle, by the way, because of how he's used in fiction to symbolize all idols with feet of clay. I know he was an alcoholic and hardly Mr. Nice Guy to his fans. It just seems to be kicking someone when they're down or dead or otherwise can't defend themselves. Feet of clay is an important lesson to learn, but I'm just sayin' ...) There is also the sole Vietnamese student who has to bear the hostility of some and the "noble" support of others.
I finished reading the book while working out at the club. I'd done my limit on the cardio machines and got to the end of the story by walking laps on the track. You know it's a good (if manipulative) read if I lose track of how much time I've spent exercising while reading! I'm willing to set aside my little quibbles (not without airing them to make me appear smarter - say, aren't those standard achievement tests called the Regents exams? My sister sweated those each year and had to go to summer school one year because she flunked them!) to call this a Good Book.

OMG! If only I had something to say!

Last night I was going to check Twitter one more time (for some reason I didn't have my TweetDeck up - the TweetDeck allows me to arrange my twitty friend's posts in categories so I don't miss those direct ones and @malburns doesn't hide everyone else's tweets under a pile of his very useful and interesting links) when I saw again that someone was streaming live. It was @malburns. I know other "twits" who stream video live, for whatever reason, on the internet but when I went there, it looked like I had to be signed in to even see it and I didn't want to bother and didn't see the point, yadda-yaddah. What was different about last night, I don't know. Maybe it was that it was Mal and I've "met" him in Second Life at the BlogHer Conference and I pay so much attention to the links he posts on Twitter - I don't know. I clicked on that link as well and almost instantly I was seeing him trying to set-up a co-host, Tara. They were musing that no one else was watching. I immediately signed up and in two minutes I was logged in and was able to comment. I now have my feet wet in this live video streaming watching wheeze.
This morning, though, the message from Ustream.Tv was in my mailbox trying to tell me how easy it was to have my own internet broadcast. Ho ho ho.
Ho ho - oh, dear. I have an account now. I have a video camera (okay, I bought one for Bob to do videos of his guitar work - I have access to a video camera). I had thought I needed one of those special cameras and that it would be beyond my capabilities to ...
Now if only I had something to say!
It's not enough that no one reads my blogs (okay, some of you do), I want no one watching my broadcasts as well! But what do I do? My husband suggested a puppet show. Well, I mentally checked with all my puppets and they said they didn't know what to say either. While I realize that this hasn't stopped anyone else on the internet from posting anything, I do really feel I can't just do nuthin' and broadcast it.
Perhaps our library needs a storytime broadcast ... Hmmmmmmm. I see copyright problems with that. This sounds like a question for Carrie, the copyright maven in School Library Journal. Purpose of use of picture books or their stories: nonprofit and educational, but nature of work: published (some of it) and amount of work used: whole thing. Possible effect on market? Hmmmm. /me thinks back to former first lady of our state reading entire books on public radio and purses lips. It would be a live stream, not a recording. This is getting complicated.
Maybe I should just take my clothes off. People would "tune in" for that.

A Turnabout

Everyone is probably sick of the Digital Youth Summit notes, so I've prepared a short book review to provide the refreshing lime wedge to the notes' eye-watering tequila shot.
In what appears to be a series of the Misadventures of Millicent Madding, Brian Tacang (above), a former fashion designer, offers us Bully-Be-Gone. The titular character of the series, an unrepentant inventor named Millicent, devises a formula to fend off the middle-school bullies that make her life, and that of the rest of the smartypants crowd of multi-culturals, a living heck. She calls this formula ... well, "Bully-Be-Gone," but it unfortunately backfires by making the bullies romantically interested in their former victims which, at least for middle-schoolers, is even worse than bullying. I must say that I find the group of kids with mult-cultural backgrounds in children's books to be utterly unrealistic, but this isn't a realistic story, so I'm going to let Tacang get away with it.
Although it's my opinion that Tacang is trying a bit too hard to be funny, especially with the names (such as Uncle Phineas Baldernot), some of this is actually amusing. One could only hope for a librarian with Shakespeare and Toni Morrison tattooed on her well-developed biceps, and I was particularly taken with the cross-dressing English teacher. Oh, sure, it was the monthly Greats Of Literature class and Mr. Templeton was dressed in period costume (big skirt and hat - this must be where the fashion designer bit comes in), but ... Oh, never mind. I just love a man in a dress. What a great middle-school this must be! If only I had children, I'd send them there.

