Library YouTube Break #25:
The Baby and The iPad
How do you feel about this video? It seems to be getting a lot of attention around the web, like in the post Reading is Hard! (In defence of real books) by blogger Jowita Bydlowska.
Before we get into further discussion, take a look at the video, and then we’ll talk!
So, what do you think? Is it great to see a baby interacting with an iPad, or do you worry that she won’t understand how to use print material when she’s older? Did Steve Jobs really code her OS? The author of a short post on American Editor finds it worrisome for another reason:
It symbolizes the problem I see with the future of language and the acceptance of Twitter-speak/spelling as the norm.”
Me thinks these people doth protest too much.
Here’s a story: my colleague and friend Sadie has a young son named Fox who recently put his hand on his father’s laptop screen. He stretched his fingers wide and said “bigger!” When the image on the screen didn’t respond, he looked at his dad quizzically as if to say: “What kind of crappy technology is this?!”
So Fox knows how touch screens are supposed to work. But, of course, he also knows how books and magazines work. (I mean, his mom’s a librarian. Hello?!) And I’m sure he’s figured out that all screens don’t incorporate touch technology. It’s the same with my grandnephew and grandniece. Put an iPod Touch in their hands, and they’re all over it. Put a book in their hands, and they can turn pages and read the printed word.
Young children are remarkable creatures. They are born to investigate and explore the world around them, whether they come across a rock or an iPad. More importantly, we remain learners throughout our lives. When you were growing up, did you really expect to see the day when you could pull up information, watch videos, play music and make phone calls on a device smaller than a portable transistor radio? And yet, chances are you’ve mastered that device well enough to find it remarkably useful.
Some academicians believe we are moving toward a post literate world; but, honestly, I don’t see this video as Exhibit One in any future investigation exploring why the human race has lost the ability to read.
It’s all good, people. So calm down.
Now, Siri? Now, that’s something we really have to worry about!
The other NBA Crisis:
National Book Awards, can they get it right?
OK, so the National Book Award folks (the National Book Foundation) have short-listed the finalists. Here’s a link from my favorite GalleyCat to give you a free sampling of the titles. And of course, there’s controversy, I love controversy over a subject that very few people know about or ever give a second thought.
First, Laura Miller at Salon.com calls the entire list irrelevant. Go Laura! Here’s a good quote from the piece, “Although the judges for the NBAs change every year, the sense that the fiction jury is locked in a frustrating impasse with the press and the public is eternal.” And for the sports fans reading this blog, no we don’t mean the National Basketball Association. It seems to be the National Book Award folks aren’t interested in anything popular. So if it’s smart and literary and has a large group of reader fans then it looks like you can just forget the big prize.
Said very well by Ms. Miller, “If you categorically rule out books that a lot of people like, you shouldn’t be surprised when a lot of people don’t like the books you end up with.” Why is the literary community and the reading public so different? Don’t authors want to have readers? and does it say something negative about a book when a lot of people enjoy it.
Controversy, number two. If having a list of titles that people aren’t exactly cheering about isn’t bad enough, they announced the wrong young adult writer as a finalist! Graciously Lauren Myracle and her book Shine, took her name off the list after being mistaken for Franny Billingsley‘s Chime.
NBF is blaming it on a communication problem. Judges say Chime and it sounds like Shine. What? No doubt they handled it badly, first putting her on by mistake, then saying she can stay and then taking her off for good.
What do you think about this NBA debacle?
Conference for Writers and Readers in Tulsa
Sharing this email from Nimrod International Journal (Tulsa)
Dear Writer,
Greetings from Nimrod International Journal! This is a reminder that there’s still time to sign up for Nimrod’s Conference for Readers and Writers, this year on October 22nd at the University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you haven’t signed up already, we hope that you will!
