Sailor Twain: A Woman's Scorn...

Sailor Twain (or The Mermaid in the Hudson) by Mark Siegel

Why did I read it?

There are two reasons that I picked this book up. First, I am apparently on a Romance reading spree (Every Day, Forever..., and Amiri & Odette: A Love Story are the last books I've read lol).

Secondly, while flipping through the work, I found that it featured a topless mermaid. I wanted to ensure that it wasn't gratuitous before I put it onto our young adult shelves.

What happened?

Twain is the captain of a steamboat on the Hudson River near Victorian era New York City. Some days he thinks he is the only one that keeps the wonderful ship afloat. The owner, a French noblemen is bedding every woman that comes aboard, and the engineer was involved in a mysterious explosion on his last expedition.

But Twain's dedication to his ship lessens dramatically when he rescues a wounded mermaid and slowly falls in love with her. Sharing his own personal stories and reading fantastical tales with the creature, Twain makes her promise that she will never sing to him. But Twain's devotion to his ship isn't the only thing affected by his love for the mermaid. He also begins to neglect his crippled wife who he used to visit every weekend...

As the mermaid begins to consume Twain's every waking thought, he can't help but wonder where she came from, and who wounded her in the first place. This search will ultimately lead to a terrible choice that begs question of the difference between love and obsession, selflessness and selfishness, and supernatural forces.

What did I like or not like?

This graphic novel actually began as a serialized webcomic drawn in charcoal. The illustrations are simple, being only black and white, but that aspect keeps them powerful and mysterious.

In addition to fascinating illustrations, the story of love, danger, and consequences is really engrossing and I know that I blazed right through it. But I have to admit that I had to contemplate the ending a little bit to make it make sense to me.

Concerning the topless mermaid issue, pretty much every illustration shows her absolutely bare-chested. While I completely understand if this turns you off from the novel, I think I understand the reason behind it. Siegel was trying to write an original novel based on mythology. Traditionally speaking, mermaids have been drawn topless, and it seems he was trying to remain true to that aspect of the mythos.

So I can't say the toplessness is gratuitous as there is quite a bit of precedent there, but I think it should play a part in whether or not you decide to read the story.

The Editing Room: Like HISHE in a Written Format

So while I was finding some images for The Amazing Spider-Man movie showing this Saturday (6-8:30pm if you want to come lol), I stumbled across a website that is pretty hilarious. Its called The Editing Room, and it basically abridges the scripts of popular movies. But, it doesn't only abridge them; it abridging them in ways that pokes fun at all the idiosyncrasies, errors, cliches, and plot holes that show up in the movie, and is therefore quiet hilarious.

Thinking about it, this website kind of reminds me of HISHE (How It Should Have Ended) in a written format. We all love movies, and even when a movie has a lot of problems, we still love it. HISHE and The Editing Room play on our love for movies while still admitting that they have problems.

While these problems are typically pronounced, we don't like to admit they have problems because we love the movies anyways. But, HISHE and The Editing Room turn these problems into hilarious videos and scripts, and so we forgive their blatant poking at our favorite movies lol.

While both websites are hilarious, I have a word of caution about The Editing Room. HISHE videos are typically devoid of language or sexual references. The Editing Room on the other hand seems to adapt their script to the movie it is based on. So, if the movie had language and sex in it, The Editing Room script has language and sex in it (and sometimes the abridged scripts has some language even when the movie doesn't). 

Let me know what you think =D

Awesome Monster Bookmarks

I'm really thankful for awesome coworkers who find awesome ideas, and for awesome people who share their awesome ideas online =D

Miss Lauren does a monthly Open Crafts event, and in her searchings for the perfect craft, she stumbled across Monster Bookmarks. As you can tell from the picture, their awesomeness goes without saying (and Miss Lauren's awesomeness for finding them goes without saying as well).

Tally's Treasury is a DIY and crafting idea blog that gets updated every Thursday with new projects. Just bouncing around I found some awesome things to make (like a ping pong eyeball headband, and DIY Glasses and Moustache Disguise) , and she has instructions and a template for the Monster Bookmarks available on the blog as well. 

