Weeding

In preparation for the library renovation in summer 2010, parent volunteers and I have been weeding. I have to tell myself repeatedly that with 13,000 books, there are bound to be some I haven't seen, but really, every single, solitary day I seem to come across some dusty tome that hasn't been checked out since 1978. It makes me want to sit on the floor in the stacks and weep. Gems this week included:

Alcoholism. 1975. Our secretary nailed the date on this one due to the rainbow effect title. I'm thinking treatments have changed.

Conservation of Energy. 1978. At least it's after the last energy crisis.

Drug Testing. 1987. Oh, look! Yuppies on cocaine and cups for them to pee into!

Bake Bread! 1976. The black and white pictures make the bread look soooo appetizing. Can we say "bread machine"?









And really-- what were they thinking? The Wonders of the World of the Albatross? 1974. There was a whole series, including The Wonders of Woodchucks and The Wonders of Field Mice. Nearby was Chipmunks on the Doorstep. When did the albatross last leave the shelf? 1979.

Now I Know Better: Kids Tell Kids About Safety is only 13 years old, but has never left the shelf. I don't know why. The back cover has this quote: "I learned not to put my eyes near any sharp objects and I would advise you to do the same." Doesn't everyone need to read this?

And 1991's Food includes this sentence: "Most people are getting used to the idea of microwaved food because it is so quick and easy." Hmmm. I got used to that idea in 1974 when my mother got a microwave. Oooh. The book pongs, too.

Rule #1 of weeding: Anything that pongs, goes.

Maggie Stiefvater Contest

Head over to Karin's Book Nook to check out the contest to win a copy of the sequel to Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver! Impossible for me to say what I wanted to happen, but I didn't even know the sequel was in the offing. Very exciting. Thanks, Karin!

Speculative Fiction

Kate has a ton of work to finish during her senior year. She is on every committee, is involved in all sorts of activities, has a steady boyfriend, and wants to go to Yale. It all adds up to a lot of stress, which isn't helped when she starts a SimulLife file on her computer and wakes up the next morning to a virtual clone of herself! Rina is tired of being stuck in the computer game, and wants to go shopping and get out of the house. Since Kate really needs to be in two places at once a lot of the time, she slowly warms to the idea of Rina taking over certain chores for her. This complicates matters when Rina starts making out with a boy from Kate's past and trying to impersonate Kate at college interviews. In the end, Kate learns a lot about herself from the reflection she sees in Rina, and decides to cut the stress and lead her life in a less stressful way. Cherry Cheva's DupliKate was great fun, but I don't know if middle school students will identify with the problems of a high school senior.

Oscar also has stress, although he shouldn't. He lives in the planned community of Candor, Florida, which he father set up after Oscar's brother was killed in a pool accident. Through constant music and subliminal messages, children's behavior is controlled. They respect their parents, do their homework, and don't misbehave at all. Oscar has managed to keep his own thoughts, and when new families move in to the exclusive, expensive development, he helps the teens escape for a hefty price. When the vivacious and defiant Nia moves to town, Oscar sees her as another client, until he starts to fall for her. He also decides that it's time for him to leave, so sets the wheels in motion to finally defy his father. While I'm not big on futuristic dystopian fiction, Pam Bachorz's Candor was very well done. It had interesting characters, good subplots, and was a quick-paced read. Will definitely be buying this one for the fans of Shusterman's Unwind.

Various high school titles

Warning: I left all of these books at home and may forget details.

Even though my daughter thinks that vampire ninjas are wrong, Mike Lake's Blood Ninja was pretty good. In the Tokugawa period in Japan, Taro and his friend Hiro are taken in by ninjas after Taro's father is killed. It turns out that ninjas are all vampires, and when an injury turns Taro into one as well, the boys have no choice but to help out with a warlord feud. This was certainly bloody, had lots of action, but it's lenghth (369 pages) and dense description of Japanese history would probably give my readers some trouble. Very good, and the research is clear.

Another excellent book was Brian Katcher's Almost Perfect. Logan feels lonely and depressed after his breakup with his girlfriend, until he meets Sage, a new student who was homeschooled. He loves everything about her, but her parents are strict and don't let her out of the house much. Soon, Sage reveals the reason... she's really a boy and has struggled her whole life with the problems that this causes. Her father is desolated, she can't function as a boy in society, but is scared of the violence she might encounter if the truth is known. I can't think of any other books on transgendered individuals, and this was certainly well done. Sage and Logan's emotions are beautifully drawn and hopefully will help people understand the issues and motivations of transgendered people. It is a bit much for middle school, however, but I did enjoy reading it.

I loved Sarah Beth Durst's Into the Wild and Out of the Wild, but I didn't want to read Ice. I apparently have a fear of talking polar bears, which is why I wasn't wild about The Golden Compass. Still, this retelling of "East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon" pulled me in, and I had to finish it. Cassie lives with her father at a polar bear observation station. Her grandmother had told her stories about her mother's death-- her mother was really the daughter of the North Wind, and when she fell in love with a human and would not marry the polar bear king, she was sent far away to live in a troll castle. When the polar bear king comes to claim Cassie for his bride, she goes with him in order to save her mother, and then starts to like him. However, she breaks her promise not to look at him in his human form, and he, too, is sent to the troll castle. Even though Cassie is pregnant, she travels, with much difficulty, to find him. Interesting, well-written, and a great retelling of a classic story, the pregnancy pushes this over the line into high school for me.

