Funny Misshapen Body: A Memoir: I picked this one up when I wanted to kill some time at my public library branch. (Side note? Now that I work full-time, I visit this library so much less often. It makes me a little sad. But at least I finally made good on my overdue fines!) When I was about halfway done I loaned it to the head of our art department, which meant I didn’t get to finish it until this afternoon. Aesthetically I’m not a huge fan of the art, but I love the stories. Linear thinkers may have an issue with the way the narrative hops around in time.

Brutal: As part of my book club for two, I’m now trying to stay at least a book ahead of the 12th grader who plows through anything I recommend. I picked this one up because it seemed like it might be in line with some of the Bad Things Happen-themed books she’s enjoyed in the past. At first I had a lot of trouble getting into it–the narrator struck me as one of those gratingly precocious teens–but the plot drew me in and I finished it in a single sitting.

Inexcusable: Several librarians recommended this one to me when I asked about books that might help teenage boys think about rape. Not exactly what I was initially going for, and I feel like the narrator might get off a little easy (though I guess the ending leaves that somewhat up for debate), but I enjoyed it.

Play Me: Unlike Good Girls, which I seem to remember reading pretty quickly, I was able to put this one down, multiple times. I kept coming back, though, so I guess that’s saying something. One question: does the cover make this a book many boys wouldn’t pick up, despite the male narrator?

The Forest of Hands and Teeth: Another highly recommend book, and I simply couldn’t put it down. My book club partner was initially a little irritated when she found out this would be part of a series (or at the very least a pair), but now we both can’t wait for it to arrive. (We may have to arm-wrestle for it.)

Because I Am Furniture: I suppose technically I couldn’t put this one down, but overall I was disappointed. I think Ellen Hopkins does a much better job covering similar material in verse, and I found the ending more than a little hurried.

Identical: This was the beginning of my book club–my partner-in-reading told me I had to read this book. When I was about halfway through I purchased everything else Ellen Hopkins has ever written. Did I mention I’m extremely excited she’ll be at our full-day YALSA pre-conference this summer? Yup. Super excited.

The Plain Janes: I actually read this one quite a while ago, but it seems I left it out of previous lists. After all the recommendations I’d heard, I was a little underwhelmed.

Jane Bites Back: Again, it’s been a while. I was extremely skeptical of this one since I’ve never read any Jane Austen (and suspect, perhaps with undue prejudice, that I wouldn’t like any of it), but I found I was immediately sucked in (pardon the pun!) and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Fun Home: I heart Alison Bechdel. That is all.

I’d Tell You I Love You, but Then I’d Have to Kill You: I got this one from my brother’s bookstore while I was on vacation. I enjoyed it as airplane reading, but I found I wanted it to be a little more D.E.B.S. and a little less boy drama.

Feed: Did I seriously forget to write any of these down? It’s been ages since I read this! Again, underwhelmed. I felt like I’d heard this hyped for years and ultimately found it a pretty unsatisfying science fiction experience. But maybe I just have high standards.

Audrey, Wait!: Love this book. Very much in the vain of Nick & Norah for me. I would totally see a movie based on this.

Speak: Seeing as this seems to be the only book several girls in the ninth grade at my school have ever read (or at least liked enough to remember), I decided it was finally time to read it. And–are we sensing a theme here yet?–I was a little underwhelmed. It’s definitely an important book, and I see why it remains so popular, but I didn’t like it nearly as much as Wintergirls or Twisted.

After paying probably way too much attention to the changes to some of YALSA’s book lists, I’ve been thinking a lot about fiction and nonfiction. Am I marginalizing nonfiction in my library?

The evidence on both sides:

Yes. I buy far more fiction than nonfiction. I also display much more fiction than nonfiction–even if you count biographies, I often have upwards of three different tables of fiction to maybe one of nonfiction. Even the covers I choose for my “Hey, we have new books!” posts on the library blogs are overwhelmingly from fiction titles.

No. Overall, my collection has much more nonfiction than fiction titles, and I’ve been weeding more aggressively in nonfiction (meaning there’s a lot of outdated or odd stuff in fiction, and I won’t get around to tossing it for a while) in an effort to fill the shelves with Good Stuff. While my casual displays may be skewed toward fiction, the bigger New Books shelf gives roughly equal display space to fiction, non-fiction, and graphic format titles.

