Wonderstruck: If Only the World was Organized

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

Why did I read it?

Because The Invention of Hugo Cabret (same author and style) was awesome, and because we just talked about it at TeenBookWorms =D

What happened?

Even though they are separated by 50 years (Rose's tale starts in 1927, and Ben's starts in 1977), Ben and Rose have a lot in common. Both of their fathers aren't in their lives, they have a hard time connecting to those around them, and they are both deaf. They also have a passion for New York City, and collecting things around them.

But, their stories are also different. Rose's parents don't think it is safe for a deaf child to be unattended in a large city and Ben has just lost his Mom and is stuck living with his Aunt and Uncle. So, when Rose sees an article about her famous mother, and Ben finds a note relating to his long-lost father, they both start off on adventures to find a place to belong, and answer the questions beating inside their heads.

What did I like or not like?

Similarly to Hugo, this book does a really good job of showing the wonder and awe that a child's world has. It also shows how important it is for kids to have caring adults in their lives, and to know where they fit.

This book was also really cool because also similarily to Hugo, part of it is told in text like a novel, and the other parts are told in pictures, kind of like a flip chart.

Another unique part of the story was the many references to Deaf culture, libraries and museums. These are typical plot elements, and that made the story all the more fascinating.

Finally, even though the novel starts as two distinct stories, we find by the end that Rose's and Ben's stories are much more connected than we originally thought, and they both find a part of what they are looking for in each other.

Wingsuits: Because It Is Cool

So a couple weeks ago, I was brainstorming cool things, and wingsuits came to mind. I thought that I might share something about them on Twitter or Facebook. Then, I was chatting with some friends about jumping off of rocks, and other reckless things to do, and wingsuits came up again. Then I was thinking about some cool website to share today, and wingsuits seemed like fun :)

If you aren't familiar with them, wingsuits are "a special jumpsuit, used in extreme sports like a parachute, which adds surface area to the wearer's body to create lift," according to The Clean Dictionary (something I heard about from Netted by the Webbys which I will most likely be doing a post on soon). Anways, these things are better seen than described, so here is a video of Jeb Corliss pretty much flying.

Read some Books, Get some Prizes

So our Summer Reading programs have officially begun! Yay! We are super busy with programs, questions and handing out prizes, but we're loving it.

During the summer, we are always looking for community partners to "back us up" as it were. We've asked several of them to post promotion on their community boards or their store windows, and we also asked many of them for prize donations.

After registering for summer reading, you get a prize every time you read five hours. These prizes are ranging from book bags, to free books, to free stuff at Applebee's, to a ticket to the North Idaho Fair and Rodeo. Once you've read over twenty hours, we are entering participants into a drawing for a Sony Walkman MP3 Player, and probably some of the gift cards that our local businesses were good enough to donate to us.

So, if you like the sound of prizes for reading, check out our website for full information on summer reading for kids, teens, and adults, and visit the awesome places that support you, your library, and reading!

I Am J: A Boy's Story (who was born as a girl)

I Am J by Cris Beam

Why did I read it?

I just started another library science class this summer, and it is Children's Literature for a Diverse Society. I am J is a new book that just rolled across my desk, and it fits right along with the themes of my class.

What happened?

J might have been born a girl, Jeni, but he has known his entire life that it was a mistake. He knew that if gender was assigned, that his was assigned incorrectly. J has plodded through his life, stuck with a body that he hates and that continues to betray him. But that is all about to change.

After a certain incident with his best friend, J starts to question how he's been living. Instead of existing as a head trying to avoid his body, he wants to start making changes to his body so it is closer to what he knows he is.

But, that decision starts to dissolve his relationships with his friends, his family, and the future that he had initially planned. While that is the case, J knows this is something he has to do, and while he will try to get those other pieces back, he knows he has to be himself.

What did I like or not like?

My first assignment for my summer class is talking about books on diversity and whether they serve as a window to another culture, or a mirror about myself. These kinds of books do both for me. I am not very familiar with the LGBTQ world, so Will Grayson, Will Grayson and I Am J were a very eye-opening window into how this community thinks and exists.

But on the other hand, both books made me think about my own ideas on these topics, and how we all question who we are and who we are going to become. So, they also served as a mirror.

P.S. This book deals with a transgender main character, discussions of sex and sexual identity, and has some cussing.

PDFescape: Edit Those Uneditable PDFs

What do you think of PDFs? Kind of an odd question, but there is a reason for it. PDFs can be really nice if you need to reach a wide variety of computers with a single file type. Pretty much anything can read a PDF while other file extensions can't be opened unless you have that exact program.

For example, I work on a Windows, and I normally create posters in Publisher and then create a JPG file. Unfortunately, when I send that to our Community Resources Administrator who uses a MAC, it won't open the Publisher file, or the JPG extension.

So, PDF makes that problem go away because both MACs and Windows will open it. But, therein lies the rub! PDFs don't like to be edited.

When you are sending information back and forth that two people have to edit, or the PDF is actually a form you have to fill out, some PDFs don't let you edit them, and it is SO ANNOYING!

But, PDFescape has an answer to that problem. It allows you to edit a PDF by whiting an area out, and then adding text, images or web links. PDFescape can also be utilized for viewing PDFs, filling out forms, annotating PDFs, or designing PDF forms. While the premium version (the pay-some-money-version) has no ads, the free version has a few. But, they aren't overly obnoxious.

Personally, I have only used the edit side of things, and even though it was very useful, it didn't have a copy and paste feature! Once you create an element by whiting something out and then typing into it, it wouldn't let you copy it.

