I just finished Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. In case you've been out of the solar system for the last three years, that's the first book in a very popular series of teen vampire/romance books. Good book, quick read, absorbing romance, great teen stuff.

STILL, I may just be too old to fully appreciate this book. Here's the thing. Bella is ostensibly a very selfless teen, giving up her life in Phoenix to live with her father in the rain forests of Washington State so her mother can be happy with her new husband. Right? And then there's that whole going to meet evil James so her mother won't be hurt thing. BUT she starts insisting that her boyfriend do something reprehensible to her. Because then they can be equal in their relationship - oooh , romantic.

He obviously doesn't want to do it. And he's the one who fully understands the consequences of the action. She insists. He has saved her life several times in this book and shown amazing restraint the whole time. He's willing to put his urges aside to be with her. She refuses to listen to him. He knows what she will suffer. But she's set on it. That's not selfless. That's immature and selfish. Listen, young lady. Pay attention to your elders and stop pouting.

What does he see in her anyway? Since the book is written from Bella's perspective, it really is hard to see what he sees in her.

Oh and Edward? Handsome, super-hero strength and speed, able to read minds in a blink, always there to save her - okay, that's romantic, I guess. But he's too good. It's Annoying

Like I said, I'm not sure I "get" it. Well, I might wait for the cliff notes to come out or for someone to do one of those novels in 10 second things for the other three books. Still, if you like that kind of thing, tortured vampires doing good in the northwest, this is a good read.

Today, I realized something. Books are the original "Second Life". When I am reading a good book, I am taken out of my own skin into the experiences of the character. I see vividly the landscape of that new land and I feel the emotions. A good author can bring me to tears, make me laugh out loud, have me squirming in my seat. A good story can do that without computer graphics and Linden dollars.

When I was younger, an appealing character and a good story never ended with the close of the book. My imagination took over and created new characters and scenarios over which I had total control. I even played games based on favorite books with my friends and siblings - real games with real dirt and real hazards and real fun. But these games were of our own making and they had little to do with our everyday real lives.

Think of Tom Sawyer playing Robin Hood in his long underwear in the woods around Hannibal, Missouri. Children have been playing with the people they meet in books as long as books that appeal to children have been around. I'm sure us older people create fantasies around our favorite characters though not as often as when we were young. It is hard to say goodbye to someone who has inhabited your brain for several hours.

Online worlds offer a chance to create your own story, be someone else for awhile. They have the element of chance that comes from interacting with characters over whom you have little control. There is the excitement of visual and aural stimulation and endless choices.

All that said, I prefer books. A quiet corner in the sunlight, a well-written paperback in my hand and I can enter a "second life" where everything is a surprise and all I have to do is let the story unfurl in my mind's eye.

Premonition

I made the coffee and put my oatmeal in the microwave and headed out the door. As I stepped onto the back porch I remembered that occasionally running the coffeemaker and the microwave at the same time has blown a fuse. This hasn't happened in over a year. Why I thought of it this morning, I have no idea. When I came back, the microwave and the coffeepot were both shut off and I had to reset the circuit they are on. Premonition? Telekinesis? Coincidence? I'm leaning toward coincidence but this isn't the first time this has happened. A random thought comes into my head - like the morning 22 years ago when I thought, as I climbed into my car to go to work, that our son would come home sick from camp. We got the call later that day. He had chicken pox! Anyone out there have a similar thing happen to them?
In my case, there's no strong emotion - no feeling of dread or certainty - just a random thought.

I have a strong premonition that the Words and Music concert on Friday night at Godfrey Daniels is going to be amazing. Buy your tickets NOW.

Next Friday, June 27th at 7 pm, the Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild (including moi-meme, myself) will tell stories while the Druckenmillers play old time music. So cool. This is a fund-raiser to keep the LVSG afloat and to help us fund our Festival - a totally amazing event. Where is this amazing Words and Music concert? Godfrey Daniels, of course in South Bethlehem. Come join us and support the art of storytelling.

South Bethlehem is the happening place, actually, with Lehigh University looming on the mountainside and arts festivals - such as the Storytelling Festival and the Southside Film Festival - and arts venues like Godfreys and Touchstone Theatre. Oh, and a campus of Northampton Community College is on the Southside as well. Bethlehem, PA is an artsy place to live and work all the way around.

