Emirates Airlines International Festival of Literature Part 2

Posted by Kanga.

Saturday at the festival began with Maitha Al Khayat and her newest book When A Camel Loves Loqaimat. Loqaimat is a traditional Emirati dessert similar to doughnut holes, although not as sweet as doughnuts. After sharing the story with her rapt audience –

-she shared fresh loqaimat with them. It was a big hit, as you might imagine.

And there were cookies at the book signing.

Next was John Connolly, author of The Book of Lost Things, which sounds interesting to me, but the bookstore was sold out. I’ll have to look for it later. It’s not like I’m caught up on my reading and desperately in need of it. (He didn’t intend for it to be a “children’s book,” but having a young protagonist almost guarantees being pigeon holed as children’s lit.) The book incorporates fairy tales, although they are not necessarily told the way we remember them. About a fourth of the book at the end is essays about the tales and early versions of each (before the Brothers Grimm cleaned them up).

Then I was off to a two (and a half) hour book binding workshop.

I really enjoyed this. The instructor, Mark Cockram, who is a book artist and teacher was quite a comedian. The time flew by. I was amused when one of the participants told him he should have brought some of the books he has made to sell them. He found a way to politely say “you couldn’t afford them.”

I made this!

Next was Chris Cleave, author of Incendiary, The Other Hand (aka Little Bee), and his newest Gold. It was interesting to hear the different authors describing how they write. Chris says he chooses a challenging question and then finds characters, places them in pressure situations to force them to answer the question. For example, the question behind Gold is “what would you sacrifice for your career? Family? Friends?”

Last was Anthony Horowitz and the young fans of his Alex Rider series and Power of Five series. Kids are always fun and have the best questions during Q&A time.

Addendum: More information about Jeffrey Deaver and Anthony Horowitz writing books about Bond and Holmes was requested. So, here is what I remember. Jeffrey Deaver was approached by the Fleming estate because he had mentioned in a speech that he was a Bond fan and had begun reading Bond novels when he was eight years old. He was given room to update Bond, making him a veteran of the Afghanistan war instead of World War II. He also softened Bond’s mysogyny. Other characteristics of a Bond story were retained – creative character names, the over the top villain, and, of course, gadgets. I missed how Mr. Horowitz came to write the Holmes novel, but he was given more latitude in his writing. Arthur Conan Doyle’s own inconsistencies made being faithful to the previous stories difficult. He chose not to have Moriarity be the main villain, but he did give him a cameo appearance. He pointed out that what makes Holmes stories captivating is not the plot, but the relationship of Holmes (cold, intellectual, addicted) and Watson (warm, helpful, caring).

Emirates Airlines International Festival of Literature

Posted by Kanga.

We are spending the weekend immersing ourselves in the Emirates Airlines International Festival of Literature. (The conference center very kindly provided paper and pencil. It seemed like a retro gesture.)

I started Thursday evening with Alan Dean Foster, writer of science fiction and movie novelizations such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Aliens, etc. His talk was very interesting. He could not give us details, but promises that the newest Star Trek movie coming this May will be even better than the last.

Then we attended the Poeticians recitation. The Poeticians are people here in Dubai who write poetry and meet regularly to read their works. Pictured above is our lovely friend Hind.

Friday morning, I began with Jeffery Deaver and Anthony Horowitz. Mr. Deaver recently wrote a new James Bond novel and Mr. Horowitz wrote a Sherlock Holmes novel, so they were discussing the ins and outs of working with such iconic characters.

Then I went to a two hour workshop on plot development led by Greg Mosse. It was very interesting and the two hours went by quickly.

Next was Deborah Moggach author of These Foolish Things, which became The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. (If you haven’t seen the movie, you should.) She was very funny and delightful. We could have sat there for another hour or two happily.

Then I went off to a “workshop” on bullying, but didn’t learn anything new about bullying or how to deal with it.

Next was Geraldine McCaughrean. The session was designed for children. I arrived late because the bullying session ran over. When I got there Geraldine was telling the story of Perseus killing Medusa. She then went on to invite volunteers up onto the stage and led a very engaging session that had all the kids paying attention and participating. I was so attentive that I forgot to take a picture. The question and answer period was fun, too. One tiny little voice asked “Why do you EVEN like writing?” Another asked “How many books have you written?” The answer was “167″ to which there was a loud exclamation somewhere in the audience “Oh, my god!” Kids are so fun.