The Young Readers Edition of The Omnivore's Dilemma was also too much; not because of the topic, which includes descriptions of factory farming, but because it was too long (298 pages) and there was too much detail. Schlosser's Chew On This delivers the same information about the prevalence of sugar, fat and chemicals in our food in a slightly shorter, punchier package. Still, this would be a good resource for health classes, speech classes that might debate the topic, and students who has a passion for animals rights. Just difficult to pick up for casual reading.

Diary of a Witness by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Ernie is overweight and has long been the target of his classmates' taunting. He's learned that if you ignore the idiots and keep a low profile, it's not as bad. His friend Will hasn't learned this. Beset by bad acne and sticking-out ears, Will is angry and talks back to the bullies, which makes them abuse him more. When Ernie and Will are involved in a boating accident that kills Will's younger brother, things become worse. Will tries to kill himself, but is saved by Ernie's quick thinking. When the school bullies continue to give Will a hard time, he snaps. Again, Ernie's decision to act instead of being a bystander makes a horrible situation somewhat better.

I liked this in part because of the depiction of adults in the boys' lives. Some were supportive in helpful ways (an uncle who tries to help the boys) and destructive ways (Ernie's mother, who habitually overfeeds him). There were teachers who didn't help, and some who tried. Will's parents have their own problems. I don't know if students will care about this, but it was intriguing to me. Since the 8th graders are doing a unit on problem novels, this caught my attention because it would be a good choice for the boys. Bullying is always a sensitive issue.

Belinda Hollyer's selection of poems, She's All That: Poems About Girls, met all of my criteria for a book of poems. At 100 poems, there is plenty to choose from, but not to much. Several of the poems are catchy and over 40 words long, suitable for memorizing. The cover is colorful and fresh, and the poems are on a variety of topics and in a lot of different forms and voices. I dislike dialect intensely, so didn't care for the handful of poems written in that way, but in general I think this will be very useful when the poetry unit rolls around.

Death by... Linda Gerber!

The problem with being a conscientious librarian is that sometimes I can't read books for months after we get them. Crocodile Tears came back late Friday afternoon, but darn if TWO boys stopped by after school wanting it. The same thing has happened with the two sequels to Linda Gerber's Death by Bikini-- they are always out and someone wants them when they come back.

Aphra is still reeling from all of the intrigue and danger at the island resort her father runs, but since she has been given the location of her mother, whom she hasn't see in four years, she decides to lie to her father and fly to Seattle to find her. Her mother is not pleased. There is a lot to her mother's story that Aphra still doesn't know-- her involvement with the CIA, her reasons for leaving the family, and the danger she is in all the time. Also, Seth Mulo shows up demanding the ring that he gave Aphra, which has gone missing. When her mother's partner is killed by a poison latte, Aphra and her mother go on the run. Whom do they trust? Ryan seems charming, but is he what he appears? It's hard to tell, and they end up in a plane crash in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, highjacking canoes and braving the river, and generally trying to figure out what the best way to survive is.

In Death by Denim, Aphra and her mother have been trying to lie low in a small French town, but again, this is not possible for long. When their contact in Paris shows up drowned with denim binding his arms and legs, they begin a dangerous journey to Italy, where Aphra needs to contact Seth. Once again, despite her mother's training (think before you act!), she trusts the wrong people, makes some poor choices, and ends up in dangerous situations. At the end of this, things look like they should calm down, but will they? I hope not, because I would really like to see Aphra involved in her own missions.

I loved that the characters were not all black and white, and since even Aphra doesn't know whom to trust, the plot is not predictable. Aphra herself is drawn in such a realistic way-- I can see my daughter, who is nearly the same age, acting in exactly the ways that Aphra does. The plots in these twist and turn but never become hard to follow. These are really more spy adventure books than mysteries; in fact, they do remind me a little of the Dorothy Gilman Mrs. Pollifax books. The sense of place is fantastic-- Gerber's travels have been put to great use in these books and also in her Students Across the Seven Seas installments (Finland and Japan). One of the reasons I enjoyed both of these so much was that I've been a little tired of teen literature, and they read more like nice, clean, adult stories. Again, why are these available only in paperback? A grave injustice.

Another injustice is that only three of Cathy Cassidy's books are available in the U.S. The paperbacks are available from Baker and Taylor, which is a good source of British publications at a reasonable price. Gingersnaps was a good story of friendships and how the change during the teen years, and how important the perception of others is to teen self-esteem. Ginger has changed from a chubby, ridiculed, friendless girl into a slimmer teen with a good friend, Shannon, but she is still insecure. Shannon and Ginger befriend Emily, whose best friend has moved away, and all three work on a school newspaper. Ginger also has a crush on Sam Taylor, who lives on a houseboat, dresses strangely, and plays his saxophone in the school hallways. She worries that Shannon will not want to be her friend because of the boy, and they go through some rocky times, especially when Shannon develops a huge crush on a teacher. The other Cassidy titles in the states (Dizzy, Indigo Blue, and Scarlet) are about girls in even more dysfunctional situations, but this one hit the spot... so many friendships change in middle school, and it's so painful. I would really like to read Angel Cake, about a Polish girl who moves to Scotland. This is the problem with the internet-- I know it's out there and can't get a copy!

