A Monster Calls

I started writing this post a few months ago, titling it “The Saddest Children’s Book Ever”. And then I double-checked the age of the main character, and found that Conor is thirteen, and a lot of people have been calling it a YA novel. So I didn’t finish it.

But I find that Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls feels to me like the book that really slipped through the cracks of the award process. I certainly also expected Brian Selznick’s Wonderstruck  to get more love, but Selznick writes a sort of book that is clearly going to have trouble finding its proper shelf in a children’s department–is it a picture book, or a novel? So it’s not surprising that a book that is neither wholly one or the other picks up an award–getting the Caldecott for The Invention of Hugo Cabret was pretty remarkable.

A Monster Calls fell through the cracks in a different way, and here’s my theory about why. The book began from an idea by wonderful Irish author Siobhan Dowd when she was dying of breast cancer. The equally wonderful American/English author Patrick Ness took the idea and created a book that imaginatively gets to the heart of the horror an older child feels when faced with his mother’s illness. The mysterious monster–an ancient yew tree that comes to life to talk with Conor–is terrifying. Conor himself, in an episode of supreme fury and destructiveness, becomes terrifying. But neither of them are nearly as terrifying as the prospect of watching your mother die.

That, I think, is why the story didn’t get an award. It didn’t get the Printz Award for the best young adult book, because it’s not really a young adult book. Young adults are certainly a key audience for the book, but it isn’t a book about being a young adult. It’s a book about being a kid. So why didn’t it get the Newbery? I don’t know–I wasn’t in their discussions, I didn’t do the reading they did, and I don’t know how it compares with the other books they voted on. But my guess is that it didn’t pick up one of the honors, at least, because sometimes people have a really difficult time giving children the books that communicate with complete and visceral honesty how painful life can be. It just feels like it can’t be meant for children when it’s that hard. So they try to slot it in with the young adult books, which heaven knows are FULL of painful truths. But it’s not quite the right fit.

That may not be right at all. Award committees in my experience are extremely thoughtful, and try hard to give each book its due.  So I am not criticizing any of the award committees. I am just mourning that such a great book didn’t get honored.

It is a wonderful book. I trust that at least it will appear on the Notables and Best Fiction for Young Adult lists. And it is for me, the saddest children’s book ever. You should read it.

Overwhelmed

I have a topic that I’ll bet every single person who reads this will relate to: I am overwhelmed. It’s the time of year when the library/book world is buzzing with speculationg. Who will win the Newbery? The Caldecott? The Printz? The Siebert? The Geisel? Everyone is throwing out the names of possible winners, and I feel like I’m in okay shape to speculate on the Caldecott (the picture book award) and on the Printz (best YA book) but still…there are very many books I haven’t read yet, especially at the Newbery level (for the writer of the “most distinguished” children’s book).  I’m already reading the 2012 books for reviews, but I barely made a dent in what came out in 2011.

Meanwhile, I’ve let my adult reading slip almost completely, and that’s not good.  I reassure myself that some of the best writing coming out these days is YA, and that’s a lot of what I read, but I know I’m missing out on too much.

And then, there’s everything else. While watching the Golden Globes for awhile the other night, it immediately became clear that in addition to being behind on my children’s reading and my adult reading, I’m way behind on movies, and television. I try to keep my eye out for the best new shows, but even if you spend a little time watching television every day, you can’t begin to make a dent in all of the good stuff that’s out there–not the worst problem, I suppose. I don’t know the celebrities, and I don’t keep up on music as much as I’d like either. It is beginning to make me feel like a dinosaur.

I can blame myself for some of it–I certainly could read more if I went on Facebook less. But I don’t think that’s the real problem. I think the quantity of books, movies, TV, drama, and movies has become overwhelming, especially when you put it together with the fun new games, the great writing in blogs, the online journals, and so on. So I guess if you feel the same way, we will just have to calm down and acknowledge that it’s simply not possible to keep up with it all. It’s just not.

So I’m going to go back to reading the great new John Green book, The Fault in Our Stars, and not worry any more about all of the things I am NOT doing. You should too.

Having opinions

This is going to come as a huge shock, but I am a person who has opinions. I think I always have had them. I’m pretty sure that back when my mom was mixing up baby oatmeal or baby rice cereal, I was telling her which one was better, in my own baby way.

