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Thank You For Weeding Mindfully: A New Life for (Very) Worn Books

 

Inside the covers of the Crestwood House Monsters series, adventures await!

Part of a librarian’s job is to weed the collection (obviously, you know this already if you are a librarian). That is exactly what it sounds like– pulling undesirable materials that have taken root (and shelf space). By “undesirable” I mean books that are damaged, or that have incorrect information, or that are old and worn out. These last are the hardest, because they usually are books that have been thoroughly loved for many, many years. Although they may not be checked out frequently any more, there are certain kids for whom you know those books will be just right. When I was a school librarian, I struggled with getting rid of the falling-apart Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, and when it came time to take three shelves of beat up Nancy Drew books down, I offered them to a teacher who couldn’t bear to see them exit the building (teachers will rubber band books together that have fallen apart if they have to).

But it has to be done. I have been in school libraries that had not been weeded in so long that the books on space read “Some day, man will land on the moon”, 35 years after that giant step for mankind occurred.  And I have encountered the same set of monster movie books, the Monsters books from Crestwood House, first published in the 1970s, multiple times: as a kid discovering monster movies for the first time, a librarian wavering on whether to keep the books or weed them, and now as the mom of a Monster Kid.

I was actually very surprised to find the Crestwood House books on the shelf both at my local public library and the school library. I’m not sure how he actually discovered them, as I did not introduce them to him, they were in library bindings (so the covers weren’t visible), and his class was encouraged to choose from more “age-appropriate” books. The school librarian even called me to check if it was okay for him to check the books out. And for two years, he has checked them out, over and over.

Today I got an email from the librarian. She wrote that she had weeded the nonfiction extensively this summer, and the Crestwood House Monsters books did not make the cut. They have been pulled from the collection. “Since he enjoyed them so much, do you think he would like to have them”?

Oh yes.

That was quite possibly the fastest thank you note my child has ever produced.

Libraries have to make room for new books and knowledge by discarding inaccurate and damaged materials, but bless our school librarian for really paying attention to my son’s unusual interests.

These books that are probably as old as I am? They have a new life ahead of them, with someone who will treasure every torn, worn page.

 

Posted on August 8, 2013 by , Reply

Memorable Short Stories

 

After my last post on how short stories are awesome, it was suggested to me that maybe I could make a few recommendations. So here you go– my totally subjective choices. These are stories that I personally have found memorable– either because I never, ever want to read them again, or because they draw me back, again and again. A few of them may not be in print anymore, and some are considered classics (you might have read them in school) but some are relatively new. Some might be considered YA, but don’t feel excluded! They are great reading for us older folks too.  And I’d say nearly all of them have either a creep factor, or a fear factor (with the possible exception of “In The Jaws of Danger”. Almost all those images are clickable, just in case you’re interested in checking out these authors on your own. If you have a memorable short story of your own that you would like to share, I’d be very interested in your comments!

Please don’t be thrown off by the overuse of blockquotes. It’s hard to tell when I’m formatting what it will look like when I’m done, and frankly, while I was a little startled to see how it looked when I previewed it, I’m way too tired to fix it right now. Thanks for understanding!

 “The Lurking Fear” by H.P. Lovecraft

My best friend in high school handed me her used copy of  The Lurking Fear and Other Stories and said “You’ve gotta read this”! I handed it back to her after reading just this story, and have never read Lovecraft since. It terrified me that much.

 “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

Anyone who has made it through high school without reading “The Lottery” should go do it right now. It is a chilling tale.

 

“High Beams”, collected by Alvin Schwartz

I love to tell this story to kids at Halloween, but it’s hard to go wrong with any story by Alvin Schwartz.

“The Tell-tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

Poe is a master of the short story form. “The Tell-tale Heart” is only one of many memorable stories he has written: others include “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Masque of the Red Death”, and “The Fall of the House of Usher”.

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury

Bradbury is another master of the short story. This list would be a much longer one if I included every story by him that I have found memorable. If you can believe it, I first read this in elementary school as part of the Junior Great Books program. I always found “The Veldt” to be a creepy story, and now that I’m a parent living in a hyperreal world, it’s chilling. Other stories I considered listing here included “A Sound of Thunder”, “There Will Come Soft Rains”, “The Flying Machine”, “The Third Expedition”, and, of course, Bradbury’s homage to Poe and to monster movies, “Usher II”

 

“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut

Ah, the nightmare of a world where everyone is required to be average. Welcome to the Monkey House, which contains “Harrison Bergeron” also has a memorable title story involving Ethical Suicide Parlors, and one of my favorite stories of redemption ever, “The Kid Nobody Could Handle.”

“The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell

“Survivor” has nothing on this masterpiece about hunter and hunted.

“Leinengen Versus The Ants” by Carl Stephenson

I can’t think of a better illustration of “man vs. nature”, which is probably why this story appeared in my high school English textbook. By the way, this particular book I’ve linked to here also has some other great stories, including Ambrose Bierce’s “Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge” and Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”.

“We Can Get Them For You Wholesale” by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman does a wonderful job with the short story form, be it in the flash fiction format used in Half Minute Horrors, the parody of “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire”, or the poetic brutality of “Harlequin Valentine” (both in Fragile Things). “We Can Get Them For You Wholesale” is, for me, anyway, unforgettable.

