Book Review: Highway to Hell

By Rosemary Clement-Moore. 2009. Delacorte Press, New York. 357 p.

Gr. 9-12. “Some people think that Texas has only one season, that it’s summer all year long,” says Maggie Quinn, our heroin. “In fact, the Lone Star State does have four seasons: Hot, Humid, Horrible, and Hellacious.” Maggie and her fellow freshman and amateur sorceress, Lisa, are on their way to South Padre Island for spring break. In search of the “normal college thing,” the two crash into a dead cow on a deserted highway. Stranded in a small town, the two begin a decidedly unnormal and demon-filled vacation.

Maggie and Lisa are anything but normal. Maggie struggles to control psychic ability inherited from her grandmother. Lisa, having made a serious mistake in her sorcery, seeks atonement. Besides a mysterious and interesting cast of locals, Maggie’s new boyfriend, Justin (majoring in anthropology of magical folklore), and his lifelong friend, Henry (a priest-in-training) make useful sidekicks in Maggie’s struggle against Hell. While Highway to Hell is the third in the Maggie Quinn: Girl vs. Evil series, you need not have read Prom Dates from Hell or Hell Week to quickly catch on.

All of these characters combined with a sharp repartee and demon fighting makes one think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But Buffy fans might be uneasy with Maggie. While her sharp wit and boundless bravery mimics the Slayer, Maggie lacks an intimacy with her audience that comes with being unsure of yourself at your core. No matter how much bravado and derring-do Buffy displayed, there was always underlying insecurity with her life, her friends, and her future. Maggie on the other hand shows almost none of that insecurity. She occasionally touches on wanting to be normal, but it never pulls her to the bottom as it did with Buffy. From the bottom, a hero looks even more heroic and appealing when they rise back to the top to kick demon butt.

Clement-Moore has written a fun, easy-reading adventure with a likable cast. What it lacks is more engrossing emotional sensitivity, which would make for a closer connection to Maggie and more suspense. Still, Highway to Hell is enjoyable and leaves readers anxiously awaiting the next installment.

The First Four and My First

Finally I get some credit!

While I've been very happy researching and contributing to Rotary History and Archives' online and onsite history exhibits, it is nice when you get some recognition in a public way.

A few months ago, I researched the four men that met to form the first Rotary club in 1905 in Chicago. I also looked into the life of the so-called fifth Rotarian.

I wrote up my findings as a ready-reference document to assist researchers. Recently my coworker used that material in a regular web piece she does for www.rotary.org called Historic Moments. Since I wrote a significant portion of the finished product, she was able to get me a byline. Historic moment indeed! Hopefully this is the first of many.

Check out Historic Moments: The First Four to learn about Messieurs Harris, Loehr, Shorey, Schiele, and Ruggles. These four (OK, five) men met in an office after dinner one night, and the result is a service club organization that includes 33,000 clubs and more than one million members all over the world -- even in Antarctica.

We all start somewhere.

Book Review: Small Steps

By Louis Sachar. 2006. Delacourt Press, New York. 259 p. 

Gr. 5-8. Two years after his [mis]adventures at Camp Green Lake in Holes, Armpit, whose preferred name is Theodore, is back home in Austin, Texas, working as a landscaper. It’s a hot Hill Country summer, and Armpit's friend, X-Ray, has a foolproof plan for them to double their money – guaranteed. Though Armpit is struggling to stay on the straight and narrow, he goes for his friend’s plan and lands in the middle of the trouble he wanted so much to avoid.

Short chapters and lots of white space make Small Steps an easy read. Though the main characters are teenagers, the book is ideal for 10 to 14 year olds. This follow-up adventure from Sachar follows different characters than in Holes, so readers looking for a continuation might be disappointed. And the mystery and high drama of the juvenile prison camp and its misfit warden are missing from Small Steps. But this book is not without action. Lots of dialogue and short scene descriptions keep the action moving. Sachar’s character development endears Armpit, Ginny, his ten-year-old neighbor, and offbeat X-Ray to readers. Music superstar, Kaira, who longs for real friends and to make quality music, complicates Armpit’s life, just when he’s trying to keep things simple.

Though different from Holes, fans of Sachar will find Small Steps a fun read. With Armpit and Kaira, boys and girls will find characters they can get behind. Small Steps provides a great story and characters, and leaves readers wanting another story from the Camp Green Lake crew.

Book Review: The Arrival

Shaun Tan. 2006. Arthur A. Levine Books, New York. unpaged.

