Lunch with the book thieves

This week at school we have not only celebrated/honored Teacher appreciation week, we've also celebrated/honored National Children's Mental Health Awareness Week.  The theme for this year's NCMHAW is "Heroes for Hope" - an effort to honor the adults who care about young people and help them emotionally work through trying times and encourage them as they grow into mentally healthy adults.
This year - especially this spring - has been very trying mentally and emotionally for our school, but we've come through it with flying colors.  We have proved that as a school community we are strong, we care for each other, and we can succeed and flourish even when things are terribly difficult.
So today was a special day at school - it was Super Hero Day!  There are many people out and about sporting Batman t-shirts, Superman capes, etc. etc.  Originally, I was planning to come to school dressed as the library ninja that I am - I thought it would be cool to sport my "other uniform" at school.  However, something amazing happened yesterday at lunch that caused me to completely abandon the library ninja and spend about 50 minutes last night creating super hero costumes for myself and four of my students.
I have a group of students who come in and have lunch with me every day.  To an outsider, they would probably be considered "book nerds", but to me, they're awesome.  Its a group of girls who are unique, intelligent, funny (sometimes ridiculous) and caring.  Last year we met after school as a book club.  This year, after school didn't work so great for me because of my athletic director duties, so a few of the girls started coming in for lunch a couple days a week, and now it's a daily thing.
We talk about any and everything.  Today, the main topic of discussion was the very controversial cover of TIME magazine.  They don't know much about breastfeeding, so we talked about what each of us knew, someone jumped on a computer and googled it, and we discussed what we thought about breastfeeding and the cover as well. Our discussions have ranged from the deep and intellectual (how do we make education better) to the downright silly (how do we survive the zombie apocalypse).  Yesterday they came in wondering why today was deemed "Super Hero Day".  So I explained it to them, and we talked about who the "heroes" in our world are.  One of them said I was her hero because I'd introduced her to so many books that had helped her see the world differently (*sniff* is someone cutting onions in here?!?). The girls joked about dressing up as me, and one girl asked me "What does a book super hero look like?"
My response was oh so intelligent: "Uh, I dunno."
So we stared talking about what she would look like, and someone said she looks like the book or character that has most inspired her.
In case I haven't said it eighty million times, one of my favorite books ever written is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  And yes, the entire lunch group has read the book and five out of six loved it.  So long discussion short, we decided to come to school as:

The Book Thieves!

You might be asking yourself, what exactly a "Book Thief" is, and how in the world someone named "thief" could be a hero.  We talked about this yesterday and again today.  The Book Thief is about Death, and his experience following a little girl named Liesel Memminger and his various encounters with her throughout WWII.  So our "super powers" as Book Thieves is the ability to see people as they truly are - just like Death can.  One of my girls also noted that this fits in well with NCMHAW because if we can/could see people as they truly are, we would be more able/willing to help them if they need it.
You might also be wondering about our costumes.  Lemme 'splain.  See, the cover art (er, one of the covers) features white on black dominoes, so we decided to put dominoes on our shirts.  Originally, we were going to do white on black dominoes, but half the girls didn't have white t-shirts, so we switched the colors.  The capes are a)awesome and b) to represent the different colors each person sees when Death comes to collect them (pg 4).

 As my time here winds down and comes to an end, days like today are extra special.  I know that I will miss the staff and the students here immensely.  I will miss these young women who make me laugh, drive me crazy and help me be the best teacher I can be each and every day. My office is littered with their books, lunch sacks and the sweet little notes they leave regularly on my desk/computer...

and when I have moved to be with my guy and am (fingers crossed) working in another library, I won't forget the day I was able to be a super hero with some of the brightest students around. I'm blessed. Really, truly and deeply blessed.

If Julie Andrews had been a librarian...

Today I read a post by "The Mighty Little Librarian" Tiffany Whitehead about the power of recommending books to kids.  She apparently has the same super power that I strive for: the ability to recommend the perfect book to each and every reader.  While I don't do it as well as she does, I do know that my students have learned to trust me and my knowledge of YA lit. And I also agree with her about the responsibility school librarians have to stay up with trends and popular books in the world of YA lit.
Here's her post - take a gander at it, she really knows what she's talking about:

The Power to Recommend


Her post got me thinking about my job (again) and what I do every day.  More than recommending books to students, I love love love it when a student comes in and says "I loved that book!" or even "I hated that book" because it gives me a chance to get to know my students more.  Being out of the classroom, I no longer have the opportunity to get to know students as well, so these interactions make my day each and every day.
But recommending books isn't the only thing I love about my job.  I love lots of things about my job (don't worry, there are things I hate too, but Julie Andrews never sang a song "These are a few of my most hated things", so there won't be a post about that...).  When you add my love of my job to my love of all things Sound of Music, you come up with the following song:

Research on laptops and sparkly brand new books

Prezi and Wordle and novels on new Nooks

Meeting with book club and writing reviews,

This is why library peeps do what we do!

And THAT took me about 30 minutes to come up with, so that's all you get.  It's just further proof that I was never meant to be a rockstar.

