Where’s Alexa?

It has been an incredibly long time since I last posted on this blog.  In my last post, I was in the middle of my self-imposed summer reading.  That deadline was extended until I got a full-time job and…surprise!  I did!  Which is why I quit posting and reading.  Oops.  Sometimes life gets in the way, right?

So where am I now?  I am in the Chicago Tribune giving preschoolers a lesson in finance.  I am in Chicago working for an incredible library system doing something I never expected.  I am a storytime factory.  Most days, I get up and I go to a school and sing, read and play with preschoolers I’ll only meet 3 times.  I read some really fantastic books (like Ella Sarah Gets Dressed by Margaret Chodos-Irvine and Should I Share My Ice Cream? by Mo Willems).  Kids say ridiculous things about money.  It’s wonderful, but it is also exhausting.

I am lucky because I still get to read lots of fancy new YA books and I get to share those thoughts with some of my YA crazy colleagues.  But I miss putting up my own thoughts online and sending them out onto the Internet all by themselves.  Also, it’s my favorite time of year: time for School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books!

SLJ BotB is a time to geek out on children’s and YA lit.  It’s my time.  Come back tomorrow for more!  Because tonight, I am taking the night off from everything except my bowl of pasta, my glass of wine and posting about the best bracket-ed competition in March.

Self-Imposed Summer Reading List

This year, it is time for round 2 of my summer reading list.  It’s time for another try at reading and blogging consistently.  The goal? Read all 15 books on my list before the summer ends.  When does summer end?  Let’s say Labor Day, but as long as it’s finished before I get a full-time job, that works for me.  I’ll be blogging about the books as I finish them.  Many of the titles on this list are books I’ve been meaning to tackle but just haven’t made time for.  But, as they often say, the time is now!

Children’s

1. The Merchant of Death (Pendragon #1) by DJ MacHale (fantasy)
2. Moon Over Manifest by Clare VanderPool (award winner)
3. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (mystery)
4. The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall (realistic fiction)
5. George’s Secret Key to the Universe by Lucy & Stephen Hawking (sci-fi)

Teen

1. Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Beals (non-fiction)
2. The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (fantasy)
3. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Vol 1, The Pox Party by MT Anderson (historical fiction)
4. Monster by Walter Dean Myers (award winner)
5. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (classic)

Adult

1. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (mystery)
2. The Instructions by Adam Levin (literary fiction)
3. Stitches by David Small (memoir)
4. The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner (non-fiction, in honor of my trip to Galapagos this fall)
5. The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card (fantasy)

A New Year

If you thought this was the post where I would make a resolution to post once a week or something like that, you will be sorely disappointed.  I can’t even promise such things to myself.  Library school is fun and everything–it’s also super time-consuming.  Add my part-time job with it’s ugly commute (plus NJTransit’s lack of wifi in their stations) and we have a problem.  So let’s not talk excuses here, let’s talk about what you can look forward to.

• YALSA awards announced next week!  That would be the Printz and the Morris and the Excellence in Non-Fiction and the Alex Awards.  I love to read and pick apart the winners and honor books, so expect some posting.
• I am already looking forward to SLJ’s Battle of the Books.  The book nerd’s version of March Madness *swoon*  There will definitely be posts.
• It’s my winter break, which means I get a chance to sink my teeth into more books than usual including *gasp* some adult titles!  I’ll report back as to whether they still hold my attention.
• I’ve been trying to read ebooks on my fabulous netbook.  It hasn’t been going that well, but I’m not sure whether it’s the medium or the titles or what.  I intend to add my two cents to the chatter about ebooks.

That sounds like quite enough “resolutions” for my non-resolution post.  I hope you’ll check back in every once in awhile!

The Lazy Blogger

I’ve been a bad bad blogger.  No posts in almost two months?  I barely believe that myself.  Time flies!  Time flies even faster when you’ve been reading.  And I’ve been reading as much as usual–21 books in June,  and the same number in May.  I’ll never review all those books on this blog, and I’ve never intended to. I review some of those titles for work, for my teens, and most of the time I don’t want to post twice about the same book, even if my audiences are entirely different.

My biggest question today is: what to review first?  An impossible question!  Here’s some short reviews of some of my favorites, and least favorites, from the past couple of months.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
Read because: 2010 Alex Award winner, possible teen book club selection
Bottom line: I loved this one. This book is not just heartwarming, it’s illuminating. What is it like to live in Malawi(a country I actually had to look up on the Internet because I had no idea where in Africa it was)? What was it like to live through a famine? Just how hard or easy is it to make that windmill on the cover? And my librarian-self loved the bits about Kamkwamba using the textbooks from his teeny tiny library to learn enough to create big things. I am totally making my high school book club read this one.

