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Posts Tagged ‘books’

Books for Kids in Laos

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

My husband and I like Colin Cotterill’s quirky mystery books about Dr. Siri Palboun of Laos. The series starts with The Coroner’s Lunch, in case you are interested.

Cotterill has been involved in several worthy causes in Laos, including one addressing the abysmal lack of children’s books in the country. You can read how he got started on his quest for children’s books, here. That work is now handled by Sasha Alyson at Big Brother Mouse, who writes:

“Do you remember the excitement of rushing home to read a book that you hoped would never end? Many Lao children have no such memories, because they’ve never seen a book that was fun or exciting to read. Some have shared textbooks; others have never seen a book at all. We sometimes have to explain how books work: ‘Look, if you turn the page, there’s more!’ ”

Big Brother Mouse is a “Lao-based, Lao-owned project.” More.

Cotterill also works with http://www.copelaos.org to help victims of land mines left over from the CIA’s “secret war.”

And, pointing out that more than 75 percent of children in the far north of Laos have no schools, Cotterill funds efforts to get hill tribe students into teachers colleges. More.

Art: Colin Cotterill at http://www.colincotterill.com

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Mini Library Comes to Cambridge

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

A Little Free Library has come to Cambridge.

Writes Jan Gardner at the Sunday Globe, “About a block from the Cambridge Public Library, its Lilliputian cousin is perched atop a post on the sidewalk. At this Little Free Library, open since mid-October, there are no due dates, late fees, or library cards. Made out of recycled wood, it consists of a single shelf that holds about 20 books.

“The library’s founders are Laura Roberts and Ed Belove who put it in front of their house at 1715 Cambridge St. so they can keep an eye on it. …

“Sabrina Françon, a student at the nearby Harvard Graduate School of Design, sees the Little Free Library as an example of tactical urbanism, a trend she is studying. She wants to determine whether small playful citizen projects like the Little Free Library influence a neighborhood’s social capital.” Roberts reports to Françon what she sees from the window.

“The little library had its origins on Facebook. A friend of Roberts posted a message about Little Free Library, a nonprofit that started in Wisconsin three years ago. Founder Todd Bol built the first library in tribute to his late mother, a book lover.”

More from the Globe. You may also want to read my earlier post on the concept here. By the way, have you ever noticed that the Globe posts weekday articles fast, but Sunday Globe articles like this one may wait until Tuesday.

Photograph: Laura Roberts

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Denise Writes for Parents

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 30, 2012| 2 Comments »

When I worked with Denise at a certain hyped management magazine, I always knew she had better things in her than the tasks she was given there.

Moreover, she was the most sensible 25-year-old I had ever met. After moving on to better jobs, including writing for teens at Scholastic, she turned to the hardest and most important work in the world. And on the whole, it seems to suit her.

But nothing can stop the itch to write. Here she shares the joy and frustration of reading repetitive stories to book-hungry kids:

“Nothing brings me more joy than knowing how much my 5-year-old son, Isaiah, looks forward to sitting in our rocking chair while I read him books at bedtime. And my heart swells with love whenever my 2-year-old twins, Joel and Nina, bring me books and say, ‘Read book, please.’

“But, holy moly, I’ve run into a very serious problem. While Isaiah can enjoy a variety of different stories, the twins are all about sameness. Even though I rotate their books constantly so we’re not reading the same ones every week, the repetitiveness of reading these books is driving me crazy.

“I’m sure many parents are familiar with the rhythm and rhyme scheme of many children’s board books, ‘Bend and reach, touch your toes. Now stand up straight and touch your nose!’ Lately, I’ve been adding a few colorful rhymes in my head as I read these books to the twins. ‘Clap your hands, then point to your shoes, reading this book is driving me to booze!’ ” Read more.

(I admit I felt the same way about Richard Scarry. The pictures were darling, but the words, not so, even if I did let “five-seater pencil car” become part of my vocabulary.)

For a mom with twins, it is must be twice as much “bend, reach, touch your toes,” but for sure these kids will grow up to be readers.

This is Denise with one of her three book mavens.

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Fiction Changes Minds

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 8, 2012| 4 Comments »

I remember trying some years ago to persuade a certain lobster fisherman I know that fiction has value. A recent Boston Sunday Globe article has left me feeling validated.

Washington & Jefferson College’s Jonathan Gottschall writes, “Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape. But perhaps the most impressive finding is just how fiction shapes us: mainly for the better, not for the worse. Fiction enhances our ability to understand other people; it promotes a deep morality that cuts across religious and political creeds.”

Read more here.

As Dickens said in Hard Times, it’s important to make room for Queen Mab among all the hard facts.

 

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Libraries for the World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The other day John brought up the topic of Andrew Carnegie. Whatever else might be said about this 19th Century steel baron, you have to give him credit for putting so much of his fortune into philanthropy, especially libraries.