Digital Youth: Part III, Tweens

Again, if my notes here are too much for you, the podcast for this portion of the summit is here. I don't blame you at all - it's taking me three, no, four days to transcribe my notes!

Anastasia Goodstein came back at us in the afternoon, tonsils blazing. I don't know how she does it. The topic was the same, but skewed to the Tweens age group.
We are immigrants and they were born into this internet/tech world. They work intuitively (banging away until it works). We might delicately consult a manual [yeah, I used to do that - now I just bang away]. We might dig for more information and they don't bother. "Privacy Settings? What are those?" They don't look for settings to tweak.
1. Phone.
35% of Tweens own a cell phone because they want what their older siblings have and they get it because parents are afraid since 9/11 and want to be in contact. There are companies and services just for Tweens, with parental controls, such as the Firefly Phone. They view the phone as an extension of themselves, as a new kind of watch or alarm clock.
2. Computer/Internet
They use them for games, memory games. The digital divide still exists, but it has narrowed. It's a good thing to have some blocking for younger kids and Tweens, but keep the social sites open.
3. Portable Gaming Device
Tweens are still looking at their parents for cues. The desire to stay connected with friends is strong and universal. We had our landline friends after school. They text and call their crushes continuously. IM is more important to Tweens than Teens.
They're into WebKins Mail and MySpace (yeah, they aren't supposed to be on this, but they are). They use e-mail to communicate with adults. Tween e-mail addresses and handles are often wildly inappropriate (hotchicksexy44). Make sure they fix those handles if they want to communicate with adults for babysitting jobs, teachers, etc.
Gosh, do they ever talk to each other in person? Yes, but texting is just as meaningful. And it's easier to share digitally, can say more, can say things you can't say to a face.
Younger kids are online, but not as much as we think. Heavens, they're even reading books! Girls and multi-cultural types more likely to be reading non-textbooks.
They time is more planned out, less time to hang out and be kids.
More than 1/4 of age 13 kids have social site profiles. There's a law that companies/sites can't save info on users age 13 and under. Easy to lie about one's age and create multiple profiles. They want what the older kids have.
They're on MySpace and message boards.
Beinggirl.com - a commerical Tampax site - hang out and chat!
Virtual Worlds: There has been an explosion in the population here. 100+ live or in beta. Some are independent communities and some are commercial, such as: Disney, Nickelodeon, other tv-related virtual worlds (half of the most popular sites are these), Lego, Barbie Girls, Brats, Webkins, Club Penguin ... and more coming because these are really effective with the tween demographic. They are playing games on them and not socializing as much as teens and adults. Same idea as our paperdolls: penguins or Barbies, you put clothes and things on them. [Same with my avatar in Second Life, but I can radically change her look to almost anything: man, dinosaur, something teensy, something huge.]
The language on these sites is filtered and often moderated. You can only use certain words. But tweens are ingenious at getting around this.
Projected population of 8 million to 20 million 2007-2011 in virtual worlds.
Being a tween is about experimenting with identity. Most tweens go online pretending to be someone else. They customize the technology to reflect their identities. Celebrities play a big role, as well as special ringtones for their phones, wallpaper, icons, and twinkly fonts. Tweens really care about the environment, and this will show up as well. [Programming idea?] They lard up their MySpace profiles, shocking our sensibilities by the way they express how they see themselves ... today. Tomorrow, I guess, they can find All New Ways to shock us.
They love to use widgets and comment on blogs. Boys mostly like to upload video. Tween boys like videos that gross out or are about falling down. Girls prefer performance videos: nailing that perfect handstand. YouTube is a favorite site; Kidsbop hosts videos as well.
Validation, Fame, and Fortune:
Tweens have a gap in their sense of privacy and what is for public consumption.
This again, is blamed on the advent of reality tv, which they grew up on and are the biggest consumers of these programs, even if they are aimed at adults. They are used to a public confessional booth, baring souls and sharing frustrations. They now have their own tools to do this themselves. We used to write our deepest feelings in a diary we kept locked; they put theirs in a blog. What they share takes our breath away.
They don't think how this will affect future employment (as babysitters or even farther in the future), but if employers start eliminating applicants based on their blog content, they will soon run out of employable applicants.
Everyone has their own person brand. They are creating media that is successful with their peers (because we are horrified).
One speaker started designing websites for her friends, next she had to hire her friends to help her. At age 17 she was a sponsor for Anastasia's speaking engagement.
There's a successful 15 year old podcaster. [Granted, they aren't tweens now, but they were when they started out.] These kids who are really driven are exceptions.
Validation comes swiftly, if not that coherent.
The Dark Side:
