Photo Friday

This is the stack of books I brought home from ALA Midwinter.  The box I shipped has still not arrived, which makes me fear it is lost forever.  I am particularly upset that I mistakenly put Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan in the shipped box instead of carrying it on the plane.

I’ll admit that I have no plans to read Secrets of The Lost Symbol.  It’s a published copy, not an ARC, so I grabbed it for my library.

Thursday Tidbits

Today is my 1 year blogiversary!  Happy birthday, little blog!  Just a couple tidbits for today:

• Puppy cam is back! The famous shiba inu who had her puppy cam once before has given birth to another litter.  Puppies always brighten a day!
• I have long been a fan of Joshua Jackson, and I don’t hide it.  He’s my TV boyfriend.  Here is an awesome older interview (about a year old).  He talks about Fringe and buying his childhood home.  My favorite part is when he talks about slipping and calling himself Pacey on Fringe.
• There are some exciting YA books due out this year!
• February 2nd is less than a week away!  That day will bring the Oscar nominations and the final season of LOST! So exciting!
• I sent home 3 packages from ALA Midwinter: 1 poster tube, 1 small package of books and 1 large box of books.  Both the poster tube and small package arrived last week, but my box is still MIA.  I am worried all those books will never arrive! I didn’t insure it or get a tracking number, unfortunately.
• There was a great blog blitz of bloggers putting forth unsung YA lit and it is worth checking out.  I was glad to see some great titles on many lists!

This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer

This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer: read January, 2010; ARC provided by publisher at ALA Midwinter (thank you so so much, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – you were my first stop in the exhibit hall in the hopes of getting my hands on this one)

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s third book in the “Moon series” (a name adopted by fans/publishers) is written as Miranda’s diary, like the first book.  It picks up a month after Life As We Knew It left off.  Miranda confesses to not writing in a month so the reader knows right away that they have not missed anything.  It begins to rain occasionally, giving Miranda’s family hope that it will not always be cold and snowy.  Because of the spring-ish weather, Miranda’s two brothers decide to travel to a river to catch fish as a supplement to the weekly government bag of food .  They are gone for a week and return with fish AND a third person: Syl.  Syl is a young woman they met on the trip whom Miranda’s brother Matt quickly married.  Despite the reservations about such a quick marriage, the family begrudgingly accepts Syl into their home.  Learning to live and survive with a fifth person is not easy, though.

Soon, that number grows when the doorbell rings and Miranda welcomes more people into her house.  I don’t want to say anymore to avoid spoiling the rest of the book.  If you have not read the first two, you are missing out!

I love this series.  It is realistic about humanity, yet hopeful.  (I attempted to read One Second After this past weekend and besides the main character being a complete jerk, the book also made me lose faith in humankind.  If a disaster happens and things start to resemble that book, I think I’ll just kill myself.)  Miranda never becomes perfect – she is always a teenager, but she does grow over time.  Because this is written as Miranda’s diary, there is a bit of distance from Alex, whom I missed despite the fact that he does show up.

SPOILER ALERT:  I never completely bought the main romance.  I get that in this setting, people would tend to have more sudden couplings, but this was just wonky.  It went from, “Hm, a person of the opposite sex whom I am not related to is cute” to “Alex is annoying” to “Alex is a rare boy my age but not exciting” to “OMG ILOVEYOUALEXTRULUV4EVA.”  I would have bought it with more banter or fighting or conversations or stolen glances or love/hate stuff going on. But I can buy why two people in this situation would be drawn to each other. END SPOILERS

There are no miraculous recoveries here – no one figures out how to knock the moon back in to place.  Pfeffer does a wonderful job describing the terrible things that happen but building in hope that the survivors will find a way to stay alive.  While I appreciate the ending point, I am dying to know about where the characters end up and what it is like there.

Overall, I loved the book.  I don’t love it as much as I love the first one, but it is probably neck and neck with the second in my mind.  You MUST read the first two, and if you like those, you will like This World We Live In.

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ALA Midwinter – Boston

I attended ALA Midwinter in Boston last weekend and had a great time.  It was a short trip due to everything going on at home, but I was able to squeeze in a fair amount.

