Month: February 2013

National Choc Chip Cookie Week is March 3-9, I believe. I don’t know if it would make a good display or if we have books just within that subject.

On another note, the “Pretty Little Liars” series is getting popular. Don’t know if we need more copies of first book in series.

To change the subject once again, I wonder if the Bronx Zoo is doing anything to connect the Newbery winner, “The One and Only Ivan” to their resident gorillas?

…by Stephanie Hemphill is a novel in verse for the 10-15 year-old audience. The setting is the island of Murano near venice, Italy in the 1400’s.  The family’s father was a well-respected glass-blower who died in a fire along with his parents and sister. Maria, the main character, is 10 when her father dies. Giovanna is the older, beautiful sister. In their father’s will, he instructed that Maria be betrothed and giving a large dowry.  However, it is Maria who instead is an artist who wants to become a glassblower and artist instead of marrying. Giovanna would rather marry.  As unattractive suitors are invited to the home, Maria grows more desperate that she will be forced into an awful marriage. Then the family hires Luca, a young artistic, glassblower. He and Maria meet and fall in love. How do the 2 sisters convince their mother, uncle and brothers to go against the instructions of the father’s will so that they can both be happy?

Parents often ask for children’s books dealing with a variety of subjects.  In the February issue of “School Library Journal,” Joy Fleishhacker has compiled a list of old and new juvenile books on the topic of friendship.  These stories, both humorous and semi-serious, are appropriate for younger children just beginning to explore social interactions.  All are well-written and vividly illustrated.  They deal with friendship between children and animals, as well as children and their peers.

I have annotated the article indicating which of the stories are in our collection and placed a copy on the children’s bulletin board.

There have been many reports that the Internet is wreaking havoc in the book industry, but it seems to be a good thing for short story writers.  In a NYT’s story entitled “Good Fit for Today’s Little Screens: Short Stories,” writer Leslie Kaufman discusses how short stories seemed to have found a home on a variety of digital options.

A number of well-known authors have recently published new short-story collections.  George Saunders, Karen Russell, Jess Walter, among others, all have new collections.  Cal Morgan, the editor of Harper Perennial Originals, believes the Internet has made people more willing to read story forms different from the novel.  In recent years, many literary magazines have closed making it difficult to get a short story published.  The Internet has created an outlet for this creative output.

Amazon created Kindle Singles for publishing short fiction and nonfiction that can be read in about two hours.  The price charged is very low, one or two dollars, but the author gets to keep 70% of the royalties.  Other Internet publishers like Byliner are buying up short fiction and attracting new readers.

If this trend continues in popularity and profit, perhaps there will be a resurgence of short-stories that will be available online as well as in print form.

I was trying to catalog the DVD “Bully: PG-13 version” tonight and wasn’t sure which record to use (there are 4 of them in Workflows!) I believe the “PG – 13 version” should be part of the title, so that narrows the field down to one record. That leaves the production company to determine, and according to the imbd, the production co. is Where We Live Films. Now the record with the PG -13 version in the title lists Weinstein Co. and Where We Live Films as the production companies, and I wasn’t sure that both companies should be named. However, I really do not want to enter another new record. Should I just use that last record? Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but I just want to be accurate. Any suggestions??