52 Ways to Use Your Library Card: Week Nine

Week Nine: Get Your Work Published
Do you like to write and want to get your work published? Or do you have ideas you want to put on paper? If so, this is an opportunity to take advantage of free resources and programs at the library. 

How to Get Your Writing Published

This Thursday at 1:00 p.m., the Main library will be having Cheryl Pallant, writing coach, journalist, poet and nonfiction writer and professor. She will provide steps on how to get your work from idea to print or electronic publication.


More information about Ms.Pallant can be found at her website: http://cherylpallant.com/





Finding books for writers in the Library's Collection

The library's collection is a great "free" source for those who are interested in writing and getting their work published. Here are some books to name a few.

This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosley

The ASJA guide to freelance writing : a professional guide to the business, for nonfiction writers of all experience levels by Timothy Harper, editor

The Marshall Plan for Getting Your Novel Published by Evan Marshall

The elements of story : field notes on nonfiction writing by Francis Flaherty

Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

The plot thickens : 8 ways to bring fiction to life by Noah Lukeman

For Young Writers

Just Write: Here's How! by Walter Dean Myers

















Spilling ink : a young writer's handbook by Anne Mazer

Readers Talk: an interview with a "gluttonous over-reader"

Welcome to the first of what I hope will be a regular feature of my What Are You Reading? blog posts:  interviews with readers who are passionate about reading and who exercise that passion at RPL.  My first victim, er . . "subject", is Tonya Tyler, who works (and reads) at our Belmont branch.

Every minute counts. Let's hope she doesn't
 try this while driving!

OK, we’ll start with an easy one – what are you reading now?

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
Animal by K’wan
The Red Chamber by Pauline A. Chen

And what’s on your must-read-soon list?

This time of year I gravitate towards a twofer - a tome so thick (size over erudition) it can double as a door cozy or a cure for insomnia. I chose Stephen King’s 11/23/64 last year and saved at least 50 bucks on my heating bill.  I have my eye on Ken Follett’s Winter of the World for this year, but first I have to finish Fall of Giants by no later than Thanksgiving.

How do you decide what books go on your list?

I fancy the Dim Sum approach to book selection. I like to keep things "debut, wild card and blue." I take a seat at Chez Amazon.com with my chopsticks and pick a little of this, a little of that from their “also bought” offerings, which are listed in constant rotation.

You once referred to your “literary greed.”  Great phrase – what do you mean by it?

Great phrase, but perhaps not so appealing in translation. I am a literary Augustus Gloop - a gluttonous over-reader.  I keep at least 8 books at bed-side and 2 in my hobo bag (fashionable euphemism for packrat sack) at all times. I rotate consuming about 4 books simultaneously and downgrade communicatively to finger points, grunts, and not-yet satiated moans when my "mouth is full."

What’s the last book you read (good or bad) that you absolutely had to tell EVERYONE about?  

Land of the Painted Caves by Jean Auel *massive cringe* I didn't think anything could ever top the human misery of soldiering through child labor without an epidural or "The Blair Witch Project." I was wrong.  I was SO wrong.  

Any genre that you WON”T read? 

Sci-fi. I go places "no man has ever gone before" every time I look at my school loan statement.

  

Any guilty pleasures?

I don't feel guilt about anything I've chosen to read. What I may eat is another story entirely...

Do you belong to a book club?

No. I talk books with others so much during the day that when I am finally alone with one, I want it all to myself. 

  

What author would you stand in line in the rain to meet?

J. California Cooper.

You have children – do they like to read, too? Any tips for instilling that love of reading?

Yes they do, though, unlike me at their age, it's been more about cultivating the appetite than feeding the beast(s.) The best tip I can give for instilling the love of reading in your child is to read to them as babies, and with them as they mature. You can find out a great deal about your child through their 'free-range' readership. 

Fifty Shade of Grey??

Makes a case for libricide, and also acts as a deterrent (once run through a paper shredder of course) for squirrels hell-bent on destroying your prized winter pansies and mums.

