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The research report, “Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want”, came out recently. Authored by an OCLC research team headed by Karen Calhoun, Vice President, WorldCat and Metadata Services, the report presents findings about the data quality expectations of catalog end users and librarians. I haven't actually had time to crack it yet myself (!) but am looking forward to the long flight to Amsterdam for the WorldCat Mashathon when I can.

From the news brief, the Online Catalogs report offers:

· Insight for readers seeking to define requirements for improved catalog data

· Information about the metadata elements that are most important to end users in determining if an item will meet his or her needs

· Support for the enhancements end users and librarians would like to see made in online library catalogs

· Insight into the end user’s discovery experience

· Findings for readers in areas associated with contributing, synchronizing or linking data from multiple sources in library catalogs and integrated library systems

If you've already read the report, what do you think? Do these findings ring true with your experience, or with what you observe about your users?

Holly Cupala tagged me for this bookish meme.

Tell me about the book that has been on your shelf the longest.

All of my childhood books and some of my all-time favorite books, including The NeverEnding Story by Michael Ende, are in storage, sadly. Those would be the longest-running (er, standing?) titles were they truly here in my current abode.

Then there are the oldest books, those published decades ago and passed through many hands before I acquired them, such as some of the well-read books related to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Tell me about a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (i.e. a person, a place, a time, etc.)

Every time I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I hear Nick's voice (as opposed to my own) so clearly in my head, it's as if he's speaking over my shoulder.

Tell me about a book you acquired in some interesting way (gift, serendipity in a used bookstore, prize, etc.)

I collect (among other things) different editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll. It's not a huge collection; I have less than twenty volumes written by Carroll or related to Alice. However, I have a separate bookshelf just for these books and other items from Wonderland, like the DVD of my favorite film version of the story*, some mugs, and a couple of journals, one of which was given to me by someone who might be reading this post! Some of the books were given to me too, such as Adventures from the Original Alice in Wonderland published by Wonder Books in 1951 and a collection of selected songs from the 1985 version of Alice in Wonderland. A few years ago, while wandering through a used bookstore, I was extremely happy to find a copy of The Other Alice: The Story of Alice Liddell and Alice in Wonderland by Christina Bjork, illustrated by Inga-Karin Eriksson and translated by Joan Sandin, a biography I love which had gone out-of-print.

* Go to my big ol' post about Alice and scroll down to the section entitled Musicalice. I still need to buy the soundtrack, which was released by Screen Archives Entertainment a few years ago.

... and I should admit to owning two copies of the DVD. One was a gift. The other I found at a used music and movie shop a year later and, since it cost only five dollars and had a different cover, I bought it in hopes that it was better quality than the first version and/or had other features. It isn't and it doesn't, but that's okay!

Back to the bookshelves: I really prize my Golden books. Not Golden Books - though those are wonderful as well - but books written by Christopher Golden. I have some very special editions. See the last question and answer on this meme for more about that collection.

Tell me about the most recent addition to your shelves.

If you count my library shelves, then my most recent additions would be the ten books I checked out today, which include Kenny and the Dragon by Tony DiTerlizzi, a volume of sheet music (I'm making copies tomorrow), and three graphic novels published by Minx (which I still can't believe they cancelled less than a year and a half after the imprint was launched!)

Tell me about a book that has been with you to the most places.

Most books just go from the store to my home, unless they've traveled with me on a plane, like I'd Tell You I'd Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter. Though I don't travel often, every time I do, I bring so many books with me that they outweight the clothes I've packed. I'm serious. I pack really lightly, clothes- and stuff-wise, but since I read so quickly, I have to pack at least one book per day I'm going to be gone or I go nuts.

Tell me about a bonus book that doesn't fit any of the above questions.

I have a separate bookshelf just for books by Christopher Golden. Thomas Sniegoski is there, too, actually, as I segue on the top shelf from his solo works to those co-written with Golden, then the rest is silence the remaining shelves are filled with Golden's other works. Look up 'prolific' in the dictionary and you'll see his picture. He's written over 100 solo works, not to mention all of his collaborative projects. I aspire to his productivity and publishing history! Find out where to start: Reading Christopher Golden.

There may still be an event or two you can participate in, to celebrate Earth Day.

Remind your library supporters that using the library makes every day an earth day. (Sharing resources, sharing knowledge, bringing people together under a common desire to improve their lives through a richer, more complex world view. (Or simply knowing how to fix their truck...)

I love the polar bear in this image...

It's been a crazy week here at OCLC. Lots of good stuff in the works. I have been joking that the whole company will exhale a collective sigh of relief when all the planned spring and summer upgrades/enhancements/releases finally go through.

