The Amazing Something-Something of Octavian Nothing Part Whatever

I give up. I can't listen to this any more. I can deal with the faux 18th century language and the reader on the audiobook has a dishy voice (if voices can be dishy), but I can't listen anymore. This book makes me want to lie down and never get up again. It sucks all the happiness out of my life - what's left of the happiness. The happiness, that is, that has not been sucked out by this recurring IRS problem. Anyway, teens, if they can wade through the archaic language, will love this. This is a drama party with all the stops pulled out. Whippings? Canings? Torture? Slavery? You name it. Teens might find all this new and fascinating, but for me it just confirms the ugliest side of humanity. I got as far as the fourth cd before my husband told me, as my head lay on the floor and my flesh pooled around me, I didn't have to read it any more. Thank you, my love. You have saved my life.

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

What is it with the drama? Why do people like it so much? And do kids like it that much? According to the blurb on the jacket, Choldenko is renowned (at least in her family) for her quirky humor. I dunno what's wrong with me, but I don't find this funny at all. Harris and Me was funny, Al Capone Does My Shirts is a tragedy with a happy-ish ending slapped on the end. "Moose" in this story has a life hardly anyone could envy: Depression era, overworked/underpaid father, mother who's too busy dealing with his sister, and the sister who is autistic and apparently his responsibility. The so-called humor, I suppose, is in the relationship with the boss's daughter, the redoubtable Piper, who would give a preacher's kid a run for his money. Piper is obsessed with trading on her position and access as the warden's daughter. Yes, they all live at Alcatraz. Choldenko at least adds some interesting historical background material at the end to give you an idea of what living in the workers' quarters of Alcatraz was like.
I just couldn't get into this. I tried the play-away version first, but I fell asleep as I usually do. Then I couldn't get myself to rewind and start again. So I grabbed the hardcopy, which is a quick read. I was hoping for some humor in this to brighten my drab existence, but I just didn't find it. I suppose it's Piper soliciting clothing from her fellow students on the mainland to be washed in the prison laundry "by Al Capone" for five cents. Capone apparently operated the mangle in the prison laundry when he was first moved to Alcatraz. Operating the mangle was considered back-breaking work and the least desirable of jobs, which must mean the mangle wasn't ergonomically designed. Not like our new-fangled mangles with the height adjustment and Pentium processors! This sort of hijinks always reminds me of Lucille Ball, whose shows I often had to hide from because I could tell, even as a tiny tot, that she was just going to get into trouble, which was too much like watching my sister in action. Funny, I didn't get that impression from Harris and Me, where a boy in an unfortunate family situation is shunted from one relative's home to another and ends up with a cousin like Piper who is just bursting with "great" ideas. But the humor (what little there was) was in there to mitigate the agony and frustration of dealing with an autistic family member, something Choldenko knows from experience and so that part is touching, heart-wrenching, and realistic.
It just isn't funny enough to live up to the title.

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Normally, I wouldn't read something like this even with a gun pointed at me. I don't care how "good" it is supposed to be. But, I have two things mitigating my horror of Nazi Germany stories which give me nightmares thankyouverymuch and invoke my inherent War Guilt (still have relatives in Germany, not to mention the "Nazi-sympathizing" ones stateside). One, reading YA lit reflects on my performance evaluation (which I can almost see, as I work with kids and often have to take the older ones to the teen section and point out books and programs because there is no teen librarian on duty at this time) and, two, my book group (with gritted teeth:) is reading this one. Arrrrrrrrrgggggh!
This is a Very Good Book. I'm not just saying that because reading it affects my performance evaluation. "Sid and Nancy" is a Very Good Movie, but I don't want to have to watch it again. "Alfie" (the real one, not the recent abomination) is a brilliant movie I was unable to turn away from but I hope I never have to see it again. So, I can be thoroughly repelled by something and admit it's a good thing. I bet teens would eat this up. It's larded, oops, I mean loaded with emotion-button thumping drama that will wring the last tear out, then wallow in the details of the drama again in case you missed any of it the first time. With all the emotions and hormones running rampant in teens, this is a terrific outlet. I used to read A Little Princess at least every month when I was a kid for a really good cry. Now all I have to do is think, "Even when I was coldest and hungriest I tried not to be," and I'm simultaneously revolted and elevated. But I have enough drama in my life right now, so this is just too much.
It is somewhat comforting to read that some Germans weren't the monsters that the few who relished the plight of the Jews make them appear. I know that my old German professor was a member of the Hitler Youth. He waved his hand dismissively and said that there was no choice. At the end of the war, they were so hungry that they climbed some apple trees and ate the green apples and then, predictably, were sick. This book reminded me of his stories. It also reminded me of the used clothing that was packed up to send to our relatives in Germany after the war and my dad wondering what on earth they would need his tuxedo for. He griped about that for decades. They were apparently quite grateful and sent many letters of thanks and updates to my aunt.
Zusak uses interesting descriptive language, unexpected adjectives modifying ordinary words. This made the narrative quite poetic, the effects being beautiful or jarring by turns. The book is narrated by Death, and perhaps this explains it. I haven't read any of Zusak's other material to know. I didn't, in fact, read this. I listened to our audiobook version in the car in very small doses, which just made it more painful, I think. Corduner puts some excruciating emotional depth in this story, which makes driving all the more dangerous.
I am so glad this book is done. Go read it for yourself. I don't think I'm even that happy about talking about it.

