NPR: The Saga Continues

NPR: The Saga Continues by Bill Moyers

And even Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss told an interviewer, "You know, an awful lot of conservatives listen to NPR. It provides a very valuable service. Should we maybe think about a reduction in that? Again, I think the sacrifice is going to have to be shared by NPR as well as others. But I think total elimination of funding is probably not the wisest thing to do."

Good for you, Senator. Because without public radio, the reactionaries among us will hold a monopoly on the airwaves.

Read the whole thing.  Bill Moyers nails it as usual.

Books: Gadgets to Keep

Gadgets You Should Get Rid of (or Not) is an article in today's NYT by Grobart telling you the stuff you could lose or don't need to upgrade, especially if you have a smart phone.  Things to lose? Stuff like desktop computers and USB Thumb Drives.  Things to  keep? Well one of the things is...books!

"BOOKS Keep them (with one exception). Yes, e-readers are amazing, and yes, they will probably become a more dominant reading platform over time, but consider this about a book: It has a terrific, high-resolution display. It is pretty durable; you could get it a little wet and all would not be lost. It has tremendous battery life. It is often inexpensive enough that, if you misplaced it, you would not be too upset. You can even borrow them free at sites called libraries."


His one exception is cookbooks.  I guess if your tablet can be protected from the spills.

Feed.

So the title is referring to the ascension of both the blogging community over mainstream news organizations in the future and of the, well, living dead.  Technically they're not zombies.  They're the "infected."  But like anyone isn't going to call this the zombie apocalypse.

It takes place at the end of the 2030s after an unfortunate accident which involved curing both the common cold and cancer leads to well, um, the living dead.

"The Rising" has happened in the past.  Our twenty-something heroes barely remember a time before the infected had changed the world.  And it's this changed world that "Mira Grant" (pseudonym for Seanan McGuire, and a female writer - I checked this time) handles so well.  It's a bit long for a thriller (although I guess length is relative when those chunky Millennium Trilogy books are selling like hotcakes) but it's full of great examples of what us speculative fiction geeks like to describe as "world building."  This isn't a Mad Max post-apocalyptic world with plain old simple death and destruction at every turn.  This is a book in which the fear levels and "enhanced security measures" have gone through the roof.  I mean if you think people have gone a little over the top with worry over Japan's relatively minor nuclear accident (here's a great graphic putting that into the proper perspective), imagine what they'd do if the dead were coming back and trying to eat us.  You think TSA full-body scans are intrusive?  How about having to have a blood test every time you wanted to enter and exit any kind of public gathering.

She considers all the security, political, media, religious, and scientific implications and mostly keeps the narrative moving along.  There is quite a bit of exposition and sure, it could have been trimmed by a hundred or so pages, but even at over 550 pages, I was surprised at how much she got in there without it ballooning to Stephen King-type length.

The main characters are a brother-sister blogging team who become part of a senator's press pool and follow him around the country during the campaign.  Bloggers are licensed and more trusted than the traditional news outlets because they dawdled around too long n disbelief when "The Rising" happened while the blogging community was quick to share the facts on the ground as they were happening.

I loved the political intrigue, even though it was a bit transparent, because there's nothing better than having a zombie book where the real bad guys are politicians.  I also liked that the CDC comes off pretty well for the most part.  I have some friends there and it's nice to know that they would be heroes on a par with firefighters post 9/11 if there was actually a, you know, actual zombie uprising.

The medical stuff, while slightly far-fetched, is grounded enough in reality that it's very compelling.  McGuire has done her homework and come up with some plausible virology.  Maybe I can get my CDC friends to read it and give me their take.

Some of the more fun things: the death penalty suddenly has no meaning; the Catholic Church decides all "infected" are instant martyrs, there are beautiful nods to the work of both George Romero and Steve Irwin.  There's even some Buffy/Joss Whedon references.

