Bear Bahoochie

Blog Day 2010

So BlogDay is here (yeah!) and I’m sharing my five blogs

So here are the five I want to share:

The first is a guilty pleasure it’s Wil Wheaton’s blog. I can tell you now Clair will be laughing at this choice – at lot. For those of you unaware – Wil Wheaton played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation a programme (and character) I was more than a little obsessed with back in my teenage years (Clair was also keen on it don’t let her fool you). Now both Wil and I have moved on a lot in the intervening years but his personal blog is really fun and enjoyable to read. Plus he’s a total geek so it addresses my love of all things geeky – including Big Bang Theory which he recently appeared on and similar.

My next two choices are more crafty-

In the column of things I love to read about but can’t imagine doing myself I give you New Dress A Day it is exactly what it says in the name – for a $1 a day Marissa has challenged herself to make herself a item of clothing everyday from an old piece of clothing. Now not only can I not imagine having 365 clothing ideas but i also can’t imagine having the time to do the sewing.

In the things I can imagine doing myself or sharing with you guys I love Crafty Crow it’s a site that gathers ideas from other sites and posts them in one place so there are loads of interesting blogs it links to which are fun to read and the ideas are often brilliant or really pretty.

Choice number four is a work one. As a school librarian I have to promote reading and sometimes I struggle to come up with how to promote a topic (topics never seem to be in short supply) but trying to make my display look a bit different is a challenge so School Library Displays is a constant source of ideas on how to display things.

Finally choice five is our own Clair’s Kids, Crafts and Chaos which I read often but comment on rarely. Clair’s posts are great and she’s a witty writer but she also has three great kids -one is my God daughter so no bias from me  Anyway I love to see what’s going on and what they’ve been up to the posts usually make me at least smile if not laugh out loud.

Finally choice five is our own Clair’s Kids, Crafts and Chaos which I read often but comment on rarely. Clair’s posts are great and she’s a witty writer but she also has three great kids -one is my God daughter so no bias from me  Anyway I love to see what’s going on and what they’ve been up to the posts usually make me at least smile if not laugh out loud.

Fairytale Reads

There is something exciting about a reworking of old familiar tale. I always approach those books with a mix of excitement and dread. What if they are rubbish? Well the two I just read fell into the good and alright categories.

I’ll start with Ash by Malinda Lo, a reworking of Cinderella, our heroine is not chasing after the handsome prince but rather the Royal Huntress.  Many of the characters are familiar – mean step mother, ‘ugly’ sisters (ugly in personality rather than looks). The Fairy Godmother is replaced by a male Fairy who is far darker than anything imagined by Disney. The magical world mixes many of the myths and stories I’ve read or heard. Ash also learns that while your wish can be granted everything has a price.

I really enjoyed this story, I liked the twist on the traditional tale and I liked the dark side to the magic. My only complaint was that the ending didn’t quite work for me. I wanted Ash to be with the Huntress but found the solution too easy and simple, after all the talk of how nothing is without cost perhaps I had just expected her to pay a little more for her fairytale ending.

The second book is Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce. This time it’s Red Ridinghood who gets reworking. This time the wolf wins and eats Grandma, leaving two sisters – the older injured in the attack that killed her Gran is forever scarred both physically and mentally. meanwhile the younger is trying to find a way to be her own person without losing her sister. Then there is the handsome neighbour just returned and awakened to the beauty of the sisters.  I enjoyed reading this more than i expected, I feared it would be a slightly Twilight-esque tale with little originality but was pleased to find this wasn’t the case. Having said that the books wan’t as great as the cover had made me hope. It was a interesting story but I’d guessed the ‘twist’ in the first quarter of the book and although I enjoyed reading the book it was very much in the way of a guilty pleasure, like watching a romantic comedy (you know what’s going to happen but it’s a fun way to spend an evening).

