And Another Thing

You should see what's happening (and what's already happened) with John Green in his hometown! Apparently, they aren't too happy with Looking For Alaska...

Take a look!

This is why we have Banned Book Week. So I can show you all my favorite rants, and offer up a few of my own.

Want to get involved?

I know tons of you have read Ellen Hopkins books. I know a bunch of you are eager for her other books to arrive. And I know those of you who found what happened to her in Oklahoma to be upsetting might still be seething, like I am.

Since it's Banned Book Week, it only makes sense that we don't ban books during it and that we don't let people get away with trying to...right? One would hope that we wouldn't take this kind of thing all year round! So if you're tired of sitting there, reading, there's another way to celebrate Banned Book Week!

Here's what you can do.

Go here, and read what Ellen has to say today.

Are you mad yet?

If so, do what Ellen wants us to do... [My commentary is in brackets]

"So now I’m asking for your help. Over the years, thousands of you have messaged me, telling me why my books have been important for you. That is why they belong on bookshelves. What I’m asking is for you to send the same messages to some people. Please be respectful. If you use bad language, your opinion will be dismissed by the very people we’re trying to make understand [No swearing! None!]. You don’t have to sign your name, but if my books have touched you, please send the reasons why to:

[List of Meanies]
kelly.ogle@news9.net [News Reporter Guy]
jsiano@norman.k12.ok.us [School Corporation Guy]

[List of Nice People We Love]
karinlibrarian@gmail.com [Friendly Librarian Who Could Use Some Support!]
sunihali@comcast.net [Friendly of Some Other Sort]"

Okay guys? Does that sound doable? If you want to, you can just write something and drop it off here (Downstairs Circulation Desk!), I will make sure it gets to the people in question.

Here's a decent example, written by me in five minutes or less and intended for the school board/superintendent (the e-mail for this would be jsiano@norman.k12.ok.us)...

To Whom it May Concern,

It has come to my attention that you recently prevented Ellen Hopkins, bestselling author of Glass, Crank, Identical, Burned, and the newly published Tricks, from speaking at your school. In addition to this, you have removed Glass and Crank from your library and are considering making this a permanent decision.

As you may know, Banned Book Week began on September 26. It is important for all of us to consider how our actions now might contribute to future censorship issues in our country. Hopkins has shared many examples of how her writing has positively impacted young people experimenting with dangerous behavior on her blog, http://ellenhopkins.livejournal.com/. Our responsibility, as adults and as educators, is to make sure that teens are aware of the dangers they face when they experiment with these behaviors. Hopkins' novels provide teens with a stark view of the consequences of their actions. She would know, as her daughter has struggled with methamphetamine addiction, facing some of the struggles Hopkins describes in Crank and Glass.

Please give proper attention to the review of her books rather than succumbing to the media blitz. Read them, and discuss the impact they have had on students in your school, not simply overzealous parents. If we begin with one book, we will soon descend to policing all our literature, and a generation without To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bluest Eye, Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, and many others, would be a terrible generation to grow up in. As a school, you need to be aware that your library is possibly the only library your students have access to on a regular basis.

It is up to you and your fellow educators to teach your students to respect other ideas, strive to understand the unknown, and think critically in their daily lives. Do not reinforce the bias we live with in our society by reacting blindly to a single objection. Do not model behaviors you do not wish to see in other adults.

Stand up for freedom of speech and expression and you will teach others to do the same.

Thank you for your time and your attention,


[This is where you put your name.]


And hey, if you don't feel like writing one of these on your own, just take this one, copy and paste it into an e-mail, and send it off. Usually it's a no-no to do that sort of thing, but I hereby give you permission. So it's okay.

Free Speech: Let's All Read Banned Books!

Every year Banned Book Week (September 26-October 3, 2009) rolled around during my high school experience, I remember my librarian dusting off a couple of posters and pulling out a copy of Huck Finn for us to stare at. That was it. And because there was so little attention paid to it, I didn't even consider it to be important. So what? We can all read Huck Finn now. So it doesn't matter anymore, does it?

Then, during my junior year, I watched my librarian take every Stephen King book we had off the shelf and put them in boxes. Then, the books were taken out of the school and we never saw them again.

Oops.

I figured out, that day, that this kind of thing not only still happens, but it happens more at the middle school and high school level than in any other age group. See, someone else's mom or dad might one day decide you aren't allowed to read something. Let's use Twilight as an example.

