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April 24, 2008

No Child Left Behind @ your library?

I am back on my early literacy soapbox, thanks to the checklist someone passed to me of how library staff in one library system are being rated on their storytimes. The checklist is entirely based on Every Child Ready to Read standards. It includes things like: "Presenter makes connections between letters in children's names and in alphabet book or book title".

Reading is important. Building reading skills is important. Getting young children ready to read using the six skills of early literacy is important. But the most important thing is story.

Schools have to implement No Child Left Behind styles of teaching reading to get funded. But I think many of us in Youth Services would agree that focusing too much on the mechanics of reading is a huge mistake. Are we falling into that same trap in libraries?

It's the stories that count the most. Story is fundamental iin humankind--it's why we pass them along for hundreds of years. It's why we tell them to our children over and over. Stories help children become loving, connected, ethical human beings by what they tell about how people relate to each other. (Often the "people" are animals in picture books, but it means the same thing.) Stories are also how children can broaden their experience out of their own family into the whole big world out there of the past and the present and the potential future.

I love building early literacy elements into the library space. And any good storytime provider is going to work the six early literacy skills into their story programs naturally, because books are made out of words and words are made out of letters and leading children into talking about the stories and predicting what's going to happen are just the sorts of things you do while reading with children.

But you have to start with good stories. In my Storytime for Big Kids program this week (ages 4-K) these kids, like so many others I have worked with over the years, were amazed and delighted by Keiko Kasza's The Wolf's Chicken Stew. I could have spent a lot of time talking about how the wolf was making 100 of each food to feed the chicken to fatten her up; we could have speculated on whether the foods were nutritious or discussed if one of the children in the room had a name that began with W, same as Wolf....but all of that would have sidetracked the surprise that makes children burst out laughing, when the Chicken introduces "Uncle Wolf" to the 100 chicks he's been inadvertently feeding.

It's the story that counts. It's the story that provides the foundation, and the phonological awareness, letter knowledge, print motivation and so on get swept in with that great belly laugh and the longing to read the story again and again. So please, put "Did the presenter use some great stories" on your storytime checklists. Otherwise, all we are providing is No Child Left Behind @ Your Library.

Posted by susan at 12:58 PM | Comments (5)

March 21, 2008

Library books are too scary!

Last weekend, a mother asked me to help her find some books for her preschool daughter that might persuade her that all library books are not scary. She explained that for her daughter, any book where someone expressed fear, or there were surprises, or someone got angry, were all very stressful. Even beloved Mister Rogers was scary to this little girl on the days when he covered subjects like "What do you do with the mad that's inside you?

I tackled the subject enthusiastically, but a few shelves of books later I realized just how challenging the problem was for her. Almost all picture books have an arc to them, and most of the time, the peak of the book would be stressful to a very sensitive child. Think of how many books you've read where baby duck wanders away from mama duck, or where the curious dog goes out exploring and gets into trouble! For most children, it's a good, healthy way to have a little tension that then gets resolved at the end.

For this child, though, the stress of the library books became too much for her, and she began to refuse to read anything that came from the library. She was okay with her own books at home, because she knew them already. She knew they would come out happily, so she could bear the stressful middles. But library books are unknown. Beneath all those beautiful covers lurk lost, scared, worried, or angry characters!

Adult readers, I think, sometimes worry too much about kids finding a book scary. But some of us go the other direction and worry too little about it. I realized in looking for safe, sweet books that most of the books I love to use in storytime would send this child screaming from the room--anything by William Steig, say, or Lilly spending time in the Uncooperative Chair once again. So this gave me something to ponder, and also a good idea for a new bibliography.

Here are a couple I gave to the mom, if you ever need some happy, safe reading for yourself or for a child:

It sure isn't easy, being a kid!

Posted by susan at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)

January 17, 2008

I'm thrilled and I'm mad--this year's ALA awards

I couldn't be more thrilled by the Newbery Committee's picks, esp. giving the top honor to the wonderful Laura Amy Schlitz's unconventional book Good Masters, Sweet Ladies: Voices from a Medieval Village. I thought her book A Drowned Maiden's Tale was overlooked last year, but she sure wasn't overlooked this one! Bravo to the Newbery Committee and all of their choices.

I also loved all of the choices on the Caldecott Committee's list, but being the stick-in-the-mud that I am, I didn't agree that their top choice should have been on the list at all. It's not exactly the committee's fault. They just interpreted the criteria completely literally. There's nothing in the criteria that says a picture book has to be, well, a picture book. But since it's a literary award given out by the American Library Association, I think they need to interpret picture book more narrowly to include the criteria that a picture book is a book that is shelved in the picture book section. Nobody would call The Invention of Hugo Cabret a picture book, except someone using the Caldecott criteria.

Now the door has been opened for that award to be interpreted much more broadly. It has always been for up to age 14, and I have no quarrel with that. But it will bring in graphic novels of all kinds, and so very disparate forms will be vying for the same award. We need a new award to cover the newer forms, and let the Caldecott be for picture books as we interpret it in the real world as it has always been.

Did I mention that Hugo Cabret is one of my very favorite books of the year? Because it is!

Posted by susan at 1:24 PM | Comments (0)

December 7, 2007

Will Hugo Cabret lead to a new book award?

After a vigorous discussion of Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret at NSLS this morning, I came away with the strong feeling that we are on the verge of a change. As most of you know, Hugo Cabret is told both through Selznick's evocative pencil illustrations and through his text--without one of those, you don't have the whole story. One person brought along the audiobook version of Hugo, and explained that in place of the pictures, it uses sound effects--where a picture might show Hugo walking, the audio version uses the sound of feet walking along. So, while the beauty of the pictures isn't there, some of the information being conveyed is.