Utterly Charming

While traipsing back and forth from the Children's Room to the Teen area (seems I'm doing a lot of that since kids are used to coming to us about summer reading and, if they look a bit tall, need to be redirected) today, I stopped to peruse the new book rack (as if I don't have 3 unfinished ones at home). A book whose title failed to interest me had an author who did. It's The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett [pictured is our large print edition]. Bennett is a favorite of mine from the "Beyond the Fringe" group. I've also read his The Clothes They Stood Up In and The Lady in the Van.
The book is about a familiar topic: reading, but with an unfamiliar protagonist, The Queen of England.
"Charming" is not an adjective I bandy about, less so as an unironic adjective. Someone is charming when I cannot bring myself to call them an Arschloch. I can think of no other descriptive for this book which has utterly charmed me. It was a gentle read that I could finish in the doctor's waiting room this afternoon (it takes time to do the bloodwork) and hand off to Bren who had read about it. I started reading it with a smile playing about my lips. I wondered as I read, though, what is the point of writing a book about reading when readers will read it anyway and non-readers never will and it won't help them. I'm listening to the audiobook of The Book Thief right now (and can't wait until it's over because the relentless suspense and horror of Nazi Germany is the source of nightmares for me and a certain amount of residual familial guilt since we still have family in the Fatherland), which is also nominally about reading and its importance to Liesel. It can sneak that message past the teen reader who's insatiable thirst for sensation pulls him through the plotline. But this book is about reading on the surface, while slyly commenting on politics, the monarchy, and some other things too subtle for me to parse.
My initial smile widened. I was chuckling a bit here and there eventually. Finally, I gasped.
Hey, it's not long, the letters are really big, and it's amusing. Give it a try.

I Lied Back There in February

Just when even I thought I'd had enough, I add to my list. I have been using Twitter for mini-blogging (just random thoughts or things I've done here at work that I will soon look at for my May monthly report to my super), but lately Twitter has been crashing and showing us all that cute picture of the tiny birds hefting a whale in a net. I love Twitter. I love the name, I love the vocab in general (on Twitter you post a "tweet" and the other people who post are called "twits" ... at least by me). There are associate applications such as Twirl and Twubble. But if you want to post a photo, instead of just a link, you have to go to TwitPic.
FriendFeed outpaced them. Like Plaxo, you can feed other mini-blogs, photoshares, bookmarks but you can also mini-blog on FriendFeed. Sooo, I started shifting slowly over there. Then I noticed that there's another mini-blog on the block and I'm trying it out. It's called Plurk, and the name and the logo are about the creepiest around. BUT, and it's a big "but" as you can see, BUT you can add photos and videos. I, of course, added Bob's latest latest video (he has two new ones now). I've noticed some other people making noises (on Twitter) about Plurk. Plurk has a timeline style. I'll see how it goes as it fills up with the thous- um, hun- um, several contacts I have. I had to unsubscribed from a contact on FriendFeed because I got feeds from his friends as well and he was already a power user of Twitter and FriendFeed. I couldn't find posts from anyone else!
If you visit Plurk, I apologise about the logo. It's a cartoon drawing of a headless dog with a bone sticking out where its head should be and its tail wagging. You have been warned. I just think it's creepy. The drawing of the vicious cat is okay though. I mean, that's fair comment.
If Twitter can't get its act together (it's painfully slow even when it is running and not all its features are working), I will probably have to move, but it will be with a heavy heart.

Tales of Uncle Remus

Most of the time I don't enjoy these stories because, a) they weren't a part of my childhood and, 2) Brer Rabbit just strikes me as downright ornery and mean-spirited. I did like Julius Lester's tellings, and the way he slipped in some modernity (the difference between courtin' then and courtin' now, etc.). Then I thought I'd read a few of the Joel Chandler Harris stories by way of comparison. Just a few. Hmm, I looked at the dialect - maybe one. You wind up reading three or more, though, because he broke up stories like the tar baby one, I reckon to fit a newspaper column. [I actually have a childhood connection with JCH. One of his cousins lived on our street. She'd married a New York stockbroker named Brady. She was a very elegant lady, he was a very quiet gentleman with a very dry wit, and their son Petey (an adult in college when I knew them) a cheerful character who teased me about the plural of "moose." Catherine Brady would want her coffee served very, very hot but then wouldn't actually drink it until it was almost cold. We teased her husband because he seemed so sober and upright. I once took him a sponge sandwich which he had the good grace to try to eat because he could see how crushed I was that he was suspicious of it.]
Something that sort of surprised me was that both Lester and Harris use humorous conflict with their audience. In Lester's case, he is having a dialog with the reader, anticipating objections a child would throw out at him. Harris has Uncle Remus and the boy quibble back and forth. "I thought you said ..." Nebber mind! Oh, the dialect was very hard for me, and I had quickly gotten used to it in Porgy. I wracked my brain to figure out what "bleeds to" was supposed to mean. (I guess it's "pleased to," but seems to carry more connotations that pleasure, like, say, necessity.) Lester's Very Nearly Standard English version was a breeze. The stories were well told and the digressions amusing. I still think Brer Rabbit is unnecessarily mean, but then, I don't have the background where that makes sense. I had to be told what a "nee-grow" was when I was five, just in case I had come across one in kindergarten. Italians were about as exotic as my acquaintances got until we moved to Ohio when I was eight. I knew of Joel Chandler Harris and Uncle Remus only by name and because of Catherine Brady. While I could probably sing "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Da," I had no idea where it came from. My favorite Brer Rabbit story, which is not in this Lester collection, is the one with Brer Possum and the snake under the rock. I told this story at Leath Correctional and everyone in the room could recite the moral with me: Brer Possum, Don't trouble trouble till trouble troubles you!

Update

Please note that I'm sending all further blogs about Second Life to another blogspace. You can find that one under my profile here. Y'all didn't give a (tinker's) dam anyway.
Also, Bob has added a new video. You can click on it at the left where I have a quasi-permanent link to his channel or you can click on the title to this. It's awesome.

