I’m not big on holidays. When I was growing up my family didn’t make a big deal out of celebrating, an attitude which I’ve continued as an adult. I certainly don’t humbug anyone else’s celebrations, but for myself, holidays are mostly days where I don’t have to be at work and can gleefully spend binge reading novels or watching a marathon of favorite television shows.
Holidays are also a time when I indulge my favorite pastime, Thinking Too Much About Things. Right now I’m sure every library has a display of Thanksgiving books out, and I can’t help but cringe when I think about how many of those books--especially ones for children--are full of blatant misrepresentations of the “first” Thanksgiving and Native American peoples.
The Oyate website, which I learned about in library school as a multicultural resource, lists recommended books on the topic of Thanksgiving. This list, unless I am missing something, lists six books. Six.
How many Thanksgiving books do you currently have on display? Sixty? One hundred and sixty? Are any of them the books recommended by Oyate as being the “...most culturally appropriate and historically accurate books” available? (The blog American Indians in Children’s Literature is also an excellent resource on this topic). And how many of the books in your collection are on Oyate’s list of books to avoid?
It’s our job as librarians to provide the best information for our users, using a variety of tools and skills to make these judgments. There’s no one out there, I think, willing to cull their collection so drastically to leave only six books on such a popular topic...but maybe we should be. Maybe we should just buy multiple copies of books that we know to be accurate and appropriate. Perhaps then more books that adhere to those standards would be published.
This might be why I don’t get too deeply involved in holidays. Eventually I end up in a morass of conflicting thoughts and feelings, wondering what the right way to celebrate is, what the right thing to do is. The curse of Thinking Too Much About Things.
Here’s the full list of books recommended by Oyate. You’ll notice that many of them have publication dates from the mid nineties, with the most current one being 2001.
Recommended Books about Thanksgiving
Bruchac, Margaret M. (Abenaki), and Catherine Grace O'Neill, 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2001, grades 4-up
Hunter, Sally M. (Ojibwe), Four Seasons of Corn: A Winnebago Tradition. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1997, grades 4-6.
Peters, Russell M. (Wampanoag), Clambake: A Wampanoag Tradition. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1992, grades 4-6.
Regguinti, Gordon (Ojibwe), The Sacred Harvest: Ojibway Wild Rice Gathering. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1992, grades 4-6.
Seale, Doris (Santee/Cree), Beverly Slapin, and Carolyn Silverman (Cherokee), eds., Thanksgiving: A Native Perspective. Berkeley: Oyate, 1998, teacher resource.
Swamp, Jake (Mohawk), Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message. New York: Lee & Low, 1995, all grades.
Wittstock, Laura Waterman (Seneca), Ininatig's Gift of Sugar: Traditional Native Sugarmaking. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1993, grades 4-6
On a cheerier note, I did ask my twitter librarian friends what they were thankful for this year. A lot of them were thankful for their jobs...period; others were thankful that their jobs are so challenging in many ways; others were thankful for great coworkers and wonderful patrons.
This year I’m thankful for all of those things. I’m thankful I’ve found different, enriching ways to develop as an information professional (including writing for this blog), and I’m thankful that I have a job that I enjoy and am good at, and I am thankful that librarians everywhere continue to fight the good fight for what they believe in.
What are you thankful for?
Monday, November 21, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
The Cybil Awards; or,"if you liked it then you should have put a medal on it."
Getting an award is a major achievement for any artist, and often provides a bump in prestige and notoriety than can make careers or break them. Awards are mostly joyous occasions (with some notable exceptions) that honor hard work and The American Library Association gives several awards every year, two of the most well known being the Newbery and the Caldecott, and of course there’s the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize, and my personal favorite, the Cybils awards.
So what are the Cybils? The cybils are the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ book awards. If you’re not aware of/into the kidlit book blogging community, you’re missing some excellent reviews, discussions, interviews, and other invaluable resources, all written by extremely passionate and informed writers. I asked Anne Levy, the “Cybils Overlord” as she is known, why the book blogging community felt the need to start their own award and how they made it happen:
“The Cybils Awards began with a stray comment left on a book blog in 2006. The blogger complained the [now defunct] Quills were little more than a popularity contest, while her commenters moaned the ALA awards had gotten too snooty. So I chimed in saying if we’re all so smart, how come we don’t have our own awards? It didn’t take long for the comments, emails and blog posts to start flowing. Within days, we had a name , a blog, 80 volunteers and a mission to strike a middle ground, picking the books we found both literary and kid-friendly.’
“Now in our sixth season, Cybils boasts nearly 120 volunteers – all children’s and YA book bloggers – and just added an 11th genre, book apps. The contest spans from cradle to college, with books for tots and teens and everyone in between. Our schedule is roughly the same every year: nominations run Oct. 1st through 15th, with short lists posted on New Year’s Day and the winners announced on Valentine’s Day.”
I got involved with the Cybils last year, after they put a call out for judges in the easy reader/early chapter book category. I have to admit, it was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. I got to read a whole lot of books that I might not have picked up otherwise, and I was forced to put on my critical thinking hat while I was reading, which is something I don’t always think to do. This year I am a second round judge for YA Fantasy and Science Fiction, which I’m extremely excited about. Speculative fiction is my first love, and its an honor to be a part of the second round judging for such a popular and coveted category.
