Bummers and bad days…

When I was a kid, there was this great magazine put out by Scholastic called Dynamite. It had a mix of popular culture and really geeky humor. I think I still have The Laugh and a half joke book and at least one of the knock knock joke posters. I lived overseas, in Honduras, so it was one of my main sources of information about my supposed “homeland.” I remember one time there was a page of “if so and so married so and so.” The only answer I remember to this day was, “if Olivia Newton John married John Travolta, she’d be Olivia Newton John Travolta.”

One feature was Bummers. Readers would send in “Don’t you hate when…” and Mike Thaler (The teacher from the black lagoon, etc.) would illustrate them. So here’s mine. Don’t you hate when for no reason you need a second cup of coffee? At 3:45, I drag myself up to the library store to get my second cup of coffee. I say, “I hope this coffee gets me through the day.” The volunteer cashier says, “you know, you are the third employee since I started at 3 that has said that.” I guess misery loves company and it’s good to know I’m not the only one.

I even went on a field trip today, for crying out loud. You’d think that would have cheered me. Time out of the building! Look at the really cool conveyor belts at Central Shipping! Today was the open house for Central Shipping, located in the West End of Pittsburgh. (Well, driving through the West End is pretty crazy right now–all these orange DETOUR signs and “Do not enter, local traffic only.” Thankfully, I was not driving.) Three of us from Tech Serv went down. And I have to say, my mood aside, it was pretty cool.

So there’s a conveyor belt, and it has 20 bins, 10 on each side. The computer knows which bins are which (as there are more than 20 libraries, there are four sort levels.) On either side of the beginning of the belt, there’s a computer where a clerk scans the barcode, and then puts the item on the conveyor belt where it miraculously goes into the correct bin. I wish I had taken pictures. It’s really cool. I did a bunch, and if I wasn’t already sold on “put the barcode on the outside of the item,” I was triple sold now. The time it took to find a barcode that was hiding behind a disc, or you had to open the book…the books that had barcodes on the outside got processed like quickly, and you if it was an AV item, you didn’t have to make sure you shut the case back before sending it onto the conveyor belt.

I still have a quarter cup of coffee left, and the sky is still GRAY GRAY GRAY, but I have to say, I feel a little better.

__________
Wikipedia article on Dynamite
Muppet Wiki article on Dynamite

Mitali Perkins has a secret or two…”Secret Keeper,” her latest book.

A few months ago, I got an ARC from the publisher of Secret Keeper. I read it once, thought, ooh, not a fairy tale ending, and read it again, because I was determined to write about it.

So I’ll walk you through it, without giving away the secrets, and there are many.

The cover: WOW. Bold colors, very brash, stand out. I LOVE the cover.

Um, so okay, unrelated, but there you go. I hit Google so I could see a picture of the cover and putting in “Secret Keeper,” and the first thing that came up was a website for Dannah Gresh’s program for girls, Secret Keeper Girl. Dannah, who wrote “And The Bride Wore White.” The color scheme of Dannah’s website is pretty much the color scheme of Mitali Perkin’s book. That’s interesting…As a librarian, this is why I always say, no one word titles, when you write your book, make sure it’s not someone else’s title/brand.

Sorry for THAT detour.

So. Clarification before I move on: Mitali Perkins is not writing a book about girls saving themselves for marriage. However, she is writing a book with complex relationships that go beyond the fairy tale.

At first blush, I did not like Mitali’s book. I can say that, because Mitali knows that I do love it now. I wanted a fairy tale, something on the lines of another book she wrote that I adored so much that I wrote a handwritten note to Mitali, Monsoon Summer. On Twitter, yesterday, Mitali asked, what books did you re-read as a tween? I responded that my faves were Mandy, Thursday’s Child, Dicey’s Song. The first two are orphan stories where the orphan is rescued into a wonderful life. The third is an orphan story of another kind–the hard work of an oldest sibling working in her new family situation where she has to work WITH her grandmother and relinquish power and live with the reality that her mother is not going to return. Dicey’s Song was a huge influence on my tween/teen years. I read it again and again and again. I own at least three copies, one in hardcover, one signed by the author, Cynthia Voigt.

What I loved in the end, about Dicey’s Song, was not the fairy tale, because it wasn’t one, but the perserverence of our protagonist, Dicey. And this, in the end, is what I love about Secret Keeper. Nothing, and I mean, nothing, in this book ends the way you the reader thinks/hopes it might. I don’t want to give too much away, because the unfolding of the secrets is part of the delight of this puzzle of a book.

Some books are meant to be consumed, one gulp, and you’re done. Secret Keeper is not one of those books. To fully grasp the beauty of Mitali’s writing and story, I would recommend two readings. Because there are details you get more beauty out of once you know all the plot points.