I think everyone at the table agreed that Hugo is a magnificent book, and fits the bill for the Newbery in being "distinguished". Here's the question: Does the book work well enough through the writing alone to merit the Newbery? And here's the other question: Are we living in a time when it will become necessary through all of the new ways of looking at the world and at literacy to revise the Newbery criteria to fit the whole package? And here's one more question: Would it be better to come up with an award that could encompass works that are both visual and verbal, and may also include other formats as well? And if so, who would sponsor that award? Would ALSC and YALSA each want their own version of it?

I would maintain that according to the Newbery criteria as they currently stand, Hugo relies too much on the illustration to fit the bill. Too much of what I know about Hugo himself, about the setting, and too much of the pacing come through those pictures for the award for writing to go to that book. It fits the Caldecott even less, because as far as I'm concerned, any book that would not be shelved in the picture book section should not win the Caldecott medal.

So that means that one of the year's best books winds up slipping through the cracks completely for the major ALA awards. Too young for the Printz, too many pictures for the Newbery, not a picture book for the Caldecott. I guess I'm in favor of revising the criteria of both the Newbery and Caldecott to better encompass the books of the future. Otherwise, the Newbery medal may come to be associated not just with books that don't especially appeal to kids (a longstanding issue) but also with books that are old-fashioned. We don't need a new award--we need a new way of looking at the Newbery.

Posted by susan at 4:32 PM | Comments (1)

November 19, 2007

The snowflake bidding begins!

Did your favorite picture book artist create a snowflake to buy this year? The first auction begins today, so come spend a few pleasant minutes browsing through the creative work of these artists, and find one to bid on!

Posted by susan at 7:41 AM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2007

Mock Newbery Discussion Dec 7

The annual Mock Newbery Discussion will be held at NSLS on Dec. 7th. Titles for discussion were selected on the basis of great reviews, great buzz in the children's lit community, suggestions from librarians, and maybe a little bit of I loved it so it's on the list.

One of the most interesting parts of the discussion promises to be on Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret, since as most of you know, the story is told through a combination of words and pictures. However, the Newbery medal is given on the basis of the writing, so it should be fun to talk about!

The remaining titles are:
Gantos, Jack. I Am Not Joey Pigza.

Schmidt, Gary. The Wednesday Wars.

Schlitz, Laura Amy. Good Masters, Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village.

Curtis, Christopher Paul. Elijah of Buxton.

__________________________________________________________________
Then, for readers who have enough time, they should go on to read these:

Woodson, Jacqueline. Feathers.

Babbitt, Natalie. Jack Plank Tells Tales.

Hale, Shannon. Book of a Thousand Days.

To sign up for the discussion, go here. Come even if you can only read 1 or 2!

Posted by susan at 3:23 PM | Comments (0)

November 1, 2007

Does the Caldecott go to male illustrators?

For a energetic discussion of whether it's worthy of note that the Caldecott Medal very often goes to male illustrators, take a look at Roger Sutton's blog, and take the time to read through the (now) 43 comments. It's quite fascinating.

Posted by susan at 9:01 AM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2007

Want to buy a snowflake?

Robert's Snow Snowflake Auction
I first became aware of the annual snowflake auction the same year that my dear friend's nephew Allen was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma. In a sad coincidence, children's book illustrator Grace Lin's husband Robert was also diagnosed with this cancer, which tends to strike young men, but Grace took action by recruiting her fellow children's illustrators to raise money by creating an amazing series of wooden snowflakes, each painted or decorated in the artist's personal style.

Even during Allen's fight against Ewing's, medical developments were moving along quickly, and Allen's family gained more time with him before he slipped away at age 17; Grace Lin's husband Robert also slipped away this past August. But the snowflake auction to benefit the Dana Farber Cancer Institute continues in 2007 with a stunning array of wooden snowflakes for us to bid upon. You can see all of the snowflakes here.

Ilene Richard, illustrator of The Teacher with the Alligator Purse and others, contributed her 3D snowflake "Maude" to the auction. Her snowflake isn't yet on view on the official site, but here is a sneak preview.

You can also see her ebullient style at her website. Her artwork is lively and fun with its intense colors and comical exaggeration, but Ilene began creating snowflakes in memory of her father, who also died of cancer, so her mission is a serious one. We hope you will take the time to see the snowflakes and come back in November to start bidding! I will post a link to "Maude" as soon as it is available.

To see the entries featuring other illustrators each day, don't forget to check the always entertaining children's literature blog, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast!

Posted by susan at 6:53 AM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2007

Love of Stories vs. Phonemics

A friend recently commented that her son had his first day of Kindergarten and they tested his reading. (Right there, that makes me sad.) His mother asked how he did, and he said that he couldn't really read the words, and that puzzled both of them because he knows quite a few words. Another friend was able to explain that the school was probably using the DIBELS Nonsense Word assessment, one where the children are tested in their fluency in reading words that don't actually mean anything. In other words, they're being tested on how well they can sound things out while completely ignoring meaning.

Yes, let's get rid of those pesky words. They just complicate everything. This is why I am beginning to worry that libraries are beginning to go off-track where our mission is concerned. I think we have a vital role to play in getting "Every Child Ready to Read," but it feels to me like too much of the emphasis in the discussion of storytimes now sounds an awful lot like the same things kids are being taught in school that passes for reading. I see our role as making sure children are exposed to great authors and great art, and to the stories that people have been passing along for generations as well as the amazing new books being created daily. When you do it right, when you pick books that are magical and find fingerplays and songs that match those books, and you include nursery rhymes and poetry, and you invite the children to predict what's happening next in the story...those are all the same skills they will need to learn to read.