So, yeah.  If you like this kind of thing this is a good one.  It's not so much a horror novel as a terror novel.  More thriller than scares.  What I really want to know is, who the heck picked this for my book club?


Feed. Mira Grant

Washing Machines = Literacy!

Hans Rosling is always fascinating.  If you haven't seen them, he has many more inspiring talks on TED.

They're Closing "My" Borders Store

I heard on the radio as I drove home yesterday that the Borders bookstore in Buckhead, Atlanta was now on the closings list.  I realized I was holding my breath when the news report ended.

I really thought they'd dodge the bullet.  It's so big!  It was there first!  It's awesome!  Some of the best booksellers in the world work there!  Noooooo!


I started working at bookstores when I moved to Atlanta in the early 90s.  First a Scribner's.  When that closed I went to the Barnes & Noble on Peachtree.  That was way too corporate and six months later, a colleague who had jumped over to the new Borders store lured me over.  It was the summer of '96 and I stayed there, mostly happily, until I went into teaching in 2000.

When I started they had a "book knowledge" test.  I nailed it.  That was one of the reasons they had so many knowledgeable employees.  Not long after that, they had to give it up for legal reasons.  Just the idea of having to take a book knowledge test kept away some of the less desirable employees.  You know, the ones who think working in a bookstore must be easy.  Heh.

Now I know, some of you think these big box book stores closed down a ton of independents.  Maybe that's true.  We were always getting a hard time from some people in the area because some of the Oxford bookstores started closing up around the same time.  They were a beloved Atlanta institution.  But ask any former Oxford employee and they'll tell you that those were driven into the ground by the Dickensianly-named owner Rupert LeCraw.  That guy was the one who mis-managed Oxford Books.

At the time there were more B&N owned stores in the area than Borders, but all of the Oxford folks I knew came over to Borders.  None of them dreamed of going to B&N.  I thought that was telling.

I think it was because Borders had spawned from a college bookstore and still had that vibe.  There were many in the company that had connections to the original store in Michigan and there was a story there.  Now it was still a chain and it seemed even then to be growing a bit too fast (and not taking online bookselling seriously enough) but there was a respect for customers and bookselling that I just didn't feel over at B&N.  Managers were promoted from within at Borders.  At B&N they were brought over from unrelated retail chains.

But the thing about that particular store I worked in was the people.  Below I've linked to three that have an online presence.  Brannon, Toni and Doret.  Those are three amazing booksellers. Brannon is literally and award-winning one.  There were many more great folks I worked with.  It was always exciting to come to work.  There were always at least half a dozen really smart, funny people working at any one time that were thoughtful, creative, brilliant conversationalists and not a little nutty.

We had to put up purchased merchandising displays, but also had the freedom to create our own.  There were corporate guidelines but initiative was rewarded.  And, at least when I was there, being part of the community was important.  One of the many jobs I did (bookseller, backroom stocker, cafe, music, supervisor, children's dept. supervisor, special orders, etc.) included community outreach.  In that capacity I helped set up events (including author signings, children's events, musicians) and decided about donations.  I got to make rules about giving out money and books! (Organizations benefitting old people and kids first!)  I got to listen to free CDs and book the bands!  Not just pop, either.  I brought in African drummers, classical guitarists, jazz fusion, swing, folk, etc.  My friend John and I approached a shopping Tom Wolfe and were later credited for his deciding to hold his big gala A Man in Full book signing at our store when it first came out.

But again, it was the friendships and discussions I had with passionate, geeky booksellers that made that time so special.  Some of them went on to become published writers, bloggers and composers themselves.  All of them made it a great place to be post-college pre-teaching.  There's a Borders nearby I shop at sometimes.  It's nice, but it's definitely not the same.  The Buckhead store was a unique place and will be sorely missed.

Mahilly

Sew Transformed

The Happy Nappy Bookseller

Beyond the Grave

I've never read anything by Jude Watson before.  I just looked him her up on Amazon and other than a couple of these 39 clues books, he she seems to have written a slew of Jedi Apprentice books.  Well it was a good fit.  He She keeps the requisite action and puzzles going with a bit better depth of character than the last book.

