Monthly Updates

Just a quick update on our ongoing monthlies!

It's NOVEMBER!!!  Which for me means gearing up for my birthday and Thanksgiving.  I love Thanksgiving.  I ADORE Thanksgiving, but I know some people are too hip with it anymore.  (I'm not even going to go into it, because I love giving thanks and spending time with family, but whatever hyper-politicals.)  Instead of focusing on a cute Thanksgiving theme for our suggestions board, I went with an American theme to commemorate Veterans Day.  It's fun, bright, and in your face.  I just hope students aren't confused and think it's a 4th of July display.

I also updated our Books to Film mini-display. 

We're highlighting Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay this month (of course), and I included a few books we don't have in our Uni collection.  I am hoping students will ask how to put the books on reserve at the public library or to request them from one of our other campus libraries.  If this happens...Yay for teachable moments! 

Under the Influence

A couple of weeks ago I sat and thought and thought and THOUGHT about a new bulletin board, but nothing was coming to mind.  I must have thought about it for over two hours.  By the end of my think tank time, my head hurt.  I got home and told my husband of my toiling, and in two seconds flat, he said, "Why not do a board about author influences?  You know, like what other authors have influenced authors?"

Yeah.  He's that good.   I was in awe.  I don't know if that was collaboration, though: just my husband being awesome and thinking of a great idea off the top of my head after I had tried to do the same thing for hours. 

This was the most in-depth and detailed bulletin board I've done yet, so I'll try not to bore you too much with the method.  It took a lot of little steps to get this board done!

• STEP 1: Create a list of relevant YA authors that students at Uni actually check out with semi-regularity, and also include new authors that they should get to know.
• STEP 2: Start reading and researching the authors to find out what has influenced them.  The influences range from TV to art to music to other authors (of course).
• STEP 3: Create a list of what/who influenced whom.
• STEP 4: Hunt down and print pictures of all the authors and influences.
• STEP 5: NEVER LOSE YOUR LIST of influences and try to keep them organized.
• STEP 6: Start creating your board.  Space out your authors, try to group the influences by type (I have TV in one area, movies in another area, etc). 
• STEP 7: After everything is on the board, get lots of strings and lots of thumb tacks and start creating your lines of influence. 

The result might look something like this:

In the end, I'm kind of satisfied with the board.  It looks too crazy-busy for me.  I wonder if the idea would work better with a bigger board?  Because I LOVE the idea, and I'd love to do it again.  I had fun researching all of the authors, and I feel like I know them better now, but I don't think the board is having the WOWZA effect I hoped it would.  I really wish I had colored yarn for the lines, but I needed to get the board done, and all we had in the library was butcher string.  HOWEVER, this was definitely a learning project, so even if it's not perfect, it was still a great experience.

Trick or TREAT?

This Halloween Week I got a big TREAT in the Uni High Library: I got to look at, hold, and check in a 1967 Viking Press copy of S.E. Hinton's YA classic The Outsiders.  I don't know if this is a first edition, but knowing that this library is part of the UIUC library and that today we get fresh, new books hot off the presses, I am going to make the assumption that it is.

I am also going to confess that it was very, VERY hard to put it back on the shelf and not slip it into my bag to take home forever (librarian problem #283).  But, that would be beyond unethical.  That would be taking away the enjoyment of others to hold, read, and possess that 1967 copy, if only for awhile.

Received in 1967!

As I mentioned in one of my first posts, I do love looking at original, vintage covers of books.  It tells a story of the book and its history.  I was beyond thrilled to see this copy when I came in earlier this week.

I recently read a New Yorker interview with S.E. Hinton and how she "gave birth" to the young adult genre.  She said when the book was published in 1967, there was no market for a book like hers, and it was a flop at first...until teachers started to use the book in English classes across the country.   All of a sudden, a new genre was born.

"About teen-agers...For teen-agers...By a teen-ager"

Priceless!

I love YA.  There is definitely a need for this genre, too, for teens to see themselves reflected in the written word in genuine, powerful, awesome ways.  I only worry about the YA genre when it becomes the butt of pop culture jokes.  Twilight comes to mind instantly.  It got so many young teen girls reading and devouring books, but it led to a less than optimal film adaptation and an explosion of vampire-erotic series.  I still enjoy the series, and I won't back down from that, but I'm sad of some of the negative YA press that has popped up because of it.

Anyway...I digress.  I got to handle a 1967 copy of S.E. Hinton's classic novel, widely considered the first YA novel.  It's one reason I'm here, one reason why I love to teach YA novels, and because of it, I'll never give up on YA (even though Hinton herself says she doesn't read the genre anymore or feel compelled to write more YA), even when the media and others say grown ups shouldn't read YA. 

New Author Crushes

I have a new obsession.  Actually, it's a dual obsession.  I have become obsessed with YA authors Ransom Riggs and Tahereh Mafi.  They are pretty much the cutest, coolest married YA couple ever.

(Shut up.  Her bouquet was made of pages from Ransom's book.  Cutest.  Thing.  EVER.)

I believe they should be deemed THE young adult power couple.  I want them to come to my house and read creepy, dystopian stories to my children.  That'd be OK...right?  OK, OK...maybe they shouldn't come read to my children...YET.  They should come read to the Uni High students, though.  That would be awesome.  That would be cause for a MAJOR high five.

They are all over social media, have a joint YouTube channel (ADORABLE!), and married in September 2013.  HE is the author of the uber creepy YA book Miss Peregrine's Home for Very Peculiar Children.  He loves to mine for vintage photos in flea swaps, and Miss Peregrine has just been adapted and published as a graphic novel.

