Weekend of Pottering ...

A few weeks ago I was talking Harry Potter with someone from my other job. He didn't believe that I'd never been to a midnight-book-release party. My kids have, but I've left it to them to score our early copies of the books.

But since this was my last chance forever, I decided to go to the King's Books party in Tacoma. I chose it because King's Books is an independent bookstore, the supply of which is dwindling. I also bought one of our household copies from there (at 34.99!) for the same reason. Our second copy was due the next morning from Amazon. Deeply discounted.

The King's Books party was great fun; except for the store being very hot. I arrived at 9:30; didn't think I could manage the full five-hour event. I didn't get there quite in time to see Seabury's own Mr. Mario perform, but there was lots of other entertainment.

The best entertainment of all, though, was watching and listening to kids and non-kids, speculating right up until the last minute about what was going to happen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Doesn't seem like anyone had been assaulted by unwanted spoilers.

There were at least seven former Seabury students there; one was employed at the face-painting table.

At midnight, or a minute before, there were suddenly screams from the front of the line. They were giving out the book. More screams; shouts, squeals. Comments like "This is the best day of my life!!" I took some video that shows the young girl in front of me hopping up and down like she was on springs. Each person who got their book, clutched it like it was a beloved stuffed animal. This for a book! Cool, is all I can say.

I managed to read two chapters before I dozed off. My 16-year-old was hovering outside the door, waiting for my eyes to close. He took the book at about 1:30 a.m. and came down at 7:15. "I finished it."

That afternoon, our Amazon copy had come. My 18-year-old and I parked ourselves in the living room and read nearly non-stop. I got up to do a couple of things, so he passed me up by 50 pages or so. I think he finished at about 10 and me, a half-hour later or so. It's that kind of a book; it's hard to put down. My husband read it Sunday and this morning. The reviews from our house? Four thumbs up ... or eight thumbs up, I guess.

Halley's traveling back from Israel to Paris tomorrow. She's heading straight to an English-language bookstore so she can pick up a copy for the plane ride home Friday.

Today I'm teaching a Seabury summer class and I've asked a few of the older kids: "What page are you on?" I didn't indicate which book, but of course they knew. One said 350, another said "Chapter 7, but I'm reading it slowly. I want to savor every word."

I guess at my house, we'll have to savor it the second time around!

Have any tales from your house of reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"? Reviews?

(By the way, I looked up "spoilers" on the Internet after I finished the book. Some of the most publicized are completely wrong.)

Talk to you soon ...

Is there a Harry Potter frenzy at your house?

My kids have grown up with Harry, Ron and Hermoine, so they're anxious to get their hands on the last book Saturday. Halley's still out of the country and plans to buy her own copy for the long plane flight home, but there is a running discussion about who gets to read our copy first. I might have to buy two. But for now, my solution is to have everyone leave it in the living room so concurrent readings can go on.

If you have youngsters who are already mourning the end of Hogwarts, I wrote a column for Tuesday's News Tribune. It's about the literary legacy of HP and contains a bunch of other reading suggestions. Our kids at Seabury already know of many of these books and often are more excited about them than HP.

I'm not going to write much more here, because I've written so much about Harry Potter this month already. I do love the books, and the excitement they've created among young readers for the past 10 years.

One thing I do want to say is if you and your children don't want the surprises of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" spoiled before you read the book, it might be a good idea to limit your use of the Internet for a few days.

People have gotten hold of copies, posted pictures of every single page, and plot developments are leaking out faster that Scholastic, Bloomsbury or JK Rowling's lawyers can control. I was trying to read some news stories about the leaks, and commenters feel compelled to assault you, without warning, in all-caps: ***** DIES!!, etc.

Who knows if the tiny bit I saw before closing the screen is true. But I do know that actual spoilers appear to be out there.

The whole thing makes me sad, and mad. The Harry Potter phenomenon has been a magical one. I don't understand why some unscrupulous meanies who are good at computers feel compelled to try and squash that magic.

That's all for now. Be careful out there in cyberspace!

