Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library - by Chris Grabenstein

The fictitious town of Alexandriaville, Ohio has been without a public library for twelve years. The old library had been "torn down to make room for an elevated parking garage...many said the Internet had rendered the 'old-fashioned' library obsolete." To celebrate the opening of the new town library (designed by famous game-maker, and most favorite native son, Mr. Luigi Lemoncello) all twelve-year olds are invited to enter a contest to be the first to get library cards and to spend the night at the library. Kyle Keeley along with eleven of his classmates win much more than they bargained for when they learn that getting out of the library will require them to use their library skills, game skills, and to cooperate with each other. 

Kyle and his friends learn that the library has a lot more to offer than shelves full of books. They archive local history, have community meeting spaces, games, and cool science-y stuff as well. They also have librarians who will help you find what you need (and in fact, I must point out that Grabenstein dedicated this book to "the late Jeanette P. Myers, and all the other librarians who help us find whatever we're looking for").

I loved that two of the characters (Miguel and Andrew) were aides in the school library, and I also liked that the team Kyle formed had more girls and than boys on it. So often in popular culture I notice that groups of friends have one token girl (think "Harry Potter") but this one had a nice mix, with everyone in the group able to contribute something, and everyone able to learn something as well. 

There were two cool librarians in this work: the town's new head librarian Dr. Yanina Zinchenko described as tall with a breathy voice "with just a hint of a Russian accent." The other is Mrs. Gail Tobin, librarian when young Luigi Lemoncello was a lad who "looked a little like Princess Leia...except she had an old-fashioned bubble-top hairdo, cat's-eye glasses, and a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows...she'd be a hundred and ten if she were still alive." She appears as a hologram to the winners of the contest and assists them in navigating the space.

The games conclude on Mr. Lemoncello's birthday who says "there's no place [he'd] rather be on [his] big day than inside a library, surrounded by books."

Rife with allusions to other books (both classic and more recent favorites) this work is a true celebration of everything that is fun about books, reading, libraries, and librarians. 

A perfect read for National Library Card Sign-up Month.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - by Robin Sloan

Clay Jannon, recently laid off from his work as a web designer, takes a job in an unusual bookstore. Working the third shift, when his few customers are borrowing books (rather than buying them) from what he calls the "Waybacklist" (located in the the back of the store) Clay is intrigued by his eccentric clientele. The Waybacklist is three stories high, with the highest shelves accessible by a very tall ladder and Clay gets the job by demonstrating that he is good at climbing, and is not afraid to reach. Clay is also required to describe each of his customers in a log book, explaining their demeanor and what they were wearing on each visit. The books they borrow are written in a cryptic code, and customers always seem to have a sense of urgency about them.

Clay's boredom at work drives him to use his computer skills to create a digital model of the store, and he discovers that there is a pattern to the book requests. In what becomes a bibliophile's National Treasure  Clay and his band of geeky friends attempt to help Mr. Penumbra to find the key to the secret of eternal life. Their quest takes them from Penumbra's quirky storefront in San Francisco, to New York City, to a warehouse in Nevada.

New York City is where the secret library of the Unbroken Spine is housed. Volumes in this library are "encrypted, copied, and shelved...[and] not read by anyone until after [the author's] death." All those who have written books for the library of the Unbroken Spine are hoping that one day the codex vitae will be unlocked, and they will thus be rewarded with immortality. Penumbra explains to Clay

The nature of immortality is a mystery...But everything I know of writing and reading tells me that this is true. I have felt it in these shelves and others.

Although skeptical Clay admits that he is familiar with

the feeling Penumbra is talking about. Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines - it's hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits. That's just a feeling, not a fact...

We also learn about a long ago "between the stacks" tryst. As in often the case, even today, such a thing will likely get you kicked out of the library. A hundred years ago it also would get you kicked out of the order of the Unbroken Spine.

Thousands of computers are used in an attempt to crack the codex, which ultimately requires a decidedly much more low-tech technique.