One of my favorite images in Mitali’s book is “The Jailer” which is what the two sisters call their mother’s depression. As one who works through depression, I can tell you that a jailer is a pretty good description of how it feels. There is a lot of feeling jailed in this book, not just by the mom, but by the sisters, who must live in the traditional roles that their lives dictate. While this may sound oppressive, I will say that the end is satisfying once you see that it is the opposite of a fairy tale and that the non-fairy tale is what Mitali was going for.

Read this book. You can get it “anywhere books are sold.” Mitali would urge you, as I do, to support your local independent bookstores. As a librarian, I can tell you that libraries do have this on the shelf.

Mothers love Kids’ books n’at

So I’ve been working (somewhat stealthily) with Rebecca O’Connell (and a few great others) on this Mother’s Day event, Mothers love Kids’ books. It’s based on the program done in New England on Valentine’s Day, which was the brainchild of author Mitali Perkins.

We’re coming up on some marketing deadlines (and full disclosure, I’ve never planned anything this big.) We’re so far working with three great local bookstores, Penguin Books in Sewickley, Border’s Eastside, and Barnes & Noble Waterfront. We have about seven authors, including David Crawley of KDKA fame. (More info on our website!)

Please plan to join us! If you are interested in helping, are a marketing whiz, or you are a bookstore or author in the Pittsburgh area, please contact us! I can be reached at pghgurl30@gmail.com.

xo,
Suzi Wackerbarth

Print media: Why it’s important

As I sat this morning at Burger King eating my croissant sandwich, the Tribune-Review spread out on the table, I thought about why I can’t imagine my life without magazines and newspapers. On paper, please.

I sat in the farthest booth on the far side. A BK employee scooted in to the farthest booth on the near side. Initially, she held up the newspaper in front of her face. I wondered if it was not only an effort to read the newspaper without leaning over the table but also a way to not have to face me as I ate my breakfast and looked all around, taking in the sights.

My new habit: buying the Monday paper. I choose whether to spend my 50 cents (Tribune-Review) or 75 cents (Post-Gazette) based on what’s showing in the window of the vending box. My default is the PG, as it has the NYT crossword. But today I bought the TR, as it had a front page article about our baby-faced mayor and his lagging track record. I read the obits, learned about Barbara Mandrell’s dad Irby, and the first woman to become a licensed ship captain, Molly Kool. (Isn’t that a great name?)

So here’s my Monday list, why newspapers are cool, and magazines should stay in print:

1. A printed newspaper is not only readable anywhere, with no batteries required, it can double as a privacy screen, an umbrella, and when you’re done reading it, a lining for your hamster’s cage.

2. Because you are not self-selecting what you read, you end up gleaning information you might have otherwise passed over. (I didn’t buy the paper so I could read Molly Kool’s obit, but it was there, so I read it. I might have missed that in an online paper.)

I also didn’t buy the paper to read about the recession, but it was there on the front page, so I read it. I’d heard about the tea parties against the current administration, but wasn’t interested enough to Google it, but there it was, on the editorial page.

3. Who ever heard of doing the daily crossword on your Blackberry?

4. It’s an really cool old fashioned thing to do, to use coins to open a box that contains printed on paper news.

5. I think I used too many reasons in #1.

6. I didn’t have to call the movies to find out what time I’m going to see “He’s just not that into you,” I read it in the entertainment section.

7. I can cut out articles I want to save or share with others. Actually, one of the folks featured in today’s Trib, food technologist Lauren Knezovich, found her job that way. Tony LaRussa writes, “Her interest in food was the result of an article about food scientists that was passed on to her by her mother.”

8. This quote: “It’s hard to take the Republican leaders too seriously when they criticize the recovery plans for the economy; it’s sort of like those geese criticizing the evacuation plans for US Airways Flight 1549.” (Time’s Michael Grunwald in the opening statement of a report on President Obama’s spending package.)

9. When you’re packing your glass items when you move, the online NYT isn’t going to be very helpful.

10. Are you really going to read the newspaper online while you’re pruning away in the bathtub?

(Bonus) 11. Children can learn about folding and sequencing by putting the sections back the way they were when the newspaper hit your doorstep.

Reading over my list, I see I didn’t give a single reason for why magazines should stay in print. So go back to the list and insert magazine everywhere the word newspaper fits in.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite newspaper? A favorite use for the newspaper?

_____________
Glossary
Tribune-Review or TR: Pittsburgh’s more conservative paper, still priced at 50 cents.
Post-Gazette or PG: Pittsburgh’s mainstream paper, a little pricier at 75 cents.
NYT: New York Times, the grandest newspaper ever, in this writer’s humble opinion.