Sharjah International Book Fair

Posted by Kanga.

It is time once again for the Sharjah International Book Fair. It is even larger this year.

We dropped in to see a demonstration of digital artwork by our friend, Ashraf Ghori.

In addition to miles of books, there were some traditional dance demonstrations.

The book fair is on through Saturday November 17th. We highly recommend it. Wear your best walking shoes and eat a hearty meal, you’ll need your strength.

Back to School in Style

Posted by Kanga.

There are always plenty of blank books available in stationary and discount stores. With school starting soon, there are now large piles of them near the front of the store. I always peruse the covers, because they often provide amusement.

These three caught our eye last night.

“Thus I became a madman.
And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness;
the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood,
for those who understand us enslave something in us.
But let me not be too proud of my safety.
Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.”

“I saw a bee today, 1st time in years.
She was very tall and outgoing.
Looked like a young queen.
Seemed confused by flower tattoos.
Then left without saying goodbye.”

Same ol’ same o, I guess.

Travel By Book: Bryson’s Britain

Posted by Kanga.

Bryson, Bill. Notes from a small island. London: Black Swan, 1996. Print.

During this two week stay at home vacation I am visiting Britain through the eyes of Bill Bryson. We have a very similar sense of humor and perspective on the world, so reading a Bryson book usually results in my laughing out loud and then reading the passage aloud for DaddyBird.

Bryson is at his best when he is making up words, like imaginary (but believable) place names – the Buggered Ploughman pub, Ram’s Droppings bypass, or the rail crossing at Great Shagging. Or mocking the formality of a restaurant menu by asking for “a lustre of water freshly drawn from the house tap and presented au nature in a cylinder of glass.”

His description of Daniel’s department store in Windsor makes me want to explore it. The sad part is that it is probably not there anymore. In this book Bryson is describing his “farewell tour” of Britain in the early 90′s. He combines flashbacks to the 70′s when he first arrived in England and his 90′s observations giving a taste of nostalgia for the things already lost to the passage of time. His travel plan was to use only public transportation (bus and train), but 1990′s reality was that much of the public transport network had disappeared.

Travel by book means that I have no pictures to show my daily adventure. However, having been to Britain a time or two, I will slip in one of my favorite pictures from a previous trip.

Southwark, London 2009

Vacation Reading

Posted by Kanga.

You may not be dying to know what I read during vacation, but I’m gonna tell you anyway.

First, some context:
1. I am a high school librarian, so I tend to read children’s and young adult’s literature.
2. My students are all male and the epitome of reluctant readers. English is not their first language.
3. They are interested in horror and scary stuff. Due to cultural sensitivity concerns, I have to read the books before adding to the library collection.

The two books by Darren Shan are actually four books (double bound editions, two titles per book) in the Demonata series. I attended a session by Darren Shan at the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature. I decided to try his books, now I’m hooked. The characters are believable, well-developed, and easily relatable. They may not make the best decisions, but that’s what makes them realistic.

Skulduggery Pleasant: The Death Bringer is number six in the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy. I enjoy this series because it is smartly written, witty, egalitarian, and action packed. I generally tune out during fight scenes in movies and books, but the fight scenes Derek Landy writes are gripping and easy to visualize. I especially like his villains who can be incredibly funny, Vaurien Scapegrace being the king of hilarious villains. Valkyrie Caine is a marvelous, strong female lead character. She is the anti-Bella. She may make some bad boyfriend decisions, but she’s honest with herself about how bad those decisions are. I haven’t finished this volume, yet, mainly because of it’s physical format. It is too big and heavy to travel in my purse, so it is a recliner/bedside only read, which limits the amount of time I have to read it.

Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba is the first manga series that I have enjoyed. It is well written and the plot line is interesting. I have only read the first two volumes of the total 13. I’m curious to see where the plot goes from here. Graphic novels, in general, usually put me to sleep. Reading them seems to be more tasking for me than straight text. The few manga titles that I have tried before this were either too complicated with new characters being added each volume or poorly written with characters yelling at each other in non-sensical ways.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness travelled along with me, but technically I didn’t read it on vacation. I have read it before and intended a second read, but my obsession with the Darren Shan books got in the way. The main character of this book is a young boy, so it has been labelled as “young adult fiction” when the truth is that adults can enjoy and appreciate it. It takes on chaos, family dynamics, and death – some serious issues. It is an unpredictable story and told in a very creative way. It has won awards for both the text and the illustrations. This is a highly recommended read, in my opinion.