There is an interesting debate over at The Book Smugglers about why they didn’t like it. The passage where it is suggested that girls would dress differently if they knew about the wolves but instead deliberately tempt them to The Book Smugglers is like suggesting that the girls are asking to be attacked (they compare it to rape and no one asks to be raped).  I don’t agree with the basic argument that these ‘wolves’ have human minds and as wild animals they cannot be judged by human standards. That passage didn’t bother me but I can see where they were coming from I think it depended on how you perceive the ‘wolf’.

New term = New Displays

I got new shoes. They are fab and I love them. My friends commented that if I were a shoe these were the shoes I’d be. Now that reminded me of that old saying “You can’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes” so a quick google image search later and some scanned front covers of biographies and tada!

Then inspired by ‘The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” I opted for a Native American display. I found an image of weaving that I printed off and photocopied larger and multiple times to make the background and table runner.
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Time Off = Massive Reading List

So the reading list is massive but I’ve been getting through a few this weekend. I’m hitting the key teen books I wanted to read to start with so:

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson was great. I got it free for the library from the publisher which is always exciting but this book looked different from the usual run. For a start it was like a journal in look with a thicker jacket and elastic band keeping it closed. Inside there was found poems – made to look like written on trees and paper cups etc.  So it looks very pretty for a start but the book is also really good. The main character’s sister just died and she’s trying to come to terms with that but love and lust make it all the harder. It’s touching, sweet and heartfelt – well worth reading.

Next was ‘The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’ by Sherman Alexie. I came across this in the Red House catalogue it’s about a Native American boy who leaves the reservation school to go to the white school nearby. It was excellent and very frank, I really enjoyed it a lot and it gave a great understanding of the issues faced within that community just now.

Then I read ‘Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy’ By Ally Carter (second of The Gallagher Academy books) mostly because it is light and fluffy compared to the other two. I really enjoyed it and it was better than the first as I hoped it would be. Although you could read it on it’s own it assumes you have read the first book so there is limited background explanation.

Then I finished off ‘Weighing It Up’ by Ali Valenzuela this morning. This was a fascinating read it’s all about her battle with anorexia. It’s also curious because she is very intelligent, from a stable loving family and everything should be good. Despite this the mental illness  not only appeared but took control. The way the anorexia  makes her behave, the little things that it demands of her and they way that they combine in a subtle way at first or as she tries to recover. More worrying was that 20% of sufferers die either from starvation or  suicide. Ali makes an important point that when some is 5 stone it’s so much harder than if it’s treated when they are a healthier weight often looking good to everyone else is when the mental symptoms are worst. Everyone should read this book.

Legoland rocks!

I went down to Legoland with friends this week and it was great. Even better I saw Lego versions of my favourite things!

I’ve been meaning to read…

The latest two books were both ones that have been on the to read list for a while. The first is a crime I got at the library- Death of a Nationalist by Rebecca Pawel – and the second was part of my race and USA reading themes – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Death of a Nationalist is set in Madrid just after the civil war. One in a series of books it’s main character is a young policeman who is trying, in this novel, to solve the murder of an old friend. It’s not a period of history I knew anything much about so it was very interesting to find out a bit more. As for the crime story I found it very good. It weaves together nicely and is more complex than first appears which meant that I was as surprised as the hero as to who the real villain is.

The end of To kill a mocking bird was also unexpected. I’ve never seen the movie or read the book so I had no idea what happened beyond the start of the trial. I always assumed the trial was the end but it is far from it.

I loved the innocence and fun of the main character Scout and how she and Jem grow up over the story. The South of the US is not a part I’ve visited but like the Sookie Stackhouse books this one paints a vivid picture, albeit at an earlier time. I was thinking it would make a nice book talk along with  ’Roll of Thunder, Hear My Song’.

