A Wonderous Gift to Libraries

Now that my son and I are doing NaNoWriMo, we've got books on the brain.  But even without that focus this month, we've always loved books and reading.  We've also always loved libraries, and are fortunate enough to live within walking distance of one, and are involved in classes and programs at some other ones on a regular basis.  So that means we're visiting one library or another about every other day or so.

We've always tried to support our local library, not only by our presence and our expressions of gratitude to the staff, but by giving them cards and treats on holidays or occasions like National Library Week.  But I found one library supporter who has put our puny attempts to thank our librarians to shame!

For the past eight months, someone has been creating some incredible paper sculptures out of books and secretly leaving them in various libraries around Edinburgh, Scotland.   Along with the gorgeous art work, the perpetrator is leaving a small tag in support of the importance of libraries.

Your imagination is probably not doing these sculptures justice.  So I will post one of my favorite ones, just to show you how fantastic these things are:

photo from The Scotsman

(yes, the dragon is made out of paper from a book)

The tag in the shell on the lower left reads:

For @scotstorycenter - A gift in support of libraries, books, works, ideas..... Once upon a time there was a book and in the book was a nest and in the nest was an egg and in the egg was a dragon and in the dragon was a story.....

To read the entire saga and see all the contributions to date, visit this blogsite.

I think this is just such a beautiful project, so I wanted people to know about it and to appreciate the incredible artwork of this mysterious benefactor of libraries.  Especially at a time when things seem so challenging, sometimes art, especially when wrapped up in a whimsical mystery, can lift our spirits better than anything.  But it also gives me an idea about doing something like that for our own libraries, albeit on a MUCH smaller scale.  We may not be able to create art like that, but the holiday season is coming up.... perhaps we can hide notes of gratitude in honor of Thanksgiving?  Or be secret Santas for our librarians?  Or what if we hid notes of love for libraries in advance of Valentines Day?

Hmmm....I'll have to give that some more thought....once I get my daily 1,667 words done for NaNoWriMo!

The Fantastic Sky Race

We've done so much art viewing in the last few days that it is going to take more than one blog post to catch up with it all!  But let's start with the most monumental piece of them all -- a 60-foot-by-21-foot piece entitled The Fantastic Sky Race.

The Fantastic Sky Race is actually 15 separate 21-foot-long banners that are adorning the sides of a concrete parking deck in downtown Raleigh (at Davie, McDowell, and Cabarrus streets, for you locals).

It was created by three young artists from the Design Program at NC State University, who won a contest run by the University and Empire Properties (the owners of the parking deck) to find a more attractive facade to the structure than the plain concrete it had for two years (originally, it was to abut other buildings so that it wouldn't be seen, but the other building plans were put on hold due to the poor economic conditions).

Here are the three artists, who have named themselves The Balloon Boys, and who had to devote tremendous hours to completing this work on top of their normal course load and part-time jobs:

In the banner, all sorts of man-made contraptions and fantastical animals are flying through the skies above varied environments, from coastal or aquatic settings through arboreal climates, over icy tundras and warm-colored deserts.   However, also hidden amongst the drawing are at least a dozen references to the Triangle area and/or North Carolina.  For example, see if you can spot the distinctive Raleigh landmark in the details of this picture (you can click on the picture to enlarge it):

To get a better idea of the piece, watch this movie about the project from NCSU:



Wake County students will be hearing lots more about this project, because the County Library system is going to be doing programming around this imaginative theme for the next two years.  Look for announcements about art and poetry contests and presentations by the artists, which should be coming soon from our local libraries!

Curriculum Resource: Freedom RIders Traveling Exhibit

This past Sunday I wrote a blog post about the new PBS series on the civil rights activists who took on the segregated travel policies in the 1960s by arranging black and white traveling partners on interstate buses to the Deep South, despite the physical violence and abusive arrests that occurred at many of the travel stops.  The show is supposed to be an inspiring account of people who put their lives on the line for our country to make progress towards the ideals about equality that are contained in our nation's founding documents.