Ash by Malinda Lo
Read because: It’s a lesbian Cinderella retelling. Who could resist?
Bottom line: It could have been better. It is a slow, quiet story that might have benefited from being read on a rainy day like today rather than the busy atmosphere of the juror holding pen at jury duty in Newark, NJ. Or maybe I’m not a fairytale retelling kind of girl. It’s nice to have a non-hetero option for Cinderella but I would mostly recommend it to lovers of fairytale retellings.  Also–not a lot of romance and I swear, some of the reviews made me think there was.  Not that I’m into romance.  What I’m trying to say is this is not the book for me.  But maybe it’s the book for you?

Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines
Read because: Gladiators! Fights to the death! Can it challenge The Hunger Games?
Bottom line: Absolutely! This is the same world as The Hunger Games–it’s a dystopia all its own and it stands on its own. The subtitle of this book is “a novel containing intense prolonged sequences of disaster and peril.” True. Our main character Lyn is the daughter of 7 gladiators, men who participate in the reigning culture of the day. She’s the biological daughter of the first one and all but the last have died in battle.  Lyn loves her current father, Tommy, and her mother is unhappy because after marrying 7 gladiators, she will not be allowed to wed again.  This is just a slice of the complicated, consumerist gladiator culture they live in.  There is less about the fighting in the arena in this novel and more about the brutality of the culture and the expectations of the public for gladiators.  Lyn is just a teenager but she’s expected to be more.  I loved Lyn and I loved this book.

Infinity (Chronicles of Nick, Book 1) by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Read because: I received an ARC from the publisher and I was SO excited.
Bottom line: I can’t give this one away! Sherrilyn Kenyon is a bestselling author of paranormal/supernatural DarkHunter filled adult books. They’re bestsellers, which means maybe the writing isn’t the best but people love them. And she put out a teen book that includes werewolves, zombies, etc.–all the hot character types. How bad could it be? Answer: pretty bad. Sure, the fact that the zombies arise from a video game makes it kinda cool. But everything is overexplained–especially the title.  There is WAY too much exposition.  Teens may be young, but they aren’t stupid.  Add to that a confusing number of intricately connected supernatural characters plus humor meant for middle-aged women (i.e. comparing the chaos of one of the numerous fight scenes to women fighting over wedding dresses at a sample sale) and you get a book that is not worth it.  I did read to the end, looking for redeeming qualities.  I found none, except for the publisher: it’s currently at number 6 on the New York Times Bestseller list (for children’s chapter books).

I leave you with 4 books.  For next week: an update on how my summer reading is going.

Blog Theme Changes

My blog is currently undergoing some “renovation” so if you’ve been here before and you don’t recognize it, fear not!  I am still the same reading grrl I was before.  I’m just trying to make my blog better represent the subject matter.  Of course, if you’re reading this via RSS feeds, as I do for so many blogs, you can ignore this!  There will probably be some tweaks in the future as I am planning to create some original artwork for the site.

Welcome to MY blog!

Last time  I wrote on this blog, it was a blog for class.  A wonderful class, mind you, but a class, with assignments and grades all the same.  Starting today, this is my blog about reading and teens and tweens and becoming a librarian.  Which is also why I’m changing the background from this hard to read, tiny-type green stuff to something more legible.

Who am I?  I’m a library school student, in my second semester at a school in NYC.  I love it.  Just as much as I loved working in an actual library–I miss that!  (If you have any jobs in your library, especially in NJ, let me know.  I am having working in a library withdrawal!) As it turns out, I have a lot of thoughts about books and publishing.  If you want to hear them, stick around.

Let’s Talk About Race

First off, I have to say that I looooved A Thousand Never Evers by Shana Burg.  Not in the same personal way as Peggy, but I thought the story was just so simple and tween and had so much character development and honesty and…I just loved it.  Any parts that I thought sounded inauthentic, I must have skimmed, especially the name of the town.  I have read enough civil rights books and enough historical fiction to know that this is a book that reminds you that historical fiction is fun to read when it’s done well.  That being said, I want to talk about the fact that the author is white.