This year’s workshop will feature sessions on fiction, poetry, YA fantasy, memoir, finding a literary agent, and starting a school literary journal, as well as panel discussions and readings. You can also sign up to have a one-on-one editing workshop with a member of the Nimrod board of editors. Key guests include National Book Award finalists and novelists Amy Bloom and Ron Hansen, celebrated poets Linda Pastan, Nikky Finney, and Cheryl Pallant, YA fantasy writer Patricia C. Wrede, memoirist, poet and fiction writer Jennifer Clement, and over thirty others.
The cost is $50.00, but scholarships are available. To register to receive a scholarship, please send in your completed registration form, 2-3 sample pages of your writing, a note requesting a scholarship, and $10 for lunch, which includes a reading by David Amy Bloom and Linda Pastan.
If you have any questions, or for registration forms, please contact nimrod at utulsa.edu. You can also visit our website for a printable registration form at www.utulsa.edu/nimrod
We also hope that you’ll join us for a special pre-workshop event on Tuesday, October 11th. In honor of Ron Hansen’s appearance at the conference, we’ll be showing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford at Gilcrease museum at 6 p.m. A panel discussion on “The Timely Romance of the American West” will precede the screening. The entire event is free and open to the public.
I hope to see you in October!
Best,
Eilis O’Neal
Nimrod’s Managing Editor
I have always heard good things about this workshop, so you wannabe writers, and literary readers, get going and sign up. I go to writers panels and workshops, even though I’ll probably never write anything, just to hear authors discuss their craft. It’s great fun, you find out all kinds of information about those folks you read, and it leads to new folks to read. Nice way to dip your toes in the writing pool without leaving Oklahoma.
What the Snow Blew Inn by Dian Curtis Regan
Dian Curtis Regan’s latest childrens book is The Snow Blew Inn.
This is a great little story about the value of generosity and inclusion. It’s a cold winter night and folks are flocking to the Snow Blew Inn, so many folks that it becomes full, full, full. Little kittie Emma is waiting and watching for her cousin Abby to get there for a sleepover. Can she make room for one more guest? It’s a lesson for us all, and would be particularly nice for a Christmas gift for a young one. Either as a read-aloud or for 6-8 year olds to enjoy on their own.
Doug Cushman does a great job with the illustrations, cute, cute.
If you want to know about Dian’s other book, Cam’s Quest for the young adult crowd, check out this interview with B.J. Williams. And more interesting information about the author from Author Turf
Mashed Potatoes, fun airfare
Flew to Washington D.C. last week, the trials of flying we all know too well. I always try to take an easy, enjoyable read, usually a fun little mystery. So before I left I hunted through my books, located a Margaret Moseley, purchased at a Full Circle bookstore sale. Margaret was born in Oklahoma and you’ve probably know her for Bonita Faye, which was a finalist for the Edgar Award, in 1996.
This time my read was Margaret Moseley’s Grinning in His Mashed Potatoes, starring Honey Huckleberry (not so strange I have cousins with the same last name). Honey is a representative for several book publishers. She markets and promotes their titles to locally run bookstores. She and her best friend Janie are at a fund-raising event when best selling author and guest of honor, Twyman Towerie takes a bite of his dessert and falls face first into his mashed potatoes. Honey, of course, is seated next to him. He has a lot of ex-wives, four to be exact, who would gladly put a little something in his lemon meringue. One is on her way to revealing a ”tell-all” memoir and even the large diamond Twyman tried to bribe her with isn’t working. And the plot thickens….
Since the book was written in 1999 it’s interesting to observe the emergence of computers, and smile at our reluctant acceptance of technology that we can no longer even imagine doing without. Great plane fare, clever and fun, take an Okie on the road with you next time.
It’s Letters about Literature time again.
Letters About Literature Writing Competition Announced
The Oklahoma Center for the Book, located in the Oklahoma Department of Libraries, has announced the national Letters About Literature (LAL) writing competition for the 2011-2012 academic school year.
