I’m back!  I’m back after a hugely long absence!  I’m not even going to calculate the number of months I’ve been away.  I have a good excuse: I’ve been busy.  Moved, bought a house, moved in, had a baby, found a job.  All good (one superlative); all stressful and time-consuming.  Throughout, I’ve been thinking, “Oh, I keep meaning to go back to that blog.  But I should also order another swaddle blanket/deal with that car insurance issue/run the wash/write a snatch of my novel/collapse.”  Tonight, something urgent brought me to the site: spam.

I don’t know how many of you have blogs, but if you do, unless you have some surefire firewall that I don’t have here on WordPress, spam will crop up in your comment feed.  Gone are the days where spam was just about member enhancement and–well, I guess that was the main one.  No, today’s spammers–blog spammers, at least–are sort of creative.  Sure, there’s the generic.  They’ll say things like,

Thank you for your whole hard work on this blog. My mom delights in working on research and it’s obvious why. All of us learn all concerning the powerful tactic you render very useful guidelines through your website and therefore invigorate response from other people on that content so our favorite child is without question being taught a great deal. Have fun with the remaining portion of the year. Your conducting a useful job.

[Who is their favorite child, I might ask, and what is happening to their less favored child as a result?  And why do those with favorites have trouble using apostrophes?]

There’s also the lengthier:

My husband and i have been absolutely ecstatic that Albert could finish up his researching out of the precious recommendations he was given from your very own web pages. It is now and again perplexing just to always be giving out secrets that others have been making money from. We really take into account we’ve got you to appreciate for this. All the explanations you’ve made, the straightforward site menu, the relationships you can give support to promote – it is many terrific, and it’s really aiding our son in addition to the family consider that this topic is amusing, and that’s especially important. Thanks for the whole thing!

I’ve always had a fondness for that Albert.  So glad I could help him out.  Many terrific.  And I agree that it is perplexing to give our secrets that others can make money from.  It happens to me all the time, and what can I say — I’m perplexed!

The most inventive and surprising spam was deleted a few months ago, but it mentioned oatmeal!  First of all — really, oatmeal?  Secondly, how did they know my wife is a marked lover of oatmeal?

When I hopped online to delete this madness (nothing says ghost-town blog like piles of spam), I reread some previous posts, and by gum, you all are fabulous commenters.  I would definitely be motivated to blog more if I saw more of the likes of you, and I’d like my return to do a little good for the world.  Thankgiving is coming up (bye-bye, Halloween!), and some people will have a hard time coming by their turkey or tofu, so I decided, for every person who posts fake spam in the comments, I will donate $1 to a food pantry. (Now you might ask, how will I know if it’s real spam or fake spam?  I won’t.  I’ll have to guess.)

Winner gets bragging rights.  Everyone else gets the joy of sounding like a spammer.  Blunt your pencils and begin!

Oh, and since this post brought a certain video to mind, I thought I’d share:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check out Jennifer Hubbard’s blog for a breakdown of how writers, bloggers, and all of you raised $1667 for libraries around the country!

Linda N, one of the commenters, sent this picture of people cheering the opening of a library

Thanks to all you library-lovers out there, plus FFLL (Friends and Family of Library Lovers), I have exceeded my goal of $50 and raised $62 for the Louisville Free Public Library!  I especially like this number because I grew up on 62nd Street, so any flash of resonance is especially pleasing.

Thanks especially to Emily and Ginger, whose guest posts brought in fresh sources of fun and funds, and to those wacky pals at Vermont College who commented in droves.  I must admit that part of the reason I undertook this challenge was to kick-start myself back into blogging, and I really enjoyed the dialogue.  Maybe some of you will even come back!

Off to have brunch at a new place (new to me, I mean)–

~Jess

And now, the final post for the Library-Lovin’ Blog challenge, from my good friend Emily!  She told me recently about how much she loves Sylvester, the librarian at Louisville’s Eline Library, and I thought, “She must do a guest post for me!”  Thankfully, she has ceded to my command, and now you get to hear this sweet story.

Also thankfully, you readers have raised at least $40 for the library with your comments this week!  Think you can get it to $50?  Do I hear $55?  Comment away, me hardies, and thanks for visiting!

And now for Emily’s post (ooh! Like Emily Post!)