I spent an extended holiday weekend last weekend in my hometown of Alva, Oklahoma visiting as many family members as possible. Where else do you find a baby calf, a rabbit, a dog, 2 kittens and an indeterminate amount of chickens in the same backyard? I love it!

I was recently reminded that I hadn't give you the final installment in the IAG occasional series on "How to Survive a Network Attack" for small and medium-sized libraries. If you have IT people who specialize in security, rock on. If not, maybe these tips will help. This is the third chunk.
Find the previous two chunks are here:

Reduce the likelihood of an attack.
Have visibility into the problem.

A new study measured screen time and found all of us are on about 8 hours a day, unless you're in the magic aged 45 to 54 bracket, and then you enjoy more screen time than any of the rest of us--excluding our young friends under the age of 18.

I find this number actually lower than I would expect. What do you think?

Released this weekend, the WorldCat keyword widget is pretty darn cool. You'll have to scroll down, though, to see it on our antiquated page layout (if you still read on the big screen, rather than your aggregator). Perhaps (sigh) it is time for some actual design skills to help us out here at IAG. I am feeling the need for some visual freshening. Or perhaps it's just spring fever.

Our original intent in keeping It's All Good in its current polkadotted fashion was to encourage everyone in libraries or library school who, like us, had limited design skills, attention spans and hours in the workday to devote to blogging to consider its merits and see how easy it was. "See," we said, "See how we're using it in the totally out-of-the-box, you don't need special tools way." But by now that ship has sailed...

But back to the WorldCat Keyword search widget. Designed especially for content pages or blogs that are relatively narrow in scope, you can build a refined keyword search right into the widget...and then of course you can also change it and get results right in the cute box. Play around with it and see what you think. Better yet, put it on a couple of blogs/pages and see what your users think.

I've been working on a sort of "StoryCorps" project for WorldCat and library cooperation--except it's video. It's really simple. All you do is record a quick blip about Why You Love WorldCat.org, and upload it to YouTube to join the growing collection.

We're inviting everyone to record their "WorldCat stories" in video form. It can be a simple as telling the world why you love a specific WorldCat.org feature (10 seconds), or as involved as relating the time when someone you knew absolutely couldn't find the Ukrainian resource she desperately needed, until a library staff member suggested WorldCat and she found the actual digitized art object itself. (2 minutes or, as long as you like).

If you're headed to the ACRL conference, we even have a videographer lined up to do the video taping for you. It will be at the OCLC hospitality suite at the Seattle Sheraton, room 3102 from 1-4 pm.

If you're at SXSW Interactive, lucky you! Record yourself in the midst of all the fun.

I also try to be a weekly geek (I mean, I do geek out daily in my own special way) but I never seem to get around to it.

BUT! HA! Better late than never, right? This week we're talking book covers. I'm going to talk about consistency within a series. I'm a big fan of consistency. I like the books on my shelf to match and am not happy when a series changes look half way through. I mean, read my rants here and here about the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series.

And Georgia's where I'm going to start, because I wasn't originally a fan of the new covers. When I started reading, the covers all looked like this:



But, when Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers went to paperback, they changed cover designs. Now the first 4 books (pictured above) look like this:



Now, it's been a few years, and the new covers are starting to grow on me. I like that they incorporate Angus (the cat) on every cover, because he is a big part of every book. I especially like the new cover for Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants, because the romantic shadow on the wall is that of two cats. It's subtle and funny once you read the book (although the old cover, check out the man in the moon--it's two kissing cats!) I miss the old covers, but I do think the new ones will appeal to more teens today. I still, however, insist that those nunga nungas would not knock anyone out.

Despite my fuddy-duddy DON'T CHANGE THE BOOK COVER ways, sometimes it's necessary. I've been reading the Alice books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (expect a big review this weekend or next week.)

Now, Naylor started writing the Alice books in the mid-80s and the series is ongoing. The old covers needed to go. However, they then changed the covers again and the newest ones are fine, but the older ones are still good. Here's the progression for Alice in Rapture, Sort Of.



And! Some of the newer titles/those featuring an older Alice, have totally different covers! (I'm judging entire remakes based on the "Alice" logo, which is consistent across books, but changes when they redesign the overall package)

Now, these two versions of Including Alice are pretty similar, to the point where I think both pictures were taken in the same photoshoot--the model is wearing the same top! But, I think they're both paperbacks...:



There's a bigger difference between these two paperback versions of Alice in April



And a really big difference between these two paperback versions of


The big thing I can see with the newer editions of the Alice books is that each cover seems to look like it's for an older audience than the older cover. I'm wondering why this is. Alice has always been a very controversial series (Alice thinks about sex a lot. Not that she wants to have a lot of it, but just that's she's naturally very curious about this thing that no one talks about.) So, are the publishers trying to push it into older hands by making the covers look older?

