Closing Session: Octavia Spencer

At last, we reach the closing session of ALA 2013.  We were introduced to all the new presidents of all the various divisions of ALA (there are a lot of them) as well as the members of the board.  Then out-going president Maureen Sullivan introduced the new ALA president Barbara Stripling.  We school librarians have high hopes for Barbara Stripling, who was a school librarian herself.  We hope that advocating for school libraries will become more of a focus for ALA.

Barbara introduced the closing speaker, Octavia Spencer, who has written a middle grade book called Randi Rhodes Ninja Detective: The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit.   Octavia grew up reading Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown and loved Scooby-Doo and wanted to write a mystery book that was similar to those.  The book was talked about briefly, but it was mostly about her acting career.

Octavia was friendly and personable and a lot of fun to listen to.  Something she wanted to clear up was that her mother's primary job was not a maid.  Her mother worked a lot of different jobs, and she did clean houses at one point.  The book is dedicated to her mother.  Octavia's mother said she could do anything.  When Octavia said she maybe wanted to be an actor, her mother said, "maybe not that."  Her mother wanted her to go to college, but Octavia had started getting some acting jobs and didn't know if she wanted to leave to go to school.  When she was working on The Long Walk Home, Whoopie Goldberg took her under her wing.  She told Octavia to go to college.  Acting would be there when she was done.

Speaker Series: Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick

 On the last full day of ALA I heard Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick speak.  They had a new documentary, The Untold History of the United States which they also made into a book.  As they worked on the documentary they realized that it was going to be so controversial that they needed a book to back it up.

Peter Kuznick talked about their research process.  He used many libraries, but mostly America University's library.  In the book he acknowledges several librarian because they were so crucial during the research process.  Kuznick said he probably checked out between 700-800 books.  And he hasn't returned them all yet.  The book goes from the 1890s to the present, so there was a lot to cover.  He had nine graduate students as researches.

Oliver Stone was asked what he thought of how history is taught and represented in schools and libraries.  Stone said it was depressing.  In textbooks that talk about the atomic bomb, there is not discussion or look from the Japanese perspective.  The Soviet Union is rarely mentioned in the context or WWII.  Stone said it was the Soviet invasion, not the atomic bombs that ended the war.  Americans need to learn their own history.  Science and math is not actually our weakest subjects, history is.  Stone claimed that children are bored by history because it's so sanitized.  "Kids like horror movies, they like fear.  Let's put some fear back into history."  Student have no idea how many Vietnamese were killed during the Vietnam War.  We'd be horrified if German students didn't know how many Jews were killed during the Holocaust, but Americans don't know how many Vietnamese died.  The focus is just on the Americans who died.  It's bigger than that.

The moderator asked Stone and Kuznick what they thought the biggest threat to democracy and free speech were.  This is the point where if you weren't aware just how far to the left they both were, you found out.  A major problem they brought up was secretiveness and information being classified.  There were problems with this under Bush, but it really hasn't been much better under Obama.  They felt the America love of money is a serious threat.  Everything is done for money - sports, news, etc.  Money has taken politics victim, and it is ruining the democracy.  "Greed does drive certain people," Kuznick said.  "I don't think it drives most people who become librarians."  Kuznick expressed frustration that America's values are upside down.  People who do good don't get rewarded.

Their final thoughts were that people should keep speaking up.  There will be people who change things and make a difference.  "...can count on librarian to continue to stand up for the truth."  Librarians are one of the front lines in the fight against censorship.  Right at the end they mentioned that they were in talks with Simon & Schuster about doing a YA version of The Untold History and possibly a graphic novel adaptation as well.  That would be very cool.

Newbery Caldecott Wilder Awards Banquet

 Sunday evening we got ourselves all fancied up (I mean, comparatively speaking) and off we went to the Newbery-Caldecott-Wilder banquet.  Before they let us into the ballroom where the banquet was held, they entertained us with cocktails and Caldecott bingo.  The bingo sheet was full of questions about the history and past winners of the awards.  It was a special year, because it was the 75 anniversary of the awards.  We got special cookies for the occasion.
Anna, Alana and I were able to answer far less questions than we'd like to admit.  We had to resort to looking things up.  Hey, we're librarians.  We may not know everything, but we can find anything out!

The banquet was delightful, although due to dietary restrictions I was getting a special meal, and the server seemed uninformed that there were special meals.  And he was kind of rude about it.  But other than that, delightful.  They were showing some interviews with the illustrators and authors of the honor books, and there was a fabulous short film from Jon Klassen called "This is Not my Caldecott" which showed the little fish from the book swimming off with an award around his neck.