SPLASH Luncheon in Columbia

I drove all the way to Columbia listening to Tim Dorsey's Atomic Lobster. Them audiobooks sure make the driving go faster. I barely remember the trip at all except that there seemed to be a lot of cars in my way. Audiobook + cruise control = Little Old Lady from Pasadena. Gracious goodness, there was a parking place right in front of the State Library in the shade! Sure, I had to fill the meter with quarters, but it was right in front and in the shade!!!! For some reason it would not take the maximum amount of quarters and I figured I'd have to hop out towards the end of lunch or during a break and refeed. In the end, I didn't need to. It didn't last quite as long as I thought (or else I got more for my money than I expected) and when I returned to the car, I had two minutes left. I was tempted to sit there for it. Ha ha! Love getting my money's worth!

The program started with a sharing of ideaaaa of programmmm (to be fair, our speaker barely had time to cover her material in the amount of time given). Someone had done a Dora the Explorer themed program and had dressed up like her. Hmmm, sounds like a job for Bren. I was asked by my neighbor if there wasn't a copyright on that character that would be a problem and I opined that as it was PBS, they were probably more lenient than, say, Disney, who will hunt you down and squeeze the life out of you for painting Mickey on the wall of your daycare. Anyway, this program had dancing and exercise as a part of it. The kids were excited as all hell to see Dora. She hadn't realized the popularity of the character. Yes, well, Arthur was just about swamped when he was at our library.

The speaker at the luncheon was Oralia Garza de Cortés who had many recommendations for children's books in Spanish (quite a few of which we have already). She gave us the history of Día de los niños, which started during tenure of the most progressive of the Mexican presidents ... in 1924. I suppose Woodrow Wilson wasn't available to prevent it.

Garza shared with us things she has learned in her experiences with bi-lingual educations. Oh, sorry. We aren't allowed to use that term anymore because it's politically charged. Ahem, her experiences in Early English Learning. That's better. She went to school herself at a time when Spanish was forbidden in school. Hmm, I wonder how that worked in Spanish class. Studies Have Shown (I love that!) that language abilities transfer from one language to another. It is perfectly fine to use your native language in speaking to your young children because they will acquire language abilities along with the specific language. She regrets that the Every Child Ready to Read program does not translate to Spanish. She thinks ALA and PLA should work on that. That's not to say that the materials such as posters have not been translated into Spanish, but the practices used in storytimes are not adapted to the Spanish language and good books to use that are in Spanish or English/Spanish aren't listed.
A quick review of the ECRR practices in my head along with what little I know about Early Spanish Learning yields the following examples. In Spanish, you don't really separate consonants from vowels. Words are broken down by syllables: di -fí -cil. Rhymes in Spanish aren't quite the same as in English. You rhyme the vowel sounds, not the combination of vowel and consonant. Vida and encima rhyme. Besides, Spanish is just sooo much easier and more organized than English. There are actual spelling rules that are in force all the time. The letter "I" will always be pronounced the same way, like our long E. Spanish is almost understandable with 50% of the consonants missing: ¿’Omo e’tá u’té? Whereas in English, we can throw out most of the vowels: Djeet? Whadjeet? I had a German teacher who waved her hand airily and said that all you had to do was substitute some slightly different vowels to go from German to English and back. It doesn't quite work that easily, but every now and then I see what she meant. The point I'm making is that you're listening for different things in these languages. Translating ECRR into Spanish would require a whole separate system. Maybe they can just swipe something from Spanish education.
Garza adds that is it not just the home language that needs to be taken into account, but the cultural background and she directed us to the NAEYC statement which goes pretty much as follows:

The acquisition of language is essential to children’s cognitive
and social development. Regardless of what language
children speak, they still develop and learn. Educators recognize
that linguistically and culturally diverse children come to early
childhood programs with previously acquired knowledge and
learning based upon the language used in their home. For
young children, the language of the home is the language they
have used since birth, the language they use to make and
establish meaningful communicative relationships, and the
language they use to begin to construct their knowledge and test
their learning. The home language is tied to children’s culture,
and culture and language communicate traditions, values, and
attitudes (Chang 1993). Parents should be encouraged to use
and develop children’s home language; early childhood educators
should respect children’s linguistic and cultural backgrounds
and their diverse learning styles. In so doing, adults will enhance
children’s learning and development.
...
Each child’s way of learning a new language should be
viewed as acceptable, logical, and part of the ongoing
development and learning of any new language.
Responding to Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Recommendations for Effective Early Childhood Education A position statement of the National Association for the Education of Young Children Adopted November 1995

Or something like that.

She suggested that we provide brochures on the Rights of Immigrants (because they do have them, no really) as well as information on financial literacy. The Bank of America no longer requires a driver's license to open an account. Something like that would be helpful for guests in our country to know.

She provided lists of books for "noches de cuentos" (evening storytimes), suggested "ferias del libros" (book fairs) and pointed out that a parent literacy workshop has to be café con cuentos and that the café part is essential. None of this filthy iced tea. (Hough!)

Interesting point: Because she knows Yuyi Morales, author of Just a Minute! that we used recently in our puppet show for Día de los niños, she was able to ask her where the idea for Grandma Beetle came from. I mean, why Beetle? Apparently, in Xalapa, where Morales is from, there is this large, dark beetle she wanted to commemorate. Silly me, I thought she was a ladybug and when I tried to translate the story a couple of years ago, I called her Mariquita.
And I'll end with a quote from Gabriela Mistral (not the one about "Cuando una espina me hiere ..." that I usually go on about) she shared with us:
"Many things can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are formed, his mind developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is Today."

Notable books:
Family Pictures by Carmen Lomas Garza
Nochecita by Yuyi Morales
From Here to There by Margery Buyler
Cri Cri by Francisco Gabilondo Soler
The Pot that Juan Built by Nancy Andrews-Goebel

The Lovely Teen

Pat Feehan came to do a program for our Staff Education Day on Services to Teens. Love Pat! She alluded to a book by Margaret E. Edwards, The Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts. Teens are terrible, aren't they? Actually, I don't see enough of them in my dept. to say so. Having taught teenagers, though, I know they can be stroppy, but I understand that they are just trying to develop their own personalities separate from their parents. They want instant gratification, they make terrible judgment calls (that part of their brain won't be fully developed until after their early 20s), they react immediately and irrationally to an external stimulus ... but who doesn't?

