Library & Literary Miscellany

Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson (2007)

“‘I don’t know where to start,’ Tom said.

‘According to some people, the beginning is a good place.’

Tom puffed his cheeks. The beginning? His day dying. Jeffrey Veatch chasing his mom. Refrigerator deliverymen. Packing foam.”

At eleven years old, Tom already has quite a few stories to tell. Leepike Ridge is just a piece of Tom’s story–Tom’s life after his father’s death. It’s his life with his mother in their home on top of a rock in which he misses his father terribly and loathes his mother’s new boyfriend Jeffrey Veatch. And it’s his struggle to survive and to find the light again when he is pulled underwater metaphorically by the weight of his burdens and also literally by the current.

This struggle for survival begins in earnest when Tom decides to ride the packing foam down the local stream in the middle of the night (he can’t sleep after being informed that his mother is “considering” Jeffrey’s proposal). Tom awakens to being pulled underwater into a series of underground caverns from which there is seemingly no escape. This fact becomes all the more trenchant when Tom meets Reg, a man who has been stuck underground for three years with little light, with negligible diet variation (crawdads, crawdads, and more crawdads), and with no company save for the occasional visit from a partially lame canine named Argus. Reg tells Tom of his underground lair, “The hard part wasn’t finding this place; that was an accident. The hard part is staying alive, wanting to stay alive when you can’t get back out.”

Yet, together Tom and Reg (and Argus the dog) help each other to hope and to search for a way out. Reg tells Tom, “If you die trying, I’ll die alongside you. It would be a nice change of pace from firelight and pasty-looking crawdads.”

Above ground, Tom’s mother Elizabeth refuses to give up hope that Tom’s still alive. In searching for Tom, she discovers that her husband’s death may not have been accidental. Throw in a villainous group of men who pretend to search for Tom but are actually searching for treasure and who will stop at nothing to get their hands on it and a sinister dimension is added to an already gripping mystery-survival story. N.D. Wilson’s first novel for young children is a riveting adventure that cries out to have its pages turned to the very end in order to find out whether Tom will ever again see the light of day.

Fans of adventure-survival stories like those of Gary Paulsen, Will Hobbs, Harry Mazer, and Jean Craighead George (as well as fans of the more classic adventure authors such as Daniel Defoe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H. Rider Haggard) will likely feel they’ve struck gold in reading Leepike Ridge.

Takeaway quote:

Reg: “After three years down here, I’ve not learned too much. But one thing I do know is that our bellies aren’t big enough for revenge. It turns sour and eats you up. We’ll get out, but we’ll get out for the sun, the moon, and mothers, not for small-souled enemies, though we’ll deal with them when we get there.”

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Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson (2007)

“What you haven’t realized is that all libraries are far more dangerous than you’ve always assumed.”

When orphan Alcatraz Smedry receives a bag of sand as his inheritance from his long departed parents for his thirteenth birthday, he is confused (and disappointed) to no end. That confusion only deepens the next day when his Grandfather Smedry arrives proclaiming, “Lad, with those sands, the Librarians could destroy kingdoms, overthrow cultures, dominate the world!” The Librarians have stolen the sands and it is up to the Smedrys, as Oculators of the Free, to get the sands back.

From the moment of the sand’s arrival into his life, a whole new reality opens up to Alcatraz. It’s the Free Kingdomers with their champions the Smedry’s against the Hushlanders and the evil Librarians in a war that’s fought not about guns or swords but about information. The Librarians rule the Hushlands by controlling information (for example, only the Librarians know of the three extra continents, and now you do too, so shhhh…).

The Librarians were founded by a man named Biblioden who felt that the strangeness of the world required that it be “ordered, organized, and controlled”. The headquarters of the Librarians’ control is the Library, and, thus, Alcatraz’s Grandpa decides a full library infiltration is needed in order to recover the sands.

So the Smedry’s set out for the Library to face down the evil Librarians. Alcatraz is a bit skeptical about the likelihood of their quest’s success: “Let me get this straight. Our strike team consists of a loony old man, an anthropologist, a grad student, and two kids.”

