Librarians: The Best Search Engine

Two awesome high school librarians in my district.  Think they'll win their costume contest?

Hear my goofy voice on a podcast...coming soon

I'll let you know the details when it's out, but my friend Colin a/k/a TickTock of the Science-Based Parenting blog just called me for some book recommendations and will be including it in his Parenting Within Reason podcast.

He wanted a list of recommended books for freethinking parents and also is interviewing Dale McGowan, author, editor and writer of The Meming of Life blog.

I wince to think of what I sound like, but the books I mentioned are all worth your time, so I'll let you know when it's up.

I Get Email

Funny ones from other school librarians like this:

"Does anyone know this book? I have a teacher who is trying to remember  a book about a girl who is copying a duck, turns into a duck, turns back into herself."

Cracks me up every time.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Ooh, good one.  I don't keep up with too much of the book award craziness, but I'll just bet that some people feel this deserved gold.  That's the great and terrible thing about book awards: so many good books to pick from!

I'm sure this has and/or will win a slew of them.  Kids will love it because parents and teachers will read it out loud to them.  This one begs to be read aloud.  It has the tone of an ancient folktale and the added benefit of tales within the main tale so it's like a book of connected short stories re-emphasizing one of the themes: the power and importance of stories themselves.

It's about a girl in a poor village whose main delight is hearing her father's fantastical tales.  This does not brighten the mood of the mother who is bitter at their low station in life.  Eventually, the daughter runs off to try to bring fortune to the family.  Her subsequent amazing and magical adventures and the many stories she hears at first seem like separate pieces but, of course, by the end all fit together nicely.

That short summary hardly does it justice and reveals some more of the major themes.  "Fortune", and it's many meanings.  High and low stations in life and how to move between them.  What is good fortune?  What is bad?  What price greed?  How can you tell true happiness?

I also found it interesting that the parents remain an important aspect of the story.  So many of these types of tales involve dead or absent parents so the protagonist must be completely independent.  These parents are caring and miss their daughter terribly.  Minli ("quick thinking") misses her parents as well and is determined to return to them.  This distance, essential to the tale, becomes one of the more poignant aspects of the book and a theme as well as other parents, or separated families or absent parents or happy families are introduced throughout the story.

Excellent and highly recommended for around 8 to 12 year olds.  But I'm in my forties and I loved it, so there you go.

Hand-painted color illustrations by the author.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Scott Westerfeld

So I saw YA author Scott Westerfeld last night without even intending to.

Here's how it played out.  My book club, the Guys Read book club, almost always meets on the third Thursday so after school I zipped over to Decatur.  We gather at the Little Shop of Stories, then trundle off to a pub.

As I was walking across the square I noticed some steam-punky looking kids.  I did a double take and smiled because no one else was dressed up.  This wasn't Dragon*Con or anything.  It was the first time I'd seen anyone dressed that way without there being some event.  I was actually impressed.

So I get to the book store and immediately see a friend from the book group.  He was like, "What are you doing here?  The book club is next week."

Well, crap.  Then I notice the store is getting packed and they're gearing up for some event.  My friend was there to get his books signed.  Then the steampunkers come in and I see the stack of Scott Westerfeld books including his new steampunk Leviathan and Behemoth everywhere and I get it.

So this was the first author event I've attended (that I know of) in which I've never read any of the author's books.  I mean I'm no dope, I've of course heard of Mr. Westerfeld and knew most of the titles.  I just don't get around to much YA.

His was a great talk.  He told about where the ideas for his Pretties and Uglies series came from and how they tangentially led to ideas that led to his current steampunk series.  Two of his points were especially intriguing to me.

Apparently Peeps is a vampire story in which the vampires are people infected with a parasite.  Westerfeld has a deep interest in the philosophy of science and has read a lot of Carl Zimmer's books.  Two of Mr. Zimmer's books are on parasites, Parasite Rex and Microcosm and they will, as Westerfeld and I can both attest, blow your mind.  He wondered aloud if Zimmer knew about Peeps.  They share a friend in common with Rebecca Skloot, (who I'm sure you've heard of).  I'm sure Zimmer would be happy to have been an influence and having his books mentioned to young adults around the country!

The other point was about the past dominance and slow resurgence of illustrators for novels beyond just the Wimpy Kid age.  We're talking everything from Austen to Dickens to H.G. Wells, not just kids books.  Apparently the iconic deerstalker hat worn by Sherlock Holmes is never mentioned in any of Conan Doyle's stories.  It was an invention of the first illustrator.  It is now so iconic that many libraries have a book spine sticker indicating "Mystery" that is just a symbol of the deerstalker along with a rocket for science fiction and a heart for romance.  This was all in explanation for his desire to have his new series well illustrated and the process behind this.

A great guy with an equally interesting wife (Justine Lardalestier spoke briefly as well).  I'll have to check out Peeps soon.  A YA book with vampires that sounds good!  Who'd have thunk it?

UPDATE:
An email from Carl Zimmer: "Thanks for your email. I am aware of--and grateful for--Westerfeld's interest in my work. I'll have to send him a note to let him know!

Best,

Carl Zimmer"

Scott Westerfeld books

Scott Westerfeld blog

Carl Zimmer books

Carl Zimmer blog

Treasure Island

Wow.  I'd never read it.  One is tempted to make the same joke you always hear about Shakespeare: "But it's full of cliches!"

Yes, but apparently Stevenson got there first.  This is great on many levels, but what I really love is that there are many levels.  It's of course a memorable and exciting adventure.