They are going to spend way too much of their school years focusing on the mechanics of reading. We can incorporate ABCs and the sounds of letters while not losing sight of the story. Am I all alone on this?

Posted by susan at 2:07 PM | Comments (0)

September 1, 2007

Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed!

Sometimes you just have to hold your nose and purchase something putrid. If you as a librarian live by the oft-quoted phrase "A good library should have something to offend everyone," then sometimes you have to buy things that you find offensive. We purchased Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! at a patron's request, and I'd like to heartily encourage other libraries to feel very free to ILL it rather than purchasing another copy. I couldn't find any reviews of it in the major journals, so I thought at least I would do the public service of reviewing it now.

DeBrecht, Katharine. Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! Illustrated by Jim Hummel. Kids Ahead/World Ahead Publishing, 2005.

A pair of brothers long for a swing set, but their parents insist that "having everything given to them would not make them feel good about themselves, and that earning things on their own would make them feel proud and become better people." Since in a happy coincidence they have a lemon tree growing in their yard, Tommy and Lou get the great idea of selling lemonade. They then fall asleep and dream that they live in a nightmarish world called "Liberaland". Their lemonade stand is initially a huge success, and they even begin putting money aside for kids with no shoes, but then a liberal comes along and takes half of their earnings in taxes and uses the money to buy dustpans for the children who need shoes. The boys are also forced to take down their picture of Jesus and replace it with a picture of a big toe, and after many other unreasonable changes are made to the stand, the liberals take it over altogether.

DeBrecht's clumsy writing style ("'Well,' the liberal's red cheeks smiled") reads like someone who hasn't read children's books thinks children's books sound. Hummel's cartoon illustrations, while better-executed, fall into the same trap with such clunky cliches as all of the children's signs using backward letter E's. Any witty moments are thoroughly mired in nastiness, and none of it makes sense anyway--who paid for the sugar in the lemonade? Who paid for the glasses? How could a lemon tree have "hundreds of lemons on each outstretched branch"? Dustpans? Sometimes random things aren't funny, they are just dumb.

But to be fair, the book is exactly what it attempts to be: A satire on liberals. It is unintentionally satirical at times as well, as in the portrait of Ronald Reagan in the boys' living room with his eyes gazing upward just like in many home portraits of Jesus. But make no mistake, this satire on liberals is very pointed, with many references to recognizable politicians such as Hilary Clinton (seen teetering on her high heels in a pink pantsuit) and Jimmy Carter. The author and illustrator apparently so despise Teddy Kennedy that they have put him in twice, physically as Mayor Leach but also as the senator from Taxachusetts. Adults of a conservative mindset will get several chuckles from this picture book, but they are its only likely audience.

Posted by susan at 9:04 AM | Comments (1)

August 10, 2007

It's time for weeding!

I have hit upon a great metaphor for weeding a collection--the parallels are amazing. Are you ready? It's....like weeding your garden! Okay, that wasn't exactly my idea, but it did hit me full force today as I was doing battle in my backyard with the weeds that have gotten out of control while we were on vacation.

Of course there are your obvious things that should be weeded--your field bindweed, your deadly nightshade, your book from 1987 on new dinosaur discoveries. Those are no-brainers, and you yank them. But sometimes time gets away from you, and you don't quite get around to doing the necessary pulling, and then your bindweed is strangling your rosebush, and your science and social studies books are sadly out of date. This is the time of year (between Summer Reading and the beginning of school) to get in their and yank those weeds out of there!

The more interesting parallel, though, is with the plants that aren't weeds, exactly. Maybe they are nice plants--marjoram, or sage, or buttercups. So as you are planting your nice new spring plants/books, you go ahead and leave them there, because really, there's nothing wrong with them. If your shelves are a little overstuffed or your garden looks a little crowded, that's okay, isn't it? Well, if I hadn't already gotten in there and done some serious weeding in my garden this morning, I'd show you a picture of what a bad idea that is. Let's just say that the sage and the marjoram won and the pretty little carnations? Not so pretty anymore.

My point is if you don't go ahead and pull the "I know this book never circulates but it has some good information in it and the cover is just a little shabby" books then before you know it, your beautiful new books are lost in a sea of books that clearly your patrons don't want or they would be checking them out!

Of course you have to make case-by-case distinctions. We have certain authors we love so much that we don't ever throw their books out even when they don't circulate in our particular library--Virginia Hamilton comes to mind. I guess that would be the rosebush that isn't really suited to your garden's climate or soil but you love it and you keep nurturing it. That's not so bad. But sometimes in gardening and in weeding, you have to make some hard decisions, and eventually maybe it's time to pull out that fragile rosebush and put in the new variety so it has room to grow.

But let me just reiterate that we need to all be aware that there is no central repository for children's literature, and I hope everyone in this age of computer catalogs makes sure they aren't throwing out the last rosebush of its kind.

I could go on with the gardening metaphors--poetry is like the perennial that only blooms once a year during National Poetry Month but you keep it around because it is SO beautiful when it does bloom...but I will spare you. After all, you need to get in there and do some weeding!

Posted by susan at 3:14 PM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2007

Dear Ingram: Where Are My Harry's?

Friday afternoon, 2:00, the Niles Public Library District still has not received their promised 30 copies of Harry. The book processors are leaving for the day, and we still have no Harrys for them to process.

Next time there's a big book that people want instantly when it's open for distribution, I am ordering direct. Ingram, you have let me down, and I say that while still assuming that the UPS truck will be rolling up any second now. It's not like I didn't order the copies several months ago...