Amy and Dan became unbearably catty in book 3, but in this one they bond more as you would expect two orphans in a life-threatening situation to do.

The Egyptian aspect was great fun as well.  I actually learned a few things.  And he she even played with cultural expectations a few times.  Amy and Dan are rescued from a possible croc attack at night on the Nile by a shifty character alone in a boat.  He has a knife and there is blood in his boat.  But as soon as he begins speaking they realize he's not only a friendly fisherman, but he's bonding with Dan over the Boston Red Sox!

There is plenty of fun historical name-dropping.  Napoleon, Churchill, Mark Twain, Howard Carter and many more show up in one form or another in the course of this book.  If nothing else, kids reading it are getting a good amount of fun history with their adventure.

At this point I don't really care what this is all leading up too.  I just want to read them all so I can talk to the kids that are into them.  Every character is either completely self-centered and will screw over the kids (I can't believe they keep falling for that) or are really good and will probably die before the end of the series.

*Update: Okay, you can see why I thought Jude was a male.  The only other Jude that pops to mind is Jude Law.  And Star Wars books?  C'mon.  It was an honest mistake...

Professional Meetings & Retro Journal Fun

We had another all-day meeting of Media Specialists in our large district at the vast and sprawling mothership of a head office.  It was a pleasant, if sobering day.

The bad news is of course all the cutbacks.  But it's more of a freezing than a cutting at this point.  There was only one retirement, but that position had been filled already.  I just got word that a middle school position is opening up, but there are a few "displaced" people floating around that will surely snap that up quickly.

We were asked to look carefully at the lists of things the county provides and rank them.  Right now they provide us all with subscriptions to Booklist, Library Media Connection, and School Library Journal.  It seemed from my informal polling that School Library Journal remains at the top of the list, even though I talked up LMC.  We can read SLJ online but some people prefer an actual magazine when their on their workout machines.

Our state is debating funding for Galileo (which includes favorites Britannica and NoveList).  We can't control that, but we were asked to rank the other online resources provided by the district.  Of course the World Book offerings were at the top of the list.

An interesting discussion we got into in one of the breakout sessions I attended was all those book study professional books administrator's always seem to find the money for.  You know what I mean.  A copy of something like one of those How Full Is Your Bucket? books for every staff member that was passed out with great enthusiasm in 2005 and is now collecting dust in a storage closet somewhere.  Stuff like that.

We were trying to figure out if they should all at least be barcoded so we could see what we have and other schools could look them up for ILL sharing.  There was talk of sending them all to our central Professional Library, but since some of these book studies are spread out over a full year, that doesn't seem feasible.

I was actually in the Professional Library for this discussion.  A couple of my friends and I stuck around after and pulled out the oldest crate of School Library Journals they had in stock.  1972!  I loved the ads for the new card catalog furniture the best.  Nice stuff.

Morning Links

Why Argue? Helping Students See the Point (ScienceDaily)

     I work on this with my 4th and 5th graders as much as I can.

Richard Wiseman Paranormality Interview

     "we're going to get loads of mail"

A life lesson from a volunteer firefighter (TED)

     Inspiring!

Quote of the day:

“It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.”

Bertrand Russell 

British philosopher, mathematician

(via dailysource)

Tsunami!

It's too bad I used this as my major read-aloud a couple of weeks ago.  It would be perfect now.

That's okay.  We're in the middle of a crazy book fair and I'm not seeing all of my classes this week anyhow.  Maybe I'll read it to some of my older students and we can talk about what's been going on in Japan.

