Reading Moods

I've always been terrible at deciding what to read next.  I've gone through various systems: random number generators for #TheList, closing my eyes and pointing at my bookshelf, reading in age group patterns (children's, YA, adult), or just letting the library gods control my fate by reading whatever holds come in first.  But regardless of the system, I always try to read something I'm in the mood for.  If I'm craving a history lesson, I reach for historical fiction or, you know, actual nonfiction.  If I want to laugh, I'm more likely to read The Earth, My Butt, and Other Round Things than I am The Book Thief.  And so on, and so forth.

Recently, a student has been placing holds left and right (using my system, apparently) and reading whatever came in first.  Recently, three came in at once (Divergent, The Outsiders, and The Maze Runner) and she looked like she was about to have a panic attack. 

Me: What's wrong?!
Student: (in literally the saddest voice possible) I don't know which one to read first.
M: Well, which one were you looking forward to the most?
S: I don't know.
M: Okay, let's try this. What kind of book are you in the mood to read?
S: Something happy.
M: Yikes. None of those are particularly happy books.
S: They aren't?
M: Wait, tell me what you know about these books.
S: I don't know anything. Someone told me they were good.

Our conversation continued with me giving a quick book talk for the three books and she realized that they were not the books she was looking for.

She still thought they sounded interesting but having just read back to back sad/depressing books, she wanted the polar opposite.  We talked some more and I found out that she liked Lois Lowry as an author, but had only ever read her serious books.  So I pulled out Anastasia Krupnik, and told her to give it a try.  She came back after the weekend and told me she LOVED it.  Now she's ready to work on Divergent because her palate has been cleansed.  You just have to go with what you're in the mood for to really enjoy a book.

Poker Face

I'm still working on my quest to become a real live (read: full-time) librarian.  In the meantime, I've been reading everything I can get my hands on, forcing myself to stop reading the books I'm not enjoying, adding more and more to my list of books to read one day when time stands still and I can finally finish the list, and working as a temporary teen librarian! Woot!

Working in a public library has been a vastly different experience than the school libraries that I'm accustomed to.  For starters, teens are far more willing to tell you that they love 50 Shades of Grey in a public library than they are in a school setting.  And for that, I am grateful.  Why? Because it gives me a lot of practice using my non-judgmental poker face.

Scenario: Teen wants a book that's "a little dark, a little romancey...and I read 50 Shades already"

Me on the outside:

Me on the inside:

Scenario: Teen is trying to figure out how many books she should check out for her vacation. She decides on 4 because she's "a fast reader because [she] was able to read the entire 50 Shades series in 3 weeks."

Me on the outside:

 

Me on the inside: 

But real talk. I love when teens check out the books that they want to read, even if I'm not a personal fan of those titles. I also love that they have no shame (and they shouldn't) about what they've read and that they want to share what they've read with me. It's awesome.

Library Books With More Than Stories

My favorite website/list-generator Buzzfeed just posted a list called "15 Curious Things Found in Library Books."

It's pretty great.  It's true that you never know what's going to fall out of a library book (though the cash one still hasn't happened to me...).  But none of the 15 items hold a candle to what happened to me on my third day of working as a school library assistant.

Two 5th-grade students asked for permission to go to the high school library to check out a book of poetry. They came back, Emily Dickinson book in hand, with completely red faces.  They said they saw something they shouldn't have and I noticed a piece of paper sticking out of the book.  I opened up to it and lo and behold, it's an ad for male enhancement complete with visuals! Genitals everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  My first thought was "THIS WASN'T COVERED IN TRAINING!"

They were fine and just wanted the book, but yeah I wasn't prepared for that one. Have you ever found something completely unexpected in a library book?

March Madness: The Winner

And the YA Series March Madness winner is unsurprisingly:

Needless to say, I'm thrilled with the outcome.  Mr. Potter won't compete in next year's tournament, essentially guaranteeing a Hunger Games victory in 2014. 

March Madness Round 4

It's official!!!! It's a Hunger Games vs. Harry Potter showdown!!!

We, the librarians, are happy about this. Why? Well for starters because it's two well-written, popular series going against each other. But it's also an older series against a modern series and it shows how long-lasting good quality book series can hold up over time. I know I'm being a hypocrite here because I often voice my distaste for the reverence that the "classics" receive, but that's more of a distaste for relying on them for education. It is important because it means that these books are holding up in popularity despite the fact that kids can now just watch all of the books in movie form. That is the power of a well-written book, people.

Now, the students are not happy about this. There have been many complaints about how it's impossible to choose which series they like more. They love Harry, but they love so many others as well. Hunger Games has actually received the majority of the votes in the past 2 rounds. Harry held strong over Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus, but those books had more weight in the voting. There might be an upset in this round, but I'm not worried. Overhearing the students complain about the difficulty proves to me that they love both.