I think the Cybils awards are a unique addition to the award landscape. Beginning with the nomination process, the Cybils get people talking about and reviewing books for roughly five months, which is great for authors and publishers alike. The panelists and judges also get the chance to read widely and critically, which will make for better reviewers and reader’s advisors in the long run. And throughout the process, the teams of judges have deep, rich discussions about the books (and now book apps) that they are judging, which allows kidlit enthusiasts to meet new people and forge new relationships and partnerships.
So this fall and winter, keep an eye on the Cybils site. You’ll see reviews and updates periodically, and who knows--you might just discover your new favorite book in the process!
So what are the Cybils? The cybils are the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ book awards. If you’re not aware of/into the kidlit book blogging community, you’re missing some excellent reviews, discussions, interviews, and other invaluable resources, all written by extremely passionate and informed writers. I asked Anne Levy, the “Cybils Overlord” as she is known, why the book blogging community felt the need to start their own award and how they made it happen:
“The Cybils Awards began with a stray comment left on a book blog in 2006. The blogger complained the [now defunct] Quills were little more than a popularity contest, while her commenters moaned the ALA awards had gotten too snooty. So I chimed in saying if we’re all so smart, how come we don’t have our own awards? It didn’t take long for the comments, emails and blog posts to start flowing. Within days, we had a name , a blog, 80 volunteers and a mission to strike a middle ground, picking the books we found both literary and kid-friendly.’
“Now in our sixth season, Cybils boasts nearly 120 volunteers – all children’s and YA book bloggers – and just added an 11th genre, book apps. The contest spans from cradle to college, with books for tots and teens and everyone in between. Our schedule is roughly the same every year: nominations run Oct. 1st through 15th, with short lists posted on New Year’s Day and the winners announced on Valentine’s Day.”
I got involved with the Cybils last year, after they put a call out for judges in the easy reader/early chapter book category. I have to admit, it was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. I got to read a whole lot of books that I might not have picked up otherwise, and I was forced to put on my critical thinking hat while I was reading, which is something I don’t always think to do. This year I am a second round judge for YA Fantasy and Science Fiction, which I’m extremely excited about. Speculative fiction is my first love, and its an honor to be a part of the second round judging for such a popular and coveted category.
I think the Cybils awards are a unique addition to the award landscape. Beginning with the nomination process, the Cybils get people talking about and reviewing books for roughly five months, which is great for authors and publishers alike. The panelists and judges also get the chance to read widely and critically, which will make for better reviewers and reader’s advisors in the long run. And throughout the process, the teams of judges have deep, rich discussions about the books (and now book apps) that they are judging, which allows kidlit enthusiasts to meet new people and forge new relationships and partnerships.
So this fall and winter, keep an eye on the Cybils site. You’ll see reviews and updates periodically, and who knows--you might just discover your new favorite book in the process!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Connections
After reading a truly wonderful (or truly awful) book, my first impulse is “I must talk to someone about this!” Then, I probably also need suggestions about what my next read should be. I do this in various ways--talking to coworkers, reading journals, and I subscribe to over twenty kid/ya lit blogs with my read feeder.
When I need nearly instant gratification, however, I use twitter. Twitter is one of my favorite networking and social tools. It’s a great way to connect with people outside of your own institution without having to worry about the travel budget or time away. I have my favorite folks on there, but I also thought I’d see who other people liked:
View "Connections!" on Storify
As you can see, it connected me with some authors and readers I hadn’t connected with before, which is always a lot of fun.
As much as I love using twitter, facebook, and google+, however, I still crave old fashioned face to face time with people, which is why I borrowed a page from Elizabeth Bird’s book and started (with encouragement from Michelle Bayuk and James Kennedy) a Chicagoland Area Kidlit Drink night. As I am writing this, our first outing is still in the future-uture-uture (that was a space/time echo if you weren’t sure), but I am hoping it will be a rousing success. I used a facebook group and my twitter to spread the word, but ultimately the goal is to get everyone in a room and have some great conversations about books, readers, and reading. (I’ll probably be posting a recap, so don’t you fret if you’re desperately curious about how it will go/how it went.)
What about you? After reading a great book, how do you connect with other people? Do you have a book club? A book review blog? Do you gush or rant on twitter or facebook? Let me know!
When I need nearly instant gratification, however, I use twitter. Twitter is one of my favorite networking and social tools. It’s a great way to connect with people outside of your own institution without having to worry about the travel budget or time away. I have my favorite folks on there, but I also thought I’d see who other people liked:
View "Connections!" on Storify
As you can see, it connected me with some authors and readers I hadn’t connected with before, which is always a lot of fun.
As much as I love using twitter, facebook, and google+, however, I still crave old fashioned face to face time with people, which is why I borrowed a page from Elizabeth Bird’s book and started (with encouragement from Michelle Bayuk and James Kennedy) a Chicagoland Area Kidlit Drink night. As I am writing this, our first outing is still in the future-uture-uture (that was a space/time echo if you weren’t sure), but I am hoping it will be a rousing success. I used a facebook group and my twitter to spread the word, but ultimately the goal is to get everyone in a room and have some great conversations about books, readers, and reading. (I’ll probably be posting a recap, so don’t you fret if you’re desperately curious about how it will go/how it went.)
What about you? After reading a great book, how do you connect with other people? Do you have a book club? A book review blog? Do you gush or rant on twitter or facebook? Let me know!
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