I also have a really solid display of magazines and journals, which I’d classify as nonfiction–I think The New Yorker is the only magazine I could really call fiction, and even that has nonfiction in it as well.

The Verdict: Dunno.

It’s tricky. I feel a lot of pressure when I buy nonfiction for a title to tie into the curriculum, which is part of the reason I haven’t bought that much yet this year–I’m new, still getting a feel for assignments and curriculum, and I just don’t know what we need.

When I’m making purchasing decisions, a nonfiction title has to seem very high-interest (like The Skateboarding Field Manual) or fill a specific request from teachers (like some literary criticism I’m adding). When I’m buying fiction, on the other hand, I’m hoping that someone will like it, but I don’t necessarily feel compelled to make sure it would work for a whole class the way I do with nonfiction.

What’s your collection development policy when it comes to fiction and nonfiction?

Wintergirls – Have I mentioned lately how much I love Laurie Halse Anderson? This was a great read and I’m glad I have it in my collection, though it’s not seeing a ton of circulation lately. I didn’t think the end rang false, though I can see that other readers might have thought it was a lot of buildup for a sudden ending.

Cut – This one has been wildly popular everywhere I’ve worked, so I’m really glad I finally sat down and read it. I found myself identifying pretty strongly with the main character and I was pleased with what I saw as a pretty realistic depiction of self-injury and a spiraling mindset, though I can’t speak to the accuracy of life in a juvenile rehab center.

Take the Cannoli – I love Sarah Vowell from This American Life. Like David Sedaris, her voice now rings in my head when I’m reading her stories. I ended up giving this one to my dad for Christmas. I’d recommend her for Sedaris fans, This American Life fans, and anyone who loves a well-crafted memoir-y short story.

Nonetheless, I seem to be getting an interesting mix in, as I catch up on some newer adult titles and try to read some of the new (or new to us) YA titles I order for the library.

The Road: I started reading this one over a year ago, and I suppose news of the upcoming film inspired me to start again. It was a quick, gripping read. I’m looking forward to seeing whether the movie captures the intensity of the book. (And I should totally read No Country for Old Men, too.)

Water Baby: I picked this up as an ARC about a year ago and never got around to reading it, but since I’ve decided to offer galleys on a trial basis in my library I wanted to read this one to make sure it was age-appropriate. I found it… interesting. I don’t know–I’d be really interested to hear what other people thought about this, particularly anyone interested in disability issues.

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation: This one was recommended by one of our English teachers, and I’d been curious ever since I heard the adaptation was coming. I can’t recommend this title highly enough. The art is fantastic, the narrative remains faithful to the original, and the foreword from Bradbury raises a question I’ve been mulling over ever since: what book would you want to never forget?

Stitches: I hope I can get students reading this one, because I found it extremely compelling. Fantastic artwork and a twist I definitely didn’t see coming. More than one, actually. Recommend this one to graphic novel fans and anyone interested in outsider coming-of-age stories.

Manhood for Amateurs: Despite the fact that my brother recommends Kavalier and Clay just about every time I talk to him, I still haven’t read any of Chabon’s work besides Summerland (which I loved). I read a chapter of this newest offering somewhere–possibly the New York Times? and got hooked, so I decided to check out the rest of the book. I’m not quite finished but I love it. It’s making me think a lot of my dad, and there’s a really fantastic chapter on the geography (and cartography) of childhood.

So far they’re my biggest readers–devouring books in a day or so, carrying off stacks of four and five when I have new books in, never shy about their feelings on any return.

And from the very first day, the male half of this dynamic duo has made it very clear what he doesn’t want to read: girl books.

It turns out that “girl book” is mostly code for “romance” in this young man’s mind. Once he returned a book and said it was “disgusting,” which turned out to mean “includes a romantic subplot.”