When I was a little girl, my family used to go to Cape Cod for two weeks

every summer, and the local library was within walking distance. I’d roll my little red wagon there, and the librarians greeted me each year with a “Welcome back!” I’d fill the wagon with books, and on the way home we’d stop for blue raspberry slushies and possibly, if my mother was in a very good mood, a Ring Pop. So libraries fill me with warm, fuzzy feelings, and also a desire for slushies.

Not Emily's actual toddler, but look! Cute toddler!

When I was pregnant with my first child, I knew I wanted the library to be special to him as well. As soon as the doctor gave me the go ahead to take him out in public, and as soon as I got over my fear of driving with him in the car, we went to the library. Now he’s a sturdy toddler, and I can no longer carry him into the library. He must walk, thank you very much. The entrance to our particular library is a long hallway, with the children’s section on the right, the adult section on the left, and panes of glass dividing the hallway from the books. Every single time we go, my son gets so excited to see the books (“Story!” he says. “Story!”) that he presses up against the glass. He’s so eager to get to the books that he cannot fathom he has to walk down the hall and around the glass. Instead, he bangs on the glass in frustration. He can see the books! Why can he not get to them?

But what makes the library really special is the librarians. First of all, they greet my son by name. Second of all, when he pulls many books off the shelf in his sheer joy at being surrounded by stories, they manage to hide their exasperation really, really well. And finally, when he cries in despair at having to leave, turning bright red and wailing as loudly as he can (which very loudly, in case you were wondering), they smile and make clucking noises and tell him they’ll see him soon.

The Ur-Sylvester. Am I right?

And if that doesn’t work, we see Sylvester.  Sylvester is my son’s favorite librarian, and mine too, I admit. Partially because his name is Sylvester, which is awesome, but mostly because he’s a very nice man. The last time we were at the library, my son had a fit because I wouldn’t let him bang on a computer keyboard. Red-faced, tears streaming down his cheeks…he was pathetic. All the little old ladies there looked very concerned. So I took him to the check-out desk, and there was Sylvester.

“Hi, Evan,” he said cheerfully.

The screaming stopped, and Evan eyed him.

“Tough day today, huh?” he asked.

Sniffles from Evan.

“Here are your books!” he said, and handed them to me.

A tiny voice piped up. “Thank you. Bye bye, Sylv.”

I kind of want to take Sylvester home with me and have him hand me books every time a tantrum occurs, but I think I’ll have to stick with regular visits to the library.

Again–leave a comment below, or here, here, or here, and Jess will donate $1 so librarians like Sylvester can have consistent hours and help kids like Evan and moms like Emily.

Also, thanks to Jennifer Hubbard, author of The Secret Year, for brain-childing the Library-Lovin’ Blog Challenge!  See all you library fans next year!

Love Song for a Library

the author and her sister

In the beginning was the Word. In her beginnings, there was a book. Her mother told her she could read before she started kindergarten, and she started kindergarten at age four. Each week, she would walk with her grandmother and older sister the nine or ten city blocks to their local branch of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, a low brick building down a side street.

There, she and her sister would settle in the children’s section, while their grandmother browsed through paperback mysteries and Regency romances. She remembers little of that library—windows, low shelves, Ezra Jack Keats’ A Snowy Day, and the front desk, where a stereotypically severe-looking librarian stamped their books with a heavy rubber stamp—ka-thunk!

By the time she was in fifth grade, her mother was in graduate school studying to become an elementary school librarian. Long Saturday afternoons were spent in Lockwood Library at the university: Mom at the copier with piles of coins, sister claiming the best of the blocky chairs available. The options were limited. Ride the elevator up and down, up and down. Run out to the vending machines, having first snatched a quarter from her mother’s towering pile. Quarter in, press F8, curly-cue swivels around, out pops frosted nut brownie. Or, of course, there were the stacks.

Mostly, she spent time in the stacks. One single row of children’s books, mostly books that sported shiny gold Newbery stickers. Somehow she got her hands on a bookmark that listed all the Newbery award winners, and she decided she would read them. Some of her favorite books were Newberies: A Wrinkle in Time, Tuck Everlasting, Bridge to Terabithia, The Westing Game, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. They were quickly joined by Summer of the Swans, My Side of the Mountain, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Great Gilly Hopkins, A Ring of Endless Light.