Nevertheless, the four Smedry’s do not enter the enemies lair (the Library) unarmed. They possess unusual talents–Grandpa Smedry (arrives late to his own death), Sing Sing (can trip and fall to the ground), Quentin (can say things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever), and Alcatraz (skilled at breaking things). Plus, they have their knight protector, Bastille–she’s a Crystin who has pledged her life and her services to keeping the Smedry’s alive.

As Alcatraz’s first adventure draws to a close, Sanderson drops many hints pertaining to Alcatraz’s next adventures. The Smedry’s won this battle, but Grandpa Smedry says, “…there is a great deal to be done. The Free Kingdoms are losing the battle against the Librarians.”

In the book, Alcatraz gives readers a warning against books that others describe as important, meaningful, and thoughtful–these books often involve dogs and/or mothers dying. His book, by contrast, includes adventure with fights against Librarians, paper monsters, and one-eyed Dark Oculators while at the same time alerting readers of “the cult of evil Librarians who secretly rule the world.”

While no one would dare to ascribe to Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians such words as important, meaningful, and thoughtful, it is nonetheless a fun yarn that will appeal to conspiracy theorists, readers of alternative worlds fantasy fiction, and overall fast-paced adventure stories. If you enjoy imagining along with the sometimes outlandish, at all times entertaining imaginations of authors such as M.T. Anderson (Whales on Stilts and The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen), Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next, Nursery Crime), and Terry Pratchett (Discworld), then you might want to give Anderson’s depiction of reality a try. You’ll be sure to find a copy of the book at your local library…

Quotes of Note:

“Remember, despite the fact that this book is being sold as a ‘fantasy’ novel, you must take all of the things it says extremely seriously, as they are quite important, are in no way silly, and always makes sense. Rutabaga.”

“Information. The Librarians control the information in this city–in this whole country. They control what gets read, what gets seen, and what gets learned. Because of that, they have power. Well, we’re going to break that power, you and I.”

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Blist “democratizes the function of organizing data”. To this end, Blist has been designed with features that enable anyone to build a database. As a rich internet application, Blist looks like a spreadsheet but goes beyond numbers, text, and dates in its functionality.

I’ve only created one Blist thus far in testing out its claims, but Blist so user-friendly that I may just be a user creates more blists in the future. Some of the features I particularly like about Blist include:

• Text columns are able to contain stored lists of infinite lengths in every cell (you can also have an entire table in a cell)
• Photos can be inputted as a column type
• Stored website URLs column type (thumbnail display of site upon rollover)
• Star ratings column type enables storing judgments of quality enabling you to later sort by rating
• Stored documents column type (e.g., Word documents, PowerPoint documents)

Blist can also be viewed in spreadsheet mode where all of the stored data is displayed or in page layout mode where individual records are displayed. In addition to allowing creating blists from scratch, Blist has recently enabled the ability to start from a file using data already stored in a CSV file.

For other peeks into Blist, see:

Mashable - blist: Making Spreadsheets Fun?

PC World - A Database for the Rest of Us?

Dan Farber of ZDNet - Web Apps for Mere Mortals

More recent news on recent Bliss funding:

Mashable Fun Spreadsheet maker blist gets 6.5M

ReadWriteWeb Blist Brings Bling to Databases and Spreadsheets

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You Don’t Know Me by David Klass (2002)

*spoilers to follow…

“You don’t have to see things to know that they are happening.”

Or so says John, the fourteen-year-old protagonist of You Don’t Know Me. He is crying out to his mother (and the others that surround him) to see and to know him as she seemingly does neither. His mother also does not see that her new boyfriend is repeatedly beating John up–leaving shrewdly placed physical marks that only the most observant will notice. Conversely, the marks left on John’s psyche are clearly evident to all who take the time to know him.

John has a lot of “nots” in his life. His mother does not know him, the man in her life is not his father, his school is not a school (it’s an anti-school), his tuba is not a tuba (it’s a frog), his friend who is not his friend, and so on. At one point, his teacher Mrs. Gabriel (aka Mrs. Moonface) asks him, “John, are you thinking? Are the wheels turning?”

