Literacy · is · the · Path · to · Communism!

I've been neglecting this but I've read something recently that I think needs recording.

Candyfloss by Jacqueline Wilson

( This got long )

That was super long-winded but the book bothered me and I had to get it all out.

Also, this is only tangentally related, but some friends of mine are running NaNoReaMo (totally unaffiliated with NaNoWriMo), a read-as-much-as-you-can-in-a-month project/community. Books should be over 150 pages but can otherwise be of any type on any topic in any format. Reading starts today. I've got my first book picked out and ready.

This week's topic in 460 is virtual worlds and while there is a discussion page in the class wiki I desiced that some of what's in my head really doesn't belong there. So it'll go here.

1. I freely admit that outside of work probably 90% of my social interacting is done online. As my husband says, my friends live in my computer. This is largely because I am, by nature, an introvert. I love my rl friends and I love seeing them and getting together with them (I spent this past weekend in CT with one and I'll probably write about that later) but it takes massive amounts of energy. There are days when I come home from work and the idea of talking out loud is simply exhausting.

2. I know I'm not the only person in the world who feels like this. Many of my friends online have mentioned similar reactions to rl social situations. It's not hard or unpleasant, just exhausting.

3. If I were a library patron I'd be one of the ones who comes in, gets my books without saying a word, checks them out without saying a word, leaves without any real interaction. I was painfully shy as a child and terrified of any and all authority figures, including a woman who was probably the nicest school librarian ever in the history of school librarians. From what I've seen at work there are plenty of kids like I was.

Bearing all this in mind, I can see no end of uses for virtual worlds and online communication between patrons/students and librarians. Would I have asked more questions if I could have done it without stammering out of sheer nerves? Definitely. Some of the most eloquent book reviews we get at work are written by a boy who has never said more to me than "Can I check these out?" If I encountered him online how much would he have to say?

And then there's the case of patrons/students who are hearing impaired. A few months back in a community I read here on LiveJournal I read a complaint from one poster about how poorly written a character with a hearing impairment was. She had a number of points on how unrealistic the portrayal of being deaf was and backed it up with her own experiences and those of friends. The post was then flooded by comments from other hearing-impaired posters. I have one patron, an adult, who is mostly deaf and always comes to me when she needs help because few others will take the time to hold a conversation with her by writing out what needs to be said. How much faster and easier would it be online?

To me the whole idea of being able to talk to people in a virtual environment is an alternative for those who are more comfortable this way. It makes it possible to serve a portion of the population who might otherwise go underserved.

I don't often do the embedded video thing but I love this video and I'm not sure how many people have seen it:



The bit at the end about rethinking copyright and authorship is something we touched on when I took Intellectual Freedom. The web makes all sorts of issues like that totally different than they were even five or six years ago.

I was talking to my boss this afternoon about the Tech Encyclopedia for this class and how I'd picked three topics so far but was stumped on what else to write about. Her suggestions were "Why Wikipedia shouldn't be used for homework," and "How about pencils and paper? Aren't those good enough?"

I understand her frustration but it made me sigh. We've just installed brand new machines in our building. They're miles ahead of the old ones (which were still running Windows 95 when we got rid of them) but no one in my department seems to know just what to do with them. It's frustrating beyond belief to deal with coworkers who seem to want to dictate not just how technology is used but what is used. We wouldn't ever tell a fifth grader to go type his/her paper on a typewriter, or do it out longhand if a computer is available to do it on. Why insist that kids who have access to new technology stick to what they see as obsolete?

Hi there. This is just a place marker for the beginning of posts for LIS 460 Summer 2007. Prior to this I used this journal to keep my YA book reviews for YA Lit, which I took in 2005. I'm a bad book reviewer and didn't keep up the reviews. I really should, since I read a lot, but I never seem to manage to write out actual reviews.

If you missed my note in my userinfo, the icon I use is from a Communist propaganda poster which reads "Reading is the path to Communism!" which I found interesting when a friend of mine posted a link to it. As the title of my journal states, yes, it is the path to Communism! If all you're reading is Communist propaganda. The same could be said for any doctrine really.

Anyhow, here's the blog for 460. Ta da!

Here Is Greenwood v.1 by Yukie Nasu. Hakusensha Inc. 2004. ISBN: 1591166047.