SHE is the author of dystopian YA series Shatter Me.  It was optioned to be a film even before it was published.  And, while I am quick to judge another dystopian effort, hers seems to be interesting, and no, I haven't read it yet, but it is on my list of 100+ to read.  Her blog posts are engaging, so I will definitely give her dystopian effort a try.

(Just look at how cute they are doing joint book talks!  Awwwww!)

You can get to their various social networking efforts via their websites, and I am tempted to join Twitter just to follow both of them.  For now, I'll stick to just following them on Instagram (especially since Ransom has all the cool photographs).  Until I get them over to my house for dinner, I'll just look for images of them online and watch how uber awesome they are from afar.

NEW BOOKS!!!!!

Oh, Mama Mia!  Look at all of those new books we got this week!  It's always exciting to get new books, but when we get this many at one time, my head reels.  Not because it's a lot of work to process them, wrap them, put them on our blog, etc.  Oh, no, not because of that.  Because I want to read them all!!!  (Mo' Librarian Problems, yo.)

Whenever we get new fiction in for our collection, I enter the title, author, call number, and publisher synopsis into Uni's What Should I Read Next? blog.  It's good fun, but it usually ends up in at least ten new books added to my Want to Read List.  Here are the top two on my list after this acquisition haul:

There's also a new book that shares a name with an awesome song from the 80s, and if you don't know the song, you shouldn't be my friend or be reading this.  The book, however, has NOTHING to do with high school, John Hughes, or breakfast.  It's about a town where every four years a child is released from jail and kills people.  So...yeah.

I also get to enter new graphic novels into our online collection that we keep on LibraryThing.  I am constantly trying to become more knowledgeable about GN's, and I still have no clue about Manga (what's good, what's isn't, etc).  I am making strides in the GN arena, though, and a lot of it is thanks to this task I have.  

We usually get a few good GN's with every new haul, and this time I wasn't disappointed.  I can't wait to check out the new DC offering, Black Canary and Zatanna (love it when the females are let out to play), and Mimi Pond's Over Easy, (about the 70s, greasy spoons, and drugs), looks right up my bleak alley preferences.  

When all of the books are entered, blogged, posted, etc (you know, all that work that makes me feel like I'm a real librarian already), they get to fill the New Book Rack.  This rack, which Amy longs to get rid of, looks pretty nice when it's all filled to the brim with new acquisitions!   

Author Spotlight: October 2014

Maybe it was too easy to choose Stephen King for my first Author Spotlight Display, since it's October...but I did it anyway.  Our King books are pretty popular, and they often go out to the UIUC masses, but not a lot of our students check them out.  I hope this display will change that. 

I got the Author Spotlight idea from Pinterest, but I jazzed mine up a bit.  I added some signage with Vital Statistics, info on His Work, a Did You Know? sheet, and a sheet on how to listen to King's NPR Fresh Air interviews. 

You might be wondering how I could possibly decide which King books to display.  He's got so many!  Well, it was easy: I just pulled all of the ones off our shelves.  We have a few King titles that were originally paperback, but they have been rebound in less flattering Reader's Digest-like binding.  To solve this problem, I simply put the three of them together in between a couple of book ends.  I think they look alright that way! 

I am super glad we own one of my favorite Stephen King books, and the first one I read, Insomnia.  That along with his classic clown terror IT were nice book ends to one of his short story collections, Full Dark, No Stars (which I still need to read).

Our collection contains King's Green Mile in the original novella form, so I also put those together in between a couple of book ends.  Again, I think it has a lovely effect...I just hope students aren't afraid to break up the collection. 

It's a good start for the Author Spotlight Display.  I still have to work out a few kinks: I hope to do this once/month, but I don't how long it will stay up.  I want other displays to go here, too, so maybe I'll put this up for a couple of weeks each month.  That being said...WHO WILL BE MY NEXT AUTHOR OF NOTE??? 

It's All Hocus Pocus

It's that time of year, folks: HALLOWEEN SEASON!  We already talked a little bit about Halloween Storytime, so let's talk Halloween Displays today.

Upon receiving a new shipment of bright and shinies which included THREE witch-centered books, Supervisor Amy had the idea of doing a witch book display, and who would I be to argue with my supervisor?  It was too much fun putting together this great, fun, seasonal display.

Amy wanted Katherine Howe's Conversion to be the focal point of our display, and she also wanted to surround it with titles about or of the Salem Witch Trials.  (Conversion looks AMAZING by the way.  We've already had someone check it out, so 1) the display is working, and 2) I'll have to wait to read it.  That's a good Librarian Problem.)  This is another great display that allowed me to find a variety of genres for the pale, green shelves: fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, and a play this time!

We didn't have everything that I would have included if I had access to ALL the books, so I made a small sign to go with the display.  On that I included Quentin Blake's version* of witches, some of Harry Potter's finest witches+ (McGonagall, Hermione, and that evil Bellatrix!), and some other classic witchy women (Willow, Galinda, Meryl Streep's witch from the upcoming big screen adaptation of Into the Woods, and the Wicked Witch of the West*).  And, OF COURSE, the sign HAD to include the Sanderson Sisters from the 1993 Halloween classic Hocus Pocus.



* Keep in mind, we are a high school library with limited collection space, so we don't have Roald Dahl's The Witches or L. Frank Baum's Oz collection.
+ I've already included Harry Potter in two displays, so I opted for no Potter this time.  And, let's face it: which one would I have chosen?  Probably Deathly Hallows, cause Mama Molly is BADASS in that one, but that was included in my first display of the year.