Bursting the Comics Code: Comics, Censorship & Librarians

I attended a very interesting panel on comics and censorship my third day at ALA.  Moderator Robin Brenner, YA librarian at the Brookline Public library in Boston and comic/manga knowledge extraordinaire talked with Brian Azzarello, Carol Tilley, Charles Brownstein, Gene Yang and Raina Telgemeier.  I was in particular excited to hear from Carol Tilley, who if you don't recall, recently caused quite a stir by doing extensive research on Fredric Wertham, author of Seduction of the Innocent, a book with a huge impact on the comic book industry, and found that he had falsified his research.

Carol Tilley started out by reading a letter from an 11 year old on why comics aren't making people do bad thing.  It was a letter that had been sent to Fredric Wertham. Part of Carol's research involved finding the children who sent letters to Wertham.  Carol gave some history of comics.  She talked about how in the 1950s, most comics were not designed with children in mind, but rather adult males returning from war.  Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent linked comic book reading and juvenile delinquency.  The book had a huge impact and crippled the comics industry.  Supernatural beings, misbehaving children, bad language and more were no longer allowed.  Many publishing companies folded completely, and there were much less comics and readers.  And then it turned out that much of Wertham's research was either made up or taken from studies he had not done himself.

The Exhibits: Day Three

Another delightful day at the exhibits. 

Nick Lake, author of In Darkness, which won the Printz Award this year.  His new book is Hostage Three, which I have an ARC of!

 

 Alana chatting with Katerine Paterson.

 Jon Klassen, Caldecott Award winning illustrator of This is Not My Hat.  Interestingly, Jon Klassen always wears a hat.

Patricia Polacco!  I so much wanted to chance to meet Patricia Polacco and tell her how much her books meant to me.  But as it often happens with amazing authors and illustrators, the lines at ALA are so long.  I would have had to have been there hours early to get a good place in line.  I do not exagerate.  The lines get crazy.

I would have loved to get a copy of David Levithan's new book, Two Boys Kissing, but they were only giving out the ARCs during his signing, which was only for half an hour.  The line, as you could expect, was out of control.  And of course all the ARCs went.  Ah well.

The Most Amazing YALSA YA Author Coffee Klatch Ever

 Anna and I and our fellow Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science Boston Chapter (which this year consisted of Anna, Alana, Steph and me) always go to YALSA's YA Author Coffee Klatch.  Essentially, it's like speed dating, only with YA authors.  You sit at a table, and every five minutes a new YA author sits down to chat with you.  They might tell you about what they're working on or what's coming out soon or have you ask questions.  Whatever.  It's always lots of fun, but of course more fun if you get to talk with an author you love.  It's always been good in the past, but this year it was just mind blowingly amazing. Seriously.

So it started out innocently enough.  Our first author was Pete Hautman, author of the Klaatu Diskos series, which I had not heard of before, but who was very nice and his book sounded interesting.  We talked to Juliana Baggot, author of Pure, whose book won an Alex Award this year.

Then things started to get exciting.  We next had Steve Sheinkin, author of Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon, which won a Newbery Honor this year.  He was delightful!  He told us about his new book, The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights, which will be coming out in January.  You could tell it was a topic he was passionate about and felt it was important for people to be aware of.  It sounds like it's going to be excellent.

And then!  Francesca Lia Block sat down.  Yes, that Francesca Lia Block.  Author of Weetzie Bat.  We were beside ourselves.  Francesca Lia Block is exactly what you'd think.  Very sweet and a little spacey.  She told us we were all adorable.  We held back telling that she was adorable.  She told us about her new book, Love in the Time of Global Warming, which will be out in August.  She said that she had undergone loss in the past several years, and that was a big part of the book.  While sexuality was always part of her books, she said it was a larger aspect in this one.

School Library's Impact on Student Learning

In past years, I've pretty much just stuck to the Auditorium Speaker Series, the President's Program and exhibit hall when I go to ALA.  I thought that was all my modestly priced registration option gave me.  But this year I realized that there's tons more stuff I could go to, and so I did.  One of them was a talk on school library's impact on student learning.

It was done by the University of South Carolina School of Library Science lead by Gerry Solomon, Donna Shannon and Karen Gavigan.  They gave a very comprehensive presentation and provided resources on tracking your school library's program and how it impacts student learning.  They created a wiki with resources which I highly recommend you take a look at. 