More from Pat channeling Margaret E. Edwards:
Teens by age groups:
Ages 11-13, the "me bubble"
These teens are increasingly concerned about their appearance. Anyone remember those Villager clothes from the 60s? Bass Weejuns? (Note: Met Catherine Bass back when she retired to Hilton Head - nice lady.) They seek independence from the family, but they're too young to drive a car. Will need parking places for bikes, scooters, and skateboards ... plus signage forbidding use of same in the parking lot. They display rebellious or defiant behavior - which they're just trying on for size. In 25 years they'll be doing the exact same thing as their parents. The importance of friends increases, the use of same as a support system and for literature recommendations. So don't think they'll take the word of a 50+er on what makes a good book. Their ego dominates their view of all issues (like, whose doesn't?).
We need to exercise our empathy - remembering ourselves as teens. ... AGGGHHH!

Ages 14 - 16, Middle-Aged Teens
By this time they start to become slightly less self-absorbed. They'll have a driver's license and maybe even a job. They'll want to make decisions on their own (but, again, they don't have that crucial part of the brain fully developed so they'll think joining the armed forces or having a dozen children would be a good idea). They experiment with their self-image. Time for safety-pins poked through every part of the body and lots and lots of black so they'll look "different" from everyone else. They will take risks and see out "adventure." In the old days, they probably were just becoming sexually aware, but this seems to happen earlier and earlier these days (unlike the pre-industrial era - ha!). They are developing their sense of values/morality and are at their most malleable. Mwah-ha-haaaaaa! I remember the lovely manipulating job I did on my students at that age. If nothing else, they left my class with an ability to place "Set" (reg. tm.) and a suspicion that there is a conspiracy against the theory that there was one original language. Gawd, I love kids!

Ages 17 - 18
These kids allegedly view the world idealistically and become involved in the world outside of school or home. Time to make those picket signs and join the college students at the sit-in! Can't be left out! Their relationships stabilize. They see adults as equals (HA!). They seek to firmly establish their independence.

So, now we have to keep up with pop culture (just when I'd hoped I put that behind me) so we'll know what they'll be interested in. And the books they are interested in are the ones most likely to be challenged: violence, sex, drugs. Wow! All the stuff I generally try to avoid in my reading.
But they like boundaries. Otherwise there's nothing to push against. You can't rebel if there is nothing to rebel against.

Ideas for a Teen Area:
First of all, call it Teen because they hate Young Adult.
What does your area look like when you walk in? Is there a display of topical teen subjects (sex, drugs, STDs) so they don't have to embarrass themselves asking about it. "I'm, uhhh, doing a paper, yeah- that's it- on ... Gonorrhea ... and I need a book on the symptoms."
Programs: Ask them what they want. Set up a Teen Advisory Board (we used to have one, but I think the members grew out of it). Are you interested in [insert topic here]? Let's develop a program on it! (To help narrow it down.)
Have a game/internet treasure hunt with prizes.
Teen pick books for reading clubs and pick the films for movie nights.
Bring in speakers on colleges/careers/internships ... but let the teens decide, yadda-yaddah.

Pat teases us with PIE: Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation
Planning takes a long time. How does it fit in with your mission statement? What are your goals and objectives?
Implementation: don't just talk about it! Get off your butt! Start with manageable pieces.
Evaluation: It may take two years to get people in. Lots of times you won't make your goals. Don't give up. What's working? What isn't? Are you really doing what kids want? Keep slogging away. And remember that your community changes over time. What worked the past three years probably won't work the fourth.

The Golden Age of Teen Literature
There's a lot of cross-over from adult to teen and back. I know a lot of adults reading teen fiction because they love it. I love Terry Pratchett's Tiffany books. They don't seem much different from his adult Discworld stories, except they operate from a young girl's point of view. His series for boys, though ... phew! A bit basic! Or maybe they're aimed at even younger kids. Dunno. Anyway ... these books are frequently challenged because they contain truths teens can relate to. But adults find them too depressing or feel that the adults in these stories don't have enough authority. The identification of the reader with the protagonist is key.
Keep lists of teen series at the desk (like the Gregor the Overlander stories). Check good authors' websites for more goodies.
Tips on Booktalking:
Read everything about the author in reviews and the blurbs. Find a plot point or a unifying theme (what Pat calls a Hot Wire) to link with other books.

I've already started with my reading, some of which is reviewed in previous blogs.

All of this will become more important in the new library where there will finally be room for separate teen activities and materials. Right now they are crammed into the adult reading area, jerrymandering around Genealogy.

Clipmarks

Ahh, I see the folks at blogger.com have fixed some things.

I hadn't intended to look at Clipmarks, having already signed up for thingie, Furl, and something elsewhosenameI'veforgotten, but I got the info off of whatsit.

For some reason I can't turn off the html linking above. Blogger isn't completely fixed. Not even the "Remove formatting from selection" button helps.

I missed the article in the Sunday paper about the Día de los niños celebration which had two photos and a nice (if slightly inaccurate in places) article. We had the papers here, of course, being the library and all, and I made a couple of copies for the files, but then I thought I'd get myself a virtual copy! Save the trees, doncha kno'.

The problem in this scenario is not at all with Clipmarks, which worked easily. It was the Index-Journal's website. It's Monday now and the Sunday paper is nowhere to be seen. I was unable to find anything about the library in the search box except the pervert story. Oh, great. But for some reason, an article about the festival in McCormick two weekends ago was accessible. Go figure! Well, my wonderful genius of a husband just happened to be there so I gave it an eye-glazing and found his name. Now, I wanted to send this to him (he's in Baltimore this week), but why should he have to read the whole boring article just to see his name in print next to Y/Our Sparkle Heart (who will be performing at the library this summer, kicking off the reading program).