Let's pretend that someone at your school takes Twilight home to read. And their parents pick it up and say, "That Robert Pattinson guy on the cover looks pretty awful." So they read the back. And then they say, "Vampires are evil. They're from the devil. No child should read this book."

They take the book away from their kid. Then they ask for the book to be taken out of the school.

I know, right? Who would want to ban Twilight? What a stupid example. Where do I get this stuff?

Oh, right. Here.

That's right, folks. Twilight. I didn't make it up. At least that library changed its mind.

The important thing is that it happened in the first place. But the Twilight example is the best-case scenario. It gets way worse.

Like in my Stephen King example, there are some books that just vanish. Let's take a look at another book...Vamos a Cuba by Alta Schreier.

Vamos A Cuba (or A Visit to Cuba) was removed from Florida's Miami-Dade school libraries because a parent claimed the book didn't "depict an accurate life in Cuba."

That's when the ACLU (The American Civil Liberties Union) of Florida filed a lawsuit to protest the decision to remove the book...and the 23 other titles in the same series. Oh, yes. See, when they took out the Cuba book, they couldn't leave the others in the series because that would have been too obvious. So they took 24 books out of each library even though 23 of them had nothing controversial in them at all.

Are you getting angry yet? You should be.

So Miami-Dade's school district lost the court case and the ACLU reigned victorious. The U.S. District Court said, "Hey, not only should you keep those books, you should buy more in the series!"

They were ordered to put the books back.

But then they appealed.

The Eleventh Circuit Court in Atlanta took on the case, said that the school board didn't breach the First Amendment, and on February 9, 2009 the schools were given the okay to take the books out. Again.

The reason for all of this? The little boy in the book was too happy. Apparently, people can't feel happy in Cuba. It's physically impossible.

The decision can still be appealed. And I'm sure it will be.

And it gets even worse--they're even banning people now.

Ellen Hopkins, the author of Crank, Burned, Glass, Identical, and the shiny new hardcover Tricks, was banned. See, she donated an author visit, complete with air travel, to a charity auction. The winning librarian was Karin Perry of Whittier Middle School in Norman, OK. Karin Perry was super-happy. And since this is the USA, she can feel happy. However, if she lived in Cuba...

I'll shut up about that now.

Hopkins bought her tickets, she packed, she was all ready to go and...

A parent went into the school with a copy of Glass. Then, the superintendent of the school called Hopkins up and cancelled the trip. Hopkins wrote about this on her blog on September 17. She was scheduled to speak on September 22.

Wow...that's a whole five (maybe six) days notice. Nice one. Real polite.

Perry, who paid for this thing, was upset. Which she can feel in Cuba, if she were to be there. Being in the USA, she might be allowed to feel it too. As long as Georgia's Eleventh Circuit Court doesn't hear about it.

So was Ellen Hopkins. Because not only were her books yanked from the shelves, she got banned too. This is what she had to say: "I've done hundreds of school visits...I've never corrupted a student. In fact, my talks inspire them. Arm them. Inform them. On the middle school level, I am totally sure I have stopped kids from ever considering drug use."

Karin Perry scheduled an off-campus event, at Hillsdale Baptist College in Moore OK. Hopkins came, she spoke, and 150 teens, parents, and librarians came to hear her.

I can understand parents freaking out a bit about Hopkins' books. But consider this: Crank and Glass are semi-autobiographical, as Hopkins' daughter struggled with methamphetamine addiction! So she gets it.

Read a banned book.


Read a bunch of them.


I've got a display with just a few of the long long list of titles on the short hardcover shelf in our YA section. You can also read Ellen Hopkins' poem "Manifesto" which I have displayed there.

Rosie Readers, our Legendary Repurposed Coffee Can is now on top of the tall hardcover shelf--Keep up the good work!


Why don't you read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian this week? That was completely banned from Crook County High School Prineville, Oregon.

And here's the rest!

Catching Fire, which I now must start reading for sure because then we can all talk about it...


This is the sequel to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and, by all reports, lives up to all the hype. Read it. Laura, you can do it. Sit down on Saturday, and read the whole thing.

That was a little pep talk.

Just for me, but you can enjoy it too.

And there is Skin Deep by E.M. Crane, also on my reading list.