Travelling via Books

I’ll be taking another three weeks of vacation in August, but we’ll be staying home. My plan is to travel by reading. I’m looking to select a few titles for my book vacation. If you have a specific title you can recommend, please post it in a comment. I’m looking to travel to other countries, cultures, times, or planets via fiction or non-fiction.

EAFOL Day Two & Three

Posted by Kanga.

Darren Shan read sections of both his older works and not yet published works. It’s interesting to watch a round faced, cherry cheeked man read about zombies eating brains.

Dubai area poets, The Poeticians, read their own works. Hisham Wyne’s experimental piece required audience assistance so that his hands would be free (for his harmonica).

The youngest Poetician, Farah Chamma,  wrote and read the most powerful pieces.

David Almond read from his new novel The True Tale of the Monster, Billy Dean. It is written phonetically, which I think I would find very frustrating to read. It was easy enough to listen to, though.

Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham are a husband and wife writing team. She does the research and comes up with story ideas. He is the wordsmith. Their recent book, The Cloud Tea Monkeys (which I mentioned in the previous post) was illustrated by Juan Wijngaard, a painter of Portugese/Dutch decent who lives in the US. They spoke about their writing process as well as the contribution of the illustrations. They also shared another book that will be published later this year.

Emirates Airline Festival of Literature

Posted by Kanga.

This weekend is the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai. We will be dropping in each day. Here is day one:

Qais Sedki, author of Gold Ring, was interviewed by Hisham Wyne. Qais took his love for reading, his love of manga, and his love of the Arabic language and put them all together in the first Arabic manga series. Two volumes are available in Arabic and volume one has just been released in English. Qais is also interested in animation of the story, but he doesn’t want an animated form to keep people from reading the story. This is also the reason for delaying the English version. He wants people to read in Arabic. It is great to see such a strong advocate for reading. We first met Qais at last year’s EAFOL and have enjoyed getting to know him. I hope to have him speak to my students soon and share his love of reading. I hope it is contagious.

Dubai Abdulla Abulhoul is the sixteen year old author of Galagolia. It is a fantasy novel that she has been working on for years. I’ve only read the first chapter, so can’t give an evaluation, yet. Dubai is a spunky girl.

Kinokuniya Book World is providing the book sales for the festival this year and the selection is great. We purchased several wonderful books (and one dud).

The Pearl Diver by Julia Johnson, illustrated by Patricia Al Fakhri – a picture book about traditional pearl diving. This is wonderful and I will be using it with my students soon. In fact, I plan to buy a class set. (ISBN 97819067688881)

My Own Special Way by Maitha Al Khayyat (spelled Mithaa Alkhayyat on the book) illustrated by Maya Fidawi, translated by Fatima Sharafeddini – a early reader chapter book about a young girl’s struggle to find her own style. Really sweet illustrations and story. Unfortunately, I don’t think my male students would find it of interest, but girls will eat this up. (ISBN 9781444003208)

The Arabian Nights by Wafa’ Tarnowska, illustrated by Carole Henaff – A retelling of the classic Arabian tales of Shahrazade. I’m looking forward to reading this one and hope that it will be one that I can share with students. It won the Smithsonian Notable Books for Children Award 2010.

Bride’s Story v.1 by Kaoru Mori – a graphic novel set in 19th century Mongolia. I have developed a fascination with Mongolia after reading Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, so I couldn’t resist this one.

Cloud Tea Monkeys by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham, illustrated by Juan Wijngaard – a picture book. I haven’t read it, yet, but the illustrations are amazing. (ISBN 9781406333862)

Saluki: Hound of the Bedouin by Julia Johnson, illustrated by Susan Keeble – a picture book about, you guessed it, saluki dogs. I haven’t read this, yet, but after reading The Pearl Diver I expect this one to be well researched and written, as well. (ISBN 9781906768904)

Now for the dud:
Here Comes the Poo Bus! by Andy Stanton, illustrations by Noelle Davies-Brock – a picture book about poo. Being a classy, sophisticated person, I can’t pass up a book about poo, but I should have stopped to read it before purchase. There is no real purpose to this book other than to say “poo bus” multiple times while reading aloud. The “poetry” is inconsistent, switching from ABCB to ABAB and back, with some missing syllables here and there making for a lack of rhythm. I used to have a collection of awful children’s books. I would have added this one.