I knew there was a way to just mark the sentence, but I couldn't remember which of the thousands of helpful sites did that. So I went to the Learning 2.1 site to remind myself.
That's when I ran into Clipmarks again. I couldn't remember if it was Furl or Digg (just remembered the name of the other site) that did the highlighting and post-it notes (even my brain can't keep up with all of this) but I noticed that Clipmarks had what I was looking for. In two minutos I had the program installed and my profile filled out.

It was dead easy to use. I only had to scroll down the page with my cursor and it started selecting bits for me right away. When I had the right sentence in the crosshairs, I clicked it and then it asked me what I wanted to do with it.

And this is what you can do with it: embed it in a blog, send to MySpace or Facebook, or even march it straight to thingie (aka: del.icio.us, which I still consider a stupid name). Or e-mail it, and you can access your web e-mail (so long as it's a major one) from Clipmarks. So, I found Bob's e-mail (which I can never remember) and sent him just the bit I clipped.

Clipmarks is "powered by" Plaxo and I think they really missed the target by not calling it "Clipso" [Calypso]- but they didn't ask me, did they?

Now, the annoying part is that I couldn't find the article I wanted at our local newspaper's website, however, a search on the internet on my name brought it up elsewhere. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to view it. I'll give it a couple of weeks and maybe it will eventually become available. sigh. Stupid local paper. (Sorry, Richard.)

Slideshare

Yes, I've signed up for something else! This time it's Slideshare, because there are many people on Second Life (yes, yes, I know you're tired of hearing about that) who use this. As you may recall, I have been using Zoho to create slideshows (PowerPoint type presentations) and embed them into this blog (and perhaps elsewhere).
Such as this latest one from Zoho:


In Slideshare, you have to create your slides elsewhere. Fortunately, I have PowerPoint available on this computer because the Zoho slideshow file format is not supported. Oh, dear! I'll have to start over. Perhaps with something easy:

| View | Upload your own

Okay, that wasn't so bad, other than having to deal with PowerPoint, which was not as easy as Zoho nor as much fun and creative as Scrapblog. I was hoping it would be as familiar as Publisher, but I found it confusing. I should probably complain about PowerPoint in some other blog, but it was the main thing that slowed me down. I had to download each picture from Flickr to this computer. Zoho will take the url directly and has an actual link to Flickr (but I have almost 4,000 pictures up and they don't currently have a way to get at the sets, like Scrapblog does). Not even Slideshare's uploading and conversion (rather like YouTube in that respect) was that lengthy. Odd that. Slideshare can be uploaded directly to Blogger (as well as MySpace, Facebook, and LiveJournal, to name a few) on the sidebar, but we all know my sidebar here is full.
Good gracious! The slideshow has been looked at twice and I just got it up! I wonder if they're counting my previews while I'm blogging this ... Gottinhimmeldonnerwetter!* The count is up to 7!!! Just while I've been typing this bit! Well, that's why I put it up there: to be seen! This is so exciting! Hee. Ah, and the counter differentiates between views and views of embedded slideshow. Nice.
This could be useful (and fun) if you have any slideshows you want to share with the world at large. Also, you're supposed to be able to add sound to the slideshow. Don't have sound on this computer, so I'll give that test a miss for the moment.

* a little German swearing by the weather

At Last ...

It's more than a month in the making ... but here is the Science in Second Life slideshow:
(Cross your fingers)

Beneath the Planet of the Children's Literature Conference

Just kidding. My husband said I'd missed that title. Ummmm, nice hotel, good food, and nice restaurants in Athens.
Oh, and, Children's Literature Conference Jumps the Shark.
the end

Bride of Son of Children's Literature Conference

Prepare to have your childhood ruined!

The last session I have notes on was "Cinderelly: Magical anecdotes for addressing gender in children's literature." How many of us thought we were supposed to wait for Prince Charming, eh? This session was about book selection, but raises awareness for storytimes as well.
Rachelle, one gorgeous and charismatic woman, enjoins us to consider a child's self-image in selecting books. I wonder what books she read growing up ... Is it too late for me?
Society, Rachelle tells us, cites gender (she means "sex" but for some reason people giggle when you use that word) as binary; what is masculine is not feminine and vice versa. Yes, well, people seem to do this to everything for some reason. Maybe it's just a western thing to use the binary model. You are either to the left or the right. Things are up or down. Everything has an opposite. But that isn't the way things are. There is a continuum between these so-called opposites. HyPOthyroid is the opposite of hyPERthyroid ... but in between them is a grey area called healthy. And it can be a pretty big area. So there might be masculine and feminine, but most of us live in that big continuum between them. If a girl is good at math but has no interest in sewing or cooking, should she be stigmatized by a stereotype from the far end of the continuum? If a boy loves pink or babies (my dad, a former track star and wrestler, loved babies when he was a boy and goes all twee over small children even now), should we kick him in the pants and tell him to go watch some football?
Even among europeans, how many truly blonde and blue-eyed (in the middle ages, they were called grey-eyed) types are there? Sure, all those blonde, blue-eyed princesses resonated with me when I was growing up. But I was even a minority in my own family. Both my mother and sister were dark haired. My hair is dark now. I could identify with those characters in books but what about the darker europeans such as the hispanic child or the african child and the asian child? Do my storytimes reflect my audience? Consider Walt Disney's Cinderella from the point of view of the hispanic niñita. This is our society's standard of beauty and, honey, you're not it. What does that do to her? This could cause her to reject books, reading, and school.