Jen mentioned that this book “set the blogosphere on fire” when it was published.  I’m sure she’s right, but I’m having a hard time finding those posts.  What I have found are some honest interviews done by the author, as well as a blog post by the author discussing racism especially in relation to the presidential campaign that was taking place at the time.  I am sure that Barack Obama’s candidacy and subsequent election only made the debate over this stronger.  As a country, everyone was already talking about whether we are living in a post-racial society.  It is clear from Shana Burg’s blog post about race bias based on a conversation with a white man raised in the South that race is still important.  I don’t want to open a whole can of worms regarding the definition of post-racial society and what that means.  So for now, I’m not going to worry about it.  But I still wonder: is there a difference between a white woman writing from a black perspective and a black man writing from a white perspective?

Because there are no good statistics on where this has occurred, I’m mostly thinking about A Thousand Never Evers in comparison to Guardian, the book about a lynching written by Julius Lester from a the perspective of a young white boy.  He writes in the author’s note that he chose to write from a white perspective because he ” wasn’t interested in writing something that would enable whites to shed crocodile tears for blacks” (from Author’s Note of Guardian, full text here).   Julius Lester is an established writer, especially of books about African-American history, many for young readers.  And Guardian is written extremely well.  The review on Booklist mentions that Julius Lester has chosen to write from the perspective of a white teenager.  But I doubt that anyone is saying that the author does not have an authentic perspective or can’t authentically write from the perspective of a person who is not his race.  Now, maybe I’ve missed the complaints.  It’s also possible that few people feel comfortable accusing this man, who has written a thought-provoking book this time around and has consistently produced other interesting, well-written books, most often from an African-American perspective.  Or maybe it’s just because it’s believed to be easier to imitate a white point-of-view, mostly because whites are still the majority culture, much as they were during the era Lester is writing about.  But I am still mildly offended by Lester’s comment in his author’s note.  I understand where he’s coming from, where he feels that his experiences growing up aware of lynching have not been adequately represented.  That’s fine.  Still, he makes an assumption about white people and how they respond to books about lynching written from the perspective of blacks.  Personally, I’m a little insulted, even if he has encountered people like those he is speaking of.  I still like Guardian and I’m glad he took a chance writing it.  We need the white perspective on these crimes and times, too.

I think what ties these books together (aside from the cross-cultural perspective) is that both authors are very open about the fact that they are not the same race as their protagonist.  This is in contrast to some authors who write from the perspective of the opposite gender, who often use their initials.  One who comes to mind is A.M. Jenkins, author of many books about teenage boys such as Night Road, Repossessed, and Damage.  It took me a lot of searching to find out the author’s first name is Amanda, though you can’t tell she’s a woman from her writing, or her bio on the book jacket, for that matter.  If Burg or Lester had done the same thing, obscuring their race, I am sure there would have been hell to pay.  I’m grateful that they did, but I doubt that most tweens will care in the same way adults do.  And I’m hoping that their not caring means good things for the future of our country, that has such an ugly history of Jim Crow, as evidenced in both of these books.

Reporting from YOUmedia

Last week, we read the MacArthur Foundation study about kids’ informal learning with digital media.  I’m lucky enough to be visiting Chicago and am at this very moment sitting in the YOUmedia space.  This is a special privilege, as I no longer work for the Chicago Public Library’s Teen Volume Project (which also uses the space), nor am I with Digital Youth Network, the organization that mentors youth in the space and teaches them about the digital media.  And I am definitely not a teen.  Because I am not any of these things, normally I would not be allowed to sit on one of the couches, use the computers, check out the fancy equipment or participate in the workshops.  These are for teens only.  When I say teens, I mean teens in high school.  So most of our tweens wouldn’t be allowed in this space either, unless they were browsing the YA collections, which are also housed in the space.

I have special permission to be here, from the wonderful librarians in the space, Taylor Bayless and Anita Mechler, both young, hip librarians who have as much energy as the teens in the space.  I asked them about the age policy and how it’s been working out for them since the space opened in July.  They reported that most of the time, adults in the space are approached and asked to move on by the wonderful security guard in the space.  But what about tweens?  Some of them look like teenagers, right?  Some of them are technically teenagers (though Chicago Public Library (CPL) has defined teens for many years as 14-19 in their literature).  It turns out that many of the middle school kids do approach the desk, to find out how to check out all the digital cameras, laptops, or just use a desktop computer.  And to do any of that, you need a high school ID which they don’t have.  So they are told about other library services and sent on their merry way.