Cyberbullying is a problem. It's just so easy to be more cruel in the anonymity of being online. This happens most with middle-schoolers, just like offline bullying. They are afraid to tell their parents or other adults because they might lose their computer privileges. 30% report online bullying; 54% report offline bullying. 16% of that 30% report that someone intentionally posted something mean about them online. The only positive note is that the tools are their to block online bullies.
Tweens are entirely too trusting and share passwords. This makes it easy to flame ex-friends (dropping friends happens all the time at that age). Other tweens can get into their ex-friends' sites and spend all their virtual money or destroy their virtual weapons, etc. They can create an "Anastasia's A Slut" page; stuff like this spreads faster than offline cruelty, making it a much bigger deal.
This online cruelty between peers is a more frequent threat than predators. It's not just in the hallway anymore.
Librarians can lead the assault on this by teaching digital ethics. Teachers are overworked, having to teach to tests, the sites are blocked in schools.
Tweens are the most marketed-to generation. Anastasia is a Gen-Xer and she doesn't remember anything like this from her youth. After the clamp down on ads for sodas, cereals, and candy on tv, these have been moved to the internet sites where kids play games.
Kids are used to googling for schoolwork. They excel at finding, but not at evaluating credibility. Library databases are not keyworded the way Google is and it's harder for them to learn (so they don't bother). They don't know how to evaluate what is credible information. So, if you teach them to edit a Wikipedia article, they will learn that any dufus can do this. You can show them Wikiscanner, and make another teachable moment.
While they can't drive real cars, they can go online and outfit a Scion on Whyville. And, if they miss clam payments on it, their virtual car is virtually repo'd. [Cool! An important lesson!]
Ask them what sites they go to, why they go, why they are fun. There are more and more all the time. Have them show you how to do it. They will laugh at you, but will be glad to show off their expertise. You can use that for another teachable moment - asking about privacy and ethics.
Tweens are continuously text messaging. They only use e-mail with the dinosaur adults. Have to point out that IM/text messaging shortcuts are fine for that, but don't look good on an English paper. Teach them active reputation management.
Tweens are more comfortable screwing up online. [Perhaps they'll make teflon presidential candidates.] They need to know that their real names should go on thoughtful comments and intelligent blogs for future employers to find.
As librarians in the avant garde, we need to talk to the Luddites among us and stop dropping names like Pownce, Twitter, etc. [Second Life] and making them dizzy and resentful [and giving them headaches].
We should take more time to educate than to legislate.
Question period:
Question about putting out TMI (Too Much Information). Answer: Well, sometimes when you put personal stuff out, it helps someone.
Tweens as 9 to 14 year olds? Yes, they run the gamut on maturity levels. However, children under the age of 8 do not understand what advertising is - they can't recognize it.
Sharing in previous generations was keeping diaries and journals, but not really "shared" outside of that. We took photos all the time, but didn't put them up for all the world to see. Kids now will undress and take pictures of themselves. Their peers call that being a "camwhore." Pornography is becoming a part of mainstream culture. Witness the "Pussycat Dolls" [Wha-at?! I looked this up and it's apparently some sluttier version of the Spice Girls?]. Girls like to look sexy and pose sexy. [Note: There was a photo of Shirley Temple as a child posed like Betty Grable from a 3/4 rear. This is not terribly new, but more widespread. The writer Charles Dodson (Lewis Carroll) took nude photographs of children, which was apparently common in Victorian times and allegedly innocent of sexual content.] These photos are taken for boyfriends, not the creepy pedophiles. They get out virally, though, which Anastasia finds disturbing.
Kids find ways to get access to the internet from their mobile phones,not laptops.
They need to learn to manage their online reputations, use sources appropriately, to help them get in the workforce. From celebrity culture they've learned how to virally promote themselves, a valuable skill, sought after by marketers.
There was a kid in Oregon, who was totally unpopular. He started a t-shirt company and studied what made people buy them. He figured out that kids liked cool party pictures of themselves, so he went to parties (lord knows how someone so unpopular got invited), took high quality pictures that the kids couldn't do for themselves [at this point I realized that this is, OMG!, what I do in Second Life.], and created a brand around "Pretty Ugly." Once he'd established himself and his "brand" this way, he used that to sell tees. He is now the "cool" kid.
Different carriers/agreements/plans make mobile social network difficult. Some kids are using the "Sidekick" with friends, but not having that system cuts other kids out, creates a barrier. The cost is coming down. What kids really want is the iPhone and smartphones in general. This wave is coming. Europe and Asia already have this.
Parents get all bent out of shape over technology because they don't hear about it until the news has a story about someone getting into trouble. They don't see the value. Should have programs for parents to see what is good about the technology. It's hard to get parents to come out at night, so Anastasia points out that her book is "really easy to read - ha ha!"

