Review: The Glass Demon

The Glass Demon by Helen Grant

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Slightly predictable, but still nicely written and attention grabbing enough to satisfy any YA with a taste for supernatural thrillers. I actually really enjoyed the book, particularly the German setting although the characters were a little under-developed. But, it was a quick read and the short chapters made it perfect for reading on the train to work!



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Review: The Escape

The Escape by Robert Muchamore

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This is a very popular book in the school library, and I can see why because it's exciting and actually written quite well. I'd definitely recommend it to any 12+ year olds wanting to get into a good adventure series which both boys and girls will find absorbing.



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The Wasteland, ebooks and a cool blog...

They say 'share and share alike' is one of the golden rules of the blogosphere, so when I came across this great blog by ex-paramedic Tom Reynolds I had to share it. It's brilliant. And since starting his blog, Tom has written 2 books and created the idea for Channel 4's new programme Sirens.

I came upon the blog in a roundabout way at work today whilst reading an article my boss had found in The Times about a new iPad app devoted to T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. Basically it's a beautiful piece of technological innovation that is being heralded as 'the future of the book'. It's certainly one of a kind and very very clever. Which I like.

At the end of the article was a bunch of links sharing new advances in eBooks and that is how I came across Tom Reynolds through The Friday Project which is run by Harper Collins exploring new avenues for digital publishing.

I realise this is a kind of convoluted expression of my train of thought but I don't care! I found lots of interesting things online today!

Review: Skippy Dies

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I don't think I've ever read a book like this before, especially in terms of style. I kind of liked the way that the story flowed; chapters ran into each other and joined up, the teen-aged monologues were appropriately lacking in punctuation and capital letters. The characters were all very interesting/psychopathic/broken and it was fun being drip-fed information about them until the full picture was revealed.

This book made me quite uneasy at the same time. I felt really affected by the character of Carl and for some reason absolutely repulsed during his encounter with 'The Druid'. It wasn't THAT long ago that I was a teenager and (I get this feeling when I watch SKINS also)I can't ever remember my life being so filled with sex and drugs! Hmm, maybe I was a boring teenager!

Anyway. I only gave this 2 stars (2 and a half would have been perfect) because while I enjoyed the unique style and the weaving together of all the characters and stories, I also found the parts on string theory a little boring (science is not for me) and sometimes the descriptive 'dreamscape' type scenes were heavy going and a bit too caught up in their own sense of 'dreamscape' and/or drug induced surrealism. I suspect this makes no sense really, but neither did those scenes.

It's true what it says on the blurb; this book is very dark (obviously considering the themes being played out) sometimes very funny and touching and overall an ode to life not being fair and the process of growing up and realising this. Bittersweet.



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Seriously now...Some reflection

Seen as though I started this blog as a way to record my reflections as I wend my way along that tricky path known as 'career' it seemed like a good time to write some stuff down. You know, so I don't forget where I'm at with what I like to call 'the game of trying to gain library experience in any way, shape or form'. So, what have I been up to lately?

Well, actually, work has been pretty darn interesting over the past couple of weeks and a lot of things seem to be gradually happening to do with the school library. In order of most exciting thing these are:

 1. Getting to talk and present a Prezi to the sixth formers about referencing and research skills (since introducing ourselves to them we've been inundated with requests for help which is a massively GOOD THING). I'm also designing a handbook for use with coursework and extended projects.

 2. Being allowed to build and edit pages for the new school website about the library. This is brilliant because hither to mine and my manager's time at the school there was NO online presence for the library at all. Not to say that the library must be ALL about technology, but it's important to keep up to date and relevant as otherwise we'd probably fade to nothingness within the school community. I'm enjoying this as I'm learning some new skills that I didn't have before.

3. Becoming more involved with Library Lessons in the foreseeable future working in partnership with the English Department. This is great as it validates the library's role. I am beginning to realise how difficult the job of a school librarian is. In fact, it infuriates me when people automatically respond to you telling them you're a librarian with the typical "oh, don't you just stamp books?" answer. No! As a school librarian you must constantly liaise with faculties and departments in order to promote the library's services, organise library events including author visits, reading groups and library lessons, provide exciting, appetising reading material for a broad spectrum of children aged between 11 and 18 and make sure the library is constantly updated with shiny displays, newspapers, journals, DVDs, and a myriad of other things! This is not to say that it is a terrible job. It's FANTASTIC! And challenging. But mostly great fun.

4. Hoping to get involved with the school's new VLE, Frog. This looks a lot of fun and could be used so advantageously by the library. I am looking forward to its unveiling with bated breath.

5. Oh and last but by no means least - this is the best one I think - volunteering at the local library doing IT support and teaching a 70 year old man to email his grandson for the first time! He was genuinely excited by how fast he picked up typing and couldn't believe how useful the internet can be. That made my day.

So it's going great at the moment. A full time position would be absolutely fantastic, as would an actual library of my own to manage, but in the meantime I'm determined to make the most of whatever opportunities come my way. So, whenever I feel stuck in a rut I can always look back and see that I have done things and more importantly can do things. Wahey!

^_^

Working in a school library is a different experience every day (mostly good experiences I shall add) and last week I had my very first "aww" moment. One of our lovely Y7s (and regular library user as well I might add) is leaving in a few weeks and we had the following dialogue:

Y7: Miss Smith, what are your three favourite colours?

Me: Erm, I don't know really, why?

Y7: I just wondered!

Me: Oh okay...Well probably purple, blue and yellow then.

Y7: Okay! (scampers off)

Me: Fair enough.

The next day I was presented with this lovely gift as a leaving present!

Sometimes my job is very touching.

I am a little library mouse! Hear me Roar!

Okay, so this blog kind of started off being something 'serious' which I really wanted to contain things to do with librarianship so I could remember what I'd been up to. I now realise that this is probably the purpose of a CV. Hmph.

So, it's the Easter Holidays at the moment, I'm home alone and have heaps of time on my hands. So I went to the Library (relevant, see!) and picked out lots of books I've not had time to read lately. I am currently getting into comics and graphic novels and today I picked up two. One was a Modesty Blaise which is awesome - gotta love a feisty female protagonist - and the other was The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger.

*Spoilers!*

The gist of the story is that Alexandra (Lexi) comes across the Night Bookmobile in the early hours of the morning after having a row with her boyfriend. On the bus she finds allll the books she has ever read in her entire life. I know, it's remarkable. Anyway, she gets completely absorbed by the strangeness of the bookmobile and spends nine years (seriously) of her life trying to find it again whilst filling her life with books and reading (not going to diss the girl for that). In the meantime she becomes a proper librarian as some kind of poor substitute (meh). Finally she realises that the only way she can become a librarian on the bookmobile is to kill herself. Which seems pretty extreme but there you go. So, she does and lo and behold! There she is in the library of her dreams with uncle creepy. 

I mainly picked it up because it looked like it was librarian related and could have made a good gift for bookish friends. It was not as whimsical as I thought it was going to be and in the future I shall definitely be more cautious of whimsy. I mean, I love books as much as the next person but I'm not sure if I like them enough to take fourteen Valium and slit my wrists in an attempt to get a job on a magical mobile library in a Winnebago. [insert witty joke about the current job climate not being THAT bad]. Perhaps I missed an important message in the book, perhaps I was distracted by the terrible illustrations. Either way, give it a read and see what you think. Let me know if there's a pertinent message I've missed?

Just tell me this. Would you get into a vehicle with this man?

I didn't think so.