YA Annotation - Calvin

Calvin

by Martine Leavitt

Genre: Realistic Teen Fiction

Setting: Ontario, Lake Erie, Cleveland

Time Period: 2012

• Hardcover: 192 pages

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) (Nov. 17, 2015)

• Age Range: 12 - 18 years

• Grade Level: 7 and up

• Lexile Measure: 680

Synopsis:

At age 17 Calvin begins talking to the cartoon tiger, Hobbes, a distraction that puts high school graduation and college plans in jeopardy.  While Calvin knows he is too old for an imaginary friend, his life is full of connections to the popular comic strip. Born the day the final Calvin and Hobbes cartoon was published, his grandfather gave him a stuffed tiger that became his constant companion through childhood, and his best friend is named Susie.

Eventually even his intellect and determination cannot keep the interloping tiger at bay, resulting in a public breakdown and hospitalization. Real-life Calvin rejects pharmaceutical treatment for his schizophrenia, believing instead that all he needs to regain equilibrium is to convince cartoonist Bill Watterson to draw one more strip depicting a healthy, grown-up Calvin without Hobbes. Soon Calvin, Hobbes, and a real or imagined Susie are trekking across frozen Lake Erie in a hasty quest to meet with the reclusive cartoonist.

Throughout the story, the reader is pulled into Calvin's uneven grasp of reality. Wondering what is imagined and what is real sets a quick pace for this witty but honest portrait of a young man grappling with mental illness on his own terms. 

Appeal:

Realistic Fiction
Ability Diverse (Mental Illness)
Character Driven

Genre Characteristics:

Story Told from Teens' Viewpoint

Fast-Paced Plot

Addresses Issues/Emotions Important to Teens

Read Alikes:

Challenger Deep - Neal Shusterman

Teenage boy struggles with schizophrenia.

Chasing Shadows - Swati Avasthi

Teen friends deal with death and mental illness.

The White Darkness - Geraldine McCaughrean

A teen's fixation on a doomed explorer becomes too real as she fights to survive her own Antarctic trek.

The Battle for Room 314: My Year of Hope and Despair in a New York City High School

The Battle for Room 314: My Year of Hope and Despair in a New York City High School

 by Ed Boland 

Non-fiction: Memoir 

Setting: New York City, 2008

Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (Feb. 9, 2016)
ISBN-10: 1455560618

Synopsis: Setting aside a successful career as a Yale admissions officer and nonprofit executive, the author decides to answer a mid-life call to teach. Rejecting short-term programs set-up to move degreed professionals quickly into the classroom, he spends two years in a master's program and, after student teaching and consulting veteran teachers, especially his sister, he begins his first assignment teaching ninth grade history in a lower Manhattan high school.

Classroom management is a challenge from Boland's first moments on the job when his attempts to start class are met with a calculator thrown at the blackboard, a fist fight, and an obscene gesture from one of his most challenging female students. All this happens before he meets the student who truly frightens him. His efforts to make lessons more interesting leave him frustrated and the class no more engaged in learning.

Despite assignment to an "autonomous" school, partially funded by the Gates Foundation and given freedom in curriculum and administration, Boland is soon overwhelmed. Exhaustion and discouragement lead him to resent his students, their circumstances, the education bureaucracy, and even his own inability to provide quality instruction in the midst of chaos. The author honestly depicts the trials and challenges of an urban classroom where there are no Hollywood school-year endings of miraculous test scores achieved and relationships built. Rather, Boland is left to contemplate his own failures as a teacher, the ineffectiveness of seemingly progressive reform efforts,  and the circumstances stacked against the most needy students.

Appeal:
Highly Narrative
Detailed Look Inside a Classroom
Personalizes Urban Public Education

Read Alikes:

I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had - Tony Danza
Television actor recounts his year teaching in a Philadelphia high school.

Getting Schooled: The Re-education of an American Teacher - Garret Keizer
Teacher-turned-writer returns to the classroom after 14 years.

Letters to a Young Teacher - Jonathan Kozol
Former teacher and longtime education advocate Kozol shares advice and observations in letters to a new teacher.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education - Diane Ravitch
Former assistant secretary of education critiques policies she once supported but now views as detrimental to students.

Week 12 Prompt - Non-Fiction RA Matrix

Reader's Advisory Matrix

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

By Daniel James Brown

Narrative Continuum - Highly narrative overall, with some fact-based sections explaining rowing and the construction of rowing shells.

Subject: The University of Washington's rowing crew in the mid-1930s and their struggle for respect and recognition in their sport, culminating with competing in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, under the gaze of Hitler and Goebbels.

Type: History of the University of Washington rowing team in the mid-1930s.

