Close Enough to Touch - by Colleen Oakley

Jubilee Jenkins' allergy to people has kept her a recluse for nine years. Following the death of her mother (who had been supporting her) Jubilee takes her first tentative steps outside of her house. Rather remarkably she almost immediately lands a job in the local public library. She also falls in love and begins a long journey towards living a more regular life.

Jubilee comes to like her job at the library and even comes up with a plan to get more people to use it when budget cuts threaten her job. 

It is sometimes harder for me to write about library-centric books than it is to write about books in which the library or librarian is only a minor part of the story. Where do I start? What do I leave out? In this case the passages I marked mostly seem to indicate things that are especially un-librarian like behaviors.

On her first day she is asked to reshelve some books "according to the numbers on their spines". I think we can safely assume these are Dewey Decimal Numbers. The Dewey Decimal Classification system isn't especially difficult to learn, but I cannot imagine that anyone would be expected on their first day of work to understand it so thoroughly as to need no training whatsoever before being asked to reshelve books. I have seen people with plenty of experience make mistakes in shelving, especially when the decimal place gets past a few digits.

There are some other very obvious places that indicate that the author perhaps doesn't fully understand library work. For instance when Jubilee is asked to fill in for the children's librarian during story time she panics a bit but her co-worker Louise assures her that "it's easy. Roger left the three books on his desk and I think you give out candy and sing a song or something. Over in thirty minutes." Jubilee does manage to get through the program and she "silently thank[s] Roger for at least picking out the right books." I can assure you that Roger didn't simply "pick out" some books. He planned a program.

Besides having Jubilee do the more difficult task of leading the story time while she staffs the Circulation desk, Louise also manages to have Jubilee do her "dirty work" for her when she decides that a patron needs to be told that she can't have "private parts up on computers" because "what if a child walks by". The fact that the website didn't appear to be porn, but rather was likely a medical site made no difference. The patron needed to be told it was "against the rules". I thoroughly disagree with this. Everyone has a right to find the information they need in the library. If there are concerns that others might see something then the library needs to figure out a way to ensure privacy. It is the bedrock of our profession.

Jubilee's love interest, Eric, discovers that the library is the perfect place not only to see Jubilee, but also to check out YA books that interest his estranged teenage daughter in the hopes that if he reads them he can get her to at least get her to return his texts. He checks out The Bell Jar, Twilight (he's Team Jacob), The Virgin Suicides, and The Notebook. He also enlists Jubilee to help him understand the works so that he can better discuss them with his daughter. The library (and Jubilee) also help him with his 10-year old son when he realizes that he cannot leave him home alone after school, and no babysitter wants to stay with the disturbed child. The provision of after-school care is a real issue for public libraries. Many families have no other options except to send their children to the library until they can be picked up when their workdays are done.

Despite its shortcomings in describing the library work, I very much enjoyed this book. It was a good, easy read during the holiday break.

Hazards of Time Travel - by Joyce Carol Oates

In a dystopian future, class valedictorian Adriane Strohl  is arrested for treason and "questioning authority" on the eve of her high school graduation. She is sentenced to live in Zone Nine - 1959 Wainscotia, Wisconsin - as university student Mary Ellen Enright at Wainscotia State University for four years.

Adriane's brother Roddy works in the Media Dissemination Bureau "an old brownstone building formerly the Pennsboro Public Library, in the days when 'books' existed to be held in the hand-and read!" Not only have old libraries been repurposed, the information they held has been destroyed.

The old, "outdated" (that is "unpatriotic") history books had all been destroyed, my father said. Hunted down in the most remote outposts-obscure rural libraries in the Dakotas, below-ground stacks in great university libraries, microfilm in what had been the Library of Congress. "Outdated"/"unpatriotic" information was deleted from all computers and from all accessible memory-only reconstituted history and information were allowed...  

There are some contradictory passages in the book as to whether public libraries in the Reconstituted North American States exist. Adriane specifically says that "there were no longer 'libraries' in NAS-23" but also indicates in a previous passage that she was able to take out books from the public library marked "YA" (for young adults). YA books "had to be approved by the Youth Entertainment Board, and were really suitable for grade school." She was unable to take out books labeled "A" for adults. The books were actually eBooks and all had to be approved by the Homeland Security Information Bureau.

