Reminder: AudioSynced!

Did you review or post about audiobooks in July? Make sure I have your link so I can include it in Monday's AudioSynced Roundup! Leave a link in the comments or email abbylibrarian@gmail.com. 

Happy listening!! :D

Summer Reading Club (Week 10 - THE LAST WEEK!)

Honesty: I'm ready to tear down all the decorations! I'm ready to take our programming break! I'm ready to send the kids back to their teachers and their dedicated school librarians!

Reality: We still have people coming in wanting to sign up for Summer Reading Club!

Even though our last day is Saturday, if people make the effort to come into the library and ask me about the Summer Reading Club, I try to be as accommodating as possible. We'll draw our grand prize winners on Monday morning before we open, but if people bring logs in after the club is "over", we will certainly give them prizes while supplies last. One big thing for us is that some of the schools reward kids who finish the Summer Reading Club, so for some kids getting on "The List" is more important than the actual prizes.

We had our last big program of the summer on Wednesday - Life Sized Candy Land. We did this program for Spring Break in 2010 and since we had all the props made, we brought it back. This was our biggest program of the summer (even counting the Zoo!). We had over twice as many kids come through this time.

We partnered with the YMCA Summer Camps and had the Teen Camp kids come early and set up the game board for us. Then they stayed and helped out as we had the YMCA preschool summer camp and another summer day camp bring kids to go through the game. After the groups had gone through and the teens were gone, we opened up the game to the public. We offered free prize books to the tween volunteers (culled from book donations throughout the year). It all went pretty smoothly, but it was definitely a lot of work and I'm glad it's over!

I know some libraries are still going strong with the Summer Reading Club, but our kids will soon be going back to school. Some of our private schools start back on Monday and our public schools start back on August 15. Give me a couple of months and I'll be ready to start thinking about next year. (I lied - I have already been thinking about next year.) And give me a week or so and I'll be ready with coherent thoughts about Summer Reading 2011.

If you've posted about your Summer Reading Club this week, leave a link in the comments and I'll round 'em up.

And here's my own completed Summer Reading log:

To everyone who's done with Summer Reading, congratulations! We made it! To everyone who's still going, good luck and keep up the good work!

A Day in the Life of a Youth Services* Librarian

Here's what I did on Tuesday!

11:55am - Arrive at work and everything is crazy-go-nuts! Our toddler time has just let out and the department is full of kids. The computers upstairs are down until Thursday because they’re doing construction. A daycare came in to register all their kids for the Summer Reading Club. I touch base with staff and send them all off to lunch while I cover the desk. The dept. settles down after about 15 minutes.

12:10pm - Check email.

12:20pm - Check out DVD for tonight’s Anime Club meeting. Straighten up department.

- Recommend fantasy books for an adult who’s enjoying the Angie Sage books and The Lightning Thief.

1:00pm - Go over to the storage Annex to get candy castle for tomorrow’s Life-Sized Candy Land program.

1:20pm - Put together registration sheets for our fall programs.

1:45pm - Work on weeding videos. (OMG, we have a video called Pound Puppy Tales... I wonder if we have any Poppels videos**...)

3:15pm - Set up Auditorium for tonight’s program and for tomorrow’s Candy Land program.

4:00pm - Lunch time!

5:00pm - Check email.

5:10pm - Get stuff together and finish setting up for Anime Club.

5:45pm - Open doors for Anime Club. Teens are already showing up!

6:00pm-8:00pm - Anime Club! We have 27 teens, which is awesome attendance for us. You can read a little bit about what we did at last month's Anime Club meeting. This month, I provided a couple of laptops for the kids to watch other stuff and we put out some games, too.

8:00pm - Kick out*** the last of the kids and clean up the room.

8:15pm - Look at photos I took at the program. Decide I don't have enough time to put them on Facebook tonight.

8:20pm - Help my closer close up our department for the night (pick up books, turn off computers and lights, etc.).

8:30pm - We close up and I go home!

* Okay, technically my title is Children's Librarian, but my department's getting more involved in the teen programming, so I'm angling to change it to Youth Services (or something along those lines). 

** Sadly/luckily, we do not. ;)

*** You know I do this with love, right? 

Bunheads

Bunheads by Sophie Flack. Grades 7+ Poppy (Little, Brown), October 2011. 294 pages. Reviewed from ARC snagged at ALA.

