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.