“When I have a little money, I buy books. If any is left over, I buy food and clothes.” ~ Erasmus

A meme! A meme! Do you want to play? Tag, you’re it.

1. Which book that’s been on your shelves the longest? Little Women–I got it as a gift for Christmas when I was in 2nd grade.
2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next? I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately, but right now I’m re-reading Daring Chloe. I hope to have the nerves to read Astrid and Veronika, which is not the best book to read when you’re in a funk.
3. What book did everyone like and you hated? (Or the other way around?) I loved The Poisonwood Bible. Everyone in my book club hated it.
4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t? Moby Dick.
5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?” Book? You mean books. I’m still compiling the list.
6. Last page: read it first or wait til the end? If the book is a thriller or a John Grisham, I will often flip to the back just to make sure the bad guys got it and the hero survived.
7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside? I like dedications. (”Once again, to Zelda”) I think acknowledgements should be mailed to the folks on the list.
8. Which book character would you switch places with? Wow. That’s a hard one. Mrs. Piggle Wiggle maybe. She was so wise, always had the answer.
9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)? Most books have memories atttached to them–for instance, Seventeen against the dealer by Cynthia Voigt reminds me of studying for finals my freshman year of college. Jackaroo (also by C.V.) reminds me of a telephone conversation I once had about snow.
10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way. I mailed a copy of a Frances book to a blog friend, and she was so grateful, she mailed me the extended audio of Jacob Have I loved, one of my all time favorites.
11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person? I once gave away my copy of The Mer-man (which I have never since found) to a friend as a going away present when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade.
12. Which book has been with you to the most places? Besides my Bible (in many versions but mostly my tattered RSV which I got for joining the church in 8th grade), Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt. It feeds me.
13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later? I haven’t dared to try any.
14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book? myself.
15. Used or brand new? Both. Any. I’m more interested in the content than the newness, but it can’t smell like a wet basement.
16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses? I don’t think I’ve ever read any of his books. I’ve heard his book on writing is excellent, though.
17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book? Many many movies are better than the book, and/or illuminate something that can’t be seen on the page. Often I like both.
18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid? I keep a pretty open mind. I can generally find *something* redeeming in the movie version, even if I don’t like it in its entirety.
19. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take? I don’t have a fail safe book advisor besides myself at the moment.

I got this from Book Group Buzz.

What are your answers?

Well, they’re not really a trilogy…

So I’ve been “reading” in my car. There’s that whole argument, “is listening to an audio book the same as reading a book?” and while I mostly think YES!, it still is weird to say, “I’m reading this audio book.”

Anyways, the first book of this cycle was Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers.  It is amazing. Two of its big thoughts: you need ten years (or 10,000 hours) to master something, and mentors are crucial. There’s a lot more, of course, so go find a copy, it will blow your mind. The next book I read was our President’s first book, Dreams from my father. Our President is, for intents and purposes, an orphan. Both his parents are dead, his stepfather is dead, his grandparents who raised him are dead…but his book reveals incredible extended family and relationships that nurtured him and encouraged him. It was amazing to listen to Dreams from my father right after listening to Outliers, the two books seemed like a set, one being the theory proving the practice of the next. Like you would buy them in a set on Amazon.com, “Buy this with this.”

So when I dug through the detritus that is my apartment and finally found the two audio books that had been missing for months, I found Next by Michael Lewis. I renewed it for the umpteenth time, and am now listening to it, and it is like the third book in a trilogy: now we are no longer talking about ten years for mastery, or mentors, but how the Internet speeds up everything, and how if you live in “purgatory,” the Internet becomes a place where you can re-invent yourself, much like the Brad Paisley song Online, or the New Yorker cartoon, where the one dog says to the other, “on the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.”

What books have you read recently that got you thinking?

Have you ever read a book that was not a “natural” sequel, but thought, wow, that book really matches this one?

Are libraries going away, part 384.5

Every so often, I hop over to someone’s Twitter home page so I can hop onto their blog or something. Today I hopped over to David Lee King’s, because I saw through a tweet that he’s written an article about the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. And I found a reply to this tweet from Katebfpl. I thought, this tweet from David Lee King is the best answer to the “are libraries going away?” question that I’ve ever heard.

I mean, c’mon. I’m not going to stop going to my doctor just because I can look up my symptoms on Web MD. In fact, my doctor is going to be glad that I don’t show up every time I have an ache or pain, because I’ll be better informed. (And I’ll save time and money for both parties.)

