The Water Nymph: A Local Author's Original Fantasy

The Water Nymph by Alysun Sanders

Why did I read it?

When Alysun finished her first book, Talli's Tale, she was able to swing by the library to talk about it. So when she finished her second book, I was really excited when she contacted me again. We're looking forward to chatting with her this Saturday, January 19th, from 2-4pm.

What happened?

Cort Edson would rather not deal with the deaths of his father and brother. He's been keeping to himself and doing just fine for the past couple of years, and he simply wishes everyone would leave well-enough alone. But, most people can't, including his mother, who plans a spontaneous trip to Greece for a family vacation.

Little does Cort know that this harmless trip to Greece will change the entire course of his life, and force him to confront the deaths of his loved ones again. While swimming in one of the lakes his Mom wants to check out, Cort is nearly drowned by a mysterious woman. Not able to figure out if the beautiful stranger was dream or reality, Cort is even more confused when she shows up at his high school.

Things take a turn for the very strange when another beautiful girl named Seffie shows up around the same time with secrets of her own. After being pursued for a full day, Seffie confides in Cort that she isn't your typical high school student. In fact, she let's Cort know that the very fate of Heaven depends on Cort protecting her from her husband.

What did I like or not like?

While I started the book to know more about it before Alysun joins us this Saturday, I finished it because it totally sucked me in. The numbness that pervades Cort's life is turned upside down by the extraordinary women that burst into it, and the resulting story is really interesting.

Alysun has also skillfully combined elements from Christian beliefs, Greek mythology, and several other influences into an original, unique fantasy story. In addition to skillfully blending these ideas, Alysun has also continued to improve her skills as  an author and storyteller.

After reading the book, I'm even more excited about Alysun's talk this Saturday, and the sequel to The Water Nymph.

Teen Marketing

Morning everybody! I’m often accused of being too happy in the morning, but I figure that’s a great problem to have.

Anyways, I first wanted to mention that I didn’t get a book blurt post out this week. I think I’ve mentioned it a few times, but my senior research class is quite a bit of work. I had a huge project due on Wednesday, and I dedicated the day to putting the finishing touches on it. I know, that is probably an excuse, and I’ll try not to let that happen again. I’ll definitely be back on Wednesday with an update on what I’ve been reading.

Last Friday, Alysun Sanders dropped in for a visit. She told us a little about her book, Talli's Tale, how she got published, and also about her new series she's writing, The Hollow Series. It was cool to actually meet her in person.

In other news, I feel pretty important. As I mentioned last week, the Idaho Commision for Libraries is doing a Fall Youth Services training, and they are having me present about teen marketing in Coeur d’ Alene and Moscow. As some of you know, I am a communication arts major at Lewis Clark State College, and public speaking is one of my passions. I’m really excited to share what I’ve learned about teen marketing with my fellow librarians.

But, then I have to ask myself, what have I learned about teen marketing? First of all, that it isn’t easy. Getting people to come to the library is difficult, and teens like a really good program. So I’ll keep working in that direction. Secondly, get the word out to as many people as possible through as many different means as possible; facebook, blog, twitter, youtube, flyers, and ridiculousness.

Thirdly, I think its taking one step at a time, and not being discouraged when a huge crowd doesn’t show up at your event. We’re making progress, slowly, but surely. I hope that anyone who reads this blog or has come to one of our teen programs has enjoyed themselves, and I hope to see them again as we keep working toward bigger and better teen programming.

So I’ll probably share that and a few other things to my colleagues at the trainings. In addition to the public speaking opportunity, I’m also getting to work with other librarians from the commission and another library, which is always a treat.

Making sure that my job isn’t normal, I got to help out at some second grade tours yesterday. Hayden Meadows sent three classes walking over to our building, and Miss Cassie and I had a great time showing them our different sections. The bookmobile garage was a huge hit!