Or is it because kids like to read "up"--reading about characters older than they are and books that look older. So are the publishers aging up the covers so that the kids who are Alice's age (she ages a year every 3 books) won't think they're too babyish based on the cover?

Also, some of the covers needed to change. The illustrated version of Alice in Rapture, Sort of needed to go. But the middle one is the right age for Alice. The newer one of the heart in the beach, while technically age ambiguous, makes it feel like it's for a much older reader. The newer version of Simply Alice looks more like how old Alice should be. She's 15 and a sophomore in high school in that book--the older one just looks too young. On the other hand, the newer Alice in April might be too old, as the older one (where you can see her face) looks about the right age.

What are your thoughts?

Living Dead Girl is the horrific story of a child abductee. Her nightmare starts when she is ten. She is on a field trip at an aquarium, where she accidentally wanders away from her classmates. That’s when she meets Ray. He brings her to his house and calls her Alice, though that’s not her real name. He also makes her promise to forever stay a little girl. His little girl. Alice can’t tell anyone about her situation. First off, no one would believe her and if she tries to escape, Ray will kill her and her family.


At 15, Alice is still forced to be Ray’s ‘little girl’. He starves her to keep her as small as possible, but Alice knows he is tiring of her. She is sent to find Ray a new little girl who will replace her. Starting to lose hope, she soon starts looking forward to her death and the ending of her 5 years of torture.

I was blown away by this book. Ray was such an unbelievably twisted character. I was so sickened by everything he did. He was incredibly real and terrifying. I wanted more than anything to be able to save Alice. I was frustrated with the oblivious people around her. Everyone knew there was something wrong about her, but no one cared enough to try to find out what. I was quite confused about what happened at the end though, but that wouldn’t stop me from recommending this book.

5 of 5 daggers.







Demanding you read this book,
Twyla Lee

Imagine taking a trip halfway around the world, only to find out that you're half-goddess, then be sworn to secrecy. What would happen when you went back to your normal life in your boring American town with your non-magical family and friends? Readers first met Morgan, Connecticut teenager and unlikely half-goddess, in Why I Let My Hair Grow Out, which detailed her trip to Ireland. Morgan's story continues in the sequel, How I Found the Perfect Dress. Read my review of How I Found the Perfect Dress at SparkLife.

Maryrose Wood's contemporary YA fantasies are fun, quick reads with plenty of comedy and romance. Morgan is more punk-rock than princess, and her conversations with her wide-eyed little sister are classic. Lewis Carroll's Alice would definitely like the scene when Morgan goes through a dressing room mirror. I know I did.

If you discovered that you were half-god or half-goddess, who would you like be your mythical parent? Please post your answer at SparkLife!

Banned Books Week is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.
-- The American Library Association

Learn more about Banned Books Week at the ALA website, which provides background about Banned Books Week, lists of frequently challenged books, details about related events, and more.

Listen to This

Say these statements aloud and note how different they sound:
"YOU shouldn't read that book!"
"NO ONE should read that book!"
"That book is amoral. I am appalled that you read it and that the author wrote it!"
"I haven't read that book. It doesn't sound interesting to me."
"I don't like that book. I read it, but I didn't like it."
"I love that book. Everyone should read that book."

Or these:
"The writing was poor."
"The plotline was full of holes."
"That book had many grammatical errors and typos."
"The story was appalling due to the language/violence/situations."

One Man's Junk is Another Man's Treasure

I personally don't like things which are crude, so I choose not to read books that are, say, collections of filthy jokes. But that's my opinion. I'm not going to read those books, but at the same time, I'm not going to stop someone else from reading what he or she wants to read.

I also don't read westerns or romances, but that's completely different; I don't tend to read those genres because I'm not all that interested in them. There are other genres which interest me more, much more, like dramatic fiction. At the same time, I don't like fictional melodramas, soap operas, or woe-is-me stories. I like a well-written story with unique characters and intriguing plots. I like horror and fantasy as written by the likes of Christopher Golden and Michael Ende. I like justice being served. (Hence my addiction to the television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Cold Case, and Without a Trace.) I like to think, to dream, to imagine, to cheer, to hope, and thus I enjoy books that inspire those thoughts and moods.

There are so many different books, written for so many different reasons, written for so many different audiences. There are books which are realistic, books that are humorous, books that are mysterious, books that are satirical, books that are dystopic, books that challenge the readers due to the vocabulary used, books that challenge the readers to think and discuss.

