What Actually Works

Last night I tried to have a Warcraft III program. The computers freaked out on me, and so, the program was cancelled.

This morning, I told a couple of co-workers and my supervisor that the program was a no-go.

"Oh, no one showed up?" They said, down to a person.

"Well, actually...," and I explained what had happened.

Their initial reaction, though, sparked something within me. They know that it's hard enough to get teens into this library on a Thursday evening, but getting them into play a game that's WAY more fun to play when you pay for it and it's called World of Warcraft? Now, that's a tough sell.

Sure, I'm one of those truly dedicated YA Librarians who has learned how to use My Space (blech), Facebook (yay!) and has even played World of Warcraft (I'm a rogue! yay!), all for the sake of teens who visit my library.

If I were to offer free My Space access for three hours on a Thursday Night, I'd likely have a better turn out...and I wouldn't have to rely on software. Now, there's a thought. Open, supervised My Space.

Wait a minute. That's just a regular day.

p.s. Why is M.T. Anderson so freakin' awesome? Well, because he's a great writer, he's funny, AND because he said that my teens could e-mail him any questions they have about Feed, which we're reading in August (plus, making this face in public? how could he not be awesome?).

Ender's Game

This amazing book (which I just finished reading for the first time) will celebrate its 30th anniversary this year.

The questions and issued raised still matter. Do we ask too much of our teens, of children? Do we put too much weight on their potential as world leaders? As contributing members of society?

Not that I am anything like Ender Wiggin, not that adults put a monitor on the back of my neck and watched my every move and heard my every thought for three years, but my friends and I were labeled the "cream of the crop," and teachers had bigger, badder expectations for us and refused to step into make our lives any easier.

"And that some members of this conspiracy, notably the boy named Bonito de Madrid, commonly called Bonzo, are quite likely to exhibit no self-restraint when this punishment takes place...And you, fully warned of this danger, propose to do exactly --"

"Nothing."

The teachers watching Ender in Battle School believe they know best what he can accomplish, what will be too much for him and when they should or should not step in and assist. They generally do notstep in and assist.

Ender Wiggin is seen as "the one" or "The Wiggin," the one child who will save the world from evil and destruction. Origins in Christ? Of course. But it's also more. It's about the burden we place on the shoulders of the generation that will follow us.

I'm still young enough to be one of the ones who will save the world, but I can already see myself waiting to find out what those who come after me will do differently in the quest to do this thing called life...better.

Booktalk: An Abundance of Katherines

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Colin Singleton.

Colin Singleton has just been dumped by Katherine XIX, the 19th Katherine to dump him in the course of his short life.

Colin Singleton, former child prodigy, has just graduated high school, as the valedictorian, of course, has $10,000 from his winnings on a little watched children’s quiz show, and no desire to do anything other than lay in his bedroom floor and try not to vomit.

Luckily for Colin, his best friend Hassan, an overgrown Arab guy with a taste for Hardee’s Monster Thick Burgers, is fresh from his gap year, the year after high school in which he did nothing at all but watch Judge Judy every day, and raring for some action. Well, not so much raring for action as sick of watching Colin wallow in his rejected love for Katherine XIX.

So, they embark on a road trip in Colin’s broken down old car, affectionately referred to as “Satan’s Hearse.” After leaving Chicago, they pass up the opportunity to see the world’s largest crucifix in Kentucky, but Colin insists that he and Hassan go out into the middle of nowhere, to Gunshot, Tennessee, to see the grave of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the man whose death sparked the start of World War I.

While they do find a grave in Gunshot, Colin and Hassan’s encounters with a girl named Lindsey, another guy named Colin and the folks that work at factory that produces tampon strings determine the outcome of the entire road trip.

…and then there are the abundance of Katherines who have dumped Colin, and he will use this trip to determine the theorem, the mathematical equation, that will predict the course of all relationships and explain his tendency to be the dumpee. And why wouldn’t a theorem make it possible for him to get over Katherine? It will. Of course it will. Won’t it?

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green.