The View from the Leslie Library Windows: Puzzling

Friday, October 10, 2008

Puzzling

October 3rd: I get into work this morning and Lisa needed help cutting up a bunch of cards she laminated, so I bring scissors and cut the rest all up and rubber band together. We're on assembly schedule for homecoming and I supervise the library since BJ is the cheer coach and needs to be at the assembly and Lisa wants to see. The library is very quiet, only about half the kids we usually have in - so that shows kids were interested in homecoming this year. I'm wearing my 'orange out' shirt. I check out some books for students, do a couple of searches for them as well. We had an old puzzle from last year the kids had taken nearly all year to put together, one of those photo composites, and I decide it's time for a new one. I break it all up and have a student go back to the puzzle closet and pick one out. When Lisa comes back I tell her I got out a new puzzle she looks at me 'Did you break up the old one?' Yes, I happily tell her. 'I was going to frame it! The kids worked so hard on it!' So now I want to take it home over the weekend and redo it ~ oh well! I hear that Beowulf won't be needed until next year so I get out my repair items. I check in a bunch of Journal of Finn Reardon's and check in Algebra Connections V1 and hand out the V2. A student comes in and her water bottle opened in her pack and completely soaked the bottom inch of her health book. I take it into the back, put it in protective plastic (to not get the other books wet) and heave about 7 heavy science books on top of it. It'll take a week or more to completely dry and should be nearly wrinkle free since we got to it while it was still wet. Some magazines come in and I process them, then spend the rest of the shift repairing Mythology books. Lots of hinge gluing that I sit to dry for the weekend.

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What I'm Reading

The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris was a great non-fiction read! Love a good non-fiction! Joseph Lister worked hard, studied hard, never gave up on his ideas that something outside was causing untold numbers of people to die after surgery. His quest to find the answer was long overdue and he was the one to craft it and make it a medical standard. Brilliant!
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy by Emmanuel Acho was so good. I liked it even better than Stamped. His honest and open look at what is was like for him growing up really brings the issues into focus. Highly recommended!
Verify by Joelle Charbonneau - what if everything went digital which gave the government and people in power a way to change history, past and current. What happened to some words, like the word 'verify' that is no longer in the digital dictionary. Meri has lost her mom and her dad drowns sorrow in liquor. Meri is entranced by her mom's last art pieces and is given a slip of paper (the horror! what about the trees? recycling?) and on it is the word 'verify'. Atlas gives her a dictionary, a paper one and an old history textbook. Meri jumps on the train with him so they can change the world.
Kalahari by Jessica Khoury - what a ride! I even took this home one night to finish! Sarah lives with her dad doing research deep in the Kalahari. A group of students are sent to see if they can qualify for a grant and when her dad goes missing when he heads off after poachers, she is left to take care of them. Her dad doesn't return and the poachers are after them. They come across a white lion stalking them, but wait? It isn't white it's something else. They come across a lab and realize there is a virus, that has been let loose on the Kalahari that could destroy the whole world. So exciting!! Great ending as well!
The Year of the Buttered Cat by Susan Haas with Lexi Haas - Okay. I have to admit that I got this book because of the title. Buttered cats, what an intriguing thought! But the real intrigue is the persistence, the optimism of Lexi. Because of jaundice, she was disabled and this story is about her decision to take a chance on ground breaking surgery to try and get some mobility, speech and live her gifts. She has five she had to find. Read it for Lexi (and maybe to find out about that buttered cat).
Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram. There are spaces only you can fill, and Darius learns this as his family travels to Iran to see his grandfather who is dying. Along the way he deals with his depression, makes a friend, has innumerable Star Trek references and also learns that it's okay, to not be okay. I must admit, I had to look up some of the places he got to visit. What a rich heritage. I thought Zoroastrians were long gone, but no, they are still practicing today in Iran. Great book, totally okay.
The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin - perfect book lover tale of a woman captivated by a man and a bookstore and how she made more impact on her fellow book lovers and the man who got her to read than any bomb that fell during the Blitz. Very lovely!
The Girl From the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat - Lovely WW2 story by Jenny who actually grew up on one of the Channel Islands. Hedy fled Austria only to find her island haven invaded by the Germans. And though she is wary, she falls in love with a German officer. The twists and turns of German occupation test them both as each find a way to help the allied forces win.
Ancestor Approved edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith. I loved these short stories that all center around a modern day Native American Powwow. My fave was Rez Dog and they were all a great window into culture that I have rarely seen. I watched some videos on Fancy Dancing because of this and I would love to attend one, but feel a bit like a looky loo if I did. Fun, eye opening and full of information. Loved it!
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams Loved this fictionalized tale of the daughter of one of the lexicographers of the first ever Oxford Dictionary. As Esme goes from hiding under the sorting table, to one day being a lexicographer herself, we see her story unfold along with the people attached to the dictionary. It was really wonderful as we glimpsed her life and how the words she found and rescued formed the backbone of this novel. Really well done. It will stay on my shelves.