Adriane, ironically, however, finds herself working in a real library once she is sent back in time. As a "thrifty" scholarship girl "Mary Ellen" has a job at the university's geology library. And she is awestruck at the main university library

a vast brownstone building of numerous floors descending even into the earth, filled with row upon row of "stacks" containing "books" to be touched, and opened, by hand. And in reading rooms, high ceilings, myriad lights, and polished floors - and students!

"Mary Ellen" does some research on her professor (and fellow exile) Ira Wolfman in the college library by searching the "long clumsy drawers, under the heading PSYCHOLOGY, 20TH Century".

She spends much time in the university library and wondered at all the information that was not restricted by the government. She remarks on this "freedom" while also recognizing the irony that Zone Nine "did not feel like freedom".

With shades of Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time and Thornton Wilder's Our Town this thriller leaves the reader with a lot of questions about what is real, what we know, and what we believe.

Unsheltered - by Barbara Kingsolver

In 21st century Vineland, New Jersey Willa Knox, her husband, father-in-law, two grown children, and one grandchild move to a dilapidated house on Plum Street after having to leave their home in Virginia following a job loss.

On the same Plum Street lot in 19th century Vineland, Thatcher Greenwood, his wife, sister-in-law, and mother-in-law also live a house that may very well fall apart around them.

Is there a historic significance to Willa's house that could save it? Only good research will tell!

On her maiden voyage to the Vineland Historical Society, Willa discovers that the town was designed as a Utopian community in 1861 by Charles Landis, and that

within the first decade Vineland had eighteen public schools...Three seminaries, fourteen churches, Masonic and Odd Fellows Societies, a public library, and a hall built on Plum Street to host one of the country's most exciting public lecture series.

Well, after all, what kind of a utopia would it be if it had no public library?

And, in fact Thatcher Greenwood and his friend Mary Treat made good use of said library (as well as the Harvard Library and the Boston Public Library) in their day. Willa, on the other hand, is more of an archives person, making use of the files (with the help of curator Christopher Hawk) at the Historical Society. Hawk's connections at the National Agricultural Library land Willa with a trove of letters written by Mary Treat, and thus, the book comes full circle.

Americanah - by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie's book tells the story of Ifemelu, a Nigerian woman who immigrates to the United States, and then, after becoming a U.S. citizen, returns to Nigeria. As a smart, savvy young woman it should go without saying that Ifemelu is also a library user.

Ifemelu and her boyfriend Obinze first use the library only as a place to meet, but she becomes a more active user after she moves to the United States for college. Obinze (an "Americophile") sends her a reading list of American writers he believes she should read. After already having found The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "unreadable nonsense" she wasn't expecting to find an author she liked, but

She hungered to understand everything about America...Obinze suggested...American books, novels and histories and biographies. In his first e-mail to her...he gave her a list of books. The Fire Next Time was the first. She stood by the library shelf and skimmed the opening chapter, braced for boredom, but slowly she moved to a couch and sat down and kept reading until three-quarters of the book was gone, then she stopped and took down every James Baldwin title on the shelf. She spent her free hours in the library, so wondrously well lit; the sweep of computers, the large clean, airy reading spaces, the welcoming brightness of it all, seemed like a sinful decadence...in those weeks...she discovered the rows and rows of books with their leathery smell and their promise of pleasures unknown...

Well, who needs a man?

Ifemelu is not the only one in this story who uses the library. There are at at least three other characters who are clearly patrons. One of these is Blaine, a boyfriend in her adult years, who not only uses the library, but also defends a library employee at Yale, where Blaine is a professor of Political Science. Blaine is a friend of Mr. White, a "rheumy-eyed" security guard "with skin so dark it had an undertone of blueberries". When a white employee mistakenly suspects that Mr. White is involved in a drug deal and calls the police Blaine organizes a protest after the university responds to the incident with a statement that it was "a simple mistake that wasn't racial at all".

