‘brary ‘blog

i haven’t blogged about the ‘brary in a long time. the patrons must be behaving themselves.

this year’s Big Read (for Alabama, anyway) is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. i’ve tried to get excited about it, but i just can’t. in fact, when i found out it was Tom Sawyer my first reaction was a very whiny, “nooooooooo.” which led to a tirade, “is this because we’re in the south? do we ALWAYS have to go to Twain JUST because we’re SOMEwhat close to the Mississippi? can we pick our own book?”

look. Mark Twain is a national treasure. he’s probably THE MOST FAMOUS American author of ALL TIME. i appreciate that, i do. but from middle school to college i had to read Tom Sawyer twice and Huckleberry Finn thrice. and i blame this on lazy/uncreative teachers AND the fact that i went to school in the south. i’m not sure what other regional equivalents there are, but perhaps if i had grown up in New England i’d be sick to death of Thoreau? “if i have to read that hippie manifesto one more time i’m going to cut down and pave a forest!”

am i close?

to get the funding or freebies or whathaveyou you have to use the book They pick. and They picked The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

so our ‘brary had a creative event. we had a Not Tom Sawyer’s Fence decorarting fun time event. people (all ages) came out and decorated a piece of white poster paper (that had lovingly been cut into the shape of a pointy fence picket) with collage and/or magic markers. it was a hit with the public.

some poor sap had pre-cut many pictures out of many magazines for the event. this clever person rightly guessed that it would be really convenient to have pictures to choose from as well as have magazines on hand for people to search through to find pictures of their own. most people used the pre-cut pictures. this was vindication for when the clever person’s coworkers would tease her saying, “are you playing with paper dolls again?”