Appeal:

• Pacing - falls between leisurely and swift. Chapters and sections move along, but overall the story is told in great detail, including events years before the team comes together.
• Characters - Rower Joe Rantz is the focus of the book. Others include his wife, Joyce; coach Al Ulbrickson; boat builder George Pocock; and Rantz' teammates.
• Feel - Compelling, personal, and detailed.
• Author Intent - To tell the personal story of the rowers, particularly Joe Rantz.
• Focus - Joe Rantz, his rowing teammates, and coaches at the University of Washington as they strive for respect in their sport in the mid-1930s.
• Language - descriptive but not overly sentimental.
• Setting Role and Description - the Pacific Northwest setting reinforces the team's position as an outsider in the sport centered on the East Coast and in Europe. Historical impact of the Great Depression and coming world war are supported by the story's locations.
• Details - heavily researched, with a selection of notes included and the full set accessible online. Brown describes Rantz' life before college in great detail, as well as the history of the sport, and construction of rowing shells.
• Graphic Support - Photos of the story's people and settings appear occasionally throughout the book. A later middle grade edition includes a list of characters, a timeline, and introduction to rowing.
• Learning/Understanding/Experience - All three - learning about competitive rowing; understanding the effects of historical events on individuals; and experiencing the hard work and emotional toll of competitive sport.

Top Appeals - 1. Characters  2. Learning/Understanding/Experience 3. Details

Week 11 Prompt - Ebooks and Audiobooks

This week's readings elaborated on some readers' advisory issues relating to digital formats that I haven't thought about in depth. I recommend ebooks and audiobooks daily and assist patrons with the mechanics of digital material technology, but I don't always stop to consider other elements of a book that may be altered based on the format.

The patrons at my branch already are heavy audiobook users and a number of them have made the move to ebooks as well. Most of my reader's advisory conversations start on a traditional track and only at the point we are considering specific titles does the topic of format come up. Popular titles may have all ink-and-paper copies checked out, but an ebook may be available. Or renewed interest in an author or series may have prompted a reorder of a title now only available in digital format. At that point I ask the patron if they are interested in an ebook and hope the digital format will work for them. Most are either already using or open to digital formats, or are unable or uninterested in exploring the options. "I like the feel of a book in my hand" and "I don't want to mess with technology when I read" are two frequent reasons I hear that patrons want to stick with traditional books.

Personally, unlike many avid readers I know, I don't care about format as long as I can get my hands on the book and find time to read. My first e-reader was the original Nook -- the first gift my sons chose and paid for themselves. They wisely chose a Nook because at that time library ebooks weren't readable on a Kindle. While that technology seems clunky by today's standards, I was thrilled to be able to add a book at any time of the day or night, even if it required physically connecting my Nook to my computer.

Unbelievably, the first library-borrowed book I read on my Nook was Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- a title that includes photos, sketches, maps, and text in a variety of sizes and, in some sections, text arranged in unique configurations on a page. The ebook format at that time didn't handle the details of this book cleanly. Some illustrations were cut off or carried over onto the next page. Improved technology now retains the author's intended interaction of text and illustrations. Despite my willingness to "read around" some technical issues, I wouldn't recommend an ebook version of a graphic novel, or cookbook, for example, without asking the patron if they could or would read the book on an adequately sized device in order to best display the content.

Our audiobook users generally fall into two categories -- those who want to multitask, listening to books during another task, usually driving; and those whose eyesight makes reading even large print challenging. A few are loyal to certain narrators, but most look for titles by familiar authors. Several staff members listen to audiobooks also, and compare impressions of presentations. For example, many of us enjoyed David McCullough's nonfiction title, The Wright Brothers, but found the audiobook less desirable than the text. Andy Weir's The Martian was a popular audiobook among patrons and staff. Narrator R.C. Bray really brought the stranded astronaut to life and I personally recommended the audiobook over the text because the presentation was so strong and, with audio, it seems easier for anyone less interested in the scientific details to "listen through" them while concentrating on the storyline. 

Overall, ebook and audiobook formats are a regular part of our readers' advisory process. In addition to the need to determine if patrons have a way and the knowledge to access these formats, this week's readings are a good reminder to consider what effect a particular format will have on a patron's experience with any particular title.

Book Club Observation - Week 9

My book club visit/observation offered a glimpse into a group in transition. This was their first meeting without leadership by a library staff member. As part of a significant and ongoing restructuring process, the library opted to end staff support for a 10-year-old book club. A group of regulars is hoping to keep it going and at this first meeting on their own they spent some time discussing meeting days and times, and other procedural issues.

Six members attended this session - 5 women and one man - with ages ranging from late 30s to late 60s, including some retirees but mostly working adults. They reported about twice as many members, on average, before the library staff involvement ended. They met in a small meeting room of the library, having been displaced from a larger room since the club was no longer led by a librarian. Two members had discussed this policy with library staff and there seemed to be some confusion about it. The room would be quite cramped with any more than 6 attendees. No food or drink was served and there was no plan to do so at the next meeting either.

The oldest member of the group functioned as the administrative leader. She had prepared a list of questions and, while giving others a chance to contribute, focused on working through the entire list of questions, even when comments began to veer off in other directions still related to the book and its themes. It worked well enough for this meeting, but over time a strict adherence to a list of questions prepared each time by one person could make the group seem more like a literature class and less like a book club.

Another member, a semi-retired sociology professor, seems to be the informal leader. She is more likely to let the discussion follow an unscripted path, based on ideas and questions arising from the core questions. The two leaders were very polite in their exchanges, but as an observer it seemed to me that the group will likely need to choose one format - formal, or informal - in order to sustain the group over time. A third member belongs to several book clubs and after the formal and informal leaders, she contributed the most to the discussion.