Friday, I attended an hour long session – YALSA 201 – about becoming involved.  It was interesting to hear the variety of things available.  I dropped in at the YALSA Happy Hour but didn’t stay long as I knew no one and couldn’t bring myself to let go of my shyness and approach groups of strangers.  So I visited the exhibit hall and was able to score a few ARCS, including the two I was really hoping for: This World We Live In and The Dead-Tossed Waves.  After the exhibit hall, I attended at one of YALSA’s ticketed events: Games, Gadgets, and Gurus.  I was able to check out some card and board games that would be great for my school library and meet some awesome people.

Saturday, I attended a YALSA leadership development for committee chairs.  It was a very positive experience and I came away with ideas for my committee, motivation for myself, and the feeling that YALSA cares about the members and their involvement and wants to make leadership within the organization a positive experience.

After that was YALSA’s all-committee meeting where I met with my fantastic local arrangements committee for Annual and we brainstormed.

I returned to the exhibit hall where I was able to pick up many more books and peruse possible library purchases.

I dropped in at the Kidlit Tweet-Up in the lobby bar of my hotel.  It was great to meet fellow bloggers and others in the Kidlit/library world.  It was particularly exciting to meet a couple people who read my name tag and said, “I read your blog!”  Sometimes I forget that there are readers out there!

That evening I went to dinner at the Union Oyster House with Susan from Wizards Wireless and PBS Booklights.  Susan and I met in grad school and it’s always great to catch up with her.  Dinner was soooo good!

Sunday I attended a Web 2.0 session, which was informative, and gave me an opportunity to meet other YALSA people.  I checked out of my hotel, grabbed some lunch, and attended the teen feedback session on this year’s BBYA list.  It was great to get teen opinions and I was able to post my thoughts on Twitter throughout the session thanks to the free wi-fi in the convention center.

I flew home that evening.  This was my first trip using Jet Blue and I was very happy with my experience.  On the way to Boston, I paid an extra $10 for a seat with additional leg room, which was worth it.  On the way home, I was able to use the TV to watch the red carpet arrivals at the Golden Globes.  (My favorite moment was George Clooney pointedly referring to himself and Billy Bush as idiots before making his escape from Billy.)  The plane landed (early!) just as Ricky Gervais was starting the actual show, so I had to rely on my DVR to catch up.  I will definitely use Jet Blue again!

It was a great weekend and so inspiring to me as a librarian.  I have attended non-ALA-related conferences (which shall remain nameless) where I come away with nothing after spending my day listening to people use the day as a bitch-session or receiving basic training on working the AASL standards into library-oriented lessons (said conferences are NOT related to AASL).  I imagine those types of things are helpful to some, but two of my grad school professors were on the team that wrote Information Power so every school library class I took was centered on that book, making it easy to adapt to the new standards.  Do other school library programs not teach the AASL standards?

I also enjoy the ALA conferences because I seem to come across more people who became librarians because they wanted to be a librarian, whereas at these other conferences I tend to meet people who became school librarians because they wanted to get out of teaching but still have summers off.

I love being a part of YALSA and hope I can continue working on committees in the future.  The members are creative, energetic, and passionate about their careers.  School librarians seem to be in the minority, so I encourage other middle and high school librarians who love working with teens to get involved!

Conspiracy 365: January by Gabrielle Lord

Conspiracy 365: January by Gabrielle Lord: read January, 2010 – copy provided by Raab Associates (Thank you!)

Conspiracy 365: January is the first in a 12 book series by Gabrielle Lord.  On December 31st, Callum Ormund is confronted by a crazy man walking up his street.  The man warns him about The Ormund Singularity, that “they” killed Callum’s dad and will come after him in the next 365 days.  The crazy man is hauled away by paramedics without answering Callum’s questions.  Callum has no idea what the man might have been talking about.  He realizes he needs to figure it out after he almost dies that night when his boat is sabotaged.  His shady uncle seems to somehow be involved, so he needs to be secretive.  Callum is able to dig up some clues left by his dad with the help of his best friend Boges, but soon he is wanted for attempted murder – a crime he did not commit.  He has to figure out who is after him, what the “Ormund Singularity” is, find a way to prove his innocence before he is arrested, and stay alive for another 11 months.

