Poetry Friday

For the first time ever I've decided to participate in Poetry Friday. However, instead of supplying you with the poem I am going to urge you to read Meow Ruff: A story in concrete poetry by Joyce Sidman. My favorite style of poetry is concrete poetry and this book is the perfect balance of adorable illustration and awe-inspiring poetry. I've taken the first page from the Amazon Look Here feature so you can get a feel for it, but keep in mind that it by no means does this book justice. Check it out of your library yesterday if you haven't had the pleasure of viewing it!

Review: The Chocolate War

This is one of the first times I've seen third person omniscient narrator work to a great effect. Sure, it creeps up a lot in fantasy and is well done enough, but this book rocked it. In the beginning the chapters alternate between the two main characters, the first dedicated to Jerry, our protagonist, second going to Archie and then swapping between the two for a while. Then when the chocolate sale begins and Jerry refuses to accept his chocolates, the reader is deprived of Jerry's P.O.V; building suspense for what motivates him to decline to carry on his preparatory school's long-standing tradition.

The narration then shifts to the population of the all boys school at large, capturing the atmosphere created by Jerry's chocolate refusal, which does not bode well for the fund raising efforts. A secret society known as the Vigils attempts to persuade Jerry to sell his chocolates, to no avail. An all out war breaks loose as the sway of the Vigils is strong, leading to every other student besides Jerry to step up their chocolate game. Does Jerry succeed or is he eventually worn down and made to sell his chocolate bars? Will the Vigils continue to dominate the school?

First line of book:

"They murdered him."

Scrapblog in the library

I am an avid scrapbooker and was always hesitant to continue this hobby because of the expensive materials required and the amount of paper needed goes against my fervent anti-deforestation cause. This all changed last March when I discovered my favorite website ever. Ever. Scrapblog allows you to do so many neat scrapbooking techniques that previous to using this FREE website I could only dream about on my meager wages.

What's more is once I started using this website at work the quality of the library's flyers and booklists have definitely improved. Don't just take my word for it, check them out. Two of my colleagues who also use Scrapblog have generously allowed me to display their favorite publications on my blog so you can see what I mean. Also, the hyperlinks on each of our names takes you to our sc

Here is the booklist I made for a teen book discussion program for next month:

And here is Sara's flyer detailing the upcoming movie programs in the children's room:

Lastly, view Camille's flyer showing the teen programs for the next few months:

Word on the street has it I'm old

According to a 6th grade patron I am old. Why? Well...

"Once you hit 20 you're old. I mean, you're halfway to 40."

He went on to inform me that one should retire at 25 because then you're really old. Here I was thinking that I was just about to enter the grown-up work force, just to find out that I'm retiring in two years. Damn. I don't think I can pay off undergrad and grad school in that time...

Anyway...

I feel like I'm the only person in the kidlitosphere that is apathetic about the Youth Media Awards. Even my friend Sara who doesn't blog outside of once a year dedicated our daily email thread to them. Am I the Grinch that stole the Awards Ceremony? Granted, I did not fashion my aged dog and myself in spiffy outfits and take the correspondences into a red sack, all the while laughingly maniacally. This much is true, but I still am all bah-humbug! about this stuff.

When I was a kid Newberry books were something you had to read for school over and over again, and therefore sucked. Now that I'm a librarian I'm supposed to get giddy about it? I can still see that strained look when kids come into the library with their Newberry assignments, so I know this hasn't changed much in the past decade. I know there are kids out there that get excited about the award books, but from my personal experience they are younger and care about the Caldecott. I honestly tried to be proactive about them the summer before library school started and ... fail. The books I read were enjoyable but that nagging feeling that I was reading a Newberry clouded my brain. Prejudices die hard.

So, Kidlitters, I implore you to show me why I should care about this. Yeah, it's a bit of a demand and yeah, I'm aware 2 people read this but still... IMPLORE!

Note: What do I know? I'm not even a for-real librarian yet, what with that pesky graduation 4 months away. Also: I love Animorphs which should serve as several grains of salt in and of itself.

Apparently I'm into spontaneous booktalks in McDonalds.

When fumbling through my overlarge bag for my wallet, I pulled out a number of things--mainly books. As I was collecting them I muttered, "I guess it's obvious I'm a librarian since I have about 6 books in my bag."

This prompted my pubescent cashier to ask what I'm reading. I gave a mini-booktalk including air quotes around the words "boy book." He informed me he liked horror and I was like oh this isn't like that and felt around my hungry brain for the best way to say "coming of age story" without actually using such a cliche phrase. After I filled up my soda I informed him that word on the street tells me that the book involves a suicide, but I didn't reach it yet. To which the cashier informed me, "Oh, I like suicides!"

This is why I am meant to be a young adult librarian. Words that come out of their mouths are more golden than the arches blazing the parking lot of this annecdote's setting.

Nothing Youth Media Awards related at all

Except for this, but then again, it's only because it is Mo. He trumps my anti-award mood any day. Congrats, Mo! My best to Elephant and Piggie.

I know I've been a huge link dump slore, but I wish to get as much goodness to you all as I can. Forgive me? Aw thanks, you're too kind!

Super Punch Amazingness:

• The future is bleak and headed more towards Idiocracy* every day.
• New Pixar movie has a spiffy poster.
• Show me someone who doesn't like robots and I'll show you a liar.

Crafty type items:

• Barfing unicorn. Somehow, it looks even more magical than it sounds. I don't think I'll ever regret the day I added Craft: blog to my reader and this just about proves that point.
• Craftster blog link dump. I'm glad my boyfriend doesn't read my blog otherwise he'll see what horribly "original" idea of a Valentine's day present he is getting, complete with card.
• This is from the same link dump as the last bullet point, but the sheer ridiculousness of time and effort that went into these beads deserved its own tiny little dot on my blog. Absurd.

Other people review so I don't have to:

• All About Sleep by Elaine Scott (reviewed by Abby (the) Librarian)
• Is it cheating if you include a link to someone who links to other people's reviews when copping out of reviewing due to a computer shortage or true genius? Oh, true genius? You don't say! Please view Jen Robinson's review links that also made me want the books too!

Various kidlit tidbits and other johnsons:

• Some TinTin ish. (Thanks BWE!)
• PUPPY BOWL 2009!!
• School librarians making a lot of fuss to ensure my future job security. Thanks guys, you shouldn't have... (Thanks YALSA blog)
• Twilight/Buffy shirt I covet like no other. (Thanks interactivereader!)

*If you are unfamiliar with Idiocracy, let me first shame you and then suggest you add it to your Netflix queue yesterday. That is all.