Sponsored by the Library of Congress and Target Corporation, LAL offers students fourth grade through twelfth grade the opportunity to write a letter to an author (living or dead) from any genre—fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, contemporary or classic–explaining how that author’s work changed the student’s way of thinking about the world or themselves.
“Most everyone can relate to a favorite book or character,” said Oklahoma Center for the Book Executive Director Connie Armstrong. “Yet, not everyone responds to a particular book the same way. This program allows students to express how he or she as an individual relates to the book.”
Last year, approximately 70,000 students participated in the national writing contest. Oklahoma tripled its student participation. Three competition levels are offered: Level I for students in grades 4 through 6, Level II for students in grades 7 and 8, and Level III for students in grades 9 through 12.
Next spring, winning students from around the state, along with their parents, teachers, family, and friends will attend an awards ceremony sponsored by the Oklahoma Center for the Book and the Oklahoma Department of Libraries. State winners will receive a Target gift card and cash prizes. The first place state winners will advance to the national competition, where six national winners and twelve national honorable mention winners will be announced.
The national winners will receive a $500 Target gift card, and will secure a $10,000 LAL Reading Promotion Grant in his/her name for a community or school library. The national honorable mention winners will receive a $100 Target gift care, and will secure a $1,000 LAL Reading Promotion Grant in his/her name for a community or school library.
Letters will be accepted September 15, 2011, through January 10, 2012. For more information regarding the program and to download an entry form log on to www.lettersaboutliterature.org.
Young Bill Young’s Summer Reads…
Part 7: Daybreak
There must be a thousand ways for civilization to come crashing down around our heads. You can always depend on good science fiction writers to come up with horrifying scenarios about a world reset. John Barnes has produced a doozy with his new Daybreak trilogy. The first two installments are out, and I’m going to have to wait until 2012 to read the third and final chapter. It’s the perfect time to get on board this exciting techno-thriller.
It’s the final Young Bill Young’s Summer Reads post for the year, and I can’t tell you how happy I am that the current temperature in OKC is a sweet 83 degrees! Labor Day really was the end of summer this year!
Directive 51 and Daybreak Zero by John Barnes
Barnes’s Daybreak series is part end-of-the-world horror story, part post-apocalyptic adventure, and part political speculation. The collapse of civilization in Directive 51 is caused by a movement known as “Daybreak”—an Internet-connected group of diverse people (ranging from eco-crazies to stewardship Christians to disgruntled techno-geeks) who have only one thing in common: they all want to bring the Big System down. The release of nanoswarm and biotes destroy rubber, plastics and oil products, and the destruction spreads rapidly around the planet, causing a dramatic and quick end to modern civilization. Following the initial collapse of modernity, Daybreak rears its head with additional poxes that are aimed at making sure Earth stays primitive, including radiation bombs that are set off in strategic locations.
While the reader is given some of the gore that follows America’s collapse, Barnes is more interested in what happens to America following such a scenario. Enter National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51 (it actually exists), the plan that “claims power to execute procedures for continuity of the federal government in the event of a catastrophic emergency.” Despite the directive, it doesn’t take long for the two political parties to flex their muscle, with opposing governments set up in Athens, GA and Olympia, WA. Meanwhile, an informational and research arm of the “federal government” is operating out of Pueblo, CO, charged with disseminating information via steam train to pockets of people around the country. (Are you old enough to remember those Federal Citizen Information Center ads asking you to write to Pueblo for free federal government brochures? Turns out they still have all of that information!)
As the first novel nears its close, the two governments are actually contemplating war with each other, as if Daybreak wasn’t bad enough. It will take the wisdom of protagonist Heather O’Grainne (administrator of the Pueblo operation), the skills of a surviving reporter, and the Socratic Method to try to spare what’s left of America.
The sequel Daybreak Zero opens only two months after the final events of Directive 51, and one year since the first catastrophic events known as Daybreak. In this second installment, we learn that tribes have formed across the country to battle any re-emergence of civilization. We learn that a new Post-Raptural church has emerged that is preparing for the tribulation. More importantly, we learn that Daybreak must be the deadliest meme ever. Those who have incorporated the ideas of Daybreak actually have seizures when trying to go against the meme. And Daybreak is infiltrating the governments of Olympia and Athens, and the research institute in Pueblo.