An especially curious passage to read in the summer of "Permit Patty", "Bar-B-Q Becky" and "Coupon Carl".

I think that perhaps Adichie's last mention of the library in this work is my favorite of all time. Ifemelu applies for a research fellowship at Princeton University. When she reads her acceptance, hands shaking, she discovers that "the pay is good, the requirements easy: she was expected to live in Princeton and use the library and give a public talk at the end of the year." All I could think was that the only thing I could think of that would be even better than having a job as a librarian, would be to to be paid just to use the library.

Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx=Sonia Sotomayor: la juez que creció en el Bronx - by Jonah Winter

If there is one thing I love more than a "library" book, it's a bilingual library book! Beautifully illustrated by Edel Rodriguez this biography of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor recounts her life growing up in the public housing projects of New York, to her acceptance at Princeton University, and on to becoming a federal judge, and ultimately her nomination and confirmation onto the Nation's highest court. The book is written in parallel English and Spanish text, and of course mentions the importance of libraries (twice!) in Sotomayor's journey to the Supreme Court. The Author's Note on the back cover provides some additional information about Sotomayor, including her birthday - June 25, 1954. Since I happened read this book only a few days before her 64th birthday I decided to publish this post to coincide with it. Happy Birthday Sonia!

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - by Junot Díaz

To wrap up 2016 I re-visited an old favorite. I first read this about 10 years ago when I assigned it to students in my First Year Seminar. I had not read it since, although I did read Díaz's two other books Drown, and This is How You Lose Her. And I did have the chance to meet the author in the meantime - in fact I got to introduce him when he spoke at our campus in 2008! There is movement afoot to bring him back to Bridgewater so it seemed like a good time to re-read this novel.

Oscar de Leon (aka Oscar Wao) is a Domincan living in New Jersey He is also a big nerd. Fat and homely he does not fit in with the rest of the kids in his neighborhood, and not surprisingly, does not do so well with women. He does, however, love to read and spends a lot of time at the library.

Oscar had always been a young nerd - the kind of kid who read Tom Swift, who loved comic books and watched Ultraman - but by high school his commitment to the Genres had become absolute. Back when the rest of us were learning to play wallball and pitch quarters and drive our older brothers' cars and sneak dead soldiers from under our parents' eyes, he was gorging himself on a steady stream of Lovecraft, Wells, Burroughs, Howard, Alexander Herbert, Asimov, Bova, and Heinlein, and even the Old Ones who were already beginning to fade...(It was his good fortune that the libraries of Paterson were so underfunded that they still kept a lot of the previous generation's nerdery in circulation.)

 This may be the first time I've seen a lack of library resources referred to as a stroke of luck.

The narrator, Yunior, takes on Oscar as a bit of a project as a favor to Oscar's sister (Lola). They are college roommates and Yunior attempts to get Oscar to diet and exercise, and to act like more of a Domincano. Yunior mentions using the library a few times himself - once because he had nothing better to do, and once to hit on another student at his college library.

 The author makes heavy use of footnotes, which often provide historical context and are an important part of the story. They are not to be ignored and are written in the same engaging style as the rest of the book. I knew better than to skip them, and was rewarded with not only a better understanding of the story, but also it was where we learn that Lola ("a reader too") always supported her brother's sci-fi mania by "bringing him books from her own school, which had a better library."

The action in this book alternates between New Jersey and the Dominican Republic. There is a fair amount of Spanish language woven into the dialogue. Those who have heard or used Spanglish will recognize the natural use of the language in this work.

It was serendipitous that a friend posted this video on her Facebook page just as I was finishing this work. It explains why the Spanish words and phrases used in the novel are not italicized, but simply embedded into the rest of the text.

The Station Agent - the movie

Before Peter Dinklage was Game of Thrones' Tyrion Lannister he played Miles Finch, angry children's book author, in the movie Elf ; and perhaps even lesser known, he was Finbar McBride in The Station Agent. 

Train lover McBride inherits an old train depot in New Jersey when his only friend dies. Arriving at his new home he is (reluctantly) befriended by a food truck vendor; a grieving mother; and a young, pregnant librarian with a tosser of a boyfriend.

