AASL Conference: Meeting Margriet Ruurs

Over the course of the next few days and weeks, I plan to share a little bit of what I learned at the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Conference last week. I was thrilled that our national conference was held in my home state this year so that I could have the opportunity to go and enjoy! Each of the following blog posts will highlight a concurrent session that I attended. I hope this information will be helpful to some of you out there in school libraries, and maybe just interesting to some of the rest of you.

The first session that I would like to highlight for you was called My Librarian is a Camel: How Children Around the World Get Books. The session was led by the author of the book My Librarian is a Camel, Margriet Ruurs. Margriet, originally from the Netherlands, was charming and fun to listen to as she told us about all kinds of nontraditional ways that children have access to libraries around the world. Read the book for more on that.

One cool project that I'd like to try with my students is called A Book Marks Our World. It's basically a bookmark exchange program, so that children from all over the world can connect with one another via their shared love of reading.

I do recommend sharing Margriet's book with children, although it's a little long for a read-aloud. I like to hit the highlights of just a few featured countries when I share it. Students love to check the book out and go back to read for more details about their favorite mobile libraries.

Huge Update and Excuses Post

I know the point of blogging is to do it regularly and not just come back every couple of months with a huge and overwhelming update and excuses for why I haven't posted lately. That being said, here comes your huge and overwhelming update and excuses from me, hopefully within the realm of subjects covered by this blog, such as librarianship and organization.

Here's the result of our October home project, which was basically carving a pumpkin:


We also planted pansies and ornamental cabbage (which, as it turns out, is the only other thing besides pansies that survives the winter), but I don't have pictures because the leaves all fell down this weekend, and the yard is therefore unsightly.

During the last couple of days of October, I was able to attend the North Carolina School Library Media Association Conference in Winston-Salem. I wasn't as excited about this conference as I have been in years past, and I wish now that I had worked up a presentation on my rockin' media schedule that includes time for kids to choose projects like a news blog and a TV show to work on during the school week. It probably would have been way more interesting than some of the ones I went to. And now, I have to wait until 2010 to do it because next year, we're all going to the ALA Conference instead, since it's in Charlotte.

A couple of highlights of the conference were meeting authors:

Joyce Moyer Hostetter talked about her book Blue, which I loved, and she gave a little preview of the sequel coming out in May called Comfort. If you have an interest at all in WWII-era historical fiction or just in a really wonderful piece of North Caroline literature, I recommend Blue. But read it in private because you'll cry big ugly tears. And the symbolism rocks, just as a side note from someone who loves to see figurative language used well in children's literature.

Author-illustrator Melanie Watt is just the cutest shy little French Canadian ever. She talked about her book Scaredy Squirrel, which was a smash hit with the kids last year. And again, the book was a decent metaphor or allegory or something cool like that.

Ok, now completely off the topic of anything blog-related, here is one of my recent fun trips:

A week ago, Ty and I drove up to Stone Mountain, NC, for our autumn hike. We were sore for a few days afterward, but it was worth it.

And with all of those marvelous things under my belt for October and November, I am now moving into Christmas gifting mode. I'm trying to make a bunch of gifts this year, so I'll try to keep a photo log of it all and post after Christmas, so as not to ruin any surprises. Suffice it to say, I will have to have very busy fingers for the next few weeks.

Good luck to all the NaNoWriMo-ers out there! Sometime, I might try to write a children's book in November, but not until I get a good idea for one. :)

I am fodder for satire and biting social commentary.

With more and more people jumping on the productivity bandwagon -- reading all the books, magazines, and blogs, and even becoming productivity hobbyists -- it's no surprise that productivity satire is beginning to creep into the media. Tyler and I watched Chaos Theory a couple of weeks ago. He liked it, and I did too, but I'm sure I appreciated it more than he did. I had to explain that even the main character, Frank Allen (played by Ryan Reynolds), is a really really thinly-veiled David Allen character. In the movie, Frank is an "efficiency expert" who has written a wildly popular book on productivity and efficiency and travels the country giving speeches at conferences about his system and how it works. (Frank's system is basically a list-making management scheme a la Getting Things Done.) So, I thought the movie was really well done and funny in an absurd kind of way, which also caused a bit of a sheepish reaction, since I could definitely be considered a productivity/efficiency/organization geek.