Update: 2:20

Posted by susan at 1:57 PM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2007

Girl Books and Boy Books

It works like a charm: whenever there is a 7th/8th grade boy standing in front of our service desk asking for a book off of the Rebecca Caudill list to read, the only available book is

This year's Caudill list (Illinois' children's choice award) seems to be the most divided ever between books that appeal to girls, and books that appeal to boys, with not a lot appealing to both equally. It's an excellent list with lots of good choices in general, but still...how did they end up with so many books that fall squarely in one camp or the other?

My instinct is that it fits with the whole princess fad in general. Little girls can wear pink from head to toe, often with sparkles, and their books have begun taking on that appearance too. Princess Academy is relatively restrained. There is also a huge surge in books about fairies, as you may have noticed, and of course the very popular Emily Windsnap to appeal to mermaid fans.

Then on the other side, we have the whole Guys Read phenomenon, which generally is a great thing--we have a display in our library filled with sports and dragons and adventure books and raucous humor.

But in general, I'm a little queasy about the way book jackets are signaling so strongly that a book is intended for a girl audience or has boy appeal. I reviewed the new Sharon Creech book for Horn Book , and made my 17-year-old son burst out laughing when I jokingly handed it to him out of my bag when he had asked for his own book. Yet over half of the characters in that book are boys, and there's no reason at all for them to have given it a cover like this:

Do they feel that the only way a book will sell these days is if it appeals to one group or the other? There was some complaint this past year that all four of the Newbery choices were girl-centered, character-based books with nothing there to appeal to boys. Are the books becoming more divided, or is it the audience? Are we telling girls and boys that they should be reading different books?

Posted by susan at 4:24 PM | Comments (2)

July 11, 2007

Harry Potter and libraries vs. bookstores

New York Times article
There's a lot of buzz in the mainstream press right now claiming that Harry Potter books have not changed the reading habits of a generation--that kids slow down in their reading as they get older in just the same way they did before.

First, I'm not sure I entirely believe it. I think the Harry Potter books clearly introduced a generation of readers to the idea that reading could be worth a certain amount of effort, and that all that practice has to have paid off in their reading skills. There's just no way to measure what they would have been like without Harry.

But it also strikes me--and I'll be the first to admit I'm prejudiced on this subject--that when the whole Harry phenomenon got taken over by the bookstores, some kids lost their chance to become introduced to the library as the source for other books that they might like too. After the second book came out and was SO phenomenally popular, bookstores jumped on the bandwagon in a huge way. Our library Harry Potter parties went from being crammed with excited attendees to having okay attendance, but not more than most other programs. The buzz was all with the midnight parties at the bookstores.

Libraries can't compete with the consumer appetite to get the next new thing NOW, and bookstores can. But it's a shame that some kids who might have found their way to the library through the Harry Potter craze got sidetracked into stores instead. I can't help thinking it might have made a difference for the kids to have formed relationships with library staff that might have helped them find their way to other books they might have liked just as well. Of course there are some wonderful bookstore staffs, but I will put a dedicated children's librarian up against most of them any day. Like I said, I'm prejudiced that way.

Posted by susan at 4:32 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 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)

May 22, 2007

Do you have time to read grown-up books?

I must confess that my reading lately is almost all limited to children's and YA books. I read more slowly now, and discussion groups keep highlighting great new books for kids and YAs and somehow, I only find time for grown-up books on vacations. Okay, I'll admit it: TiVo probably doesn't help.

But if I were to wear one of those buzz marketing buttons where you invite someone to ask what you're reading, I could say "Moby Dick," because that really is what I'm reading. In a convoluted sort of way, it is Roger Sutton's fault. Roger, editor of the children's review journal The Horn Book Magazine, posted on his so-wonderful-I-am-jealous blog this entry about a company that markets a text reader where the sentences are broken up into short increments. On the site, they have a demo you can try, so I did, and found myself immediately caught up in, of all things, Moby Dick!

I didn't find the reader all that helpful, but it did get me started. Since Melville's masterpiece is in the public domain, you can find the entire humongous novel online, and you know, it is not hard at all to read a chapter a day of anything, even a book you might as an English major have successfully avoided for decades. So, for your enjoyment, here it is: http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/. You would be amazed at all of the classics you can find online--everything from Bleak House to the Aeneid.

So now, even with a TiVo filled to the brim, the Summer Reading Game looming on the horizon, and stacks of YA novels and children's books to read, I can say I'm reading Moby Dick. What are you reading?

Posted by susan at 4:08 PM | Comments (0)

May 4, 2007

My unpopular opinions

Maybe it's just that it's Friday after a long week, but instead of being perky and positive, I feel like airing a couple of my unpopular opinions. So here goes!

Number 1 and Number 2 on the NYT Best Seller List for Children's Books are both way too fancy for me: too glittery, too pink, too cluttery, too frilly, too repetitive, and yes, too fancy.
Fancy Nancy makes my teeth hurt. Initially it made me laugh, but something about Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy has now turned me against the first book, too. Give me Ramona Quimby's doll Chevrolet over Nancy's doll Marabelle Lavinia Chandelier any day.

My second unpopular opinion? Jack Prelutsky is great. (Okay, that's not unpopular. ) Chris Raschka is wonderful. Put them together and you should have an extraordinary collaboration, right? Yes, except if the subject is sports poems,
because no matter who is writing them, sports poems are all the same. Just pick one of four possibilities:
1. Kid is bad at sports but succeeds this time
2. Kid is great at sports but fails this time
3. Kid is great at sports and succeeds this time
4. Kid is bad at sports and once again fails
Just keep making it different sports, and soon you have a book of not very interesting poetry. It's a waste of a great collaboration in my unpopular opinion.