I admit that I saved this one as my last required entry because I knew it would be fast, light, and fluffy. Here Is Greenwood is a shojo manga series which has been made into a television show, albeit a short one. The stories focus on a quartet of boys: Mitsuru, Shinobu, Shun, and the closest thing to a main character, Hasukawa, all of whom attend Ryokuto Academy and live in a dormitory called Greenwood. Unlike a typical novel, or even a single graphic novel, there isn't really just one plot for the entire series. Instead there are vignettes and short stories which follow the boys through a series of misadventures such as how Hasukawa came to be enrolled at Ryokuto Academy, and his introduction to his roommate, Shun, whom he is told is a girl whose family tried to raise as a boy, to the point of sending her to an all boys school - Shun really is a boy, just for the record. Like I said, this is pure fluff. The real trick here is that the English language version of the manga is printed right to left, making it a bit of a challenge to read. The subject matter isn't very challenging, and a lot of cultural jokes and references are explained in little sidebars, or by the author inserting herself to provide a definition to a word that doesn't translate well. Still, following the dialogue can be tough, which can make the storylines hard to get through at times. For this reason, I probably would try to find a manga series which was reversed and printed left to right to get someone new to the medium used to how the panels are structured and how the stories are told. The humor in the series would likely be appealing to both boys and girls, despite the series being shojo (or "girls") manga. While there is some romance, such as Hasukawa's crush on his brother's wife, it's told more as a joke than a romance, with exaggerated claims of devotion and the like. There are at least five books available so far in the US, with more likely on the way, and six episodes of an animated show were made. That should make it an easy sell to any teens insterested in anime and manga.

Hook: Describing Hasukawa's many trials and tribulations, from frequent (and inconvenient) nosebleeds when nervous, to his cross-dressing roommate, to his brother working as the school nurse, would introduce both the humor and the main character of the series.

The Wadjet Eye by Jill Rubalcaba. Clarion Books, 2000. ISBN: 0395689422

How could I pass up a book which begins with a young man in ancient Egypt having to embalm and mummify his own mother? I couldn't. While that description might make it clear that this is not a book for just anyone, it also gives a good indication what is to come. Damon first mummifies his mother, and then sets out with his friend, Artemas, to find his father, a Roman soldier on campaign in Spain, to tell him of his mother's death. As good as the book is, and as well-written as I thought the historical scenes were, it moves a little too fast for my liking. Damon and Artemas are excellently drawn characters, both fully believable in the world of Egypt and the Roman empire in 45 B.C. The settings of the galley ship they start out on, and the battlefield they end up on at the end are vivid to the point of being gruesome in places. The author was definitely not afraid to clearly show the less pleasant realities of the time period through scenes with a slave boy being eaten by sharks, and a soldier's wound being cleaned out by maggots. If it were not for that attention to detail, the convenience of most of the story's plot points would make it a lot less appealing. While meeting Cleopatra, Cicero, and Caesar make for a storyline which is set very firmly in a specific time period, it's also just a bit much to buy. I don't think that would deter readers insterested in the time period though, so I'd still recommend this for anyone interested in ancient Egypt, who wouldn't shy away from maggots and blood.

Hook: Start with my first sentence above and go on from there. Mummification, maggots, sharks, and a girl being gored by a rhino should be enough to pull in anyone who'd like the book and repell anyone who wouldn't make it through.

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. Athaneum Books for Young Readers, 2002. ISBN: 0689852223.

Any book set in a future where drug lords rule a country called Opium which was once northern Mexico and southern Texas, and keep themselves alive by using harvested organs from clones sounds like it belongs pretty definitely in the science fiction genre. Matteo Alacran learns early on that he is a clone of one of the most powerful drug lords, El Patron, who likes to keep his clones' brains intact (an illegal practice) to see how they grow up before killing them to keep himself alive. Not wanting this fate to befall him, Matteo escapes from El Patron's estate and goes on a quest to find his own fate. This is a long book, and it follows an unpleasant journey for Matteo. Some readers might be put off by the depictions of Matteo being forced to live like an animal, or to live off of algae. On the other hand, it is the vivid descriptions of Matteo's world which make the book most worth reading if you are willing to stomach them. The questions of morality are there for anyone who wants to address them. It would be easy to look at the treatment of the clones, and the power of the drug lords, and start some interesting discussions, but the book also functions as a good adventure novel, without touching on the deeper issues.

Hook: The scene where Matteo sees a lobotomized clone in a hospital, bound to a bed, is chilling and would be a great introduction to the book's grislier subject matter for a group with such tastes.

