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June 30, 2007

Summer Reading: One Month Down, One to Go

Awhile back, I promised to show more of our Summer Reading Game, and this gorgeous Saturday afternoon is about the quietest we've been since June 4th when the game began. You've already seen some pictures of the game being built. This is the first year we have used a wooden frame, and it's given the foamboard games a lot of stability, which with 1500 kids (and counting) using it, it needs.

Little kids game.

Kids get a turn for every 5 books someone reads to them, and they may play any one of 5 activities such as put the ring around Saturn, or digging for moonrocks. The cut paper illustrations were made by our own Lauren Collen.

The circle is a cutout the children look through. One side is a cute space alien; the other side is a rocketship--the little kids put on an astronaut helmet (if they want) and we hold up a mirror so they can see what they look like.

Next week, I'll show the big kids game!

Posted by susan at 3:22 PM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2007

Of missing buckets and lost penguins

My feet have now (mostly) recovered from ALA, which continued to be great fun. Two funny stories:

A friend who worked at an exhibit discovered that the bucket they were using to collect raffle slips was missing. Awhile later, the bucket mysteriously reappeared. The next day, a grandma stopped by the booth and explained that her granddaughter had suddenly felt sick and...well...you can probably guess the rest. She assured the exhibitors that she washed the bucket out really well in the bathroom. A couple of days later, the exhibitor across the way got around to mentioning that she'd seen a little girl throwing up into the bucket, and commented, "What a good thing you had two buckets!"

The other funny moment was at the Newbery banquet when in the break between dinner and dessert, a few of us went in search of a washroom. We hunted in vain, all drifting off further and further from the banquet hall in different directions, and it struck me that it was just like in the hilarious Youtube video made at Midwinter, narrated as if the librarians were penguins in March of the Penguins. We had become the penguins who get separated from the rest of the flock and are doomed. Happily, we did finally find our way back to the flock in time to hear Susan Patron's Newbery Award speech as well as seeing her skillful use of the raised eyebrow as devastating punctuation.

Posted by susan at 3:08 PM | Comments (2)

June 23, 2007

Walking your feet off@your library conference

I'm writing from ALA in Washington, DC. At this point, my fingers are about the only part of me still willing to move!

So far, I have:
~Seen Children's Poet Laureate Jack Prelutsky from a few feet away--he had the longest line I saw today
~Seen Judy Blume from about 1 foot away, and she looks EXACTLY like Judy Blume
~Seen YA author John Green, who to me these days after several months of watching his video blog Brotherhood 2.0 in which he and his brother Hank correspond seems like a movie star to me (and my 16-year-old and 20-year-old sons as well)
~Managed to pick up and mail back to myself a box of Advanced Reader copies within the first hour of the exhibits opening...now all I need to do is schlep back the ones I picked up after that to the conference to mail them with the ones I'll get tomorrow!
~Heard an interesting session on word-of-mouth marketing, all about getting the people who already think the library is great to tell other people about it
~Decided on the perfect shoes for walking the exhibit hall. I feel sure that if I had been wearing the Crocs I saw someone else wearing, my feet wouldn't be so tired right now. Sure they're ugly...but right now, they sure sound great to me. Good thing I can type without using my feet or you would not be reading this.
~Met an online friend I had never met in person, which I suppose is sort of like meeting a penpal back 50 years ago--very fun to match your online impressions with the living reality!
~Heard David Almond speak in his lovely Northern English accent, which means I will never read his books the same way again
~Was casually introduced to someone a friend/children's book author was talking to who turned out to be Gregory Maguire...yes, that's Gregory Maguire, as in the author of Wicked. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!

I loved PLA and look forward to the next one, but there is nothing quite like ALA. At any given time, there are at least 3 sessions I would like to attend whilst walking around the exhibit hall and perhaps putting my feet up and taking a little snooze. And this was just the first day! More later...

Posted by susan at 8:43 PM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2007

Scieszka and Lane got it right

We're heading into the time of year when children's librarians all around the country start to feel the way Scieszka and Lane's heroes do in their perfectly-titled book, Summer Reading Is Killing Me!

It's fun, we love it, it's great to see the kids back again, the long lines at Circ make us happy...and it's like running a 9-week marathon. We dream about it at night, with phrases like "Every time you read for an hour, that earns you another turn on the game!!!" popping up so that there isn't even complete respite when we sleep.

I was a little dubious about the space theme of "Mission Read: To the Library and Beyond" this year but I must admit that the Summer Reading Committee and the library's graphics whiz and Publicity Coordinator have made it into a very entertaining and beautiful game.

Mission Control under construction

Mission Control, where the kids sign in

Gameboard 1 of 3 under construction

I'll tell more about our game later! Meanwhile, here is my #1 way to tell that you are in the midst of Summer Reading stress: You go to the bathroom and discover that you have put your pants on backward! Do not ask me how I know this.

Posted by susan at 7:36 AM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2007

Tolerance for ambiguity

Sopranos spoilers ahead!

As soon as the final episode of The Sopranos aired, four things happened at our house:
1. We laughed and laughed.
2. We said "Oooooh, people are going to be SO mad!"
3. We laughed some more.
4. We started talking about the upcoming "final episode" of Harry Potter.

I think that shift to discussing Harry Potter happened for many people who followed both long-running series. Both series had huge audiences who had spent a lot of time in advance speculating on possible plot twists and debating what would constitute a satisfying ending.

Obviously, for many viewers the ending of The Sopranos was intolerably ambiguous. It is open to interpretation, and you can argue that Tony is dead or that they all died just as the screen went black or that they all went on with their lives in just the same mundane way punctuated with violence and sweetness and sorrow that they had before. I'm in the last camp, but I'm very okay with writer David Chase leaving the ending wide open. At the same time, I will NOT feel that way if Rowling does the same thing with Harry.

It's taken me a long time to reach the point where I enjoy ambiguity. As a child, I wanted things to happen in a predictable, understandable way, and I certainly wanted closure. I think that it's a rare kid who can stand leaving things up in the air and open to interpretation. The question is, did Rowling write a book to satisfy the child audience that Harry began with? Did she write it for the young adults who have been reading ever since the first book came out? Or did she write it purely for herself?

Many in that young adult group, to judge from the admittedly limited pool of the children of staff members of the Niles Public Library and their friends, feel that the death of Harry is what makes a lot of sense from a traditional fantasy arc of storytellling. My sons (ages 16 and 20) are more in the Snape/Neville will provide a satisfactory sacrifice camp, which is my camp as well. But that age group in general requires a death with substantial meaning to conclude the series.

However Rowling ends it, though, is going to be fine with me. Writers do not owe their readers a thing. Readers can like what the writers give them, or they can hate it, and we certainly can express our opinions about it. But David Chase did not owe viewers a tidy, clear ending to The Sopranos, and while I will disagree with Rowling's choice for a children's book series if she leaves it wide open, I will argue with anyone who claims she doesn't have the right to write whatever she thinks is best for her characters. She made them up, and we may love them but they are hers, just as Tony and his family and his Family are Chase's.

Posted by susan at 7:48 AM | Comments (0)