She remembers, though, mostly spending those afternoons with E.L. Konigsburg. Oh, they weren’t on a first-name basis, she and E.L., but nevertheless, she became great friends with Claudia and Jamie, wishing more than anything that she could stay in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that she could go to an automat (What was an automat, anyway?). She thrilled to the sound of Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. She gobbled up About the B’nai Bagels, while developing A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. She even became Father’s Arcane Daughter for a while.

Those Saturday afternoons ceased, but she found other libraries to haunt. She could make a dot-to-dot design on a map of the United States of libraries she has frequented over her lifetime. It would undoubtedly look like an open book. Some of those libraries don’t exist anymore; some of them have expanded. All of them have been important to her. This one is the one she went to in college, studying with her roommates while wearing large hats (to channel the brain-waves, of course). This one she frequented when she was first married, borrowing books with unlikely plots and even more unlikely heroines. That is the one she walked to with her first baby, borrowing books on child development, as well as board books and movies for cheap date nights.

This library, here, was one of her favorites. She brought her toddler there for story time, but also to see the fish in the fish tank, and to work the puzzles on the table, and to borrow picture books to read to him, and CDs to listen to (a compilation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems set to music was her favorite). It was there that she returned to her love of children’s literature, often grabbing Anne of Green Gables off the shelf to read while her gingerbread boy played quietly. It was here that she realized she liked children’s literature better than literature for adults.

Now she frequents her current town library, an old schoolhouse built in the 1800s. It is a place where the librarians not only know her name, they know her library card number. She also volunteers in the elementary school library, where she returns dozens and dozens of books back to their places on the shelves. Sometimes, though, she sees a book that catches her eye, and she sits down right in the stacks, caught up in the pleasure of a book, just like she did when she was in fifth grade. Some things never change.

Ginger today. I don't think she's even seen this photo!

Here are my top ten libraries in literature and life, in no particular order, although some favoritism may be noted toward those at the top of the stack (get it, stack?  Yuk yuk yuk.)  If you want to leave a comment, feel free to write about your favorite library, or you can just say, “I love libraries!”

1) Sunnydale High School Library, aka Buffy’s hangout, aka Giles’s lair.

I know, I’m always going on about Giles.  Not only is he incredibly sexy (The Ripper…), but hello, he’s allowing for multi-disciplinary, hands-on learning with the Scooby Gang!  Did even Jenny Calendar offer that opportunity in her classes? I think not.

2) The Hogwarts Library

Best collection ever, and the books that snap shut on your nose?  Fun to read about, and the fact that the librarian, Madam Pince, never wants anyone handling the books always makes me laugh.  I think she should get a spin-off series.

3) The libe in Library Lion by my friend Michelle (Mikki) Knudsen.

One of those great books where an animal is indispensable.  Plus, kudos to Madam Merriweather, the librarian, who sticks up for her feline friend.  And kudos to Mikki, who wrote this NYTimes best-seller!  (I can’t believe I know a best-seller!  Two, actually, but that’s another story.)

4) New York Public Library as portrayed in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

This is one of my favorite scenes in the movie, although I can’t quite remember why (another involves Holly Golightly sharing one of the few Italian phrases she knows, “I believe you are in league with the butcher!”)  Is this the scene where there’s sneaking?  J’adore sneaking.  And j’adore the fact that Paul (George) Varjak finds a copy of his book at the NYPL.  I need go to the Brooklyn Public Library one of these days and find Nice and Mean.

5) Another New York Public Library, this time in All-of-a-Kind Family

Oh, that scene in chapter one where responsible Sarah forgets her library book!  And the librarian is so nice to them, endeared by them standing in a row at her desk and scratching their legs because Mama’s stockings make them so itchy.  It’s just a great scene.  Plus, the librarian becomes a very important person in their lives…read the book to find out.

Okay, you know, that’s probably enough for now, because I am racking my brains and not coming up with enough, even though I know I am neglecting many!  So I’m excited to have you all chime in on your favorite libraries in books and movies (and hey, if you have a song about libraries, bring it on!)  But I got very swoony while writing this, which I think goes to show that having access to books in a place of learning brings out a primal sort of love , and we should support our libraries!  Don’t forget to comment, my friends!