Lastly, Airband Awesomeness is tonight at 7pm! Airband is pretty much the end of our October programs (other than turning in the pledge and project forms for Wrestlemania), and I’ve had a great time planning, promoting, and actually doing the programs. I’m excited to see any performers that show up tonight, and even if you don’t have a song, please come down and enjoy some great performances. Myself, a good friend of mine, and our library director, John Hartung (who himself played in a rock band in high school) are going to be the judging panel.

Hope to see you tonight, and if I don’t, I’ll be coming your way on Wednesday with a book blurt.

Authors and Reading Groups

For the past couple of weeks, I have been planning programs; sending emails, taking phone calls, making posters, and putting stuff in the courier. All of this planning is basically coming down to the next two weeks. You might ask why this would be the case. There are two reasons. First, I am striving to have one teen event and one tween event every month. This means that a lot of my time is spent planning for said once a month program. The other reason is that October 17-23 is the national Teen Read Week, and we are celebrating it with some programs!

Tonight I’m super excited to hear Alysun Sanders speak. The program is technically for grades 5-9, but anyone is welcome. I had a chance to talk to Alysun on Monday, and she is really looking forward to coming down. If you are interested in writing at all, or if you want to support a local author, then come on down tonight from 6:30-7:30.

Working backwards, I went to Bryan Elementary yesterday. One of the fifth grade teachers and I are starting a Guys Read group at the school. Guys Read is a website that was started by author Jon Scieszka. There are Guys Read groups all over the nation, and we are starting one here in town. Every two weeks we will be meeting to discuss books that other guys will also enjoy.

Back on Monday, I had my monthly Ka-Boom Science Experiments program. This is something I’ll be doing every month on the second Monday from 4-5pm. This month, we did water experiments. Since our Summer Reading theme were water related, I figured that a water experiments were appropriate to start the fall as well. We got a chance to talk about density, the freezing temperature of water, and how boats float.

For the rest of the week, I was working on a promotional video for our Airband Awesomeness competition on October 22 from 7-9pm. Last Friday, Karen, Cassie, Connie, Emily and I got together to do some filming. It took us about two hours, and we were having way too much fun! You can watch the video on Facebook here. Hope you like it, and I hope you’ll join us for Airband Awesomeness on the 22nd.

In November, there is going to be a youth services conference put on by the Idaho Commission for Libraires, and I’ve been asked to present! I’m supposed to talk about teen services and ways to promote it. Now, I’m still working on better ways to get the word out about my programs, and I don’t think that I’m ever going to be an expert on it. But, I’m really honored to be asked to share my ideas with other librarians.

Hope to see you tonight or next week. Take care!

Library Awesomeness!

Sorry about being a couple days late. This weekend ran away from me. But, there is plenty to talk about, so here is your weekly update on Monday.

Last weekend I was chillin’ with my friends at Triple Play, and a little girl came up and gave me a bear hug. For a split second I was wondering who she could be, and then her mom gave me some context as she said something to the effect of “It must be library time.” This little girl had seen me at one of the library programs and decided to give me a hug even though we weren’t at the library. I love my job!

Another cool thing that happened this week was the Idaho Library Association’s Annual Conference. There were two amazing aspects to this conference for me. First, I got to attend a SPLAT unconference. SPLAT stands for Special Project Library Action Team. Many of the techno savvy librarians in Idaho are a part of this group, and I got to spend the morning and afternoon on Wednesday just gleaning from their knowledge and ideas. I now have plenty of websites and things to look up.

During lunch at the conference I got the pleasure of hearing Chris Crutcher speak. Chris is a well known author whose books often find themselves on banned book lists. Although I’m still wondering where I sit on having some kinds of questionable content in books, hearing Chris’s take on book banning was very interesting and worthwhile. He talked about finding the truth in a story, and bringing that across in his books. Chris was an excellent speaker, and hearing someone else’s take on intellectual freedom is always interesting.