Apparently, they haven’t had any real problems with the age limits on the space.  Parents wanting to experience the space with their teens generally understand, especially when staff informs them that this policy keeps out other unknown adults.  At first, I thought the tweens might be upset about being barred from the space.  But after talking to the librarians, I would assume that the younger teens who are turned away can look forward to the privileges they will receive when they enter high school.  When I was working for CPL, there were a lot of enthusiastic tweens who really wanted to participate in the teen programs.  But once you allow tweens in, the programs and spaces cease to appeal to high school students.  The high school students need their own space and they have it here in YOUmedia.  As I type, a dating couple has just plopped down into a bean bag next to me and is discussing their AP classes.  I feel lucky to be allowed to sit in the teen space undisturbed–except for some snuggly noises and a small kiss every once in awhile–and fortunately, my computer makes me look like one of them (at least for now).

Tweens will need their own space at some point in time, probably one that is distinct from the children’s area, even if it is in the same space.  This class has only enforced the fact that tweens are a distinct, if wide-ranging age group.  But for now, I’m just glad that CPL has this incredible space just for teens.  They deserve it and it is the only “teens only” space in the Chicago’s library system.

A Small Rant

I know that my blog is usually full of links to interesting websites and in-depth analysis of the books we’ve read recently.  But today I have to unburden myself as there is one issue that keeps coming up in class that is starting to drive me a little crazy.  Most recently, we discussed Knucklehead by Jon Scieszka, the hilarious account of Scieszka’s absurd childhood, growing up with 5 brothers in Michigan during the late 1950s-1960s.  I found this book to be quite funny, as did many of the members of our class.  But one of the issues raised by those who did not like it was the fact that it might be hard to relate to, since kids’ these days are raised in different environments, and it might be a funnier book for people who grew up at the same time.  Or it’s hard to relate to if you are an only child.

We’ve heard a lot of complaints about books that echo these; about The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate turning off haters of science or After Tupac & D Foster not appealing to kids who may not know who Tupac is.  All of these things are valid concerns.  On occasion, I have been the person who can’t relate to a book for one of these highly personal reasons.  It happens.  But to paraphrase one of the many corny posters hung around high school libraries: “Reading lets you travel when you have to stay in your seat.”  I’m sure that I’ve made a mess of the pithy quotation.  Nevertheless, I am a firm believer in using books to expand and explore and have new experiences that may not be possible to have in real life.  I think that most good books share some amount of universal feelings, so that people who have not lived those experiences can relate to the story at hand.

Many teachers, librarians and free speech activists have defended controversial teen and tween books by saying that this is a safe way for kids to explore these situations and emotions.  I have to agree with them.  Not everyone reading about sex is having sex, though most probably think about it as something they can and will do in the future.  Books can help them tackle various tricky issues before they are faced with them in real life.  So what about those books that tackle issues that likely won’t arise in real life?  Like survival books.  Kids love Hatchet even though most don’t experience anything like it (thank goodness).  It’s fun to put yourself in those shoes, especially if you’re not the one stuck out in the wilderness with nothing but a hatchet.

People read for many reasons, probably about as many reasons as people don’t read.  I understand discussing possible caveats and reasons why kids might not like a book.  I know not everyone is like me, mostly because I’ve read a lot of books about characters who don’t resemble me at all.  More seriously, I know that not everyone is as voracious a reader as I am.  I have no problem with genres like fantasy or historical fiction that many people shy away from.  I love books and will read almost anything you put in front of me, though I’ll admit to having a preference for YA and middle grade books.  And I want everyone to love books as much as I do, though I know nothing in the world would get done were that to happen.  But I’m just tired of everyone deciding that a kid won’t like a book because it’s not about kids like them!  We need to have books in the world about all kinds of people, that’s why blogs like “I’m Here. I’m Queer.  What the Hell Do I Read?” and “Reading in Color” and “The Brown Bookshelf” and “Guys Lit Wire” and “Readergirlz” and…I could keep going forever.  These blogs promote books for their particular audience, boys or teens of color or girls or GLBTQ.   Some of these categories do need more books –see recent Scholastic scandal about Lauren Myracle’s Luv Ya Bunches–and they need more general acceptance.    It is important to have these books around, for all the kids that have two moms or all the kids who don’t.  And though I know no one has argued that books they don’t like, like Knucklehead, shouldn’t exist, part of me is tired of hearing about how boring and impossible to relate to books are from adults.  Teens and tweens?  That’s what I expect from them.  So I guess this class is good practice!

