Teens Only | Be the Change

Thank you, Mahatma Ghandi. 

Be the change you wish to see in the world.
-Ghandi

During the month of September, our community read, discussed and learned from Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster as part of One Book, One San Joaquin. One question that was frequently raised was this: What does the individual owe the community?

I was totally blown away by the essays submitted by teens from our community. There were some really great ideas and some very insightful thinking going on! So tell me more. What would you like to see in our community? What would you like to see at the library? Email your thoughts and ideas to me (suzy.daveluy@stocktongov.com).

And hey, if you think one person can't make a difference, meet Mary Pat Hector. At 10 years of age, she founded Youth in Action and mobilized young people across the country to take a stand on issues like bullying, gun violence, and drugs. She is now the National Youth Director of National Action Network. 

Going back to those wise words of Mahatma Gandhi, let me just say one more thing: October 10th is National Stop Bullying Day. 

Catch me here on Saturdays.

Books on Film | From Paper to Film

How many of your favorite movies are actually based on books?

Film and television adaptations of teen novels are all the rage now. The Hunger Games series and The Twilight series have made it to the big screen, while titles like The Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle series have been adapted into television shows. 

It's not just a teen lit phenomenon either, both adult and children's books are regularly adapted into film.  Fantastic adventure films, like Jurassic Park, and fun family films, like Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs, are based on books.

It's also not a new phenomenon. Books have been adapted into movies for almost as long as film-making has been around. Sherlock Holmes was one of the earliest series to be to be adapted into film.

And not only are books adapted into film, but vice versa! This film to book transformation is very popular in science fiction. Movies like Star Wars and television shows like Star Trek have inspired many authors to pick up their pen.

Books on Film will explore old, new, and upcoming film and television adaptations from novels, written plays, and comic books; as well as draw attention to novels inspired by some of your favorite movies and shows.

Do you have a favorite book adaptation? If so, share by adding a comment below. 

[Book covers courtesy of LibraryThing]

Food, Food, Food!! | Cookbook Friday

This blog will be dedicated to the celebration of food, glorious food.   There may be some fun drink and restaurant chatter, too.   When your name is “Peaches,” you have to write about food.  I AM food!  I not exactly a foodie, because I am as finicky an eater as your average 8 year old but I do love to read and talk about food.

Initially I want to remind all of you that every library in this system has a terrific collection of cookbooks.  The primary call number for cookbooks is 641.  (You can always ask a librarian to show the section to you.)   I want to highlight some cookbooks for children in this blog, because we have some terrific ones!

First I want to highlight one of my favorite food books for children; It’s Disgusting and We Ate it! True Food Facts From Around the World and Throughout History.  By James Solheim.  Here’s a fun fact that is in fact, disgusting:

“From the mushrooms on your pizza and the yeast in its crust to the mildew behind the sink, fungi are everywhere.  In fact, there are millions of fungi in your house that you never even say ‘hi’ to!  You breathe them in every breath, and they grow in your food.”

Fun cookbooks based on Children’s Books:

The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Bucholz

The Winnie-the-Pooh Cookbook by Virginia H. Ellison

The Nancy Drew Cookbook by Carolyn Keene

See you next week, unless you frequent Centrale on the Miracle Mile in which case you will probably see me sooner.

Constant Curiosity | Oh look, a duck!

Hello all and welcome to my blog.  They say curiosity killed the cat, but since I'm not a cat, I'm not too worried.  I am worried (just a little) about how to boil down all the interesting things I'm interested in and make them interesting enough for others to read about them.   

O.k., enough worrying.  I like books and art and music and movies and theater, and many, many other things.   When I read a book or see a film I invariably get curious about something or someone in the book and have to look it up.  I understand that one of Amazon's newest Kindles gives viewers a way to look stuff up in IMDB (Internet Movie Database) while watching the film on your Kindle in case you wonder where you've seen that actor before.  My own Kindle Fire offers word definitions at a touch as one reads.   It's a boon to the curious, but that's where the duck comes in.  

To my easily piqued curiosity and equally distractable nature a duck signifies for me yet one more random thing that has caught my attention.  I even know a quote about ducks:  "How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks" says Lord Peter Wimsey in Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.

I'm lucky I work where I do and do what I do, but it's sort of a blessing and a curse, since one thing invariably leads to another.  I had to quit looking at old newspaper microfilm because reading all the articles other than the one I had been looking for was just too fascinating.  I found out one time that Oscar Wilde had actually visited Stockton.  The description of his outfit was quite vivid.  Something about brown velvet trousers and a big green floppy tie. 