Hannah is a total bunhead, but don't call her a ballerina. She's been a corps dancer for the Manhattan Ballet for what seems like far too long. But although she longs for the spotlight (a coveted soloist position), she's also wondering about life outside the dark theater. When she meets a cute guitar-playing college student at her uncle's restaurant, she tries to balance a relationship with the heavy demands of her job, but it's not easy. Hannah starts to wonder if her sacrifices will ever pay off... and if they do, is the life of a principal ballerina really what she wants? 

This book reminded me of nothing more than the movie Center Stage*. The dialog sometimes felt awkward and a bit expository. Besides Hannah, the characters were not very developed or nuanced. I never felt particularly compelled by either of the potential romantic leads (and honestly, neither did Hannah). The real strength of this book is the beautiful and detailed portrayal of the ballet life. 

The beautiful descriptions of the dances, costumes, and makeup bring the reader onstage with Hannah. Sophie Flack's insider perspective enables her to bring readers backstage as well, giving a look at the drama and competition between the dancers. What impressed me the most was Ms. Flack's portrayal of Hannah's ambivalence. There are no easy decisions here. On one hand, Hannah's sacrificing everything for her career - her relationships, her health, and any other possible life she might dream of. She can't even find the time to finish one book. On the other hand, dance is Hannah's passion and she's one of the lucky few who has a job that pays her to do the thing she loves most in the world. That's not something that's easy to walk away from. 

Although I doubted Hannah's ambivalence between the two guys who were interested in her, not once did I doubt in her struggle between exploring all life had to offer and embracing her destiny as a dancer. Sophie Flack gives us an insider's view as very few can and I hope to read much more from her. 

Hand this to teens who are interested in the theater life or obsessed with reality dance shows. I'd also try it on fans of Sarah Bennett Wealer's Rival or E. Lockhart's Dramarama or Barbara Snow Gilbert's Broken Chords (I haven't read this last one, but it was recommended to me by a Goodreads friend!).  

Bunheads will be on shelves October 10!

* I LOVE that movie. :)

The end is in sight...

Y'all bear with me this week because it's the last week of our Summer Reading Club and I'm behind on writing reviews and, well, you know how it goes.

The good news is that August is in sight! I take August almost completely off from programming. We will have our TSI meeting and our Anime Club meeting in August, but no storytimes. Staff take vacation in August (including myself!) and we use that time "off" to plan for fall programs and start getting caught up on everything that has been put aside during the summer months.

In particular, I'm going to be spending some time weeding in August. I've already picked up my video weeding project again and I also hope to get most (if not all) of our folk & fairy tale section recatalogged. Our folk and fairy tales have really long, obnoxious call numbers that made sense before computerized catalogs, but we've worked out something a little different that I hope is going to be easier for patrons.

We've been doing a lot of thinking about our fall programming. The past two falls that I've been at my job, we've tried doing after school programming and it has had terrible attendance. We've tried afternoon, weekend, and evening programs and have not hit on anything popular yet. Even programs that are super popular in the summer or on spring break (Percy Jackson, Diary of a Wimpy Kid) have absolutely flopped when we did them on Saturdays during the school year. To add to that, I'll have one full-timer in my department off on maternity leave and our teen librarian will be out for medical leave, as well.

This year, we'll be concentrating our school-age programming on winter break when the kids are out of school. I'm also hopeful that we'll continue our partnership with the YMCA Afterschool to visit their kids. Of course, we'll continue our programming for homeschoolers and our baby, toddler, and preschool storytimes. I am adding a little more teen programming - a couple of literary lounges for our summer Teen Literary Magazine kids (who insist that they want to keep going during the school year, though I remain skeptical that they're going to have time) and our Anime Club in addition to our monthly TSI meetings. We'll also be having a Zombie Prom around Halloween. (With the exception of Zombie Prom, I don't think these are programs that are going to take a lot of prep.)

So, August will be a time to think about upcoming programs and start to plan and prep. Of course, we'll also debrief about Summer Reading Club and talk about what we liked and what we want to change for next year.

But first, we've just got to get through one more week...

What are you looking forward to getting done after your Summer Reading Club is over?

Summer Reading Club (Week 9)

CC: Emily Bergquist

THE END IS SO CLOSE I CAN TASTE IT!!

Ahem.