Summer Reading Club is mad crazy. I have no idea how many kids have signed up during the first two weeks but our small library is jammed packed every single day with a lull only around dinner time ( 4 to 6 pm). Thank heavens for our excellent teen volunteers. They make the whole program hum.

I managed to read Philip Reeve's books, Larklight and Starcross this past week. Reeve does a great job of imitating a 19th century narrator as he tells of a family's adventures in outer space. Yes, in Reeve's world, the British have developed space flight and have outposts throughout the solar system even though the year is only 1851. Writing with the scientific knowledge available in the mid-1800s, Reeve creates characters who can walk unaided on the moon and float indefinitely in the "aether". David Wyatt's detailed illustrations add to the wild stories. 11-year-old Art and his prim 15-year-old sister, Myrtle, battle alien species such as giant white spiders and mind-controlling hats. Charles Dickens meets Andre Norton in these exciting novels for middle grade readers.

For the last several days, in between getting ready for Summer Reading Club and dealing with interruptions of interruptions, I have been looking into graduate school. I fought the urge to go back to school for years, nay, for decades. Suddenly, I not only want to get a Master's Degree, I want to get a Doctorate. Go figure.

Of course, I also want to publish a blockbuster book, win a huge pile of money, lose fifty pounds, and write a song that will become an iconic celebration of life and love - oh and master the accordion - and travel the world, particularly Japan and Ireland - and find a way to provide affordable health care to everyone. I'd like World Peace, too.

The last I checked, there were still only 24 hours in a day and I need 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night or I get very, very grouchy.

Now, if I wanted my graduate degree to be in something sensible - like Library and Information Sciences, for instance - I could start next January and by the time I hit my next big birthday ending in zero - I'd have a MLIS. But I want to get my doctorate in......ready?.....Folklore OR Storytelling. They have graduate programs in these subjects - in Australia and Britain. University of Texas offers a Graduate Certificate in Storytelling that can be part of an MLIS. University of PA offers a graduate course of study in Folklife and Folklore. I don't live anywhere near Texas and I can't afford U of P.

Maybe I should work on the blockbuster book and the iconic song instead. In the meantime, I'll practice the accordion. Lady of Spain here I come.

Well, I was home sick on Wednesday and I decided to read Randy Pausch's book, The Last Lecture.
(I linked to the actual lecture not to the book.) The book is NOT the last lecture. It is an expansion of the lecture. You can watch the lecture. And I am listening to it right now.

WARNING: Keep a box of tissues handy when you read this book because Randy is dying. At the same time, the book is pretty upbeat. Why is it that some people are blessed with boundless optimism and energy and the rest of us spend our free time playing Spider Solitaire?

Read it. Randy is still alive at this writing BUT he doesn't have long. Right now in the lecture he is playing footage of a group of students going on the "Vomit Comet" so he can experience weightlessness.

So cool.

Hilary McKay has completed her Casson family series with another book about the youngest member in the family, Rose - or Permanent Rose as she is sometimes called. Forever Rose chronicles Rose's difficulties in Class 6 with a particularly unpleasant teacher; the family woes of Indigo's friend, David; Eve 's (the Mom) bronchitis; a night in the Zoo; whatever happened to Caddy and her fabulous ex- fiance, Michael; and a stellar performance by Dad - all tied up very neatly on Christmas Day. The British surely love their Christmases.
Did I enjoy this book? Well, of course. But I am disappointed that Sarah, Saffy's best friend, did not get a book of her own. She is not technically a Casson but I'm not sure that should matter. She's there all the time!! And without her and her conveniently well-off and very flexible parents a lot of Casson adventures would not happen at all. Maybe I should email Ms. McKay and tell her what I think.
Still, I like the un-self-conscious mind set of 11 year old Rose. She just assumes that people see the world the way she does. And when they don't, their attitudes are unsolvable mysteries that she has no time to worry about. And Rose does worry about things. It's part of her job. She worries about her family and about starving children in Africa and making shoeboxes of gifts for poor people and her flawed and talented parents and David and her American friend, Tom, and...well, she has her hands full. Read the book. Fall in love with this quirky family again.