It's a truly magnificent book.  From the cover it may look like every other non-fiction disaster book for kids but it's really a perfect little tale of a wealthy rice farmer who sets his crops ablaze to save the people of his village.  He is on a mountainside tending the fields as the entire village is reveling in a celebration down on the beach.  First there is a "spongy" earthquake but then only he sees the tsunami coming.  To the horror of the grandson at his side, he begins furiously burning his valuable crops to lure the villagers up the mountain.  The scheme works and the people are save by his act of human kindness as the village is scoured from the earth below.

The illustrations are done in a fantastic mixed-media collage style the makes it feel earthy and timeless at once.  When you get to the two-page spread with the dark and ominous wave bearing down, I'm sure you'll agree that this is a powerful book that hits all the right notes.

It ends with a celebratory tone and a humanist message of people helping others.

Which reminds me: here's the place to help out Japan.

Tsunami!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Can you believe I've never actually read this all the way though?  I've started it a few times, but it checks out to fast for me to ever finish it.  I found an old classroom copy of mine lying around and read that.

It's fine.  It's very funny in parts and I can see why kids love it.  Roderick's shenanigan's especially kill me.  Maybe because my brother and I weren't above torturing each other a little.  I know some parents who disapprove because Greg is such a jerk and a "bad role model."  But see, most kids I know totally get the joke.  They know Greg is basically a slacker and that he never does the right thing.  They like it for the same reason I used to like watching Seinfeld and feeling superior to Jerry and George and the guys while recognizing some of  those same baser, selfish impulses in myself.  They carried those impulses to the extreme and made it funny.  That's what Kinney's doing with Greg Heffley.

Kids know Greg will never grow up and do the right thing.  They also know that, at some point in the not-too-distant-future, they probably will.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

The 39 Clues: The Sword Thief

Great cover, great series, a bit disappointing third book in the series, though.  I haven't read any other Peter Lerangis that I know of but he sure turned Amy and especially Dan in to snappy little ones I thought.  As My Lovely Bride pointed out (she's reading these too), they couldn't go two pages without calling each other names or being just generally unpleasant.

There was a certain amount of that sibling thing in the other two books, but you'd think having to depend on each other and facing all these death-defying situations it would bring them closer together and they'd grow out of too much of that.  (Of course Ron Weasley never did, so there you go.)

The plot was serviceable, but I guess I'm too jaded.  I never fell for Alistair Oh's or Ian Kabra's nice-guy games.  I knew they'd double cross the kids.  I hope Amy and Dan wise up and pull some double crosses of their own soon or I'm going to be disappointed.

It's been a little while since I read the first two.  I could kinda see how this series would play out and went on to other things, but since I've been getting them for the library (can you believe we've never had any of them here before?) and there are some boys devouring them I though I should finish the series so I can geek out with them.

Of course, now I find out there's going to be a whole new series!  Whew!

The Sword Thief (The 39 Clues, No. 3)

GA Conference on Children's Literature

Mary Downing Hahn - Winner of the book award for Deep and Dark and Dangerous.  Was a delight.  Tall, willowy and sweet.  You'd never believe she could creep you out a bit.  A fun, brisk talk with slides of her beginnings as an artist and writer.  Once again, not a stellar student (that's always an interesting thing, many famous writers weren't).  Bad with direction and a "quiet little passive/aggressive" according to some teachers.  My favorite bit was her love of Penrod.  That is one fun book!

Next I went to see fellow GLMA blogger Dr. Phyllis Snipes and her talk on the use of wiki's to share literature links.  The wiki stuff wasn't new to me, but she had some great link I'll be checking out.  The best part was sitting and chatting with another fellow GLMA blogger, Andy Plemmons and his Dr. Seuss Converse high-top sneakers.  No, really.

Alma Flor Ada - This was painful.  Apparently she was scheduled to come but couldn't for some reason.  They tried to run it anyway as a Skype session but it was a bad connection and garbled.  She looked so earnest and I knew she had great stuff to share but there was no getting it.  I left early and ran into Mary Downing Hahn.  I told her my joke about sneaking up behind her and shouting "boo!"  She said, laughing, "I so glad you didn't!  I'm really quite jumpy!"

