LINKSPAM: Readers' Advisory Resources

I'm cleaning up my in-browser bookmarks. I've been agonizing over whether to use Diigo, Delicious, or just plain Google Bookmarks. Basically, I'm angry that you can't make sub-folders or sub-lists in any of them. So, I decided to start using my blog more effectively to collect links I like, especially for Reader's Advisory.

TODAY'S LINKSPAM: READER'S ADVISORY RESOURCES!

Children's Literature

Database of Award-Winning Children's Literature: Research purposes.

How To Find Good Children's Lit: A thorough lists of all of the awards from professional associations. I used it to buy all of the Pura Belpre award winners, and keep referring back to it. (Courtesy of Philip Nel, Nine Kinds of Pie.)

Juvenile Series & Sequels Database: The most helpful link in the ENTIRE WORLD if you're on a reference desk and don't know what order the Wimpy Kid books go in.

Radical Children's Literature Now: List of books that teach children to question authority. Vigilante Librarian is a big fan of this. (Courtesy of Philip Nel, Nine Kinds of Pie.)

School Collection: Children's Lit (UIUC): My lovely library school created this for research purposes. 

S.A.L.S.A. (CPS Dept. of Libraries): The DOL @ Chicago Public Schools works so hard to create equitable lists for our ELL students. This is a great resource for school librarians like myself. 

Graphic Novels

Best Graphic Novels for Children (Goodreads List): As an avid Goodreads user, I'm a troll of these kinds of lists. 

Graphic Novels 4 Girls: A website that gets girls into comics? Love it! Searchable by genre.

Short Takes: 27 Graphic Novels for African American History Month: I serve children of color, and I used this to help find materials to make my collection chromatic. My students deserve to see themselves in comics. Via Library Journal. (Related: From Aya to Zapt! and Holy Black History Month!)

Young Adult Lit

100 YA Books for the Feminist Reader:  BITCH Magazine, it's like you know me.

SYNC: "SYNC offers free Young Adult and Classic audiobook downloads to introduce the listening experience." YESSS.

Top 100 Banned Books, 2000-2009: I printed ALA's list out for my 8th graders last year and let them go to town. There is no better way to get a teen to read a book than to tell them they can't read it.

#YA Saves: Not technically a list, but if there was a battle cry for YA, this is it. Sherman Alexie laid the smackdown in the Wall Street Journal. I also had 7th/8th graders read this, and we bonded. They also actively sought out every book he mentioned in the article.

BOOK REVIEW: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

 The Skinny
The title is actually a quotation lifted from the "Silver Blaze" story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.*  The protagonist, Christopher Boone, is a 15-year-old boy on the autism spectrum who discovers his next-door neighbor's dog murdered in her yard. He decides to play detective and solve the murder. Throughout the story, Christopher uncovers a few more mysteries surrounding his parents and his father's true relationship with his neighbor. 

The Good
This book resonated strongly with me, as you'll below in my super-emotional life story. (Sorry in advance.) I usually avoid this type of "literary" fiction because I get really cynical about making emotional connections with the characters. But, I genuinely connected with Christopher, and I could see a high-YA audience connecting to it too. A cynical reviewer on Goodreads said that it's the gimmicky type of book that's written to go begging for awards, but I think the awards are deserved. It's creative. More importantly, the topic is treated respectfully.

What I most appreciated about this book is its compassionate depiction of Christopher's parents (from his POV, at least) as a pair of low-income, less-educated people struggling to understand how to help their son. Low-income families really struggle with the financial burdens of disability. I can't say how it is in the UK with socialized healthcare, but I know here in the US, insurance companies are obviously quite evil about covering preexisting conditions. And if you don't have federal insurance... well, you're fucked.If you don't have the luxury of a Special Education program at your public school, or the finances to have specialists treat your child to testing and tutoring, what can you do?

* And you thought I was getting tired of this Sherlock shit. How wrong you are.