Rachelle tells us to look at picture books (and other children's books, because non-fiction can sneak up under our radar) and check the illustrations and storyline.

Look at the lifestyles of the characters.
Weigh the relationships between people.
Note the heroes.
Consider the effects on the self image of different sorts of children.
Consider the author's and illustrator's backgrounds (and think hard about that Five Chinese Brothers book).
Check the author's perspective.
Watch for loaded words.
Look at the copyright date.
Can you change the hero to a female? Can you change the race? Can you find another book in the catalog or your collection that will show more diversity?

Rachelle says that in her class she had a male student who claimed he felt he was the Prince that was in search of the Princess to rescue. And after all the slamming of stereotypes the women in the class did ... they all suddenly focused on him. Well, I wish him well. If you think it's your job to rescue someone ... you will spend the rest of your life rescuing while they spend the rest of their life being rescued and, ya know, that can get old real fast.

She concentrated on the Cinderella story, of which there are plenty from different cultures and from less gender-stereotyped attitudes ... but I think you need to know the original stories to appreciate the twists. I'm not talking about the ethnicity, just the gender. Because, actually, there's nothing wrong with girls liking pink, babies, cooking, frilly things. Then we can add books about the more practical girls, who wear loafers because they're comfortable (like in Cinder Edna above) - but I think they need to come later.
And then, even saying that, there is one of my favorite alternative lifestyle fairy tales:


Others are:
The cowboy and the black-eyed pea by Tony Johnston
Rumplestiltskin's daughter by Diane Stanley
Three cool kids by Rebecca Emberly (the three billygoats Gruff in da 'hood)
and, of course, Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson

Son of Children's Literature Conference

Jazz, by Walter Dean Myers

The next session I attended was about using music in storytimes. Now, about two years ago I made it my goal to add music to my storytimes somehow. Not just the songs I sing with children, but expose them to music. I have this sneaky little idea to run opera roughshod over the little darlings (well, with puppets, of course) because that is, after all, my passion, but just have never gotten around to it what with all the internet frou-frou dangling in front of me. I've matched some other goals: more puppets, creative dramatics, but the music thing was getting away from me.
This session was about Jazz - All that Jazz and Razzmatazz! The presenters had lists of books (such as the above, Jazz by Walter Dean Myers, Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra by Andrea Pinkney, I See the Rhythm by Toyomi Igus, Dizzy by Jonah Winter, and Ellington Was Not a Street by Ntozake Shange (we have this in a kit!). She read these books to kids and played the artists' music in the background during the storytime! I'll have to look at these (these are the ones we have) to see if they are appropriate to my storytimes, but I have some Bessie Smith in my collection and we have the picture book, Bessie Smith and the Night Riders (okay, this may be a bit intense but it is a picture book!) by Sue Stauffacher. While I was in California, I went shopping for some Jazz compilations ... but I bought some Terry Pratchett books instead. Ooops. Will work on this. Can also use Brian Pinkney's Max Found Two Sticks with the rhythm sticks we bought for storytime.
If the jazz works, can opera be far behind? Dalla sua pa-ace, la mia di-ipe-e-e-ende!

Children's Literature Conference Cont'd (at last)

Could YOU resist this book?

Now I can finally get around to the sessions I attended at the Georgia Children's Literature Conference. Most of these sessions were by and for school librarians, but you can always pick up something to use in a public library setting. At least we don't have to worry about curriculum standards.
The first session I attended was "Making movies about books and stepping into a good story." The presenters claimed to be from a poor district but I noticed that everyone seemed to have digital cameras and SmartBoards. Hmmmm. Their presentation sounded a great deal like the Whole Language Learning stuff, but it fit in nicely with Mo Willems's belief that books should not just be read, but played.
The book they used as an example was Close Your Eyes by Kate Banks (which was sooo cute that I bought a copy in the conference booksale). They had many activities to reinforce all the words and plot in the book (not much, really - just a call and response of why little tiger won't close his eyes and go to sleep but he's just the cutest little tiger!), but the one that I was interested in (and the titular activity), was where they had the children act out the story.
Using a scan or photograph of a good background layout in the picture book projected with the SmartBoard, the teacher costumed two children as tigers (simple costume of tiger patterned cloth with a hole cut like in a poncho and a paper headband with tiger ears on it ... which children could make themselves) and photographed them in front of the projected background as they said the words of little tiger and his mother. The teacher cycled through the whole class to make sure everyone appeared. She then printed off each page with the words from the book and the names of each child next to their pictures and bound it so that they would have a copy. Cute!
What can I use? Ah! The simple costumes like that fabric poncho and the tiger ears would add a great deal to the Creative Dramatics I already use in some storytimes. I drew pictures of them in my notes.
Doing the full monty (excuse me, I mean, the full portion) with the backdrop, photos, etc. would make a nice summer activity some time. Choose a book to re-enact with kids, take pictures, have bound to give to each child. Must check on prices for nice binding, but can run off here as well.
Getting this involved in a storybook would mean a great deal to a kid who doesn't really look on books as his or her friend like the rest of us do.