I completely respect his opinion, and I’m always excited to try to find a book that is sufficiently Boy Book for him. But I really want to push against those categories a little. What makes a girl book? His friend is constantly trying to convince him that certain books are “for boys and girls, too”–the most recent candidate was Patricia McCormick’s Cut, which he declined to try–but he seems to have very rigid categories. Books with hearts on the cover, regardless of romantic content (thinking specifically of Destroy All Cars), are totally out of the question–his friends might make fun of him.

This has gotten me thinking a lot about the ways we categorize books. The feminist in me (and the fourteen year old in me, the one who always read “boy books” and probably would’ve hated romance as much as this ninth grader does) wants to believe that gendering books isn’t helpful, that readers will find books regardless of their target audiences–and that limiting ourselves by this binary cuts us off from some magnificent reads.

But if putting books into categories is helpful for this young man, who am I to disagree? How do I help him redefine “boy books”? What do I do to convince him that a “girl book” is worth reading?

Despite a spotless driving record, faithful adherence to the law and an almost neurotic observance to the speed limit just about wherever I go, I almost got into an accident.

After my thoughts finally moved on from “Holy crap!” to “Thank goodness no one was hurt” and “Good thing there wasn’t a cop around to see that,” it hit me: even good drivers can make bad decisions.

So what if the driver is a teenager, behind the wheel not of a car, but of their own education?

Okay, so maybe this seems like an odd analogy. But just as good drivers can make bad decisions, good students–heck, good kids–can, too. And just as drivers have a world of laws, unwritten rules, and other drivers (for better or worse) around us influencing our driving, teens have a world of curriculum, administration, and other teens (for better or worse) influencing their learning.

This is why it’s so incredibly important for us to form those personal connections with teens so that we know the difference between a misstep that’s part of a larger pattern and a momentary lapse in judgment.

If I have a student in my library who’s not supposed to be here–during directed study block without a pass, for instance–I don’t know how to react if I don’t know that kid. Is he AWOL from a class? Is she hiding from an overwhelming cafeteria?

To return to my original metaphor, I think it’s important for us to take a lesson from the best kind of small-town cop. We’re there for emergencies, sure, but we’re also there for the occasional set of keys locked in a car. And we know the people in our neighborhoods (or our libraries) well enough that when we pull someone over, we can say, “Hey, buddy, this isn’t like you. What’s going on?”

Things I’ve learned since starting my new job:

1. Working in front of a computer all day makes me hate my laptop. This is a new feeling for me. It’s hurting my blogging, sure, but it’s helping out my resolve to leave work at work. (I wish I could say I was using all that time I used to spend in front of my laptop on, say, tons of writing or reading or gourmet cookery… but I also recently bought cable for the first time. I heart On Demand.)

2. Great teaching theory sometimes goes out the window. I remember watching teachers (including school librarians) interact with students while I was a practicum student or an intern and thinking, “Oh, I’d never do that.” Yesterday I found myself not once but twice having slightly touchy conversations with students in front of their peers–not busting their chops hardcore, but still talking to them about rules and respect in a way that probably could have been handled better in a more private setting.

3. It’s really important to smile and nod. I don’t know very many people here yet, so I’m very aware that I don’t know much about the culture of the students or faculty. I know eventually I’m not going to be best buddies with everybody here, so initially it’s important to just keep my mouth shut and pay attention.

4. If you display it, they will come. Within minutes of putting up my first display I had books circulating. And these aren’t even the new, shiny books I ordered this summer. Over and over again I hear students walking by the displays saying, “Wait, we have books now?” And they always did, but apparently I’m showing them off in a new way.

5. Suburban kids take much longer than their inner-city counterparts to ask me about my lip ring. It took three weeks here.

But as I sit in my new library, among the printer carts and trophy cases stored here for the summer, staring at another stack of books telling me all about those wacky West Germans and the rise of modern America (copyright 1935), it’s a different refrain that keeps ringing in my head: Don’t try to get anything done in your first year.

I understand the logic behind this statement. Really, I do. Even though I was technically only in an internship, I consider the past year my first year in a lot of ways, and I wouldn’t have been able to get anything done if I hadn’t had the extreme luxury of being part of a great team. I wasn’t doing everything, so I had the chance to do a lot of things–start a blog, teach an elective, start a gaming program, try my hand at grant writing, run a bibliography workshop… It was a great year.