Welcome to the second annual Library-Lovin’ Blog Challenge!

Who doesn’t love a good library?  All those books lovingly wrapped in plastic, and free.  All those quirky librarians, making your day just a little more interesting with their banter and going out of their way to help you find resources.  All that programming, without which many families would find themselves bored and disconnected, and all that technology to help people find jobs, houses, and internet boyfriends.  That’s all thanks to public libraries, but it ain’t free.

YA author Jenn Hubbard (The Secret Year, 2010) came up with this great idea that during the first week of April, kidlit writers and bloggers would donate money to their favorite libraries based on the number of comments they receive.  For every person who comments on this blog between now and Saturday, April 2nd, midnight EST, I will donate $1.00 to the Louisville Free Public Library, which has kept me in books, in company, and out of debt more than I can say.  And I promise to post more often so that you actually have things to comment on!  Today’s comment question: What do you like best about libraries? I’ve put some options in the poll to your right, but if you want a library to earn money from your opinion, editorialize in the comments below.

In addition, whomever among you comments the most will win a copy of my middle-grade novel, Nice and Mean, either to keep or ask me to donate to whomever you choose.

Finally, this link will connect you with other bloggers who are participating in the challenge, so if you are feeling particularly swoony about libraries, you can read even more and quintippleipple your impact (quintippleipple is to multiply something by 50.  If you don’t believe me, look it up.)  And please!  Spread the word about this challenge–on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, whatever.  The more comments, the more money, the more our beloved libraries will be able to do the things that make us love them.

So stay tuned for love songs about libraries (stories, too), and if you don’t have a blog but want to guest-post about your love for libraries, let me know in the comments!

Teen me had a passing interest in Escher

Did you ever wish you could go back in time and give a message to your younger self?  And did you maybe wish that other people could benefit from hearing that message?  That’s the philosophy behind Dear Teen Me, a blog created by my webly friend Emily Krisin Morse and others.  I recently had my turn talking to my teen self, and here’s what I had to say.  I’m glad I finally got it off my chest.

There are other great entries here, many by friends of mine, like this one and this one.   You could really spend an afternoon thinking about different peoples’ experiences then and now.  In fact, maybe this will be the afternoon!

Day 1– social networking in a middle-grade novel and how I made Marina just mean  enough.

Day 2–wrestling with what to put in the novel and what to keep out at various stages of the drafting process (funny comment at the end of this one.)

To wit: I was going back through an outline of a work-in-progress, Not that Girl, and saw this comment from my advisor, the great Tim Wynne-Jones.  Next to one of the near-final chapters, I had written something like, “…and [protagonist] Jackie has forgotten about Becky by now,” and Tim commented in the margin, “Jess has, too.”  And I thought, ye gods, he was so right about that: what was Becky doing in the story at this point?  I kept making her mysteriously absent, so either I needed to cut her or figure out what she brought to the story.

I chose the former and decided that I’d outline the novel from her point of view, identifying what she was thinking and doing at each juncture.  Lo and behold, it opened up so many things.  Maybe Becky, in watching Jackie drift further from her best friend Mel, would seize the opening and try to become Mel’s best friend, and Jackie would have to deal with those consequences.

And speaking of Mel, maybe I should outline the story from her POV, too–and once I did, I realized that the story was less interesting when she commented cattily on Jackie’s choices and would be more interesting if she were a sort of wide-eyed, I’m-not-going-to-say-anything pleaser-type of critic.  That way, when Jackie does things like consider asking a guy out (horrors), it would be Jackie’s own internal gender police that makes her hesitate, and that would make for a more interesting journey.  And when outlining the story from Zoe’s point of view, I made Zoe much more interesting, too–less flaunting her older-boyfriended status in everyone’s face and more trying to get her due from friends who ignore her because they feel like she’s transgressed.

So thank you, Wendy Wasserstein and Tim Wynne-Jones.  Your encouragement, implicit or explicit, to identify what the characters think and want at all junctures has made for a much better story on these shores.  Now I just have to go ahead and write the dang thing!

If anyone of you read this and try it out, or have already tried it, will you weigh in?  I’d love to hear about your experience.

"Uncommon Women and Others," one of my favorite plays from high school