Feminism/Life Points for "Curious Incident":
+1 for building understanding around autistic youths
+1 for depicting the financial burden of disability
+1 for compassionately depicting the emotional difficulties of a family with a differently-abled child

A lot of people will fight the first point out, though. For some reason, the publishers starting claiming that Christopher's character has Asperger's Syndrome and that was put on the cover, to Mark Haddon's chagrin. This is a publishing problem, not an authorial problem. 

My Main Contention: I really wanted to take away all points for a dog dying, because that's just not cool, you guys. I really can't deal with animals dying.


Personal Connection
I was fascinated by this book because as a teacher, I am working directly in child psychological development. I work with an autistic kindergartner, and I saw her echoed in Christopher. I'm glad I read this book, because it gave me some idea on how to approach this student, and any other differently-developed student. As a school practitioner, I still have a lot to learn about differentiating my lessons to meet those students' needs. My mother is a former Special Ed teacher (SPED, we teachers now call it), and my brother is a high-functioning ADD/OCD person, so I grew up fairly tolerant of what people call " mental disorders." (And what is an "ordered mind" these days?) I spend a lot of time picking our fantastic SPED team's brains, because SPED practice today is really beginning to shine.

I also felt a strong connection to this book because of how Christopher is treated as a savant. He's incredibly intelligent, and I love how the book showed that he could still function and perform well despite his mental handicaps. That same Kindergartner I work with struggles with social interaction, but her comprehension and other things aren't at all hindered by her autism. I want to punch people who would think her less-intelligent or stupid because of it.

Intelligence is such a fascinating topic to me. What kind of environment produces academic intelligence? I often consider how I've developed my own abilities, and why. I learned to read very quickly as a kid, with great comprehension and recall. I'm a good speller, and a knack for grammar, because I must have the innate "linguistic" type of brain. Not everyone can hear cadence and voice in their own writing, and I can. Why? I don't know.

On the other hand, I have certain compulsions - are they a product of intelligence, like Rain Man?  I am so compulsively organized with objects that when things are cluttered or disordered, I literally feel a cloud descending upon my mind. And to clear the cloud, I must clean shit up. I get extremely angry when people try to disorient, tease, or confuse me. When I lose things, I feel like I'm dying until I find them. I would weep horribly if I lost things as a kid, and I tried really hard to suppress this feeling by being organized.Whether this indicates me to have OCDish tendencies or not remains to be seen, I guess. ("No, I'm not OCD. I'm just Librarian." Haha.) I guess that mental stimulation is an addiction to me.

I also have a horrible fear of my mind deteriorating. Because I don't know about my genetics, this fear looms in the back of my mind. The idea of dementia in my old age terrifies me, because I value my mind above all else. I also suffer from depression, which I feel destroys my thinking abilities sometimes. I brushed my own emotional/mental borders before, when I was a teenager, and I used to have a serious issue with self-harm. I completely connected with what Christopher called his "Black Days" - except for me, it wasn't just days. It was months of fog and anger and buttloads of irrationality. I can't rightly parallel myself to Christopher or any other autistic person, but I can certainly understand how difficult it is to control one's moods based on the chemical whims of the brain.

I realized this fear last year, when my Aunt had an aneurysm. When she was operated upon to try to help the aneurysm, it popped and she was briefly in a coma. Now, she's lost control of one whole side of her body, and much of her mind. This Aunt was a SPED teacher as well, and one of the sharpest and most logical women I've ever known, so I see a tragic irony in the situation. It's haunting, and I feel such grief for her and my cousins. Now I think, what will happen to me in the future? What if one day I get in a car accident, and I lose control of my body forever? What if I became another Phineas Gage?

Nature Vs. Nurture?
I don't know if my skills are a sign of something unique, like an eidetic memory or me being a 3-year-old mnemonist. Generally, I think it's because I grew up in the right environment. I'm adopted, so I don't know if these skills are genetic, but I can attest to a lot of them being learned. My great-grandmother started reading to me incredibly early, which modeled reading as a behavior for me. As a librarian, I can see a huge difference in kids who read at home with family, and those who don't. I also had a mother who recognized a skill and nurtured it, and I went to a very wealthy public school that could differentiate instruction for me and put me in advanced-level classes.  My organizational talents were being put to use as a page in a library as young as age 11.