I've gotten several questions about our numbers for the summer reading club. My library serves a county population of about 75,000 people and we are the only public library (no branches, no Bookmobile). As of Thursday morning, for the Children's club (ages 0-5th/6th grade), we have 2087 kids signed up and 619 kids completed. For the Teen club (grades 6th-12th), we have 453 signed up and 92 completed. I am very curious as to what the numbers are like at other libraries, so if you're willing to share your service population and how many kids participate in your summer reading club, please tell me in the comments!

I think a lot of different factors can influence program attendance and it's going to be different at each library. If you're in a rural county, it may be hard for families to get to you. If you're in an urban county, families may have more choices of summer activities and participate less in library programs. Of course, whether or not schools are on board and help you promote definitely has an effect. I mean, each community is different and there are tons of factors in play. Even the weather... a particularly nice summer or a particularly stormy summer can definitely affect your numbers.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't know if it makes much sense to compare numbers at all. You know what's a good attendance number for your library. (Although I do sometimes wonder if my numbers are "good".)

This week was actually kind of a "light" week. We had all our normal drop-in programs (Monday movie, storytimes, Open Art Studio). We had a puppet show Tuesday evening, which drew a nice crowd for an evening. Evening and weekend programs are a struggle for us. We definitely get requests for them from patrons. BUT our evening & weekend programs are NEVER as well-attended as our daytime programs. We tried offering a Saturday session of storytime and attendance was abysmal. We're still trying to work out what we're going to do to balance serving our patrons with investing our staff time in the most productive manner.

We had our teen programs and Dragon Slayers Fantasy Book Club this week. They all went very well.

We were also able to get our fall program schedule out this week in hopes that we could promote some of our fall programs as people are coming in to finish up summer reading. We don't have a whole lot on the schedule for the fall, especially since one of my full-timers is going on maternity leave in September. Instead, we're going to concentrate on offering some fantastic stuff during Winter Break and increasing our evening/weekend programming in the spring.

We have one more week to go and we've got a big, huge program next week... Life Sized Candy Land is coming back to our library. We're partnering with the local YMCA summer camp and the kids in their "Teen Camp" are coming to do set-up for us and to volunteer during the program. In exchange, we're opening up the program for their KinderCamp before we're opening it up to the public. I've also got the second meeting of our Teen Anime Club next week and I'm so excited to see the kids again! (Also: I happen to know that two of the teens who met at the club last month went out on a date to see the Harry Potter movie. Hee!)

Let's check in with our other Summer Reading Club friends (and if you have a post that I missed, be sure and leave it in comments and I'll add it!)...

Kelly at Field Acquisitions - Week 5 and Week 6

Marge at Tiny Tips for Library Fun

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick. Grades 4-8. Scholastic, 2009. 218 pages. Review copy provided by publisher for Young Hoosier Book Award consideration. (This review reflects only my own opinion, not the opinion of the commitee!)


When Homer Figg's dear older brother is sold into the Union army against his will, Homer sets off to bring him home. Homer has no idea of the dangers he'll face, but he figures he owes it to the brother who took care of him for so many years. Still, it'll take pluck and a quick tongue to help an Underground Railroad conductor, join a traveling medicine show as the Amazing Pig Boy, take to the sky in a hot air balloon, and save his brother by trying to kill him. Luckily, Homer's got plenty of both.

Confession: I read this book when it first came out and I didn't know what the heck I was doing because I kinda set it aside as "not my kind of book" and didn't really think about it again. WHAT WAS I THINKING?

On the reread, I discovered what an absolute joy this book is. From the very first page, I sank into Homer Figg's story (easy to do, since Homer is nothing if not a boy who loves his stories - no matter what form they happen to take). This is a book that begs to be read aloud. Homer's voice and the language Rodman Philbrick uses is just delightful.

Throughout the book are references to the importance of story in all its many forms. Yes, this is a historical adventure story with a good dose of humor, but it's also a testament to the power of tales. Tales take many forms in this book - the lies Homer spins, hometown legends, fairy tales, songs, even tattooed ladies have stories to tell...

This book is also a testament to brotherly love and the lengths to which one brother will go to help the other. It's about finding bravery you didn't know was inside you. And, of course, it's about laughing at yourself the whole way through.

I'd highly recommend this to fans of Christopher Paul Curtis's historical fiction and it particularly reminded me of Elijah of Buxton, set around the same time.