What do Seabury kids like to read?

I just ran a report of circulation statistics and it was fun to study.

Some of the most-checked-out books come as no surprise, such as "Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space," by Dav Pilkey. The pages fall out of the cheaply made Captain Underpants books like autumn leaves. I just replace them with free books I get from the Scholastic Book Fairs.

In fiction, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," by J.K. Rowling is another that has been checked out a lot, plus "Day of the Dragon King," by Mary Pope Osborne, and many others in her Magic Tree House Series. "

"Junie B. Jones has a Monster Under Her Bed" and other Junie B. books by Barbara Park, the Animal Ark books, by Ben Baglio, "Mattimeo" and the rest of the Redwall series by Brian Jacques, the Heirs of the Force (Star Wars) series are other novels our students check out frequently. "The Book of Dragons," short stories by various authors, illustrated by Michael Hague, doesn't stay on the shelf long either.

The most-circulated novel in the Seabury collection? "Let's Party," by Megan Stine, a Mary Kate and Ashley book. You've got me on that one. I do nothing to promote it. Didn't buy it. But they find it. (Don't worry, this was from when MK&A were preteen party-goers, not partiers in their present incarnation.)

Down in the picture book room, "Hop on Pop" and "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," by Dr. Seuss, hop on off the shelves. Those are two of the very first books many children can read themselves and even after their reading has progressed, they still like to check them out.

Two other picture books circulate a lot: "If You Give a Pig a Pancake," by Laura Numeroff, and "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse," by Kevin Henkes.

It's in the non-fiction section that the circulation stats start heating up. In the non-Seabury world, the general belief is that boys are the big non-fiction readers and that girls gravitate toward fiction. In my observance, that doesn't seem to hold true at Seabury. Our boys love fiction and our girls love non-fiction (and vice versa).

It starts with the Ladybugs and Superstars. Even though they don't search the shelves on their own, I have unhappy customers if I don't put a selection of "true books" on the round yellow table along with the storybooks for them to choose from. One small brother and sister in the Ladybugs each check out a "true book" every week.

We have a contingent of girls each year that keep our dog books among the most popular in the non-fiction section. (Boys, interestingly, seem to like the cat books better.) Boys like UFO, Look-Alikes, I Spy and Tin Tin books. (I know they sound like fiction, but they're shelved in the non-fiction section. So are fairy tales and poetry.)

Girls and boys at Seabury seem to be almost equally passionate about space, dinosaurs, mammals, rocks and minerals, birds, drawing, crafts, jokes and riddles and the poetry of Shel Silverstein.

(Just to clarify, the circulation report tells me how often books get checked out. My memory tells me who checks them out – an advantage of working at a small school!)

There's a set of Audubon Field Guides for children. We have Space, Rocks and Minerals, Birds, Wildflowers and a few others. These are so popular with our children that we don't shelve them in normal subject order. They're between a couple of bookends on top of a shelf. I'm sure many of you have seen them come home.

Sometimes a class will latch onto a particular book for awhile. The Navigators have been checking out "Star Wars: Incredible Cross Sections." I'm not sure how many have it on hold right now. When individuals start asking for it a second time, I'll probably say it's time to let another class have a chance.

The Beacons and Navigators love a set of paperbacks called "The Mighty Book of Riddles/Knock-Knock Jokes" ... etc. The Beacons right now are trading around "The Mighty Book of Optical Illusions." Here's a pair of them in my read-aloud chair trying to puzzle out one of the illusions.




Even with more than 11,000 wonderful books, the library disappoints some of our students. We have no books about Hilary Duff or Green Day. And I need to get at least one Calvin and Hobbes book. I've been asked for those countless times over the years.

Lately one Navigator has been distressed at how few books about sheep we have. "You mean you don't have a single book about drawing sheep?" My daughter suggested I steer him to "The Little Prince."

And another Navigator searches the catalog in vain each week for cookbooks. (He's not the only one who's asked for those over the years.) That gap is about to be filled. Since my youngest just turned 16, I just went through my shelves at home and brought in some really cool children's cookbooks to add to our library. Now he asks every week: "Are those cookbooks ready yet?"