So am I "special"? Probably not. But think about how many other "special" abilities can be found and celebrated in children if they are nurtured! Young children have such fascinating, expandable developing minds. It's like playing with Play-Do with certain kids. I see a lot of special abilities hidden in my own students, who haven't had the privileges as me. When I was tutoring 1st and 2nd graders in phonics, I saw them rapidly improve their reading abilities. I saw an illiterate 2nd grader who could barely write his own name suddenly read fluently and become very successful as an independent reader - all because I gave him the personal attention 4 days a week. I wonder what could happen if he were given more attention.

So are special abilities innate, or learned? I don't know completely. But I do know that the human brain is  delicate and mysterious, and I love it. I love shaping my own mind, and watching children shape their own in my library.

Kindergarten Feminism

As a teacher, I try to tread with caution about the opinions I share with kids. I've mentioned my issues with middle-schoolers and homosexuality before, but the Kindergartners are a totally different ballgame.

The munchkins are different from big kids because they repeat without interpreting. This is the age where they start looking to adults for their affirmations and codes on many behaviors, including gender and racial roles. I spend some time thinking about what their racialized and gendered world looks like, and how I can reflect their world back to them positively in the books I provide for them in the Library/Media Center.

I had an amusing adventure in gender today. I did a readaloud in the Kindergarten class with Allie's Basketball Dream (Barbara E. Barber). It's the story of a young Black girl whose father buys her a basketball, only to be told by all of her unfeminist friends that girls do double-dutch and boys play basketball. But don't worry - Allie sticks it to all of her lame friends and shoots some pretty awesome baskets at the end of the story. Then, of course, everyone gets over their silly opinions and wants to play with her. Feminism and cooperation for the win! Check the breakdown on this:

Diversity Points for Allie:
+1 for a strong female character openly challenging a gendered opinion
+1 for the strong female character being non-white
+1 for a multiracial group of children depicted in cooperative, preexisting friendships
+1 for depicting an awesome, sensitive, and loving dad of color
+1 for boys and girls who change their unfeminist opinion on example and model inclusive behaviors
+1 for an urban environment that isn't the ghetto

6 Feminist Points! Barbara E. Barber, you are Feminist and Fabulous! Congrats on your inclusive entry into children's fiction!

All of this is awesome. Take this really lovely moment in the story where Allie takes down gender expectations across all sports:

"Well," Buddy snorted, "some guys think that girls shouldn't be playin' basketball."

 "That's dumb!" Allie bounced her ball. "My cousin Gwen plays on one of the best high school teams in her state. She's won more than ten trophies!" [...] "Some girls think boys shouldn't be jumping rope," Allie continued. "They think the boys are no good at it. That's dumb too."

Girl preach. So full of win, right? But when, I asked my Kindergarteners, "So, if girls can play basketball, can boys play double-dutch?" ... the answer was still a resounding NO. I didn't quite know what to do with this. First of all, some of the munchkins were clearly not listening to the author's message in the story! Basic fail, y'all.

Alas, one story isn't going to change the gender expectation already ingrained in these five-year-olds. My kids are bombarded with hypermasculine images of LeBron James and Derrick Rose. Their world offers an extremely narrow view of what adult (black) men do, other than basketball and rapping (and that one guy who is president). I'm fairly sure there's a weekly argument with a boy over their extremely unlikely future dreams of music or sports fame. And it's hard for them to understand, because that's all they know. I even think it's hard for the boys to concede that girls can enter a realm they so strongly consider theirs.

....Okay. I guess I get a little invested in the messages of children's books. But I'm hoping that today, I challenged some Kindergartenders' gender expectations today, made some girls feel like they could play sports, and made some boys feel like they could jump double-dutch.