I just found out that Raleigh is fortunate enough to be the next host of a traveling exhibit connected to the TV series.  From June 3-July 1, the Cameron Village Library will display the Freedom Riders Traveling Exhibit, created by the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE in conjunction with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.  The traveling display has photographs, newspaper clippings, and audiotaped interviews about the 1961 Freedom Riders.  This is a great opportunity to hear from the original Freedom Riders themselves, as well as to get a sense of the times.

Right now the exhibit is in Austin, TX, the tenth stop on the twenty-city tour.  After the exhibit in Raleigh, the show will travel on to:  Salt Lake City, UT; Lawrence, KA; San Francisco, CA; Tempe, AZ; Birmingham, AL; Seattle, WA; Detroit, MI; and Denver, CO.  If your city is not on the list, don't despair; there is also an online exhibit available on the Gilder Lehrman website.

Appreciate Your Local Libraries During National Library Week

I don't know about you, but especially as a homeschooler, I would be lost without my libraries.  One of the local librarians looked up my account last year, and found I had checked out more than 4,000 books in the past 10 years--that's more than one book a day for every day for a decade!  But that is just part of it.  My son participates in three different book clubs sponsored by the libraries.  We go to lots of talks, exhibits, and special programs put on by our libraries.  We use the library computers to check our email when we're out, or sometimes hang out there for a half hour or so when we have time to kill between activities.  And with BOTH of our local Borders closing (WAAAAA!), the library is becoming even more important as a place to hold our homeschooling and other community-based meetings.

So I don't want to let National Library Week (April 10-16) go by without letting our library system know how much we appreciate them.  Librarians are the cutting edge of the information age, and constantly need to update their skills to include new media sources.  Plus, like most government workers in these times of budget cutting, they are constantly being asked to serve more with few resources--less money, less staff, etc.

Today (April 12) is the day, National Library Workers Day, during National Library Week that is dedicated to recognize the people behind the books at our libraries.  The American Library Association has set up an easy way for you to show your appreciation for your local librarians.  They are creating a Galaxy of Stars--librarians who have been nominated by their local community for the outstanding service they provide.  All you have to do is to submit a short form online to recognize your favorite librarian(s).

So I urge everyone to take 5 minutes to create a special recognition for your library.  I was horrified to check the North Carolina listing to see that not one librarian in the entire state had been nominated!  So we've added our favorites (which isn't shown, because it is only updated once a week), and hope that you will join us.

My son and I also got up early this morning and baked a fresh batch of our specialty--vegan (but they taste like regular) coconut chocolate chip cookies.  He is now downstairs making a Thank You card for our local library while I write this post.  We're going to drop off the cookies and the card this morning before we head out for our day of activity--history coop, science coop, errands, etc.

It doesn't have to be today, but I hope everyone takes an opportunity this week to show their librarians some love!

Oxford University Press: Bibliophiles' Dream Field Trip

While I have been complaining about the political issues of the Wake County, NC public schools, there are lots of great educational benefits of living in this area.  We have access to all those community benefits of living by three MAJOR universities--NC State, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Duke University--and several other less well known, but well respected, higher education institutions like Peace College, Meredith College, Campbell University, and NC Central University.  They all not only offer camps and educational programs for pre-collegiate students, but they sponsor dozens of plays, concerts, art shows, speeches, guest speakers, and other informal education opportunities in all areas of the curriculum.  We live in close proximity to the state museums of art, history, and natural sciences, all of which offer GREAT classes in addition to their many and varied exhibits.  And for those of us who homeschool, I can't imagine a more interesting, diverse, hard working, and supportive homeschool community than the one we have in this area.

But last week, I discovered yet another great resource we have in my hometown of Cary, NC--one I hadn't know about previously.  Someone from our homeschool support group (thank you, Laura!) organized a field trip for over 40 of us to go visit the North American distribution headquarters of the Oxford University Press.  As I stated in my post title, it was a book lover's dream come true!

The Oxford University Press ships out about 10.5 million books a year from the Customer Service and Order Fulfillment Center here in Cary.  The staff took us into the warehouse, where there are aisles after aisles of cartons of books shelved from floor to ceiling.