The answer turns out to be about as satisfying as Douglas Adams' 42 - the answer to "life the universe and everything".

A final note to those who decide to read this book, no need to Google Gertizoon font, or Dragon-Song Chronicles. I already did so. They were invented for this story.

A Clash of Kings - by George R. R. Martin

So now that I have read two books in the "Song of Ice and Fire" series, I can honestly say I gave it a good effort, and I officially don't like this story. Although when I blogged about A Game of Thrones I said I would read the rest (if only because I'd already bought and paid for them) I have, nevertheless, decided that I am done. I would be remiss, however, if I didn't point out the reverence with which books, and reading, are treated in this work.

Librarian Samwell makes a brief appearance at the beginning of the book as he shifts through his collection looking for maps. He admonishes Jon to "be gentle" with the books, and, like a true librarian, wishes very much to catalog it all

There's more maps. If I had time to search...everything's a jumble. I could set it all to order, though; I know I could, but it would take time...well, years in truth.

Samwell also understands, as Jon does not, the importance of preserving and archiving information. While Jon believes only silver and gold can be treasures, Samwell knows that information is also valuable

You can learn so much from ledgers...truly you can. It can tell you how may men were in the Night's Watch then, how they lived, what they ate...

Most librarians can tell you how simply frustrating it can be to work with people who do not understand the thrill of finding the tidbit of information we seek, and how much we love finding the right way to organize things so that information is discover-able.

Tyrion expresses the joy of reading for pleasure when he asks his favorite "wench" at the brothel what she does while he is gone. She answers "sleep" but adds that she is being taught to read so that she "will be able to pass the time with a book." Tyrion concurs that "[s]leep is good...And books are better."

Indeed.

Sex Criminals (Volume 1) One Weird Thing - by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky

I appreciate a book that recognizes that librarians are sexual beings. I also appreciate a book that recognizes the superhero status of librarians. In Sex Criminals authors Fraction and Zdarsky have created a librarian character (Suzie) whose superpowers are activated when she reaches orgasm. Suzie can make time stop whenever she comes. She meets her match in Jon, who has the same gift she does. The two decide to use their power to become modern day Robin Hoods - robbing from the rich (the evil banks) and giving to the poor (the about-to-be foreclosed library).

The authors clearly appreciate a good library (and a good librarian). And they make a bit of a dig at the woeful status of sex information a young person might discover at school. Remembering her quest for information when she discovers her special secret Suzie asks

Ever try to utilize the resources of the public school system to learn about sex? No wonder so many dumb kids get knocked up. Nobody knows anything and if they do, they're legally bound from telling you.

However, she "falls in love with libraries" when she gets the assistance she needs from a non-judgmental and super helpful public librarian. (This is clearly what inspired her to become a librarian herself).

There are five books in this series. Although I found this fun, I don't plan on reading the rest. I get the gist.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - by J.K. Rowling

SPOILER ALERTS!

As I have done for the past several years, I re-read one of the "Harry Potter" books in time to blog for Harry's July 31 birthday. I think the fourth book in the series may be my least favorite. It really threw me the first time I read this to find that Lord Voldemort did indeed rise again. And he is really just so mean.

As with the other books, readers will find Harry and his friends using the library quite often for their research. Harry, Ron and Hermione all work tirelessly poring over books trying to find the elusive information on how a person can breathe underwater so Harry can perform the second task of the Triwizard Tournament (even going so far as to asking "the irritable vulture-like librarian, Madam Pince, for help"). Furthermore, students at Hogwarts can't simply "Google" how to perform a stunning hex, you have to look it up in a book. Herminone spends additional time in the library where she researches the history of the enslavement of House Elves in order to start S.P.E.W. (The Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare). Hermione's presence in the library turns the brooding Victor Krum (a visitor from the Durmstrang School, and famous Quidditch player) into an avid library user as well. This causes a bit of chagrin on Hermione's part, not because she doesn't like Victor, but rather because he has a fan club that follows him into the stacks, disturbing the scholarly atmosphere. Eventually the library proves to be just the right mood setter for Victor to find the courage to ask Hermione to the Yule ball.