This is great idea for a series!  A new book is scheduled for release every month this year.  The month-named titles will prevent any confusion about what order in which they should be read.

It is a fast, plot-driven read that I think will appeal particularly to younger teen and pre-teen boys.  The cover of the book lets you know that you are in for an action movie in book form.  Set in Australia, there isn’t too much that would confuse an American reader, but it is never clearly stated that Callum is in Australia, at least as far as I remember.  I do wonder if it could feel just a little weird to a reader who is not aware of this.  For example, one might mistake the setting of Richmond for the capital of Virginia and wonder why it is warm in January.  While there isn’t much character development done up front, the reader does get to know Callum and his family as the story progresses.  Not a thing is resolved by the end of the book, but knowing there are 11 books to come in the next year, it won’t leave a reader hanging as much as a regular series would.

The chapters are time stamped, and while I understand the desire to break the book up in to short sections for reluctant readers, it seems unnecessary when a new chapter starts a few minutes after the last one and nothing has changed or happened to necessitate a new chapter.  The page numbers count down, instead of up.  It is a fun thing to notice, but I don’t really get the point of it.  I think a better gimmick would have been to have the page numbers in each book pick up where the previous one left off.

Personally, I did not love it enough to read further in the series, but I plan to get them all for my school library.

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Jake 2002 – 2010

When my husband and I first decided to move in together and buy a house, I made sure he would agree to getting a dog.  We hadn’t lived in the house for a full month when we went to a Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation adoption event at a PetsMart and came home with Jake.  Jake was eight weeks old, born on January 31, 2002, and one of two or three left in his litter.  Dave picked him up to meet him, and he never left our arms.  He was a happy puppy, full of kisses, with soulful eyes.  We passed him back and forth while we filled out the paperwork and brought him home that night.

The following weekend, I took him to the Pet Expo in town.  Because he was a puppy, I didn’t want to make him walk through the whole thing, so I carried him through the Expo.  His rear end rested in the crook of my elbow and his head just reached my palm – he was so small.  My favorite memory of that day is when a man at a booth looked at Jake and complimented him on his kind eyes.

Jake was crate-trained, and except for some crying the first night, settled into it like a dream.  Once he was old enough and knew enough to behave himself, we gave him the run of the house when we weren’t home.  We completed a few obedience classes, and I even took an agility class with him.

I will always regret never trying fly ball with him because Jake loved to run and catch balls.  We would go to the local dog park and throw tennis balls with a Chuck-It.  Jake would fly down the field, paws thumping on the ground, leaving a kicked-up dust cloud behind him.  He would launch himself into the air to catch the ball.

When it snowed, he would leap for balls in such a carefree way.  He seemed to know the snow would cushion his landing and he didn’t worry about what would happen on the way down.  He loved catching snowballs.

Often, I wondered if Jake was part cat.  He was always very independent, not needing to follow me from room to room as Brinkley does.  He could sit in the front window for hours, watching the world go by and barking when he felt he needed to (which was pretty often).

Jake also loved to walk along the back of the couch, which is fine for a ten pound cat but a different matter for a 60 pound lab mix!  He’d also walk on the built-in benches on our deck so he could have a different view into the neighboring yards.

Somewhere along the way, Jake became afraid of people he did not know.  I think part of this was due to a family friend who was a cop.  The first time he met the cop, the officer was wearing his uniform and had a Jack Russell who went after Jake.  Jake was only about 10 – 12 weeks old at the time, so the Jack Russell was bigger than him, and the uniformed officer quiet intimidating.   Despite years of seeing this guy out of uniform, he never won Jake over.  Later that year, we hosted a Halloween party, and I think the people in costume frightened him (maybe association with the police uniform).  But once Jake decided you could be trusted, he loved you forever.  We have friends that he would only see once a year or so, and he never failed to greet them with tail wags and kisses.

If Jake felt you were questionable, the fastest way into his heart was a round of fetch in the backyard.  My sister and her husband dog-sat for us a few times.  The first time, Jake was so afraid of Keith, he would run outside and refuse to come in until Keith left the house.  When he would eat, Jake would take a bite and then walk into the other room to look down the hallway to make sure Keith wasn’t coming.  But after a few days, Keith won him over by tirelessly throwing the ball for him.