Thursday Reading

In John Wilson's The Flags of War, Walt, from Canada, and Nate, from South Carolina, are cousins but have never met. Nate knows he must fight in the Civil War, but his friendship with Sunday, a slave, makes him question what is right. When Sunday runs away, he makes the acquaintance of Walt, but when an oversee from Nate's farm comes to capture Sunday, he also takes Walt back and sells him into the Confederate army. There is a lotof action and adventure, like all of Wilson's books, but I found this one slightly harder going for some reason. Maybe flipping between Walt and Nate was hard to follow for me. There is a sequel to this; Battle Scars. Both are popular with my students.

Pierdomenico Baccalario's The Door of Time was hard to follow, and I chalked that up to the translation from the Italian, but Ring of Fire (also translated by Leah Janescko) was pretty good. Four children from different countries meet in a hotel in room and are thrown together due to overbooking. Or are they? Each of them was born on February 29th, and strange things start happening to them. Light bulbs explode, it snows in Rome, and a strange man thrusts a briefcase at them. This briefcase has a set of objects that lead the children around Rome in search of the Ring of Fire, which will help avert a world-ending tragedy that only the children can solve. That part made me stop and think-- are we really constantly under threat from unseen mystic evil forces and being saved by 13-year-olds on a regular basis? If you read young adult literature enough, you'd definitely enroll your children in some good martial arts classes. That aside, this was full of action and adventure, and the pictures and maps of Rome were really fun. My principal graciously donated this one; it is the first book in a projected four book series.

Readers' input needed: I would like to do a grade 5-8 literature update for my school system's waiver day. Along the lines of "100 books I've read, but you probably haven't". I was planning a power point of the covers (all published April 2009-April 2010) with a brief genre heading, an excel spreadsheet with author, title, genre, description and room for comment in the order of the power point (but would e mail people copies they could sort), and then when I gave the power point, would briefly mention what students might like to read it, and what was great about it. Came up with 75 books just from my reading log.

Would something like this be helpful to teachers and librarians? What's a better title?

The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade

In Arthur Slade's The Hunchback Assignments, Modo, a "monster child" has been raised to function in Victorian society and as a spy by an enigmatic man, Socrates, who suddenly drops the boy off on the streets of London to survive on his own. Modo manages to surivive, using his shape-shifting skills to disguise his deformities, and takes detective assignments by mail to earn his keep. When he runs into Octavia Milkweed after being kidnapped and almost killed, he finds out that Socrates has an entire organization of spies that is working to counteract a dastardly plot to overthrow the government by harnessing the power of children-- unfortunately, by hideously disfiguring them into "wolf children". Octavia and Modo work together to save Prince Albert, who is one of these children, and keep London from being destroyed. This took me a while to get into, but I had to finish it before I left for work this morning. Slightly reminiscent of Monstrumologist and Montmorency, once the students get hooked on the Steampunk movement (Is this more of a college thing? My students have never heard of it.), they'll adore this book, and it feels open to a sequel.

My apologies to Leonard Marcus (whose Funny Business, I reviewed yesterday rather lukewarmly). I spent most of my evening reading his Golden Legacy:How Golden Books Won Children's Heart, Changed Publishing Forever, and Became an American Icon Along the Way. Fascinating. Quoted huge sections out loud to children. This is a very complete discussion of anything anyone could want to know about Little Golden Books: directors of the company, artists, impact, stories, covers, and on and on. Even though I dislike picture books, I LOVE Little Golden Books. This is coffee table sized, marvelously well illustrated. Sigh. Can I find an excuse to purchase it for my library, or will I just have to buy my own?

The disappointment of the evening was Julia Keller's Back Home. I wanted to like this book, because a lot of my boys have devoured Myers' Sunrise Over Fallujah and even McCormick's Purple Heart, which still makes me a bit uneasy (language). My biggest reservation (that I have voiced frequently) is that in general, girls do not want to read books about war. Boys want to read about the actual fighting, not about what happens at home. Purple Heart discusses an injury, but in a different setting. This is a problem novel, and just not what my students are wanting. There are a lot of people who really liked this one, however.
School Library Journal Blog
Pop Culture Junkie
Smart Girls Read

Have to admit that last night my daughter and I sat around with Adam Selzer's I Put a Spell on You and tried to sing the songs in the back. Good stuff. Maybe I just can't remember, but I really need the tune to "I'm High on Self-Esteem" so I can break into an operatic rendering of it next week when my principal observes me. I'd launch into "It's Cool to Stay in School", but the "Now I'm a homeless junkie and I'm dumber than a mule" line-- well, not the impression I'm hoping to create.