Water is life’s mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (Hungarian Biologist)

Around this time of year, folks are being asked to donate $25 or more to their favorite charity. That is not what this post is about. This post is about how $2 can change the world.

But first a story. As a child growing up in the foreign service, I lived in Honduras, Poland, and Brazil. In none of these countries did potable (drinking) water come from the tap. In Honduras, water had to be boiled first. In Poland, it had to be boiled (distilled, we had a distiller) and then filtered, to take out heavy metals such as cadmium that lived in the tap water. I was fortunate to live in situations where the water was treated, and I didn’t get sick.

But millions of children are without that luxury, the luxury of clean potable drinking water. So Pistachio (Laura Fitton on Twitter) has started a drive to raise $25,000 from now until her birthday, January  21.

And to join this effort, it’s pretty simple (from Laura’s blog):

1. Sign up for tipjoy at: http://tipjoy.com/createaccount/platform/twitter/. You have the option to sign up using only your twitter credentials.
2. Copy and paste this Tweet: p$2 @wellwishes to build wells and save children’s lives (via @tipjoy)
3. Be sure you have funded your Tipjoy account. Start with as little as $5 and tip it to whomever you wish.

Direct: You can donate ANY amount via credit card or PayPal right at the Charity: Water site.

(The Charity: Water site just asks that your donation be $10 or above.)

I’m writing this quickly, because time is running out. So I hope you will forgive me if this sounds like an infomercial, and I hope you will join me in supporting clean water.

“Tight Times” and other books for, well, tight times.

I’m a big fan of reading motivational books. No, not Chicken Soup for the Golfer’s Soul, or Anthony Robbins. No, the motivational books I like are ones where people, faced with hard times, perservere, and come out on the other side victorious. Maybe they didn’t win the lottery or become millionaires by selling widgets door to door, but they faced their problems head on and with a smile (and sometimes a grimace.) My favorite such book is Dicey’s Song, where Dicey Tillerman, who has just finished walking down Route 1 with her three siblings, learns to live with her tough as nails grandmother in Crisfield, Maryland. In college, while studying for first semester finals, I remember reading the last Tillerman cycle book, Seventeen against the dealer. I would read a chapter, study a bit, and read another chapter. I didn’t feel the need to motor through the book, it was not an escape, it was a book in overalls, dressed up ready to work.  Dicey, never afraid of hard work, gets slammed, and each time, gets up, and dusts herself off, and moves right along. And, inspired by her gumption, I moved along too.

I just finished A year down yonder, by Richard Peck, which helped me through a car annoyance on the way home from Thanksgiving. Somehow my worries seemed lessened as I read about Grandma trapping foxes at midnight.

So, in these hard times, it’s no surprise that someone would come up with a list of books to share with your kids during a financial downturn. Slate Magazine (article by Erica S. Pearl) has a great slide show with book covers, illustrations, commentary, and even video from the 70s show, Little House on the Prairie.

As we pinch our pennies, tighten our belts, make do with what we have, books are a way to escape. Even if that escape is to a place where people have it harder than we do.

****************

In college, I wrote a paper about women during the depression. One quote I came across was this: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

And my favorite quote about libraries and hard times: “Libraries will get you through times of no money more than money will get you through times of no libraries.”

What are your favorite “hard times” books?

Hide and seek with pop-up books

Yellow Square, the latest pop-up by David Carter, is not just for kids. (And if you have young kids, you know that pop-ups are a challenge.)

Every page has a yellow square. In the beginning, the square is easy to find, but on the last page, you really have to look. On the back cover, Carter writes, “…my hope is to create a range of feelings and interactive visual experiences. I believe that art that creates a roller coaster of emotions is entertainment, and one of my goals as an artist is to entertain your mind. Please enjoy the ride. And please touch the art.”

Carter, whose earlier books include Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings, a book I hand sold to every grandparent looking for a fun gift back in 1995, has gone “modern.” The colors and the shapes in Yellow Square remind me of Mondrian, Alexander Calder, and Joan Miró, to name a few.

I had fun with it, but I can say in all honesty there were parts I didn’t “get” just like I sometimes don’t “get” some of the moderns listed above. This is definately a “try before you buy” book, and a “know your audience” book.

That said, I can’t wait to troll our stacks and find the earlier books in this strange series, One Red Dot, Blue 2, and 600 Black Spots.

I wonder what Sabuda’s up to this year…ah, Peter Pan is definitely a far cry from his first, the Christmas Alphabet, which came out the first Christmas I worked for Fox Books, 1994. Google is fun, here is a compendium of Sabuda books.

**************

What are your favorite pop-up books? If you are a librarian, does your library circulate pop-ups? (Ours does not.)