Evaluating Children’s Books

When I started thinking about what to post here, I started with an issue we discussed for a short period of time in class: is After Tupac & D Foster the kind of children’s book that only adults like?  I really wanted the answer to be no, and I know it is sometimes, as evidenced by the kids Peggy provided the book to who apparently loved it.  But I wanted to see what some of the teen review sites said.  I started by just googling the title and I wound up somewhere I really did not expect to be: Commonsense Media.  If you haven’t heard of it (and I had not until I accidentally happened upon it), it’s a site where a self-proclaimed “non-partisan, not-for-profit” group provides information about media–books, movies, video games, TV, websites–so that parents have a better idea what their child is watching/playing/reading.  You can also personalize it to get recommendations based on your child’s age, write your own reviews and allow your child to write her own reviews.

There are positive and negative sides to any sort of rating system, even those that give grade levels for some of the books we’ve been reading can be totally off the mark.  Rating anything is complicated because certain tallies don’t give a full picture of the story.  I’ll use the Commonsense Media review of After Tupac & D Foster as an example, since that is the book I originally wanted to discuss.  I’ve got the book out in front of me to refer to, especially since I know I am skeptical of some of the ratings listed.  (My opinion, before I get started, is that this is a great urban fiction book that addresses the issues that do crop up in many kids’ lives.  You can’t edit out those issues but you can treat them intelligently, which has been done in this book.  I think it’s great for kids who have had some of the struggles that D Foster has had but it’s also illuminating for kids who have grown up in different situations.  I didn’t notice anything gratuitous–violence, sex, drugs–in this book.)

Generally, the book is rated as “on for ages 11 and up.”  That means the content is appropriate for the age range, rather than “iffy” (it’s “iffy” for 10 and up, and not appropriate for children under 10).  The book was also given 4 stars, meaning it’s “very good” and “What Parents Need to Know” review is very positive.   Overall, the book did well.  But it’s the quantifying of various things, like violence, sex, language, consumerism and drinking, drug & smoking on the negative side and the “messages” on the positive side that I really have a hard time with.  Just as some movies are rated R because they use the f-word one too many times while other, possibly less age-appropriate movies wind up with PG-13 ratings, I think distilling a book into these areas can go a step too far.  For instance, the “Violence” section for After Tupac & D Foster gets 3 “bombs” for mentioning Tupac’s shootings and stabbings.  That’s as many “bombs” as in their review of The Lightning Thief.

I went back to both of these books.  In Woodson’s book, the mentions of the violence inflicted on Tupac and Neeka’s brother Tash are there, but they are cursory.  They give only enough information so that the reader understands what is going on.  In The Lightning Thief, there is much more actual fighting.  Because Percy most often fights gods and mythical beings, there is no blood, only things exploding and turning to ashes.  But heads still get cut off, even if it isn’t explicitly mentioned (at Crusty’s Water Bed Palace).  Is it different because we know these kids and creatures are part of a fictional story whereas Tupac did get shot as many times as Woodson mentions?  Is more violence allowed when it’s so that Percy, our hero, can continue to live?  Does it matter that Percy Jackson’s books are about him fighting–for his life against mythical creatures–whereas After Tupac & D Foster is mostly about friendship and compassion (with a helping of music, homosexuality, foster care and double dutch thrown in for good measure)?

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions.  It varies from person to person, kid to kid, how they interpret real violence and “fantasy violence,” as Commonsense Media refers to it.  I loved both of these books and I didn’t find either of them to be overly violent.  But I would have said that The Lightning Thief is actually more violent than After Tupac & D Foster.  Maybe I shouldn’t ignore the inherent violence in the shootings Woodson mentions.  I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer.  And I don’t mind that the website mentions that both of these books contain some violence or mentions of violence.  But it’s hard for me because I know that a parent who hasn’t read Woodson’s book might get the wrong idea from the statement Commonsense media offers about the violence in that book:  “Refers frequently to the multiple shootings and death of Tupac Shakur. A robbery and severe beating, a knife fight.”  The second sentence makes it sound like we hear in detail about these three violent events.  But we don’t.  And I would hate for a child who might be interested in reading After Tupac & D Foster to miss out because a parent thinks it contains explicit violence.

I could write multiple blog posts about the rest of the ratings used  by this site, especially “Messages” which seems problematic.  (The messages in The Lightning Thief are “Not an issue”?  I can’t even figure out what that means.  I think there are tons of messages here, starting with the message to kids with ADHD).  But I’ll leave it here, without having come to any real conclusion because truly, every person sees the world through their own lens based on their beliefs, morals, upbringing, etc.  Which means the only way to really understand what your child will get from a book is to let them read it (and maybe read it with them, or before they do).