I can't stand it when I hear that a library pulled a book off of its shelves due to the jacket summary and/or title, without the librarian and/or the challengers actually having read the book. I firmly believe that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Read it for yourself, THEN decide if it is a good book. Some covers are lovely and the stories are lacking; some stories are lovely and the covers are lacking. Some authors choose the titles of their books, others do not - or they did, but it was changed by the publisher or editor. There are books with racy titles that actually have tame stories and vice-versa. Some jacket summaries describe the plot quite well, while others are very far off the mark. Still others describe the book a little too well and give away crucial plot points.

If you see a book and are concerned that it might not be appropriate for your children, your students, or your library, I again encourage you to read it for yourself, then decide.

Discretion vs. Ageism

I think that rules based on general ages or grade levels can be silly. Examples: "You are 12, and no one is allowed to read this until the age of 13," or "This book is too difficult for a fifth-grader to read." The reader's age isn't the only thing to take into consideration; one must also consider his or her emotional maturity and reading level. There are 8 year olds who can read, retain, and understand The NeverEnding Story and The Tale of Two Cities. There are 18 year olds who can't. There are 48 year olds who can't. There were many times when teachers and school librarians gawked at my literature selections, thinking I was too young to comprehend those books. Those who got to know me realized their assumptions were incorrect.

Should an 8 year old read a book filled with profanity and adult situations? I wouldn't recommend it. Should that same kid see a movie filled with the same? I wouldn't recommend that either. Again, that's my opinion. It's amazing how some parents will not permit their children to read books due to their content, then allow them to turn on the TV or go see a movie that has similar if not older/racier/naughtier content. I often use the American movie rating systems to convey content to parents, teachers and librarians.

There is a difference between discretion and banning. Discretion is supposed to be about selection and is more personal. Banning has more to do with censorship, permission and judgment.

A bookstore might specialize in a certain genre or be for a certain age group. A children's bookstore, for example, probably has mostly picture books and chapter books; I wouldn't expect it to have the newest western paperbacks for adults. Likewise, a shop that specializes in westerns probably wouldn't carry titles for newborns. A librarian at an elementary school might not wish to stock One Hundred Years of Solitude or The Scarlet Letter.

My Favorite Banned Books

The protagonists of my favorite banned/challenged books share the same name: Alice.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll, was banned in China in 1931 because "animals should not use human language" and that it was "disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level." This was quoted at Lenny's Alice in Wonderland Site, as originally from The File Room. View all Bildungsroman posts related to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The Alice McKinley series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has been challenged every which way due to its realistic portrayal of adolescence. The books follows Alice's life at home and at school, from 3rd grade through (currently) high school. The series is heartwarming, humorous, sweet, and straightforward. Read more about the Alice McKinley series.

I have read many of banned books, including but not limited to the following titles, listed in the order in which they appear on the ALA's banned book lists, not in order of personal preference . . . except for the first one.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Scary Stories collections by Alvin Schwartz
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice McKinley series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids series by Harry Allard
Anastasia Krupnik series by Lois Lowry
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Deenie by Judy Blume
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Fade by Robert Cormier
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Cut by Patricia McCormick
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson


I did not read any of these books BECAUSE they were banned. I read them because they sounded interesting to me. In the case of some of the contemporary books, I read them BEFORE they were challenged or banned.

I read banned books, and I'm proud of it. I even have the bracelet to prove it.

Read Read Read

Read a book because it's interesting to you - because it's a good book - because it sounds delightful - because it sounds intriguing - because you want to imagine, to learn, to belong, to consider, to challenge yourself, to dream, to wish, to cheer, to think, NOT to think, to escape. Read what you want to read. Read BECAUSE you want to read. Share your love of reading with others.

In conclusion, I'll say what I always say:

Open a book. Open your mind.

Related Posts:
They Tried to Ban This Book Today, or, There's a Sticker on the Cover of This Book - inspired by the challenge of Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson: Too Cool for School?
View all Bildungsroman posts related to banned books

Consider what a great girl you are.
Consider what a long way you've come to-day.
Consider what o'clock it is.
Consider anything, only don't cry!

- The White Queen to Alice in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

Learn more about my adoration of the Alice books.

View all posts tagged as Poetry Friday at Bildungsroman.

Consult the Poetry Friday roundup schedule at Big A little a.

Learn more about Poetry Friday.

Eric is madly dashing around the office, trying to get ready for a presentation he's giving in Mexico--or he would have posted this himself.