Truthfully, John is always thinking and his wheels are always turning. Sometimes he’s thinking about what the Lashasa Palulu would do in a certain situation and sometimes he’s reinterpreting what people are really saying inside his own head; these thoughts are laugh-out-loud funny. But sometimes he’s thinking about how his stepfather is going to hurt him next and the next time could possibly be worse than the last; these thoughts are not the least bit funny. His inner monologue throughout the book is at times humorous and at times horrifying but is at all times painstakingly real.

John’s home situation has colored his perception of others and has created a wall of isolation which he keeps solid with sarcasm and self-assurances that everyone else must be out to make him miserable and to hurt him too. Yet, while John fears not being known, he discovers that he does not know other people either–outward appearances prove often to be deceiving.

The girl of his dreams turns out to be shallow, his mother turns out to be much deeper than he thought, his music teacher turns out to be a hero, his math teacher turns out to have been hurt badly in the past, and the man who is not his father turns out to be a worse criminal than he thought. John begins to let people in and to break down his wall of isolation–through a new friendship with a fellow band member, through his music, and through his slowly rehabilitating relationship with his mother.

Most of the novel is largely comprised of John’s talking about his situation. His horrible treatment at home is largely witnessed through retrospective introspection; so, for some, the violent actions detailed at the end might be sudden and jarring. Yet, this violence is not gratuitous; rather it is a necessary plot device underscoring the horror of John’s situation and of the situation of others’ like him who slip through the cracks “unknown”.

Klass’s story is a reminder to some to be cognizant of the pain of others and to step in before it’s too late and to others (those in John’s situation) that people who want to help are out there, willing and ready to help if asked. You can find additional recently published novels on child abuse at my list at WorldCat.org relating to child abuse.

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Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr (2007)

Forgetting isn’t enough.
You can paddle away from the memories and think they are gone.
But they will keep floating back, again and again and again.
They circle you, like sharks.
And you are bleeding your fear into the sea,
Until, unless
Something
Someone?
Can do more than just cover the wound.

In poignant first-person narration, Deanna Lambert relates the story of a girl who is thirteen years old when her father catches her with Tommy Weber in the back of Tommy’s Buick. Ever since, the girl has been defined by that moment. Deanna is that girl–her father defines her by that moment, everyone surrounding her defines her by that moment, and she defines herself by that moment.

Now, three years later, Deanna still hears others define her as a total nympho…a psycho…beyond pathetic. In English class, Deanna begins to express her hurt and her feelings in her story of “the girl on the waves.” The story of the girl on the waves helps Deanna to recognize that she has to face others who have hurt her in order to begin to heal herself. She must face Tommy again but also she must face her father.Along the way of coming to terms with her past, Deanna adds other mistakes to her old mistake. She has two friends who have stuck by her, Jason and Lee (who are boyfriend and girlfriend). In the midst of her own pain and confusion, Deanna mistreats them. She also buries her hurt over her father’s ignoring her for three years.

Story of a Girl lays bear human fallibility; the very real characters make mistakes and disappoint each other. Intentionally or unintentionally, we all at times hurt those we love and care about. Story of a Girl exhorts us to face up to our mistakes and old hurts and to patch up those relationships instead of giving up on each other and discarding people along with the hurt. It’s also about being strong enough to define ourselves instead of letting other people define us.

Zarr’s writing style and her protagonist’s issues reminds me of the fiction title of other YA authors such as Sarah Dessen and Laurie Halse Anderson. For those readers who want to read other fiction that pertains to struggles with forgiving and forgiveness, a few possibilities include Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen, Whirligig by Paul Fleischman, and A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb.

Author Interviews: Sara Zarr at Big A Little A, Sara Zarr at Cynsations, and an audio interview with Sara Zarr at Mr. Media

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Dental Hygiene Storytime

Created by Laura Baas
Age Group: Preschool
Time: 30 minutes (you can add or subtract items as necessary to suit your purposes)

Introduction: Welcome. Did you know that February is National Children’s Dental Health Month? Well, it is, and so today we’re going to be talking teeth.

Song: Got my Toothbrush (to the tune of: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star)
Got my toothpaste, got my brush,
I won’t hurry, I won’t rush.
Making sure my teeth are clean,
Front and back and in between.
When I brush for quite a while,
I will have a happy smile!