Thanks, Tonya, for baring your literary soul!

If you would like to share your reading habits, tastes, and adventures, please email me at Ellen.Wolf@Richmondgov.com

52 Ways to Use Your Library Card: Week Eight

Week Eight: Learn from different cultures.

This week we are returning with our popular program at Main, Diversity, Discussion, and Dessert. We want you all to join us this Tuesday as international students from VCU share presentations about their cultures and countries. Thanks to your participation in this program, students will have the opportunity to practice their conversational English while you learn from them. The program starts at 1:15 p.m. on October 23, 2012. 

Want to learn a different language?

If you are interested in learning a different language, we have Mango Languages, an online database where people can learn Spanish, French, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Mandarin Chinese, Greek, Italian and more.This resource is one of our Online Databases on the Richmond Public Library website. Mango is free with your library card.

Tween and Teen Reads with Natasha

Halloween is creeping around the corner and we have some good Halloween reads for you. From new to classic and from creepy to funny -- you decide. Even though Teen Read Week is almost over, this is still a perfect opportunity to take a look at some of these titles. 

Teens

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake 
Cas Lowood has a special gift: he kills the dead. He inherited this gift from his father, who was gruesomely executed by a ghost whom he was trying to kill. Now Cas is carrying on where his father left off, along with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit sniffing cat. 

They arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood. She was brutally murdered in 1958 and she still wears the white dress she died in.  This ghost is not your ordinary ghost and Cas has never experienced anything like her before. She is a dangerous ghost who is possessed by rage and will kill anyone who dares to step into the abandoned Victorian place she calls home, except for Cas.

Expect to see in our collection soon the sequel, Girl of Nightmares.

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff 

In the small town of Gentry, there is a sixteen-year-old boy named Mackie Doyle. He is known as a Replacement, a fairy child who replaced a human child when he was just an infant. His adopted parents know what he is as well, but no one talks about it. He wants to fit in, but he is slowly dying in the human world. He becomes interested in a girl named Tate. When Tate's baby sister goes missing, it is up to Mackie to save the young girl by going to the place where he truly belongs, the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem. This is a place where a tattooed princess rules over living dead girls. He must face the creatures in the underground world and find out where he truly belongs.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Check out my previous mentions of the book here: Tween and Teen Reads with Natasha, June 28th.

Tweens

Prince of Dorkness: More Notes from a Totally Lame Vampire by Tim Collins 
If you like the Diary of the Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney, you may like this book. 
Nigel Mullet has new found vampire abilities and he is finally happy and popular in school. He has a girlfriend named Chloe, but a new guy, Jason, ends up stealing Chloe from Nigel and that is when everything goes downhill. Nigel is bullied by his little sister and is losing his popularity at school. Desperate, Nigel decides to spy on Jason and follows him into the woods one day. He finds out a horrifying secret about Jason: he and his family are werewolves!
Will this secret help him win Chloe back or just make him even more lame? 
This book is the sequel to Notes from a totally lame vampire : because the undead have feelings too!. 

Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury 
In this timeless 1962 classic, a mysterious carnival arrives in a Midwestern town. Everything seems normal at first; there are many attractions, rides, mazes and sideshow tents. But soon people start disappearing and thirteen year old James Nightshade and William Halloway are suspicious of the carnival owner, Mr.Dark. No one will listen to the two boys when weird things continue to happen. The only person who believes them is William's father, a janitor at the local library. Will James and William be able to save the rest of the people in the town?


For more classic Halloween reads, read The Halloween Tree and by Ray Bradbury.

The Graveyard Book  by Neil Gaiman

A lonesome baby is the only survivor after a gruesome attack on his family. Left alone, the toddler leaves the house and ends up in a graveyard where ghosts find him.The ghosts, the Owens, decide to keep him and he is known as "Nobody Owens."
Soon the toddler grows up and the story revolves around him as he befriends a girl named Scarlett Perkins and convinces her mother that he is an imaginary friend.