Why librarians don’t sit around and read books

Posted by Kanga.

I had one of THOSE conversations with a good friend last weekend. “If you don’t read books all day, what does a librarian do?” Every librarian has had this conversation multiple times.

So, this has not been a typical week, but I am going to describe it for you so that you will know why librarians are not sitting around reading books all day.

Sunday (first day of the work week in the Muslim world):

• Late shift, came in at 10 am, worked until 8 pm
• One hour – new student orientation to the library
• One hour – collection analysis, comparing the titles in our collection to a recommended core collection (percentage is too low, need to order a lot of core titles)
• Meeting with other library staff to discuss how the first session of student orientations went
• Lunch – yes, for my health I insist on actually taking a break and eating something
• One hour – reference desk = being available to answer any questions people have and help them use library equipment (photocopier, scanner, computer)
• One & half hours – preparation for instruction sessions I will be doing Monday & Tuesday evenings
• Rest of the “day” until 8 pm – “manned” the circulation desk, sole library staff person on duty

Monday:

• In one hour late, because I am staying late to provide instruction to an evening class
• Four hours on the reference desk – photocopier help, etc.
• One hour – new student orientation
• Lunch
• Administrative tasks – trying to catch up on paperwork, follow up on tasks that have cropped up, responding to faculty requests, scheduling instruction sessions, etc.
• Instruction session for a class – teaching them information literacy in preparation for a major research paper they will be doing

Tuesday:

• Three & half hours – proctoring an English proficiency test
• Lunch – totally starving because I missed breakfast
• One hour – new student orientation
• Three hours – reference desk
• Instruction session, just like the one the night before

Wednesday

• Administrative tasks – trying to keep up with my email and paperwork
• Collecting together all our policy documents related to “collection development” = selecting, ordering, receiving, and withdrawing library materials (On another day, I will read all these, edit, and add to these documents.)
• One & half hour – attend a class to see students give their first presentations in front of the class and to talk about blogging.
• Lunch & run to the bank
• Responding to emails and following up on some requests, trying to keep my head above water
• Meeting with another staff member to revise some documentation on our process for ordering books from vendors like Amazon
• New student orientation
• “Manning” the circulation desk so that the assistants can be free to do other end of day tasks

Thursday: (tomorrow, so this is speculative)

• Library staff meeting – one hour
• New student orientation – one hour
• Reference desk – two hours
• Lunch
• Meeting about donating withdrawn books to another library
• Meeting with another librarian to draft proposals for a change in how we do some of our tasks in hope of freeing up some time

Now, I do have to admit that I did check out a book. It is a book on how to build a core library collection, so not an exciting read. I’ve managed to read about one page. I did pick up another book. This was during a orientation session time slot. I was waiting for students to arrive and wandered into the biography section, discovering that we have a biography of Yul Brynner written by his son. So, I looked at all the pictures, read the captions and read about one page of the first chapter while waiting. I also did some reading while proctoring the test, but it was mostly Twitter on my iPad.

So, there you have it. This is what those strange non-reading librarians are up to.

Summer

Posted by Kanga.

Well, my summer plans were looking something like this: read a lot, sew a lot, laugh at the cats antics a lot, watch a lot of Bollywood movies and go outside as little as possible. I was also going to do a lot of blogging – book reviews, movie reviews, cat antics and get caught up on the wacky toys videos. I was also going to get brave and explore some social issues that have been in the press lately.

However, on the 30th of June, I turn in my work laptop computer which is in great need of some maintenance work, and will not have it again until I return to work at the end of August. I expected to have a MacBook Pro before this, but that has not worked out. So, blogging is not to be. I will still be reading, sewing, laughing, etc., but any writing I do will be in a paper journal which only I will be likely to ever read. I will still be on Twitter, Facebook and email, because my iPod Touch is very useful for those things, but typing more than a few words is not practical, and loading pictures, forget about it.

We are not travelling anywhere exotic this summer, so maybe no blogging is not such a big deal. We are each travelling to the States at different times and to different destinations. This tag team travelling allows for the cats to be cared for without having to enlist a cat sitter and should be far less exhausting than last years 7 week odyssey.

I will endeavor to get caught up on some not yet posted pictures before June 30th. I’m sad that I won’t be able to take advantage of my time off to do more in depth writing.