Now as an adult, I get paid for my opinion when I write my book reviews. I do not get paid for my other opinions, but that is okay too.  The older I get, the more I try to save having an opinion for things that matter to me, instead of every possible small thing that one could consider. So, I could not possibly tell you which member of the Kardashians I like the best, though I do have an opinion about their television shows’ existence. I just don’t care about Kardashians enough to form an opinion otherwise.

I have an opinion about which political candidate I prefer, but I don’t yet have an opinion on every possible candidate, because the other thing that shapes my opinions is information. And the older I get, the less time I can spend on getting enough information to form opinions on things like whether John Huntsman is a great candidate or not since I am extremely unlikely to vote for him anyway. So I have fewer opinions because I can’t form an opinion without knowledge.

Still, I have my opinions. The thing that came as a big shock to me sometime in my late 40s was realizing that many people….MANY people do not voice their opinions. I really didn’t realize that. I figured that most people were like me, and if they felt some way and it mattered to them for some reason, they would voice their opinion. But no, a lot of people will care a lot about something and have a deeply felt opinion, but they are unwilling for one reason or another to voice it. I find that fascinating, and strange.

But I do want to encourage anyone who ever disagrees with me to feel perfectly free to voice that opinion. I like to hear what other people think, and sometimes my opinions end up changing because of it. So, please, speak up! I promise to shut up and listen.

 

Finished!

I just turned in my last assignment for my Buildings course. Coincidentally, I now have time to write my blog again!

It was fun! It turned out to be really interesting to be learning new things, and exploring my library and community in a new way. One of the assignments had me out driving around the district, looking for places where we could (theoretically) build a whole new library. I ended up looking at zoning ordinances and flood plain maps, and thinking about what in a site gets in the way of people using the library–a busy street, a bad turn, a nearby bar, a bleak landscape. Being in the class with students from all over the country and even a couple in other countries helped me realize that my perspective is pretty narrowly the greater Chicagoland area.

I also learned that you have to read the assignment, do the assignment, then check your work to make sure you’ve actually done what was assigned! In one case I was puzzled that I didn’t do as well as I expected, and it took three times of going back and looking at my work to realize what I had done wrong. It was a good learning experience in a Made Me Feel Like an Idiot sort of way.

It also gave me new appreciation for some of the work that other people at the library do. I know a lot about the work of the librarians, but boy did I ever not realize what all goes into keeping a large building clean, safe, comfortable, handicapped accessible, well-lit, and open for all of its advertised hours.

So I signed up for another course. I kind of like this learning thing.

Being a student again

I’m going to do something I haven’t done for a very long time. Starting on Monday, I am beginning a library management course (on library buildings). Soon I will be throwing around terms like HVAC and looking up building codes and pestering the life out of the Maintenance Supervisor at my library. But I’m a little worried about this. Although I regularly attend conferences and go to workshops and webinars, this will be the first time since 1982 (you do the math, if you’re inclined) that someone will have expectations of me in a class setting. It’s an asynchronous online course, so I’ll have to find time to do the reading and the homework. I’m going to have to…what’s that called again?  Oh yeah…focus.

The thing is, I know from being a children’s librarian and a parent that being a student is HARD! Just the other night a family came up to the desk with worksheets in hand. The mom, who had limited English, wanted help understanding what a “consonant blend” is. I looked at the worksheet, figured out what it was looking for, and gave her an explanation. She and her son then sat down, and then the little guy (about age 6) came back with the packet. They had faithfully found words with the right consonant blend (an s blend, an l blend, etc) but sadly, they were not the words on the sheet in the sidebar.

So, I helped him erase the words, and he went back and worked for awhile and then came up again with only a couple of lines done, because they couldn’t understand the meaning of the words well enough to be able to match the right words to the sentences. So, we worked our way through the sheet, and got almost finished when we came to the question “Which word would you use if you were giving directions?” And there was no good answer to that question. There just wasn’t. I called over my colleague and she looked, and also couldn’t come up with an answer.

This child now must be the intermediary between me, his mother, and his teacher, to try to explain with limited English why he has a random word in that space. This is the kind of thing that kids face every day in school. It’s frustrating and very hard, because a whole lot of their success depends on their finding not just a good answer, but the answer that matches the one the teacher is looking for.

