Books I really, really, really need to read: Kid Version

I'm keeping a running list of the books I want to read, either for myself or the rapidly approaching Summer Reading School visits {update: 6/26 - um, this is an old, unpublished post, so those visits are long over}, where we talk up the program to kids and their teachers (and sometimes their parents, too). By writing it here, I'm putting myself out there so I actually have to do it. And you know what? You are not allowed to say, "what, you haven't read that yet?" You can only be supportive of your kindly, procrastinating, super-busy, pop culture addled Children's Librarian. My blog, my rules.

Our theme this summer is "Make a Splash: Read!" I'm glad it doesn't continue the "@ your library" theme, which seemed to go on forever (Be Creative...@ your library, Get a Clue @ Your Library, Creature Feature @ your library), though I see that they are still using it for the Teen Summer Reading theme this year - Make Waves @ Your Library. I don't know that the teen-phobic librarians among us (not me!) would appreciate that slogan. (chuckle, chuckle, ha ha) I guess if the people who create these slogans have a short enough phrase, they'll just stick @ your library at the end. One good thing, though it's been done to death, the phrase does, in a small way, what libraries aren't always so good at doing: making ourselves known, remembered and recognized. "Remember, this isn't a Parks and Rec program, it's a library program! Yes, we can be cool and fun, too!" Poor libraries. We suffer from such low self-esteem and such a need to prove ourselves.

Enough! On to the books!
Summer Reading possibilities:
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia {Read it. Loved, loved, loved it. See 6/25 post}
Operation Red Jericho by Joshua Mowll (and books two and three in the Guild of Specialists series) {6/26 - changed my mind. No. Something makes me want to read them and then something always tears me away.}
True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi - yes, I've read this before, but I love it, and couldn't pass up an opportunity to booktalk it -- I mean come on, it takes place on a ship, and our theme is water this year. Plus it's got murder, mutiny, betrayal, adventure, and "dead" people reappearing. What's not to like?
Bloody Jack: Being An Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship's Boy by L.A. Meyer -- though I should disqualify it just because it's got that horrendously long title. I admit, I'd never read it because I felt that Charlotte Doyle was perfection, and anything else, just a copycat title. But I never gave it a chance, so I'll try. {Acck. Maybe not. Nothing is really enticing me to read this. I need to listen to my heart on this one and move on. -6/26}
The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis by Barbara O'Connor {6/26 - Finally read it and though my booktalk for Summer Reading Visits was so good, it was sadly probably a little too good for the book. It's quirky and quiet, but won't deliver the mystery of the secret messages that I played up -- and the kids were really into the whole idea of Popeye and Elvis, though I told them it wasn't Popeye the Sailor Man nor Elvis Presley. I think the curiosity factor might sell this book. I already had a kid come pick it up. I hope she likes it. I hate to lose their trust so early. I take it as a point of pride when I match the right book to the right kid.

Books I just want to read:
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
(because I started it, and loved it, and never got around to finishing it.) :( sadness.
Prime Baby by Gene Luen Yang
(because I love, love, love me some GLY!)
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
(This had to be the most talked about book of the year last year, and I must be the only librarian in the United States who still hasn't even cracked it's cover.) {6/26 - And still haven't.}

More later. I'm tired.

Viva la Diva: Selena

Today, I was going into an office building and I overheard a group of teenagers talking about Selena and singing "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom." Some of those kids weren't even alive when Selena died.

I first heard her song "I Could Fall in Love with You" not long before she was shot and killed by the president of her fan club, an unstable woman who had stolen money from Selena's clothing boutiques. It's impossible not to wonder how far her star would have risen with her crossover album -- but I am glad that the album I have includes her Spanish language music, as her voice was, in my opinion, so much stronger on those songs, even though Spanish was not her first language.

It's amazing that those kids even know about her, considering how fast things get "old" and forgotten in our culture. All truth on the table, though, these were Latino kids. But they were still teenage Latino kids talking about Selena, not the newest, coolest young performer. 15 years after her death, Selena Quintanilla-Perez will live forever. I doubt however, that she would have wanted to become known in the wider community in the way that she did. It's always better to be a living legend. May she continue to rest in peace.

Oakland v. Arizona

Last week, Oakland passed a resolution boycotting Arizona and Arizona based businesses (May 5, 2010) due to the passage of the anti-immigration (read: Anti-Mexican) law, making me proud, proud, proud to live in Oakland.