Now, the poster I was trying to create had a lot of repeating text, so this particular lack of feature was very agitating. But, if you are only filling out a form or fixing one area of a PDF, PDFescape is going to be awesome!

Concerning TeenBookWorms

In my promotion, I mentioned that we would be doing Shrinky Dinks the last Monday in May. But, it turns out that we were very closed as it was Memorial Day. So, we ended programs that one week early, and my programs don't start until June 18th. So today, I'm going to tell you a little bit about our TeenBookWorms group.

Basically, this is a group for high school students who love to read. We choose one book a month, read it, and then I come up with some discussion questions (or borrow them from another reading club) and we chat about it. Some of the time, we might get a little side tracked with upcoming movies (especially with The Hunger Games and The Avengers), or crazy Youtube videos. But, we always have a great time, and we always chat about literary stuff.

Another cool part about the group is that you as the teens pick the book. We pick our titles a few months out so we aren't surprised, and I might have some suggestions if you get stuck. But ultimately, you get to decide what you would like to read.

So far we've read: The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Germ by Robert Liparulo, and Stravaganza: City of Masks by Mary Hoffman.

At our last meeting, we lined up the books we're going to be reading through the summer as well.
June 26, 4-5pm Wonderstuck by Brian Selznick
July 24, 4-5pm The Maze Runner by James Dashner
August 28, 4-5pm Illusion by Frank Peretti

If any of our upcoming books sound awesome to you, read it, and come chat with us :) If they don't sound interesting at all, then pop by anyways and tell us what we should read next hehe.

DC Versus Marvel Comics

DC Versus Marvel Comics by Ron Marz & Peter David (and a lot of illustrators, editors, and letterers from DC and Marvel Comics)

Why did I read it?

A couple patrons mentioned that I don't have enough comic books in the Young Adult section. So, I grabbed a couple comic encyclopedias and this one. Once it arrived I brought it home for a couple of my brothers to read, and then I got the chance to read it. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it was still good.

What happened?

Comic book heroes are starting to disappear. But, not disappear completely. No. They are starting to show up in their rival comic book universe. Spider-Man runs into Joker, Juggernaut meets Superman, Robin runs into Jubilee...Whether its heroes, villains, or citizens, everyone is affected.

Once both universes are severely confused and mixed-up, the announcement comes. Each hero will be pitted against another hero from their rival universe. Whichever universe has the most victors will remain. The other will be obliterated.

So Superman fights The Hulk, Captain America does battle with Batman, Spider-Man contends with Superboy, and countless other battles are waged across two universes to decide the fate of all.

What did I like or not like?

While I really enjoyed the imagination behind the battles and the overall story that brought the characters together, I don't think the battles were long enough. When the heroes faced off, the longest one was like eight frames. Lame!

Now I understand that their has to be a story behind the battles, comic books really aren't very long, and ultimately we like it when heroes are fighting side by side not face to face. But, there was and is a little bit of hype around this showdown, and the battles themselves were a little disappointing.

Overall though, the art was really cool, the thought of creators from both of the biggest comic book companies collaborating is pretty sweet, and the way they got the characters to fight but also team up was pretty imaginative.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries: A True but Creative Retelling

It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that pretty much any member of the female persuasion is a die hard fan of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Another almost-just-as-true universal statement is that these members of the female persuasion will think more highly of a member of the male persuasion if they enjoy (or at least appreciate) the aforementioned novel (or at least the BBC version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle).

But, I maintain that a member of either persuasion hasn't truly experienced Pride and Prejudice until they have experienced The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

This is an online modernized adaptation of Austen's classic romance, and it is so amazing! The majority of the action is told through Lizzie's video diaries, but there is also a Tumblr account, and most of the characters are on also on Twitter.

There have been a lot of adaptations of Austen's work, so you might ask what makes this different? I think its because it is actually good! The creators, actors, and writers have remained true to the story and characters while doing a brilliant job of adapting them into realistic (albeit quirky) modern settings.

If you aren't convinced, watch the first vlog entry, and I defy you to stop there lol.

P.S. There is some cussing peppered in the videos, and there are a few sexually-themed conversations and wise cracks (mostly centered around the Lydia character. But, would it be a faithful telling of the Lydia character in a modern setting if those things weren't there?).

Double the Wii, Double the Fun

As I mentioned the last time I talked about our gaming program (What Wii Sports Taught Me), having 2 Wiis is a good idea with anywhere over 15 kids. So, this time around, I borrowed another Wii, and it worked out much better.

We planned on doing Super Smash Bros. Brawl this time around, and I asked one of the regular attenders of the program to bring his copy, and tried to track another one down myself. But, it turns out that pretty much all the Community Library Network copies were checked out, the Coeur d' Alene Library copy was lost, and none of my personal friends had it. So, I grabbed Wii Sports and did Smash Bros. on one Wii, and Wii Sports on the other.

Turns out that aspect of the program worked really well too. I found that there was a group of kids interested in Smash Bros., another group interested in Wii Sports, another group interested in board games, and just a couple kids that bounced between.

So, not having another copy of Smash Bros. was kind of a blessing in disguise. It reminded me that kids enjoy this program because there are a lot of gaming options, and having two different Wii games supported that.

Moving forward, I'll definitely have two Wiis with an assortment of board and card games. But, I'm going to work out whether the Wii game I choose should have two Wii consoles, or just one =D

BTW, this was a super popular program, and really easy to set up.