The Curved Path

Let's say you have recently, as in three days ago, completed your masters degree in library science after one-point-five fast-paced yet laborious years.

And let's say you are about to become the children's librarian at a well-loved, well-funded urban neighborhood library.

And let us also imagine that you are realizing how little you actually know about children's literature, even though you like it in general. (Let us say, in fact, that you are far more well-versed in teenage vampire fiction than is healthy for any person, but especially for someone who needs to recommend books to people under four feet tall.)

Meanwhile, let's imagine that you have always wanted to read all the Newbery Medal-winning books for children, dating back to 1922, fully realizing that some of them might be dull.

And let's say you have recently been obsessed with Jezebel.com's trip down memory lane into juvenile fiction of the 1980s.

Also, you are addicted to serial YouTube collaborations by nerdy literate people.

Let's say you're considering joining their ranks and vlogging through the Newberys, two at a time, one from the recent past, one from the distant past. There would be field trips to your library's incredible Children's Literature collection, and possibly interviews with children you have wrangled into reading these books with you. Not to mention humor.

Would you be crazy?

Would you have collaborators, and who would they be?

And what would you call such an endeavor?

(FYI, Newbery Project is already taken. Newbery Experiment is a bit too clinical. Newbery Pie is too cutesy, although I am not averse to puns. I mean, YOU are not averse to puns. All hypothetical.)

Posted by kebojo at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In libraries, adult reference work is very different from services to children. I generally prefer the latter, because the clientele is cuter and more huggable. But I've discovered that grown-ups are just as likely as kids to provide me with some memorable, entertaining dialogue.

Here are a few of my favorites since I've begun working at my current library (very different from the one I chronicled in Day in the Life):

> From my gaggle of harmless but nevertheless creepy stalkers, mostly white, male senior citizens who wander over from the McDonalds next door after breakfast: "Where do you go to school? ... Oh, that's the bad girls school." Also, "What do you think of Britney Spears? You're about her age, right?"

> On an author whom the patron had seen interviewed on television: "I can't remember his name. He's from San Francisco and he's gay. He didn't look gay, though. He just looked like a regular person."

> When I presented a very proper woman in her 80s with yesterday's newspaper, which we didn't have and which I'd run down the street to purchase: "Oh my! Such service! I feel like Mrs. Clinton!"

Posted by kebojo at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Note: I started writing this entry in dribs and drabs a few weeks ago, jotting down small moments and bits of dialogue as they occurred. At the time, I was working at a library a few blocks from my house. I was transferred to another library in a different neighborhood very suddenly, so the following no longer reflects the reality of my daily routine. But it was an important period that I'd like to remember, especially career-wise, so that's why I'm posting it even though it's outdated. I plan to follow up with some information about my new job in a few days.]

It's been said about blogging that nobody cares what you had for lunch, but I'm not always sure that's true. I'm out of touch with so many of you, and I'm in a place and career so different from what I've done in the past, that I feel like I owe it to you to catch you up. I mean, I have a cat, for God's sake.

It's not that my life is terribly interesting. The routine rarely varies, restricted as it is by my school responsibilities and the fact that, the older I get, the more I crave small rituals. I do wish I had more time to be spontaneous with friends, to explore my neighborhood without an agenda, to work on a sewing project that I haven't touched in a year, or to go see a movie with my husband and not worry about unfinished homework.

But we do all right. Things have improved vastly now that we have actual friends, people who live a few blocks away, who we can call on relatively short notice to make dinner or go to the pub or take a hike. Since we moved to Philadelphia, and especially since we bought our house, we have a constant stream of out of town visitors and overnight guests, which we love. It forces us to get out into the city, to alter our routine in a way that's healthy. (Incidentally, if you haven't come to stay with us yet, you should.)

But usually, here's what it looks like. A handful of impressions from my daily routine. And for those of you curious what children's librarians actually do ... this is it.