Books:
For the Truth Ask a Tooth by Dee Coghlan
Here we have the telling of the story from a tooth’s perspective.

Have You Ever Seen a Moose Brushing His Teeth? by Jamie McClaine and April Goodman Willy
Join the Moose in this delightful rhyming tale of his endeavors to care for his grass stained teeth.

Brush Your Teeth Please Pop-Up by Reader’s Digest
Pop open the book and find a chimp brushing its teeth back and forth and a shark that flosses every day. Youngsters will have lots of fun learning about proper dental hygiene in this delightful pop-up book.

Clarabella’s Teeth by An Vrombaut
An amusing story about the importance of daily tooth care and about friendship. The question, “And Clarabella?” encourages engagement and page turning to find the answer.

What Do the Fairies Do With All Those Teeth? by Michel Luppens and Philippe Beha
This story is less about dental hygiene (well, not at all about it really) and more about conjecture. It proffers many amusing answers to the question it poses; make the story interactive by encouraging children to add their own suggestions at the end.

Song (can insert in-between reading the books): A Dentist’s Song (to the tune of: Row, Row, Row your Boat)
Brush, brush brush your teeth.
Keep them clean each day.
then you’ll have a pretty smile,
And healthy teeth all day.

OR

My Wise Dentist (to the tune of: Are you Sleeping?)
My Wise Dentist
Always tells me,
Brush your teeth
Brush your teeth.
Brush them in the morning
And again at bedtime.
Brush your teeth
Brush your teeth.

Conclusion and Departing Song:

Departing Song: It’s time to go home, It’s time to go, home, Wave good-bye to everyone, It’s time to go home.
Additional Verses: We had a happy day, We’ll see you next time

Conclusion: We’ll see you next time. Until then, don’t forget to brush those teeth. Feel free to check out tooth-related or other books on your way out too!

Time Fillers/Substitutions:
Crafts & Activities: Surf the web for Teeth-related activities or check out the offerings at A to Z Teacher Stuff Teeth Theme and the ADA.org Games and puzzles (the first couple of games are online interactive but the last few are handouts (dot-to-dot, maze, crossword) that could be either used in storytime or sent home as takeaway activities). About.com also has a guide with many links to Dental Activities, Fun Facts, and Games for Kids.

OR

Technology Links: If you have access to the Internet and a projector, then you can play the Tooth Family song and video provided by the British Council. In addition to the song and video, kids can play a related game and activity. The song is an educational song in which the Tooth Family are singing a song about looking after one’s teeth.

Other Tooth-Related Picture Books to Display:
Alice and Her Fabulous Teeth by Catherine Myler Fruisen and Robin MacOnie
Arthur’s Tooth (Arthur Adventure Series) by Marc Brown Crocodiles Don’t Brush Their Teeth by Colin Fancy and Ken Wilson-Max
Dear Tooth Fairy by Pamela Duncan Edwards and Marie-louise Fitzpatrick
Does a Lion Brush? (Early Experiences) by Fred Ehrlich
George Washington’s Teeth by Deborah Chandra, Madeleine Comora, and Brock Cole
For the Truth Ask a Tooth by Dee Coghlan Franklin
How Many Teeth? (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science) by Paul Showers
I Spy Funny Teeth (Scholastic Readers) by Jean Marzollo and Walter Wick
My Wobbly Tooth Must Not Ever Never Fall Out (Charlie and Lola) by Lauren Child Nice Try, Tooth Fairy by Mary W Olson and Katherine Tillotson The Night Before The Tooth Fairy (Reading Railroad) by Natasha Wing and Barbara Johansen Newman
Open Wide! by Tom Barber and Lynne Chapman
Open Wide: Tooth School Inside by Laurie Keller Sweet
Rotten Teeth by Laura Simms
Tooth by Margie Palatini and Jack E. Davis
The Tooth Fairy (Franklin) by Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark
Throw Your Tooth on the Roof: Tooth Traditions Around the World by Selby Beeler
Uncle Farley’s False Teeth by Alice Walsh and Michael Marchenko
You Think It’s Easy Being the Tooth Fairy? by Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt and David Slonim

Dental Health Music and Songs were found at Preschool Education Music & Songs: Dental Health. The image used in this post is freely available at Cool Clips.

