o hai again…

since we last spoke i:

-finished grad school. the work, anyway. gradumacation is next week. i am a master! hohah!

-finished my beloved internship, which was sad, because i got really attached to it, and my coworkers, and my teens, and the other patrons (even the wackadoos) and the building and everything.

-rented a lovely lower flat closer to my new job which we are now in the process of moving into. it is so lovely and a bit roomier and the location is perfect. our landlord is a family man down the block, let’s call him “leon”, and he’s also a magician. as in, if you call and get voicemail the message says “hello! this is leon jones…THE MAGICIAN!!” which obviously never fails to make my day.

we were lucky enough to get 2 weeks of overlap but not lucky enough to get a pristine flat. so today i drove out with my buckets and swiffer and 6 crates of books to scrub the last tenant’s gunge out of the kitchen. midway i went out to sun myself on the lovely front porch and locked myself out, and the blinds fall off the windows every time we pull them up, (happiness hotel style) but other than that i think it’s going to work very well.

slam- nick hornby

sam is a fairly nondescript fifteen year old boy- he skates and hangs out with his stupid friend rabbit, and tells all his woes to his faithful tony hawk poster. (apparently talking to posters of celebs is all the rage now, but somehow it never occurred to me to have a conversation with the giant john lennon hanging on my door) things are not so bad for sam- he gets along with his mum, who had him at sixteen, and is looking into college.

then his mum introduces him to her boss’ daughter, alicia and they fall madly in lust. and it’s fabulous, until he starts to lose interest in her. and then she tells him that he’s pregnant.

this is the story, according to sam’s slightly daft inner voice, of how they cope. i laughed and laughed listening to this in the car. it’s funny and awkwardly sweet and, at times, a little outlandish. will the dudes in my library read this? i haven’t figured that out yet…but i wish they would. because they would love it.

lock & key- sarah dessen

one of my school chums mysteriously got her hands on the ARC and kindly lent it to me. i have loved sarah dessen since i was a young teen myself, the happiness i felt reading the ARC was akin to how i would feel if my beloved installed a soda fountain in our living room. we were just talking about that this morning. wouldn’t it be fabulous? no more flat soda at the bottom of the 2 liter. fresh cold fizz in all your favorite flavors, and chocolate soymilk from one nozzle. my beloved actually went to far as to check prices on the internets, at which point our dream fell flat.

but i am handling it okay BECAUSE i have the ARC of lock & key to review. ruby is an independant lass who has had to look our for herself since her older sister, cora, left for college. ruby’s mom is an alkie deadbeat, and they live from paycheck to paycheck, moving periodically until ruby’s mom abandons her. cora is contacted, and ruby reluctantly moves in with her and her geekchic husband, jamie. but it’s hard for ruby to accept all the things people want to give her: tuition, a clothes allowance, friendship, encouragement, a family. and it’s hard for her to give back what she assumes will be expected if she does accept these offerings. bildungsroman in the unsurprising but satisfying dessen style, all wrapped up in a pretty pink striped cover. yumm. 4 stars.

bedridden

caught the spring ick. went to work yesterday anyway, because i’d been to class alright and thought that meant i had the energy to run the videogame freeplay since mr. e was helping. as soon as i got there the meds i had taken right before leaving the house wore off and i began sneezing and coughing phlegm in all directions. i carried kleenex and hand sanitizer with me all afternoon but it was absolutely disgusting. lesson: going to work sick is not brave and sacrificial, but unattractive and embarrassing. and phlegmy.

which is why i am now in bed with my laptop and a pile of manga and an empty carton of chocolate soy milk.

still, the videogame freeplay went well, we had a larger crowd than last time and at least 6 girls to balance out all the dudes. they taught me how to play naruto on gamecube, which i thought would be stupid…but…now i think i have to buy it.

also out of the ordinary– we had coke with caffeine and m&ms along with all the pretzels and juice and several of the attendees got outrageously hyper which was a problem when the program was over and they were set free in the library.  they were shrieking in the teen room and i went in to ask them to lower the volume. as soon as i walked in they threw all the non-fiction books about sex under the table and started giggling.

i couldn’t resist. i said, “it’s okay guys. the books are there for you to look at. and- if you have any questions- you know you can always ask a librarian.” this nearly killed them.

no more caffeine. keeping the m&ms though. those are for me.

jangle, jangle

what up homeslices. i am graduating in less than a month, which means things are getting pretty strange around here and i haven’t read much of anything lately except for collection development policies. which i am not going to review here.

so, a while back when i did that felt ipod case program i was helping one girl do a skull & crossbones. skulls are all the rage these days, and i still have enough of that teenage mentality that when i see high school girls wearing them i think, omg, that is so cool. so i whipped up this little heart/skull patch at the program. and then didn’t really know what to do with it, because let’s be honest: i am just too old to pull off florescent skulls.

