Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

In honor of Guy Fawkes Day, or rather, in honor of V, the character created by Alan Moore and designed by David Lloyd to be dressed in Fawkes' likeness...I bring you a summary, author bio and book discussion guide of the iconic graphic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore & David Lloyd.

V for Vendetta Discussion Guide

Freedom Forever!

My First "Story"

I have my first article in the Decatur, IL online Community Newsletter Re:Decatur! It was about my relationship with my former "Little" in Big Brothers Big Sisters. I am a huge fan of the organization, what they do, and how they assess the positive affects of their work. I strongly suggest that anyone out there in cyber-land who has any interest in forming a forever bond with a child looks into their local BBBS organization. Prospective mentors go through a background screening and an interview process in order to match them successfully with a child. They only ask that you commit for one year! If you cannot be a mentor at this time please consider donating to your local BBBS organization. They estimate that supporting each match for one year is $1000.

Title of the article: The Heart of a Mentor, Being a Big Sister October, 2012


"Start Something!"

Here is the text of the article, as the website is now defunct:

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” Desmond Tutu
So many of us wonder what one person can do to make a difference. Be it one vote, one statement, one blog post, we think it is a small voice in a sea of louder, or at least numerous, vocalizations. I know the older I have become, the more I can get bogged down by details. Meeting a young woman in the fall of 2008 changed my perceptions about the impact a single person can have. Choosing to be a mentor gave me the opportunity to share values and skills with a young person who shared important life lessons in return, and my life was certainly altered.

Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) is a mentoring organization present in almost 370 communities in the United States. The organization visited my workplace with a proposal: visit a child for one hour, once a week at school, for one year. The process in becoming a Big is very thorough, because they truly want both the Big and the Little to be happy in the match. After a background check you have an interview where you discuss the person you are, the interests you have as well as who you envision as your prospective Little: ages, interests, etc. They ask you to commit to the match for one full year. They do the same with the children looking to be mentored. They find that positive matches, which last at least one year, have lasting effects including increased self-esteem, behavior improvements, school achievement and stability.

After being matched, I had my first meeting with M. at her school with our BBBS case manager. We filled out “getting to know you” quizzes and learned the program rules. Following that initial meeting I would visit M. every week on the same day at lunch. We would share in the unique flavorings of the school cafeteria.  On special occasions I would bring lunch as a reward for a job well done or a good week. We worked on schoolwork, but most importantly, we formed a bond. We talked about her fears, her frustrations and her joys! M. did not think she liked to read, but we read short stories together. I introduced her to S.E. Hinton, a writer who started young and whose characters have more difficult childhoods than some. She read Hinton’s book Rumble Fish in two days and was eager to let me know. She started sharing the plots and her opinions regarding books for school. Just as I introduced her to things, she shared her interests with me. From almost the first day of our meeting we could talk about everything. She has an extremely high regard for honesty and she demonstrated it to me, and expected it in return. When she began junior high the following year, we became a Community Based Match, meaning I now could do things with her outside of school. We would go for walks in the park (Dreamland Lake was one of our favorites, and the inspiration for the artwork we did together above). We would swing on swings, see movies, grab dinner, and through it all we would talk. The amount of trust she had in me was humbling, and indicative of the place I held in her life.

M. has a lot of passion for life and for what she believes. She was never as angry or hurt as when someone implied she was dishonest. She sometimes had a hard time displaying her passion in constructive ways, and this was one of the things we worked on changing. However, the important part was giving her the security of knowing someone was always in her corner, no matter what. Due to new challenges and changes in her family, our “official” match has ended, but we will always be “sisters” and have been forever changed for the better. I would like to be there to watch her graduate and I will never forget the lessons she taught me. I can only hope she carries with her my conviction in the person she is, her strength and her potential. M. taught me that children are stronger than we think and wiser than we know. She taught me that friendship is a powerful catalyst for growth and that honesty is paramount.

Harvard Sets the Stage

This post came up in Planet Cataloguing today, and although it has nothing to do with cataloguing, I wanted to talk about it anyway!

Jonathan Rochkind wrote in his blog “Bibliographic Wilderness” about the news that Harvard’s Faculty Advisory Council has made a statement related to rising journal costs. They are basically setting the stage for a push to Open Access publishing by their faculty as well as becoming an example to the rest of the academic community to push harder for the rates and policies of some journals to be reduced.

The question of ownership is a tricky one, as having current access to an e-publisher does not mean having access to any of those journals after canceling an account. You buy print journals, you can have them "forever"; you pay for e-access you have them until you don't pay anymore. Libraries pay for the use of electronic journals and possibly physical copies (when he talks about the Copyright Clearance Center or CCC, it all depends on what you pay for).  I have no doubt that Harvard is questioning the big picture. This issue does not belong to journal publishers alone; law libraries many times have to carefully consider whether they can keep up with subscriptions to LexisNexis and Westlaw in the long run, as these publishers also raise their prices at an exorbitant percentage.

