A Four-Legged Baby

Many, many years ago, before I was married, before I even had kids, when it was just me and there was no one around to say "no", I saw someone giving puppies away in the grocery store parking lot. So I took one. On a whim. Terrible way to get a new pet, but just look at this face:

He was so LITTLE! And so CUTE!

I named him "Malenchki", roughly "Little One" in Russian. He stayed short, but not so little in other ways, earning the nickname "sausage dog". I told people he was half Rottweiler, half dachshund.

He was already getting on in years when Christopher came along,

Did someone say, "treat"?

and most of my kids have grown up with him. Sure, he'll eat anything remotely resembling food, and the comparisons to Walter the Farting Dog were definitely made when that book came out, but all in all he has been a good dog.

He is now 14 years old, which is something like 342 in dog years. His eyes are cloudy, but just try tossing a treat in the air near him - it will never hit the floor!

He is also starting to move a little slowly, but then, so am I. I figured it was a little rheumatism, and slipped him half a Rimadyl on days he seemed to be a bit stiff. It doesn't slow him down - even with food and water available on the deck, he insists on running up and down the steps, wrestling with the bigger dogs. The sofa is a bit of a tricky jump on slick floors, so we got him a nice, soft bed.

Which he shares with his best buddy, Baby Alice (also no longer a baby). Sometimes she takes more than her fair share. He doesn't seem to begrudge it.

His face is a bit whiter now, but he's perky as ever.

Trust me, when he's conscious, he's perky.

Then Daddy noticed one hip was swollen - like, really swollen. Oh, great, I thought, he dislocated it wrestling with the husky. In to the vet the next morning for x-rays.

The good news is, his hip wasn't dislocated. They don't think so, anyway - it was hard to see the bones on the x-rays, what with the way the cancer has spread.

He took the news pretty well: "So, we're at the vet, and vets have treats. Where's my treat?" He got extra-special treats to have each morning, and as long as those work, we'll just continue on as is. We try to make him stay inside on chilly days, but he wants to be outside, enjoying life with his buddies.

There's a lesson in there somewhere, don't you think?

Betty Bunny Reads...Betty Bunny.

Review: Joy in Mudville by Bob Raczka

9780761360155

"It had been only twenty-four hours since Mighty Casey struck out, plunging fans of the Mudville team into gloom and despair. But a new game day dawned, and Casey once again proved his might with a homer in the eighth. The Mudville nine took a one-run lead, but in the bottom of the ninth, their hurler walked three straight.

Bases loaded and the starting pitcher spent, the Mudville manager was not bullish about his bullpen. With the game on the line, he called for rookie Joy Armstrong to take the mound. Could she bring joy to Mudville again—and prove that a girl can play ball as well as any boy?"

Not a picture book to be taken seriously. Children will want to know if it really happened (no, it didn't), and those literally minded children will want to check into whether women could play in the major leagues...or if you could really bat a ball like you are playing tennis and get it to the batter's box...and then there's the rather obvious lesson (boys screw up, but girls can fix things effortlessly and make them look even dumber. Oh, wait, that wasn't it?)

On the other hand, it's a cute, light story, with plenty of funny moments. The pictures are lively, with a few oddities to notice (Joy has blue nail polish to match the uniform, and the umpire's outfit changes with each sport she imitates). If your intention is to spark a discussion of stereotyping, this can get you going nicely - and hopefully astute children will realize it is shown both ways here.

Thanks to Carolrhoda Books for the review copy.



Review: Water Can be... by Laura Purdie Salas

9781467705912

 

It can be hard to find a nonfiction book that works well as a read-aloud, but this one does quite nicely. We may just have to work it into this coming Summer Reading program, "Fizz, Boom, Read!"

 

Salas suggests many forms and uses for water in short rhyming phrases - "Cloud fluffer...fire snuffer...school drink-er...bruise shrinker." Each word pair is illustrated in warm, rich tones by Dabija, from a whimsical drawing of kids playing in a sprinkler, to dark waves crashing over a ship in the ocean. Good for both casual reading and in classroom lessons.

 

Thank-you to Millbrook Press for the review copy.

Library Recarpeting - Part 1, or, Don't Stand Too Close to Me, I Stink.

Like many libraries, we have a constant list of things that need to be repaired/replaced/burned to the ground and started over. High on our list has been the carpeting. Approximately 97 years old, it is stained, ugly, worn, and unraveling in parts. And, I'm sorry, but who thought square tiles of carpet were a good idea in a high traffic area??? 

Constant trip hazard when they peel up! Yes, I know, the theory is that, if you get a stain on one square, you can replace it with a 'new' one you have squirreled away somewhere. Except that, a) Nobody has any idea where the extra squares were stored, and b) Squares in storage are no longer going to be the same color as the squares exposed to light/dirt/traffic.

I didn't do it. Or, maybe I did. I can't remember.

So, a modest amount of money was allocated, with a spending deadline of June 30. The project went out for bids in April. Yep. I'll pause while you look at the calendar.