Looking back over the week I’m realizing that I had an even busier week then I thought I did. On Thursday, I got the pleasure of going to Bryan Elementary and awarding kids their summer reading prizes. Bryan set up a special program called the Bear Necessities where kids could get prizes for reading books during the summer. The Hayden Library was one of the biggest sponsors for the program, so Bryan invited us to be a part of the award ceremony. Seeing kids get excited about a free book, and a room full of parents, teachers, and students cheering for reading was a very rewarding experience.

Lastly, the youth services staff and I filmed a promo video for our Airband Awesomeness competition, which is on October 22 from 7:00-9:00. We took “Vacation” by the Go-Gos, grabbed our blow up guitars and Curious George rulers and rocked for a good two hours! The video should be up soon, and it is going to be amazing!

Looking toward this Friday, Alysun Sanders will be joining us from 6:30-7:30. As I’ve mentioned before, she will be discussing writing, being an author, and getting published. Snacks will be provided, and Alysun is really excited to talk to all of you!

Hope you can join us on Friday, and I’ll talk to you guys later.

Books with Beat!

Well hello again everybody. Another week has come and gone, and here we are on Friday again.

The life of a programming librarian can include many meetings, and this week started with one. I had a chance to sit down with the secondary education librarians from the Coeur d’ Alene school district. We chatted about the Hayden library’s upcoming October programs and ways to support each other and stay in contact. I love meetings when everybody is on the same page and want to move toward the same goal.

Wednesday brought the Inland Northwest Blood Center bus to the library. The bus has been coming to the library for the past two years, and staff members and patrons have consistently donated blood. This blood drive was the third time I’ve donated on the bus, and the first time I’ve had any problems. The donating went fine, the standing up afterward went fine, the walking to the back of the bus to eat some treats and drink some juice went fine. What didn’t go fine was a couple minutes later when all color literally ran from my face and a snowstorm was playing in front of my eyes. Turns out that donating blood on an empty stomach isn’t a good idea. This is something that I know, but didn’t practice this time. But, the blood center has a few units of my blood, and I have my color back.

Last week, I mentioned a few programs that were coming up in October, and I wanted to expound on them a little bit. Alysun Sanders, a graduate from Lake City High School, has published a book called “Talli’s Tale.” She is going to be at the library on October 15 from 6:30-7:30pm. Although she only has one book published, Alysun has enjoyed writing and telling stories for her entire life. She is going to be discussing being an author, getting published, and writing.

The next Friday, October 22, we are having Airband Awesomeness from 7:00-9:00pm. October 17-23 is Teen Read Week, a national event put on by the young adult arm (YALSA) of the American Library Association every year, and the theme this year is, “Books with Beat.” We were scratching our heads looking for a fun program, and Karen remembered something hilarious that she did when she was in high school. She told me about airband competitions that were held at her school, and I thought that we had to try it. So, pick a song, divide up the parts (vocals, drums, guitar, etc.), and come rock out with nothing but air. My thought is the more you put into it, the more fun it is going to be. So go all out with costumes, hair, makeup, and the style that the band plays in. If you can’t tell, I’m pretty excited about it.

Something else to do with Teen Read Week is the WrestleMania Reading Challenge. This is an event put on by YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association), Mattel, and WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). It involves students from grades 5-12 pledging to read five books between Teen Read Week and April 2011. It also involves students submitting a creative project about literary characters and WWE superstars. The grand prize is ring side seats to WrestleMania 27 in Atlanta! If you are interested come by the library to get the pledge and project sheets, and return them by October 25, 2010.

Don’t want to take up too much more of your time, so I’ll see you on Wednesday.

Wally World

How’s it going everybody?

Anybody else noticing that there was a chill in the air today? Kind of feels like fall is coming on, and I say that with the highest respect for summer I can. Guess we’ll have to hang on to the last weeks of summer and get ready for a great fall!