But he knew I was NOT madly dashing around the office. In fact, I'm here on an almost leisurely Friday morning before the three-day weekend. I biked the baby to school today, as we have been doing for the past 2 weeks now. It turns out, it's practically as fast as the car and it may not be saving a ton of gas...but I decided it saves me feeling like a nincompoop for driving the 3 miles twice a day. Plus the fresh air, a bit of exercise, some drama as I turn onto the main road with lots of cars. All good.

But I digress. Penn State took the results from The College Students Perceptions report and compared it with their latest FACAC results, as reported by E-Tech.

Penn State students regularly came out on top, above national averages revealed by the report. Now, there are a number of factors that could be in play here:

• Penn State students are above average. (Probably quite likely, yes.)
• Students have gotten much more information literate since the report was published (less likely.)
• Librarians have become much more aware of the need to bridge the chasm between student perceptions and library offerings since the report was published (Overwhelmingly likely!)

I just heard this funny anecdote today about the different meanings of "free."
Free as in:

• Free Speech.
• Free Beer.
• Free Puppies.

As an educator (named Teacher of the Year her first year!), a modeling agent, a writer, and a mother, it's safe to say that Debbie Reed Fischer has had a direct effect on others.  Her debut novel for teens, Braless in Wonderland, followed a young woman into the topsy-turvy world of modeling. Her second YA novel, Swimming with the Sharks (due out in September), considers the reasons why teen girls might become emotional bullies - and why students aware of the taunting might opt to fit in than speak up. I spoke to Debbie at length about the pursuit of fame, the pursuit of popularity, and the pursuit of publishing.

Allee and I share a love of Alice in Wonderland. Which came first, your character's personality or her name?

First, let me say hi and thanks for having me. It’s an honor to be here.

My books are character-driven, so her personality definitely came first. Her name is a shout-out to both Lewis Carroll’s Alice as well as my close friend Allee, who is a booker at a modeling agency in Miami.  

Allee is a self-declared feminist who pursues modeling to earn money for her future, for college, with little to no interest in fame and flashy objects. It's known from the start of the book that she makes a name for herself, but without giving away the ending of the book, do you feel that future success would spoil her? What might she do for a living ten years from now?

I think Allee is by nature a sensible, disciplined and cautious person (nothing like me - eek), so I really don’t think making a name for herself in the modeling industry, or any industry for that matter, would spoil her. Plus, since she’s been accepted into an excellent college, the road to achieving her long-term goals will always be open. The question is, should every young adult with a great educational opportunity race down the academic road right away . . . or take some time for personal growth and new experiences beforehand?

As far as where she’ll be in ten years, who knows where any of us will be in ten years? Quick story: I took a year off before college and went to Israel to travel and work on a kibbutz (a cooperative farm). There were a few university courses I took as well, but really, it was about adventure and figuring out who I was. There was another teen there, picking melons with me on the kibbutz, and years later, he became CNN’s top white house correspondent, David Shuster. I would never have guessed where he would end up when he was picking melons with me and a bunch of other college-bound kids taking a year off (by the way, David was extremely quiet back then, almost mute, and now he’s an Emmy-award-winning broadcaster; it is beyond ironic).The point is, new experiences don’t present limitations; they present opportunities. Allee comes to see modeling as a way to explore a new side of herself, rather than just a means to make money for Yale.  

I checked out Cuil, tempted by the Chronicle's coverage of the new, "bigger than Google" search engine. Not thrilling, IMO. But maybe it will grow on me. It does have a nice black screen, which might save lots of energy--but it might not. Did I mention we want to see Wall-E last weekend?

So you may have noticed we have been suspiciously quiet since ALA. Is it because we used up all our decent ideas at the LITA Forum? Blog salon?
Hardly.

• I think it's because we're all trying to dig out from the "ALA preparation" hole that we (at least, me) invariably find ourselves in.
• Chrystie is busy launching a new WebJunction site.
• I spent a week in Ohio and now have a new official role as the consumer marketing guru for WorldCat.org. (My words, not OCLC's).
• George is valiantly trying to have a summer in between speaking engagements and entertaining IFLA fellows.
• Eric, well, Eric last I know was organizing a baseball outing. But that was in his spare time.

Before we get to our regularly scheduled reviewing, some announcements.

Quiescit anima libris has an excellent post today about catalogers and how, despite popular library-world sentiment, we are NOT the enemy. (Ok, I'm not a cataloger, but I do love cataloging and have been a cataloger and might be one again someday. Mmmmm... cataloging...)

Also, there's still time to enter my drawing for a free (hardcover! not an ARC!) copy of Playing with Fire by Derek Landy. Information can be found here.

AND! I haven't done my Top 9 for [insert month here] since April! So, click on the store and see my top 9 for July!

Anyway, some books, yes.

I've been reading lots of Alice lately.