Contractors from in and out of town have been wandering through, measuring. The staff has picked the general colors we want, and we are hoping to find out in mid-May which bid has been chosen, and - more importantly - how much of the library that will cover. You see, we don't think we can afford to get the whole library done, so the bids are being done in sections. That makes planning a touch difficult - what, exactly, will we have to move?

And, yes, we are moving it all, with a little help from anyone we can bully or bribe. We know the children's room will be first (yahoo!), and hope it will start around May 19.

Summer Reading registration is May 10.

SRP programs start - in the room where we are storing most of the furniture - June 9.

I'll pause while you look at the calendar again. Deep breath.

This is actually like Christmas for an OCD list-maker. Want to see my 3 page typed manifesto of how the books in the children's room will be boxed up? No? Okay, I'll give you the condensed version.

One major goal is to keep books available for checkout as long as possible. To that end, we added shelves on the adult side at a height no human can see, and we are shifting and condensing the adult books as much as possible (secondary goal: job security, because nobody can find anything without asking a staff member now. We pretend we know.)

This is very hot, sweaty work, so I have taken to bringing an extra shirt to work. I still stink, but at least I feel like I've made an effort. Staff members are taking turns, 

and we have drafted a few volunteers we trust. Hooray for home schoolers!

In the meantime, we are collecting boxes. I counted the shelves in the children's room (478 not counting kits and DVDs) and figured 1.5 boxes for each shelf, so - 717 boxes. Or so. See, kids, you really do use math in the real world! Except, we are shifting some of the kids' books to the adult side once we have cleared some shelves. So we don't need that many. Except, then we will have to box up adult books if we have enough to so that carpet. So we will need more than that. Or, can we put them on the kids' side? No, wait, summer reading, that won't work.

Okay, I have no idea how many boxes we need. But, we're collecting them.

Lots

and lots

of boxes.

I have started packing up the lesser-used collections - foreign language, Braille, Mother Goose. Here's where the OCD kicks in: every range of shelves is assigned a letter,

which is written on a map and on the range itself. When someone starts boxing the books in that collection, the boxes are marked with the letter and then in number order.

That way, where the box ends up does not matter. When we are ready to put them back, anyone moving boxes can say, "Hmm, this box says 'N5', and that range has an 'N' on it. I will put the box over there." Then the boxes can be emptied back onto the shelves in number order. That's my plan, anyway. If things get a little scrambled within the box, I can live with that- they'll be in the right shelf at least, and we can have volunteers shelf-read throughout the summer. When a range is finished, I am writing the total number of boxes on my map, so we will know if all boxes have been accounted for.

I guard this map with my life.

There is also the small matter of the turtle tank, which weighs approximately 8 tons. It took eight strong adults to move it into the library, and that was with all the water out. Due to a minor miscommunication about when this particular move was happening, we decided to take EVERYTHING out - water, sand, gravel, rocks, and of course turtles.

The turtles were less than thrilled, but Doug the Mighty Custodian was then able to move it himself,

and build them a temporary new rock platform. Once everything is back in place, the tank will get a whole new design, but they can at least swim and sunbathe right now.

So, that's where we are. When I was in high school, they library where I paged hired a professional company to move. Then we hired two college kids to spend the entire summer fixing the mess he professional moving company made. Here's hoping we won't have to do that! Have you ever moved a library, or part of one? What did you find helped/hindered the process?

We Lost Our Marbles!

But, we'll get them back when we move those shelves later.

Miss Victoria from the Explora Museum came down today to share a special science-themed story time with us. The theme was "On a Roll", and started with Miss Victoria reading Mama Zooms, 

a cute story about a Mommy (who, we realize towards the end is in a wheelchair), and all the things her son pretends to be as she zooms him through the day.

Before the program, Miss Victoria confided that this was her first solo program, but she did very well.

These regulars had no complaint!

From there, we moved to an area with simple ramps, and experimented with rolling plastic cups down.

These two just met this morning, became instant friends, and were SO good about cooperating and sharing!

Then Miss Victoria started bringing out additional objects. Here's some masking tape, what can you do with this? Will these roll? What about these? What if you put a bunch of things on a dowel rod?

A quick transition to talking about roller coasters, and the rolling objects were traded for marbles and pool noodles.

So much fun! We can't wait for Friday, when we will be learning all about plants!

Review: Boa's Bad Birthday by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross

There are certain illustrators any book enthusiast can pick out a mile away. Tony Ross is definitely one such illustrator.

 

 

9781467734509

 

Poor Boa. They say it's the thought that counts, but what do you do when the gifts you get for your birthday don't show a whole lot of thought behind them.

 

"But what he really wanted to say was, 'Why buy me mittens? Are you crazy? I have no hands!'"

 

Who would have thought that the best gift would be a ball of dung?*

 

A very cute story, with wonderful facial expressions in Ross's illustrations, and a stated but not heavy-handed message. I predict being asked to read this one over and over.

 

*For the record, I once asked for, and was very happy to receive, 300 pounds of manure as a gift. But, I'm a grown-up, and we're weird.