How have your school weeks been finding you? Back into the routine yet? I’m getting there. Even though we often look toward summer because it is supposed to be less busy, I often find that it is almost exactly the opposite. Why is that? We do get a break from our normal routines, but I found that I filled the time away from the regular routine with things that didn’t run on a routine, but still take just as much time. Needless to say, the last couple weeks of summer were very busy, and it is almost a relief to be back into the routine of school and work.

A few of you are probably wondering why this post is being posted so late. Turns out that I was at a Wal-Mart opening event today. There is a new Wal-Mart store that opened this week in Hayden, and Wal-Mart graciously donated grant money to Hayden businesses that were giving back to their communities. The Kootenai-Shoshone Libraries was one of the recipients. For this reason, we brought out the bookmobile and some foam photo frames and headed off to the Wal-Mart parking lot. Today was kind of windy, and kids were in school, so not too many people came knocking down our door. But, books were still checked out, someone got a library card, and we got to see some familiar library patrons. Not to mention that just spending time with library staff can be way too much fun!

The other big thing I’ve been working on this week is Teen Read Week, something that I’ll be mentioning until it comes from October 17-23. The Idaho Commission for Libraries is doing a statewide contest for promoting Teen Read Week. They called for libraries to submit a storyboard for a Teen Read Week PSA for a chance to win a digital photo frame. I decided to enter into the contest. I have also been a part of the Teen Read Week Coordinating Committee, and they were also looking for ways to promote Teen Read Week. They came up with the idea of committee members making a PSA, so I actually made the PSA, and I also submitted a storyboard for the same PSA.

Teen Read Week is going to be pretty busy with programs. Alysun Sanders is going to be joining us on the Friday before Teen Read Week, we are doing Airband Awesomeness on the Friday of Teen Read Week, and we are also participating in the WrestleMania Reading Challenge. Even though I don’t have time to go into details on those events now, just know that they are going to be awesome!

I’ll catch you on Wednesday for a Book Blurt on Andrew Klavan’s The Last Thing I Remember, which is starting off running, and seems to keep getting better. Blog you later!

A long, long time ago...

Haven’t blogged you guys in a while. How’s it been going?

I’ll get into what I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks in my weekly update on Friday, but for now, how bout we do some Book Blurting? This week’s book is from a local author named Alysun Sanders, and the title is Talli’s Tale. Alysun will actually be joining us at the Hayden Library on Friday, October 15 from 6:30-7:30pm, so I figured I would read her book before she came down.

The prelude of the book describes six siblings who peacefully ruled the world thousands of years ago. They were called the Rules of Unity, and each of the six children ruled one of the six continents (Antarctica, was a place of banishment). These children had a loving father, and their father had three advisors. Greedy for power, one of his advisors planned to take his place on the throne, and would have succeeded if another advisor hadn’t warned the king. Banishing the evil advisor proved disastrous as the advisor’s sister, who served the king herself, turned on the king when she found her brother dead. She cast a spell of hatred on the six siblings and forced them to separate. The only hope for a united world again was the spell that the loyal advisor cast to counter the sorceress’s incantation. She prophesied that a hero would be born who would unite the siblings once again.

The story then jumps forward several thousand years to Talli Curran. For the rest of the book, we watch Talli grow from a newborn baby through her college years. After her parents are murdered, Talli is left in the care of her adopted Uncle Arnaud. He tells her the story of the Rulers of Unity, and Talli believes that the tale is real. Although she believes the legend, she can never imagine her own part in it. When tragedy strikes, Talli has to decide if she actually believes the story, and what she is going to do with that knowledge.

As it turns out, this book is only the beginning of the story. It largely deals with Talli’s years growing up, and doesn’t concern itself a whole lot with the Rulers of Unity. But, there is still plenty of story left to tell. Alysun started writing this tale when she was fourteen, finished the novel in her sophomore year, and immediately started writing the sequel. Alysun is turning twenty only two days before she comes over to the library, and I’m excited to hear what she has to say about Talli’s Tale and her next book.