Posted by susan at 3:31 PM | Comments (1)

March 29, 2007

Die, Ron, Die! and other annoying comments

Unless you've been confined to Azkaban lately, you probably have seen the cover for the new and final Harry Potter book. Once again, adults are posting their opinions about Harry, and once again, I am getting very irritated.

Fandom raises its ugly, divisive head all over other areas of pop culture as most computer-literate, Buffy/Star Trek/most-graphic-novel series followers are all too aware. The fans of these series argue vehemently over character development, speculate on plot twists to come, and express hatred and love with tremendous feeling. And that's fine. Whatever makes you happy.

But seeing the fandom that swirls around Harry Potter is weirdly distressing and unfamiliar. I can't think of another children's book series that has drawn adults into the same kinds of extreme opinions and to me, repellent, expressions of devotion and loathing. When I see adults writing things like "Die, Ron, die!" it makes me wish I believed in censorship. I just wouldn't allow those obnoxious grown-ups to read Harry if they can't behave nicely.

Okay, I don't really mind their expressing their (stupid) opinions. They annoy me, but lots of things annoy me. What I mind is the way fans try to bully an author into writing what they want them to write. The Harry/Hermione fans are going to be furious if at the end of Deathly Hallows Harry ends up with Ginny, and they aren't shy about saying so. Imagine writing to Beverly Cleary and telling her, "When Ramona is in junior high, I don't want her to date that moron Howie. I think Henry Huggins should be her boyfriend! Die, Howie, Die!"

Grown-ups. Yuck. I'm so glad I'm a children's librarian.

Posted by susan at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2007

Age 12 going on 10 or 18, depending

The new NSLS Fast Facts survey on serving middle grade students brings up a subject I find pretty interesting. It was reassuring to see that many of the public libraries in this area treat the young adolescents as the dual-natured people that they are. You have your kids who are dying to reach the adult world and are 12 going on 18 (at least); you have your kids who are reluctant to leave the child world behind and are 12 going on 10, and then of course thanks to the wonders of hormone fluctuations you have the many kids who are anywhere from age 8 to age 40 all within one hour.

I strongly advocate libraries sharing service to this age group. Let them sort themselves out--let the Too Cool for the Children's Department kids head to Adult; let the I Still Love the Books I Loved Before kids keep coming to Youth Services, and let the staff work together on programming. Let's keep the Newbery medal going up to age 14 while the Printz goes down to 12. Let's not create firm boundaries for our own organizational convenience. Let's keep it nice and messy, just like the kids themselves!

Posted by susan at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2007

What if you're the last one?

It seems to me that in the day and age of the computer, we ought to be doing a better job of making sure the children's books that were worth buying in the first place don't slip quietly away as libraries discard them. In the past, it was almost impossible to know if your library held the last copy of a book, whether it was #63 in a series of 64 books, or something by a local author who never won an award but was still really good or "the book I read when I was about 10 at summer camp about a girl who saves a horse. It had a green cover." Now, it's possible to know.

Whenever the subject comes up in youth services, as it recently did at a CCS meeting of the Public Access Services (PAS) group, the concern tends to be downplayed for some pretty good and some pretty bad reasons. A pretty good reason seems to be the library who is in the position of having to weed one book every time they purchase a book until their taxpayers vote them a new building. In that position, I would probably not be overly concerned about saving precious unique books. I would regret it....but I'd have other things on my mind.

The other reasons people give for not worrying about it don't seem as plausible to me. There's the:
~The Why should we care more about children's books than adult books? argument to which I answer Not My Problem. Adult librarians can be in charge of worrying about that one.