They began by talking about why it's essential to document the school library's impact.  The first is to inform.  You need to be able to demonstrate the program's contribution to student learning and effectiveness with evidence.  Having this evidence allows you to advocate for you school library program.  A key is to shift from what the librarians do to what the students achieve.  The emphasis should be on outcomes (evidence based practice).

A variety of factors informs school library instruction.  The Common Core Standards, the AASL information library standards, your state's benchmarks.  And, of course, whatever it is the your school wants to emphasis and make sure students have.

It was stressed that you don't need to keep track of and evaluate every single thing you do.  You just need to do enough sampling over the course of a given year.  Make sure you hit all grade levels.  It doesn't have to be time intensive, but what you gather does have to be meaningful.  Keep samples of lesson plans, keep track of notes and monitor progress as you go along. Take a look at the Tools section on the wiki for different ways to gather evidence of student learning.

Assessment should be a part of each lesson.  This allows you to see what the students have gotten out the lesson.  Assessment  should be a mix of for the learning and of the learning.  Of the learning involves testing, rubrics and checklists.  For the learning is more reflective and might us something like a learning log.

Most importantly, start where you are.  Track your resources and services, build partnerships with faculty, increase collaborations and develop a long-rang plan for assessing and documenting.  And link the library mission with the school mission!

I found the talk very helpful and will definitely start using some of the tools that were about.

You can take a look at the outline of the presentation on the wiki.

Graphic Novels Your Kids Love by Names You Can't Pronounce

This panel was awesome!  Moderated by Jon Scieszka, three awesome graphic novel creators with difficult to pronounce last names regaled us with their creation process.  What made this panel such fun, is that you could tell all four of them were friends and were having a grand old time hanging out together and talking.  On the panel were Jarrett Krosoczka, Raina Telgemeier, and Doug TenNaple.  John Scieszka informed us all that the Twitter hashtag for the panel was #ScieszkaKrosoczkaTelegmeierTenNapletalkcomics.  Go look for it.

Jarrett was up first.  He taught us all how to pronounce his last name.  Growing up Jarrett loved The Mouse and the Motorcycle, James and the Giant Peach and superhero comics.  He was a picture book illustrator and author when he went back to visit his old school and ran into Jeanie, the lunch lady, who still remembered him.  Jarrett began to think about the secret world of lunch ladies.  At first, he thought it was a picture book, but he soon realized it needed to be a graphic novel.  He is now an active advocate fro lunch ladies.  The tenth and final book in the Lunch Lady series will be coming out in January.

Raina Telgemeier also taught us to pronounce her name and told us about writing Smile and Drama.  Smile, of course is based on her true middle school experiences.  Rania lots her first tooth on a bounce house net.  She was jumping around, bounced into the side net, and when she came away her tooth was gone!  Raina had a hard time with friends in middle school, and aside from the harrowing tale of losing one's front teeth, it's also very much about negotiating friendships.  And it's also a love letter to early 90s fashion. 

Drama is not a true story, but it's based on middle school experiences.  Drama was originally set in high school, but her publisher wanted to make it a middle grade book.  Rain fought it at first, but liked the second draft a lot.  It's not like kids in middle school aren't having crushes or have gay friends or like boys that don't like them back.

Speaker Series: Khaled Hosseini

On the second day of the conference I went to hear Khaled Hosseini speak.  Khaled Hosseini, of course, is the author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.  His new book is And the Mountains Echoed.

Hosseini said that books were always a big part of his life.  There weren't any libraries in Afghanistan so he had to save money to buy them.  As a child the kids told stories to entertain each other, so Hosseini has been telling stories his whole life.  His family moved to Paris just before the upheaval and if they hadn't, his life would have been completely different.

Hosseini arrived in California when he was 15, speaking little English.  "By the time I figured everything out it was time to graduate."  He went to college and studied biology and went on to medical school.  I had no idea he had a science background!

And the Mountains Echoed is about injury, wounds, healing, and how we help each other.

The moderator asked Hosseini about the creation of his female characters.  Hosseini says he doesn't approach them any differently then any other character.  He tries to have empathy for all his characters.  It's when he tries to approach them differently that he gets into trouble.  Hosseini spends a lot of time with his characters in his head.  The more time spent with them the more real they become.  "When you know the heart of a character they can then become the point of the center of the circle everything radiates."  He tires to write his characters truthfully.  Hosseini said he worked harder on this book, and was harder on himself, then ever before.  He feels And the Mountains Echoed has more nuanced characters.  I have no doubt it will be excellent.

