Elizabeth Acevedo

 "Elizabeth Acevedo" [By the Book], New York Times Book Review, April 1, 2021, p 6. 

Most people describe their childhood reading habits as voracious, no? And in my case it still applies. Mami would take me to library every Saturday and as I grew older she attempted to shoo me outside more since I could lie in bed and read the day away.  I wound up taking the books with me and reading on the stoop instead.  

I loved all thing.  The "Baby-Sitters Club" books, "Because of Winn Dixie," "Miracle's Boys," Jacqueline Woodson.  "The House on Mango Street" was a game changer, as was Julia Alvarez's "Before We Were Free."

COMMENT 

Acevedo is an author of young adult novels with a typical Coming of Age story of weekly trips to the library.  She describes the books she found there as "game changers."   

We Have All Hit the Wall

 Sarah Lyall, "We Have All Hit the Wall", New York Times, 4 April 2021, p. BU 1, 7.

Nearly 700 people responded to The Times's questions and the picture the painted was of a work force at its collective wits' end.  We heard from a clergyperson, a pastry chef, an I.C.U. nurse, a probation officer, a fast-food worker. Budget analysts, librarians, principals, college students holed up in childhood bedrooms, project managers, interns, real estate agents -- their mood was strikingly similar, though their circumstances were different.  As one respondent said, no matter how many lists she makes, "I find myself falling back into deep pajamaville".  [p. BU 7]

COMMENT

Librarians are listed among the professions that are experiencing malaise, burnout, depression and stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The article reports that "workers across the board felt makedly worse than they did last April."  

At Long Last, He Really Could Kiss the Bride

 Tammy La Gorce, "At Long Last, He Really Could Kiss the Bride," [Vows] New York Times, April 1, 2021 p. ST13.

He was so comfortable in her company that, as the night wore on and she started falling asleep across the table from him -- McDonald's was the local destination for studying after the school library closed at midnight -- his playful side emerged.  "I started drawing on her chin with  a marker," he said. "That's not something I would have done with anybody but her.  It was like we were already best friends."

COMMENT

When the library as Place of Refuge at Stephen F. Austin State University shuts down at midnight, a couple who are interested in each other more to a late-night fast food restaurant.  At the restaurant, studying begins to transform into something more physical.  Librarians know that people make out at the library, but here there is a clear implication that the McDonalds seem  less safe than a place where study space is the explicit agenda.

A Fake? Or Biblical Gold?

 Jennifer Schuessler,  "A Fake? Or Biblical Gold?" New York Times March 28, 2021, p.AR8- AR9

     Dershowitz also traveled to the Berlin State Library to look at Shapira's papers.  There, scattered in a bound volume of jumbled invoices and notes, he found something he said no one had ever noted three handwritten sheets that appeared to show Shapira trying go decipher the fragments, with many question marks, marginal musings, crossed-out readings, and transcription errors.
     "It's amazing because it give you a window into Shapira's mind," Dershowitz said.  "If he forged them, or was part of a conspiracy, it makes no sense that he'd be sitting there trying to guess what the text is, and making mistakes while he did it."

COMMENT

Idan Dershowitz is a researcher trying to find evidence that a notorious forgery was actually genuine. The original documents have disappeared, but searching through the dusty boxes, he discovers evidence that at least suggests that if they were forged, Shapira was not the forger.  

By Observing the "Minutae of Life," Cleary Created the Universal Human Experience.

 Elisabth Egan, "By Observing th "Minutae of Life," Cleary Created the Universal Human Experience" New York Times,  March 28, 2021, p 20.

When [Judy] Blume's children were young she'd come home from the library with armloads of books "most of them went in the 'I don't want to write books like these, they bore me' pile," she recalled. "Then I came to Beverly Cleary and I fell off the sofa, I was laughing so hard.  I thought, oh my God, I want to write books like this."

COMMENT

 It's not a surprise to learn that Judy Blume was inspired by Beverly Cleary. I sometimes even confuse which author wrote which books.  For a children's author, the juvenile collection offers an opportunity for research into what other authors are writing.  The sad truth is, there are a lot of children's books that are poorly written, overly preachy or just plain dull.  Thank goodness for the influence of Clearly and Blume!

Beverly Cleary, Beloved Children’s Book Author, Dies at 104

 

William Grimes, "Beverly Cleary, Beloved Children’s Book Author, Dies at 104" New York Times March 26 2021. ://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/books/beverly-cleary-dead.html

After two years at Chaffey Junior College in Ontario, Calif., she enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley. She graduated in 1938. A year later, she earned a degree from the University of Washington’s school of librarianship and went to work as a children’s librarian in Yakima, Wash.

...

At her library job in Yakima, Ms. Cleary had become dissatisfied with the books being offered to her young patrons. She had been particularly touched by the plight of a group of boys who asked her, “Where are the books about us?” She had asked herself the same question when she was a schoolgirl. “Why didn’t authors write books about everyday problems that children could solve by themselves?” she wondered, as she recalled in her acceptance speech on receiving the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the American Library Association in 1975. “Why weren’t there more stories about children playing? Why couldn’t I find more books that would make me laugh? These were the books I wanted to read, and the books I was eventually to write.”

COMMENT

Who knew Beverly Cleary was a librarian?   This is the first story of Finding Identity where these days the identity is not at all hard to find.   It hadn't occurred to me that before Cleary, children's books  didn't feature white suburban kids. 

Processed Meats

 Nicole Walker. Processed Meats: Essays on Food, Flesh and Navigating Disaster. Torrey House Press, 2021.

When I lived in Portland, I worked at a place called Orlo -- Raising Awareness about the Environment though the Creative Arts.  We published a literary magazine, performed Word on the Street where we stood on the steps of Pioneer Square and the Library and read volubly from Cadillac Desert and Silent Spring. We had an outfit for Vinnie the Fire Boy and one for a bear-looking creature so we could compete with Oregon's other mascots -- the Beavers and the Ducks.  Vinnie and Orlo the Bear walked along the Willamette River, handing out bumper stickers that read "YouENDanger" and "Cows Kill Salmon." [p. 28-29]

COMMENT

 Activists use public space on the library steps to read from life-changing books that inspired their own activism. The hope is that the readers going in and out of the building will be drawn to read influential environmental works and be likewise inspired.  The power of books to change the world is implicit.