Last year, one of the young men at my school who read The Hunger Games came up to me with a question (which I won’t put here, because it’s kind of spoilery). I couldn’t give him the answer, because it was also kind of spoilery, so we talked about it when he was done. When [...]
Category Archives: Library
For the end of Banned Books Week. 0
Today is the last day of Banned Books Week. I didn’t really do anything to celebrate this year. Except I have been listening to the Harry Potter series on my runs and walks around the neighborhood. Yay for access to books that other people disapprove of!
Every year, I think, “Maybe next year I will celebrate [...]
Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer. I think he might’ve been our only decent teacher. 6
This spring I had the very great pleasure of walking our art teacher through the Harry Potter books. Oh, the texts that she sent me as she raced through them. Oh, the conversations we had. Oh, the ways I listened to her predictions and tried to keep my not-very-good poker face. [...]
Categories: Library
The books are whispering. 6
In the Library by Charles Simic
for Octavio
There’s a book called
“A Dictionary of Angels.”
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep [...]
Many things made me laugh today. 2
But this was the one that made me laugh the hardest.
I know there are actual inspirational posters like this. But I am much more familiar with the ones from Despair.com. Which leads me to the obvious joke that this one, of course, comes from Hope.com. (What? You were totally [...]
Categories: Library
I know that story, I was sitting right behind you. 3
I don’t want to jinx it, but the two classes that I am currently teaching seem a little bit less challenging than the two that I had in my last rotation. I think I am going to have some rowdy boys again, but there are rowdy boys and there are rowdy boys. I [...]
Categories: Library
Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours. 5
I have been in some discussions lately about censorship and freedom of speech, mostly because of those Time and NYT articles about Sarah Palin and banned books and I am not getting into all of that here because that’s not really what this blog is about. You should just know that I do care [...]
Categories: Library
Of what is past, or passing, or to come. 0
When Mike was still getting up a whole lot later than I was, we put a little travel clock in the bathroom so that I wouldn’t have to open the door and disturb him with bright blinding bathroom light to know what time it was in the mornings. Now that he and I get [...]
This week by the numbers. 7
Sweaters with apples on them: 1.
Sweaters with apples on them worn by me: 0. (I hope you knew this already.)
Times I sang the “Jeans Day” song this morning: At least 5. (I got to wear jeans! To work!)
Times before this week I have been jealous of Mike getting to wear jeans on Friday: However [...]
Categories: Funny Stuff, Library
“There was never an age in which useless knowledge was more important than our own.” 3
If you’ve been around here at all to hear me talk about my high school days, you know that the thing that made them bearable was the Quiz Bowl team. Those hours spent in my school library shaped me in so many ways, and I look back on them with pure pleasure. There’s [...]
Categories: Introspection, Library
My huckleberry friend. 6
“When I left Queen’s my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination [...]
Librarians are hipster party people. 1
The New York Times says so. Who are you to argue with The New York Times?
Categories: Library
Two things. 5
It’s National Library Week! Hug a librarian this week! Or send her presents! I mean, if you know a librarian. Who might like presents. Or chocolate. I bet she likes chocolate.
And, 50 Books posted this interesting story about how Yann Martel (Canadian author of Life of Pi) has started [...]
Someone really should have warned me about this. 4
I’m not too sure how I feel about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
“Yes?” The librarian did not bother to look up.
“Cold you recommend a good book for a girl?”
“How old?”
“She is eleven.”
Each week Francie made the same request and each week the librarian asked the same question. A name on a card meant [...]
Librarians convening 10
I’ve heard that you can always tell a librarian conference by the abundance of sensible shoes and totebags. (For the record, I carried a totebag for my notebook, my novel, and my waterbottle, but I was not wearing sensible shoes.) So when I wasn’t sure exactly where to go for my registration, I [...]
I’m going to see Nancy Pearl! 6
At least, it looks like I am. She’s speaking at NCLA this year about Reader’s Advisory (“I like this book, can you recommend some similar books?”) and I’m going to go.
What’s that? You don’t know who Nancy Pearl is?
Yes you do:
She’s the Seattle librarian who was the inspiration for the librarian action figurine. [...]
Categories: Library
On organizing a domestic library 9
I personally find that for domestic [library] purposes, the Trivial Pursuit system works better than Dewey. -Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree
It surprises people when I tell them that I don’t categorize my books alphabetically or by Dewey Decimal or something. I used to arrange them alphabetically, but I quit doing that because books that [...]
Don’t change your plans for me 6
I have new plans for the evening, as In the Company of Cheerful Ladies has just been handed to me with a post-it note featuring my name. This morning I started Gaudy Night (comfort reading at its finest), but I am excited about having this new book instead. Have I ever mentioned my [...]
A long way down to the place where we started from 5
While doing the summer ordering, I keep coming across A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby.
Every. Single. Time. I see it, I start singing in my head, “Your love is better than ice cream, better than anything else that I’ve tried . . .” This is fine, except that I will still [...]