This is still magical even upon the third reading (even if it isn't my favorite).

And, just in time for Harry's birthday : researchers find a correlation between reading HP books, and feeling empathy for marginalized groups.

Two Library/ASL movies

One of my summer projects was taking an online American Sign Language (ASL) course for librarians. As a result I've been doing a bit a research into deaf culture and learned about the book Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language. I also found out about the 1986 movie Children of a Lesser God and was reminded of an old favorite from my high school days - Voices. Finishing the course coincided with a visit from my Wisconsin cousin with whom I share an affinity for Voices (we must have watched it together half a dozen times on HBO during the summer of 1980). She has also taken, and taught some ASL courses. Given all this, we really had no choice but to watch Voices again. We had to purchase a copy of the DVD as it is not available on Netflix, or Amazon streaming (my go-to places for movies).

Voices stars Michael Ontkean as Drew Rothman, a musician who falls in love with (or in '70s vernacular "really digs") Rosemarie Lemon (Amy Irving) a beautiful deaf dance teacher. While not a comedy, my cousin and I laughed all the way through this, wondering why our teenage selves thought this was such a great film. Ontkean does his own singing, and he really isn't very good. The story is also a bit melodramatic. I told my cousin watching Ontkean in this venue was like seeing Greg Brady as a college graduate. Irving did an admirable job playing Lemon, at least she was challenging herself in the role. There is one scene in a library where, strangely enough, Rosemarie teaches her dance classes. Drew also checks a book on ASL out of the library.

Children of a Lesser God stars William Hurt as James Leeds and Marlee Matlin as Sarah Norman. Like Voices the story is of a hearing man who falls in love with a deaf woman and believes she can be more than she is. In this case Norman is a janitor at a deaf school and Leeds thinks that if she would just learn to read lips and use her voice all kinds of new opportunities would open up for her.  It is in the school library that Norman explains her rather sordid sexual history to Leeds. This one was made seven years after Voices, and the story is much the same. The acting is definitely better in this one than in Voices though, and Matlin plays a much stronger character than Irving does. I am sure they were both breakthrough films in their time, but they seem quite dated now.

Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language - by Nora Ellen Groce

For over 200 years from the mid 1600s to the early 1900s, on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts a large deaf community thrived. While other deaf people often lived in isolation, those on Martha's Vineyard not only knew many other deaf people (a quarter of the population was deaf at the peak) with whom they could communicate, they could also sign to their hearing neighbors who all also knew sign language. At the time Groce did her research in the late 1970s and early 1980s the last of the population with hereditary deafness had died out, but there were still some on the island who remembered when "everyone here spoke sign language". Through oral histories and old records Groce discovers that the deaf population was fully integrated into the life of the island including business dealings, social life, church, and politics.

One of Groce's contacts, a hearing octogenarian at the time of the interview, remembered her mother talking about a professor who came from Boston before she (the interviewee) was born. The professor wanted to know about Vineyard deaf, and her mother never understood why he was so interested in them. "'There was nothing unusual at all about them, you know' her mother would add." A few months after the interview Groce learns that the professor was, in fact,Alexander Graham Bell. She discovers his notes at the Dukes County Historical Society Library. Bell was researching whether deafness could be inherited - "a very controversial question at that time." Groce tracked down more of Bell's notes, packed away in storage, at the John Hitz Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. - Note I subsequently learned that Bell's research interest was in eugenics. 

There was one other passing mention of libraries. One contact remembered going to Tucker parties

The Methodists didn't believe in dancing, you see, so we walked around and we'd change partners andwe'd face our partners and we went right and left...They [Tucker parties] were benefits usually, benefits for the library or the church, or something.

I checked this book out from the library I work in after I started taking an online class in American Sign Language for Librarians.