So I’m kind of worried to be starting a course at this point in my life, when I feel reasonably successful. I think it’s going to knock me down a peg or two, and that’s okay. At least I will have a better idea of what my young patrons are going through every day.

Wish me luck!

Balancing act

Everything in a Youth Services Department of a library is a balancing act these days.  Perhaps I am romanticizing the past (…who am I kidding? Of course I am romanticizing the past!) but I see the library of my childhood as being quiet, peaceful, and filled with beautiful rows and rows of books in order. I am old enough that all you could get were books and magazines.

There’s a sort of purity to that approach that I find appealing, particularly on days when my library is loud and crazy and full of people. But really, it is all about the balance, and I find most of my managerial decisions these days come down to finding the balance.

Loud vs. quiet One of my priorities when we are working on an upcoming renovation is to figure out a way for there to be quiet spaces as well as the loud spaces. I don’t delude myself that designating something as a quiet zone will stop an overtired baby from screaming or a parent from bellowing across the room to their child, but I’m hoping there is still a way to create quiet areas for studying, reading, tutoring, and writing. At the same time, I want to be sure there is room for preschoolers to act like preschoolers, for kids after school to be able to talk above a whisper, and for groups to be able to work on a project together without constant shushing. We need a balance.

Browsing vs. locating titles In one ideal scenario, every book in the library could be in order by Dewey number, and once you knew the number, you could find the book. DVDs might be in title order with no regard to genre or age, television or movies, and once you knew the title, you could find the DVD.

In the other ideal scenario, everything would be set up to look as enticing as possible–books and DVDs facing out so their covers can be seen, picture books in bins so you can flip through them, each topic pulled out so you can browse the self-help or the mysteries. Need a specific title? Good luck with that.

I’ve tried hard at my library to hit the balance with browsing vs. locating titles. Board books for babies are not kept in any order at all, on the theory that babies pull things out and are not very likely to put things back in the right place (and neither are their parents). We have some particularly appealing topics like folktales and ABCs in separate sections so they can be easily located, and our hugely popular series paperbacks are in spinners for easy browsing. But a lot of the rest of the collection is in good ol’ Dewey order. It’s a compromise–some browsing to boost circulation, some specific order to make it possible to locate things when people want them.

I get nervous when libraries move too much in the direction of retail stores. We aren’t stores. The more we call our patrons customers and imitate the retail display models, the more confused our patrons get. Clearly, the more we grow more like a trip to the shopping mall, the more patrons expect to act like they are at the mall. They expect the library to be open the same hours that the mall is open, which would be great, but impossible without getting rid of the librarians.  I think libraries are, even more now, very special places for people to go, with a different feel from the mall.

But it’s all a balancing act.

The Kiss o’ Death Part 2

Back to one of my favorite subjects, weeding.  I’ve continued working on the fiction section, and discovered that the author Ellen Conford’s books have most of the kiss o’ death markers from the last post, so sadly her section of the shelf is half what it was. Nice to find that her nearby neighbor Beverly Cleary is still going so strong, though–not a single title there popped up on the no-circs-in-3-years list.

The heartbreaker this week was finding every title from Helen Cresswell’s hilarious Bagthorpe series on the list. In fact, I could tell from looking at the list that I passed over them last time, too. I’m not sure what the Kiss o’ Death marker is for those. The covers (vintage Trina Schart Hyman) are a little dated, and they are British but that usually isn’t a problem. I’m stumped. And sad. I wish the publisher would reissue the first three with new covers to give them another chance.

Speaking of Kiss o’ Death markers, here are the rest we’ve noticed.