Gr. 9-12. Engaging characters, fantastic setting, and engrossing story. Tan achieves all of this and more without using a single word in The Arrival.

This is an immigrant’s tale, so common in America. A man leaves his family to move to a new land with new opportunities. The man has to adjust to this new land, find a job, and earn enough to bring his family over. Along the way he meets others with similar stories. Seeing the present and the past of these characters illustrates why so many people upend their lives and separate from their families to try to build a new life in America.

This is a graphic novel in its purest form. Using no words, every page is tailored to reveal a new emotion, another challenge, and the next step in the story. Tan creates a bizarre and elaborate metropolis of impressive buildings and transit, alien writing, expressive animals, and peculiar fruits and vegetables to represent America, giving the reader the same unfamiliarity and awe as the protagonist. As the man meets other immigrants, we see their stories of intellectual restriction and forced labor, genocide, and the ravages of war. Each story’s artwork in uniquely told just as each immigrant is unique, even amongst the great throngs of a massive city. Eloquently sequenced frames show time elapsing. For example, a two-page spread of 24 frames presents a year passing with a single plant blooming, growing, fading, and dying. At no point in the story does Tan’s artwork falter, making each page a new, dramatic, and compelling presentation.

Book Review: Shipwrecked at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance

By Jennifer Armstrong. 1998. Crown Publishers Inc., New York. 134 p.

Gr. 7-12. The early part of the Twentieth Century was full of amazing accomplishments by hardy explorers. Armstrong’s skillful and gripping book documents Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton’s sensational Antarctic adventure, which failed before it got started.

Shackleton’s goal was to be the first to trek across Antarctica. But he and his 27 crewmen never made it to land. Ice trapped the Endurance, Shackleton’s ship, and all men aboard spent nine months on the vessel and the surrounding ice. The Endurance finally succumbed to the crushing floes, and Shackleton and his crew spent another five months on the ice, slowly dragging their supplies in two lifeboats to sea. Finally making it to an uninhabited island, Shackleton and five others sailed 16 days and 800 miles to find help. Not a single man perished.

Throughout her narrative, Armstrong’s concise writing never gets dry, keeping our attention from the first page with an energetic pace. Her descriptions of Shackleton and his crew, using quotes from many of their journals, endear them to readers, who will cheer the crew on in their accomplishments and mourn with them in their losses. As long and complicated as Shackleton’s journey was, we never feel lost in the facts. Armstrong adroitly guides us through each turn of the adventure. Especially heartbreaking was the violence of the Endurance’s final hours: “The stempost was ripped away. The keel was sheared off. The decks began to buckle, and thick beams snapped like twigs… the men pumped with every last shred of their failing strength.”

Armstrong uses simple maps to illustrate the journey and includes drawings of the ship’s decks to clarify unfamiliar nautical terms. The best visual aids are the photographs of Frank Hurley, the expedition’s photographer. Shackleton made sure Hurley’s photos survived so they had an income source from the failed voyage. Hurley’s fantastic compositions document all aspects of the ship and crew throughout the journey, and they complement Armstrong’s storytelling. A comprehensive bibliography and index accompany the story.

Readers looking for real-life adventure will not be disappointed in this engrossing tale of bravery and survival.

I'm back!

Image by Windy Librarian

After some time away from blogging, I'm back. August was a very busy month for me as I finished up graduate school and an internship. Then in September and October I went on vacation, and some much needed rest and relaxation (you know, just lying around).

Now I'm a full-fledged librarian and on the job hunt.

In the next few weeks I'll write about my search for employment, as well as put up some of my book reviews and other work from my last couple of classes and my internship. There have been some interesting items about libraries in the news lately, so I might talk about them and ask for your comments. And in speaking to people about having just finished grad school, I've heard some interesting comments about libraries and librarians. Maybe some windy pontification about the state of librarianship is in order?

Book Review: Major Taylor, Champion Cyclist

By Lesa Cline-Ransome. Illustrated by James E. Ransome. 2004. Antheneum Books for Young Readers, New York. 36 p.

Ages 4-10. Many believe Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in American sports. But it was “Major” Marshall Taylor, a professional cyclist, who was the first black American to earn a world championship. His story starts in Indianapolis, spans Worcester, Massachussetts and France, and ends in Chicago. While Taylor achieved much fame and wealth in his career, he was forever plagued by racism and died poor and estranged from his wife and daughter.

Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome have created a vibrant picture book to introduce Taylor’s life and achievements to children. Cline-Ransome adroitly handles the text, using Taylor’s own autobiography and Andrew Ritchie’s biography, Major Taylor, to tell a succinct tale of Taylor’s life from his humble beginnings as a paper boy and stunt rider to world’s champion. Though Taylor’s life ended unhappily, Cline-Ransome ends the book in Taylor’s triumphant victory over his friend and rival Frenchman Edmond Jacquelin. The author’s language is simple and engaging with measured pacing and straightforward chronology. She also includes backmatter with additional information.

Ransome’s oil painting illustrations bring Taylor’s story to life, adeptly supporting Cline-Ransome’s text. Innovative use of layout, including three of four frames per page, perfectly renders the illustrations’ graceful detail and rich hues. Ransome’s dramatic use of light provides for informative settings and evocative facial expressions.

Cline-Ransome and Ransome have created an easy-to-read and easy-to-understand biography of a great but often overlooked American hero. While never talking down to their readers, the author and illustrator convey Major Taylor’s story with respect.

Digital Collection

Image by Dena Lamb

In Digital Libraries, I worked on a group project in which we built an art collection for online viewing. Imagining we were a public library with many objects from an artist, we decided we wanted to provide online access for the collection. We reasoned that we only had so much wall space at our imaginary library to show the artist's works. Putting them online would be a great way to show most or all of the collection. It would also bring the library's collection out of the archives and into people's homes and computer screens.

We used photos and invitations from a family member, digitized them, and created a website to peruse and search them. We included some audio clips of the artist herself talking about her art as well. As part of the digitization process we decided what to show of each object, what information to include with each object, how to scan them, scanning specifications, and naming conventions. It was laborious and challenging but a lot of fun.

Take a look at the Dena Lamb Collection and see for yourself. If you're interested in finding out more about the artist, visit her online at Dena Lamb Images.

Annotation: I, Robot

In Readers' Advisory, we learned to write annotations, which are brief notes about a book. They include general information about the book, a plot summary, subject headings and appeal terms, and similar works you might like. These valuable advisory tools give readers a snapshot of the book to see whether they might like it. Below is one I did for I, Robot.

Author: Issac Asimov

Title: I, Robot

Genre: Science fiction

Publication date: 1950

Number of pages: 192

Geographical setting: New York City

Time period: The future

Plot summary: The Three Laws of Robotics: (1) a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;  (2) a robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and (3) a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. As humans develop robots, their creations must follow these three laws. But while robots make humans’ lives easier, other problems arise. A reporter writing the history of these creations in the year 2057 interviews Dr. Susan Calvin a robopsychologist at U.S. Robot and Mechanical Men. Through her reminisces we learn about the evolution of robots and the dilemmas that humans and robots must deal with under the Three Laws.

Subject Headings: Science fiction — American; Robots; Human/computer interaction

Appeal: compelling; measured; intriguing; reflective; multiple points of view; episodic; open-ended; evocative; polished; darker; psychological; haunting

3 terms that best describe this book: futuristic; contemplative; engrossing

Similar authors and works:
Fiction
Margaret Atwood’s satire, The Handmaid’s Tale, takes place in the future in Gilead, what was once the United States. A handmaid named Offred struggles under a monotheocratic government that refuses her her femininity and her identity.

Robot Dreams, a textless graphic novel from Sara Varon, tells the tale of a lonely dog who orders and assembles himself a robot companion. But things don’t go quite as the dog or the robot were hoping.

Ted Hughes tells a compelling and poignant story of a boy and a huge alien robot in Iron Giant. After crashing to earth, the robot befriends a boy, and soon they are very close. But the townspeople and the Army are unsure if they want a giant robot roaming free.

Nonfiction
In Love + Sex with Robots: the Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, artificial intelligence (AI) expert David Levy examines what man’s relationship with robots will be in the future. Using anthropology, psychology and current research in robotics and AI, Levy paints a vivid picture of what robots will become and how humans will interact with them.

Beyond Human: Living with Robots and Cyborgs by Gregory Benford and Elisabeth Malartre explores the history and future of robotics. More important is their examination of human’s uneasy relationship with sophisticated machines and their own will power.

Kim Vicente looks at the widening gap between humans and their technology in The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live with Technology. With technology moving faster than we humans can manage it, Vicente argues for a technology that works for humans instead of surpassing them.

Beyond the Walls of the Library

During the fall semester last year, I took Community Informatics with Dr. Chris Hagar. For one of my assignments I looked at how SkokieNet.org, a web resource created and maintained by the Skokie Public Library, was building community. In doing so I got to know one of the best and brightest librarians in the country, Fran Roehm. Below is a little of what I learned about the website and librarianship.

