What's Up. Not Much. The Sky.

I took time to think about it. I took time to look at my new project. I poked around Netgalley for new graphic novels of interest. I read some really (laughably) bad YA novels. I read some intense non-fiction books. I took some time to realize I miss this.

I also took some to talk to my mom about this blog and her thoughts. She reads way more book blogs than I do and I knew I was aiming in the wrong direction. My intent was good, but my writing, not so much. Simply put, she was really helpful and insightful (Hi Mom!).

Basically, I'm back. Regular posts return for just Sundays at the moment unless I feel that some are worthy for you to read much, much sooner. I'm also going to be a lot more honest if I loved or hated the book. I'll also point out whether you should pick it up, or what you'll need to know in order to make the best decision for your collection. Simply, I'm planning to pick up where the review journals and other librarians left off. I'm planning to try to grab titles that for some reason are missed by the review journals.

I have a different perspective on graphic novels and libraries that needs to be heard. I know many librarians love certain graphic novels and I can tell why they do, but I don't love those titles and that's from years and years of reading graphic novels for fun (my favorite example: American Born Chinese sits on many a shelf, collecting dust. I can see why librarians loved it, but honestly, it doesn't appeal to your average teen reader for the most part).

Regarding the challenges this year: HECK WITH IT. I try the challenges every year and I lose sight halfway through the year for other reasons so I'm not even bothering. I just want to give you my take on graphic novels (and other stuff) and what I think.

Enjoy!

ROG - Information Part 2

As you may remember, I mentioned I was going to start posting "Reviews on the Go" for books, movies, whatever. The book reviews portion is going over a slight makeover (even though I haven't gone that far with book reviews) and instead of just "ROG - Book", book reviews will be "BROG" (Book Review on the Go). The concept is the same ,but there was only a name change.

A Welcome and Farewell to Empty Spaces.

Welcome to my ity bity corner of Internet land. Shall I outline the purpose of this blog? No. I shall not because I have done this quite a few times and have thusly killed any and all fun involved in blogging.

Either way, here I am, with a program that I thought quite brilliant: an afters school program. It is a hangout style type program and we have a Wii. Why no teens? Even after teens said they'd show.

I think they got distracted.

That happens a lot with teens. They like open ended programs (hence I created this one). They like the idea that something happens every week, but teens are easily distracted. Case and point. The TAB group (which consist of about 3-5 teens in high school, 3 of which usually are on our TAB) like programs. The TAB group sometimes think of doing something else. They usually follow that something else if we don't call them.

An After School program is not something I will call the teens about. It is a free program. Teen show up or they don't and like the case is tonight, they don't.

It can be disheartening really. I'm trying and I set up the room wonderfully and no one shows. I like how it is set up this time. I'm also happy I got all my stuff together for once.

What's the problem then? It's week two you say? Don't gripe.

I am griping but honestly, I give a program 3 tries then it's out. Luckily, I haven't had to throw something out and if I tell my TAB that I have to throw this out, they will fight tooth and nail to keep it.

My TAB is wonderful.

So why no turnout?

Publicity. I fell flat on this one and I'm going to be honest about this. I didn't get ads out on time (3 weeks ahead). I didn't get this to the schools in print (I suspect they prefer print versus electronic, my taking paper to them saves on their paper). I didn't get this out into the community (definitely something I ask the TAB to do because I don't know the hot spots and they do). Simple things that were all thrown off because November was a fun month (CONFERENCE!!!!!!)

Oh! Speak of teens! Here they are now!