The cover has a horse on it. Again, I am baffled why it is that books with horses on the cover are dead in the water at my library, but aside from the quite popular Black Stallion series, they just don’t go. I think they partly like Black Stallion because it’s a series, and partly because the focus is on the trials and travails of the horse itself. Many of the others are either girl/horse stories (and my community doesn’t get a lot of horseback riding in) or they fall into the next category on my Kiss o’ Death list:

Westerns. No form of Westerns circulates in my department. They see a picture with a horse or a cowboy hat or something with tall cliffs in the background and it just sits there. Maybe it’s that there hasn’t been a truly popular western book or movie or television show in decades, so there are no cross-references pointing kids to those books. It doesn’t matter if they’re funny or mysteries or adventure stories, Westerns are dead. Maybe it’s because they usually fit into the next category on the list…

Historical fiction. Yes, sad to say, historical fiction in general does not circulate well at my library. The westerns do the worst, but really anything that isn’t part of the Dear America series or the American Girl series is a shelf-sitter. This is especially true of American historical fiction, and maybe it’s because our community has a lot of recent immigrants and they just aren’t that interested. Books featuring queens or princesses do okay, and Avi books do okay, and when you put a great historical fiction book on a reading list, they like them. But they don’t check them out without a push.

Books that are too fat by an author who writes skinny books. We could name this category after Scott Corbett. He wrote all of those “Trick” books and although our copies are in fairly disgraceful condition they continue to circulate. But his longer novels like The Discontented Ghost–which features a ghost, usually popular, and has a perfectly fine cover–are dead.  I think it must have to do with the expectations the readers/their parents have when they think of an author. Speaking of parents…

Books that are too skinny. I have also found the reverse to be true. An author who normally writes longer books will write a skinnier one, and that’s the one that won’t go. My theory from overhearing conversations is that parental pressure is a factor here. The parents feel that if a child can read a longer book, they should only read longer books.

Most of these things are out of our control. We can push things by putting them on lists, and we can handsell our favorites (which obviously I did not do well enough with the Bagthorpes). We can put books from the neglected bottom shelf on display. But I must admit that at this point in my career I have finally resigned myself to the fact that a book with a bad cover is simply not going to circ, and that a lot of the books published in the 70s and 80s need new covers if they are going to survive for another generation to read them.

The Kiss o’ Death, Part I

Some books practically weed themselves.  In weeding the fiction collection, it was not a difficult choice to let go of Freddie Freightliner despite its riveting plot about bad guys “from another country” attempting to steal the parts of a space shuttle. They are foiled because the truck has learned to talk, and confers with a limo who informs him, “I was stolen by my driver!” No, that one wasn’t that hard to weed.

Other books break your heart and make you feel like a terrible librarian for letting them go–titles by Alan Garner, Virginia Hamilton, and Anne Fine all went away today, after years of giving them another chance, and another chance, and another chance. Sometimes the good books just stop circulating.

Still, now that I’ve been a librarian for a lot of years, and a librarian here at this library for over ten, it’s gotten easier to let some books go. At your library, other things may qualify for the Kiss o’ Death, but here are a few things that at my library mark a book as doomed never to circulate here.

KoD #1: A bad spine. You can have an awesome cover but give a book a bad spine and it is just not ever going to go out. A bad spine is one where the type is unreadable against the background, or in pale letters, or too fancy to read. Maybe it is a reinforced paperback with no room for info on the spine.  Bad spine = no browsability = never circulating. Bye!

KoD #2: A dated cover. I realized this go-round that I had saved a lot of books in the past out of respect for the authors, and/or because they are local authors. But as I pulled them out, certain covers are simply never ever going to go. You know how these days there are lots of covers showing someone without their head, or as a silhouette? In the 70s and 80s, the style apparently was for a misty view of someone looking pensive. It makes you realize that the current body part book covers are an attempt to avoid having someone look at the cover and hate the character portrayed because they look stupid and mopey.

KoD #3: Hey, Book Title! You Are Trying too Hard to Be Lively! It sometimes works initially, but ten years down the road the Fun and Lively book title has become not fun, not funny, and kind of embarrassing. Hello? Is Anybody There? was one from today. It usually involves punctuation and a character’s name, like Giff’s Tootsie Tanner, Why Don’t You Talk? or Gregory’s Happy Burpday, Maggie McDougal!

That’s just a few of the Kiss o’ Death markers, with more to come.

Those crazy kids of 1921

My grandfather, Frank J. Dove, was a very quiet man. My grandmother, Carrie Belle Hamlin Dove was a chatty lady, and my grandpa tended to sit back and let her do the talking. So it was quite a surprise to come across a scrapbook he created back in the 20s, with tiny black and white photographs and a typed narrative telling the stories of some of their college adventures. They are so vivid and funny, and it is both delightful and unsettling to come across his words some 90 years later and realize that my Grandpa Dove was not always solemn and thoughtful.