An awesome (how many more times can I use that word in this post) thing about this activity is that it is really simple to do, and lets the kids create something that makes it easier to read. Have a great time while promoting literacy? Yes, please!

In addition to promoting literacy, the kids that came for this activity were inspired to create their own bookmark designs as well. They might have been simple, but the kids really enjoyed having the freedom to create something from scratch.

Amiri & Odette: The New with the Old

Amiri & Odette: A Love Story by Walter Dean Myers,
with paintings by Javaka Steptoe

Why did I read it?

My sister grabbed this book from the library, and when she finished reading it, I couldn't resist the uniqueness of the cover and idea behind the adaptation.

What happened?

Amiri is the prince of the basketball courts in the Swan Lake Projects. While he appears to own and conquer all he sees and all who challenge him, his mother worries. She understands the violence and danger of his urban life, and wants him to settle down.

Later that night, his mother's desires become his desires, as he meets the girl of his dreams. But a dangerous curse separates their new found love as Odette is promised to Big Red. While Odette believes herself irrevocably chained, Amiri believes their love is stronger than any other tie.

But, defeating Big Red and holding onto the love that they have found will be even more difficult and dangerous than either can imagine.

What did I like or not like?

As Myers puts out in his introduction, the story of Swan Lake has been told in Celtic, Russian, Slavic, and Arabian folklore, and is best known for the Tchaikovsky ballet version of the tale. But Myers felt it appropriate to tell the tale again as he believed modern dangers in young people's lives today are similar to the magic spells of folklore.

Myers sets his retelling of the classic tale in a housing project, relates the action in verse form, and has his words accompanied by collage-on-cinder-block paintings by Javaka Steptoe.

I thought the combination of urban poem and paintings was a new and interesting way to portray the timeless themes and story of Swan Lake.

Allrecipes: Your Socially Connected Cookbook

As you may have noticed, when one of my programs or events requires a recipe, I typically get it from allrecipes.com. As a result, I figured I'd find out a little more about it.

Allrecipes is the world's largest digital food brand. Their website and apps allow users to search for recipes, add their own recipes, plan menus, and share in an online community of home cooks. Recently, Allrecipes started creating ebooks as well.

While they don't have an About Us page on the main part of their site, I was able to find some info about them on their Advertising page. Turns out that a group of anthropology students got together in 1997 to discover and share cookie recipes with Cookierecipes.com. With the success of that site and others like it, the group decided to combine all of them onto one site that has now become Allrecipes.

Even though I've been searching for recipes and have several friends with the apps on their devices, I had no idea just how big this brand was. In addition to 25 million unique visitors a month, they have the most downloaded recipe apps on the market, and is one of the Top 10 Ranked Social Media sites.

So next time you need a recipe, Allrecipes might be the place to be =D

Make Your Own Doughnuts

For a while now, I've been trying to get some Middle School programs off the ground at my library. Over the summer, we had some really fun times with Creepy Scavenger Hunt and Tell Your Own Ghost Stories, but once Fall and Winter shows up, attendance disappears. Well, until we made our own doughnuts =D

When I first started thinking about the program, I thought it might be complicated to make your own doughnuts, but it turned out I was wrong. Crispy and Creamy Doughnuts was a recipe I found on allrecipes.com that had a lot of positive reviews (reviews are awesome!), and the doughnuts themselves turned out to be awesome!

Unless you have a two hour time slot for your program, I would suggest making the actual dough beforehand. (FYI for those who don't know about about cooking, if the yeast won't foam, add a little sugar for the yeast to start eating. Worked like a charm for me, and thank you awesome coworkers for giving me this tip!)

One thing I wasn't planning on, but the students really enjoyed, was making their doughnuts into different shapes. Some looked like stars, pretzels, and twists, while others stuck to a more traditional shape.

The Crispy and Creamy Doughnuts recipe is based on cooking them in oil, and I let each student dunk their own. Please explain that they should place them in the oil instead of dropping them in the oil =D Once the doughnuts were cooked, the recipe called for a glaze. But we decided to melt some chocolate chips with a little butter and made a chocolate sauce instead.

When all was said and done, we had some delicious doughnuts and some happy Middle Schoolers.

Forever: Realistic or Substantial?

Forever... by Judy Blume

Why did I read it?