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Happy Valentine’s Day! Be sure to check out the 2007 Cybils winners that were just announced. After you read this review of Love Stargirl, of course…

Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

“I’m homeschooling again. Gee, I wonder why — my Mica High School experience went so well!”

Stargirl’s days at Mica High are behind her–days during which she danced around the cafeteria playing a ukulele, cheered for the opposing team at sports events, and rode out the extremes of popularity and unpopularity. She has also left Leo behind, but she has by no means forgotten him. Love, Stargirl is comprised of a self-described “world’s longest letter” to Leo regarding her feelings for him, her experiences at Mica High, and her new post-Mica High existence.

Whereas Stargirl is narrated by Leo; Love, Stargirl has Stargirl herself solidly at the helm. Not only has the point of view altered, but Stargirl’s inner thoughts of sadness, loss, and insecurity will make her seem to readers of the first book like an almost entirely unfamiliar girl. The letters reflect a girl trying to understand how she feels about a boy she loves who let her down.

Yet, while it becomes clear that Stargirl’s spirit took a beating during her experiences in the first book, traces of her essence shine through. Her happy wagon (the stones that represent how happy she is at the moment) is greatly depleted, but as she meets new people and makes new memories one gets the sense that she will be happy again someday. Stargirl’s world becomes full again with a little girl, an agoraphobic, a donut lady, a mourning elderly man who has lost the love of his life, and a boy who quite possibly has a criminal record. Leo changed her indelibly and others she encounters will change her too, but Stargirl at her core remains the girl who brims with small kindnesses and compassion for strangers, who effects others positively, and who is “not just any girl.”

Spinelli’s Stargirl books have a lot to say about conformity, individuality, and self-discovery. While Stargirl speaks to these themes within the context of high school cliques and outsider shunning, Love, Stargirl tackles these same ideas in the bigger world with a wider cast of characters. Both books are enjoyable in their own way and are recommended for young adults who are facing similar struggles of developing their own unique identities and discovering their place in this big world while facing peer pressure to conform to small, status quo ideas.

For other titles about identity and conformity, try some of the suggestions on the ATN reading lists “If you like Stargirl”:

• Alice, I Think by Susan Juby
• Buddha Boy, by Kathe Koja
• Dolores: Seven Stories About Her by Bruce Brooks
• Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen
• Razzle by Ellen Wittlinger
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
• The Misfits by James Howe

A few other books for young people that offer unique characters facing issues of identity and conformity include Feed by M.T. Anderson, the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, and Emma Jean Lazarus Fell out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis. The hope is that journeying alongside these unique fictional characters will support young people in their own journeys of self-discovery.

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Valentine’s Day is almost upon us once again, so here are some sweet, lovely, possibly even useful ideas for your storytime…

Valentine’s Day Storytime
Created by: Laura Baas
Age Group: Preschool
Time: 30 minutes (you can add or subtract items as necessary to suit your purposes)

Introduction: It’s lovely to see you all here today on this day that’s all about love. I hope you’ll love the stories and songs that are a part of today’s storytime.

Books:
1. Who Wants a Valentine? by Linda Lowery
In this playful rhyming text, a boy does not want a Valentine until a girl arrives and convinces him otherwise.

2. If You’ll Be My Valentine by Cynthia Rylant
In this rhyming tale, a little boy creates and bestows Valentines upon all of the important ones in his life.

3. Waking Beauty by Leah Wilcox and Lydia Monks
Amusingly, Prince Charming tries to come up with other options for waking Sleeping Beauty–anything other than a kiss (with 100 years of morning breath he figures it could be the kiss of death).

4. Falling for Rapunzel by Leah Wilcox and Lydia Monks
In a story told via rhyming couplets, Rapunzel repeatedly misunderstands her rescuer prince much to his ongoing exasperation. Fortuitously, Rapunzel’s atrocious hearing serves as the impetus through which the prince eventually encounters his true love.

Song: Pass the Heart (to the tune of: Row, Row, Row Your Boat) Note: Use a laminated heart for this and vary the speed each time around, pick it up and begin passing again

Pass, pass, pass the heart
Pass it round and round,
Pass, pass, pass the heart
Now place it on the ground.