After this, Charlotte-Mecklenberg had a presentation on things they have done in this area that they are proud of. They brought up the "Boys Read" blog and then my feed got cut off. Bummer! This Digital Youth summit had a lot of great and useful information, that may have been more useful if I had been able to see the slideshows. Then again, maybe, being so busy taking notes, I may not have had the time to appreciate the slides anyway.

Digital Youth, Part II: Megan Deana

The second speaker in the morning was Megan Deana from Global Kids. Megan started out with a degree in computer science and then moseyed to education (presumably because she'd be making too much money in computer science) and got a job through LinkedIn that led her to the non-profit group, Global Kids, whose mission is to transform urban youth into successful students and global and community leaders by engaging them in socially dynamic, content-rich learning experiences. Ninety percent of their students graduate from high school. Digital media is just a part of this.
Megan works with the Online Leadership Program, a student-centered program, which leads the kids to things they need to know in order to be successful, collaborating with different kinds of people. They learn about global issues by building and playing socially conscious video games. They spend the 1/3 of the first semester discussing what topic they want to cover. They learn what goes into making a game by partnering with a game designer professional [Don't think our library can manage that].
One group created "Ayiti: The cost of life" where players help a Haitian family living in poverty make decisions in work, education, etc. to better their situation. [Far cry from the 1960s board game about living in a ghetto, eh? I remember going straight into prostitution on that game.]
Another program is the Virtual Video Project. They do a machinima video on a topic of they're interested in. They meet twice a week, lured in with subway tickets and snacks. They learn storyboarding, scriptwriting, character development, and set designing (digitally, of course, because this is machinima). Example is "A Child's War" - where they interviewed experts and put together a fictionalized account using Second Life. They learned presentation skills, pitching their ideas to Ashoka Youth Ventures.
Global Kids guides the kids, facilitating not teaching.
They learn how to create a "safe space" in which to interact, and decide their own rules on this, defining respect as no cursing, no put-downs, no weapons [well, duh!].
Use a technique called the human barometer, where spaces are set out (say, on different levels) for "for," "against," and "undecided." And they have to explain why they are moving from one level to another.
There is a Ning for educators interested at RezEd: the hub for learning and virtual worlds.