7:30am - Alarm goes off. My husband gets out of bed. The cat resettles next to my head, purring like a machine. We both fall back to sleep.

7:50am - Nathan sits down on the bed to put on his socks and shoes, jostling me and the cat. Then he leans over till he's laying across the bed and into my face. Kisses. Goodbye. Be careful. I love you.

8am - I manage to put my feet on the floor, then shower, dress, primp half-assedly, and find something portable to eat. Most days, I wear jeans, a colorful top, and interesting earrings. I am partial to Nutri-Grain bars.

8:30am - I walk down the street, greeting neighbors who haven't yet departed for work. At the corner, I turn left to get a coffee at the Urban Cafe, a local joint renowned for its gruff but kind owner Tom and its made-to-order menu. Recently, the cafe had a bad electrical fire, so until they rebuild, I'm stuck with the Dunkin' Donuts further up the block.

8:45am - After a five minute walk east, I'm at work. I will probably never have a commute this easy again, so I try to be thankful for it every morning. As I round the corner to the library's back entrance, an older guy who hangs out by the bus stop greets me. We have this exchange almost every day. He tells me that I dropped a piece of his heart, I roll my eyes, and we both smile.

Inside the building, I say hi to the ladies in the circulation department. My favorite security guard waves and spouts his usual greeting, "Hey, it's Cool Kate!" He asks if I remembered to see about jobs at my husband's social service agency for his friend. I forgot, of course, and apologize.

9am - My co-workers in the children's department have trickled in, and we assemble in the basement workroom. We shoot the shit for awhile, neighborhood gossip and television shows. My supervisor describes the dressing-down she gave a woman in another branch who spoke rudely to her, intimating that she knows this woman used to do cocaine and could ruin her. I decide once again never to get on her bad side.

Down to business: we look at the schedule to see which day cares and school groups are coming in for storytimes. Usually there are three storytimes for a variety of age groups. We each take one, but some are more desirable than others. Certain elementary school classes are better behaved, while some of the day care kids can't keep their eyes open or act like they've never sung "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" before. Maybe they haven't.

9:30am - I get the 11 o'clock group, so I take my time checking my email. Then I look at my collection of picture books and try to match up a relevant theme with the age group. This morning I have 3-5 year olds, my favorites. They're old enough to be comfortable doing group activities, but still young enough to be game for anything. I decide on Crazy Pets, a storytime I could do in my sleep by now.

I have time, so I start looking for other books, songs, and rhymes to do with a kindergarten group later in the week. Slowly a theme emerges: Crazy Food. I guess I'm into Crazy lately. I'm excited because I'll get to teach the kids one of my favorite camp songs, "Fried Ham."

11:10am - The day care kids file down the stairs in their brightly colored and hilariously bulky winter attire. The teachers wave, and the kids greet me too. Somewhere along the way they have gotten the idea that my name is Miss Cake. Kate is foreign to them, but cake is a known quantity. I like to think of Miss Cake as my fabulous children's librarian alter ego.

11:20am - After I finish reading Please, Puppy, Please by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee, which has great illustrations and a catchy rhythm, half a dozen kids shriek, "READ IT AGAIN!" This is the highlight of my day.

11:40am - We sing our last song, "Down By the Bay," and then I read Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, which the kids can participate in. They all scream in mock horror and total delight when we find the bear in the cave. Sometimes I feel guilty because I am getting paid good money to do something so fun.

11:45am - The kids are out on the library floor, sitting at knee-high tables and flipping through books. Most of these children can't read yet, but that doesn't stop them from making up the story as they go along (an important pre-literacy skill).

Today a little girl with braids and plastic barrettes that go clack-clack-clack wants to "read" to me. She licks her finger carefully before turning every page. This is how I know she's being read to at home, because the affectation is clearly an imitation of someone else, her grandmother, maybe. I see another kid sitting in the corner, holding up a picture book the way I do during storytime, reading to a collection of bedraggled stuffed animals she has seated on a bench. This is the other best part of my day.