OR

Heart Hokey Pokey (hand out paper hearts; could use heart nametags)
You put your heart in.
You put your heart out.
You put your heart in,
And you shake it all about.
You make your heart go jumping,
And you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about!

More Read Aloud Books
1. Love, Ruby Valentine by Laurie B. Friedman and Lynne Woodcock Cravath
Ruby Valentine and her pet cockatoo labor so hard to prepare for Valentine’s Day that when the day arrives, they sleep right through it. Fortunately, Ruby soon realizes that every day is a good day to let others know they are loved.

2. Guess How Much I Love You By Sam McBratney or I Love You Because You’re You by Liza Baker
Both of these stories reassure little ones of parental love. In the first, Little Nutbrown Hare receives multiple reassurances of Big Nutbrown Hare’s unconditional love. In the latter, mother fox maintains her love for her little fox regardless of changing moods and behavior.
Note: another book with a similar message that works well even with younger lapsit audiences is Kiss Kiss by Margaret Wild: baby hippo is in such a hurry to play that he forgets to give his mama a kiss; he runs home to find his “Kiss, kiss” waiting for him.

Song and Conclusion:
Song: A Hug from you (to the tune of: Mary had a little lamb)
It’s nice to get to a hug from you,
Hug from you, Hug from you.
It’s nice to get a hug from you,
So, let’s give one right now.
(Hug a friend)

OR

On Valentine’s Day (to the tune of: Did you ever see a lassie?)
Everybody be a friend,
A friend, A friend.
Everybody be a friend
On Valentine’s Day.

Departing Song (optional): It’s time to go home, It’s time to go, home, Wave good-bye to everyone, It’s time to go home.
Additional Verses: We had a happy day, We’ll see you next time

Conclusion: Thanks for coming in today. I’d love to see you again next week.

Time Fillers/Substitutions:
Jokes and Riddles: Tell some of the Valentine’s Day Jokes for Kids that can be found at numerous sites across the web. For example:

• What did the boy elephant say to the girl elephant on Valentine’s Day? I love you a ton.
• What did the boy pickle say to the girl pickle on Valentine’s Day? You mean a great dill to me.
• What did the boy light bulb say to the girl light bulb on Valentine’s Day? I love you watts and watts
• What did the boy octopus say to the girl octopus on Valentine’s Day? I want to hold your hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand!
• Is it better to write a love note on an empty stomach or on a full stomach? It’s better to write it on paper

These really could go on and on for as long as the kids seem to be enjoying it. Good for lots of fun and a few groans!

OR

Craft Options: Search the web for simple Valentine’s Crafts such as those found at DLTK’s Valentine’s Day Crafts for Kids (broken into craft categories such as animal, heart, educational, religious) or those at Activities, Crafts, and Cards at Enchanted Learning (scroll down past the ads and site membership to get to the craft suggestions).

OR

Activities: Many sites offer ideas for Valentine’s Day party activities. Some of these could prove useful in storytime; for instance, check out Kaboose’s Valentine’s Day Party Games for Kids which includes such sections as pen and paper activities, games with food, and word games.

OR

Technology Links: Many sites also offer online interactive Valentine’s Day related activities such as word searches, puzzles, crosswords, or trivia. Show kids some of the offerings at KidsTurnCentral Valentine’s Day Resources such as the heart puzzle and provide a handout with the URLs that they can take with them either to use at a library computer or at home.