so i put it on jammies. i sometimes sleep in my beloved’s undershirts, because on me they fit like comfy, stretchy dresses.

when i wear it, i dream about being hip and youthful.

pirates! celia rees

one from my own personal amelia bloomer project list–

during an eye-opening move to her family’s slave-run plantation in jamaica, nancy finds out her family has betrothed her to a creepy brazilian more than twice her age. hoping to instead marry her childhood sweetheart, she and minerva, her slave/best friend join a band of borderline well-behaved pirates for a swashbuckling adventure on the high seas, with the creepy brazilian hot on the trail.

you don’t run across adventure books of this caliber for teen girls very often. i love this book and everything it stands for. 5 stars!

best thing ever: amelia bloomer project

i can’t believe i didn’t know about this before– i love it!

The Amelia Bloomer list “includes books challenging the young women of today to take a new look at what it means to be feminist, showcasing who fought for our rights. These books bring to light the stories of women who break boundaries, from civil war doctors and journalists covering WWII to graffiti artists and girls demanding to be accepted for who they are. The 32 books on the 2008 Amelia Bloomer Project list encourage and inspire girls to be smart, brave, and proud.”

“evolution, me & other freaks of nature” (see last post) is on this year’s list for young adult fiction. hooray!

i’d love to see more graphic novels/manga/comics included. the more i read, the more titles i discover that really need to overhaul their concept of gender. this scintillating blog thinks so too:

Girls read comic and they’re pissed

evolution, me & other freaks of nature- robin brande

the curtain opens on our fair heroine, mena, as she begins her first day at a public high school. she once had many a chum at her church’s youth group, but she has been ousted due to an un-foreclosed scandal, and now they slam her into the wall as they pass merrily by, filled with the love of christ. (i went to a christian high school so i’m allowed to say things like that.) the only bright spot in mena’s day is biology class, where ms. shepherd reigns with scientific brilliance and her lab partner, casey, is the best kind of geek (ie cute). But when ms. shepherd begins the unit on evolution, the Youth Group causes a ruckus and mena is torn between how she’s been raised and what she knows to be true.

i loved the story, especially watching mena…well, evolve. (i get symbolism!) religious people may feel troubled by the way 97% of the christians in this book are portrayed…but i have an eerie feeling that brande researched these characters in my hometown and didn’t even have to embellish anything. i shall say no more.

except that i listened to the audio version of this book and thought the reader was perfect. really, really well done.

reference rollcall: weirdo week edition

for some reason last week was weirdo week at the library. the most exciting moment was when i got into a heated discussion with a patron about whether or not it’s okay to call teenagers racial slurs and tell them that their parents are failures for letting them run wild in the library. (um…it’s not okay.) but aside from that–

-”how do i get out of here?!” this from a haried looking man who had come downstairs to the children’s room looking to exit the library.

-someone called looking for the cell phone number of a woman she thinks might live in new york city. sorry, even i am not that good.

-”which harry potter comes first?” i told her. “but how do you KNOW that’s the first one?”

-”i’m looking for this alphabet book that i checked out for my kids a few years ago. i don’t remember the name or author, but i know that V was for violet.” we have a list of alphabet books, actually, so we looked through all the ones that were checked in to see if V was for violet. we did not find it.

-”I need eat pray love for my book club tomorrow. what, there’s 56 holds? Seriously? but i need it for BOOK CLUB. gee, I didn’t know it was that popular.” (short rant: what IS it with women in book clubs waiting until the day before to request a copy of a NYT bestseller and then getting pissed at me because we don’t have a special secret cupboard full of their book club selections that we were saving for just as long as they needed to remember that they are, in fact, in a book club, and it is, in fact, meeting tomorrow, and that they can’t skip because otherwise tammy will get to pick the book again even though it is NOT HER TURN? lady, if you do this to me again i will find tammy and tell her that you asked me to print out an internet synopsis of eat pray love because you are too cheap to buy the book.)

chanda’s secrets- allan stratton

in a fictional african country, people are dropping dead right left and center. one was chanda’s step-father. then her best friends’ parents. then her little sister. then her NEW step-father. but the families always cover up the truth, saying cancer or tuberculosis, when they actually mean AIDS. now chanda’s mom is sick, but if chanda tells the truth she won’t be able to get help for her.

certainly a heart-wrenching and gripping tale, one which sheds much-needed light on why AIDS is spreading so rampantly in some areas of the world…so forgive me if i say that chanda is a little…boring? she mentions wanting to get a scholarship to college so she can grow up and be an important career-person, but mostly she runs around taking care of everyone and being a brave little toaster and eventually has to neglect her schoolwork. and does she complain? noooo. i like my heroines a little more disobedient and lively. but still…read this if you’re in the mood for a weepie funk.