Jake had several characteristics that I am sure he shares with other dogs, but to us these are what made him unique.

• Dogs are known for liking to roll and rub on things that smell bad.  Jake preferred to rub on things that smelled good.  He loved clean, wet laundry, a towel used after a shower, dryer sheets, the Pledge I use on our coffee table, and hair products.  In the morning, when I blow dry my hair, I always start with it flipped upside down to dry the underneath.  Jake would come into the bathroom and try to dance in circles in front of me, snout lifted up to twirl into my hair.  More than once I had to prevent him from crawling into the dryer to rub on clean laundry.  I’d have to chase him away after I Pledged the coffee table to stop him from rubbing on it and licking the Pledge residue.  My husband took this picture of me laughing while Jake rubs in my clean hair (and Brinkley wonders what the heck he’s doing):

• Jake was always so gentle – a gentle eater, drinker, player.
• One thing that was just between Jake and me: he would walk between my legs so his head was behind me and his rear in front of me so I could scratch his rump.  He loved to have his rump scratched, but it was only my legs he went between to achieve this.
• One thing not shared between me and Jake: kisses.  He would kiss everyone else, but he did not like to kiss me.  Even when I smeared peanut butter on my face, he wouldn’t do it.
• He loved to snuggle around our heads at night.  I’d wake up to find him on my pillow, curled around my head.  He’d tuck his head against mine and I would rub his ears, neck, and head, and Jake would press his head hard against mine.  He would do the same thing to my husband, although my husband says he never did the head-press thing to him.  Even when he pressed so hard it gave me a headache, I always loved this.
• About three years ago, we had one of those trash cans with the sensor that raises the lid when you wave your hand in front of it.  I started finding trash around the house that I knew had been in the can.  I soon discovered (when he did this not realizing I was in the kitchen) that Jake had learned if he moved his snout in front of the sensor, the lid would open.  He’d stand on his hind legs and reach in to pull out some treasure.  We thought we’d outsmart him with a trash can that claimed to have a dog proof lock on it.  This lasted a day in the house before he learned how to knock it down and pry it open.  After that, if we didn’t remember to put the can on top of the washing machine, we’d be sure to come home to a mess of trash.  Once, I found him with the pad from a steak package stuck to his chest with a wad of chewing gum.  I had to tire him out with the ball in the backyard before I could get him to hold still long enough for me to cut it off.  It was pretty funny to watch him run through the yard with this thing stuck to his chest.

Jake’s cancer progressed very quickly.  He was diagnosed December 2nd, and by January 18, his quality of life was no longer good, so we put him to sleep.  It was two weeks shy of his 8th birthday.  He was a very special dog; of course, all dogs are.  But he was an “old soul.”  We miss him terribly, but it is good that he is no longer in pain, and I am forever grateful for the time Jake was in our lives.

Special thanks to the staff at South Paws, where we took Jake on his last day, and also where he was diagnosed with cancer.  Every person we dealt with there – the receptionist, nurses, and Dr. Antkowiak – were caring, gentle, warm, and comforting.  If you live in the Fairfax, VA area and ever need an animal hospital, I recommend them highly.

Too much to hope for?

I’ll be attending ALA Midwinter this weekend.  It’s my first Midwinter so I have no idea what to expect, but I’m looking forward to it!  I had planned to stay for 4 days and see the awards press conference on Monday, but with Jake hanging in here, I was feeling a little selfish when I bought my plane tickets and will fly in Friday and out Sunday.  I may regret this – we’ll see.

I can’t help but hope to get my hands on some ARCs this weekend.  I am dying to read Susan Beth Pfeffer‘s This World We Live In.  I don’t know if Harcourt will have them, but I can hope!  I did read online that Random House will have copies of Carrie Ryan‘s The Dead Tossed Waves, which is the other ARC I’d love to score.  We’ll see what turns up!

Mario Lopez? Really?

