Summer Reading Programs

Today I'm unabashedly tooting the horn of my library and other libraries around the country.  With summer just a couple of days away, summer reading programs are about to start or have already started.  My library began registering kids, teens, and adults for our program this past June 1st, and we're still registering readers.

The library staff and I are always excited about the summer reading program.  Quite naturally, we're happy to see more people of all ages reading.  We value reading as an activity that's entertaining, enriching, and educating.  Often, people don't have as much time as they would like to have for reading, but summer vacations at home, on the beach, in the mountains, or wherever give people more time to relax with a good book.

It's great to see adults enjoy the books they choose, but it's especially great to see young readers just being introduced to the library become giddy about getting their first library books.  Some are so enthusiastic about getting their books that they don't want to relinquish them for checkout.  I sometimes have to reassure the kids that they'll get their books back in a moment.

I absolutely love seeing young readers march back into the library all smiles and full of pride when they turn in their reading logs.  They have a real sense of accomplishment that they did something good and fun.  They may not realize it, but the reading they're doing is improving their vocabulary, their spelling, and their writing, as well as their overall thinking and reasoning abilities.  Reading is putting them on the fast track to doing well in school and later in life.

So, if you want to help develop your kids' reading habit or support your own, go to your library and take part in the summer reading program.  At the risk of sounding cliche, you'll be glad you did.

Busy taking reading blogs at the perch.

 

Fifty Shades of Dull

Sitting here on the perch I see a lot of books, and I mean A LOT of books.  So I learn what's popular with the patrons firsthand.  Sometimes I get curious when I see a book going out so many times, and when that happens I usually end up reading it to see what my patrons find interesting.  Like my patrons, I too am a reader with her own personal tastes and opinions of books.  With that in mind, what I have to say next is simply my own personal impression of a particular book; I do not mean to influence anyone's decision to read this book or criticize anyone's opinion of this book.

I recently read E. L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey, the popular "it" book of the moment.  I'd like to summarize this book for you, but honestly I find that a rather difficult task because despite its 500 plus pages there's not really much of a story to summarize.  To put things simply, girl interviews boy, girl and boy are attracted to each other, girl finds out boy is into kinky sex, girl still wants boy even though he gets high from causing her physical pain.  O...kay...?

Maybe it's just me, but I have a hard time understanding why there's so much buzz about this book.  Sure, there's the obvious shock value and BDSM going on, but beyond those things, I don't see much else.  I enjoy reading fluff like the Twilight series (which surprisingly was the inspiration for Fifty Shades of Grey), but fluff for me has to have some substance, even if it's only minimal.  Other than a lot of sex scenes (that get ho-hum after reading the first few), repetition, mundane writing, and little character development, James' book is a shallow read that made think, "What did I get out of those 500 plus pages?"  If anything, I was amazed that any woman would want to be with a man who wants to hit and hurt her (I don't care that the man is obscenely rich and has his own private jet).  That's not sexy to me; that's just plain abuse.

One library in Florida pulled Fifty Shades of Grey from its shelves claiming it didn't fit its selection criteria only to return it to the shelves due to high patron demand.  As a librarian, I feel this book deserves to be offered in libraries like any other book.  Just because it's not my cup of tea doesn't mean that I don't want other people to read it if they choose to do so.  To not offer it would be to censor it, and censorship is definitely not what American libraries are about.  Library patrons have the right to read whatever they like; that's one of the beauties of living in the United States and enjoying the freedom of speech.

And if you have your own opinion of Fifty Shades of Grey, I'd love to hear from you.

Pondering the mysteries of the universe on the perch.