This is not a film for those looking for an action-packed drama. But if you're looking for a rather low-key, cerebral film about folks who use their public library you are in for a treat.

BTW I have never watched even one episode of Game of Thrones. I read two of the books though, and didn't like them. My reviews can be found here and here.

Last Night's Reading: Illustrated Encounters with Extraordinary Authors - by Kate Gavino

I follow author Junot Diaz on Facebook. A recent post of his featured a drawing of himself by Gavino along with a quote "Every time someone gives you a formula for what you should be, know that it's basically a pair of handcuffs". From this post I learned about the passion I share with Gavino: book readings. Some years ago I wrote an essay called "Rubbing Elbows with the Authors" for the Internet Review of Books. The essay tells of how much I enjoy going to book readings by authors (both the famous, and not-so-famous). The essay has since been removed from the IRB but it can be found here. Gavino's work is a quick read based on her tumblr account featuring drawings of authors she has heard reading their own works. When she attends a reading she doodles a picture of the author and adds a favorite quote. She and I both know that readings are generally free entertainment, and a cool way to meet famous people without the huge crowds. This was especially fun for me to read. I felt like I was playing a game finding drawings of authors I've read (Lois Lowry, Marjane Satrapi, Carl Hiaasen, Margaret Atwood, Isabelle Allende, Laurie Halse Anderson, Edwidge Danticat, Maya Angelou, Chuck Palahniuk, Jeffrey Eugenides, George R.R. Martin. John Green, Elizabeth Gilbert  and (bonus!) even some that I've met myself Tiphanie Yanique, David Sedaris, Janet Mock).

I got a bit emotional reading this book. Listening to books being read aloud tends to make me cry a little bit. Apparently so does reading about readings.

So, here's hoping that  I will be able to meet Gavino someday. Hearing her do her own reading would make this truly a meta experience. I've never tried my hand at drawing author's portraits, but if I  meet her I will give it my best shot.

In the Unlikely Event - by Judy Blume

Judy Blume did a lot a research in order to write this novel about real life events that took place in 1951-1952 when three planes crashed in Elizabeth, New Jersey over a two month period. The story is of lost lives, and dashed dreams. It is also about hope and community and moving on. Fans of Judy Blume know well that she has never forgotten what it was like to be a child, or a teenager. This book demonstrates that she also has not forgotten the thrill of first love, the rush of first sexual excitement, or the devastation of first heartbreak, or what it feels like to lose a friend.

Ms. Blume thanks five librarians by name, and three different libraries in her acknowledgements. In this work she also created characters who were book lovers, and library users. Smart Daisy Dupree loves to read and to give books as gifts. She uses the library a lot, but "the bookshop is for books [she] just has to own." Former first-grade teacher Jo Foster always has a stack of library books ready to read to her two daughters at bedtime. Their babysitter Miri Ammerman, fantasizes an alternate reality in which Jo took the girls "someplace, to the library maybe..." after a plane crashes into their house and kills one of the young girls. Miri also uses the convenient "I'm going to the library" excuse when she decides to get her hair styled and cut like Elizabeth Taylor's so as not to have her mother Rusty ask a lot of questions, or forbid her from doing it. And when Miri runs into her boyfriend with an older woman on her way home from school she wishes for a "do-over" in which she would take a different route, or maybe go to the library. Writing this I realize that it seems that Miri thinks about using the library a lot, but it is unclear whether she actually ever went. She mentions a lecture her stepsister gave at the library on "channeling your past lives" during one of her book tours, but even there we are not sure if Miri attended. We do know Miri's mother used a "penny library" (presumably a subscription library?) to check out From Here to Eternity.

Blume has created sympathetic, strong characters who also have regrets and flaws. This well- researched work was hard to put down.

Eat Brains Love - by Jeff Hart

Slacker Jake is so embarassed when he turns into a zombie in the school cafeteria and then goes on a rampage and gobbles up his friends, but it turns out not to be so bad when he discovers that Amanda Blake, one of the most popular girls in school, has also turned and they get to go on the lam together. He is also baffled by the romantic attention he receives from Cass, a psychic teenage zombie hunter. Cass is equally confused by her attraction to Jake. A truly goofy teenage zombie love triangle.