This novel follows Andrea Anderson, who has more problems than a severe case of alliteration. She is a bystander in her own life, until the day she takes a job for a reclusive neighbor. She is to care for the garden and the woman's dog, as well as finish the pottery. But her simple job soon turns into something more, and her life stops taking place just on the sidelines.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox begins just as Jenna's life ends...although not quite.


She's been in a year-long coma following a horrible accident. Her family had her...rebuilt, and now all she's got are some home movies to tell her what her life was like before. No one will tell her what happened, and she is becoming more and more curious. What exactly happened to her?

And we have a memoir--not a novel--by Ashley Rhodes-Courter. Having spent nine yeaers of her life juggled between fourteen different foster homes, Ashley's lived by the following words, "Sunshine, you're my baby and I'm your only mother. You must mind the one taking care of you, but she's not your mama." Ashley remembers this as she watches her mother fall apart and is juggled between caseworkers and manipulative and abusive foster families.


In Three Little Words, Ashley tells us how she survived and how she succeeded.

Tons of New Books!

We have tons of new books to go with our new manga! It's like Christmas came early for me--this kind of thing makes me so happy...sigh...

First I have to make a sales pitch. I am holding in my hands another copy of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac that any and all may check out and read. When you do so--remember that we are having a book discussion...and this is the book! So if you are the fated soul who checks this out, make sure to stop by either circulation desk and sign up for our October 22 book discussion.


This is currently my favorite novel, and it has amazing music--so during the discussion, we'll be designing cover art for our playlists. If you don't know what I'm talking about...read the novel. I know. I'm really mean.

Our book discussions are totally casual. You can even come if you haven't finished reading the novel and we'll avoid spoilers for you. We always eat junk food, and you can meet other people who love to read and might be hiding under the radar at school.

I couldn't hide. My copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes was too big.

Anyone doing the Rosie Reading Challenge? You all know I am, and we have another title to add to our list. Yellow Flag, by Robert Lipsyte, which involves cars and racing them.


Finally, at long last, we have Graceling! I love this novel. It is fantastic, the best fantasy of the year. Kristin Cashore has a new book, Fire, out in October and we are so not waiting for paperback this time, ladies and gentlemen. I can't do that to you.


Katsa is blessed--but mostly cursed--with a Grace (special freaky/magical talent). Her Grace is killing; she's been able to take down a grown man since she was eight. Unfortunately, her uncle is a king, and he's been using her as an assassin ever since.

But when she meets Po, who is Graced with combat skills himself, she starts to reexamine her life and her role in the world. His friendship finally allows her to come to grips with her Grace and to reveal a horrible secret that will soon touch every part of the known world.

We have another of the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series, Stop in the Name of Pants by Louise Rennison.


This is a long running series that started back when I was in high school (don't ask how long ago that was), and it's absolutely hilarious, full of all the great British slang and humor missing from life here in the states...sigh. I miss England.

Maximum Ride fans can check out the newest novel in The Protectors series, Max by James Patterson.


Something is messing with the ocean life near Hawaii, so Max and the flock head out to find out what's up. They end up rescuing Max's mom, putting military men to shame, facing shark attacks, claustrophobia, and finally figuring out what is up between Max and Fang.

From Catherine Gilbert Murdock we have Princess Ben. Murdock wrote Dairy Queen, The Off Season and has a new novel Front and Center coming out in October. Princess Ben chronicles Ben's transition from an orphan whose parents were murdered by bandits to a near-prisoner under Queen Sophia's control to her discovery of a secret room and the magic concealed within. Soon after, Ben adds saving the country (and herself) to her To Do list...


Princess Ben is also available in audiobook, so check out our audiobook collection on top of the paperback shelf (the tall one that starts with "A" in case you're confused).

Another addition to our audio collection is E. Lockhart's The Treasure Map of Boys.


This is the newest Ruby Oliver novel, follow-up to the The Boyfriend List and The Boy Book. She also wrote Dramarama and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (which I happen to be reading right now).

Would you believe we have more? Well, we do. But I am saving those for tomorrow, because I am tired and because you're all going to start losing interest, if you haven't already.

But those are enough for you to get started with, right?

Attention all manga lovers:

New manga has arrived!

We now have Death Note 3: Hard Run and Death Note 4: Love both written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata.



Bleach 8: The Blade and Me and Bleach 9: Fourteen Days for Conspiracy by Tite Kubo have also arrived.


And so have Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto 33: The Secret Mission and Naruto 34: The Reunion.



Check out our New Manga section and take a look!

