Preview just in...

There are an estimated 122,356 libraries of all kinds in the United States today American Library Association

Elizabeth Bird, children's librarian at the Children's Center at 42nd Street of the New York Public Library and blogger @Fuse 8 Productions, just blogged about her preview session with Simon & Schuster where editors presented upcoming books to librarians. This is what Elizabeth had to say -

"Alexandra Penfold was up and talking about Shooting Kabul by N.H. Senzai when I came in. The book has a plot that has haunted me since the moment I heard about it, and the cover image too for that matter. In Kabul, Fadi lets go of his six-year-old sister's hand when they're climbing into the truck to take them away. He loses her when she drops her Barbie doll and goes back for it, effectively separating herself from her family. Now they're in America and she's still in Afghanistan. The cover image shows the moment right before the separation. It just kills me, and I haven't even read the book yet."


Photo: Just One More Book Blog

Donkbrary

The smallest member of the horse family, donkeys have become the "all-terrain vehicle" of the horse kingdom.

For the past ten years, Luis Soriano, a teacher in the small town of La Gloria, Colombia, has been following the same ritual. Every week-end, he gathers his donkey in front of his house, straps on the “Biblioburro” pouches to its back, and loads them with a selection of books from the eclectic collection he has acquired over the years. Soriano began loaning books from a stash of 70; now his collection consists of more than 4,800 titles. “This began as a necessity; then it became an obligation; and after that a custom,” he explained in an interview with The New York Times. “Now, it is an institution.”

Off on his mobile library, he travels into the hills and through the fields to the villages beyond where children await his visits impatiently. He firmly believes that bringing books to people who don’t have access to them can improve the country and open up possibilities for the future generation of Colombia.

Pencil to Paper

Pencils didn't have erasers on them until 100 years ago because teachers felt they would encourage children to make mistakes.

Ask a writer when they started writing and most will pause a moment, slightly confused and cross eyed. You can see their mind whir and churn, travelling back to the moment they were compelled to pick up a pencil and put it to paper– it could have been a poem, an essay, a story, or diary entry. For the most part, most writers have, well, written, since they were kids. Once my elementary school librarian, Mrs. Hackworth, introduced me to reading, I was addicted to the written word, and soon after I was also writing shorts stories and poetry. We were lucky to have a writing competition at our school, Jubail Academy, and over the years I won quite a few of the prizes. In the 9th grade, our language arts teachers, Mrs. Cochrane started a novel writing club and six eager students (including moi) struggled with our literary masterpieces. It taught us that if we were organized and perseverant, we could actually write a book.

Many writers have a folded stapled sheaf of dog-eared pages – their first book, lying around somewhere. I wrote mine in the 3rd grade and it is titled “The Home Work Machine”, accompanied by crayon illustrations. Thankfully, I realized early on that drawing was not my strong suite. So the writing bug catches early, and for many it is an affliction of a lifetime. Unfortunately (or fortunately) there is no known cure…

Making Librarians Cry

Library, Here is where people, One frequently finds, Lower their voices, And raise their minds — Light Armour McGraw-Hill, 1954, Richard Armour

Souce: Cartoonspeedbump.com

I confess – in the last few months, I've made my school librarians cry. But let me back up and explain -- the back-story, so to speak.

Growing up in Saudi Arabia, part of an international expat community, our school, Jubail Academy was the center of our childhood universe. It was more than just a school – it was where we had our boy/girl scout meetings, sporting events, photo-club meetings, reading challenges, knowledge bowl sessions…. You get the picture. It was a beehive of activity, one supported and encouraged by the wonderful teachers and staff. A hub within the school was the two libraries, one serving the elementary school, the other junior high (the more racy stuff was on the junior high side – sweet valley high anyone?)

I, as Neil Gaiman said in his Newberry acceptance speech, was also a “feral child raised among the stacks.” I lived in the library, before and after school and during lunch. Although libraries are not child care facilities (and Neil says) our librarians were nurturing beings – always there with a smile, encouragement and good advice. Mrs. Hackworth, the librarian on the elementary side, taught me the mysteries of the Dewey Decimal system and let me help catalog books. It was here I discovered Roald Dahl, Beverley Cleary and Judy Blume. Mrs. Murray manned the junior high section and introduced me to books I would never have picked up on my own. She helped me do research for projects and questioned me when I needed questioning. Both embedded in me the passion for the written word and set me on the path to becoming a writer.

I met Mrs. Murray again at our Jubail Academy reunion, held this past summer in San Francisco. Her husband had been my algebra teacher and when I told them I’d written a children’s book and dedicated it to her, she cried. I didn’t mean for her to, it just happened. I later emailed Mrs. Hackworth a copy of the manuscript and told her she too was in my dedication. These past few days she read the book out loud to her husband, who was my reading teacher in the 5th grade. Her email mentioned how she took “emotion breaks” while reading – one of the greatest compliments a writer can receive. So thank you both for being the best librarians we could have.

Librarians are amazing – go hug yours today.

Saudi Sojourn

Camels have a reputation for spitting but they don't, it would be a waste of water. What they are actually doing is vomiting on you.

Whenever people find out that I grew up in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, they ask if I went to school on a camel. And sometimes… they’re serious. So for the record – we did not travel via camel to school. We actually had a school bus, the same bright orange one with the green seats that bounced when you went over a speed bump. The next question people ask is what I was doing in Saudi Arabia, camel, or no camel. Well, I moved to Jubail when my father, a civil engineer, was transferred there for work, when I was four. So, in the mid 1970’s, my family packed up our house in San Francisco bay area and moved to the Arabian peninsula, a newly industrializing country, flush with oil wealth.

Overall, there were pros and cons growing up in the Middle East, but the pros heavily outweighed the cons, and my memories are of an idyllic childhood -- we lived on compounds next to a long stretch of turquoise beach, where my girl-scout troop camped out. For kids it was wonderful – we had our own commissaries (with local and imported goods), swimming pools, tennis courts and dozens of playgrounds. We kids ran around like banshees from sun up to sun down, with school slotted in the middle. Our school, Jubail Academy, which I attended from Kindergarten to ninth grade, had the latest equipment (we were programming on an Apple IIe in the sixth grade), bright, motivated teachers and a library full of books (something I’ll have to talk about some other time). It was a very safe place, no one ever locked their doors – so it was kind of like Mayfield, USA – Leave it to Beaver right the middle of the desert. My best friend from the first grade is still my best friend, and we recently had an elementary school reunion, her in San Francisco, which over 130 students and faculty in attendance.

There were cons, of course – the ruling family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ran the country with a firm hand – especially since it was undergoing modernization and changing at supersonic speed. The Saudis have a culturally rich, and proud history and the rapid development of the 60’s onward was advantageous and traumatic at the same time. Taking a largely Bedouin society into the 21st century overnight was fraught with complications – we used to see Bedouin tents decked out with satellite dishes and range rovers parked next to them. Gas was 50cents a gallon and the highways were littered with broken down, luxury cars. Sadly, the expat community was segregated from the local population, though we did get to make friends with some locals who lived in our compounds. There were many rules and regulations, especially pertaining to women – you heard true, women could (and still cannot) drive. But in the end, it was an experience I would never trade in.