American Born Chinese

After the Staff Education Day on Young Adult Services Wednesday (I know, I haven't even finished going over the Children's Literature Conference), my thingie - resolve, whatever it was, was to read more YA materials, which I do a bit anyway. Whither my favorite authors go ... I was quite taken with the thought of American Born Chinese by Gene Yang. The other books mentioned sounded too much like the Serious Realistic Fiction That I Go Out of My Way to Avoid in the adult section. "Oh, it's so gooooood!" people tell me about this stuff, but I get enough realism in my own damn life and when I read a book, I want to be taken somewhere else other than, say Vietnam (where I spent my dinner hours growing up) or Nazi Germany (where I had relatives, thankyewverymuch, who may have turned in their Jewish neighbors but certainly suffered more in the war than my stateside family did (we have letters and our family sent clothes, etc. when the war was over). And I have no interest in drugs (okay - not a lot of interest, unless they are tasty frozen concoctions) because I lived through the 60s and 70s - suis allee la, fait cela, obtenu le tattoo.
I have read The Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett (no surprise there - I'm a huge fan) and listened to the audio book read by Stephen Briggs, which is terrific. He reads many of the Pratchett books, adult and YA, and has wonderful characterizations. I even read one of his Johnny Maxwell books (more for boys), which ... was good but not as complex as the Tiffany stories. But then, it is for boys, innit? I love Diana Wynne Jones' children's books and so I have also trod into her YA. Hornbook often has recommendations for YA that pull me away from my usual concentration in Juvenile (and trashy adult mysteries) which led me to The Swan, a graphic novel by Ariyoshi Kyoko. Now, I knew that the Japanese manga were to be read back to front, but for some reason I forgot when I picked up this one, so I was a bit confused for a short while. "This doesn't quite make sense," I thought, "but I can see where it might if I ... Awwww, shhhhhugar!" And I had to start over ... from the back. I can see where teens might enjoy that book, but it wasn't my cup o' cha. It's disconcerting to see Japanese characters (the people kind) all wrapped up in something so european as ballet (but our teens could relate) and I'm not keen on romantic longing and angst (ew! ew! - but teens could relate). Probably won't read more of that, which I think is a series. I also read The Life of Pi by Yann Martel as a YA recommendation (very funny article in Hornbook where Martel is at a book-signing and a young teen comes up and gushes about how much he really liked the tiger in the boat. I don't wanna spoil anyone's read of this, [Stop reading here] but Pi made Mr. Parker up. [Safe to read again.]).

But I came here to bury Caesar, not to praise him, so on to American Born Chinese. Which I read yesterday.

This graphic novel weaves a story on several levels: Chinese folkloric background story, an only slightly exaggerated (loved the lips on the test animals!) realistic story of the titular American born Chinese kid, and the sit-com over-the-top (complete with laugh-track along the bottom of the frames) version with the character that looks like he stepped right out of Claire Bishop's "Five Chinese Brothers": Chin-kee. The story is touching, milk-out-the-nose-snortingly funny, and enlightening - I cannot say enough good things about it. I had only one teensy problem with one itsy-bitsy frame, but I won't go into it here or I can see a bit of trouble with my co-workers on this. Oh well, just call me "Mr. Partypooper." Other than that, this story is PERFECT as well as perfectly beautifully drawn.

Children's Literature Conference, Athens, GA

Ian Ogilvy ("School Bully" and author of Measle and the Wrathmonk)

Sorry I'm so late about this. Apparently, I picked up some awful flu while at this conference and was very ill all the next week.

I should begin by saying that I didn't think listening to authors maunder on and on was going to be worthwhile but I was dead wrong. We started the conference by listening to Ian Ogilvy (above) accepting the Georgia Children's Book Award. Ogilvy is an actor and has pretty much done nothing but acting until he decided to write a book (which actually was an adult book and not the one he was awarded for that day). He was introduced by his acting resume - which was tantalizingly familiar and I sat there squirming, sure I knew the voice. I had watched some "Babylon 5," but he wasn't a regular. "I, Claudius" was so long ago, I couldn't remember anyone but Derek Jacoby (who still calls Ogilvy "Dad" - not that flattering if you consider how old Jacoby looks compared to Ogilvy) - Ogilvy played Drusus, the father of Claudius. But I still felt I must know him from somewhere else. A quick search on IMDB.com brought me the answer I needed: in "Thompkinson's School Days," one of the Ripping Yarns programs put on by Terry Jones and Michael Palin, Ogilvy played the School Bully (Grayson). Suddenly the plummy accent and the face all came into focus for me. Now I wish I'd hugged him when I ran into him on the steps (which he would not have appreciated, since he would probably have gotten whatever I was incubating).
Each of the authors described their methods of writing, what got them into writing, and each one was completely different! There would be no way to emulate all of them - you'd just have to find the method that made most sense to you (or else try them all in succession). Ogilvy annoyed everyone by just deciding to write a book, slogging through it, and getting it published, solely on the strength of his recognition factor. He had succeeded Roger Moore in the role of "The Saint" and was a household word in England at the time.
He remarried in the US (after he realized that his cachet as The Saint only went so far in England he moved to California where he was an illegal alien for a while) and read books to his new family at bedtime. So he thought he'd take a stab at a children's book. Measle and the Wrathmonk is the result. He sent it to his literary agent who found it delightful and set it up to be "auctioned" - which means various publishers would bid for it and run the price up. He was quite pleased with that. At his age, parts are harder to get, and he fancied that a little writing would be a help.
His agent called to tell him that, of the bidders, she recommended Oxford University Press. They had not bid the most, but had sent her a cake with decorations reflecting the plot and characters of the book. If they put that much into just getting the bid, she figured they would put as much or more effort into marketing the final product.
She was apparently right. Ogilvy is quite satisfied with the promotion of the book. He is definitely not satisfied with his American publisher, Harper Collins, who picked it up but let it languish. They told him that only so many books "make it" and apparently they put their money behind the ones they think will. The majority of new books have to fend for themselves.
Ogilvy simmers below the surface. You can see him come right to the edge of a good, solid lambaste, but he deftly pulls away leaving the smoke of charm and politesse in his wake. On the verge of skewering Warner Brothers for making a total dog's breakfast of the script for MatW, he merely describes their tendency (as well as everyone in Hollywood) to "blow smoke." You have to fill in the "up one's arse" for yourself.
The good news on the movie front is that, after a scathing letter from him, the WB executives took him to lunch (instead of airily suggesting they "do" lunch) and agreed with him totally that the script needed a total re-write and that it should start with going back to the original material instead of re-writing the re-write of a re-write of a re-write. Ogilvy is hopeful that his arse was smoke-free.
As to writing, Ogilvy says he pictures the story like a movie and "just writes what he sees." Oh, nice. I'm sure we can all do that. He also passes on what he considered to be good advice in writing, "Put weather in."
So, everyone, picture a story in movie form ... and just describe it! And don't forget the important weather!

