Last year, I featured Fun Home by Alison Bechdel as one of book in our display, since BBW featured banned graphic novels. Back then it was a rather obscure graphic novel with maybe a dozen or so copies in our system.
Researching about banned books is in my top ten list of things I like to do at my job. I enjoy the look of my patron's and co-worker's faces when they pass a display of banned books and exclaim "Wait? Why was this book banned?"
It's also that time of the year when library staff can be a little bit
naughty and entice patrons to read those "dirty books" full of
insensitive materials, offensive language and depressing subjects. I
feel like the shady figure lurking on a street corner, with a trench
coat concealing black market goods; hungry for eager customers.
Which leads to the inspiration for my display. That odd logo on signs across America, the neighborhood watch creep. Who always has reminded me of Phantom of the Opera.
🎶 The Phantom of the Opera wants you....to read these books....🎶
This has been on my bucket list for a while. Seen the silent
film so I had to read the book. I would say it falls in the middle of my scale
of Victor Hugo. "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is one of my all-time
favorite books; the story of "Les Miz" has no appeal to me what so
ever no matter how hard I try (sorry fangirls). The story of "The Man Who
Laughs" had great appeal to me as a fan of Hunchback, but it fell flat at
times.
One, there isn't much action or events that transpire during
the book. We have lengthily introductions to our main characters before a long
break, when we are introduced to them again now 15 years later. Other
characters are described (at length!) a big secret is
revealed, a day passes and then we are reunited with our characters once again.
Had Hugo not filled the bulk of his text with excess descriptive passages commenting
on almost everything but the plot at some times, this would
have been a very short book.
Two, Hugo is not for everyone. I work at a library and when “Les
Miz” came into town I had kids left and right wanting to get their hands on the
original book. While I applauded their effort to tackle such literature, I did
for warn them as a reader that it was a long and difficult book. Their response
"That's okay I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and that was
over 800 pages!" And I tried not to burst out laughing in their face. By
comparison, let say Hugo wrote the story of Harry Potter instead. When young
Harry walks into the great hall of Hogwarts for the first time and he remarks
on the architecture of the roof. You would then be treated to 20 pages of
history and genealogy about anyone who every passed under that roof before
Harry all the way back to the founders, probably then followed by another
chapter then a lengthy list of events and people not essential to the current
plot. 50 pages later, you would find yourself back to poor Harry…maybe.
Okay maybe this sounds cool in the wizarding world, but in
merry olde England? Not so much. Hugo just can’t tell you “The nobility of
England are rich, like sick rich. They have more money than God.” Nope he has
to spend the first preliminary chapter detailing the lineage of lords and how impressive
their houses and estates look. Do we meet these lords in the book? Of course
not! Description is much appreciated in literature, but Hugo is over kill.
Which makes this a frustrating read. Hugo sets up such suspense
and fantastic prose it makes me weep at times. Then he rambles on about the
rocks in the sea and I want to take this book and throw it into the sea!
He writes heartbreaking passages about a little boy
abandoned in the snow storm, then goes and writes about the cruel people who
deserted him on the shore and their ship and whoa that was a big rock
we almost hit, and uh oh here comes another big rock and hey did you know what
happens on a snow storm at sea…..
When it’s good, it’s really good. There were passages in
this book that broke my heart. But you have to work hard as a reader to get
there.
(Also just don’t read the last chapter. Stop at section 103,
close the book and say out loud “And they all lived Happily Ever after!”
Seriously Hugo that was a cop out!)
Social Media, blogs and Pinterest have helped me so many
times as a librarian, I couldn’t count.
So in an effort to share and share alike, I’ll start posting
my own ideas for storytimes here on my blog. Please feel free to share, use and adapt for your storytimes
at your library, childcare or home. Library books are free and sharing the love
of reading should be free too.
For reference, I run the toddler storytime at my library and
my age group is 2-3 year olds ( everyone seems to have a different classification
for toddlers) So the idea posted here are geared towards that age group and are
often packed into a fast pace 20-25 minute session
Mad About Hats
Inspiration: Being a child of the 80’s-90’s I was addicted
to Care Bears and one of my favorite silly songs was from “Care Bears Adventure
in Wonderland” sung by the Mad Hatter himself “Mad about Hats”
To this day it is an inside joke in my family. If you ask “Do
you like hats?” or mention hats in a conversation , my mother and/or myself
will reply “I’m Mad about hats!” (that’s the insanity talking)
Hats was a theme I knew I wanted to tackle and it was one of
the first story times I created. I repeated it in January after two years and some
sprucing up.
BOOKS:
Do You Have a Hat? By Eileen Spinelli A longer book to start out, you can skip a few pages to shorten it. I've read this one before but I switched it out for this next one
Okay, so the hat is a small part of this story, but it is an adorable book to read for winter. Kids can really relate to the clothes and the simple text. It's fairly simple to ask kids at this age if they wore a coat, hat, mittens today and what color they are.
The Hobbit was a big part of my childhood, but here is the
weird part.
I never read the novel.
I read the graphic novel adaptation a few times but what
mostly fueled my knowledge of the plot was the 1977 animated film.I also decided I needed to read the
novel as part of my “classics Bucket list” and also before I saw the second installment
of the Peter Jackson movies. (So I won’t be those types of people who watch the
movies but never make an attempt at the novels) However the animated film is probably
one of the main reasons I never wanted to pick up the novel until now.
Simply, The Hobbit terrified
me.