The only play librarians get in this one is as a stereotype/metaphor. Remembering his life pre-zombie Jake recounts going to a club with his friend Adam.

The place was more crowded than we'd been expecting, and some dumb-ass band was playing, and there were all these chicks with tattoos and little black glasses hopping up and down and rocking out like it was GWAR...Adam was in heaven; he loves those alternative librarian types. Give him a girl with bangs, glasses and a tight little cardigan and he goes nuts. I lost him within minutes of stepping into the place.

With a High Heart - by Adele de Leeuw

In honor of National Bookmobile Day (April 17) BookRiot posted reviews of "5 Great Books about Bookmobiles". I couldn't resist this title, and the fact that I found it in the very library where I work seemed to be destiny. I've always been fond of bookmobiles, and there are still a few around even in the 21st century. I got my first library card from the Baltimore County Public Library Bookmobile in the early 1970s. I thought it was much better than my older sister's card, which came from the Catonsville Branch Library, because mine had a blue star stamped on it, whereas hers had a boring old black star. There is a certain romance about bookmobiles, and this book is a romance novel about a bookmobile.

Poor Anne McLane was so counting on being assigned to the oh-so-modern Claremont Library for her summer library work experience, after all she was the star student. How could Miss Pruitt have given that cushy assignment to mousey Sophie Whitcomb, while she (Anne) is exiled to Kenyon County Library? But it seems wise Miss Pruitt knew what she was doing. Not only did Anne learn a heck of a lot more about running a library than she bargained for, how else would she have ever met dapper Matt England, the smart young farmer, if the bookmobile she was assigned to drive had not broken down near his property? She also saves a drowning child, mollifies a bitter blind man, saves the day when she keeps an event from cancellation, and otherwise keeps the dreams of the citizens of Kenyon County alive - all this in the space of one very hot summer, whew! Likewise, Sophie's assignment brings her out of her shell.

This book was written in 1945 and certainly gives a great sense of the times. War rationing is an issue when the bookmobile is threatened with a cut in gas and tire rations, which would have prevented the satellite stations from receiving their books. Beyond this though, is a clear subtext about women's roles, even working women. There is no judgement about Rilla, who is only working in the library until her soldier fiance returns home so she can marry him. Her co-workers do seem unsympathetic to her, though, when his daily letters stop coming, which makes her pretty (understandably) grouchy. When she receives word that Dill has been killed they offer "mute and awkward sympathy", and suggest that she keep working!  Indeed, there are several passages that suggest that women should remain "cheerful" and even decorative, even in the face of adversity. The book opens with this description of the aforementioned Sophie Whitcomb, who actually has the nickname "the Mouse"

she was so mousy...[d]un-colored hair and gray tweeds and no make-up whatsoever were bad enough (emphasis mine)..she tiptoed down corridors and spoke in a subdued voice that sounded half-frightened, and she was apologetic and effacing when she should have been vigorous and prominent

The book makes evident when it is appropriate to be vigorous and prominent (for instance to save the bookmobile) but it just as evident when a woman should keep her opinions to herself. Anne's dissatisfaction with her work assignment is obvious to those around her and she is given a dressing down by Matt when when he notices that she doesn't seem thrilled with her assignment, and suggests she go about it "with a high heart". Of course Anne must eat crow in the end, when it turns out he was absolutely right.

It is also evident that anyone can learn to do the job of a librarian (which after all is women's work), as Ada Howland, former actress, tells Anne

...when they started the Library...I just jumped at the chance of being in charge. Of course I didn't know a thing about books; but I was a great reader and was terribly fond of them, and no one else seemed to have the time, and the salary was so tiny...

This short passage hits two hot buttons for me: a myth that all it takes is a love of books to be a librarian (especially interesting in a book about a library school student); and a sad truth that the salaries remain small (after all it is women's work).