The Moves Make the Man by Bruce Brooks. Harper & Row, 1984. ISBN: 0060206799.

I chose this book not because it was an award winner, but because I wanted at least one sports-related book on my list, and this one came across the circulation desk at the library I work at before I had a chance to look around for others. Not really being a fan of sports books, I wasn't prepared to really enjoy this book, but I did. It is a dense book, largely about basketball, but not about it as a sport as much as a common interest between unlikely friends. Jerome is the first black student in an all white school in North Carolina, just at the beginning of school desegregation, and he is obsessed with basketball. When Jerome meets Bix, a troubled white boy, they end up becoming friends, which is the heart of the book itself. I found it a little on the dense side, and it took me forever to get through it, despite the fact that I enjoyed it. The friendship between Bix and Jerome is a fascinating one, and both characters on their own are worth a good deep look, but I don't know how many teens would be likely to read all the way through this book unless they were interested in one of the following: Basketball, school desegregation, broken families. This is definitely not a book for reluctant readers.

Hook: If I thought I could pull off the voice, this would be great for a readaloud, but I don't think I could do it, so I'd probably start with the question of "Why did Bix Rivers leave town?" and go on from there.

Hex by Rhiannon Lassiter. Simon Pulse, 2001. ISBN: 0743422112.

While I don't see the Hex books rivaling William Gibson's Neuromancer for top honors amongst cyberpunk novels, it can definitely hold its own among cyberpunk titles for younger readers. The premise of mutant teens who can mentally interface with computers - making them into a new race of super-hackers - being hunted and killed by the government, is likely very appealing to any teens with a love for computers and a lack of love for authority. Raven, the main character, and her brother, Wraith, are on the run from the government, and are joined by Kez and Ali, who aren't anything like either Raven or Wraith in terms of character. The book's plot is fast-paced, and while it would have been easy to turn it into a romance, Raven is fairly unattainable as a love interest, which of course makes her more interesting. Looking at it as an adult with a lot more experience with the genre than a number of younger teens, the names and some of the plot were a little on the cliched side for me. Of course Raven and Wraith have a tragic past. Of course they're The Most Dangerous Kids Out There. Of Course they have a noble mission of saving their sister from some sort of secret government plant. The action is well written, however, and the plot moves fast. The characters, despite their overly dramatic names and histories, are written well enough that by the end of the book I was hooked and had to finish reading the trilogy. One nice thing about cyberpunk like Hex is that it is set so far in the future, with technology so farfetched that it will take a while for it to feel truly dated. I could suggest this to boys or girls, so long as they like fast plots and computers. Even if the cliches are aparent to the audience the book is intended for, I think it's easy enough to overlook them in favor of a well-told, suspenseful story.

Hook: Just talking about the teenaged computer-savvy mutants would probably pique the interest of anyone who'd enjoy this book.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. Wendy Lamb Books, 2004. ISBN: 0385746776.

When I read the cover flap, and started reading this book, I expected a realistic fiction book about a girl with an eating disorder. I knew there was an incestuous relationship between the main character, Daisy, and her cousin, and I figured that the "Extreme Time in History" mentioned on the flap was probably about 9/11, or the war in Iraq. So I was expecting a well-written "issue book" about sex and anorexia and war. I was not expecting a book about a fictituous war in England, or psychic abilities. Not in the least. Daisy moves from New York, supposedly to have time away from her family and somehow get over her eating disorder, but ends up finding herself having fallen in love with her cousin, and trekking crosscountry after England is invaded and the country's infrastructure falls apart. By page 33, I was hooked. By midway through the book I couldn't believe that an award committee had actually agreed on this as a prize winner. Not that I argue with the choice, since I believe this to be one of the best books I've ever read, but it's a strange book. The war didn't seem all that odd. I chalked it up to the book being an alternate-present story and ran with it. The incest I could handle, what with it being distant cousins, but it's also portrayed in a very positive light, and let's face it, incest is a taboo far more so than homosexuality is now. The psychic stuff came out of left field though. It's not mentioned anywhere in the book's summary, and it caught me off guard. Suddenly this is magical realism where I wasn't quite expecting it. I think this book could be a good read for the right audience, but the incest and the unexpected psychic stuff might put some teens off to the point that they'd put the book down and not pick it up again.

Hook: Daisy's voice in the book is so clear, it would be a shame not use use it in an in-character booktalk, or a read aloud.