The Exhibits: Day Two

The first full day of ALA started out with a systematic perusing of the exhibit hall.  Even though I was doing what I usually do, stopping at each publisher, telling them the type of school I work in, asking what's new and exciting I should know about, I somehow ended up with WAY more books than I have in the past.  I don't know what happened!  Can I help it that people keep giving me books?  Books that look good?  No.  I cannot.  It is out of my control.  Author sightings!

 

The ever fabulous Mo Willems.

 

Kate DiCamillo and K.G. Campbell.   Their new books is Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures.

Marie Lu, author of the Legend series.  I overheard someone asking if there were ARCS of the third book in the trilogy.  The publisher representative laughed.

Holly Black.  Her new book is Doll Bones, which I was unfortunately unable to get a copy of.

Tamora Pierce!  Who hardly ever makes public appearances. Her new book is Battle Magic, which I do have the ARC of!

This is Anna fangirling all over Jennifer Armentrout, author of the Lux series.  By this point Jennifer was aware of what a huge fan Anna was and addressed her by name.

Lois Lowry.  Being awesome.

Bleak New World: YA Authors Decode Dystopia

The dystopia panel was excellent.  It had a wonderful array of authors with Lois Lowry, Patrick Ness, Veronica Roth and Cory Doctorow.  They each spoke about the dystopia books they had written and why they had chosen to write in this genre.

Lois Lowry spoke first.  The Giver has often been called the first YA dystopia, but it's never been a genre she was drawn to.  She didn't set out intentionally to write a dystopia.  She just knew that the book she was writing needed to be set in the future.

Lowry said she got some unusual mail from readers after the book had been published, and not just from children.  A man who had been part of a cult was told by his psychiatrist to read it.  He saw his own world in the book.  The teacher of a young Amish girl wrote to Lowry.  The girl had been sexually abused, and when she tried to get help the mother moved the family away, and, horrifyingly, had all the girl's teeth removed so she wouldn't want to talk to people.  She sought help again and was removed from the family.  She also saw her world in the book.  The Giver is set in a world that is designed to be utopian, but something else has come in.  The world was intended to be good, but turned corrupt somehow.

Opening Session

 The opening speaker for ALA Chicago 2013 was Steven Levitt, author of Freakanomics. Unfortunately, the opening was being held in a huge open hall directly behind both registration and the entrance to the exhibit hall where people were already beginning to line up even though it wasn't open yet.  All this combined to make it very hard to understand a word of what Steven Levitt was saying, despite the fact he was well miced.

The gist of what he was saying, I think, was the people need to think more and believe the data.  Two things that are near and dear to librarians, certainly.  Levitt used tax forms as an example.  Someone noticed that people were claiming suspicious "children" on their tax forms.  Children who had names like Fluffy.  This all sounded familiar.  I'm pretty sure this was in his book.  But no one wanted to go through the trouble of rewriting the tax forms.  Years later, when they finally got around to it, seven million "children" vanished without a trace saving the government millions of dollars.  You have to believe the data!

Back in Boston

We've made it back from ALA.  We are completely exhausted.  Travel there and back involved cancellations, gates changes, and multiple delays.  I am glad to be home!  The conference was great.  Hopefully you were following us on Twitter for live updates, and now that we're back, we'll start posting our full recaps.  I brought 49 books home with me.  I was slightly less controlled than usual.  I don't know how it happened, really I don't.  Actually, I only made it back with 48 books.  I had started reading the books I was most excited about Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carlson, the third book in the Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy, and I LEFT IT IN THE HOTEL LOBBY when my shuttle came to pick me up for the airport!  I was devastated.  I called the hotel and they said they would mail to me.  I hope it makes it.  I can't possible wait for it to actually come out now that I've started reading it.  I must know what happens!  I read Catherine Gilbert Murdock's new book, Heaven is Paved with Oreos on the plane.  I liked it, but I wanted Bitter Kingdom.  Anyway, after lots of organization and a very long nap, I am ready to begin recapping.  Stay tuned!

ALA 2013

Whoo hoo!  It's that time of year!  The time of year when we all pack an empty duffel bag in our carry-on luggage to fill with all the fabulous ARCs we'll be getting!  We are here in Chicago for the 2013 ALA Annual Conference.  We're looking forward to some great speakers, gushing over authors we love, and, of course, the exhibits.  Where we will show amazing self control.  It all starts tonight.  Keep checking back for full recaps and follow our Twitter feed (@ariannalechan and @jorgena) for live updates.