Book Review: Devilish

As one or two of you may have noticed, I am on a John Green kick. I read all his books, and am working my way through the Brotherhood 2.0 videos, and I pre-ordered his upcoming novel (written with David Levithan who you'll know from Nick and Norah).

In the process of watching the B2.0 videos, I noticed Maureen Johnson (blog here, website here) showing up in a few of John's videos, because the two of them were both part of the same writing group, along with Scott Westerfeld (Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras, should I keep going?) and some other YA authors (how cool would that be?).

I'd read Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes, and I decided to read some more of her stuff because that would allow me to further avoid reading Catching Fire (and therefore I could continue to avoid finshing Catching Fire) and the other Rosie books I'm not in the mood for right now. Like the football one.

I swear, I'll get there.

So I looked online and saw that she's written several other titles, including one that some people tried to ban.

Okay.

That just put her on my must-read list. Nobody bans books around me. No. Way.

So I ordered some of her other works and started working on the ones we have.

Today I finished Devilish


In Devilish, Jane's friend Allison goes from being unpopular and somewhat akward to looking like a supermodel overnight. Jane feels pushed out, and then she discovers that Allison has changed like this due to a pact she made with a new girl at school, who turns out to be a demon.

It's a retelling of the Faust tale, guy meets devil, devil gives guy all he wants, guy finds out deal was horrible and wants out, guy finds out there is no way out. Except this one had a happy ending, although I won't tell you why or how.

I will tell you it involved a hundred-something year old demon fighter love interest for Jane.

Which worked, and that's a marvel.

Jane worked well as a narrator, she had believable reactions to the freaky things she was exposed to (including a bad breakup), she was funny, good with her family, and she wielded the Steak Knife of Righteousness with great valor. First person narration was a good choice for Johnson! The novel had just the right amount of action, not too much focus on the evil demon girl (and the way that whole scenario works for her), and it was just plain fun.

I hope you all give it a try, especially those of us who like a little touch of fantasy to our reality.

What's wrong with me?

I pre-ordered Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins, for both the library and myself.

This was because I knew deep in my heart that I would not be able to live a day longer than from...that day to September 1 to read that book.

It is now September 18. I have Catching Fire, sitting in my house. I have not read even a sentence of it.

It struck me yesterday that this was unusual for me, and not just because I read all the time almost without ceasing. This is strange because I was looking forward to reading that book. John Green said it was really good! I knew it would be really good, even before he said it, but come on! If he said it was good, it has to be! He worked for Booklist!

They know their stuff at Booklist. It's a really great magazine.

I think maybe there are a few reasons (that might actually be more like excuses) why I haven't read Catching Fire yet. I think that book sits on the floor of my bedroom on top of the package it came in because 1. I know that once I read it I will have to wait until the third book comes out who knows when to find out what happens next and 2. I know that if I were to read it, I would have to wait until October for Fire by Kristin Cashore to be delivered so that I can read it and then I would be hesitant to do that because I would have to wait for Bitterblue to come out who knows when and3. I am waiting to read Catching Fire because I know that reading it would put me in a position to have to read some Eliot Rosewater books I have in my car, books that I don't really feel like reading right now. Actually, I feel like procrastinating on my Rosie Reading, no matter how much trouble it might put me in later.

So, I am rereading Looking for Alaska because it doesn't count as reading since I've already read it (so it is just review...).

Does anyone else think maybe I have put too much thought into why I'm not reading Catching Fire? Just so that I won't have to finish it?

That's pretty bad...

Maybe a good thing.

I was talking to another woman who works here via e-mail, and she sent me a note that had a complicated looking graph on it that I didn't understand.

When I actually read what she had written, the basic gist of it was that people actually look at this blog, in fact, they look at it kind of a lot.

That means two things, or so I think: (1) you guys are keeping informed about all the super-fun stuff I think up while I'm sitting in front of a bookshelf, shelving books (usually the source of most inspiration) and (2) that (a) you think I'm kind of funny or (b) you have a lot of time on your hands.

Any or all of those reasons are good.

Do you know what else it means that tons of you are coming here? It means that you are reading my writing.

That makes me feel special.

Thank you for making me feel special.

And, just so you know, I don't rant like this because I like the sound of my own fingers on a keyboard. I rant like this because I want all of you to be happy and to read books that are good, both in a fun way and in an artsy way, particularly if they are fun and artsy at the same time.