~~The Is it really worth worrying about? There are new books coming out every day! argument to which I answer look at how popular old TV shows are. People like to read the books they read in their childhood when their kids and grandkids get to be the right age.

~~~The Don't worry, the Library of Congress/Center for Children's Books/Unnamed Magical Other Place with Infinite Capacity argument to which I answer Don't count on it. The fact is, no one is making sure the last copies of things don't disappear. I contacted Dr. Betsy Hearne at the Center for Children's Books at the University of Illinois, who confirmed that they are in fact weeding their collection right now too.

So none of those are great arguments or solutions as far as I can see. I'd like to see the conversation continue, because with the resources we have these days, we actually do know if we're about to toss something out that might be the last of its kind. Is there some organized way we can try to hold onto those books?

Posted by susan at 3:20 PM | Comments (0)

February 27, 2007

I am NOT a censor!

Is there any librarian out there who wouldn't say (and loudly), "I am NOT a censor!"? I encountered someone recently who claimed not to believe in censorship, and explained in the next sentence that she thought this year's Newbery winner did not belong in the children's department of public libraries. Her reasoning was that it was a young adult book, I guess because the s-word did not belong in a children's book. The main character is ten, and absolutely nothing happens that would be inappropriate in a children's book, so let me just put it out there: she's kidding herself. She wants to call it YA because that makes her feel better about not buying it. She is a censor.

But she's not the only one. I'll bet we routinely kid ourselves when we censor. For one thing, we always call it selection rather than censorship. Nobody can afford to buy everything, so part of what we are paid for is our professional expertise on which of the 4000+ books that will come out this year we will buy. Obviously we're going to pick up the book on a current topic that's gotten stars from the various review journals. Obviously we're NOT going to buy the book that's gotten lousy reviews and is overpriced to boot. But from there, the waters get a lot more murky. Maybe I'm not going to buy that book that got fantastic reviews but is on a subject that I can't imagine kids truly being nearly as interested in as the adult reviewers (Kurlansky's book about cod, say) and I think that's still clearly selection, though of course it is nudging a little closer to censorship because it's based on my opinion of what would interest kids. But let's say maybe it's a book with okay reviews on Britney Spears, and I feel that Britney, with her public meltdowns and her public appearances sans underwear, has become a poor role model for today's kids, so I decide not to buy that book. That, my librarian friends, is really close to censorship. That's not comfortable, though, so I might tell myself instead, "Oh, let's wait and see how Britney does after rehab and THEN buy something--this book will be out of date so quickly".

I think one of the best things about the whole Lucky debate has been the opportunity for each of us to take a good look in the mirror. Are you a censor? Sometimes, maybe, just a little?

Posted by susan at 4:20 PM | Comments (1)

February 18, 2007

A lot of fuss over one word

Here are the things I hate about the whole "scrotum" discussion:

*It makes librarians look like idiots. From one point of view, it makes us look like twittering old-fashioned ladies who get fussed easily. From another point of view, it makes us look like conservative-baiting, agenda-driven, untrustworthy guardians of children. How many people reading that article do you think looked at it and thought, "Yay, librarians are awesome!"

*It is polarizing. It is pitting school librarians against public librarians, and way too much of the discussion on the various listservs like Child_Lit and CCBC involves public librarians throwing stones at school librarians without any real empathy for the position school librarians are in. We are all in the same boat, but some of us can row a little further out without having our oars taken away than others.

*It isn't fostering healthy discussion that might offer support to the school librarians who want to risk buying this year's Newbery winner; it just bashes the ones who made an instant decision not to buy. I don't think any of the ensuing discussion will have changed their minds, because it has been so (sorry!) self-righteous.

*It distracts from what to me is the real issue with use of the word "scrotum". Here's the background, for those of you who haven't yet gotten your copy of this surprise winner. Ten-year-old Lucky is listening in on an Alcoholics Anonymous-like meeting where one of the members is describing when he hit bottom. It was when a rattlesnake bit his dog on the "scrotum" and he was too drunk to be able to help his dog. To me, the problem with the word "scrotum" is that it does indeed stick out from everything else in the book. Is it realistic to think that this character would have used that word in that context? It doesn't ring true to me. He'd likely have used a word that one really can't get away with in children's books, so does that mean you have to use the clinical-sounding word "scrotum"? No. As one of my staff commented, he could have just said "privates". Same point, better match with character, less fuss all around.

That said, I am proud that public librarians seem almost universally to be picking up this book. And to me, it seems like an opportunity to pick up this book just BECAUSE it won the Newbery Medal. You can just as easily use the argument that "People expect to find the Newbery Medal in the collection" as any of the more conservative excuses not to purchase. The bottom line is, kids do have a right to read the best books, and the Newbery medal by definition is the best of this year's books.

Well, personally I'd have picked Laura Schlitz's sublime A Drowned Maiden's Hair. But, that's neither here nor there.

Posted by susan at 5:46 PM | Comments (5)

February 1, 2007

July 21, 2007

The seventh and presumably last Harry Potter book will be released July 21, 2007. I can't decide...am I happy, sad, or annoyed? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6320733.stm

Annoyed is because you could hardly come up with a subject less related to our Summer Reading theme this year of Mission Read: To the Library and Beyond! Space and wizards do not make a very comfortable fit, and if we'd known about the release of HP7 it would have been tempting to switch to a more fantasy-based theme. But too much work has gone into Mission Read already, so that spaceship has sailed...er...blasted off.

Sad is of course because it's the last Harry! Bad things will happen in it, and at the last page the story will be over. That is really sad. I read the first Harry Potter as an advanced reader copy and fell in love back then. And the ending of the last book was so sad that when I was reading it out loud to my family we had to stop for awhile because it's hard to read and cry at the same time.

But I guess I'll try to focus on happy. Yippee, a new Harry to look forward to! And also, it will be very interesting to see what Rowling does AFTER Harry. Wonder how many years that will take?

Posted by susan at 7:40 AM | Comments (0)

January 24, 2007

Yay! Yay! Yay! Wha???? ALA/ALSC Awards

Watching this year's ALA/ALSC webcast (once I finally managed to get in, after multiple tries) was a strange experience. As each award category came up, my reaction was usually "Yay!" or at least "Okay!!" Loved the Sibert Committee's choices for juvenile nonfiction, loved the Printz, the King and Steptoe Awards, thought the Caldecott was fine (though I had thought Flotsam was very similar conceptually to last year's honor book The Red Book, so the choice surprised me)....and then they announce the oldest and most important medal last, the Newbery. And as each choice came up on the screen, I found myself saying, "I don't know that one....I don't know that one...that one sounds a little familiar...I never even HEARD of the gold medal winner! Wha????"