Originally written in 1975, this book has become a classic in Young Adult literature. I figured a young adult librarian should probably read the classics of his own genre =D This book was quite controversial when it was first published, and remains that way to this day. I wanted to see where I fell on that controversy.

What happened?

Katherine and Michael are both seniors in high school, and after meeting at a friend's party, they have an immediate connection. Pretty soon, they are doing everything together.

Once things get a little bit more serious, both Katherine and Michael have to decide how far they are going to take this relationship physically. Katherine is a virgin, and wants her first time to be absolutely perfect. She is pretty sure it will be with Michael because he is worth the commitment of taking it all the way.

But, things don't always go as we'd like them to. While the school year was practically perfect, they are separated for the summer, and they really have to consider whether this is a love that will last a lifetime.

What did I like or not like?

It is always interesting to read novels that were written a few years ago. Most of the time, they kind of feel dated. While that was kind of the case with this title, the situations and issues that Katherine and Michael deal with are very much still alive to this day.

Now let's get to the interesting part. What did I think about the controversy? Forever... is largely an exploration of two teens' sexuality and how that fits into love, and consequently, this book has quite a bit of sexual content and discussions in it. I think some readers will appreciate these discussions, while others probably won't, but I think it should be left on shelves so readers have a choice to decide for themselves.

One thing that did surprise me was the parallels I drew between Forever... and David Levithan's Every Day. (SPOILER ALERT) Both relationships didn't make it, and both relationships involved some sex. But I couldn't help but think that A and Rhiannon's relationship in Every Day was based on something more substantial than Katherine and Michel's relationship in Forever...


I understand that Katherine and Michael's kind of relationship is common in real life and the literary world, and as a book about a sexually active boyfriend and girlfriend, the book rings true and honest and important. This frankness and honesty is probably the main reason that it has become a classic YA work, and why it is still read to this day.

But I prefer relationships in real life and books that are a little more...substantial, worthwhile, deeper, in for the long term, able to handle some struggles?? Agree, disagree, think I'm crazy??
Let me know :)

Klout: Measuring Your Influence

How do you measure influence on social media? How much content you post? How many retweets you have? How many people friend you?

Well, this is a question that Klout seeks to answer by gathering data from all of your social media outlets, and giving you a score from 1 to 100. Instead of just counting data, Klout strives to measure the actual influence you possess by comparing different data on social media as well.

Klout started in 2008 with the basic idea that everyone has influence, and with the rise of social media, this influence has become even more democratized.

Over the past few weeks, I've been taking a look at what I actually do at my job. What programs I do, what outreach I do, and what I do on social media. While I think I definitely do some things well, I'm always wondering how I can do things better. Although I just started using Klout, it seemed to be a qualitative way to see how effective I am really being at social media.

Currently, I have a Klout score of 42, and I'm hoping that this number will go up as I keep get better at social media, and my job in general =D

Show The Hunger Games Movie!

Through the month of October, the Hayden Library was involved with our area-wide program called North Idaho Reads, and one of the programs we got to do was show The Hunger Games movie.

North Idaho Reads was a collaboration between Community Library Network, Coeur d' Alene Public Library, East Bonner County Library District and West Bonner Library District to promote one book (Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury), and then offer programs to support people talking about it.

Fahrenheit 451 is a classic dystopian novel, so when our committee considered what kind of programs we could offer, we thought a Dystopian Movie Festival would be really cool. So, we made sure all the libraries had a projector and a DVD player or compatible computer, and showed some movies =D

The Hayden Library chose to show Fahrenheit 451, Children of Men, Serenity, and then finally The Hunger Games. While I don't have any pictures (I'll make sure I do that next time), we decorated the Bookmobile garage with rugs, tables, and Christmas lights, and made it feel like a movie theater.

In addition to watching the movie, we ordered some pizza afterwards and chatted about what we thought about the movie, how it compared to the book, and what other dystopian stories we had heard.

Obviously, The Hunger Games is under copyright protection, so to legally showed it, we purchased a license from Movie Licensing USA, which is also going to let us show The Amazing Spider-Man in December. I'm stoked already!

Every Day: Torn from the Girl You Love

Every Day by David Levithan 

Why did I read it?