SkokieNet is a Web site that passes community information and news to the residents of Skokie. Started in 1995, the driving force behind SkokieNet, Fran Roehm, likes to say, “We were Web 2.0 before there was Web 2.0.” Initially it was a way for members of the community to get information out to the rest of the community. This online bulletin board has grown into a full-service Web site, YouTube channel, Twitter feed, and Facebook page. It also includes a job resource, ChicagoJobTalk. So what's in SkokieNet? Anything and everything. Content can include the following:

• Community news Ranging from notifications of library and other municipal agency news to relocations of local businesses and updates on festivals, community news is wide-ranging but always focused on Skokie.
• Stories SkokieNet is often a voice for people with a story of interest to the people of Skokie. One example is a local Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust. 
• Transportation Whether a community member is a car driver or a mass-transit rider, everyone is updated on important road closures and CTA alerts.
• Images All this news could be one-dimensional without images. SkokieNet publishes many images, either with a story or by themselves.
• Events A forum for groups to announce its event is important. SkokieNet provides a central place for residents to learn what is going on in Skokie.
• Groups Information and news can be sorted by different groups. This way, users can better find what is of interest to them.

The staff at Skokie Public Library maintains SkokieNet. Using the content management platform, Drupal, the staff has been able to create a site that is easy-to-use and read. While the staff creates what the users see, much of the content is from the Skokie community. Herein lies the best part of SkokieNet: it is powered by the community for the community. SPL is the manager of the site, but much of what a user reads comes to SPL by members of the Skokie community. There are even people with no computer experience who send in handwritten strories. These are published by SPL staff thus giving all residents, whether digitally connected or not, a voice in the community.

SkokieNet’s presence on the Web goes beyond its site. Its Facebook page and a Twitter feed have been important, bringing SkokieNet to its audience. This more active method of getting the word out widens the scope of readers, making SkokieNet more effective. These two services also have served as back-ups in case SkokieNet goes down. When the site was hacked and consequently taken offline, SkokieNet’s presence on these social-networking sites served as temporary but effective outlets Skokie news.

Ultimately SkokieNet is about the people and the community, not the technology that goes into it. “I do see it as about people, and the technology is a means of connecting us,” says Fran. These days technology changes rapidly. Because of this it can only ever be a tool not the focal point of building community. Fran says, “I love what we are able to do with technology, but the technology is the tool or vehicle for doing these things, and in ten years there will be new technology, but we will still be serving people.”

I Like Bikes!

For a project in Library Materials for Children, I did a booktalk of eight books about bicycles for kids 5 to 7. Along with the booktalk, I created a brochure and a bookmark. Since Blogger doesn't allow PDF attachments (boo, Blogger, boo!), below is blog-post reinterpretation of the brochure's content.

Penned by Paul

Working in an archive is great because I get to surround myself with old dusty books and artifacts. But even better is that I use those books and artifacts to answer questions and create learning experiences.

One recent project I worked on was the Life and Times of Paul Harris, an online exhibit about the founder of Rotary International. I was responsible for researching and creating a list of works written by Mr. Harris. What I found was that he wrote quite a lot, including two autobiographies, a history of the early days of Rotary, several travelogues, introductions to others' books, and more. I compiled the list, and then wrote brief descriptions about each one. The Web department took that and created the Penned by Paul page, which includes much of my original text and some images of Mr. Harris's handwriting.

The whole exhibit includes seven other pages of narrative following Harris as a young boy, a young man, a professional starting an international movement, and a husband. Everything was meticulously researched and well written by my colleagues in the History and Archives department.

During this experience I learned that while those old dusty books and artifacts are fascinating in and of themselves, it's what we do with them that makes all the difference. A good archivist organizes the objects so they can be accessed. A great archivists knows and uses the objects to create illuminating experiences.

Book Review: Time Stops for No Mouse: A Hermux Tantamoq Adventure

By Michael Hoeye. 2002. G.P. Putman’s Sons, New York. 250 p.

Gr. 3-6 Hermux Tantamoq is a watchmaker mouse living in the city of Pinchester. He’s perfectly content working on watches and clocks, talking with friends, eating the occasional doughnut, and spending time with his pet ladybug, Terfle. When the beautiful aviatrix, Linka Perflinger, stops in his shop and drops off a watch for repair then disappears, Hermux goes on an adventure that changes how he sees his world.