While I don't think my style of organization is particularly absurd, it does come off that way to people. Last night, we were talking with some friends, and Judy (who I love dearly) commented that she wished she had more of my gift for administration and organization.

"You're a list-maker, aren't you?" she asked.

I nodded, and my husband nodded vigorously, probably mentally noting the multiple lists I have strategically placed in at least three rooms in our small house and all over my office at work.

"But," Judy continued, "when you make a list and then don't get something done on your list, do you feel like a failure?"

I paused but then nodded again ruefully, and my husband nodded vigorously, probably mentally noting the numerous occasions on which I have apologized to him for not doing things he didn't even know (or care if) I was supposed to be doing.

So, I guess one of the major pits that list-makers like me can easily fall into is irrational pressure placed on oneself with resulting unfounded and legalistic guilt.

But, like I told the group, I don't think my lists are a bad thing; they do help me work more productively and efficiently, and I'm getting better about the irrational guilt/pressure/legalism thing. That stuff happens because I'm a perfectionist, not because I'm a list-maker.

I'm going to keep on making my lists and reorganizing my closets and reading my productivity blogs, books, and magazines. I am a librarian, after all. And the nice thing about having a habit (or, gag, a hobby) that people view as absurd is that you can just laugh along with them because you know that whatever they think about it, your absurdity serves you well.

In my case, I think about how fortunate I am that my propensities and tendencies work so well for me in my chosen profession. I mean, really, could I have a job that more fully suits me? I think not. And what a blessing to have found this niche that I just knew had to be out there somewhere!

Summer Reading for the Child at Heart

Today in Greensboro, it is hot hot hot. The perfect day to sit inside in the air conditioning with some lemonade and a good book. Here are a few of my top recommendations for your summer reading pleasure. These are all children's and young adult books selected from my school library specifically for my mom (but you'll like them too). Mom and I are pictured on the right. We both loved children's literature even before I was a media specialist.

• Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan - This is one of my favorite authors, especially in the arena of multicultural children's literature. Ryan usually writes characters with roots in Mexico, and Naomi is one of the more brilliant of these. I love Naomi's transformation throughout the book, and I love that Ryan doesn't shy away from writing about complicated circumstances. Naomi's family and extended family are some of the strangest group of characters you might think to put together in a story, but the whole thing works.
  

• Blue by Joyce Moyer Hostetter - This is especially for the North Carolinian readers. Blue is a piece of historical fiction written about the polio epidemic in Hickory, North Carolina, in the 1940s. Great use of imagery and symbolism in this book, and it's on a level that most fourth graders could grasp. And it made me cry.
  

• Clementine by Sara Pennypacker - Here is a modern-day Ramona the Pest. Clementine is lovable and mischievous, and the book is hilarious. I especially recommend this one to folks who may be affected by some level of hyperactivity, as Clementine certainly is.
  

• Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson - This is a recent Newbery Honor Book, and I read it because it had won the award. I gave it to Mom because my mental picture of Hattie's Montana is probably due as much to childhood road trips to the Midwest as to the author's fine descriptions. Montana, although it is the setting of the book, really could be considered a character as well.
  

• Hidden on the Mountain by Karen Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland Desaix - I hate to read Holocaust Literature (too horrible), but I loved this book. It's a nonfiction account of a community in occupied France (Le Chambon) whose inhabitants hid Jewish children during the Holocaust. The authors did extensive research for the book, and all of the accounts are based upon interviews with real people who were hidden in Le Chambon. It's pretty thick, but I read it in about two days because I could hardly put it down.
  

• The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron - The Newbery Award winner that caused a huge stink the year it was awarded. Why? Because the word "scrotum" appears in the book, and on the first page too! But seriously, once you grow up and read the book, it does belong in the library, thank you very much. Like Hattie Big Sky, the setting here is strange and wonderful and integral to the plot and character formation. And like Becoming Naomi Leon, Lucky is blessed with a highly peculiar family situation.
  

