Monday, June 21, 2010

Ahh...Summer!

Well, as anyone who has worked in the Youth department of a library will tell you, summer is a very busy time for us! Busybusybusybusy. That is not to say that it can't be fun.....just, well, busy. I am hoping to get back to some semblance of order, but I'm afraid that blogging has taken the farthest back burner. I am reading....mostly to children and not as much for myself, but I am always reading. Currently, at our Tuesday afternoon "all ages storytime" I am reading Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman. I like to read something that will take us a couple of weeks, but not much more than that to get through. It is about testing their attention spans and reading stuff I don't normally get to read. Yes, I could get through several "picture books" in that time, but I wanted this particular Storytime to be different. I like to change things up like that, it is how I roll.

So, Odd and the Frost Giants. This is the story of a boy called Odd, which means "tip of a spear". His father dies at sea during a Viking expedition, after saving the life of a pony, changing Odd's life dramatically. Odd injures his leg, his mother re-marries, and through a series of remarkable events he ends up in Asgard (home of the Norse gods) trying to help a trio of gods regain their home. Gaiman once again shows his expertise in storytelling with this tale of an unlikely hero up against seemingly impossible circumstances. Odd is a wonderful character, his quirky personality, which often got him hit by his step-father Fat Elfred, is very endearing. I really enjoyed the story when first I read it, and then handed it to my son to read, as he likes reading Norse myths and legends. It seemed like a great story to start off our Summer Reading 'all ages' group. I think they have very much enjoyed this story, and I am looking forward to starting a new one on Tuesday. What shall it be this time? I have some ideas...

While Summer Reading is taking up so much of my time, we also just went "live" with our library's digital collection, powered by Overdrive. We now offer downloadable audio books and e-books. I am very excited that our library is catching up a bit technologically speaking. The first audio book I downloaded? Odd and the Frost Giants read by the author, of course.

I will try to keep updating over the summer, and I promise to read something for myself again soon, and also to tell you about it. : ) Hope all are having a wonderful summer! Hug your family often, and tell them you love them!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

June

With Memorial Weekend, and my birthday behind us now, this is the time of year when I think....crap, it is June already! What have I accomplished this year so far? Not as much as I had hoped, that is for sure! I comfort myself with the notion that many people are in the same boat I am in, however, it is not an extremely comforting thought. I did start this blog, that is something I toyed with in the past, and finally got around to....I suppose that is something, right?

I have started reading three different books.....but as I am not sure I will finish them all, or even two of them, I shall reserve talking about them for now. One that we own, and I have been meaning to read, I finally picked up because I recently watched the film version. This is Lakota Woman, by Mary Crow Dog. The film version stars Irene Bedard, and was a pretty well done film, I thought. Admittedly, I have only read small sections of the book, until the other day, when I decided to start from the beginning and read the entire thing. What a concept, I know.

I have some awesome picture books that I recently shared with kids, and so were brought to mind again. The first is a picture book by the wonderful Neil Gaiman called The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish. The copy we have here at the library has a cd so you can listen to Neil read you the story, which is fun. In this story, the boy swaps his dad, who mostly just sits reading his newspaper, for two goldfish (as the title would imply). The fun starts when his mother comes home from shopping and makes him swap back. He finds that he has to travel all over town swapping back many items from an electric guitar, a gorilla mask (a "really good gorilla mask"), to a pet rabbit called Galveston. The relationship portrayed between the boy and his little sister is perfect. My favorite, "when are you going to put the mask on?" after she has put on the gorilla mask. Anyone who has siblings will appreciate this book, as well as anyone with a sense of humor. Very funny, and well told story. The illustrations, by Dave McKean are quite fun also. I love the indignation of the mother, the indifference of the father, and the fact that no one complains when they have to swap their things back, they just do. This must happen with swaps quite often. I'm not sure I ever really swapped anything......hmm...maybe I missed out there....