Nobody Owens does not realize he is in danger: the man who killed his family is coming after him.

Closed for the Season : A Mystery Story by Mary Downing Hahn
Logan, a thirteen year-old boy, and his family move into a rundown old house in rural Virginia where a woman was murdered years ago. Logan eventually befriends his neighbor Arthur and they begin to investigate what happened so long ago in that house. During their quest, they make some dangerous discoveries that put their lives in danger. Will the two make it out alive?

 

Ah, the joys of parenting. Where to begin?

Let's start with:

Why have kids? : a new mom explores the truth about parenting and happiness / Jessica Valenti.	Happier at home : kiss more, jump more, abandon a project, read Samuel Johnson, and my other experiments in the practice of everyday life / Gretchen Rubin.	Teach your children well : parenting for authentic success / Madeline Levine.
No regrets parenting : turning long days and short years into cherished moments with your kids / Harley A. Rotbart.	The happiest baby guide to great sleep : simple solutions for kids from birth to 5 years / Harvey Karp.	How to talk so kids will listen & listen so kids will talk / Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish ; illustrations by Kimberly Ann Coe.
You can't make me (but I can be persuaded) : strategies for bringing out the best in your strong-willed child / Cynthia Ulrich Tobias.	Welcome to your child's brain : how the mind grows from conception to college / Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang ; foreword by Ellen Galinsky.	You, raising your child : the owner's manual from first breath to first grade / Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz.
The blessing of a B minus : using Jewish teachings to raise resilient teenagers / Wendy Mogel.	The big book of parenting solutions : 101 answers to your everyday challenges and wildest worries / Michele Borba.	The way of boys : raising healthy boys in a challenging and complex world / Anthony Rao and Michelle Seaton.
Toddler 411 : clear answers & smart advice for your toddler / Denise Fields and Ari Brown.	The Lolita effect : the media sexualization of young girls and what we can do about it / M. Gigi Durham.	Ask supernanny : what every parent wants to know / Jo Frost.

52 Ways to Use Your Library Card: Week Seven

Week Seven: Celebrate Teens and Young Adult books
during Teen Read Week!

Richmond Public Library will celebrate Teen Read Week™ (October 14-20, 2012) with special events and programs aimed at encouraging area teens to read for the fun of it. Thousands of libraries, schools and bookstore across the country will hold similar events centered on this year’s theme, It Came from the Library, which dares teens to read for the fun of it!

Teen Read Week is a time to celebrate reading for fun and encourage teens to take advantage of reading in all its forms —books and magazines, e-books, audiobooks and more — and become regular library users. It is the national adolescent literacy initiative of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association.

To celebrate we have several activities for tweens and teens during the week at different branches!

Are library fines getting you down? Have no fear, the 2nd Annual Teen Read Week Fine Read Off is here! Teens between the ages of 12 and 18, come into any library during Teen Read Week (Oct 14-20, 2012), read in the library and pay off your overdue book fines! Just stop by the Circulation Desk to register. (The Read Off only applies to overdue fines, and not lost or damaged items.)

Drop by any branch to register for the Cheap Date Raffle! You could be one of several winners of two (2) Byrd Theatre passes and two (2) drink coupons! (All winners will be drawn Saturday, October 20th at 4pm.)

But that's not all! There are movies and book discussions and TAGs, oh my!

Here is the schedule for the Teen Read Week Activities:

Movies @ Main in the Children's Activity Room from 4:15 to 6pm
The Woman in Black (PG-13), Monday, October 15th
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (PG-13), Wednesday, October 17th
Red Riding Hood (PG-13), Friday, October 19th

Teen Advisory Group @ Main, TAG your it! TAG is open to any teens who want to share ideas. Meeting Room C, Saturday, October 20th, 3pm at Main.

DTLR Book Club @ East End Free books, free pizza, free conversation. Call 646-4474 for details. Tuesday, October 16th, 5pm at East End.