Enjoy the books. Enjoy our activities, and enjoy the blog. It is a present for you.

I hope you feel special too.

And now...

That my guilt trip is over I have more new books to tell you about.

These came when I was telling you about the other new books, only these I am on the ball about, so I can show them off without guilt or shame of any kind.

Evermore and Blue Moon by Alyson Noel...



From what I can tell, these books are like the first two Twilight books in almost every way, except they must be different enough not to warrant a lawsuit of any kind, because there hasn't been one.

If you like the vampire romance thing with destiny and all that, these are for you.

We also have Rat Life by Tedd Arnold, which won an Edgar Award (as in Allen Poe) for best young adult mystery.


So mystery fans, this is for you (and me). A body is found in the Chemanga River not too far away from Todd's neighborhood, but he's not all that concerned. He's more worried about a job. He meets a guy named Rat, who is a bit older than him in more ways than one. Rat offers him work, the two spend some time together, and Todd starts wondering about Rat, the body in the river, and a lot of other things...

And we have Impossible by Nancy Werlin, which takes the song "Scarborough Fair"--Simon and Garfunkel did a great version--and gives it a back story.


The women in Lucy's family are cursed. Unless they accomplish a series of impossible tasks, they are in big trouble. And that's all I'll tell you for now.

Many Reasons Why I Owe You Big Time

We got new books!

And you all know that that's a pretty big deal around here, since I love new books.

But here's the thing--they all came on Friday at about three-ish, and we close at five, but I wanted all the people who requested them to have them when they wanted them, so I wanted to put them upstairs fast, and so I did all the stuff I do when we get new books, like AR and checking them off the order sheets--but something terrible happened!

I forgot to blog about them!

Booooo! Booooo!

That Laura, we don't know what to do with her around here. I think we should throw rocks at her. Except she's me, and that would HURT!

Fine. So no rock throwing. Instead I will in as little time as possible try to remember the titles of the books that came and went so quickly though lots of them were replacements and we don't really care about those so I will just try to tell you the important ones !

We had Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman


Bethany is reading this right now, and I am getting it after her, because I want to read it too. I'll tell you all about it when I have. Bethany--no spoilers!

We also got Libyrinth, by Pearl North, which I have started but not finished.


So more on that later!

Wow, that's two I can't tell you about. That's depressing. Well...here:



So those are upstairs, and they're going to be a television series, as I bet you all know, on the CW this fall. You can read those--The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith. Incidentally, there is now a fifth book in that series out in hardcover that we will get in paperback.

Those books are completely not my thing, but whatever floats your boat. Wow, was that cliche of me. It must be the guilt.


And that's about to be a TV series too, I think, maybe...I can't find it. Am I wrong?

We also got the continuation of the Jacky Faber series (of which I have read nothing) My Bonny Light Horseman by L.A. Meyer.


They are of the pirate variety, and seem like fun.

And then, there is Blood Beast which is part of the Demonata series by Darren Shan. He also did Cirque Du Freak. This is the fifth in the series.


The Lighthouse War is number two in Adrian McKinty's Lighthouse Trilogy. We've now got that!


And then we have the second in a series I'm fond of, Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter.


We also replaced The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain and Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.

And I think that's everything.

I'll do a better job next time, guys.

Rosie Reading Update: Deadline

I just finished (as in, on Sunday) Deadline by Chris Crutcher.



This book joins the ranks of many, many novels written about teenagers facing death just as their "real" (or adult) lives are about to begin. Take a look around. There are tons of these. It's a pretty common theme.

And usually, the teenager is either (1) whiny, childish, boring, unendurable, etc. or (2) they are overly mature to the point that you no longer believe that they are a teenager with no prior health problems.

Strictly speaking, this novel was the latter. Ben Wolf, though, has an excuse.

Ben is a firstborn child and he has spent the majority of his childhood caring for his mother, who has periods of mania and depression. He also has acted as a parental figure/best friend to his younger brother Cody.

So I could almost understand the difference between the average teenager and Ben. And that let me make it past the first chapter.

If I didn't think about it too much.

Then, Ben sees a specialist who tells him basically: you have one year, give or take. But mostly take. So, Ben says, "Fine. No treatment."

Which I can kind of understand, because Ben has the choice between dying from the treatment, sick all year long, or dying from the disease, living as well as he can for as long as he can.