It's just very odd and a teensy bit embarrassing to be reviewing for two journals, and signing off on all of my department's hundreds of orders, and to come up not knowing each of the winners. I'm not criticizing the committee's choices--how could I, since I haven't read them yet? The one consolation is that everyone seems to have been equally taken off guard.

My favorite part about the awards is that the late James Marshall won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for "a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children". I think it's appropriately childlike and subversive that the list of the great author/illustrator's works includes titles like The Stupids Step Out.

Posted by susan at 1:56 PM | Comments (0)

January 3, 2007

The books--they sparkle!

Not the writing, sadly. The writing has included a good deal of 'meh,' a lot of 'seen it before,' and very little that sparkles. But what the books lack in ingenuity and polished prose, they make up for in glitter, and I mean that literally--it's one of the Trends of 2006.

Publishing houses are going to great lengths to catch our attention this year, so we have had book jackets with embossed lettering, shiny foil, cut-outs, and of course, glitter. They are pretty and eye-catching, but many of them aren't greatly improved by the addition of a necessary Mylar jacket for library circulation.

Another children's book trend this past year is the increase in the Everything and the Kitchen Sink book. You know the kind--there's the main story, and then there may be a whole second text in a different font aimed at a different audience. They may decide to add "value" to the book by writing one book to begin with, and then loading the back pages with lots of information which mostly doesn't correspond to the reading level of the first half of the book. Or, it may be a book about insects, but written in poetry, with a glossary at the back of each of the insects discussed, AND each of the poetic forms used. I am not making this up, by the way.

Another trend--the gatefold illustration. Publishers have decided that children's book buyers love illustrations with lots of flaps, and a big gatefold as a triumphant climax. Gatefolds can be very effective, if you're unfolding it to see the full span of the Brooklyn Bridge. But now I sometimes wonder if they are throwing them in to drive libraries crazy, because we all know that our patrons don't immediately realize that it's a folded page, and they rip them to shreds.

That's just a few of the year's trends in children's publishing--more to come!

Posted by susan at 4:32 PM | Comments (0)

November 30, 2006

Is print reference becoming obsolete?

Lately I notice that as I walk past my juvenile reference shelves, I increasingly think of it as an awful lot of money tied up in books which aren't used very often. I'm sure there are books there that go an entire year without being touched. Obviously, that's partly a staff issue--like everyone else, we've fallen into the habit of going to the Internet first and not quite getting around to checking the print resources. Using a powerful search engine can be a lot less frustrating than looking through indexes for a piece of information that might be a needle in a haystack. I remember once trying to help a boy with his assignment where he was supposed to find a number of different animals associated with Texas. After trying to demonstrate how wonderful books were but not finding the information, I put in three keywords together in Google and found exactly what he needed.

The problem with online reference sources is that they are also a lot of money, may not get used that much, and disappear once your subscription is over. At least print materials stick around to look pretty on your shelves, and so you look like a Real Library. So I'm not sure what to do. Perhaps the best solution at this point is to promote the sheer appeal of juvenile print reference materials. The pictures are sumptuous, the design usually very sleek and appealing, and there are subjects to appeal to every interest. Best of all, they are something that you can sit down with for just a few minutes, open it anywhere, and learn something new!

What are other libraries doing with their juvenile print reference? Holding steady, buying more, or cutting back? Are you buying online resources to make up for it?

Posted by susan at 3:16 PM | Comments (0)

November 5, 2006

Books are good medicine

My 16-year-old came home from school on Thursday and went directly to bed. Since then, he has moved from bed to couch to bed again, and has basically been miserable. Tonight, his temperature is still up, and he hasn't had much to eat yet, but I hear him chuckling in his room over the new Terry Pratchett book, the third in the series about Tiffany Aching. He even staggered out of his room to read something out loud to me that particularly amused him!

And that's where people who look to books for bibliotherapy are going astray. They think in terms of "I need a book about a 16-year-old suffering from a yucky virus" in the hopes that reading about someone like himself will make him feel better. Most of the time, Terry Pratchett or whoever tickles their literary funny bone will work much better.

Posted by susan at 5:27 PM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2006

An Unfortunate Book: The Beatrice Letters

I love Lemony Snicket--I know some children's librarians find it painful to read his books. I must have a harder heart, because they make me laugh. But it's not a small, incidental (here, meaning not of prime or central importance) piece of information that the pictures in The Beatrice Letters have large, punch-out letters that make it an almost impossible book for library collections.

We are currently in negotiations with Technical Services as to whether it will be worth reinforcing each letter with tape so it can't be punched out, or whether we will rely on the kindness of other, more patient libraries to fill our holds. It is even more annoying than the Dora the Explorer book that came a couple of weeks ago with a punch-out bracelet in the back cover.

And by the way, Ingram, it would have been nice if you had mentioned the word "consumable" (a word which here means, will wreck library books) somewhere on your iPage!

Edited to add: I love our Technical Services Dept! They taped all 26 of those darned letters three times over for the three copies! That took a whole lot of tape, and a whole lot of patience.

Posted by susan at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

October 4, 2006

Are all books worth keeping?

I say No, not all books are worth keeping just by nature of being books. That may sound like blasphemy coming from a librarian, but at a certain point I think some books need to head to that great recycling bin in the sky.

On several children's literature listservs recently, the subject came up of what reviewers do with their ARC's (Advance Reading Copies). These are what used to be known as galleys or proofs, only now they are a lot nicer than they used to be and publishers seem to pass them out by the truckload at conferences, so they are getting in a lot more hands. The discussion started when children's literature expert Michael Thorne blogged about a publisher getting after him for selling his ARC's on E-bay.

I have always been a goody-two-shoes on this subject, and have faithfully tossed my ARC's into the recycling bin on the theory that writers shouldn't have their unfinished products being sold, complete with mistakes that will be (presumably) be cleaned up by final publication. But when I said that on ChildLit, it seemed to cause some authors a certain amount of angst to think of their work being destroyed. I still basically think I was right, though I may do a little more of handing ARC's to particular kids with an explanation of what it is.