In this age where so many of us document our lives quite thoroughly, you have to sometimes remind yourself that although pre-computer people did not document their lives in the same way, they had some of the same impulses to share their stories and to speak to people who might come along later. What a treat to get to catch a glimpse now, in 2011, of my grandparents back in 1921. A big thank you to my generous cousin Carrie, who brought the scrapbooks and photo albums to the family cottage!

Here are some samples, with photos to come:

“The two remaining canoes came up, all went ashore and made a good fire beside a clump of bushes. Toast, eggs and coffee were soon produced and greatly enjoyed. Certain members of the crew used the sugar cubes for irregular and forbidden purposes.”

Needless to say, we are curious to find out what irregular and forbidden purposes one used sugar cubes for in Michigan in the 1920s.

“Another fire was built and all preparations made for eats. But alas! the beefsteak could not be found! After search and discussion Captain Dove remembered that he neglected to bring it from the fraternity house basement…The dinner was a real success without it, though, especially so when topped off by some bottles of Claret Cocktail “made in the cellar” by George Mitchell. The remainder of the afternoon was spent in spinning yarns and trying to keep warm.”

“The boys performed the Seven Labors of Hercules by uprooting trees and carrying logs for a grand bonfire. Supper was served after which the whole crowd sat around and bayed at the moon.”

and one more from another canoe trip:

“So here we made our first stop. We men gathered wood and we women cut up the bread, made toast and poured the colored sawdust into the water. Carrie says it was coffee, but we who drank it, say nothing and have our own opinion.”

The more I read, the more I get a whole new perspective on my grandparents and what their life was like before they got married, had two kids, and grew old together. And I get a whole new appreciation for Frank J. Dove and his sense of humor, as well as for my grandma, who went on camping trips at a time when that probably wasn’t what lots of girls did. It’s like getting an amazing present from the past.

I’m rich!

I don’t want to brag, but I am rich! Not in money exactly, but I have so many books stacked up to take on vacation that I feel like the Warren Buffet of book-wealth right now, and let me tell you, that feels like riches to me.

What I love to do is take so many books with me to our family cabin in Michigan that I have the luxury of choosing which one to read next. Not which one I have to read to review. Not which one I have to read next for an award committee. Not which one I need to read for my department’s Battle of the Books list. Not even which one I should read to feel like I am semi up-to-date in my field, though today I am reading Gary Schmidt’s Okay for Now. No, on vacation I will be choosing from my stack of books which one I want to read next, for me. I’m rich!

On vacation, I have certain books I always take. I always take something by the Scottish writer D.E. Stevenson. She was writing mostly during the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and her books have a very comforting old-fashioned appeal for me. (Sadly, these days I have to really work to ignore the sexism, elitism, and worst of all the racism, but they do capture a particular time and place.) If you only ever read one, read Miss Buncle’s Book, which continues to completely charm me.

I always take at least one mystery–a P.D. James, a Martha Grimes, or lately a lighter Braun “The Cat Who…” book.  For many years, like…6 of them, I had the newest Harry Potter to read out loud to my guys, but no more. A couple of years ago I had the newest Hunger Games to read, which was cool. But what I love the most is having the luxury of time to read what I think of as grown-up books. Presumably most of you reading think of them as just, you know, books.

Most years I ask the readers advisory librarians (Hi Mary and Greta!) for help picking things out, but this year thanks to Good Reads, I already had flagged a long list of things “to read”. I actually sort of missed talking with them but I already had too many!  So I am happily heading off to the cabin with a new Anne Tyler, a book about weeds, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (yes I am behind), A History of Love (ditto), the next Kate Atkinson…I forget what all.  Anyway, lots. More than I can possibly read. And that makes me happy.

By the way, for any burglars who might be ready, we have a very ferocious cat-sitter. So, don’t bother. And if anyone wants to see what I end up reading, you will find it on Good Reads under Susan Dove.

P.S. This doesn’t even include the audiobooks! And then there’s doing logic problems, and crosswords, and a jigsaw puzzle, and swimming, and walking, and playing games… Yay, vacation!

P.P.S. I earned this vacation.