12pm - I walk home for lunch. I wash my hands twice before I prepare my food; kid germs are killer, and my hands always feel coated by this time of the day. The cat sits on my lap while I eat reheated red beans and rice and surf mindlessly on Facebook or read a book for class.

1pm - I retrieve our newly processed books from the shelf in circ and roll them downstairs on a cart. They're all shiny and tight in their cellophane covers, but the children will destroy them soon enough, as they should. I'm glad to see that we finally got a new book on AIDS. Some kid asked for stuff last week and the two books we had were from the eighties.

I settle at the front desk with my cart and start applying genre labels to the new book spines - fantasy, historical fiction, African American. I'm interrupted every few minutes by the phone, a question from a co-worker, the arrival of a group of students for our late-afternoon storytime, a request for a book with science experiments from a parent.

Queen, a teenager from the homeless shelter around the corner, drops in to see if she can use the piano in the meeting room. Word has spread that we let kids fiddle around on it when nobody's using the room. I don't know why piano is suddenly all the rage, but we get at least three teenagers a day who want to pound the keys. Queen puts on headphones while she plays by ear, and we're treated to a very serviceable medley of Alicia Keys and "Heart and Soul."

3:30pm - School's out, and the children's room is in full swing. Our after-school assistants help kids with their homework and do the general wrangling required to keep 50 kids under the age of 12 from causing total destruction. In the meantime, I answer reference questions and enjoy their company.

My Rastababy, a six-year-old with dreds stuffed into a hat, hovers around the desk. He needs ideas on how he can raise two dollars to replace the library card he's lost for the millionth time. He is smacking his gum loudly, and my supervisor tells him it's disgusting, that it looks like he's chewing a monkey's head. He looks deeply offended and says that he's a vegetarian. Then he swallows the gum and bounces away doing Soulja Boy moves.

Miles, inspired by a classroom assignment about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., asks me what religion I am. I pause, unsure how to answer, and tell him I'm unaffiliated. That seems to satisfy him, even though I doubt he knows what the word means. I spend the rest of the afternoon wondering why I didn't say I was a Christian.

A middle-aged women with a New York accent asks me if I've seen her son, "the white kid." I point. He's the only one down here.

A shy boy I haven't seen before is looking for science fiction, "the outer space kind." He's read everything I hand him. Finally I retrieve a dog-eared paperback copy of Ender's Game from the teen department. He looks awed when I hand it to him. "Oh, I've heard about this," he whispers reverently. I crack up internally. Future nerdfighter.

Tiffany comes in, looking bored and too sophisticated for a fifth-grader, her lips shiny with pink gloss. She has to do a report on which presidential candidate she would vote in 2008, but she doesn't know anything about them. "And I don't care," she announces. "This stuff dumb." I can't say I disagree, Tiff. I start looking for a kid-friendly guide that lays out all the positions by candidate, but have no luck, so I ask Tiffany a few questions about election issues. When we get to the war, she suddenly lights up like I've brought up a new Hannah Montana episode. "That war CRAZY," she proclaims, working her neck. "I will vote for someone who can do something about that war." She eventually settles on Barack Obama. I am secretly pleased.

5pm - Closing time. I say goodbye to everybody and walk home in the gathering twilight. The Jones kids, who are at the library everyday after school, yell to me from the corner where they're waiting for their mom to pick them up. "See you tomorrow, Miss Cake!"

Nathan is already home when I arrive, working on a project in the basement. Today it's racking his latest batch of wine (cabernet sauvignon), tomorrow it might be installing a utility sink or soldering something just for kicks. All of these things improve his happiness quotient by about a bazillion.

I hang out with him downstairs for awhile, then sit down in the living room with my laptop and surf mindlessly for a few minutes. Finally I can put it off no longer, and get to work on a paper that's due for my management class. Procrastination is less of an option now that I'm working full time and taking three classes.