Answering your question *is* a superpower.

Aww yeah! Czech this out: 20 Heroic Librarians Who Save the World @ iO9.

MY HERO <3

School Issue: LGBTQ Bullying

After seeing this article on Jezebel, and reviewing the source material, I feel the pain of my colleagues. There really is a huge bullying problem, and it's complex and difficult for American teachers to handle if their efforts aren't being reciprocated by their community. It doesn't help that public school teachers are constantly given a dumb, conflicting message about teaching equality values: "It's your job to mold these young people into  ethical participants in society - but don't mention ANYTHING EVER that's considered an 'issue' because you'll be forcing your political opinions on kids in a public school and we'll fire you." LGBTQ have their own set of snarls, especially when they intersect with other issues in the community.

So, personal example time. I'm a school librarian. I'm queer, which I will not reveal to my students. ("A queer school librarian! With tattoos! PROTECT THE CHILDREN.") When a student casually says something ignorant about sexuality, I wince. It happens less often - usually I'm correcting the standard "that's gay" stuff. I had an incredulous 3rd-grader explain to me how Lady Gaga is gay because of the way she dresses. I work in a religious African-American neighborhood, which has its own expectations about hyper-masculinity for the boys and other forms of alienation for girls. I often wonder if homosexuality is even discussed at all in my students' homes, as the dialogues of gay people of color have been long oppressed. Very few Americans have even heard of Bayard Rustin, despite his huge influence on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and black civil rights. I try not to assume that they come in with any knowledge. But where do I start? What's appropriate for me to say or do to promote understanding?
 
I obviously agree that educators should actively teach LGBTQ acceptance, but with tact: it depends on how the community feels about discussing sexuality. You have to balance being respectful of the community, but also do what you feel is right. I will be met poorly if I, as a white liberal, begin aggressively telling my students something different than is expressed in their church or their home. It would be wrong of me to tell a child their parent or an adult they trust is wrong.

Sigh. It's delicate, which I'm not always very good at.

None of this means I won't stand up for myself or my community, or avoid the issue. Here are my personal Rules of Thumb for dealing with slurs and commentary, while remaining professional: 

Do not engage. I coach middle-school poms, and 7th grade girls are universally horrible if you let them be. I shrug it off and say "it's none of my business, or yours" if students try to involve me in their gossip. Even shrugging and saying, "So?" is pretty effective. This is me modelling for them how to resist participating in the behavior. I know they're looking at me as an adult mentor and they come to me with gossip to be reaffirmed. They want me to react to them. I don't reaffirm their behavior, but I don't alienate myself as a person to take these issues to.

Tell kids to mind their own business! If the previous method doesn't work, I firmly tell a kid to worry about themselves and fix their own problems before they start pointing fingers at others. We live in an invasive, judgmental Mean Girls culture that loves to obnoxiously speculate about people we know nothing about. We as adults have to model that this behavior is wrong. Let's teach our kids to not be jerks.

Calmly explain, positively frame. I explain to students - without making them feel bad the first time - that calling someone a "faggot" feels oppressive on the level of the N-Word or any other slur to me, because my friends and family are gay. That peaceful dialogue is critical on the first try, because honestly, kids often say things without having any idea of what's coming out of their mouth. I'm going to immediately alienate that kid if I yell at them for calling someone a name without explaining the pain or history behind it. It's not fair to punish the child for not knowing the difference. I give them the opportunity to learn first. If it continues, then I more firmly intervene.

Set up a Zero-Tolerance Policy in Classrooms and Schools. No kid gets away with rudeness in my library. I'm very blessed to work at a school with a very united staff, who universally agree upon an aggressive zero-tolerance culture. And any anti-hate policy has to have firm consequences that are followed through. If you don't follow through, you've lost it completely. We deal with these problems on the spot, we don't just leave it to the Deans. It should be school-wide, and staff should have set-aside PD time to work on these policies. I think the GLSEN toolkit is very promising, and I hope my network will one day actively incorporate it into PD.
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