A note on the cover: I much, MUCH prefer the paperback cover, so that's the one I've used for this review. I think a more photo-realistic image packs more kid appeal and I love the little smirk on Homer's face.

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg is on shelves now!

Trip to Malaysia

Last week, I hosted another Reading Around the World book discussion at my library. In June, we read Rickshaw Girl and made rotis. Since I picked a "girl book" before, I wanted to choose a "boy book" and this month we read Kampung Boy by Lat and we brought in all different kinds of tropical fruit for the kids to see and  taste!

Our spread is pictured to the left. We brought in grapes, bananas, pineapple, coconut, mangoes, and dates. The kids were huge fans of the fruit they already knew (pineapple was an especially big hit) and they dived right in to the more "exotic" fruits, too. Collectively, they did not care for the coconut (they're probably used to having sweetened coconut) and they thought the dates looked very strange. 

After we went through all the fruit and had cut up some of it for the kids to try, we talked a little bit about the book. The kids LOVED Kampung Boy and that makes me really happy since I love it, too. I brought out our globe and we looked at Malaysia, almost exactly halfway across the world from us. They noticed that Malaysia is divided into West Malaysia and East Malaysia and I found the spot in West Malaysia where the book is set and showed them. 

I started off the conversation by asking the kids to tell me what happened in the book. They all spoke over one another, telling about their favorite parts (and there are so many funny bits that they had a lot to mention!). One girl loved when the dad jumps into the river and his towel comes off, one boy couldn't get enough of the policeman scaring all the kids out of hiding by shooting his gun up into the air. 

Next, I asked the kids how Lat's childhood was different from their childhood here in Indiana. They mentioned that there were only boys in his school, that the houses were different (raised up on stilts), that they ride in cars while Lat mostly walked or rode a bicycle... I brought up how Lat was born at home and asked them where they were born (they were all born in a hospital). 

That segued into something I wanted to show the kids. At the beginning of the book, Lat mentions how his father whispers the muezzin's call to him just after he was born. There are many videos of azans (calls to prayer) on YouTube and I chose this one since it featured a kid around their age: 

The kids were absolutely riveted by the video. One of the boys mentioned that he had heard similar things on the news sometimes when they reported about the Middle East and he asked me how he could find other videos like that to watch at home. We didn't actually discuss the video in great detail, but I was ready with questions for them about the music in whatever religion they may participate in.

After we talked about how their experiences were different than Lat's, I asked them how their experiences were the same. The kids had lots of good things to share on this topic, too. They rode bikes, they went fishing, they went swimming with their dads, they went to school.

I followed some advice from Reading Everywhere about running a tween book group and asked them some questions about the book's cover and what they would say when recommending it to a friend. (They all agreed that they would recommend it to a friend!)

After we had discussed the book a little bit, I brought out some blank comic strip panels that I had printed off the web and invited the kids to draw a cartoon based on their own life the way Lat had drawn cartoons about his life in the book. Some of the kids stayed to do the art activity and some of them took it home to do later.

We only had one copy of the book's sequel, Town Boy, checked in. And all of the kids wanted it, so we did a lottery to decide who would check it out that day. The others left their names with me and I put the book on hold for them.

One potential red flag if you're considering this book for a book discussion is that there's a brief section where Lat discusses the rite of circumcision. It's not done in a graphic way at all, but you might want to prepare in case that comes up in your conversation. It didn't come up in our discussion, but I was prepared to tell the kids that it was a religious and cultural rite of passage. I would have asked them if they have any rites of passage in their religion (think: bar mitzvah, first communion, etc.).

All in all, it was a very successful program and I think I might revisit it next summer, even though the Summer Reading Club theme will be different. Even though we didn't have huge attendance numbers, I think the kids who came had a great time and learned a lot. Plus, it's great to give exposure to awesome multicultural books.

If I do this series again, I will definitely have kids register when they pick up the book. Almost all of our books were checked out for both titles, but I think people forgot to come to the discussions. If they registered, I could call and remind them. 

Summer Reading Club (Week 8)

It's a bit raggedy at this point...

As of this posting, we have 2054 kids signed up and 532 have completed. I'm anticipating a lot more finishers coming in over the next two weeks (and I really hope they do - typically about 50% of the kids who sign up go on to complete...).