7pm - We have a standing dinner date with our friends Matt and Lisa once a week. We trade off weeks hosting and cooking, then watch LOST together after we eat and chat. Tonight we pick up a bottle of wine at the state store and head down to their place for the most amazing butternut squash risotto I've ever tasted.

9pm - LOST is actually pretty good this season. We drink tea and gasp at all the right places and speculate during the commercial breaks. Lisa guesses correctly about the revelation in the episode's last moments. Props, girl, because I did not see that coming.

10:30pm - I'm in bed, reading myself to sleep with my latest book club pick. The cat is curled up on my feet and Nathan is brushing his teeth in the bathroom, doing his usual humorous Tourette's-like nonsense-squawking routine.

It's a little life, but it's mine.

Posted by kebojo at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Over the past few years, the Harry Potter phenomenon has made it kosher for responsible adults to carry around literature intended for kids. And not only to be seen reading children’s books in public—to obsess over them. Grown people don’t hesitate to discuss the finer points of quidditch on electronic discussion boards, compose songs about wizardry as an intelligent career move, or dress up as teenaged sorcerers in anticipation of each new book’s release.

All this is quite a relief to me, personally. Although I read a lot of fiction intended for adults, I have failed to abandon—and, in fact, often prefer—the types of books I read in high school. These days I have a bonafide professional reason for it: I’m four credits away from becoming a public librarian, and public librarians need to know What The Kids Are Into. But that aside, I don’t think I could give up the world of young adult fiction anyway. It’s too fun, too morbidly humiliating and exhilarating, too emotionally complex—and, these days, too well-written...

>> Read more about my Top Ten Young Adult Books for Grown-Ups at catapult magazine.

>> Revisit your favorite teen lit of yore - including the witch-tastic Summer of Fear by Lois Duncan - at Jezebel's Fine Lines reviews.

Posted by kebojo at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Okay, so I know reference questions don't belong on catalog cards. But I couldn't resist the combination of blyberg.net's Catalog Card Generator and the wonderful, crazy things people call the library to ask.

Did you know, by the way, that people still call the library to find out random bits of information? I encourage you to do the same. Google works just fine for run-of-the-mill telephone listing inquiries, but I recommend librarians for the real ephemera. It gives us something interesting and useful to do in between transferring phone lines and pointing the way to the restroom and income tax forms. More significantly, it delights and amuses us to no end.

Posted by kebojo at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yesterday, as I went to retrieve my coat at the end of my shift, I noticed a young woman standing smack in the middle of the library's main staircase. She looked like many of my peers who come into the main branch, a hip Philadelphian with a wool hat and funky glasses. But this one caught my eye, because she was poised with a digital recorder in one hand, a microphone held perfectly still in the other.

I'm a public radio junkie with unrealized broadcasting dreams, so I knew immediately she must be from a local station, or maybe an Annenberg School student working on a project. But why she was recording what she was recording - the chimes that mark the library's close of business - I couldn't imagine.

Nor did I realize I would find out the answer so soon. But a friend called me this evening to exclaim that she'd just heard a short piece about the library on NPR, part of an "audio postcard" series meant to focus the listener's attention on a specific moment in a particular place characterized by a unique sound.

Past postcards have come from the National Hollerin' Contest and the Iowa City dog paddle. Today's came from the reverberating atriums of one of the nation's historic free public libraries. In it, the head security guard explains why they continue to use old-fashioned chimes to scoot patrons towards the door at day's end - and, as always, he gives as fine a performance as one can while striking four notes with a wooden mallet. In an institution sometimes mired in bureaucracy and red tape, as government agencies so often are, I am thankful for this humanizing tradition, and I hope that our patrons are, too.

A final note: at the very end of the piece, if you bend your ear close to the speaker, you can just hear the heels of my boots clacking up the marble staircase. Or so I'd like to think, anyway.

Audio postcard: The Bells of Philadelphia

Posted by kebojo at 7:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)