>

Hours read: 4 hours, 15 minutes

Number of books read: 3

Number of pages read: 514

WARNING: I am reviewing series books. While this review contains no spoilers for this book, it probably contains spoilers for previous volumes in this series. It’s the nature of the beast.

Reluctantly Alice Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Well, 7th grade has started, and every thing's different and harder, both academically and personally. Alice already has an enemy that's making her life hard but no matter what, her personal problems are nothing like her dad's and Lester's romantic woes!

Seriously though, Alice needs to stop taking advice from Aunt Sally. Geez. And stop talking to Lester's girlfriends on the phone...

Anyway, I just want to say how much I freaking love Pandora, which you need to check out if you haven't yet.

The new challenge is to make a button. I've never made a button, but I think I'll try!

Hours Spent Reading: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Books read: 2
Pages read: 332

Alice in Rapture, Sort Of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Having a boyfriend is so hard! Especially when there's kissing involved! What if you just ate garlic pizza?!

The thing about being twelve is that you bawl a lot... Between the sixth and seventh grades, something happens to your eyes. They water a lot. I think it's so you can get all the watering out the way before you start wearing mascara. pp.160-161

There'll probably just be more plot summary, less reviewing until tomorrow when I'll review the series as a whole. Unless, of course, I feel like yelling at some characters a la Princess Diaries, which is rather likely, especially as I become more sleep deprived.

Anyway, the mini-challenge right now is to go take a walk, so I'm off to 7-11 to get a slushie. Yummy.

Hours Spent Reading: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Books Read: 1
Pages Read: 166

So, I finished up Lovingly Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor!

It's Alice's 5th grade year and things aren't going so well. First of all Sara moved away without telling everyone-- rumor has it her family has been evicted. And everyone's being mean to Rosalind because she's fat. Things just go down hill from there.

Naylor has a way of capturing the bittersweetness of childhood. The confusion and giggles over where babies come from, the hurt involved in popularity...

I do like this series.

Sometimes other people’s secrets are as much fun as your own. I’ve been bubbling over with one of Alice’s for weeks. Go look, go! Is it not the prettiest place on the internet? Be sure to click all around. One thing that especially delights me is having easy access to all her liturgical tea menus. These teas are one of her best innovations and have been enriching my own family’s feast-day celebrations for years and years. I was one of the lucky ones, you know, who got to reap the benefits of Alice’s particular genius long before she came to the internet. (Forgive me if I gloat a little.) I remember when she presented her first themed tea menu (a Shakespearean repast, that one) to her teeny tiny girls waaay back in our young-mama days. A decade later, I am still giggling over some of her menu items.

Her Midsummer Night’s Dream tea is another masterpiece, invented for the cast party of her local group’s performance of that play. Because I (more gloating) got to read her upcoming book in manuscript, and because she is including that tea in an appendix to the book, my San Diego friends and I got to enjoy the very same feast after our Shakespeare Club’s performance of scenes from that play—the club itself being an enterprise I was inspired to launch after hearing Alice’s Shakespeare stories. This is the effect she’s had on me for years, and the effect she’s had on the online homeschooling community since she joined that party: she has all these great ideas and makes them sound so easy and doable. So you jump up and do them, and she’s right. I see the fruit of her genius all over the internet.

Which is why people are going to love her book. One of the reasons why, that is. The personal narrative itself is captivating, and I’m not just saying that because I’m a recurring character. Although she did make me cry a goodly number of times as she recounted the story of our own budding friendship back in Queens, NY. What delicious days those were! But beyond the fact that her book tells a darn good story, there’s what I always think of as the “practical inspiration” factor—does a book inspire me to get up and DO? Haystack Full of Needles does. Which I think is pretty impressive, considering I talk to the author on the phone almost every day, so you’d think I’d have heard all her ideas by now. Not so. Because the woman is a fount of them; they bubble out of her. As I read the manuscript, I was thinking, gosh, people are just going to wish they could live in Alice’s area and be part of the things she’s describing. But as I read on, I realized that no, the effect of the book goes much deeper than that: you find yourself energized and eager to put her ideas to work in your own home and circle of friends. It’s a beautiful look at community, what we give each other and how we grow together. Which is exactly how I characterize my friendship with Alice Gunther: we have grown up together, as mothers—we met when her oldest was two and my only(!) child was fifteen months old. I’ve been the lucky recipient of her brilliant ideas ever since. It just tickles me pink that now the whole world can enjoy the riches too.

August, 2000. Post Barnes & Noble booksigning celebration. From left: me, unidentified man’s bottom, Alice with our friend Brigid’s sweet daughter Emily on her lap. Photo by Brigid! You can’t tell because we’re sitting, but I was pregnant with Beanie—Alice’s future goddaughter.

