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.

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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.

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

You are my sunshine

The favorite part of my job happens twice on Wednesdays, at 10 and 11 a.m. I sing to and with parents and children, many of whom are under the age of one. My Mother Goose story time is billed as “for children 6 mos. to 24 mos.” but I often get siblings older and younger than that.

We sing many songs. But only three really touch me, and no, “Itsy bitsy spider” is not one of them. We open with “The more we get together” (Because your friends are my friends and my friends are your friends). We close with “If you’re happy and you know it” (Or sad, or angry.) I really stomp my feet for “if you’re angry and you know it.” And somewhere in the middle, we sing the chorus to one of my favorite songs, “You are my sunshine.” We live in Pittsburgh where the sun doesn’t always shine, especially in the middle of the grey winter. So every week, rain or shine, we sing “You are my sunshine” which my father often sang to me, and which he told me that Jimmy Davis used in his gubernatorial campaign.*

I don’t wear any political pins once I’m at work. (I do have one on the lapel of the jacket I wear outside.) My mother and I recently had a conversation where she couldn’t believe that people at my workplace talk about politics (we talk to each other, not to the patrons) because she and the other teachers don’t talk about it at all. (My mother teaches second grade.) My mother is the most private person I know. “It’s between me and the voting machine.”

And I would never dream to express my political views to someone I am helping as we look for a book, or sing a song while they hold their children on their laps. But I did smile as yesterday I helped someone put copies of one of the current presidential candidates’ books on hold. I would have given the same service had the other candidate’s book been in question. But as a person, not just as a librarian, it tickled me that someone wanted to read those books.

A few years ago, the Steelers (or Stillers, if you’re really from da Burgh) were going for their fifth Superbowl win. I don’t really follow football, but I am fiercely loyal once we get into the playoffs. Even the road (black with gold lines) seemed to be rooting for the Steelers. It was insanity, and not just for me. A mother came up to me at story time and said, “This is the one place I can come where no one talks about football.” I was glad to offer her that space.

So in this last less than a month, almost just a week before this historical election in the United States, I grin to myself that without meaning to, we are singing a political song when we sing “You are my sunshine.”

I sing it because it reminds me of my dad, and while all the mama’s and papa’s are holding their little ones close, I hold my stuffed Olivia doll and look out at all the smiling, squirming children.

You Are My Sunshine
My only sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are grey.
You’ll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don’t take my sunshine away

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*In researching this post, I discovered that it was the Rice Brothers Gang that wrote the song and sold it to Jimmy Davis for $35 in 1939. Apparently this sort of thing happened a lot pre-WWII.

“I would buy you a bouquet of sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.”

Well folks, summer is over. Yes, it is full blown, six days into the month of September. I no longer have mothers clamoring for audio books for their road trips, or children clamoring for their summer reading club prizes…

Instead, I have teachers looking for info on Sept 11. I recommended The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, and she also took the book she had been looking for, September 11, 2001 : a simple account for children.

I almost forgot to feed the fish this morning, thankfully one of our shelvers reminded me.

Very exciting, I had a young patron (male) ask for the third book of a trilogy (I’ve already forgotten the book title) but the important part is that the book was in processing, so I called our tech service dept and they found the book, covered it, and I hand delivered it to the boy, saying “You’ll be the first person to read this copy.”

I pulled the Magic Tree House books #4 &5 off the shelf, put them on hold for the wrong patron, then for the correct patron. (Always ask for library card number! Don’t assume there is only one patron in the county named <insert name here>)

In other news, a friend of mine who used to be an academic librarian just got a job as head of reference at a public library. I’m anxious to hear how that is going–he’s excited for the change.

As we gear up for the next two months of election coverage, I recommend factcheck.org as a good resource for checking, you guessed it, facts.

They are non-partison. This is from their “About Us” page: The Annenberg Political Fact Check is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The APPC was established by publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg in 1994 to create a community of scholars within the University of Pennsylvania that would address public policy issues at the local, state, and federal levels.

Also, make sure you are registered at your current address. Rock the Vote has a great form that you can fill out, then print and mail to your state’s election office.  The League of Women Voters also has information on registering as well as info on absentee ballots.

Have a great weekend, and I’ll try to keep this updated more often, now that summer is over.

So what is the Stuffed Animal Sleepover??