Additional Love-Related Books to Display:
Arthur’s Valentine by Marc Brown
Baby Loves by Michael Lawrence
The Ballad of Valentine by Alison Jackson
Be Mine, Be Mine, Sweet Valentine by Sarah Weeks
Weeks book is full of rhyming, lift-the flap, guessing fun.
Be My Valentine, Amelia Bedelia by Herman Parish and Lynn Sweat
The Berenstain Bears Funny Valentine by Stan Berenstain and Jan Berenstain
The Best Thing About Valentines by Eleanor Hudson and Mary Melcher
The Biggest Valentine Ever by Steven Kroll
A Circle is not a Valentine by Zimmerman
The Day it Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond
Froggy’s First Kiss by Jonathan London and Frank Remkiewicz
Happy Valentine’s Day Dolores by Barbara Samuels
Happy Valentine’s Day Little Critter by Mercer Mayer
I Kissed the Baby! By Mary Murphy
I Like You by Sandol Stoddard and Jacqueline Chwast
Its Valentine’s Day by Jack Prelutsky
Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentine by Barbara Park and Denise Brunkus
Lilly’s Chocolate Heart by Kevin Henkes
Max’s Valentine by Rosemary Wells
Nate the Great and the Mushy Valentine by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Marc Simont
The Night Before Valentine’s Day by Natasha Wing
Olive You!: And Other Valentine Knock-Knock Jokes You’ll A-Door (Lift-the-Flap Knock-Knock Book) by Katy Hall, Lisa Eisenberg, and Stephen Carpenter
Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink by Diane DeGroat
Saint Valentine by Robert Sabuda
Slugs in Love by Susan Pearson and Kevin O’Malley (includes poems)
Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli and Paul Yalowitz
The Story of Valentine’s Day by Nancy Skarmeas
Super-Secret Valentine (Ready Freddy) by Abby Klein
Valentines are For Saying I Love You by Margaret Sutherland and Amy Wummer
The Valentine Bears by Eve Bunting
Valentine’s Day at the Zoo (pop-up book) by Nadine Bernard Westcott
Valentine Mice by Bethany Roberts
Valentine Surprise by Corinne Demas

As an aside, the Librarian’s Internet Index has selected some top-notch sites related to Valentine’s Day, leading to possibly everything you ever wanted to know about Valentine’s Day (and perhaps more than you wanted to know). The graphic used in this post was found at Graphix by SnoGirl.

Note: 02/13/08 I added Mashable’s 25 Great Resources For Valentine’s Day, because they’re grrreat!

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Have you ever found yourself working on one computer and the file that you need to access is on another computer? Perhaps you were at the library doing research and you found a large PDF document that you would like to save and print at home, but it’s too large to attach to your email account and you have forgotten your flash drive. If these scenarios seem familiar to you, then keep reading to discover some tools that offer solutions.

Nowadays, users have web-based options in situations where files need to be transferred. File sharing services abound; the problem becomes selecting from among them. When you look at these services a little deeper, you’ll find that they vary quite a bit in what they offer–from free, basic, and/or unsecured to premium, secure, and/or customizable services. Some also have simpler, more intuitive interfaces and require fewer steps to be performed in order to share files.

As with anything else, the service you choose to use will depend on your needs. Fortunately, many people have already offered opinions and insight regarding the morass of offerings. Below, I have listed a few posts that offer recommendations; then I list my own preferences.

File Sharing Posts:

ExtremeTech’s 5 New Ways to Share Files–ExtremeTech compares Filecrunch, Pando, Tubes, Windows Live Folders, and YouSendIt.

MakeUseOf.com’s File Sharing Round-up: The Only Ones You need–MakeUseOf.com highlights five file sharing tools (Drop.io, Adobe Share, AllPeers, Pownce, and DivShare) that are evaluated in terms of features such as ease of upload/organize/access, anonymity, and browser integration.

Mashable’s Online Storage: 80+ File Hosting and Sharing Sites–Mashable proffers a list of more than 80 of the leading file hosting services with brief annotations. The list of services are separated into the following service categories: online backup, sending services, and storing/sharing services.

Master New Media: How to Send Large Files without Email: Best Services Online–Robin Good’s three pages worth of services and two pages of comments with additional services should provide enough file sharing options for anyone. The article nicely delineates what each of these file sharing services offers and what security features are available (compression, encryption, secure site). Also, see the more recent Master New Media article detailing Eatlime’s file sharing services entitled How To Send Very Large Files Across The Web: Eatlime Does It.

File Sharing Tools I Like and Use:

Eatlime: It was the “Eatlime Does it” article that got me to revisit the file sharing tools that are available out there, and I have to agree that Eatlime does have a lot to offer. A few quick points about EatLime:

• Free file sharing of large files up to 1GB in size
• Numerous file formats supported
• Ability to add and send multiple files at once
• Sharelink enables sharing data even as files are downloading

For the price (free), EatLime seems to have a lot to offer filesharers.