Luncheon - I got to sit with some other new school librarians and enjoy a nice conference luncheon.  If you've ever been to a conference like this, you know what to expect but apparently these guys hadn't so they we pleasantly surprised by the fanciness and the service.  All educators should get to be treated that way once in a while!  I got to speak with Judy Serritella, the coordinator of library media services for the state.  She's graciously reprinted a couple of my posts in the state newsletter, so it was nice to talk to her in person, even if I did probably look like a dork in this t-shirt.

Previews - Next up was a session introducing the nominees for next year for the book and picture book awards.  A whole lot of nice white ladies on the committees, though there was at least one guy on each.  I was on the picture book committee in 2003.  Maybe I should sign up again...

Oral History Project - Fellow GLMA blogger and elementary school librarian Andy Plemmons showed off a fascinating collaborative oral history project he worked on with the fifth grade teachers and students at his school.  He has the rare ability to pull together the most amazing projects and showcase them without sounding the least bit self-congratulatory.  In fact he was humble and quite forthright in the strengths and weaknesses and his recommendations for trying a similar project.  He'd learned along with the teachers and students when he came across some great suggestions from the Library of Congress in a free web-chat session they did with them.  Links below.

Gail Gibbons - A fun and wide-ranging talk with wonderful pictures from her photographer husband.  I was happy to hear she'd been to Mote Marine in Sarasota researching her Coral Reefs book.  It was informative and light for mot of the talk, but a simple question about recycling from a classroom teacher at the end led to an emotional plea for better human stewardship of the natural world and a standing ovation.

Next morning I was too late to make the first session, so stood in line to get my daughter an autographed copy of I Ain't Gonna Paint No More by a delightful Ms. Beaumont.  Then I browsed the vendors until running into fellow elementary educator and blogger, Eric Carpenter who was very psyched to be seeing M. T. Anderson.  Turns out he teaches at a school I once student taught at...sometime in the last century.

M. T. Anderson - My favorite presentation.  A great mix of the funny, the absurd, and the serious desire to share his love of discovery and, as he put it, "the romance of geography."  I definitely need to catch up on reading his books!  From his desire to travel and subsequent realization of the problems involved, to his inappropriate use of French Baroque opera, to his meeting with the governor of a strange and mysterious place called "Delaware."

Reading Fair presentation - a great breakout session in which we were treated to photos and videos of some schools that, along with those tri-fold Science Fait projects, have a session of Reading Fair projects as well.  Got my wheels turning...

Karen Beaumont - Winner of the GA Children Picture Book award for I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! Changed her planned presentation based on seeing Hahn and Gibbons tell so much about their backgrounds.  Told us about hers and it was compelling stuff.  Was fully aware of the genius of David Catrow and wished he could have been there as well.

Storyteller's Luncheon - Susan Liverpool is amazing.  She had us all in the palm of her hand.  We were all laughing, but Gail Gibbons was weeping with laughter and I saw people holding onto each other from cracking up.  She says her book has been sold to the movies and they'll have her songs in there as well.  If it's a tenth as funny as the two stories she told us it'll be something to see.

Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn
Penrod by Booth Tarkington
Barrow Elementary Oral History Project Links
What We Read and What We Think by Eric Carpenter
M. T. Anderson's "Delaware"
I Ain't Gonna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont and David Catrow
Little Liverpool Diaries by Susan Liverpool

Happy and Sleepy

Just got back form the GA Children's Literature conference in Athens and a good time was had by all.  I'll give a full report as soon as I can, but at the moment I'm trying to go through my email and reader and do laundry.

It's also nice to know from the comments that Mr. Buckner practically has a posse of villagers with pitchforks and torches after his butt.  Heh heh.

In the meantime, the Guardian has a new Children's Books section that looks pretty cool.  Give it a look see and we'll discuss soon.

GCBA

Guardian Children's Books