Today John Wood is carrying on that work in impoverished countries around the world. As Nicholas Kristof writes in the NY Times, “Wood’s charity, Room to Read, has opened 12,000 … libraries around the world, along with 1,500 schools. …

“He has opened nearly five times as many libraries as Carnegie, even if his are mostly single-room affairs that look nothing like the grand Carnegie libraries. Room to Read is one of America’s fastest-growing charities and is now opening new libraries at an astonishing clip of six a day. …

“He also runs Room to Read with an aggressive businesslike efficiency that he learned at Microsoft, attacking illiteracy as if it were Netscape. He tells supporters that they aren’t donating to charity but making an investment: Where can you get more bang for the buck than starting a library for $5,000? …

“ ‘In 20 years,’ Wood told me, ‘I’d like to have 100,000 libraries, reaching 50 million kids. Our 50-year goal is to reverse the notion that any child can be told “you were born in the wrong place at the wrong time and so you will not get educated.” ‘ ” Read more.

Photograph of John Wood: Room to Read

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World Book Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

March 1 is World Book Day. Who knew?

Alison Flood and Michael Bonnet write about the event in The Guardian: “Celebrated in over 100 countries around the world, World Book Day is the UK’s largest festival of reading and aims to encourage a lifelong love of literature in children. Thousands of schools and nurseries are joining in, with more than 14m book vouchers given out to children, and hundreds of events – from Where’s Wally ‘flash mobs’ to author talks and literary fancy dress competitions – taking place up and down the country.” Read more.

The World Book Day website says this is the event’s 15th year. “It’s a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading. In fact, it’s the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading.”

 

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Library in a Phone Booth

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Do you ever look at ArtsJournal? It has the best links!

Today there’s a fun link to the Post-Standard in Syracuse about a library in a phone booth.

Writes Maureen Nolan: “The Little Free Library credo is ‘take a book, leave a book.’ That’s pretty much the only rule. Every Little Free Library is supposed to have a volunteer community steward, and Mother Earth, whose given name is Taywana James, is a natural. She lives barely a block from the library. She is a mother, poet and artist involved in a number of projects to better the Near West Side, and she loves books.  …

“Rick Brooks, co-founder of the Little Free Library movement, estimates there are 300 to 400 little libraries in 33 states and 17 countries. He doesn’t know if most people bring books back. In the Little Free Library movement, the return rate doesn’t seem to be a critical data point.” More here on Little Free Libraries.

I am reminded of the Uni Project, which I blogged about here. It’s a portable reading room, first deployed in New York City last September.

One of the founders of the effort, Sam Davol (also a cellist in the band the Magnetic Fields), writes about the Uni Project here: “On Sunday, Sep. 11, the Uni was put into service for the first time. Lower Manhattan residents joined us to inaugurate the Uni by gathering to browse and read our small collection on a difficult morning. While most of the surrounding blocks were locked down and public libraries in Manhattan were closed, the Uni began its journey among good people who came out to visit a public market and meet the Uni.”

(That was the same day Suzanne and Erik startled the guardians of the people by renting a small boat and going sailing in New York harbor.)

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Ministry of Reshelving

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 1, 2011| 2 Comments »

A while back I wrote about stealth — in particular about a sculptor of paper dragons leaving works of art in libraries around the UK. I also mentioned a few of my own stealth projects.

Here is a stealth project I haven’t yet tried. It requires a camera. The idea is to move a book in bookstore to a shelf that you think suits the topic better, then take a picture of what you have done and post it to the “reshelving” group on Flickr. For example, an especially opaque tax-preparation book might go in the poetry section. A wildly imagined novel about, say, Jane Austen could get moved to biography. And a nonfiction book by a politician you don’t admire could be moved to the fantasy section.

You probably don’t want to mess things up in libraries, but just one book in bookstore … how bad can it be? Come to think of it, when my friend Paul Nagel’s biography of John Quincy Adams kept being put in a less prominent location than David McCollough’s book on John Adams, a malignant spirit took hold of me every time I entered that shop, and by the time I left, the Nagel cover was facing outward on the top shelf.

Even if you don’t sign up to post stealth photos of reshelved books, at least take a look at the Ministry of Reshelving site here.

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The Joy of Children’s Books

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2011|

Among children’s books, I especially like books that are fifth-grade level. Although I enjoyed all the “color” fairy books when I was in third grade or so — Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book, the Orange Fairy Book, the Rose Fairy Book, and so on — it wasn’t until about fifth grade that I really got hooked. Flashlights under the cover and all. I had a relative who worked for Dan Wickenden (The Amazing Vacation), and she sent me Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and the Narnia books. My cousin Patsy got me into George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin. I reread that one a couple years ago, and it’s as great as ever.

After college, I  taught fifth and sixth grade for a few years and read to the kids as time allowed. I remember how one class only gradually realized they were really starting to like Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Lost Prince. Reading can sneak up that way.

Today I am one of the volunteers who go out from our workplace to an inner-city school where there has long been a tutoring relationship. It started with a team who read picture books chosen by teachers to first graders. Then other teams were added (such as fourth grade math tutoring), and now there are teams reading with fifth graders. The books are chosen by the librarian. Each fifth-grade volunteer has a group of three children, and grownups and children all take turns reading and discussing. Even though the kids see teams once a week, most individual volunteers only go monthly. It’s not hard to fit into one’s schedule. I have learned about a lot of books by volunteering at the school. I already knew about From the Crazy Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler, but not about Holes, Maniac Magee, Hatchet, or Hidden Talents, to name a few.

One colleague, having found out that I liked this age level, introduced me to the Golden Compass series. Heaven! I also like her suggestion of The Island of the Aunts and recommend it.

Better sign off. The last time we had a storm like the one outside my window, my computer was hit.

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