And he decides to keep it a secret. Because he doesn't want to stress his mom, who is too sick to deal with it, his brother, who has to worry about getting a football scholarship that will take him to college (no hope otherwise), and his dad, who is busy dealing with...everything.

Also, Ben wants to live normally, or as normally as possible. He doesn't want his teachers or fellow students watching him for signs of sickness, he doesn't want to miss out on sports, and he doesn't want to be forced into treatments he doesn't want, while his mother falls apart.

So he lies.

By the time I got this far, two things happened. First, I did not believe that a boy like Ben would ever exist in any circumstance. Second, I did not care.

Because Ben is an engaging narrator, his football success combining with his brother's to lead their team to new heights, his compassion leading him to help the town drunk, Rudy, get sober, and his stubborn clashes with his obstinate Current Events teacher keeps Ben like-able, despite his strange circumstances. And they are strange: think late-night conversations with "Hey-Soos"--at once irreverent and profound.

And I did like Ben. I liked how good he was to Dallas Suzuki, the improbably named girl of Ben's dreams. Despite how improbable a girl she is...

Bottom line: although I found it hard to keep my mind on task through the many sports detours this novel took, it was still good and worth reading. Guys--you will like this book.

That's what...three down? And... 18 to go?

See, that's because I'm not counting books that I read before I found out they were Rosie nominees. So I am re-reading John Green's Abundance of Katherines and Gabrielle Zevin's Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac.

What Laura Did Today...

Have any of you heard of NaNoWriMo?

You should know about NaNoWriMo. Really. So I will tell you.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, takes place in November, always. During that month, deluded people of all ages who want to cause themselves repetative stress injuries by typing a lot, write a novel of 50,000 words or 175 pages by midnight on November 30.

This is particularly hard when factoring in Thanksgiving. Which I spent typing, during one year, and refusing dessert.

Then I ate pumpkin pie and tried to keep it off my keyboard. Good times.

And when I finally reached the finish line, that year, I threw myself a little party in my room involving television, which had been restricted for the purposes of NaNo.

Why am I doing this?

Because I love writing. Yes, in case you had not noticed, I enjoy the sound of my fingers on the keyboard the way some people enjoy the sound of their own voice. And I love stories. Which is why I have shamelessly read through tons of our collection in the past months, with no end in sight.

Also, I think my Eliot Rosewater goal might be accomplished too quickly, so I am throwing some extra drama into the mix. Because if I don't break down crying at one point or other during this whole deal, I won't have really done any work, will I?

Here's the thing about NaNo--they don't care if you write utter crap! No, they expect it. Because you aren't allowed to edit as you go, since if you did, you would end up with no novel at all.

Authors like Neil Gaiman send you little e-mail encouragement notes, filling one day each week with sunshine.

Tons of other, equally fun-loving folk do this every year! You can talk to them, ask them questions, read excerpts from their novels-in-progress...and it's great.

Two years ago, I owned. This year, I have, you know, a job and not school (which can be ignored, as you all know, to great peril). This year, I have twenty-some books to read in a time-sensitive way. This year, I have to wake up before noon and go to sleep before midnight, when my best writing gets done.

So this year, it will be a challenge.

I'll keep you up to date...

The Real John Green

I spent the weekend in Indianapolis, at the CYPD Conference where people like me go for a good time. Really! It was a good time. I got all kinds of fantastic ideas for activities we can do together, met some really cool librarians from all over our state, and met John Green. Yeah--the real one.

I went early to the big room where John Green was supposed to talk, meeting up with other over-eager YA librarians in the hallway. These are people like me, who skipped the door prize drawings next door to make sure we got good seats.

Someone waved us in, and we scampered inside, then sat down at a nice table near the front.

At some point, we noticed that there was someone sitting at the table across from us. That someone was John Green.

Usually, or at least at all the Barnes and Nobles or Borders author visits I have gone to, the author hides in the back until it is time for them to give their speech, then go over to the little table where people can go get their books signed. During this, their eager public is kept in their seats so as not to crowd said author, terrify them, or trample them in an attempt to get to them.

But this time, since librarians must be more docile than the general public (please!), John Green was sitting right there at one of the tables--just talking to people!

Since John Green (no, I can't just refer to him by part of his name. He's too cool for that) is a real human being, despite his cool author-ness, he could sit there and talk to people without us all bursting into flames at his mere presence.