These sorts of occasions make me long for the ability to move around in time the way characters in these books & films do: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Time and Again by Nora Roberts, films like Somewhere in Time, The Philadelphia Experiment and Time After Time, starring a young Malcolm McDowell (as H.G. Wells) and an equally young Mary Steenburgen.  David Warner played Jack the Ripper.  In case you were curious.

Well, you get the picture about what my various themes might be...oh look! A rabbit! (Harvey, 1950, starring James Stewart) but wasn't Harvey really a Pooka, a mythological being...sorry gotta go look something up.  See you next time.

The Wanderlust Librarian | Wandering Through the City

Traveling doesn't have to be far away. In fact, there are some eclectic and great neighborhoods to explore in San Francisco. I try to research one or two different neighborhoods that I'm really interested in and put them in a little notebook that I carry in my purse. I call it my "commonplace book". I adopted the name after I had started reading the Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 1: The Bad Beginning . There's a big plus to having a notebook to jot things down, write down suggestions from locals... or, in my case, write down books I want to read.

While I don't always make it to the neighborhoods I've researched, I know that the information is always there in case I need it. I like to take tips from friends, family, television shows and magazines.Do you want to get a flavor for the different neighborhoods in the City? Check out Walking San Francisco. This books shows maps of the neighborhoods and tries to capture the personality of that area!



Some things I like to jot down:

• Name of neighborhood and location
• Shops, addresses and descriptions (who knew that a store called Karikter carries Tintin books and toys?)
• Restaurants & cafes (with address and description)
• Places of note (libraries, picture opportunities, historical places)

Without research, I would have never known that this was the Richmond Branch Library! 

 Another fun tip is to theme out your excursions. Some of my San Francisco wanderings have included:

• Cupcake-palooza - visiting cupcake shops around town 
• Let's go to the movies - famous sights in San Francisco that were in different movies
• Pretty Woman - trying on expensive clothes at swanky stores
• It's a (tourist) trap! - visiting various tourist spots and capping the day off at the Yoda fountain at the Presidio

These little lists do not give me an excuse to get bored when I'm in the City. In fact, it gives me freedom in choosing the activities and sights I want to see! The library is your best friend in helping to plan and execute a fun, spontaneous visit to the city or anywhere your heart desires!

Adventure is out there!  - Ellie from "Up"

Book Bucket List | Introductions

Bucket List:

 noun

 informal,  

A number of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime. (Oxford Dictionaries) 

When someone mentions their “bucket list”, I usually think of activities like skydiving, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, and swimming with sharks.  The “bucket list” refers to once in a lifetime activities designed to excite, scare, or challenge the participant. Once complete, you check it off your list with varying degrees of feelings of accomplishment or “Why on Earth did I just do that?!”

In the same vein, a book bucket list contains titles that are “must reads” for various reasons. For example, the list hanging on my desk includes:

• The Lacuna by Barbara Kingslover

• The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses by Paul Goble

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

One is a classic that I have been told many times I need to read, the other is an author I have really enjoyed in the past, and one is a book that I loved as a kid so much that I still love reading it today!

So as my own list develops, I will be posting about my favorites in hopes it will help you with your own book bucket list.  This blog will have suggestions of books you should read at least once in your lifetime!  

Also, I always take suggestions! So comment below with your own suggestions, and maybe I’ll feature the book!

Just Because | Thank you to the Friends and Foundation

It bears constant repeating that SSJCPL as an organization and all that staff that work here are incredibly grateful for the amazing contributions made by the various Friends groups throughout San Joaquin County as well as to the continued financial support of the Library & Literacy Foundation for San Joaquin County.

These groups work hard to come up with ways to raise money and then so graciously offer those hard earned dollars right back to the library for a variety of purposes.  A majority of the funds go toward the purchase of materials for our shelves, which end up in the hands of people of all ages.  

Some of those funds also go toward our programming - the day to day book clubs and storytimes as well as the special programming such as Summer Reading and the One Book, One San Joaquin program that is taking place this month.

Shop at your local Friends Book Sale Event!

If you want to help these groups to support the library, it's easy! In addition to shopping your favorite national bookstores, stop by the local Friends of the Stockton Library bookstore in Stockton to check out their best sellers and new releases.  Or, if you are outside of Stockton, when checking out books at a county SSJCPL branch, take a moment and peruse the in-library friends book sales!  Ripon is well know for their book sales, as is Manteca and Linden! The money you spend puts a book in your hand and puts dollars in a fund that will eventually be used to purchase new materials for the library system.

As for the Library & Literacy Foundation, check them out, too!! They are doing all kinds of great things in San Joaquin County that help to promote literacy!  

Thank you to our Friends and patners -- we do what we do better because of you!