Also, my bracket may sway them towards Harry Potter without them realizing. A student pointed out to me that the bracket color choices are clearly Gryffindor propaganda! Oops :)

March Madness Round 3

It's coming closer and closer to the predicted Hunger Games vs. Harry Potter showdown.  Tensions are running high.  Students are upset that they had to pick between HP and Percy Jackson: "How could you put those two against each other?!"  But there can only be one winner...

The Final Four are:

Uglies, by Scott Westerfield vs. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Heroes of Olympus, by Rick Riordan vs. Harry Potter, by JK Rowling

March Madness Round 2

Within 2 hours of the Round 1 ballot going live, over 90 students had submitted votes.  #Incredible.  There's talk of this becoming an annual tradition and I'm really excited about this idea.

The clear favorites in the first round were Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Divergent, Heroes of Olympus and The Hunger Games, each receiving at least 70% of the votes.  When it comes down to the Final Four, it could get interesting.

After the final tally, the new showdowns are:

Uglies by Scott Westerfield vs. The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare

Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter vs. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Divergent by Veronica Roth vs. Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan

Harry Potter by JK Rowling vs. Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan

Hex Hall, The Maze Runner, The Selection Trilogy, Matched, Gone,  The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy, Heist Society and Delirium are all out of the race.  But not to fear, because they're now part of this display:

 

March Madness Round 1

For this month's library display, we're playing March Madness with YA Series!  I'm so excited about this project.  As I was putting the board up this afternoon, the students passing by were already starting arguments about which series should come out on top.

I took 16 popular (amongst our students) YA series, assigned them a number, and put the numbers through a random number generator to figure out the pairings.  We've got:

Matched by Ally Condie vs. Uglies by Scott Westerfield

The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare vs. The Selection Trilogy by Kiera Cass

Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter vs. The Maze Runner Trilogy by James Dashner

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins vs. Heist Society, by Ally Carter

Divergent by Veronica Roth vs. Delirium by Lauren Oliver

The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy by Kristin Cashore vs. Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan

Harry Potter by JK Rowling vs. Gone by Michael Grant

Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan vs. Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

We've set up an online ballot for students to vote each round.

So far the prediction is that we're looking at a Hunger Games vs. Harry Potter showdown.  However, the students are significantly dedicated to the other represented series and there's a solid chance of a Cinderella story!

Last Minute Valentines!

Need a quick Valentine's Day Card? Want to avoid the lines at pharmacies as the other procrastinators fight over too red and sappy impersonal stuff that other people wrote?

500 Days of Summer

Everyone knows that homemade is from the heart.  And what luck, really all you need to be able to do is cut out a heart from construction paper.  It really is THAT simple. 

But if you really can't do that, you could print out a Valentine and cut it out.  That's at least a half-hearted (heh!) attempt.  And what better cards to cut out than the ones I made for the library* based on YA literature? Everyone loves that stuff.  So here you go, you're welcome.

*The students had to guess what book they were referencing. 

Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You, by Ally Carter

(Yes, literally the easiest one to figure out).

 

Matched, by Ally Condie

(The second easiest)

 

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

 

Heist Society, by Ally Carter

Twilight, by Stephanie Meyers

Series Woes

As a child, I absolutely adored series books.  Nancy Drew, The Baby-sitters Club (and all the spinoffs), Sweet Valley Twins (and all the spinoffs), Encyclopedia Brown, Cam Jansen, etc. etc. etc.  Whenever I'd go to the library, I would just head over to the familiar shelf full of yellow Nancy Drews and grab a couple at random.  Same with the other series.  There was a seemingly infinite amount of books at my disposal.

Then I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  Then I FLEW through Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban.  Then, when I went back to the library for the next book.  I couldn't find it.  So, I asked the librarian if I could put a hold on it.  She gave me that "oh honey" look and told me it wasn't even written yet.  This was me:

This had NEVER happened to me before.  Consequently, it's one of the top 3 library moments from my childhood (the other 2 are better memories). 

Last week, I was the librarian in this situation and let me tell you, it was heartbreaking on this end too.  A student who recently began Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy came in to return Insurgent and pick up the third (unwritten) installment.  When she couldn't find it, she asked if anyone had checked it out or if it was maybe part of the new books display.  Throughout her entire question, I was reliving this in my head:

So I told her, as delicately as possible, that the book isn't finished yet and is due out next year.  Yes, she was devastated (and I can't blame her, it's a great series).  But to keep her spirits up, I gave her recommendations for other series she might enjoy while she waits for the final Divergent installment: Graceling, by Kristin Cashore (the first in The Seven Kingdoms trilogy), Matched, by Allie Condie (the first in the Matched trilogy), and The Alchemyst, by Michael Scott (the first in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series). 

She ended up selecting Graceling and loved it.  That trilogy is complete (phew), so it was great when I got to hand her the second book when she finished Graceling. 

Moral of the story: always be prepared to comfort a saddened patron who just wants to know what happens next.