Someone today posted about what to do with what's left after weeding a school library collection once the teachers and kids have taken what they want. Personally, I believe that anything that is being withdrawn for out of date material should NOT be passed along to hospitals, clinics, shelters, or anywhere else that was suggested. Don't poor kids or sick kids deserve correct information too? Pass them all the fiction, picture books, and less circulated but basically still correct books that you want--it's great to make that extra effort to give books a little more life for kids who need the material. But even though it makes me feel like a bad librarian, I say NOT all books are worth keeping.

Posted by susan at 5:24 PM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2006

Should public libraries level their books?

So we all know that come November, Illinois parents of public school children will be coming to the library with their child's Lexile score in hand--you can take a look at what the parents will be receiving here. As you can see, parents are advised to "take the student's Lexile score to the local library," and you know, there are a couple of things I think would have been nice here. For one thing, it would have been nice if someone had bothered to mention to the public librarians that this was coming. Fortunately, librarians being what we are, most of us found out about it anyway. The other thing I think would have been really nice is if they mentioned that it is perfectly okay for a child to read an unleveled book!

We tossed some alternatives around at our monthly Youth Services Dept. meeting last week, and have begrudgingly concluded that our best alternative is to generate our own leveled reading lists, so at least we are offering our patrons leveled books which we feel represent some good reading choices. Since it is out of the question to level our entire collection for practical reasons alone, at least this way we aren't ending up searching through an endless list of books off of the Lexile site that our library may or may not own, that may or may not be in the ballpark. I vivdly recall doing a search for a bright sixth grader last year where the books at her level were 32 page animal books (I suppose because of the latin names used?) and Antigone, neither of which seemed quite the right thing for this young lady.

One thing we will not be doing is combining Lexile scores with Accelerated Reader lists, because with apologies to libraries that have decided to go that route, that to me is a sign of the apocalypse. Both Lexile leveling and Accelerated Reader have their place in helping kids develop their reading skills. But to me, the public library should be a refuge from all of that mechanical determination of what a kid should read. Part of becoming a reader is learning what you like to read--if they don't end up with books that ultimately appeal to them, then we aren't doing our jobs.

What are other libraries doing to get ready for the Lexile invasion?

Posted by susan at 4:33 PM | Comments (0)

August 24, 2006

Weeding Pluto

And just like that your entire 523 section goes out of date. Earlier this week, we finally decided that the New York books that didn't mention September 11th were officially Too Old. How long will it take before Pluto is no longer a planet in our collections? I'm sure not pulling them today, when I have nothing to replace it, but I think I'll keep an eye out to see how fast they come out with new planet books.

This is probably a disappointing blow to series nonfiction publishers--they would have much preferred to lengthen their series to 12, not cut it to 8!

Posted by susan at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2006

They're older than you think!

Like many children's librarians, I've been spending August weeding my collections. And as so often has been the case, I am scandalized to find some of the books I've left in the collection for way too long.

First, I finished weeding the VHS feature film collection, where the main concern was whether the item was earning its place on the shiny new shelving, so circulation was the main thing to look at. There were some painful moments (farewell again, Mister Rogers) but overall, it was pretty easy. Next up, the 600s--last summer I did the invention/health/machines. This year I am picking up with the cars and working my way through space travel, pets, cooking, and building. The space books were, shall we say, a blast from the past.

In the 629s, I was having a great time pulling out old, battered books that were clearly out of date. Less happy was the feeling as I learned to pick up on some important cues that forced me to start examining the quite new-looking books more carefully. A lot of them turned out to be older than I thought! A first hint, as I pulled a nice crisp book off the shelf, was when I noticed that although we are now using barcode numbers in the 9 million range, some of the books had numbers like 655,971. Uh-oh! A second cue might be, hmmm, didn't that author die years and years ago? Or, Gosh, when DID that publisher go out of business?

I realized that the main pitfall for me is that I am a barcode in the 655,000 range instead of the 9 million range. I look at a date like 1993 and I think that seems very recent, though in fact for many of our patrons it was literally a lifetime ago. Or I might look at a book and think, Oh, yes, I remember buying that so it CAN'T be too old....though I bought it back at the Chicago Public Library 20 years ago. I have been made properly aware of my age this week.

But on the bright side, the 600s are looking great!

Posted by susan at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2006

Alas, poor Harriet

I'm sorry to have to report that Harriet the Spy was the first character voted off of the ship in our summer reading game. Still onboard our ship The Barnacle are the Pigeon, Olivia, Captain Underpants, Harry Potter, and Arthur.

I for one am sad to see Harriet go. She's one of your pricklier characters in children's literature, but her grouchy tendancies remind me a lot of the real-life kids I know and the real-life kid I once was. Ol' Golly's sensible advice sticks with me today, and few books offer such a truthful depiction of the adult world. On the bright side, all of our copies of Harriet are checked out, so at least a few more kids may come to know the joys of a good tomato sandwich!

Posted by susan at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

June 18, 2006

Is Summer Reading worth the bother?

I know, I know, you're supposed to wait until July before you start having thoughts like that! We are 18 days into our program, with 1200+ signed up, and already we are getting a little tired, a little cranky. So it might be a good time to think just a moment about why we go to all this trouble.

Sure, there's plenty of research to show how important it is for kids to keep reading during the break from school. The Alaska State Library put out an excellent list of articles on reading over the summer. Intuitively, we know that kids who stop reading over the summer will lose ground, and increasingly we can't assume that reading is one of the things families automatically do when they have time. As parents devote less time to reading, so do their kids. So keeping up reading skills over the summer is important, but is it enough to make all the effort worthwhile?

Frankly no--developing reading skill is more the domain of the school reading specialist or media specialist, and I am a public librarian. What I want is for kids to love reading, and I'm not nearly as interested in scores and reading levels.

No, the thing that makes it worth the effort for me is I want kids to come into the library over the summer and for that experience be one of their fondest memories of growing up. I want them to remember as adults that feeling of walking into a cool library on a hot summer day. I want them to remember talking to the nice librarians and volunteers. I want them to remember that feeling of abundance when they walk out of the library with a stack of books that look exciting. I want them to recall signing up for summer reading as a treat to look forward to each summer. I want them to make memories that they will treasure.

It does take a ton of work but yes, it is worth it. I may have to read this over again by mid-July just to remind myself, but summer reading is definitely worth the bother.

Posted by susan at 2:16 PM | Comments (0)