The question of cost is a big one and an important one. I, for one, feel that Harvard is on the right track. If talent is sent to OA sources, and peer review still happens, well, the rest of the academic community could fall in line. I come from a scientific background and peer review and general "distinction" reign supreme in popularizing journals.  If Harvard leads this charge and other universities follow suit, it might actually make a dent. I, along with Mr. Rochkind, question the sustainability of pay per use, but I still think Harvard’s gesture is a well thrown gauntlet.

Here is a news article in The Guardian that I also liked on the topic.

Thoughts?

The Last of the Long Reviews (and the beginning of what this blog might be)

I've been cheating by using old reviews to start off this blog, and thus have not been thinking about what I really want to say. I will need to get into a habit of writing on the blog, but will it be only library related, life related, personal? I tend not to be able to separate the personal from everything else, so it no doubt will creep in. Ah well, here is the last of the "assignment" reviews.

Kevin Henkes’ Words of Stone

            Have you ever met someone who is everything you are not? Who seems to be the opposite of you in every single way? Then friendship reveals the inner truth that you are not as different as you might have thought. This is the kind of friendship that unfolds for Blaze and Joselle in Kevin Henkes’ Words of Stone. Henkes’ provides complex characters living real lives and surviving real heartbreak. This story also uses a great deal of imagery with impressive results, fleshing out emotion and letting us see inside the characters heads. Words of Stone is a great coming of age story with important themes of loss, family, friendship, understanding and the importance of forgiveness.

            Blaze is a shy, fearful and introverted ten-year-old boy who lost his mother at age five to cancer. He has nightmares that reveal a great deal about his fears and his inability to change the past or save his mother. Blaze goes through life with his invisible friends, a jar of keys and an old Noah’s Ark toy with only one of each animal that represents much more to him than he lets on. He avoids talking with his father about his grief because he cannot bear to make him sad. Although liked by everyone, he has no close friends. He fears fire, the dark, wasps and nightmares. He wants to control his fear desperately; he wants to take charge of his life but does not know how.

            Joselle is an outgoing, seemingly fearless girl that appears to be everything Blaze is not. She loves playing music on her “big” front teeth, and freely expresses emotions. However, she has loss as well. Her mother has been more of a friend than a parent throughout her life and she does not have any knowledge of her father. The emotions she freely expresses tend to be anger because she cannot quite handle the loss in her life. She seeks to complicate Blaze’s life, because, as her grandmother says, “Misery loves company” (37). However, she also learns that she has more to give, such as helping Blaze get to know Gary, the “terrifying” German Shepherd next door.

            When Blaze first sees the words of stone on the hill facing his room in the early morning light he tells no one and rearranges them so his father cannot see…or so he does not have to admit it may only be in his head. Between the mystery of the stones, his father’s new girlfriend and Joselle, he barely has time to think. Pain comes crashing down on both Joselle and Blaze in this book. Both are betrayed by the people they trust and both must come to a place where they choose to move ahead, to forgive and to try again. Blaze and Joselle learn from one-another and become more complete people because of their friendship and their trials. Real relationships take work and forgiveness, they can be tenuous but they can also free you from your fears and your chains.

 Henkes is most famous for his children’s picture books: Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, Chrysanthemum, Kitten’s First Full Moon. While his illustrations are necessary to that work, he also uses a great deal of literary imagery to push the emotions in Words of Stone. The first word of stones on the hill spell Blaze’s mother’s name “Reena”.

“Squinting, Blaze leaned on the windowsill, his nose pressed to the screen, then pulled back. The word was still there. It seemed to fill the window. The window seemed to fill the room. Blaze was smaller than ever.” (13)

Joselle writes words on her leg, at first for fun and then to remind herself of what she must atone. Blaze has vivid dreams related to his fears and perceived failures. Henkes begins with the images: snakes, keyholes, and fire, and proceeds to unveil little by little what these images mean. There are the stones around the tree that represent the “death” of Blaze’s invisible friends married with the stones on the hill spelling his secrets. Glenn, Blaze’s father, is an artist and it becomes clear that Blaze is one as well. The act of creating art is portrayed as cathartic for Glenn. Blaze is as timid with his art as he is with his life, and the story mirrors his progress as an artist, as well as painting another picture of what Blaze values and needs.