“The Open Window” by Saki

Saki is brilliant. “The Open Window” is extremely creepy. Another story of his I find very thought-provoking is “The Toys of Peace”.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A hallucinatory, semi-autobiographical tale of one woman’s descent into madness, this is also a vivid illustration of how many women with intelligence and will were treated at the time that it was written.

 “Monster” by Kelly Link

“Monster” could have been just a tale about bullying gone horribly wrong. But it’s much more frightening than that. It’s nearly impossible to go wrong with this collection, though. There are notably creepy, weird, and fantastical stories in here. Kelly Link is a true artist.

 “In The Jaws of Danger” by Piers Anthony

That cover image illustrates “In The Jaws of Danger” pretty effectively. Who knew dentistry could be so hazardous? Young Extraterrestrials is a book I treasure. It is filled with great stories, as you would expect from anthologists like Greenberg, Waugh, and Asimov. I can’t begin to tell you how many of their anthologies I devoured as a kid. Unfortunately it is now out of print.

“Mother of Monsters” by Guy de Maupassant

This is a truly horrifying story of calculated and twisted cruelty to children in the name of profit and fashion. Maupassant doesn’t need to get graphic to illustrate the tragedy and horror of the situation and of the culture that encourages it.

“Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Alaya Dawn Johnson

This  fantastic story appears in the YA anthology Zombies vs. Unicorns. It’s about a zombie and a human who fall in love, and the sacrifices they both make to be together. There are many strong stories in the anthology, and it is well worth it to check it out.

 

“Nightfall” by Isaac Asimov

If the stars should appear for just one night in a thousand years, how would humanity react? The answer: not well. This is classic Asimov. I read it first in high school, and I keep coming back to it. Make sure you’ve got the story and not the novel.

 

 

 

Posted on July 30, 2013 by , Reply

De-constructing Monster High

I don’t hang out in the toy aisle at Target often, mostly because I hate seeing blatant gender division (the pink “girls’ ” Legos are shelved with Hello Kitty and Barbie, and all the other Legos get their own shelving unit on the clearly labeled  “boys'” side, for instance, and that makes me cranky). But I was there anyway, and my six year old daughter had to get birthday presents for her friends… And that’s when I saw this.

 

 

I have written about the reservations I have about Monster High in the past, but I’ve also noted that there isn’t much else out there for monster-loving girls. Monster High is a multimedia franchise with not just dolls but webisodes, books, and much more– a true multimedia franchise– and it is a franchise that continues to grow. It seems like a  possible way to catch the interest of girls in classic monsters, both movies and books. But then I walked in to the toy aisle, and there was this: the “Create-A-Monster” set.

I had read that the dolls were so skinny that you had to take the hands off to put on the clothes, but this goes way beyond that. This “Create-A-Monster” set completely disassembles two of the dolls into their assorted parts with various fashion accessories included. On a feminist level, I can’t see how a toymaker could possibly have managed to depict the extreme of objectification you can see here. The parts are interchangeable, which I guess would allow for some creativity, but kids playing “create-a-monster’ here are working with a limited number of options, with their goal to create the dolls as they appear on the box. There are other “Create-A-Monster” sets, so I suppose that with an unlimited supply of money and imagination, a kid could purchase many sets, toss the pieces together in a box, and build all kinds of crazy monsters, as this little Victoria Frankenstein did (start the video at 3:20) kind of like my husband does with various specialty sets of Legos. That’s gruesome and disturbing, but in kind of a cool way. But is that how the girls who play with Monster High actually used these dolls in their imaginary play?

Now, because both my husband and son are kaiju lovers, I have seen many Youtube videos done by kaiju loving enthusiasts where the creators actually film movie battles (usually using very stop motion animation of various quality, such as this one) using their existing action figures (don’t feel that you have to watch the whole thing). Now, granted, kaiju have kind of a limited palette of activity available to them if you stick with the original creators’ narratives, since most of what they do on screen is battle other kaiju and destroy things. You can’t dress them up easily, the parts aren’t interchangeable, and they’re more likely to step on a shopping mall than shop at one. That hasn’t stopped my kids from making and acting out stories about Mommy Godzilla and Baby Godzilla going to haunted houses, amusement parks, and movie theaters, and solving mysteries with Scooby Doo and Geronimo Stilton. That’s all kind of unexpected. Kids can do what they want with the toy and the narrative that goes along with it once it’s in their hands. What kind of play do the Monster High dolls inspire, though? I saw review videos, acting out of traditional high school drama, and other rather mundane things that come along with owning a collectible fashion doll. NPR called the dolls “goth Barbie”. I object to their characterization as “goth” but it does look like in most ways they are being played with much in the same way as Barbie and other fashion dolls are. The Monster High dolls, then, are domesticating monsters rather than inspiring creative play that provides an opportunity to take an existing and tired narrative and remake it in new and exciting ways. Although there are always a few who will take what you give them and run with it. As this music video  for Ke$ha’s song “Cannibal” shows, there are creative ways to use those extra body parts.

Monster High appears to be subverting the “normal” fashion doll narrative, but it’s only, for the most part appearance. But that can be reclaimed! Rather than letting corporate media and marketing determine how the girls you know play with the dolls, show the alternate narrative that comes alive when girl monsters come into their own. Children’s and school librarians, check over your library collection and see what you can find. The girls may be hard to find, but I guarantee they’re out there.

 

Posted on July 29, 2013 by , Reply
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