Hoeye uses short chapters and simple language to draw readers into this fast-paced adventure. This story started as a series of emails Hoeye wrote to his wife while she was traveling, so reluctant readers will find this episodic romp easy to put down and come back to later. Hoeye’s straightforward writing style doesn’t overwhelm, instead engaging readers to turn all 250 pages in no time.

The vivid characters of Pinchester and beyond light up the pages: good guys endear, bad guys appall. Boys will find a friend in the shy Hermux and his affinity for things with gears, while girls will look up to Linka’s sense of adventure and loyalty.

Hoeye creates a rich world of rodents in the big city delivering mail, running cosmetics companies, and enjoying sandwiches and honey fizzes. Humorous and witty dialogue abounds. Time Stops for No Mouse is a galloping escapade chock full of suspense, villainous adversaries, and friends both old and new. Through it all, the timid Hermux learns that he just might have it in him to venture beyond his cozy life.

Reading Maps

A reading map is a website that uses a single book as its focus. Using the themes from the book, pages are created that offer recommendations for similar books (read-alikes) and links to other websites. There is usually a summary of the book and information about the author as well. Libraries are creating reading maps to harness the energy of popular books and provide a one-stop source of read-alikes and additional information for their patrons.

For my Readers' Advisory class, I created a reading map for Shop Class As Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford. This nonfiction book deals with the importance of being able to work with your hands and how this is no longer valued in an "information age" to the point that most shop class programs in high school are gone. Using many examples from his own life, including his work as a motorcycle mechanic, Crawford claims that job satisfaction can be easier for a tradesman than a cubicle worker.

After creating summary and author pages, I decided on four themes: Hands, Work, Early, and Ride. Hands refers to working with your hands; Work relates to job satisfaction; Early is for getting kids to work with their hands; and Ride refers to motorcycles. Each theme got its own page with read-alikes and links to websites that feature similar information to the theme. I threw in some of my own pictures as well as those of the book's cover and author and, voila, a reading map.

Reading Soulcraft is the end result. It was not too hard using Wordpress to create the site. It takes a bit of time to do the research, but the results are great. For a popular book in a library and readers asking for something similar, a reading map is a great tool.

Book Review: Tuesday by David Wiesner

For my Library Materials for Children class, I had to evaluate a picture book. Remember those? If not, you should revisit them. Picture books are one of the best forms of reading, no matter your age. Beautiful artwork combined with essential language makes for an exhilarating read. This one was the 1992 Caldecott Medal winner and was named as an ALA Notable Children's Book.

David Wiesner’s Tuesday (1991) tells a story – with almost no words. “Tuesday evening, around eight,” frogs go joyriding when their lilies come to life. This time indication and one more are the only words in the book. While flying their lilies, the frogs pull midair tricks, startle a late night snacker in his kitchen, don capes stolen from a clothesline, watch television, and battle a dog. At the end, the reader discovers the start of a new escapade the next Tuesday.

To tell a story only in pictures, those pictures need to be expressive, both in emotion and plot. Wiesner does this with frogs’ faces that reveal fun, mischief, anxiety, and surprise. Other characters in the book similarly emote.

Wiesner also works well with light. With the events of the book occurring at night, moonlight spotlights faces and animals in an otherwise dim scene. Lights from windows and televisions do the same. Wiesner uses pictures within pictures effectively, with backgrounds setting a scene and smaller frames moving the action along.

Though watercolors are often known for more impressionist scenes, Wiesner creates detailed and realistic settings. Readers instantly connect with kitchens, living rooms, birds on power lines, and clothes hanging in the yard. Yet the fantastic idea of frogs flying lilies through those clothes makes way for the reader’s imagination.

Telling a story without words is difficult indeed; the pictures have to tell the whole story. Wiesner’s whimsical tale enchants readers with its art and its story.

Welcome

Image by Windy Librarian

Hello and welcome to The Windy Librarian. This is a place for news and commentary about libraries, books, and who knows what.

Who is the Windy Librarian? I'm a student at Dominican University's Graduate School of Library and Information Science. As I work my way through my degree, I'll talk about things I'm working on and thinking about. You might see book reviews, highlights from an assignment, or links to other interesting things libraries and librarians are up to. Since I'm a huge bicycle nerd, you might hear about bike racing or riding about town. Feel free to send me an email or comment on a post. I'm always on the lookout for inspiration for a new post.

Do you have to be a librarian or library school student to read The Windy Library? Not at all. While I will address many topics and issues in the library world, I won't be using libraryspeak. I hope that all people who love books and love their library will find it interesting. So sit back, relax, and get ready for some hot air.

P.S. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Facebook!