We were delighted to see that the book series we are using for our American History studies this year, A History of US by Joy Hakim, could be found on the shelves.

We then learned about how the books for various orders are taken from the shelves, loaded into boxes, and transported by conveyor belt to the packing and/or shipping departments.

We also visited the loading bay, where we actually saw a huge FedEx truck being loaded with boxes of orders heading out to customers (including Amazon, which sells many of the Oxford University Press titles).

We also got to hear about the publishing process (handled in presses across the country), the editorial headquarters in New York City, the company's forays into other technologies besides books, and the joys and challenges of being one of the oldest (it started printing books in 1478) and largest of the academic presses.

Finally, we learned of several specific benefits of having this facility in our community.

1. Oxford University Press has a large library in its offices that is open to the public.  So if you are interested in a book that is published by the Press, you can come and see if it is on display in the library.  That allows you to check it out before investing your money on it.  
2. They actually sell books to the public on the premises.  So if you are in a rush, or just don't want to have to pay the shipping costs, you can order the book and come to the offices to pick it up yourself.
3. Twice a year, the Oxford University Press has a HIGHLY discounted sale of damaged or outdated merchandise where you can get the books for pennies on the dollar.  That, too, is open to the public, and we could sign up to receive notification when the sales are taking place (generally once in the spring and once in the fall).

All in all, a wonderful field trip.  I recommend it highly to those who live in this area.  Contact me if you would like the name of the person who sets up the field trips or who maintains the sale notification email list.

Happy Birthday Cary Library

I ended the traditional school week with another festive event--the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Cary Library.  It was this occasion that inspired our summer reading program and banner project that I described in a previous post.  But because the Cary Library first opened its doors on October 22, 1960, the official celebration was today.

The fun began this afternoon, where they had cake and punch and balloons for the children.  There were five Cary Homeschooler families when we were there, but we might have missed some earlier because we came late.  Here is a picture of some of our artists seeing their work for the first time and explaining who did which panels to children's librarian Miss Erin:

Then in the evening, they had an adult celebration, filled with former staff, library official, town officers, authors, and most of all, library patrons.  They reviewed the history of the library in the Cary community, and recognized past and present staff and directors (it turns out the new head of the Wake County Public Library system used to be head of the Cary Library).  City Council member Don Frantz was there to read a proclamation from the mayor, as was the Cary School Board member Debra Goldman (the one who cast the pivotal vote recently in a policy change I discussed in this earlier post).

There were also six different authors there, including mystery writer Margaret Maron, who were signing books and talking to citizens, but mostly to speak about the difference they think libraries made in their own lives and works, and the crucial role they play in a democratic society.

Also on hand were library officials who addressed the issue of what would happen to the Cary Library, one of the most heavily-used libraries in the system (from what I heard they say about volume, I figured out that library checks out an average of 2,000 PER DAY).  The plans are to convert Cary Library into a 22,000 square foot regional library (that would make it slightly smaller than Eva Perry Library in Apex).  However, the Town of Cary plans to donate a part of its planned sculpture garden complex between Academy Street and Hunter Street to the library system to ensure that Cary Library stays in downtown Cary.  So the general idea is for it to move across the street on Academy Street, but to stay in approximately the same area. Yay!

For those in the book club, we had our appreciations displayed (in addition to the banner):

And returned!

It was a touching and inspiring community event.

PS--On a personal note, I don't know when I've had such an active nightlife (at least, since my swinging singles days in DC, which weren't all that swinging even back then).  And what a great variety of topics!  Monday night science, Tuesday history, Thursday math and science, and Friday literature.  That's one of the great things about homeschooling....you get to cover it all!

Book Club: Reading Children's Literature Through the Decades

This summer, I organized a summer book club for our homeschool group in honor of the 50th Anniversary of our local library.  The idea was that we would spend three weeks at a time reading children's books from each of the five decades that the library has been open--that is, three weeks on books from the 1960's, three on the 1970's, etc. up to the decade of 2000-the present.  We had meetings and also ran a private wiki where students could post their reviews or comments on the books they read.  When the three weeks were up, students nominated and voted for their favorite books in different categories, such as best picture book, best reading book, best series, etc.

