This blog is an experiment - as are all blogs, I'm sure. I'm setting this up so I can post the cool stuff that the library (Parkland Community Library) does - like author visits and kids' programs AND so I can carry on about all the books I read and what I think about them.

FOR INSTANCE, a teen suggested that I read Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie right about the time that I was reading Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud. Although the books are not at all alike, they had similar themes and the authors used the image of swirling colors for different things in their books.

Haroun deals with storytelling - duh - and grief and the need to accept people for what they are and the equality of all people.
Ptolemy's Gate is the third title in an action-packed fantasy trilogy but guess what? It deals with the need to accept people for what they are and the equality of all people. That is, in between all the ectoplasm and explosions. Ptolemy's Gate also deals with grief, come to think about it.

Library happening: On Saturday 1-29-06, John Grogan came to the library with about 300 of his closest fans. Grogan wrote the memoir Marley and Me about his loveable and irrepressible dog, Marley, who has gone to dog heaven and taken lots of destroyed Grogan property with him.
If you have been in our library you are probably wondering where 300 people fit. We are wondering that ourselves. We had people in the staff lounge, in the meeting room, in the picture book area. We opened the folding walls between these three spaces. We had people hanging out by the Vertical File, behind the kids video shelves and clustered around the OPACS. A lot of people could not see John at all but thanks to our handy-dandy portable PA most of the people who came could hear him. When I learn how to post pictures, I will stick a few pictures in here.