Hunger Games @ North Avenue Read the book, watch the movie! Call 646-6675 for details, free copies of the Hunger Games are available now!
Book Discussion Thursday, October 18th at 4:30pm
Movie Matinee Saturday, October 20th at 2pm



Read. This. Book.

The last time I was this excited about a novel was in 2009, when I gave Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin a rare three-star rating in my reading journal.  Since it went on to win both the National Book and IMPAC Dublin Awards, I think my early call was a good one.  Here’s this year’s: Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon, will win either the Pulitzer or the National Book Award, or both.

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000), Chabon used the golden age of comics as the framework for his story of Sammy Clay and Joe Kavalier, Jewish cousins in New York City and Hollywood in the years around World War II.  Although it’s set mostly in 2004, Telegraph Avenue conjures the golden age of the recording industry. The music of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s provides the soundtrack for the trials and travails of Archy and Nat, co-owners of a classic vinyl record store in Oakland, California, whose livelihood is threatened by the impending construction of a music mega-mall in the neighborhood. Their wives are also partners, midwives whose practice is facing its own existential crisis. Their sons are bound by different ties, as they grapple with the angst of adolescence and uncertain identity. I hate reviews that tell me too much of the plot, so I’m not going to reveal any more. (For those of you who want to know more ahead of time, read New York Times reviewer, Michiko Kakutani.)  Fun for local readers is a subtle Richmond connection - watch for mentions of Shockoe Bottom and the Times-Dispatch.

Michael Chabon

The plot is engaging, the characters sympathetic and fully developed; but it is Chabon’s writing that makes it impossible to put this book down, brings smiles with every page, and sets Telegraph Avenue apart from every other book I’ve read this year.  I played a game with a fellow reader: open to any page, point, and at your fingertips is a sentence worth reading aloud.  A favorite passage, which describes the attendees at a neighborhood meeting:

Shoshana Zucker, who used to be the director of Julie’s nursery school, a chemotherapy shmatte on her head; Claude Rapf the urban planner, who lived on a hill above the Caldecott Tunnel in a house shaped like a flying saucer…; a skinny, lank-haired Fu Manchued dude later revealed with a flourish to be Professor Presto Digitation, the magician…; two of the aging Juddhists who had recently opened a meditation center called Neshama…; that freaky Emmet Kelly—as Gloria Swanson—impersonator lady from the apartment over the Self-Laundry, holding her Skye terrier; Amre White, godson of Jim Jones, now the pastor of a rescue mission…; a city of Berkeley arborist…; that Stephen Hawking guy who was not Stephen Hawking; the lady who owned the new-wave knitting store…; a noted UC Berkeley scholar of Altaic languages…carrying on his right shoulder without acknowledgment and for unspoken reasons a ripe banana…; Sandy the dog trainer….

Without the ellipses, the paragraph spans an entire page and describes at least twenty of the neighborhood's denizens in sparkling snapshots, complete portraits between semicolons.  More than a passage, it is a journey through a neighborhood whose inhabitants each have a story that Chabon has yet to tell.

His prose delights in smaller bits as well:
"From the lowest limb of a Meyer lemon, a wind chime searched without urgency for a melody to play."

"Walter broke off a piece of a smile and tucked it in his left cheek as if reserving it for future use."

"And then, as if the line that hooked it had been snagged for all these years on some deep arm of coral, an afternoon bobbed to the surface of his memory....Archie took hold of the line with both hands and hauled up the afternoon, streaming years like water."

It doesn't get much better than that.

Banned Books Quiz (a week late, but too good to waste)

Clay Dishon, Library Community Services Manager at RPL's Westover Hills branch, created this challenging quiz for Banned Books Week.  Although the week is over, we think it deserves a spot on the blog.  How many can you answer?

