Life Outside the Lair

The Book Fair is over. If you didn't get chance to stop by last week, you've missed it. Luckily for you I got a lot of books from the Book Fair for the library. Lots of good stuff, it's pretty exciting! All these books you see in this picture will be in circulation as soon as I finish cataloging and processing them. I really enjoy getting the books ready for the shelves. I get my hands on each book and get a little bit intimate with them, typing their ISBN numbers into the computer, reading their summaries, printing their AR labels, checking their page numbers, looking at their illustrations. You may be wondering how distracting it is having all these awesome books sitting around begging to be read and the answer is very. Occupational hazard. I often lose a quarter of an hour reading the first chapter of a book or a picture book. Shh, don't tell!

While I'm waiting for my hold request on Crispin: the End of Time to be fulfilled, I thought I'd go ahead and listen to something else by Avi, so I picked up The Seer of Shadows from the public library. This was a wonderful ghost story, smart and spooky and well-told. The story takes place in 1870's New York and spirit photography is all the rage amongst the society folk. However, Horace Carpetine, a photographer's apprentice and a skeptic, knows first hand how the 'spirit images' are made. But, as it turns out Horace has a special gift that allows him to actually photograph ghosts and, in so doing, bring them back to the world of the living. Horace is a thoughtful character. When his master employs him to help create a fraudulent spirit image in hopes of financially benefiting from a grieving woman's loss, he is torn between doing what's right and losing his position or doing what his employer demands. The story has a satisfying resolution and the end is touching. I'd recommend this for grades 5 and up.

While listening, I finished a pair of fingerless mitts. They ended up too small for me so Katie nabbed them. Now here hands will always be warm while playing Monsters.

Final Dispatch from the Secret Lair

Today is the last day to shop at the Scholastic Book Fair. I want to thank all the moms who volunteered their time to support this event which in turn supports the library. Extra special thanks to Saskia Choudry for taking on chairperson duties again this year. Saskia, you are a rock star! Here is a picture of what the library looked like before the Book Fair came in and also a picture of the Book Fair.
The library will open again next week with lots of new books to check out before the break.

In other news, I have finished three audio books this week and a pair of socks. However, I have not done any holiday shopping or any other kind of preparations for the coming holiday, but that's none of your concern. You want to see the socks, right? I named this project A Study in Emerald, after a short story by Neil Gaiman.
Getting back to the books, the first audio book I finished was Crispin: At the Edge of the World by Avi. This is the sequel to Crispin: The Cross of Lead which I listened during the summer. Crispin: A the Edge of the World felt like a bridge book to me. A third book in this series was released this year, Crisin: The End of Time, which I will be listening to soon, and Edge felt like it had no other purpose but to get the reader from the first book to the second book. It picks up right where Cross of Lead leaves off and follows Crispin and Bear as they flee from their pursuers. Along the way, they meet a young outcast girl and she joins them as the attempt to leave the country. The story is well written and the characters are strong and empathetic but the story felt a little pointless, except as a lead-up to the next one.

The next book I listened to was Swindle by Gordon Korman. This is the story of boy who finds a valuable baseball card and, not knowing the value of what he had, he sells it to a shifty dealer who tells him it is a reproduction and not authentic. When the boy discovers the true value of the card and realizes he's been taken advantage of, he and his friends plan a heist to reclaim his treasure. The story is amusing but the ending was not very believable. The kids break into a man's home and cause all sorts of damage and they receive no consequences for these actions when they are eventually caught, which left me feeling a little unsatisfied.

This brings me to the final audiobook, The Revenge of the Shadow King by Derek Benz and J. S. Lewis. This is book one in the Grey Griffin series. The story centers around a group of friends who have bonded over a card came called Round Table, a Dungeons and Dragons style game with battling fairie creatures, wizards, witches, and other magical beings. As it turns out, the creatures depicted on the cards are real and have torn a hole in the barrier between Fairie and the real world in search of magical jewel that has the power to destroy the real world. Of course, the kids have to figure out how to stop the fairie creatures from finding the jewel and save the world. This was an enjoyable adventure, and even though it's the first in a series, it reads just fine as a stand alone title.

Now, you may have noticed, as I have, that the second story, which was realistic fiction, I said had an unbelievable ending while the third story, which was very much fantasy, I did not say was unbelievable, even though a small band of 10 year olds save the world. I have been thinking about this and will share my ponderings in my next post.

Crispin and a Sneak Peak

Crispin: the Cross of Lead by Avi won the Newbery Award in 2003, but I think it is often overlooked so I made it this week's Book of the Week. I finished listening to it early this morning when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. The story revolves around a 13 year-old-boy in living in a small village in feudal England. A family secret has made him an outcast in his village and when his mother dies, leaving him alone in the world, he is accused of stealing from the Lord's manor house by the Steward and a price is put on his head. Thus begins Crispin's adventures and education. I didn't care for the reader of this audiobook, but I did like the story. It was an exciting and fast paced adventure story with a satisfying ending. There are two sequels to this novel, however, this first installment reads like a stand alone title. I would recommend this book for grades 5 and up.

And now, a sneak peek of the new library catalog.

Yeah, that's a very little sneak peek, apparently this blog doesn't like large pictures! If you would like to explore it some more on your own, you can find a link to it on the home page of the old catalog. Once you click the link, you'll be presented with a list of schools. Choose Marshall Lane - obviously - and then book mark the page once it loads. And have fun!