I was irritated to learn last night that Mario Lopez has been asked to co-host the 134th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show this year.  Let’s think about this for a minute.  This is the one hundred-thirty-fourth year of the famous dog show.  It is the second longest consecutively held sporting event in the US (only the Kentucky Derby has been held longer).  Yes, it is “just a dog show” but there are a lot of people who take it seriously and spend lots of time and money to get to Madison Square Garden, whether it is a dog owner, breeder, handler, trainer, judge, groomer, or audience member.  And this is who they want to be the face and voice of the show?

Now, me?  I love the WKC dog show.  I consider it my version of the World Series (the Oscar ceremony is my Super Bowl).  But – I just watch for the dogs.  I tend to prefer mutts and rescue dogs so I have no goal of ever being more than an audience member (which I did once and want to do again).  I love seeing all the dogs and often end up tearing up just watching them prance around the ring and hearing the voice over about the history and temperament of the various breeds.

I also really love the philanthropic side of the WKC.  The organization supports a variety of charities and non-profits such as animal rescue groups, therapy animals, future veterinarians, and guide/assistance dogs.  I was a sobbing mess when they honored all the dogs that worked at Ground Zero after 9/11 and the one police dog that died in the attack.  Even the Pedigree dog food commercials voiced by David Duchovny that tend to run during the show make me cry.

I feel like the WKC and the dog show are a long-running, honorable tradition, and Mario Lopez cheapens it.  I am sure there are Lopez fans out there, and I imagine he is a nice enough guy, but he is a “celebrity” known for hosting things like ridiculous reality shows, junky celeb news shows, and silly talk shows.  If USA hired him in hopes of getting better ratings, I can’t imagine this is really the right move; it’s not like he has a rabid fan base like Twilight or something similar.  The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is not Dancing With the Stars, and it deserves better.

The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff – brief review

The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff: read in July, 2009; copy checked out from my local library

Description from GoodReads:

Though the title character of David Ebershoff’s debut novel is a transsexual, the book is less concerned with transgender issues than the mysterious and ineffable nature of love. Loosely based on the life of Danish painter Einar Wegener who, in 1931, became the first man to undergo a sex-change operation, The Danish Girl borrows the bare bones of his story as a jumping-off point for an exploration of how Wegener’s decisions affected the people around him. Chief among these is his Californian wife, Greta, also a painter, who unwittingly sets her husband’s feet on the path to transformation. While trying to finish a portrait of an opera singer who has cancelled a sitting, she asks Einar to stand in for her subject, putting on her dress, stockings, and shoes. The moment silk touches his skin, he is shaken:

Einar could concentrate only on the silk dressing his skin, as if it were a bandage. Yes, that was how it felt the first time: the silk was so fine and airy that it felt like a gauze–a balm-soaked gauze lying delicately on healing skin. Even the embarrassment of standing before his wife began to no longer matter, for she was busy painting with a foreign intensity in her face. Einar was beginning to enter a shadowy world of dreams where Anna’s dress could belong to anyone, even to him.

Greta soon recognizes her husband’s affinity for feminine attire, and encourages him not only to dress like a woman, but to take on a woman’s persona, as well. “Why don’t we call you Lili?” she suggests. What starts out as a harmless game soon evolves into something deeper, and potentially threatening to their marriage. Yet Greta’s love proves to be enduring if not immutable. As Einar inexorably transforms, he steps beyond “that small dark space between two people where a marriage exists” and Greta lets him go.

Ebershoff does a remarkable job of historical prestidigitation, creating the sights and sounds and smells of 1930s Denmark and making it seem easy. Even more remarkable is his treatment of Greta: he gets inside her head and heart, and renders her in such loving detail that her reactions make perfect sense. Einar is more of a cipher, and ultimately less interesting than his wife. But in the end, this is Greta’s book and David Ebershoff has done her proud.The Danish Girl marks a promising fictional debut.

I read this after reading and enjoying The 19th Wife.  If I were to recommend one of these, I would go with The 19th Wife.  I liked this; it was a quiet book, but I never came to care much about any of the characters.  The story itself is heartbreaking, but I was less emotionally invested in the outcome than I usually would be.  Read it if the story sounds interesting, or if you like to read the book before seeing the movie as a movie version is in the works starring Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron.

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