If you've ever wondered why someone would ever become a librarian, please see my recent post about what librarians actually do every day, and realize that those of us who work in libraries do it not (just) because we're book nerds, but because we love books, reading, information and finding ways to connect our patrons - in my case students and teachers - with the books and information they need.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken
Laura Hillenbrand
Random House
2010

Check out the label cloud over there on the right.  See how relatively small the nonfiction label is?  Yeah, it's pretty small.  That's because I like fiction.  Lots.  But every once in awhile an excellent nonfiction book works its way into my stack.  How thankful I am that Unbroken made its way into that pile.  And as rare as it is for me to read nonfiction, it's also rare for me to read a book that immediately makes me think "Wow, my dad would love this book!"  See, my dad is my inspiration for reading (see my post What Type of Reader are You? to understand why), and in the nearly 30 years we've both been readers, our reading tastes have starkly diverged.  On the rare occasion that I come across a book my dad would love, I get extremely excited and can't wait to recommend it to my Papa.*

Unbroken is the story of Louis "Louie" Zamperini.  It follows him through his entire life, starting with his troubled childhood in Torrence, California.  It then follows his quest for Olympic gold in the 5000m and his attempt at being the first man to run a 4-minute mile.  Then it follows him as he serves the Army Air Forces as a bombardier - crashing in the Pacific, surviving on a raft for over 40 days, and ending up as a POW in Japan. THEN it follows his post-war life as he tries to destroy himself and ultimately reinvents himself yet again in a way that I did not see coming.

Oh, and it's about 400 pages, not including 50+ pages of notes and the extensive index at the end.

Truthfully, the length didn't bother me at all.  It was so good, I cranked out about 200 pages in a day - one of those blissful days that involved little more than a comfy blanket, some ice cream, the occasional bathroom break and a good book.  Much like my favorite book The Power of One, this book reminded me of the power of the human spirit.  It reminded me that some of us - not all of us - have within us a resilience that allows us to take just about anything life throws at us and make it our proverbial b!tch.  Louie never claims to be super-strong or amazing, but those around him always knew that he was exceptional.  He, much like my favorite character every PeeKay, simply went through life putting one foot in front of the other, doing whatever was needed to survive.  And I suppose that is all that most of us do - some of us are just required to stretch much further in order to survive.

In the end, this book gave me yet another perspective on WWII.  And it gave me yet another reason to thank those who serve and fight for us.  What they go through for our freedom is unbelieveable.  Wow.

As a librarian, I would recommend this book to just about any adult interested in nonfiction, survival stories, or well-written books in general.  I would not recommend this book for younger readers - it's pretty intense.  High school would most likely be OK, but definitely not middle school.


*Fun story:  As soon as I finished the book, I met up with my dad and said "Dad, you absolutely have to read this book!" His response?  "I already read it.  Man, how much can one guy go through?" Foiled again!

The Help

The Help

Katherine Stockett

I’m a pretty busy lady, but I definitely like to find those lazy days when I can just sit and read and forget about the world around me.  Sometimes, I come across a book that is so engrossing that I can’t help but become completely absorbed – so absorbed that I forget about my reality and feel like I live in the reality of the book.

The Help by Katherine Stockett was one of those books for me.  My book club chose to read this book, and I was surprised by the choice because the book is very new.  Normally we stick with book club kits from the public library (in case you didn’t know, public libraries = free books, and that fits well into my tight budget), but some of the girls in our group had heard such great things, we all decided to fork over the cash and read it.

What a wonderful story!  The Help is a book about exactly that – the hired help.  Written from three points of view, The Help takes a look at what it was like to be the hired help in Mississippi during the 60’s.  Skeeter is a twenty-something college graduate whose dream is to work as a journalist, but whose parents want nothing more for her than marriage to an acceptable young southern man.  As she spends more and more time at home, she realizes that she does not share the same views as her now-grown childhood friends – especially when it comes to the African-American women who serve in their homes.  And she realizes that these women – the hired help – do not have a voice at all.  So she hatches a plan to share their voice with the world.  Enter Aibileen and Minny.  Both women have served as the hired help for their entire adult lives – Aibileen has faithfully and lovingly served many families, and Minny’s mouth has gotten her fired from many jobs, but her amazing cooking skills have always helped her find another job.  Though Skeeter’s plan will put all the women at risk, all the women know that the stories they have to tell are absolutely worth it.

The Help is one of those books that really makes you think about the world around you.  Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own take on things, we fail to see that there are other points of view, other stories to be told, that are just as important as ours, and that can and do have a profound effect on us.  Some of the characters in the book didn’t have the ability to see the world through the eyes of the people who worked for them.  In a way, I felt sorry for them – it has to be difficult to live in a world where people don’t see things your way.  And though the book deals with race relations in the 60’s, I think this lesson still rings true – and it doesn’t have to apply just to race relations.  The Help encourages us to try walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.

The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason

The Piano Tuner
Daniel Mason

Once again, my book club has chosen a book that many of us will not finish and fewer of us will enjoy.  I know that I'm in the camp that finished the book, but the jury is still out as to whether I'll be on team "I enjoyed it" or not.  Admittedly, the book has an amazing premise:  A middle aged English piano tuner is summoned to Burma during the 1880's to tune a piano for an eccentric army commander.

I will say that his adventure is quite adventurous.  I did enjoy the descriptions of his travel.  It was interesting to watch as Edgar Drake tried his hardest to step out of his shy little world and experience the wonders of the Orient.  And when I consider the book from a literary stand point, I really appreciated his character.  Maybe the thing holding me back from jumping into camp "AwesomeBook" is the fact that I've read so much teen lit lately that my brain has rewired itself to only enjoy page turners that either include vampires, death matches or fairies.

And if I'm honest, in the end, Edgar really did step out of his little world and go all out for what he loved and believed in.  As for the ending?  I will say that it left me wanting more.  However, I think Edgar's entire existence left me wanting more, and that might be part of the conflict in this novel.  Edgar's passion sends him off on amazing adventures.  Is it better to follow your passion, or be safe and secure in life?