Some reviewers criticize the “one-dimensional” aspect of Barnes’s characters, but I didn’t find them to be so. No, you will not read pages and pages of philosophical, social and psychological ruminating by the individual characters. But you do get enough insight into the characters to give a damn about what happens to them. And, anyway, this is a story about people who are trying to stay alive while they attempt to bring back some kind of stability to their crumbling world. The meaning of life for these characters, is the meaning of survival.
Young Bill Young’s Summer Reads…
Part 6: The Graphic Edition
I read a couple of graphic works last month. One gets a thumbs up. One gets a sideways thumb at the most.
Fables Vol. 15: Rose Red by Bill Willingham
The Gist: If you’re following Fables–the best darn comic book out there right now–get ready for an epic battle between Mr. Dark and Frau Totenkinder. Meanwhile, Rose Red must put aside her grieving over the death of Boy Blue and pull herself together in order to organize the Fables for the coming conflict with the dark master. We learn about Snow White and Rose Red’s past, more is implied about Ghost (Snow White and Bigby’s invisible child), and Beauty finally births Beast’s baby! If you haven’t been following Fables, you don’t know what you’re missing!
Status: Devoured! Volume 15 includes the wonderful 100th issue of the comic book with lots of fun extras.
Summer Escapism: Yeah, baby!
Strength of Writing: A
Stimulation of the Little Grey Cells: B (I get totally immersed in this world when reading a Fables volume.)
Social Relevance: B (Yes, we’re talking about good versus evil, but Willingham’s Fable characters are too complicated and rich to be relegated to simple black and white.)
General Reaction: The best Fables story arc of the last couple of years. Can this comic get any better?!
Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not) by Jason Shiga
The Gist: Hapless geek Jimmy is a mama’s boy and librarian in Oakland who thinks he knows more than he actually does about computers and the Internet. When he loses his best friend Sara to an internship in New York, he realizes that he has romantic feelings for her. So… it’s off to New York!
Status: Read cover to cover
Summer Escapism: Meh…
Strength of Writing: C (Yes, it was satisfactory.)
Social Relevance: B (Jimmy has a job but he’s still a step or two away from being a self-actualized adult. He represents the Emerging Adult, an increasing trend in our country.)
Generation Reaction: Reading this made me feel as empty as Jimmy must feel. Oh yeah, I chuckled in a few of places, but it was generally a solemn read for me. Following Jimmy’s trip to New York and his last interaction with Sara, the reader is left with no idea if the protagonist will begin to gain confidence and take charge of his life. In reading a book, at the very least, I want to know that something has changed for a character, that some revelation about life has been earned. You won’t get that reading Empire State. (Jimmy is a continuing character for Shiga, so maybe we’ll be rewarded in future books.) I’m a great believer that every read does not have to leave you feeling good, and I suppose this story has something to tell us about the state of twenty-somethings in the world today. Maybe I’m just becoming an old fuddy-duddy!
By the way, Shiga continues to have great promise, despite my lukewarm review of Empire State. After all, he did create this! It features Jimmy, too.
Visit ShigaBooks to find out more about this talented artist and writer.
The Controvery Over The Help
It was released way back in 2009, but it’s currently number one on both the trade paperback and e-book fiction New York Times bestseller lists. It’s been made into a hit movie with lots of Oscar talk, especially for lead actress Viola Davis. It’s a summer reading pick by Oprah Winfrey, and the release of the movie has made it a selection at book clubs across the country. A colleague at a conference in Chicago a couple of weeks ago waxed glowingly of the book and told me she plans to see the movie. A colleague at work told me there was no way she was going to see the movie. It’s hot. And it’s controversial.