Adobe SHARE (beta): Another service that I like to use for file sharing/hosting is Adobe SHARE. SHARE launched in 2007 and remains in beta. The flash-based SHARE offers a superb visual and organizational interface (for those who don’t need the visuals or the diversity of file formats, then Google Docs performs many of the same functions). In a SHARE account, users can preview multiple file types (PDF, images, SWF, Open Office, Microsoft Office) before downloading them. The My Library section keeps track of all the files that a user has uploaded and shared.

In order to share with Adobe SHARE, you do need to register with Adobe and receive an Adobe ID. Registering entitles you to 1GB storage, and there is no limit placed on the size of any single file. Sharing privileges for uploaded files may be set to either open access or limited access (selecting limited sets access to only those you specify, but those users must also have an Adobe ID in order to view the shared files).

File Conversion

Now say that the problem is not how to get to the file, but how to get the file to be useful (i.e., in a format that is accessible for the computer you’re on and the software it has). The following online file conversion tools might come in handy when you find yourself faced with this situation; none of the tools mentioned require downloading and installing software on your computer.

KoolWIRE: “free file conversion service via e-mail.” Get files converted to a different file format by sending them as attachments to a specified e-mail address (e.g., from Word, PowerPoint, Excel to PDF: pdf@koolwire.com; from PDF to Word: doc@koolwire.com; from WAV to MP3: mp3@koolwire.com; from MP3 to WAV: wav@koolwire.com). Once Koolwire receives the file, they convert it and send it back to the sender.

YouConvertIt: Enables converting many media file formats (text, image, audio, and video). To convert a file, users type in their e-mail address, browse to the file to be converted, choose the resulting format, and click “convert.” The file is converted and a link to download the converted content is emailed. Currently, there doesn’t appear to be a limit on how large the uploaded file can be. YouConvertIt also has file sharing service capabilities like those tools mentioned above; just enter the recipient’s email address and you can upload the file to share without converting it.

Zamzar: Converts Word files to PDFs, Works files to Word, etc. Zamzar handles text, image, audio, and video file format conversions. The steps involved for conversion are similar to YouConvertIt. Multiple account options exist: free, basic, pro, and business. The maximum file size that can be uploaded for the free account is 100MB. Zamzar was listed in the WebApps category as one of PC Magazine’s Top 100 Undiscovered Websites.

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Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravet (2007)

Great book, take a look!

OR

Sparse text, read it next.

OR

Clever story, I adore thee.

I debated attempting to let my five word reviews stand on their own just as Emily Gravett uses just five words to create her entertaining picture book Orange Pear Apple Bear. In the end I decided that she’s a bit more successful at brevity than I am, so I am employing an uncounted number of more words to praise this story.

Only four nouns are used to comprise the sum total of words and illustrations of this book. Text and illustrations match up perfectly. If the text says orange, then the page displays an orange. If the text says orange, pear, apple, bear, then all four are pictured on the page. The charm of this simplicity is in the way that the objects are arranged on the page in order to tell a complete, completely quirky, and completely humorous story.

What begins with an orange, a pear, and an apple ends with a big satisfied bear lumbering away from two cores and a rind. On the journey from beginning to end, Gravett treats readers to some unusual (borderline fantastic) watercolor compilations. The ursine star displays his skills as he juggles the fruit and balances the fruit on his nose. The illustrations’ color schemes are equally playful, and they are set off to their best advantage against white backgrounds. For instance, when the text reads “Orange pear, apple bear” the pear becomes bright orange and the bear takes on a greenish tint. As mentioned, it all ends quite badly for the fruit and quite well for the bear as the bear consumes each piece and then trots off.

Orange Pear Apple Bear is so simple that even pre-readers will be able memorize the text and find themselves “reading” before they know it. Since the words and pictures align so well, it’s a perfect text to engage pre-readers and to teach them how the letters/words on the page fit together to create meaning. Orange Pear Apple Bear is an ideal book for showing kids that reading can be delightful and not a chore.

For more fun from Emily Gravett read Wolves, Meerkat Mail, or Monkey & Me, or you can visit her Official Site and sneak a peek at her forthcoming works The Odd Egg and Spells.

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