Dan got back from his business trip yesterday.

Me: Hey! So, I ended up winning the 48 Hour Challenge for most hours read!
Him: How many hours did you end up doing?
Me: Um... 42
Him: Yeah... some people have lives.

And just to prove that I really, really don't have a life, I've already read 3.5 books since then...

So let's review one of them, shall we? Ok.

I like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland quite a bit. You might already know this, since I often bring it up in conversation, whether it be to reference it in relation to other novels or to discuss the book itself - or to sing the praises of my favorite film adaptation of the book, aka the 1972 British live-action musical Alice's Adventures in Wonderland starring Fiona Fullerton as Alice, adapted and directed by William Sterling, with music by John Barry and lyrics by Don Black based on those by Lewis Carroll.

...and yes, I can (and do) say all of that in one breath.

Someone uploaded the film in seventeen parts on YouTube. Thank you! I have arranged those seventeen parts in order (plus some other Alice-related videos) so you may now watch the movie simply by clicking below:



The movie is available on DVD. The DVD is, of course, better quality than YouTube. Get it. Watch it.

I myself own two copies of the DVD. The soundtrack is available on CD, yet I do not own it because it is packaged with the soundtrack for Petulia, also scored by John Barry, and I just want the Alice soundtrack.

Now I am cracking up, because a Peter Sellers movie is coming on television right as I type this, and I just quoted him as the March Hare in my previous post.

The March Hare: "Now then: What did the father ghost say to his son?"
The Dormouse: "I don't know. What did the father ghost say to his son?"
The March Hare: "Spook only when you are spooken to."
- from the 1972 musical film version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Thanks, tea party critters. Now I'm going to speak with author Suzanne Harper about spooks, Shakespeare, Hannah Montana, spies, and Brian Boitano, among other things.

The title character in The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney has the ability to see, hear, and speak to ghosts. Have you ever had a ghostly encounter?

I once had what I'd like to think was a ghostly encounter - of sorts, anyway! I was in my early teens and my family was visiting relatives in Ohio. We had gone out to a lake, where we were hanging out, skipping stones, etc. I wandered across the road to an old cemetery that was divided in half. On the left were graves from the Civil War era; on the right were more recent graves. I love history, so of course I went to the left. As I was reading the headstones, I started to feel faint and then I started to hear cannon booming from the woods. At first I tried to tell myself I was hearing things, but the cannon kept firing. I walked over to the newer side of the cemetery and suddently I felt fine and didn't hear any cannon. After awhile, I convinced myself that I was just hearing things, so I went back to look at the Civil War graves - and once again, I felt weak and the cannon started to boom! At that point, I left the cemetery in a hurry.

Which of Sparrow's wacky relatives is the most like you?

That's a great question! I think I'm a lot like Sparrow's mother, in the sense that I can be rather vague and preoccupied (in her case, it's because she's seeing ghosts; in my case, it's because I'm in my own world, thinking about characters and plot twists — or maybe I'm just a vague and preoccupied person). I hope to one day be able to channel my inner Grandma Bee – I would love to be as unabashedly eccentric and self-assured as she is!

You took a trip to Verona, Italy, the setting of The Juliet Club, your second novel for teens. Did you travel there before or after fully plotting your story?

I went to Verona once for a day and a half before I started writing – in fact, it was about three years before I actually started the book. After I finished the first draft, I traveled there again and spent four days walking every inch of the city. Both trips were helpful. I needed to go the first time because I had never been there at all. However, I got a lot more out of the second trip because I had actually written the book, so I had specific questions that needed to be answered. Also, I knew my characters very well by that point, so I could think about what Kate or Giacomo or the others would do in certain situations. There are parts of the book that come directly from that trip. For example, the small section where Kate hears someone playing the clarinet at dusk – that happened to me and it was a magical moment.

Is Romeo and Juliet your favorite play by Shakespeare?

No, actually, I've always had the same problems with the play that Kate has — I was annoyed that Romeo and Juliet weren't more sensible! (Writing this book helped me move beyond that, by the way.) My favorite play is Much Ado About Nothing, as you can tell by the plot devices lifted from that play. </b>

From one playwright to another: Please tell me more about your plays. </b>

Glad to be talking to a fellow playwright! I've written three plays. I always think they're going to be dramas and then they end up as comedies, although they do start from a serious place. (I think my novels are the same way; funny — I hope — but with serious issues underneath.) My first play, for example, was "The Belief Factor." It was about a woman who thinks she's being haunted by the ghost of her dead mother. The woman brings in two parapsychologists to investigate, then they're joined by the local minister and an overbearing church lady who think the ghost might be the devil, then the parapsychologists' assistant begins channeling the ghost (although some people think she's faking it) and it goes on from there. I was really interested in studies that show that you're more likely to see a ghost if you already believe in ghosts, so the play is really about belief. This was originally going to be VERY SERIOUS...then the ghost showed up on the first page and threw a jar of pickles on the floor, and that was that.