            Words of Stone is identified for ages 8 and up. Children will identify with the story and the honestly depicted characters who are dealing with things many children will just be beginning to come to terms with. It is a strong tale of becoming as well as of what friendship requires. This book would be a good read-a-loud in the classroom and could lead to great discussions about life and friendship. The book also deftly discusses the emotions children have when dealing with very serious loss: the death of a parent or the abandonment by one. This book can be a safe place to begin for a child dealing with such issues and they will find confidants in Blaze and Joselle

Cover image and quotations from:

Henkes, Kevin. Words of Stone. New York: Harper Trophy, 2005. Print.

Non-Fiction Book Recommendation for Juveniles

This book, also reviewed for a Children's Literature class is grotesque and fascinating! I highly recommend it!

Phineas Gage A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science 
by John Fleischman

“Kids who want to see for themselves turned out to be my ideal readers” states John Fleischman, science writer and author of Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science (“John Fleischman”). At 26, Phineas Gage was a successful railroad foreman until the day a blast sent a metal rod hurtling through his skull at the speed of a bullet. He lived a seemingly normal life for 11 years after the incident. Doctors claimed “full recovery” but the people who knew him knew that was far from true (19). This accident had forever changed their friend but no one was to understand how or why for a very long time. As a writer for the Harvard Medical School, Fleischman had first hand access to the skull (housed there), an artifact for brain scientists all over the world. His narrative account of Gage’s injury and subsequent revelations surrounding it make for fascinating reading, especially for those children who want to see and understand the real life details of a violent injury that has precedence on scientific research to this day. 

            Fleischman begins his tale as that of a mystery. What happened that fateful day of September 13, 1848 and what would become of the man whose brain had literally been sliced through? He lays out the story in present tense, allowing the reader to settle comfortably into the story as though they were part of it. His organization is chronological, taking you through the story step by step. This is both intriguing and sometimes frustrating, as you cannot find things out “ahead of time” but must muddle through as Phineas’ doctors muddled through. The scope of the book is anything related to his injury and broadens to include medicine of the mid 19^th century as well as medical findings along the way.  He discusses the early days of microbiology and pseudoscience such as the discovery that bacteria cause infection and doctors who believed in bloodletting. He then moves on to specific microorganisms, how neurons work and the organization of the brain. Finally, he discusses how Gage’s case relates to modern brain chemistry. Although the book was written in 2002, the findings and conclusions are relevant today. As Fleischman makes clear, this story is not one that may ever be completely “solved”, only one that allows for continuous unraveling and learning.

The book has a resource section at the end. It includes his important sources as well as websites, both for the Gage case and a site called “Neuroscience for Kids”. His evidence is not cited throughout the book, most likely to maintain the flow of a story being unfolded. However, unfortunately the resource list does not make clear which facts came from which source. He does devote a significant time in the second chapter to discuss tall tales, such as Gage’s possible participation in Barnum’s freak show. The author discusses the difference between rumor and fact in historical investigations. Fleischman explains why he trusts the information he has and why he is not likely to take stock in unfounded rumblings of the past. This welcome addition will help children to vet what they learn against when they are shown as evidence.

The book is written in a narrative flow, making it very engaging and easy to follow. The language of the story is fairly easy to comprehend although older readers may appreciate the scientific terms and facts more. The violent premise of the book will intrigue boys especially. Boy or girl, any child’s curiosity will be fed by the information that unfolds. He illustrates points of history and science throughout.  He includes all the major parts of the Harvard collection, including the plaster mask of Gage’s head, pictures of his skull, and a picture of the tamping iron that did the deed. He then goes on the include illustrations that explain what we previously thought to be true (phrenology charts) and what we think now (brain diagrams). He backs up his retelling of current opinion by including pictures and data from a more recent study published in the journal Science in 1994. At times, he allows his opinions to seep through in the way he discusses past medical concepts (such as when he describes phrenology as “a made-up Greek word”) and perhaps misses some areas to educate further (35). The book contains three distinct chapters, however does not have a table of contents to ascertain easily when they begin and end. Although the book contains a glossary, it is a poorly used resource, as there is no way to distinguish throughout the text which words are chosen for inclusion. On the other hand, the index is thorough and very useful.

            Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science is an engaging tale of a horrific accident that ended in a seeming miracle. The book details what we now understand about how the brain determines and even defines our humanity. Fleishman poses a question to the reader at the beginning of the book, was Phineas Gage lucky or unlucky? Though he gives his opinion near the end, the readers are left to draw their own conclusion. The author and the story show that much knowledge is still being sought in the realm of brain functionality and as it leads you through a myriad of misinformed doctors and faulty science it indicates that whatever we may discover, there is always more to understand. Indeed, more remains to uncover about Phineas Gage and every human being when it comes to both the resilience and vulnerability caused by the amazing organ that is our brain. This book could be used as an addendum to a science class or even in history; however, I think it appeals more to children with an interest in science outside the “norm”. I think teachers may find reluctant readers surprised to find a book such as this as an option and will eat it up. Though not without its faults, children as well as adults that wish to “see for themselves” will be hard pressed to find a more grotesque, fascinating and educating story than that of Mr. Gage as told by John Fleischman.