But if I’d been alone in that library, my learning curve would’ve been very different. I would’ve spent a lot more time on parts of the library that the rest of the team dealt with–budget, meetings, scheduling and teaching classes, troubleshooting technology, and on and on.

But does that mean I couldn’t have done anything new?

When I interviewed for this position, I was pretty blunt with everyone in the room: they did not have the luxury of a wait-and-see attitude. The school has been without a librarian for a year. The collection needs serious work. The website makes me cry. Technology and instruction need to be brought up to speed like whoa.

In some areas, I guess I am going to wait and see–but not any longer than I absolutely have to. I just faxed in the renewal for all of my periodical subscriptions, and for now I’m renewing them all. It pains me, because I really question some of the titles on the list, and it’s a big chunk of change. But I can’t in good conscience remove any of them without finding out how (or if) they’re being used in the library.

And some of the waiting is about not driving myself crazy. Realistically, I’m going to dump a lot of this collection. I simply have to weed. But I’m barely into the 900s and so frustrated by what I see, which tells me I need to pace myself, or I’ll go nuts before students even walk in the door.

Pacing myself doesn’t mean hiding in my office and letting this library keep serving as a computer lab, though. People in this building are ready for some change, and they’re excited about it. Every single teacher I’ve met so far has told me how glad they are that I’m here.

So look out, library–change is a-comin!

The Catcher in the Rye: Note to self: never read this on the Harvard campus again. Slash, in public. People seem to think that seeing you reading Catcher in the Rye is some kind of invitation to idiotic conversations. I love J.D. Salinger, but I’m aware that my love for him is extremely tortured. Also, this is by far his weakest work.

Escape: A friend recommended this to me. It’s not terribly well-written, but goodness is it compelling. I was struck a lot by the number of things Big Love seems to have lifted from real life, although if this book is any indication it didn’t lift any of the truly terrifying parts of life in the FLDS. Note to self: next time, get a recommendation for something lighter. Fluffier, even. Maybe puppies and unicorns.

The Vast Fields of Ordinary: I heard some people on BBYA talking about this title and realized I still hadn’t read my galley from Midwinter, so I read it in maybe two days. The ending was abrupt and annoying, but the book still really spoke to me. Though it would be nice to have a proofread version, since many of the galley hiccups were distracting.

The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing: Another I own and reread when I’m feeling particularly tortured. Dog this is a beautiful book.

It’s very exciting, of course. I’m told the candidate pool this year was deep, and I managed to nab this spot–no small feat for someone barely six months out of library school. I’ll be the only one in the library, meaning I’m more or less making my own rules and calling my own shots.

My library has been… what’s a more polite word for “abandoned?”–for the past year, with no new purchases and no programming. And the more I learn about the the history of the space, the more I wonder how much purchasing and programming ever really went on. While that means I do have a bit of an uphill battle ahead of me in terms of getting the collection up to speed, it’s also an enviable position for a new librarian. My first year likely won’t be overshadowed by the legacy of my predecessor. Instead, everyone I’ve met in the building so far has told me how much they’re excited to have me there.

I’ve been pondering advice I heard a lot during library school: don’t try to do anything much your first year. This was coming from seasoned librarians, people who’d been in a variety of schools and libraries and knew that it’s hard enough to figure out the lay of the land and figure out how everything works. But as I said during the interview process, my school doesn’t have that luxury. They need a library program now. So here I go, diving in with both feet.

For day one, I started right in with the weeding process. The good news is that because there was so little circulation last year, the collection is more or less in pristine catalog order. The bad news is that so far the average age of the the 900s rests squarely in the 1960s.

Francey Harris from the Uni High Library was kind enough to pass along her weeding policy, but when I started reading it I had to laugh a little. One aspect of appearance that might make a volume a candidate for weeding? “Books of antiquated appearance which might discourage use.” That describes a huge chunk of my collection! It’s a very hardback-heavy library–I can count the number of paperbacks I’ve seen so far on one hand–and I’m finding history books from the 30s.

What’s on your must-have list for history and social studies?