My second play is called "The Worthy Matron of the Eastern Star." Again, a comedy, this time about two newspaper reporters who are working on the night desk for a small-town paper. They have to write obituaries, among other things, and the serious aspect is their debate about what makes a life "worthy." I produced this, with the lead actor, for a three-night run at Ensemble Studio Theatre. I'm working on turning this into a screenplay, which is much harder than I thought it would be. It's turning out to be really different (many characters bit the dust), but in a good way.

My third play is called "Shady Grove," about a traveling spiritualist in Texas. It's the most recent one and it's pretty muddled right now

In addition to your original works, you've also written tie-in books for Hannah Montana and High School Musical. How did you come to be involved with Disney?

I worked for Disney for 14 years on Disney Adventures magazine (the last seven years as editor-in-chief). I knew a lot of people in the book group and, when I went freelance, they were kind enough to offer some writing assignments. I wrote the first novelization of High School Musical before it aired – no one had any idea how huge it would be! I'm very grateful and happy to be working on that and "Hannah Montana."

You've also published various pieces of non-fiction. Were any of these books been assigned, for lack of a better word, by a publisher or editor? Which books were inspired by your own personal interests and research?

The first two books I ever published were "Lightning" and "Clouds" for the school and library market. Those were both assigned. The next book, "Boitano's Edge: Inside the Real World of Figure Skating," was inspired by my own fascination with the sport. I approached Olympic Gold Medalist Brian Boitano about working on a book together and was lucky enough to find my agent and editor (also skating fans) through that book. I've since done non-fiction books that were proposed to me by the publisher, such as "Hands On! 33 More Things Every Girl Should Know" and "Terrorists, Tornados and Tsunamis: How to Prepare for Life's Danger Zones." I'm currently working on another such book with the International Spy Museum; it's tentatively titled "So You Want to Be a Spy."

I want to read that based on the title alone! What's the target audience age group?

The target group is middle grade, although I think older teens will want to read it! I'm working with the director of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, who worked as a case officer for the CIA for many years. He gets a lot of questions from people of all ages about how one can work for the intelligence community. This book is going to answer all those questions and more! In my first interviews with him, I've discovered so many cool, interesting facts about the spy's world.

If you were a spy, what would be your codename?

Hmm, my spy name? I guess I'll take the pen name that I've used on some of my books: N. B. Grace. There's an aura of mystery about the two initials, I think — and I'm sure one needs grace when one is spying.

Hands On! 33 More Things Every Girl Should Know has practical applications. Do you have any hidden talents or special skills?

I wouldn't say it's a talent, but people are always surprised to hear that I box. I started doing it four years ago for exercise, but I've actually gotten into the ring a few times to spar in front of a crowd! That experience definitely proved to me that we should all try things we think we can't do, because you never know....

What are your ten most favorite books?

Okay, you're ending with an impossible question! There are many books that I love, so, in order to narrow the list down to ten, I think I'll focus on the ones that are the literary equivalent of comfort food for me (meaning, I re-read them because I know they'll make me happy). Let's see:

1. The Thief, The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (I'm counting those three books as one, since they're a series! J)
2. The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope (Loved it since I was about 10, have re-read it every year since)
3. The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope (See above)
4. Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson (two books that I'm again counting as one; I also love her spookier fiction, but these stories about raising her family always lift my spirits)
5. Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard (sounds like just another self-help book, but it's not. I've given away at least 20 copies to friends. At first I read it because Leonard draws on his experiences with the martial art of aikido and I thought I'd learn something that would help me in boxing, but I found something that was applicable to many aspects of life, including writing.)
6. The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp (a great book for anyone who wants to be an artist)
7. Death of a Peer by Ngaio Marsh (a classic from the Golden Age of mysteries; I love all her books, but this is my favorite)
8. Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers (another mystery classic; I read, I think, all of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh starting at 13. I only read occasional mysteries now, but I really imprinted on these.)
9. Anything by Edward Eager (I can open one of these books, read the first paragraph and be transported back to my ten-year-old self in seconds)
10. ...and I'm going to leave one spot open in the hopes that the next book I read lands on this list!

Visit Suzanne's website.

Reviews of The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney and The Juliet Club to come. Watch this space.