To understand what happened next, you need a little background information about me. I am not really that shy--when you get to know me. But in most unfamiliar social situations, I am the person sitting in the corner saying to myself, "I should go talk to her/him. They are my friend. They know I'll be here. They want to see me. But look, they're standing there all talking to someone else like the cool person that they are, and talking to me will so make them seem less cool. So I should just stand here for a while. Right?"

That happened when I saw Candie Cooper (from our jewelry program) at Biaggi's in Fort Wayne right after the jewelry program. Like two days after. I was eating with a friend of mine, and she will tell you that I spent half the dinner thinking about saying hello at some point, then talking myself out of it.

You also need to understand my List.

I have a List, The List, of authors whose books I buy without even looking at them. Like, I see a Melina Marchetta book, and I just buy it. I know it will be good, no matter what it is about. So I buy it.

The List is hard to get on, sometimes it takes many, many books for an author to make it. I had to read five Jasper Fforde books for him to make The List, even though I loved all five of them. The List is about consistency. The List is for authors who I know will always be good.

John Green made the list after I read Paper Towns. He made the list after one book. That has only ever happened with one other author--that is how rare it is (Patricia A. McKillip is the other author; best fantasy writer around).

So I figured, sitting at my little round table with the other YA librarians, that I maybe had one chance in this lifetime to meet John Green. And this, I figured, was it. I took a deep breath and quashed whatever remnant of self-doubt remained within me. I decided to be Brave.

Here is what happened:


And he knew about the blog. This one. Right here.

He had been here, and read some of it. "You've written about me before," he told me. "Not that I Google myself."

He totally Googled himself. When I Google myself, I get German Lauras, and me. I bet his is more interesting.

If nothing else had happened after that, it would have been enough. It would have been just peachy. But he was hilarious. He talked to us about the survival of the human species. Because, according to him, there was nothing else important enough for him to talk about for forty minutes. It had to do with books...and us.

Then we all got to go and get our books signed, and here he is doing the signing:


Then I brought the books home with me, after I re-read An Abundance of Katherines. And then I brought them here.



So go upstairs and visit them in our YA section. I am now re-reading Looking for Alaska, so you will have to wait on that one. But you can take it.

Rosie Reading Update: Blue Bloods

Our Rosie Contest has officially begun, everyone, so get over to the YA shelves and start reading!

Right now, I'm working my way through Blue Bloods, by Melissa De La Cruz, and wondering how she can get away with making my relatives (or ancestors, I guess) into vampires.


Yes, everyone, William White, or "Jack Force" (in the novel) is my many times great grandfather. I have the paperwork to prove it. From our "family historian" on the White side. So if he was a Blue Blood...I wonder what that makes me?

I am having trouble with the vampire family tree thing. It makes the whole book seem a little less real. I think you have to buy into the whole mythology of the historical part of the novel in order to get caught up in the story, and it is not so much happening for me.

It was before they dropped William White's name, though! I was really liking it until then.

Although I want to insist upon you all understanding something: liking a novel has very little to do with whether a novel is good. A great novel might drive me insane, disgust me, bore me, or otherwise annoy me. But that's just fine.

However, I am not offering you an unbiased opinion. I am trying to tell you what I liked or hated about a certain book, and whether I think it is good for all of you to read for fun.

So I am going to keep up my complaints...like this one:

This book has one other big thing that bugs me. Some contemporary authors have this thing where they think it's okay not to describe a character's clothes at all, they just say "Chanel" or "Carolina Herrera" or even "purple monkey fur" (gross--plus, fur is murder) and I am like: what the heck?

Firstly--no one who doesn't have a subscription to Rich People Monthly knows exactly what that particular Chanel design looks like, off the top of their head. The author is a fashion writer--she gets it--but us Gap people, or even American Eagle or Abercrombie and Fitch people...not really on the same page.

So I sit back and say: you have just written a full paragraph about this character's appearance, and half or more of your intended audience has no idea what your character looks like and can't picture them at all.

So you, as an author, have written a paragraph about nothing. At least to those readers...and to me, you can disagree with me if you want...that is bad writing.

I am caught up in the story, except for those things. So I like this book, except for those things. Am I making sense?

Let me rephrase: I think, if you like vampires, like mean rich girl books like A-List and Gossip Girl, and have not taken creative writing or literature classes, you will LOVE this book. Those of us who do not fall into those catagories will find some parts of it grating, but might still like it.

I guess I kind of like it. Okay. I like it. But I don't think I'll read the rest of the series...Fine. I might.