Those who say that the law will not encourage racial profiling forget two things -- there is no one talking about securing any borders besides the one we share with Mexico, and that unless you indiscriminately ask everyone for "their papers," you most definitely will be racially profiling people, because how will you decide that you need to check their citizenship status? I'm sure that the police won't be thinking, "Oh, that DUI looks like an illegal Englishman, I'd better check him out." And second, that there is not just black and white to this issue, but a whole lot of "shades of brown." These are people: people who may have had children in this country, children who are not citizens of Mexico, people whose lives and families risk getting torn apart.

I listened to a feature on the radio show "Latino USA" a couple of weekends ago where they interviewed a girl who was brought here by her parents when she was 3 months old. She doesn't know anything but the US. She was raised here -- for all intents and purposes, she is an American. But she can be deported to a country that she truly doesn't know, where she has no community, no friends, possibly no family, because she doesn't have papers that say what is evident -- that she belongs here.

And why do I keep hearing the fear that people coming to this country from Mexico want to sell drugs, kill people and commit all sorts of crimes? I would think that the majority of people who come here just want a chance to work and send money home to their families -- why would you jeopardize that by committing crimes? Seems to me like you would want to stay under the radar. I'm sure that there are people who have come here from many different countries who have committed crimes -- that's not the bulk of the people who come here from any country, and it's not the bulk of Mexicans either.

Viva la Diva: The Grand Dame of Elegance

By now you have heard that Lena Horne passed away on Sunday. I thought she was just the epitome of elegance. I also thought that she had a striking resemblance in certain pictures (like this one) to my own grandmother -- don't think I'm patting myself on the back -- I don't look at all like my grandmother. But I always loved looking at pictures of my grandmother and family back in the 30's and 40's, when they looked so well-put together and beautiful -- and they made it look so effortless. My family wasn't rich, but they always looked sharp. As much as I would love to uphold that tradition, I fall far, far short on a regular basis. I also admire their focus on the importance of family, which is too easy for me to put to the side for work.

Lena was elegant and striking and talented and seemed gracious and strong and intelligent. Though Black women who played maids opened doors for Black actresses, Lena stood her ground, never played a maid, and blazed trails for Black actresses as well. We still have a long way to go in how the wider society sees Black women -- when Oprah and Michelle Obama are seen as exceptions and not the norm in terms of who Black women are and how they comport themselves. I am glad that I grew up in a world that had Lena Horne as an example of all those traits I mentioned before, but I am more glad and proud that I was able to personally know women who embodied those qualities. They handed down a legacy of dignity that I will try my best to pass on to my daughter.

Most people, when they think of Lena Horne, think of "Stormy Weather," but I've always had a soft spot for her ever since I was 7 years old and saw her as The Good Witch of the South in the movie version of The Wiz, one of my favorite movies to this day -- no matter what other people say about it.

This song gave me chills as a child. I knew I was hearing greatness. It still can bring me to tears.
(Check out the sweet, beautiful little Black babies as stars in the night sky)



"If you believe, then in your heart you'll know,
That no one can change the path that you must go.
Believe in what you feel and know you're right because
The time will come around when you'll say it's yours...
Believe in yourself, right from the start
You've got to believe, believe in the magic right there in your heart.
Go 'head believe all these things, not because I told you to
Go 'head believe, believe in yourself,
Believe, believe in yourself,
Believe in yourself as I believe in you."

Trivial Pursuits

What is up with Kate Gosselin on Dancing With the Stars? I've been rooting for her to get better because I really want her to have a success with all the bad luck she's had recently, but wow. I'm not even talking about her dancing, which just seems to be beyond hopeless, though last week I was so proud of how she seemed to be coming along. No, I'm not talking about her dancing --I'm talking about her outfits. Who is putting them together for her? Is it someone who doesn't like her? Last night she danced to "Don't You Forget About Me" from The Breakfast Club and she was dressed like a fairy princess. And no, it wasn't a pretty fairy princess costume. It was like a 5 year old's idea of how a fairy princess should dress. Maybe her kids are giving her costume tips. Except, they always look very cute, so I have to go back to my earlier theory that some makeup and clothing person on that show just does not like her.

Related Digression:
Plus, she didn't know about the dance scene from The Breakfast Club? She's really never seen it? Okay, so she's like 4 years younger than me, but only 4 years, and that movie was huge. I know about famous scenes from movies that came out when I was a baby, so what was she doing? I guess everyone can't be a Soda Pop Diva.

And (see below) that's why I don't post very often. Because I get all heated about a subject and write about it for an hour and a half instead of doing laundry and being out in the sun. Just sayin'.