When the kids come in with their finished logs, they get a packet of coupons donated from local businesses, an entry slip for our grand prize drawings, and a duck from our treasure chest. Last year, Miss T in our department created a treasure chest out of a cardboard box. This year, to fit in with our One World, Many Stories theme, she created a suitcase for us!

Y'all, I am not gonna lie. I have hit my Summer Reading Club wall and I'm at the point where I'm counting down until it's over. We had some fabulous programs this week. In addition to our regular weekly programs, we had:

- A Harry Potter party on Tuesday which brought in 44 kids. A bunch of them dressed up in their costumes! We had a few tables set up around the room with crafts and activities for the kids to do. We played the soundtrack and talked to the kids about how excited they were for the movie coming out this week.

 - A book discussion on the graphic novel Kampung Boy by Lat. We didn't have a huge turnout for this one, but the kids that came LOVED the book, which makes me happy since I love it, too. I'll have a detailed post on this program coming next week.

- And tomorrow, our friend Mr. Pako is coming back to do bilingual storytime and talk to the kids about Mexico... Last month he came and we didn't have great attendance (but we almost never get good attendance on Saturdays...), but the kids who came got a lot out of it. I'm sure it will be fun tomorrow, no matter how many kids show up!

Two more weeks to go and here's my reading log...

I better finish some books and knock out those last two spaces!

So, my friends, how are you doing with your Summer Reading Clubs? Here's a round-up of posts and if you have a post I missed, please leave me a link in comments and I'll add it!

Anne at so tomorrow
Eva at Eva's Book Addiction
Jessica at Musings + Teen Librarian
Kelly at Field Acquisitions
Madigan at Madigan Reads
Mollie at What Happens in Storytime (This week, she has the same ducks we have!)

THE END IS IN SIGHT, PEOPLE!! We can do it!!

Trash

Trash by Andy Mulligan. Grades 8+ David Fickling Books, 2010. 231 pages. Review copy provided by my local library.

Surrounded by crushing poverty, Raphael, Gardo, and Rat eke out a living by sorting through massive trash dumps. Most of what they find is, well, stuppa. But one day, they find something spectacular - a key that starts them on a treasure hunt. The payoff will be huge... if they're brave enough to follow through.

A riveting and eye-opening mystery, Trash is an accessible story that won't soon be forgotten.

It's set in an unnamed Any City where poverty and political corruption go hand in hand. Caught in the crossfires are the children, left sifting through the trash for anything they can sell to support their families. School's an afterthought - what's a trash boy going to do with an education? - and there's never enough food or clothing to go around. With politicians stealing aid money and taxes, the cycle seems unbreakable.

The story is told in alternating points of view, shared between the three trash boys and a few others who step in to help along the way. I appreciate the subtle differences between the narrators and I liked getting bits and pieces of the story from some outside eyes. Short chapters keep the action moving and the mystery was a compelling one. As the boys try to figure out what has been hidden and who it belongs to, they're hounded by corrupt police and constantly face the need for bribes to grease the wheels.

This is going to be an eye-opening story for many. Comparisons to Slum Dog Millionaire are inevitable but this story is its own story. It would make a great companion read to Slum Dog or for a unit on ethics or world current events. A passage narrated by a volunteer aid worker who helps the boys long the way does a pretty nice job of summing up one of the major themes:

I learned that the world revolves around money. There are values and virtues and morals; there are relationships and trust and love - and all of that is important. Money, however, is more important, and it is dripping all the time, like precious water. Some drink deep; others thirst. Without money, you shrivel and die. The absence of money is drought in which nothing can grow. Nobody knows the value of water until they've lived in a dry, dry place - like Behala. So many people, waiting for the rain. (pg 149)

Of course, some students know that all too well, but for others this is going to be an eye-opening story.

Trash sat on my to-read pile for longer than it should have. Honestly, the cover turned me off, even though it's appropriate for the story. I thought it was going to be too dark, too depressing. Now, if my copy had the British cover (pictured at right), I would have picked it up straight away. While the US cover portrays the desolation of crushing poverty (definitely a major theme in the book), the UK cover portrays the ultimate feel of the story, which is hope for the future. I do think the US cover may appeal more to teens, while the UK cover looks younger.

Check out more reviews at Biblio File and Book Nut (bonus: interview with Andy Mulligan).

Trash is on shelves now! Don't let it fly under your radar like I did (although it did quite well in this year's Battle of the Kids' Books, so I really have no excuse...)