I think my favorite "library lesson" though was when young Anne learns that Carrie Newton, the flighty librarian at the Gansville station has an "unorthodox" system for identifying books that would never fly in her library school classes. "Systems have to be invented by somebody, and I might as well have my own" Newton tells the whippersnapper, wanna-be librarian. Anne not only comes to realize that the system does have a certain charm, but that there are some things can't be taught in the classroom. Those instructors sure can be anal retentive, can't they?

Beyond bookmobiles, some Latin American Countries have found other innovative ways to deliver books to off-the-beaten-path villages. Find out about the Biblioburro and the Bibliolancha.

Bad Haircut: Stories from the Seventies - by Tom Perrotta

In his introduction, Perrotta says this collection of short stories about growing up in the '70s  is "about everything the Wonder Years leaves out". He is referring to drugs, sex, homophobia, racism, bullying, and questioning of authority. The ten stories that comprise the work follow one character called "Buddy" from childhood through early college. Buddy, who instigates some of the cruelty we see in the book, is not necessarily a sympathetic character, but we are only seeing glimpses of his life. One thing I do like about Buddy is that he is a library user. Although use of the library is only mentioned in two stories: "The Wiener Man"; and "The Jane Pasco Fan Club" I will optimistically believe that Buddy used the library a lot since there is a nine-year time span between these two stories. In "The Wiener Man" eight-year old Buddy specifically says he checked a book out. In "The Jane Pasco Fan Club" Buddy and the lovely Jane go to the library to debate "the virtues of telling a story through the eyes of a minor character". And it is here that we see romance bloom between the teenagers - so much fun we can have at the library.

This Is How You Lose Her - by Junot Diaz

I had high hopes for this collection of short stories, by one of my favorite authors, when I found a reference to going on a date in the library on the second page of the very first first story, and then read about "the nerd every librarian in town knows" only two pages later. I expected then, that the book will be chock-a-block full of libraries and librarians. Alas, it was not to be: these two library references were the only ones.

That is not to say that I did not thoroughly enjoy this work. The stories are original, and the writing is colorful. Those who read Diaz's previous collection of short stories, Drown, will remember the character Yunior, who is the protagonist in almost all of  these stories, except "Otravida,Otravez", the only story told from a woman's point of view. All, however, involve some pendejo (usually Yunior) treating some woman (or women) like crap. The last story, called "The Cheater's Guide to Love", where we learn that Yunior, even as a well-educated, grown man, never changes his ways brings it all together. Those looking for a story of redemption will not find it in this work.

This was the first book I bought through the iBooks store to read on my new iPad. I must say I liked it. It was cool the way I could use the virtual bookmarks, and virtual yellow sticky notes to remind myself what I wanted to write about. And I liked that I could read a popular new book without paying top dollar, or waiting a really long time on the library waiting list. The downside is that it is much more difficult to share this way.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - by Judy Blume - September 26

"It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers."
— Judy Blume

Still holding on at number 99 on the list of 100 most challenged books of the 21st century, it is hard to imagine why this tame story of a 12-year old girl (Margaret) getting her period for the first time is so threatening. Those who have challenged it have claimed it was "sexually offensive", "amoral", and "anti-Christian." This was my absolute favorite book from about 1975 to 1977. I don't know how many times I read it before it was it was replaced with The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton as my new favorite (although I don't think that one has any libraries).

Are You There God? has one library scene, which was just as I remembered it. Margaret and and her classmate Laura Danker (with the big you-know-whats!) stay after school to do some research in the library. Laura tells Margaret that she can't copy "straight out of the World Book word for word....You're supposed to read it and then write it in your own words. Mr. Benedict will know if you've copied." Of course Laura is absolutely correct. It is uncalled for that Margaret comes back with a nasty accusation about Laura, Moose Freed, and Evan Wheeler and what they allegedly do behind the A&P. Margaret immediately feels awful, and tries to apologize, but Laura will have none of it. Can't say as I blame her. One thing I didn't remember about this part though, is that the librarian has one line in the midst of it all. Can you guess what it is?

"Girls-let's be more quiet." Sigh.

Sightings: Tom Perrotta's satire The Abstinence Teacher includes a passage about book challenges at a middleschool library in which Are You There God? It's Me Margaret is targeted.

Judy Blume talks about banned books in honor or Banned Books Week.