For fans of Star Wars, Jeffrey Brown‘s latest graphic novel VADER’S LITTLE PRINCESS has arrived at the library! And I must say, all of us had a good chuckle over quite a few of the pages inside. This isn’t really a children’s book, not because of any unsuitable content, but because the humour is something young fans of Star Wars might not get just yet. (Probably because many of the younger readers are smack-dab in the middle of their own “whatever” phases. Seeing Princess Leia say it to Darth Vader is something that shouldn’t be missed, however.)
If you’re looking for a few laughs and you’re a fan of Star Wars, this little book is one you need to pick up and read! Brown takes all the seriousness out of Star Wars, but leaves the ideas intact so that you’ll smile and identify with poor Vader’s problems.
At the beginning of our lives, many of us grow to love books. The stories often take place in magical settings or simply places we’ve never been and so seem magical to little readers. I came across a wonderful blog post about popular children’s books and the places that inspired them. The comments below the article are just as interesting, with a small argument going on about the origins of Winnie the Pooh.
Just click on the link above, or on the picture to go to the site and read more. A fun way to waste a few minutes!
We had a great week last week at the library, ending all our Forest of Reading® voting! The kids arrived on Thursday night nice and early and had their chosen books decided. We have a very official vote, with a secret ballot and everything. The kids waiting their turn, got into the polling station and then placed their ballots in the box. While we enjoyed a party and some rewards, Janet tabulated the votes and presented us with the official winners from our library!
Here were the winners:
Silver Birch Non-Fiction
Blue Spruce
Silver Birch Fiction (part of a 3-way tie)
Silver Birch Fiction (Part of the 3 way tie)
Silver Birch Fiction (Part of the 3 way tie)
Silver Birch Express
We’ll send all of our votes along to Toronto where they’ll be compiled with the other votes from libraries and schools across Ontario. And once the official votes are in, I’ll make sure to let everyone know how we did this year! Congratulations to everyone who read books this year, to those who completed all ten books in their category, and especially to those who read in TWO categories (that’s 20 books!).
And a HUGE thank you to Janet for taking care of the vote, to Sheila (and Bronte) for pouring drinks for an hour, and to Judi and the girls at the front desk for taking care of the extra crowd of people. We’re looking forward to next year already!
One thing we’ve heard through the last few years is that one drawback with ebooks is their lack of sharing capabilities. Yes, if you purchase a book, often you can share the book among devices. But unlike actual paper books, you can’t bring it into your library once you finish and donate it. So, even though the ebooks cost just as much as the hardcopy versions, you’re pretty much “stuck” with it, and no way to re-sell or donate.
Recently, however, Amazon and Apple have both applied for patents to re-sell ebooks. This has caused a great swell of backlash from a lot of different people, the same way it did when Amazon began selling used books, often at prices as low as a penny. Yes, it’s great for the consumer, but not so great for the authors, who see their work devalued. Plus, the biggest fear concerns digital rights. Who owns the book when it can be shared with anyone? Amazon and Apple have prepared for this problem–only one person can ever have that particular copy of the book at one time. So, if you purchase a book and then sell it to someone else, the book is no longer yours. I guess each book will have a special DRM (digital rights management) code built into it, making it unique.
Authors still will only be paid for the first copy of each book, even though there could be potential for more revenues with re-sale. But in the printed world, an author is paid when someone buys the book from a store, for example, but wouldn’t be paid again if that person sold their copy to a used bookseller, for example.
The question becomes, why would someone pay for a NEW copy at full price, when a used copy at a greatly reduced price might become instantly available? (This is the same question for hard copies of books, really, but these books eventually become too worn for re-sale.) Digital copies remain pristine. It won’t matter if you’re the first person to read it, or the millionth…the copy will look exactly the same on your device. With hard copies, the book’s condition will eventually match the sale price, but with ebooks, it never will. And that’s a BIG problem.
Turns out that Apple and Amazon have thought of this. Their patents might limit the bottom price, depending on the date the original ebook was released. So, if an eBook sells for $10 one day, people re-selling will have to wait six months, for example, before they can sell it for half that price, and even longer to go down to the penny sale. They may also limit the number of times a book can be resold, essentially mimicking the way a hard copy might be resold.
This is just in the early stages, and there will probably be a great deal of change before eBooks are able to be resold. The complications are vast and must be settled with all parties involved–authors, publishers and booksellers.
Being a children’s librarian, I have favourite picture book illustrators. There are some artists who never fail to capture the sense of the book and usually, these are the books that I love to read to children again and again. Recently, Daisuke Tsutsumi, the art director at Pixar, came up with the idea for a picture book to raise funds for the literacy project called Room to Read. His idea was to create a picture book that traveled to artists and illustrators around the globe and the project spanned over 6 years and 56, 000 miles of travel.
Sketchtravel was born. Each artist would illustrate one blank page and then hand deliver the book to the next artist on the list. At the end, the original book was auctioned off and funds were donated to Room to Read, but not before several editions were created for the general public to purchase (a $40 version and a $250 collector’s edition). You can see more about this wonderful project right here.
What a fantastic idea and every page is something new and amazing! This could be done so many times, with new themes or ideas for a story that illustrators could contribute to. Take a few minutes to look at the artwork. It’s pretty amazing!
Earlier this week, we received an email from our library catalog support system, telling everyone that Stephen King’s newest book called 11/22/63 is causing issues with the Best Seller lists that you can find posted on our library catalog website. Apparently, King’s book title is playing havoc with the site simply because of the date issue. (The catalog software is intuitive and wants to make the title into a date only, we think.)Regardless, the support team announced they were working on the issue and hope to have it solved this week. In the meantime, King’s book about a teacher who goes back in time to try to prevent Kennedy’s assassination, will remain off the Best-Seller listings on the catalog (confusing, I know, but it’s just a clerical issue for now). Hopefully, it will be solved soon and King’s book can take its right place on the list eventually.
I bet he didn’t think a simple title would cause such panic in the lives of techies working on library catalogs. Maybe this could be a new book idea? (I expect a 2% fee for the idea, Mr. King!)