• The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick - Here's the Caldecott Award winner for this year, which was a but of an upset because it's not a picture book, per se. Selznick has pioneered a new kind of "novel in words and pictures," as he calls it. After every section of text, Selznick tells part of the story with a series of pictures. Consequently, the book is physically huge, but that just makes elementary school children love it all the more. Mom has already read this one and commented, "it was good. I'm going to try to get Dad to read it, too. It would make a good movie (I'm sure the author hopes someone in Hollywood thinks so, too)." Actually, one of the reasons Selznick chose to write/illustrate his book the way he did was because he was thinking of it as a movie, and the "cinematic novel" format, as some have called it, fits the book's theme perfectly. My fondest hope is that it will not be made into a movie, but that's just because I want kids to read it.
  

• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan - This is the first book in a series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians which has been quite popular with upper elementary and middle grades readers. After reading it, I can see why. Even the snippet I read to my children at school this year had them on the edges of their seats. When I stopped reading, they protested, which was music to my ears of course.
  

• The Road to Paris by Nikki Grimes - I try to read the Coretta Scott King books each year, and that's why I picked up this one. Nikki Grimes is better known as a poet than as a novelist, but her style carried over well I thought. This is a short and poignant read about a girl named Paris who struggles to figure her life out in the midst of a horrible family situation and subsequent foster care. At my school, we have a large population of foster children, and when I shared this book with classes, the foster children in the room showed a great deal of interest in reading a book about someone like themselves. The best part about the book is that although some of the situations are dismal at best, the overall tone is hopeful, and I loved the ending.
  

• Rules by Cynthia Lord - You should click the link just to look at the cover, which is the best book cover I think I may ever have seen. Kids want to read this book before I even tell them about it because the cover pulls them in. And the book doesn't disappoint. It's a compelling story about a girl who has a brother with autism and a lot of questions about how her life should look.

How about you? Any summer reading recommendations? Does anything in the list look intriguing to you for this summer? Or perhaps you've already read one (or several)? Leave comments, and happy reading!

Another Productivity and Organization Blog? But why?

Welcome to my new blogging home, known as Library Pendragon. My cute name comes largely from a children's book by Carmen Agra Deedy called The Library Dragon. In the book, a school librarian, Miss Lotta Scales, guards the books in the library fiercely: "She kept a fiery eye out to make sure no one removed any books from the shelves.... The very thought of sticky little fingers touching and clutching, pawing and clawing, smearing and tearing her precious books just made her hot under the collar." But in the end, the Library Dragon learns that being a librarian is not about protecting the books, but about sharing them with children.

In that vein, the purpose of my blog here is to talk about how to run libraries and homes in such a way that they can be used, since that is the purpose for which they are designed. As a rather typical librarian, I have a special place in my heart for organized spaces. However, the most beautifully organized space is completely obsolete if it can't be used for its intended purpose. Both in my library and in my home, I strive to make my space user-friendly, organized, and efficient. And I'm pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.

This summer, I have really enjoyed getting into blog reading (about 5 years later than the rest of the world), and I have discovered an abundance of blogs covering the topics of organization and productivity. A few of my favorites of these are listed at the end of this post. So, how will my contribution to this arena be unique? In all honesty, it may not be, but until Unclutterer decides to hire me, I need a place to throw my two cents in too.

So, whether you are a friend of mine who would read my blog even if it was about photosynthesis of the deciduous flora of Outer Mongolia, or you are someone I haven't met who has a sick obsession with organization and productivity, welcome.

Here are my ideas for upcoming posts. Leave me some suggestions of posts you'd like to see:

• review of (crappy) Mint.com on-line budgeting tool
• thoughts on our vegetable and herb garden
• the messy/clean debacle of mismatched mates and how to make it work
• house cleaning schedule that won't make you cry or display avoidance behavior such as sitting in front of the TV eating chocolate
• my current project: DVD consolidation and organization
• efficient, effective, and stinkin cool library/school administration using Google products
• my new and improved laundry room, even without stacking units, thank you very much
• the spice cabinet wave of the future
• minimalism for productivity and organization
  

And as promised, here are some of my favorite blogs on organization and productivity:

• Unclutterer
• Real Simple: Home & Organizing Blog
• Simple Productivity Blog
  
• LauraEarnest.com