Given when it was written, and the audience Harper Lee wrote it for, there is a bit of a ‘here is the moral’ feel at points but this isn’t surprising. I did like the way that, while she repeated the moral a few times,  it was done in a slightly different way and made use of Scout’s innocence to show the hypocrisy.  What I did notice was the role Scout was expected to take as she became a young lady even within her progressive thinking family – one battle at a time I guess

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

This is one of the weirder sounding titles in the bunch of vampire books I’ve been reading. Written by Seth Grahame-Smith it tells the story of Abraham Lincoln from childhood to his assassination and a little beyond. The vampires in the story are hidden from the majority of the population but have gained control over the Southern states though their support of slavery (they use the slaves as a ready source of food and pay very well for the chance).

Historically very accurate I certainly learned a lot about Lincoln. It’s written in a mock academic style so has lots of description and journal extracts proving the point. There is some gore but really low level – the worst are the atrocities described in the civil war and many of those were the result of man-made weapons.

I have one reservation and that is I can’t decide if the Vampire angle diminishes what he argued for or not. In the story he’s against vampires because they killed his mother (Milksickness being changed so it’s the result of drinking tainted vampire blood) and the idea that they use slaves for food. His fight for equality is as much about the need to cut of the supply of humans to the vampires to force them to leave, as it is about the idea all men are equal. Despite this doubt it was a interesting read and certainly told me a lot more about that period of American history than I expected.

Weekend Reading

Two books read over the weekend; Jill, The Lone Guide by Ethel Talbot was written in the 1930s I think. It was really interesting as the girl couldn’t go to a local unit due to distance – 6 miles! Anyway she was a trooper and didn’t let that get her down or the run of bad luck she suffered instead with a song in her heart and positive thought she turned it round to a wonderful happy ending where everything not only worked out but was tied up with a pretty bow! It’s a great read and talks about a unit of Sea Guides and how although a lone she surrounded by all the girls who are members of the organisation.

Lone Guides still exit (in fact I’m a Lone Guider for Senior Section in Scotland) find out more here.

The second book was the third in the Heather Wells Mystery series by Meg Cabot – Size Doesn’t Matter (aka Big Boned in the USA.)

It was fun – another murder in the halls leave ex-pop star Heather trying hard not to get involved but being dragged in anyway. Away from the job her latest man is keen for her to get healthy and convinces her to go jogging before work. Funny and fun it was very enjoyable and although I had worked out who committed the murder sooner than Heather I sure didn’t see the reason.

I’d tell you that I love you, but then I’d have to kill you.

I’ve been eyeing up this title since it came out and excitingly enough I managed to get my hands on a free copy (plus some bookmarks and posters) so since the kids are all on holiday I took it home for a read.

It’s set in a boarding school for ‘exceptionally gifted’ young women but it’s really a spy training academy for female spies in this secret group (the alumni of which have done loads of interesting things). The main character, Cammie, is a great student and could kill someone with a piece of dry spaghetti but doesn’t know what to do when a regular boy takes an interest in her.

A cross between Alex Rider and Louise Rennison I did enjoy it and it certainly had me gripped at points although I felt I’d seen many of the ideas before, albeit in a slightly different way. I think I’ll try the second book at least – I’m hoping that with the characters established and a little older it’ll be more exciting.

You can have a go at winning a trip to Paris (and £500 for my library- James Young High School) if you enter the competition on the website

Five Bears and a Dragon

The end of the school year means another batch of library monitors heading off into the real world. So for those that have been with me for a while (and leave at the end of S6) we have the traditional thank-you-bear.

Each of the bears has purple foot pads and ‘JYHS’ on one pad and a thistle on the other. This happy band is made up of:

Bear Marine Librarian – made for a monitor with a love of Warhammer 40K

Ford – complete with towel and Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster for a fan of The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Newton – complete with glasses, tie and notebook full of maths and physics quotations for someone with a passion for those subjects. Guid Luck Winnie – something about the colour reminded me of Winnie the Pooh.

Finally there is Torvald Furton the Second – a dragon made for one of the monitors as a special request. The wings are suede and the pattern is my ‘fat’ tummy split and the rat head combined with the usual arms and legs – wings were winged