Cover Image from:

Fleischman, John. Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. Print.

“John Fleischman.” John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 2011. Web. 5 Oct. 2011.

Reviewing and Such

In a recent children's literature class I wrote three book reviews. The reviews were to be 800-1000 words. While I find this lengthy for a book review, it was a good exercise.
Here is the first, a review of:

Aaaarrgghh! Spider! 

by Lydia Monks

With a tactile cover and a lively illustrated core, Aaaarrgghh! Spider!, written and illustrated by Lydia Monks, is an entertaining and exciting story of a lonely spider searching for a family and understanding. The front cover shows a smiling spider with a heart shaped mouth, dangling down from a beautiful sparkly web and hovering over the head of a little girl whose hair is coquettishly mirroring the spider’s legs.  The title lettering contains somewhat menacing hairs suggesting the fear many people inherently have towards spiders. This seemingly contradictory cover is an excellent beginning to an energetic book that suggests spiders may not be what they seem and this particular spider just wants to belong.

Spiders are common in virtually every part of the world. We find them in our showers, on our porches, making webs in the corner of a room. This book happily accepts that fact with one clear distinction; the spider is doing these things to gain attention from the family she has chosen. She wants desperately to show them her many skills and why she would make the best pet ever! Her attempts at proving herself balance well against the family’s pet dog, which seems to be doing the opposite at all times. The spider pops up in the bathtub, to show that she can clean herself, while on the opposite page; the dog is rolling in mud. She attempts to show her prowess at catching flies and feeding herself while the dog is sneakily attempting to steal a cupcake from the dining room table. She behaves on a leash (oh yes, a leash) while the dog is jumping and carousing disobediently.

The text is from the spider’s point of view; she states her purpose to be part of the family on the first page with determination and sets off to achieve her goal with examples of her skills. Much of the phrasing is repetitive (good for early readers): “Look at me! Watch me eat!...Look at me! Watch me swing!”, and the family’s constant retort “Out you go!”. She finally resigns herself to loneliness and states this to the reader just before being ultimately successful. She is generally optimistic and purposeful, and ever smiling. She is indeed, a very likable spider.

The illustrations drive the story with great force. She leads you through the pages with directional dashes and general movement. She seems to be in motion most of the time: swinging, dangling, dancing, she grabs your attention on every page. Also moving the story is the progression of time, you can see she has been trying to convince them for almost a year as green grass and leafy trees turn to brown, falling leaves and finally, snow. The illustrations also show us the nature of this family. The mother and daughter are similarly attired throughout, as are the father and son. Even the dog has scarves that link him to the family. They are kind-hearted, always moving the spider outside, never attempting to smash her. They have family photos including all of their pets on display: a hamster, a cat and a dog. Even these photos change reaction from smiles to shock at the first attempts of the spider (unfortunately, the last family room shot does not have the family photos any longer, I had hoped to see the spider in one).

Lydia Monks is well known for her use of collage illustrations. She uses photos added into drawn pictures as is, for example, there was a photo of real faucets on the tub. She also uses photos of fabric in the shapes she has constructed for the family’s clothes and accessories. Trees in one scene are simple tree shapes with photos of actual pine trees within. With each glance at a page, a reader discovers something new. In addition to this complex art, she puts tiny touches an adult might not see upon an initial read, but a child may focus on while scouring the pictures. When the family takes the spider for a walk, people in the background look shocked, and one little girl is even cowering behind a tree with her dog. In one spread with many spiders, some are riding the now-unhappy hamster with a harness, as well as driving a tiny toy car and reading a news article on…spiders. The colors used are many variants of blues and reds with yellow for emphasis in important moments (like the spider’s ultimate acceptance). The glittery webs on the cover exemplify the brilliance the family must have seen upon opening their door to a fall evening of beautiful webs. Lastly, the final pages are visually extremely evocative. Children will squeal with delight and possibly shiver with creepy-crawlies.

Aaaarrgghh! Spider! is a fun and lively book that is a great family read and re-read due to the kind-hearted nature of the story and the complexity of its illustrations. Parents will have fun reading this with their children while looking closely at the pictures for extra clues. Children (and adults) with a fear of spiders will appreciate the pleasant personification of a creature so often misunderstood and feared. It transcends well into discussions of the real beneficial qualities of spiders. It would also be a good choice for story time with the great fun that comes with crying the “Aaaarrgghh! Spider!” line, especially in a library where making a little noise is always welcome. It encourages us to be optimistic and determined when making new friends and to be kind and understanding to all creatures.

Cover image from:

Monks, Lydia. Aaaarrgghh! Spider!. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Print.