It is The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Is it another landmark book and film on the civil rights movement, or (as one writer put it) is it “just another example of Hollywood’s interest in black stories, but only if they are told from a white protagonist’s viewpoint?”
The Help is about three women in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi: two black maids and child caregivers (Aibileen and Minny), and a white college graduate who has returned to the south (Skeeter). Skeeter aspires to be a writer, and she has been told by a professor to write about what bothers her. What bothers Skeeter is the racism and hypocrisy in her community, and she convinces Aibileen and Minny to spill their stories about life as black maids in Jackson.
Since Aibileen and Minny are major players in the story, it’s not tokinism that is causing the controversy. Much of the controversy revolves around the fact Stockett is a white writer, which immediately provokes many readers to first question the authenticity of such a story. Is it honest? Is this just going to be another story of a liberal white person standing up for the rights of black people? What does she know about the experience of black maids during that era? (Stockett’s family was cared for by a black maid until she was 16, when the maid died.)
Similar questions were raised when Rilla Askew’s novel about the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, Fire in Beulah, was published in 2001. But leaders in Tulsa’s black community were quick to see the honesty and authenticity of Askew’s work and her five years of research into the clouded event. More than anything, there was an appreciation that the truth about the slaughter of people and the destruction of America’s Black Wall Street was finally seeing the light of day.
Stockett is finding it harder to win positive reviews from many critics and readers, despite the book’s phenomenal success. She is criticized for the dialogue she writes for Aibileen and other black characters (“You a kind girl”). She is criticized for the dialogue she writes for the white characters (Where is the southern accent?).
She is accused of making Aibileen an Uncle Tom, a “good” minority, a person who absolves the white people around her. The archetypes of Uncle Tom and Mammy are invoked by the characters and setting of The Help. Those archetypes add to the criticism that The Help ignores real history about the state of Black America in the 60s.
I suspect it is mostly a good thing when a book is the subject of debate in America. If nothing else, maybe more people will read it to find out for themselves, or read the reviews and discussions going on surrounding the work to understand the cultural, historical and social issues that are being debated.
Just take a look at what people are reading, writing and watching on the web about The Help:
A Critical Review of the novel The Help: This anonymous blogger has so many issues with The Help you could spend all day on her site. Tons of entries and comments. Honest-to-gosh fascinating!
The Queen’s Castle: Excerpts from Jet magazine and other items on The Help.
NPR: The Help Draws Audiences, and Ire
CBS News: Katie Courie interviews Kathryn Stockett
Check out this article on NewsOK about women who have cleaned homes, past and present.
New Link 8/23/11: MSNBC The Last Word: Melissa Harris-Perry on why The Help is not artistic and ahistorical.
Google reviews of The Help and you’ll get takes on both the book and the film adaption, from the glowing thumbs up, to the disappointed thumbs down.
Okay, it’s your turn: Have you read The Help, or seen the movie, or both? What’s your reaction? Are you staying away from the book and movie for some reason? Tell me, tell me, please…
Literary Site of the Week:
Fantasy Book Critic
Hankering for a good science fiction or fantasy novel? Head over to the Fantasy Book Critic, considered one of the best blogs on speculative fiction by Library Journal.
The site is big and bold, filled with enough information to make any sci-fi/fantasy fan drool. The book reviews are thoughtful and professional, and there are exclusive interviews with authors in the field. Spotlights is a feature which focuses on notable books coming out each month, although it appears they lost interest in including graphic novels a few years back. Upcoming Releases is a detailed listing of titles that are heading our way. (It’s like the biggest buffet ever!)
Or, you may want to start with their substantial Best of Lists, produced by Fantasy Book Critic’s contributors. The feature includes End of the Year Best of Lists, Best of Genres, Best of Upcoming Releases, and any other Best of Lists.
As with many weblogs, the search function isn’t up to par with the best search functions on traditional websites, but that shouldn’t keep you from exploring this great site. It gets a Literary Kitty stamp of approval. Meow!