Ahh. If I only worked more than two days a week!

** I wrote about some new Halloweenish books in last week's column for The News Tribune. "The Brave Little Witch" is especially sweet.

Talk to you soon.

So do some of your children - if not banned at least frequently challenged. In my book that's something to celebrate, and hang onto for dear life this Banned Books Week.

Here's the list of the most Books most Frequently Challenged in 2005, as compiled by the American Library Association. You can also see the reasons for the challenges.

(A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. According to Judith F. Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, the number of challenges reflects only incidents reported, and for each reported, four or five remain unreported.)

“It's Perfectly Normal,” by Robie H. Harris, for homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion and being unsuited to age group;

“Forever” by Judy Blume for sexual content and offensive language;

“The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger for sexual content, offensive language and being unsuited to age group;

“The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier for sexual content and offensive language;

“Whale Talk” by Chris Crutcher for racism and offensive language;

“Detour for Emmy” by Marilyn Reynolds for sexual content;

“What My Mother Doesn't Know” by Sonya Sones for sexual content and being unsuited to age group;

Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey for anti-family content, being unsuited to age group and violence;

“Crazy Lady!” by Jane Leslie Conly for offensive language;
and
“It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families” by Robie H. Harris for sex education and sexual content.

Off the list this year, but on for several years past, are the Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain. Other books frequently challenged over the years are Newbery Medal winner "The Giver," by Lois Lowry, "To Kill a Mockingbird," by Harper Lee, the Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz (very popular here).

The most challenged books of the 21st century so far? You can probably guess: The "Harry Potter" series.

Okay, so what does it mean that your school librarian is sticking up for books that have witches, sex and four-letter words in them? It simply means that I want people always to have the choice to read them.

Well, I'm certainly not going to be checking out Judy Blume's "Forever" to any of our first-graders. We don't even have that book in our library. It's not appropriate to the ages and interests of our students.

I do check out "Captain Underpants" to them, however. In fact, I have a hard time keeping them on the shelves, or the pages attached to those rather poorly made paperbacks. As I said in my latest News Tribune column, those crazy books have been responsible for getting lots of little boys excited about reading.

Children's librarians might not believe in CENSORSHIP, but they do believe in SELECTION.

We want a good mix of materials in the library; books that will excite our children, wonderful literature, books appropriate to their ages and reading levels, books that support the curriculum. Obviously, I'm not going to select books for this library that are also in a high school library, unless they also okay for younger children to read. "Tom Sawyer" is in our library and Stadium High School's, too.

Running a library for gifted children is tricky sometimes. They often can read things they're not ready for. The part of me that doesn't believe in censorship has a hard time saying "no" to any book a child wants to check out. But if a second-grader I know is easily scared comes up to my desk with the fourth "Harry Potter," I usually can gently steer her to something else. Once or twice over the years, my persuasiveness hasn't worked and I've checked out the book, then followed up with a call home.

When parents have strong feelings about certain books or subjects, it works best if it's handled at home. I know some parents just can't abide "Captain Underpants" and have told their children they don't want them to check them out. That works a lot better than asking me to remember those preferences.

Seabury parents tend to be an open-minded bunch, but I welcome any questions about books in our library. I'd much prefer you to talk to me about concerns, rather than find out later that someone has practiced their own brand of censorship. This was a disturbing discovery I made last spring: This fine, hardback anatomy book was donated by a student whose father is a doctor. Seven pages were covered with copy paper and Scotch tape, which will pull the print right off. You can probably guess what's under the paper.

P.S. Those Robie Harris sex-Ed books on the list above are the best "birds and bees" books! She has a new one out for ages 4 and up called "It's Not the Stork!" Here's a link to her Web site: http://www.robieharris.com/ Remember if you order her books from Amazon, please do it through the link on this page and help the Seabury library. We've earned $11 so far, enough for a book!

Heading home to read "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "Huckleberry Finn."

Talk to you soon!