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Review: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie My rating: 5 of 5 stars As someone who was born in Spokane and raised for a time in Coeur d’Alene, I really connected with the geography of the place in the book. Junior is a Spokane Indian and he makes the hard decision to leave the school on the reservation to go to Reardan many miles away. He has to hitch-hike and occasionally he misses school because his family is poor and has no money for gas. He deals with being an outsider both with his tribe and in his new, mostly white, school. The relationship between him and his best friend on the reservation becomes strained, and many in his tribe view him as a traitor, especially since he also plays on the rival school’s basketball team. But as the story progresses, Junior discovers things like what it means to be a part of a tribe, and how he personally comes to terms with the enormous amount of grief in his life. Beautiful book! One of my favorites for always. Will rea
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Review: Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

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Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg My rating: 5 of 5 stars Sandberg's experiences, thoughts, and pontifications regarding women as leaders in today's job market are relevant and insightful. As a woman who is trying to find a job after staying home to have and raise a baby, I found some of her recommendations regarding how women should use language in a job hunt to be helpful. Some of the statistics were quite shocking and disillusioned me a bit. For instance, she talked about a striking salary penalty many women pay for choosing to leave work for home for even just 1 - 3 years. (Yikes.) It's helped me reassess a few things as I've been looking for gainful employment. I also liked her call to action for supervisors and leaders to make adjustments in how they conduct business and meetings so as to give women more opportunities for equal representation. Overall I found it to be more engaging and interesting than I thought it wou
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Musings of a Would-Be Web Librarian

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Web librarians, ebranch librarians, cybrarians and other similar terms are proliferating the literature of the library world. What exactly do these terms mean and when will librarians stay ahead of the curve and finally be able to provide the finished product of the best library website ever? There's the rub. They can't. What is relevant now will be obsolete before you know it. Technology changes a lot in just a few years, and sure, there are ways for librarians to create websites that can stay relevant longer (especially when taking UX and accessibility standards into consideration). But if websites aren't quick to adapt to what users want and when they want it, they will fail to provide a friendly user-centered experience. We have to start thinking about library web services as always evolving. Websites aren't buildings. When we think of a library's website in terms of a digital branch, we might think of the old brick and mortar concept of a library bra
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Review: Gnomes

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  Gnomes by Rien Poortvliet My rating: 5 of 5 stars I can’t believe I had gone through so many years, working in libraries, without discovering this gem until this past week. Since gnomes make up a big part of this year’s summer reading theme, I have a gnome display on the bulletin board in the children’s area. One of my coworkers and I started talking about the nature of gnomes, and she showed me this deluxe edition of “Gnomes” by Wil Huygen. Admittedly, I haven’t read many books about gnomes, but I would bet that this book is the ultimate and definitive guide to gnomes. It was easy to see why this book would and apparently does appeal to so many. The author was a physician, and this is reflected in his observant, scientific writing style. Gnomes become so fascinating, so interesting, and the world they live in is huge and magical and even real thanks to the author’s “field notes” about gnomes, their behaviors, and their environments. Rien Poortvelt’s illustrations
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"What's your scariest read?" - Answered!

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Illustration from Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark Trilogy I asked my friends on Twitter, G+, and Facebook what books they considered to be their "scariest read." I got some answers and compiled them in a Prezi presentation. It was fun to see all of these displayed so nicely in a digital "book display" format. I liked playing with Prezi. Have any more suggestions? Leave a comment! Also, the presentation is best viewed in "full screen" mode (button at lower right hand corner after starting presentation) and by using the right and left arrows at the center bottom. Also, you can zoom in and out as needed. Have fun! "Scariest" Reads on Prezi
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Review: Chi's Sweet Home

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Click to view on Amazon Chi's Sweet Home   by Konami Kanata I'm not a manga person (not counting my brief, enthusiastic teen affair with Magic Knight Rayearth and Sailor Moon), but when I picked up Chi's Sweet Home for the first time a week back, I could not put it down. Chi is a lost kitten who meets a young boy named "Youhei" of the Yamada family. They decide to take the abandoned kitten home, even though pets are strictly NOT ALLOWED at their apartment complex. There are a lot of cute, quirky things about the kitten that make her endearing. Chi acquires her name when she answers to the Japanese word for urine. She also speaks in "meows" to the humans, but the translations of what he is saying are adorable, since she speaks in a cute-toddlerish-speech-impediment kind of way. As someone who owns a cat, I enjoyed the kitty antics immensely, as they reflect real things kitties do! I'm pretty sure if I didn't own a cat of my own, I wo
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Review: My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf

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Click to view on Amazon My Friend Dahmer  by Derf Backderf This is a horrible story. It really is. But My Friend Dahmer is a graphic novel written and drawn extremely well. The author/artist recounts his interactions with Jeffrey Dahmer in high school. Dahmer typically goes unnoticed by his teachers and peers. Sure, he is weird. He has this knack for acting like he has cerebral palsy and yelling in the library just to get the librarian riled up. (Note: I did not particularly enjoy the author's portrayal of the librarian, but I digress.) Dahmer likes to collect dead animals he finds, and strip them to the bone, just to see what's inside. But he also enjoys the company of friends at school. The bizarre interactions between him and his friends further illustrates just how strange Dahmer is, even though he is beneath everyone's radar. The story follows his family problems, dark fantasies, and his alcoholism in high school. He tries to numb the darkness within b
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