I grew up at the dawning age of VCRs and readily available children’s
films. My parents had three “kids” movies on Laserdisc and the Hobbit was one
of them. (the others were Watership Down
and Pinocchio which also terrified me in their own ways) But the Hobbit was
sheer terror on the boogeyman level for me as a little kid. I still watched it but when the goblins
literally popped out of the black frame, I covered my eyes. The spiders
(shudder) and Smaug with his dog like face that didn’t really even look like a
real dragon. Oh yes Smaug was the stuff of nightmares. I was convinced that
Smaug was going to steal me from my bed while I slept, eat me, and then steal
my jewelry box.
The Lord of the Rings film and the of course the first
installment of the Hobbit I viewed with a different aspect. I found them
entertaining, using the strength of adventure and thrills to uplift their
audiences. So I was curious when I started reading the book, if the (oh so
handsome) faces of Richard Armitage and Martin Freeman would be the images
conjured in my imagination as I read.
They weren’t.
Opening the book and
reading the words that sounded so familiar but I actually had never read before,
I was sucked back to those original images of hooded dwarves and shadowy
forests and I had been accustomed to as a kid. No sir, no archery antics of
Orlando Bloom or jokes of James Nesbit to amuse you here. I read this book and
didn’t feel the sweeping excitement of adventure. This journey is simply, and hardly
unexpected. In Middle Earth, if you are small everything will try to kill you or eat you. I knew this as a
child, when I was small. I recognize this as an adult (who is still very short
in stature) We all love Gollum and doing our best my precious impersonations,
but do not forgot, Gollum is a creature who was planning to eat Bilbo (a creature of his own size)
if he wins a game of riddles. That’s
messed up. The goblins sing songs about burning
the dwarves alive in trees as they light to fire. And The Hobbit is
sometimes classified as a children’s book.
WTF?
(Those miserable goblins songs are now stuck in my head)
I will say I enjoyed the novel in a different way then I
enjoy the films. The films are defiantly more action, adventure and feel good
while the books is much more danger, peril, uncertainty and good God how has
Bilbo not being eaten yet?
I’m also still terrified. This book frightens me. This book didn’t help me conquer my childhood
fears; they cemented them. Black water, giant bears, Gollum’s underlying cannibalism,
giant spiders, Mirkwood. And Smaug (still terrifying)
The Greatest Adventure is what lies ahead.... oh and death watch out for that too.
Again-not a completely original idea of mine. We did this last year and decided to repeat it again. I put a bit more effort making the graphic this time so I think we can save them and hopefully use them again in 2014. Similar to the Blind Date with a Book idea some library use around Valentine's Day.
I reused the green background from a co-workers previous display, which is great because 1) it fit the color scheme and 2) I suck at putting up the background paper!
Mine always ends up with tears (in the paper) and tears (mine weeping at my failure)
Members of the Youth Services staff select their favorite books or anything that sounds intrusting and cover them in wrapping paper, leaving only the bar-code showing in the back. Suggestions are attached on a gift tag on the front and instruction that allow patrons to unwrap their books only after they have checked them out and taken them home.
Detective stories and gourmet cooking. Can you guess what book this is?
My Goal- To read one biography and /memoirs of each American President.A “grown up “book not a children’s bio. That
would take me a week.
So far this year I've read 141 books for my Goodreads challenge. It included mostly adult and YA novels, as well
as graphic novels. I didn’t include picture books or short chapter books because
then again I would have completed my challenge too soon.I also didn’t count the mad skimming/reading
of several dozen pregnancy/breastfeeding/child care books I devoured last year
in preparation for the birth of my daughter. Even with my busy schedule, I
always find time for books.
But why the Presidents? Why would I want to read about a bunch
of (mostly) dead white men when there are realms of fiction and fantasy to explore?
Well...I’ve never found an exact reason. I love history which
plays a part. But I guess it all started way back in college. I had an acquaintance
who prided herself in knowing all sorts of bizarre facts about the presidents.
She would challenge anyone to name any president and she would spout out a factoid.
I had a pretty similar thought “Who in their right mind studied the presidents?”
I will state that we were both theater major and American History was nowhere
on our required course studies. Also the person in question was bluntly; a
hippie. When she wasn’t talking about dead presidents she was foaming at the
mouth about her displeasure at the current commander in chief at the time:
George W. Bush.
Later a year after college working in my first theater job, somehow
I was challenge to learn the names of the presidents in order. Which I did,
studying over the course of an evening between set changes and reciting the
list the next day with great success. Soon this became my “parlor trick”.
Reciting the list while doing chores and even correctly stating it after 8
drinks in one very foolish Cinco de Mayo.
But really, what is so special about
learning 44 names in order? We can
recite lyrics to our favorite songs, and even sometimes entire movies and
musicals, but we can’t be bothered to learn the names of our former leaders.
Right now there are hot-headed true-blooded “’Mericans’” who couldn’t name ten
presidents much less all of them.
And what of those presidents? Besides the big names –Washington,
Lincoln , Roosevelt- can the majority of our citizens even recall the
historical contributions of our presidents. I’ve known college bound teenage
patrons, bright kids, who couldn’t tell me who was president during the major
wars in our history. I’m talking The Revolution and the Civil War, much less
who in command during the War of 1812 or the Spanish American War. I challenged some of our teen age volunteers
to list as many presidents as they could in two minutes as a way to keep them
busy at the desk. I think the most they got was 6…and they didn’t even include the
current president.