1.  On January 14, 1920, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice presented publisher Robert M. McBride with a warrant “calling for the seizure of all plates, copies, and sheets” of a novel written by Richmond author James Branch Cabell.  What was the title of this novel?

a. The Line of Love

b. The High Place

c. The Cream of the Jest

d. Jurgen:  A Comedy of Justice

e. The Soul of Melicent

2.  This dramatist, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, once said that “censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and always will be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.”  (Hint:  The original production of All God’s Chillun Got Wings received a bomb threat).  

a. Tennessee Williams

b. John Millington Synge

c. Maria Irene Fornes

d. August Strindberg

e. Eugene O’Neill

3.  Guy Montag is the main protagonist in this author’s 1953 novel.

a. Pearl S. Buck

b. John Steinbeck

c. Ray Bradbury

d. Daphne du Maurier

e. Richard Wright

 

4.  Four Wisconsin men belonging to the Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) sought $30,000 each for “emotional distress” they suffered from the West Bend, Wis. Community Memorial Library (2009) for displaying a copy of this book by Francesca Lia Block.

a. Baby Be-Bop

b. Girl Goddess #9

c. Weetzie Bat

d. Pink Smog

e. Ecstasia

5.  This novel by Stephen Chbosky was removed from Portage, Indiana high school classrooms in 2008 for topics such as homosexuality, drug use, and sexual behavior.  (Hint:  Its usage was also restricted in Roanoke, Virginia at William Byrd and Hidden Valley high schools.)

 a. An Abundance of Katherines

 b. Boy Meets Boy

 c. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 d. ttyl

 e. Rubyfruit Jungle

Clay says, "All of the books listed for question 1 are actually James Branch Cabell books. All of the authors listed for question 3 actually had books on the NY Times Bestseller list during 1953, and all of the choices for question 4 are actually books by Francesca Lia Block."

Answers: 1. d. 2. e. 3. c. 4. a. 5. c.

Do you ever use the library's website?

If you do, we want to hear from you!

My name is Laura Buell and I am a volunteer at the main branch of the Richmond Public Library. I am doing a research project about the ways that people use the library’s webpage. We want to find out how the library can improve its website to better help those people who use it.

Here is a link to our survey:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGoyNFgzTE5RVEY5SW0tUURVbnJpVXc6MQ

Please post your response by Sunday at 6 pm.

Thank you for your participation!

52 Ways to Use Your Library Card: Week Six

Week Six: Get Homework Help.

The school year is back in full swing, which means projects, reports and homework! Lots and lots of homework.

A new school year also means the return of the Homework Help program to the Broad Rock and North Avenue branches. Every Monday-Thursday from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. come to either location and get free, hands-on assistance from a Certified Richmond Public School Teacher. Come prepared with your homework or research assignments. The program is open to all students, K-12. You do not have to be enrolled in a Richmond Public School to participate.



But that's not all! Check out our Online Databases for assistance with your research. Need to know both sides of an issue? Check out Opposing Viewpoints in Context! Writing a biography on a historical inventor? Look them up on Biography in Context. Don't forget about Find it Virginia ,which "offers a one-stop source for newspaper and periodical articles on a wide range of topics, as well as resources specifically tailored to help Elementary, Middle and High School students with research assignments." All of our databases can be accessed both inside and outside the library. All you need is to have your Richmond Public Library card number!

Of course, don't forget about asking your Librarian, the ultimate search engine, for help!

Banned Books Week: Sept. 30−Oct. 6, 2012

Banned Books Week celebrates our freedom to read and draws national attention to the harms of censorship.  Listen to readers from across the country and around the world celebrate banned books at the Banned Books Virtual Read-Out.
Over the years, some of the most highly acclaimed and award winning classics in literature have been repeatedly challenged, such as, The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, The Color Purple, Beloved, The Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, Catch-22, Animal Farm, Slaughterhouse-Five, A Farewell to Arms, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Song of Solomon, and  Native Son.
This from President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the Dartmouth College commencement address on June 14, 1953:

"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship." 

Out of the 326 challenges reported by the American Library's Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom in 2011, the top ten were:

1. ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
2. The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
3. The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
4. My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
5. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
6. Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
7. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
8. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
9. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar 
10. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Read a banned book today!