Well, this is the third annual. I call it “how to have a sleepover and get some sleep.” Go here for a photo and more info and a .pdf of a brochure I made for a poster session a few years ago.  

The gist? Kids sign up. My limit is 25. They drop off their animals Friday before 4:45 (in the summer we close at 5 pm). They write a tag that lists the animal’s name and who they ”belong” to. After the library is closed, my assistant and I take pictures of the animals.  In the morning there is a breakfast to reunite with the animals, and a craft for the pictures (each kid gets a group photo and a photo of their “stuffie” doing something with other stuffies.)

I like it because it means I get to sleep in my own bed that night. And it’s fun. People love the concept.

12 things… (a modified 23 things-on-a-stick program)

Michael Stephens, over at Tame the Web, has started a Web 2.0 project (modeled on 23 things)  that is worldwide!! Always wanting to know more more more, I have joined in. And since I already have this blog (plus my other ones), I’m going to participate using this one. I hope you will play along. Here’s how to get started: Gearing up for All Together Now.

And wow! Even as I’ve written this post, my blog is up there on Netvibes.

ttfn for now!

Stories are good for you!

Well, now I can justify what I’ve known since fourth grade: fiction helps you figure out life. According to an article in the Canadian paper Globe and Mail (thanks ALA American Libraries Direct email!),

…fiction acts as a type of simulator. Reading about make-believe people having make-believe adventures or whirlwind romances may actually help people navigate those trials in real life.

In college, I remember reading Seventeen Against the Dealer, where Dicey Tillerman goes through the school of hard knocks. I was studying for finals, and I was able to read a chapter of Dicey’s trials, put the book down, and study some more.

My tactic now is a little less literary, but still uses fiction, and until recently, my library. Oh goodness, I’m about to give you my secret: I love Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte (the protagonists on Sex and the City.) Before I got my stimulus check and purchased the entire six seasons, I got SATC DVDs from my library. And because you have to cue up each episode, that’s a half hour of fiction, and only a half hour. You have to work the remote or get up after each episode. Well, I generally go switch my laundry or do something housework-y while the credits roll.

Right now (among other books) I’m reading a book called It’s in the bag, which is about how purses are defining fashion today, with a little bit of history. Right now my purse can carry three library books, woo hoo! And I didn’t pay $375 for it, which is the low end of the purses described in the book. In a conversation with a nurse yesterday (she always asks me what I’m reading), we got into a discussion on how single women have different priorities with money than married women who might have families and mortgages…which of course bring us back to Carrie and gang.

My hairdresser said, “I never watched the show. I don’t get HBO. I’ve seen a couple episodes on TBS, but I don’t get it.” Well, I said, it’s not for everybody. And I don’t even have cable, until recently, I got the DVDs at the library. (YES! you can get seasons of everything at the library!)

I can tell this post is all over the place and I may wait to publish (or not?) but I guess I’m trying to make the case that story is POWERFUL. It can make someone want to study for their finals in college, get them to do a load of dishes as an apartment-dweller, and I can’t even begin to talk about the fifth and sixth grader who depended on books as her only constant friends in a time of slim pickings for human companionship.

And story is so powerful that I now work to bring books and stories to people every day. Read the article linked above. It’s a really good one.

Until next time…

fascinating things that are described by DDC #s

Gastronomy, for instance, is 641.013, which is the enjoyment of food. The book: The United States of arugula : the sun dried, cold pressed, dark roasted, extra virgin story of the American food revolution by David Kamp.

152.47, is anger, “including frustration.” The book: Creative anger: putting that powerful emotion to good use, by Rhoda Baruch, Edith Grotberg, and Suzanne Stutman. Hmmm. I come from a family that doesn’t express anger much…

758.3 is painting, of animals, including hunting scenes. The book: An African experience: wildlife art and adventure in Kenya by Simon Combes.

And now am spending significant time locating authorities for authors. Don’t ask. I promise to be more interesting next time, Internets.

Cool books abound…

So the definition of cool is relative. But I think this book is cool: Stories in Stone: A field guide to cemetery symbolism and iconography.

I try to walk when I can, and last night I walked across the street from where I work. The church there has a cemetery. I don’t know if I would check this book out and then look at tombstones to see if there was symbolism on the stones, but I might.

In my college town, there was a tombstone maker. They were at a prominent crossroads and I always loved reading their sign that said “Drive Safely. We can wait.”