Want to see the inside of a pinata?

The lovely Sussy DeLeon from the Pinata Center came to the library yesterday to give a pinata workshop. Here's a behind-the-scenes peek. And if you need a pinata for a special event in your life, you know where to go!


Check out these babies!


And thanks to everyone who attended!

Have a crimefighting Halloween!

Jim Benton Doesn't Get Enough Love

The two most-asked-for series at my library are definitely the Diary of a Wimpy Kid* series, by Jeff Kinney, and the Captain Underpants series, by Dav Pilkey. Unfortunately, the probability of a book in either of these series actually being in the library is about the same as the probability of your vacuum cleaner coming to life and chasing you around the living room.

But never fear, I am prepared**! Whenever someone wants some Capt. U and I can't find any on the shelves, I recommend Franny K. Stein, which is about an elementary school-age mad scientist. It has robots! And lots of zany pictures! And it's written at the same, streamlined reading level.

And whenever someone wants Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I recommend My Dear Dumb Diary. Once again, it has it all: cartoony diagrams, short entries about middle school life, lots of exaggeration, and a slim, unintimidating spine. It's just what you want when you have a book report due tomorrow.

Amazingly, both of these series, which obviously tap into some elementary school zeitgeist, are by the same author: Jim Benton. Just listen to the titles of some of his books: "The Problem with Here is it's Where I'm From," "Never Underestimate Your Dumbness," and "My Pants are Haunted." If I was in charge of giving a literary award, I would give it to him. Meanwhile, I will recommend his books to everyone I see. So watch out.

*BTW, Diary of a Wimpy Kid was originally published as an online novel or webcomic or waddayacallit, and you can still read Greg Heffley's Journal on http://www.funbrain.com.
** Not for vacuum attacks.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd we're back

Thank you to all the people who asked me why I wasn't updating the blog, because now I know that people besides me are reading it! I do have a program coming up that I want to share with the world. It's called The Widow's Broom Read-aloud, Craft, and Raffle! It's a long name, but very descriptive.

The program is on Wednesday, Oct.21 @ 4 p.m. and it's for ages 6 and up. It's all based on this book by Chris Van Allsburg, who lives in Providence.*


So we'll read the book--if you're familiar with Van Allsburg's books you know that they tend to be magical in an unexplained and vaguely unsettling way--and do a craft. And then one lucky child will win four tickets to the Festival Ballet's performance of the Widow's Broom on Saturday, Oct. 31.

Cool, huh? If you want to make sure you can attend the Widow's Broom ballet, you can always get tickets at the VMA website.


*I just looked up his bio to make sure that was true, and his bio says that yes, he lives in Providence and also that he can play the recorder with his nose. I always expected him to be intimidating, like Maurice Sendak, but perhaps not?

Survival Games

The survival games are done and the main winner was ... me. Because I made the questions too hard for anyone else to win.

Actually, we had some winners (and one lucky guy who got to wear a crown of laurels), and I think we've developed a good set of rules for the future, so thanks to everyone who participated. You know who you are--the people who can identify the following robot types:

Car Design Competition

Ooooooooooooooooooh look at these fresh cars!






Come and vote on your favorite designs from the automobile design workshop. They're on display til mid-August.

Book News: What Libraries Can Learn from Target

Disclaimers:

• I feel a little guilty putting the name of a big box store in my post
• I hate the suggestion that libraries should model themselves after corporations
  

But the NYT article on Target's book club is eye-opening. I always wonder what makes an obscure book suddenly popular, and apparently the Target Book Club is the power behind the surge in paperback sales of a number of titles.

Plus the article is sort of a how-to on becoming a taste-maker. I think libraries are more of taste-satisfiers, but I wonder, who do people trust more? Their librarians' recommendations or the Target book club? Target's obviously doing a couple things better than we are. They know how to display, label, and select books so that they fly off the shelves. They know how to take emerging authors from obscurity to the NYT bestseller list. And they know the demographic they serve: "Ms. O’Leary said that Target’s 'core' book buyers were women, with a median age of 42 and median annual household income of $60,000. About half have completed college degrees, and some have children at home."

Could we describe our core patrons with that kind of accuracy and detail? If we could, that would help us select books better. And once we know who our core patrons are, we can reach out to the people we're not serving successfully.