Goldman Sachs Gets Their Comeuppance? And Rants about Real Estate and the Recession

So the SEC has charged Goldman Sachs with fraud for playing one hand against the other. SEC Accuses Goldman Sachs of Fraud - San Francisco Chronicle, April 16, 2010

Good for the SEC! GS is saying that they are going to fight it. I guess they are just arrogant enough to think that they can fight it and win - since all these banks have politicians in their pockets. I hope GS goes down, and hard. Any bank or financial institution that contributes or contributed to ordinary people having lost their money, job, and/or their homes, should go right down with them. It would be a symbol to me that there is justice in the world. I don't hear about the people responsible for the financial meltdown losing their jobs, homes and investments. These people made out like bandits, while we bailed them out.

And don't get it twisted -- this bailout stuff didn't start with Obama, it started with Bush. Some of the same people b!#@hing about the bailout now (and other things they liken to the bailout) look a lot like the ones who were spreading terror that the economy would collapse if we didn't bailout their friends (oops, sorry, I mean banks). On Bank Reform...Christian Science Monitor

Sen. John Boehner (R), Ohio, who I saw in Michael Moore's Capitalism movie, was standing behind the Goldman Sachs CEO when he (the CEO) was thanking congress for bailing them out. That seems like a sign of solidarity. (I was wrong -- it was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and the former Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson. -5/11/10) Now Boehner is quoted in the article above as saying:"[The bill] “gives Goldman Sachs and other big Wall Street banks a perpetual, taxpayer- funded safety net by designating them ‘too big to fail.’”" (Christian Science Monitor. "Obama: On bank reform, Sen. McConnell is 'cynical and deceptive'" csmonitor.com, accessed 4/17/10

I'm an apartment dweller and have wanted a home for years and years. Living in California makes it next to impossible. We make too much money for help to get into a home, but not enough to buy one (houses in our area have never come down in price significantly enough to even think about it. When we moved here, in 2005, I had a couple of realtors say to me that they could maybe get us into a house with a little "creative financing" and I knew that meant that these realtors and their attendant mortgage brokers were just the people I needed to steer clear of. Let's not even talk about how they were saying this to me before they even saw how much money I made -- the assumption was made, right off the bat, that a young Black woman looking for a house must not have any money (and that I was just eager (or ripe) for someone to take advantage of me.) Granted, I didn't have enough, but before you look at my finances, that's not an assumption you make. This wasn't just white realtors, et al., it was realtors of color as well. But that's okay, 'cause I remember names, and someday I will be able to afford a home -- by doing it the right way and on my own terms, not just to make a quick buck for you. Seems to me like there's a special level of hell for crooked bankers and people who will mess with your money to make themselves more.

I'm not saying I'm smarter than people who got caught up in the mortgage mess -- I'm saying that I actually understand their predicament. What if I wanted it so badly that I convinced myself to believe them, regardless of my nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right here, what with their interest only mortgages and too-good-to-be-true promises. In spite of my favorite quote: "He who hesitates is lost" I hesitate a lot, and my caution probably has saved me more than once.

I heard on some news show the other night some pronouncement about the recession being over -- really? Why do you think that? Because Bank of America and Chase posted profits recently? Ask the people who just lost their jobs at NUMMI NUMMI Employees Say Farewell - ABC 7, San Francisco, CA if they think the recession is over. Ask someone who has never had other options other than working in a dangerous coal mine, ask a teenager trying to earn pocket change, or someone just out of high school trying to make money to go to college, or any of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been out of work longer than 6 months, or a year, or the people who went on disability after having worked hard all their lives, and due to lack of job, lack of insurance, are now facing homelessness. Ask all the people whose homes are still getting foreclosed on. Ask them if the recession is over. If you cared, if you asked, you would probably see that for much of the working poor (read that again: WORKING poor -- working in a job that doesn't pay enough to make ends meet, but working themselves to death anyway) the recession started a lot further back than September of 2008. To add trauma to tragedy, so, so many of the programs that could have helped people dealing with unemployment, underemployment, homelessness, foreclosure, insurance issues, job training, medical issues, education, etc., are being threatened with cuts and closure, at least on the state level, if not federal.

I'm not an economist. I don't pay enough attention to politics and what's going on with laws and bills and such. I just know that from what I hear, our lack of concern for each other, our greed, and our ability to screw each other over and pretend like we are doing it for the other person's benefit, breaks my heart. I guess that's why I'll never be rich.