Because I'm a fan of Quantum Leap and other similar sci-fi shows, and the synopsis made it sound super interesting!

What happened?

For as long as he can remember, A has borrowed someone else's body for the day, and then bounced to someone else the next day. He can remember what happened the day before, but he can also remember past experiences from the person he is currently borrowing from.

When he was younger, this quick attraction and then swift separation was devastating. His 'parents-for-the-day' couldn't figure out why their 'child' didn't want to go to bed at night. But, A has since accepted his fate, and actually finds some amazement in the everyday occurrences that are so similar and yet so different. Every day he does his best to leave his host's life in as close to the same shape as he can, and he has gotten pretty good at it. 

That is, until he borrows Justin's life for a day and meets his girlfriend, Rhiannon. There is something about her perseverance, love of life, and inherent sweetness that A can't ignore. So instead of acting like Justin for the day, A hopes that she can somehow see past the outside and see the real him on the inside. Just like every other day, A jumps to someone else the following morning. But, he refuses to lose the connection, the enormity, of what happened with Rhiannon.

What did I like or not like?

This book was just ridiculously readable. All of the every day events could happen in someone's life, but through it all you know it isn't normal because A is experiencing these things for people, and this gives the book a unique voice and perspective. While the world events seem commonplace, the way they combine to complicate A's life is really fascinating.

I started this book really excited, couldn't put it down because it kept me gripped the whole time, and thought it followed through on its promising story line all the way to the ending. Read it!

P.S. There is very slight cussing, and one scene with some sexual content.

POPVOX: Ensuring Congress Hears

A couple weeks ago, I received an email from Netted by the Webbys that had election related apps and websites. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to highlight some of their finds before the election was upon us. But, one of the sites will be very useful to us even when the election is totally over.

The site is called POPVOX, and it gives constituents a chance to more effectively communicate with Congress. Basically, POPVOX asks you to create an account so they can verify whether or not you are a legitimate constituent. Once that's accomplished, they have bills pending before Congress on their website, and you choose to support or oppose them. After you've done this, you have the option of commenting on the legislation and sharing what you find via social media.

One of the major stands of POPVOX is not editorializing, so instead of commenting on the bills themselves, they let advocacy organizations log onto POPVOX and give their two cents.They also tabulate the number of people who are supporting or opposing each bill, and tracking what they are saying about them.

In addition to bill information, POPVOX contains info on Members of Congress, states, and districts. This gives you an idea of what is going on, and also makes it easy for Congress to see what people are concerned about. Ultimately, POPVOX gives you an easy way to look up what bills are coming down the pike, and then gives you an easy way to say something about them.

The result; congress hears what you say. The POPVOX site comments, "When the information coming into your Members of Congress is public, counted, sorted and searchable, your voice is amplified — and Congress can’t ignore it."

If you are interested, you can visit the Why POPVOX Works page for more information. 

Glow in the Dark Experiments

Who doesn't like stuff that glows, and I figured it was appropriate for Halloween :)

Glow Sticks

An easy way to get glowing is glow sticks. Basically it is a chemical reaction between two compounds that, when mixed, release excess energy as light. If you are interested, it is a process called chemiluminescence.I found that the kids understood the idea of a chemical reaction if you talk about mixing baking soda and vinegar, as most have done that.

Once we understood a little more about chemical reactions, I actually cut open one of the glow sticks. Each glow stick is actually made of two sticks; one plastic one that you feel, and one glass one that is lodged inside. When you crack a glow stick you are actually breaking the inner glass tube that releases one chemical into the other and presto, instant light!

Glow Paint

Let your participants paint a design on a black piece of paper without telling them that it is glow in the dark paint. Once they are finished, turn off the lights and watch their surprise. Once they've seen the affect, you can talk about the science behind it called photoluminescence (the paint absorbs photons and then releases them in the dark is the short answer hehe. Another way of thinking about it is the paint getting excited and then releasing this excitement as light, just like we might release our excitement by dancing).

Finally, we mixed some GAK with glow paint (but glow powder would work just as well). This experiment is fun to do no matter what, and seeing it glow in the dark after you mix it just makes it that much cooler =D