But, like all the best stories, the good guys aren't all good and the bad guys certainly aren't all bad.  There are some mostly good good guys and extremely wicked bad guys but the main characters are surprisingly multifaceted for such a quickly-paced narrative.

I've read Jekyll and Hyde and see some of the same themes.  Like the alter ego of Hyde, the pirate life seems, at first, to offer more freedom than the class structure of the day until the obvious problems become readily apparent.  "Civilization" doesn't come off all that great at times and seems stuffy and constricting until the dangers of the alternatives become, well, readily apparent.

I was expecting a way more idealized version of the pirates.  Isn't this where all our wonderful pirate mythology stems from?  But I think what captured people's imagination was Long John Silver, not piracy itself.  The rest of those guys are plain ignorant, greedy, drunkards.  Nothing romantic at all.   But Silver, ah, now there's an interesting character.  Johnny Depp owes much to this guy.

And Jim Hawkins!  He could certainly teach Percy Jackson a thing or two.

Tons of fun.  Can't believe I didn't pick this up before now.

Treasure Island

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Once again, an awesome performance by the wry David Sedaris.  I have no interest in his fiction (sorry, David) but his essays are sublime and this is up there with his best.

This is one of my authors I enjoy primarily on audio.  This is a collection of 22 essays with four of them side-splittingly read to an audience.  Those are killer.

The final multi-part essay is reflections on his quitting smoking.  He and Hugh go to Tokyo for this.  I know, but it makes sense when you read it.  He, like everyone I know, is delighted by the mangled English he finds while there.  The hotel signs include the helpful steps to take "When You Are Engulfed in Flames."

There are many of these funny personal essay writers around, but nobody does it better than the droll David Sedarias.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Igraine the Brave

Oh, so that's  how you pronounce it.  I was always saying "Funke" like it had a silent "e" but the wonderfully-named Xanthe Elbrick pronounced it Funk-e.  Not like "funky," but more like "funk-uh."

So now I know.  One of the perks of listening to the occasional audio book.  Don't worry, we have plenty of copies in the library so I flipped through and have looked at the illustrations as well.

This is a much more fun book that those Ink-whatever books.  Sorry, I'm not a huge fan of those.  I wanted to like them, I really did.  But, well, I just didn't.

This one is a perfect little version of "The Knight's Tale" for the 4th-6th grade female crowd.  Of course, we're reading it for our district's Reader's Rally challenge so a certain number of 4th and 5th grade boys are going to have to read it.  So it'll be interesting to see what they make of it.

It moves quickly and has plenty of gags so I think it'll go over well.  Igraine is hardly girly.  Her parents are both magicians and her brother is training for that position as well, but Igraine would rather follow in her grandfather's footsteps and become a noble knight.  Her wish comes true when a magical accident sidelines her parents and she must go on a quest for a magical ingredient (giant hair, of course) while her brother must try to protect their castle from invaders in the meantime.

Plenty of fun with the Ren Faire tropes and ex deus machina moments.  This one will be a breezy hit.

I'm not in love with the cover, but it's way better than the paperback, ugh.

Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke

COMO 2010

Just got back from my one-day excursion to the Georgia COMO conference.  It somehow stands for Georgia Council of MEdia Organizations.

The always cool Kathy presented, but there were too many good concurrent sessions for me to attend them all.  Wish it had been spread out more.  Oh, wait, it was spread out over three days but I could only afford one.  Well, I wish all the cool people I wanted to see didn't have everything at the same times!

Other cool people I saw:
I got to chat with the amazing Buffy Hamilton, our new Georgia Media Specialist of the Year!

I got to sit with the awesome Andy Plemmons.

I saw the wonderful Holly Frilot.

I saw some sessions, got some great ideas, and enjoyed the library cart drill teams.  I shot some video of those.  I'll have to check and see if those turned out.

Librarians are cool.

Boys. Reading.

Spot on post over at Baby Got Books with a promise of more soon.  Read the comments.

Crickets and Sweaters

The title pretty much says it all.  A cricket, Chester, from the country accidentally finds himself transported via picnic basket to Times Square in NYC.  He finds companions in a mouse and cat who are friends.  They hang out in a struggling newsstand and help out the family that owns it when Chester reveals a hidden talent.

The Garth Williams illustrations are, of course, perfect and really make this.  Apparently "George Selden" went on to write many sequels. (When he wasn't writing about bisexual sado-masochism--you just never can tell!)

Man, Margaret Peterson Haddix sure has a range!  She writes YA, middle readers and these easier chapter books for younger readers.  This one is kind of a riff on The Hundred Dresses.  Janie's Dad is out of work due to an injury.  Her mom is picking up extra hours at her job but is dismayed to find out what a sorry state Janie's public school is in.  Since mom is an excellent knitter, she spends the next year knitting beautiful sweaters with other girls' names on them to sell in a boutique.  When enough money is raised, the family moves into an apartment in a nicer school district.

Janie does well academically, but notices how worn and ill-fitting her own clothes are in this new "richer" school.  When the boutique stops selling her mother's sweaters, Janie begins wearing them to school.  She tells the other kids that "Maybe she has more than one middle name."  It's well-written and deals with a topic, economics, that is rarely dealt with well in children's literature.  I can think of the Hundred Dresses and A Chair for my Mother.  I'm sure there are more, but those are the only two coming to mind at the moment.

The ending is a bit pat, but hey, it's for 2nd and 3rd graders, they love pat endings.  Would make a good read aloud for discussion and great for any "new kid at school" issues.


The Cricket in Times Square (Chester Cricket and His Friends)

The Girl With 500 Middle Names

The Hundred Dresses

A Chair for My Mother 25th Anniversary Edition (Reading Rainbow Book)