For the culmination of the project, we had two tangible products.  First, we ran a book drive to get people to donate new children's books to the library (which, like most public institutions, has had some severe budget cuts in recent years).  Secondly, we created a banner where students drew their versions of the books voted in as the favorites in each decade that could hang in the library as part of the anniversary celebration.

We delivered the books and the banners to the library at the end of September.  Here is a picture of some of the readers, banner artists, and book donors as we prepared to turn our work over to the library staff:

Here is a close-up of some of the panels:

And here is the final project hanging over the circulation desk at the library:

Though it was a good bit of work, and none of us read half as many books as we intended to, those who participated all said this book club was so much fun!  It was really great to introduce our children to our favorite books from our childhood, and to have a reason to go back and read some of those great books from earlier times that we've never gotten around to reading.  Plus, it was very interesting to look into the trends in children books through the years and to notice the similarities within a single decade and the differences between the decades.  We're thinking of doing it again in a couple of years, just to get in some more of those great books that we never quite made it around to this past summer.

Anyway, I recommend it as a focus for a reading program.  Having a library to celebrate the years of great children's books is just the icing on the cake!

Celebrating the Freedom To Read

Today one of our local libraries had "Freedom To Read" events all day long in honor of Banned Books Week, a program spearheaded by the American Library Association to fight censorship of books in public libraries.  At our local event, people from the community read passages from their favorite books that have been challenged or banned from either school or community libraries.

This was an eye-opening event for me because while we hear occasionally about such things as families trying to remove the Harry Potter series from libraries because it promotes the occult, I thought that we had grown beyond quite so much focus on censorship.  However, the BBW produced a booklet of the books that, in 2009-2010,  people had challenged and, in many cases, have been successful in either restricting or banning completely from schools and libraries, and I was amazed to see how many books are still being disputed.  Some I'm not familiar with, but from the title alone, I could see how some people might have concerns (although they all seemed to be appropriate to me for an audience above the elementary level).  Some, however, I found unbelievable.   In Texas, one father objects to the Newbery Honors award winner The Egypt Game because it features "evil gods and black magic."  While libraries across the country are doing special programs in honor of the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, a school in Ontario removed the book because it uses "the N word."  A school in California has pulled The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary because it contains definitions of sexual activities.  But the worst of all to my mind--the schools in Virginia that agreed to drop The Diary of Anne Frank from their curriculum because it contained "sexual material and homosexual themes."

The library also had a book of the 100 most-frequently challenged, restricted, or banned books of all times.  Many of them I had heard complaints about, such as Catcher in the Rye, Fahrenheit 451, and the like.  But some of the most popular middle school writers and books were on the list, including Newbery winner A Wrinkle in Time ("can confuse children about good and evil and lists Jesus Christ in the same category as premier artists, philosophers, and scientists"), Junie B. Jones ("sassy behavior"), and Are You There, God?  It's Me, Margaret ("frank treatment of adolescent sexuality and religion").  More predictably, the Twilight series also made the list for its sexual content.  The one that really knocked me for a loop, though, was the attempt to ban Draw Me a Star by Eric Carle.  ERIC CARLE?  He of the torn painted tissue paper?  And the reason listed for the challenge was "sexual content and nude illustration."  ERIC CARLE???  It took me two libraries, but I finally tracked down a copy of the book.  There is one illustration of two naked people by a tree that I assume are supposed to be Adam and Eve, although the book does not say that.  And there are vague suggestions of male and female anatomy, although I doubt it is anything that the target audience (which should be around 3-6, given the simplicity of the language and story) would notice.

Anyway, it was all a great reminder for me of how much I take our libraries, our relatively open-minded community, and our American freedoms of expression for granted.

If you want to check out the list of book challenges over the past year for yourself, visit the ALA site.