The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks was the chosen title the night I visited. The structured leader first went around the table asking everyone if they had finished the book. Of the six members, three had finished, two were nearly finished and one had not had a chance to read the book but came to the meeting to take part in planning for the future of the club. Overall, enjoyment of the book varied from "not at all" to "interesting but too violent."

The book is a historical fiction examination of David of the Bible, not as the heroic shepherd boy facing off with the giant Goliath, but as the flawed adult who lusted for power and passion. Two of the questions that sparked the most discussion were What is the meaning of the title? and Is David a good leader? The latter brought comparisons to contemporary leaders, deemed good or bad, and inevitably to current presidential candidates. Everyone seemed intrigued by the title, but while interested, the comments didn't really coalesce around any one potential meaning. (I was curious and did some research after the meeting and found an extended interview with the author in which she attributes her inspiration for the title to hearing her son playing Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" on the harp. (McEvoy) The song's first lines are: "I heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord.")

The last portion of the meeting centered on choosing titles for the next four months. Everyone contributed ideas and, although I was trying not to intrude in their discussion, several of the members are patrons of both the library where they meet and the branch where I work, which is part of a different system. They are used to talking about books with me and asked for my input on several titles they were considering.

Ultimately they settled on Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread, and Persuasion by Jane Austen for their next four monthly meetings. The group expressed a desire to mix some non-fiction and classics with popular fiction for their selections.

Overall the now-independent club seems determined to continue and even grow by inviting new members to join and based on one visit, they seem to have a core of dedicated readers who can make that happen.

Source:

 McEvoy, M. (2015, October 3). The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks Shows a Bible Hero's Human Flaws. The Sydney Morning News. Retrieved March 10, 2016, from http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-secret-chord-by-geraldine-brooks-shows-a-bible-heros-human-flaws-20150925-gju1cl.html 

Virtual Readers' Advisory - Special Topics Paper

Virtual readers' advisory - providing reading recommendation through some form of digital communication -- is gaining popularity in public libraries. Moving the readers' advisory exchange from the personal to the digital platform raises a number of questions. Can librarians offer quality readers' advisory in a virtual format? Should they even try, or is too much lost if the conversation does not take place in person?

In a 2014 survey of 700 public libraries by the Library Journal, 93 percent reported offering some type of digital readers' advisory, with most providing online book lists and read-likes. A number of libraries have moved beyond providing online resources to offering one-to-one readers' advisory to patrons not physically in the library.

An online form is the most common type of virtual readers' advisory. The Seattle Public Library promises "Your Next 5 Books" to patrons who submit a brief form asking for "a few books and/or authors you've enjoyed and what you liked about them." Others, notably the Peoria Public Library in Illinois, offer extensive virtual readers' advisory forms which attempt to hone in on a particular patron's preferences in a range of appeal factors, genres, and other considerations in reading recommendations.

The Multnomah County Library in Oregon invites patrons to establish a personal relationship with a librarian by requesting readers' advisory recommendations through email, phone, online chat, video chat, or in-person meeting. The Librarians program, funded by grants, provides details about each participating staff members reading interests and hobbies, with the aim of fostering connections between staff and patrons, even if they do not meet in person.

The rise in virtual readers' advisory services presents opportunities for evaluation of the success of this approach to matching readers with books.

My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout

My Name is Lucy Barton

by Elizabeth Strout

Genre: Fiction - Women's Lives and Relationships

Setting: New York City, rural Illinois

Time Period: Mid-1980s, with flashbacks

Publication: Random House; Jan. 12, 2016; 208 pages

Synopsis: When a simple appendectomy results in complications, young wife and mother Lucy Barton's hospital stay stretches to nine weeks. Her husband is too busy managing work and their two young daughters to visit much, but surprisingly her estranged mother leaves her rural Illinois home to sit at Lucy's bedside in New York City for awhile.

Confined to Lucy's hospital room, the two women pass the time with seemingly random news and stories from their small town. Their contentious past hangs in the air between them, leaving what is unspoken most often carrying more weight than the words they share. When the conversation crosses their emotional barriers they briefly withdraw but cannot stay silent for long.

Within this slim novel, Strout reaches back to Lucy's troubled childhood and forward to her post-hospital life. Lucy, a published writer, draws on memories and observations of her family and friends to make sense of her past and more clearly see her present and future. The tautly written, brief chapters, some more poetry than prose, join together to form a detailed portrait of Lucy as a child, young married mother, and eventually as an independent woman.


Appeal:
Character-driven
Leisurely-paced
Lyrical

Genre Characteristics:
Female Protagonist
Focus on family (mother-daughter) relationships
Explores contemporary issues

Read-A-Likes:

The Art of Mending - Elizabeth Berg
Flawed family grappling with the past.

Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson
Female protagonist struggles with family memories.

Sights Unseen - Kaye Gibbons
Woman searching for mother's approval.

Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan
Three generations of women reveal family secrets.

I See You Everywhere - Julia Glass
Moving, reflective, lyrical domestic fiction.