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Summer Reading At The Library

Summer reading programs are a big focus for libraries at this time of year.  I have to admit that I am not good about keeping track of my kids’ fifteen minute increments  (this is how our library tracks summer reading) probably because they spend SO MUCH time with books. But not everyone spends hours poring over Halloween cookbooks (my son demanded we go to the library today with some urgency so he could check out their copy of Ghoulish Goodies again) and Dr. Seuss. Either way, summer reading is a great excuse to read with your kids (even if it’s a recipe for Mummy Dogs or Spiderweb Cupcakes).

Here at MonsterLibrarian.com we thought we’d recognize some of the libraries that have linked to us as a resource. Clearly they have exceptional librarians if they’ve recognized the importance of providing readers advisory in horror fiction. And they also have summer reading programs.

The Rochester Public Library has summer reading programs for both kids and teens (the teen program starts today). I LOVE the theme for the kids’ summer reading program- “One World, Many Stories”. How cool is that?

The Inola Public Library doesn’t appear to have a summer reading program, but I read the history of the library, and it was a grassroots effort(started by the Inola Homemakers’ Extension Club) to establish it. I can only say that I think the people of Inola, Oklahoma rock.

The Lorain Public Library System has a summer reading program that makes me wish I were a teen in Lorain, Ohio. Teens can actually enter a drawing for a Sony Pocket reader! In addition to programs for kids and teens, there is also an adult summer reading program that runs through August 6. I don’t know why this information is so carefully hidden- I couldn’t even discover the theme of the program. Go sign up.

Morton Grove Public Library puts information about their summer reading program right there on their homepage. Way to go, guys! They also are using the “One World, Many Stories” theme, and have programs for kids, teens and adults.

St. Charles City-County Library District is also using the “One World, Many Stories” theme for their children’s program and the theme “You Are Here” for their teen program. You can access information about the programs from their homepage, but you’ll have to sit through a little slideshow of upcoming programs to get to it.

I think this “One World, Many Stories” theme is so great! It sure beats the summer reading theme at our local library, “Sit! Stay! Read!” Go sign up for summer reading at your own library today!

Posted on June 12, 2011 by , Reply

Vampires: The New All American Hero?

I was excited to see that the American Library Association had published a new readers advisory guide, Fang-tastic Fiction, with the subtitle “Twenty-First Century Paranormal Fiction”. It’s not often that a professional readers advisory guide appears that supports the librarians and readers who use our site (kind of- the author, Patricia O’Brien-Matthews, attempts immediately to remove the horror genre from her definition of paranormal fiction- but that’s not as easy as it sounds).

I’ll try to do a complete review of the book soon, but something she said in her introduction really jarred me. She wrote that vampires have “all the traits of the all-American hero”. What?

To put it in context, she’s writing about the transition of vampires from monsters to sympathetic leading characters. She attributes the change to the Twilight books and Anita Blake series, but I think that’s a stretch. Would you really pair Edward or Jean-Claude with Mom and apple pie? Deborah Wilson Overstreet was writing about this evolution before Twilight was even published, in her book Not Your Mother’s Vampire (Twilight came out in the fall of 2005, and Overstreet’s book was published shortly afterwards, in 2006, so it doesn’t mention Twilight), and she described the new, more sympathetic vampire as the “postmodern vampire”, which I think is a more accurate description. The postmodern vampire owes a lot to the media and literary franchise created by Joss Whedon, called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He (usually he) is more angsty, more likely to land a human soulmate, and may be a little more public- heck, he may be working towards redemption- but he isn’t any less a monster. A sympathetic character, perhaps, but what makes them sexy is the danger. Not the sparkles.

Of course, there are differences between the scholarly book Overstreet produced in the pre-Twilight days and O’Brien-Matthews’ guide to readers’ advisory for practicing librarians looking for immediate references. O’Brien-Matthews isn’t doing critical literary analysis- that would be WAY outside the scope of her book, which still has to cover an extremely broad field of literature for some very busy people. But all-American hero? Isn’t it enough to be a sympathetic protagonist in the world of the book?

Posted on May 5, 2011 by , Reply

The Walking Dead and Your Zombie Collection

In case you might have missed it, zombies have been the monster du jour for the past several years. They have been shambling their way through horror movies, video games, books, and graphic novels. They have even can be found in other genres such as paranormal romance (who knew!). The TV station American Movie Classics (AMC) has brought the graphic novel The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman to the little screen. With high production values, the show has become popular. What does this mean for libraries? We here at Monster Librarian feel that the different media that horror that the genre is found in provides an excellent opportunity to promote leisure reading by tying books to other media, like tv shows, movies, and video games, being promoted in mass media. There have been a plethora of zombie titles that have come out in the past few years, and this is a great time to put some on display!

Some notable titles we suggest for library collections:

Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead edited by John Skipp

Dying to Live and Dying to Live: Life Sentence by Kim Paffenroth

Dead Sea by Brian Keene

Day by Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne

World War Z; An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brook

Bits of the Dead by Keith Gouveia

History is Dead by Kim Paffenroth

The World is Dead edited by Kim Paffernoth

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now With Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks

Happy reading!

Posted on December 13, 2010 by , Reply
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