Cynthia Kadohata did not look well. People complained about her presentation, but I thought it was good and ... well, I thought she was bearing up well under some stress or illness. She had pictures to show - one of her getting the message about the Newbery Award, pictures of her family, and described her harrowing adoption trip to Kazakhstan. And then I heard people complaining that she didn't go enough in depth!
Cynthia's father spent WWII in an internment camp - which helped inspire Weedflower. She "killed off her sister" for Kira-kira, which annoyed her real-life sister for quite a while. Her love of dogs inspired CRACKER! The Best Dog in Vietnam. Kadohata put many dog-related ideas past her editor before the Cracker story was accepted.
Apparently, she is very heavily edited, and showed us an example of how ideas dear to your heart can be rejected and you just have to get up, dust yourself off, and re-do.
Her recommendation for writers is to write something and send it off (to be rejected) because that will force you to finish a piece. It also helps if your editor is a childhood friend.
The advice so far: be already hideously famous, grow up with a future editor/agent/publisher. The weather continues charming.

Brian Pinkney does not claim to be a speller or a grammarian. He came into writing through the back door of illustrating. His father was an artist as well, so he had the advantage of an example at home and access to materials. He loves working with scratchboard, but that becomes another burden if you want to do something different. "Oh, but you do the scratchboard!" "Oh, but you're The Saint!" "Oh, but you're Japanese!"
Pinkney practices karate and used that in one of his books (Jo-Jo's flying side-kick).
He is a drummer, and was able to use that as well (Max found two sticks). He taught us the paradiddle rhythm and charged us to go home and practice. I tried to do this for my husband who probably thought I was going mad. All of these so-called talents actually take a great deal of practice and concentration. (Rats.)
He convinced his wife to write books for him to illustrate, which raises the specter of husband and wife living and working together. He has rules for that:

• If you're going to talk about work, have a meeting and discuss it like it's what it is: business.
• Never tell your spouse something is a stupid idea.
• If there is something about a drawing that just isn't working, don't say it's wrong, say that that part is "unresolved."
• Preface the bad news with, "Honey, you're off to a great start ..."

It's all a person can do to not fall down and worship David Wiesner. His drawings are brilliant, imaginative, and funny, and you don't have to read anything! He entered illustration at the last gasp of color separation, where you had to do separate overlays of each ink color (remember how children's books used to have only two colors in them? Or their coloring was very, very simple? Ahhh, that explains it, eh?) This rankled him a bit, but publishers weren't going to spend the money for full-color printings on children's books. He'd show them what he was capable of doing and they would tell him it was very nice, but do it the way they asked. An applicant for a position at our library showed us his latest Caldecott winner, Flotsam, and waxed enthusiastic about his work and described in depth his use of the smaller panels to show the action. I was so excited that I used the book in the evening storytime that night. Luckily, I had only one child and she was slightly older. We were able to go through the book and chat about it.
Wiesner will make a terrific sketch and then think, "Can I do more with this?" His goal is to make the reader want to know what could possibly be happening on the next page.

So, be incredibly famous, grow up with an agent/editor/publisher, have a talented father/prolific wife/photogenic children, work something until you've gotten everything out of it you can. Lovely weather, eh? The sun is shining ...

The last author was Mo Willems, author of the Knufflebunny (the K is pronounced - usually) and Pigeon stories. Willems wrote for Sesame Street. He says that if you can imagine the story just from reading, you don't need pictures. You can have too many words or too many pictures (take that, Wiesner!) and he feels the audience needs to do some work. His mission is to write incomprehensible stories for illiterates. Picture books need to be read aloud (great! I'm doin' that; gotcher back, Mo) and that books should be played, not just read. He firmly holds to the belief that the lead character should be drawable by a five year old (and that, Wiesner!). Then he tried to get us all to draw the Pigeon. He says small, real stories are worth being told.
After years with Sesame Street, dealing with suits, etc., he's glad to be in the only industry left where individuality is the norm, that is picture books.

Okay, all of the above, and don't put in too many words or too many pictures. Include the weather. Now, go write a great children's book!

Got all that? Good.

Just When You Thought ...

Finish the sentence as you like. (... you had all the social networking you needed; ... the internet was driving you crazy; ... the internet was driving Marf crazy ...)
Are you troubled by too many social networks to post to? Do you spend all your time making the same boring posts to Twitter, jaiku, Pownce, Facebook, plaxo, tumblr, (deep breath) Frazr, beemood, meemi, gozub, mumpa, (inhale) MexicoDiario, feecle*, fanfou.com? Me neither. But for those who do! there is an answer! There is HelloTxt!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not rushing to sign up for this. Yes, I subscribe to Twitter (very handy for keeping track of what I'm doing for the monthly reports - "Oh, right! I did that special storytime in December!" - and recording amusing but brief anecdotes "Child goes into puppet theatre, picks up puppet and says, Git outta mah house, bitch!") ... and Facebook and plaxo, but Twitter already automatically feeds into Plaxo and I've embedded Twitter into this blog. You know, at some time I have to stop! No, really. No, I know you don't believe me. I'm not going to do it. Not even to find out what "feecle" could possibly be. It boggles the mind, of course. But I'll find some other way to figure out what it is.

*It's a Japanese site, like Twitter, I think. I had to make sure that it was what it was and I wasn't misreading the logo. All of these seem to be similar to Twitter - many in different languages as you can see if you click on the links. I didn't find mumpa.

zoho comes through!

Here is the slideshow I tried to embed before, but now I have no trouble with at all!