Thank You....

I had planned to highlight military books this week to celebrate Veteran's Day next week. The tragedy yesterday at Fort Hood only highlights just how brave the men and women who dedicate their lives to protecting our freedoms truly are--and not just them but their families too. Mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and friends of our service personnel all make sacrifices in their lives that allow us to reap the benefits of our dedicated service men and women.

I seemed to have always lived in military towns/cities. Growing up, I lived by El Toro MCAS, Santa Ana Army Air Base (with the blimp hangers), Carswell AFB and Ellington AFB. My parents are very patriotic. My father tried to volunteer for Korea but he was turned away because of his extremely poor eyesight. Most of his friends enlisted. My grandfather was in the army in WWII. My mother didn't see her father until she was three or four. He did a lot of the nose art on the bombers in the European theater. Apparently there is a plane up in OK City at a museum that features his art work.

I think now more than ever we need to say thank you when we see a man or woman in uniform.

Here is the list of books I had planned on highlighting:

Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the US Army

Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, the Man who led the Band of Brothers

Tonight We Die As Men

The US Army's First Last and Only All Black Rangers

To Conquer Hell: The Meuse Argonne, 1918

Faces of World War I

World War II: The Definitive Visual History from the Blitzkrieg to the Atom Bomb

Fright Night

When I was a young teenager my best friend LOVED a good (or so bad it was good) slasher film. We would stay up late into the night watching them and I always got the creeps. The room where we watched the films had a wall of windows and french doors. I always felt like someone (or something) was peeping through those windows and doors.

With Halloween just around the corner, here are some movies that are NOT family friendly (unless you like having your kid insist on sleeping with you until he/she is 18!). So pop some popcorn, get some Blood Orange Italian Soda (available at Target), and sit back and scare yourself silly!

Friday the 13th series

Nightmare on Elm Street series

Saw series

The Grudge series (or the original Japanese films Ju-on and Ju-on 2)

The Butterfly Effect series

Final Destination series

Resident Evil series

Midnight Meat Train

Dias Salvajes (Savage Days)

I totally can't forget these classics:

Omen series

Amityville Horror (I LOVED this one)

Halloween series

The Exorcist series

Rosemary's Baby

Another one of my favorite horror films is called The Legacy. It used to play all the time as the late late movie when I was a teen. The scene where Roger Daltrey's character chokes on a chicken bone is burned into my memory bank!

We are Cheating Our Children of Their Birthright

I'm going to rabble rouse a bit. I was talking to a nice young man the other day in our media department and I said I was reading a book about Michael Curtiz. The young man was puzzled and I didn't blame him because the name Michael Curtiz isn't as well known as he ought to be even among those of my generation.

So I said with absolute confidence that I would see the light of assent or recognition in his eyes, "He's the one who directed Casablanca." What I got back was a blank stare. Then I said, "Ingrid Bergman?" And the stare grew ever blanker. I was afraid to say, "Humphrey Bogart?" It would have been just too devastating at that point to see another blank black hole of a stare.

So I explained to the young man that Casablanca is widely considered the most perfect movie ever made, that almost every man in the world fell in love with Ingrid Bergman while watching it and that it was studded with the most perfect, small character bits performed by the most perfect character actors for those roles, that its script was lean and wry and with not one wasted word. In short, I talked him into checking it out. He may or may not enjoy it, but I felt I did a good deed. And then I felt angry.

How could this have happened? Why are our children not exposed to our treasures of the cinema as they are the treasures of our literature? Why are they not incorporated into our school curriculum? Can you imagine showing Casablanca to a history class when teaching the lead up to WWII? (Oh, I did check out the possible copyright restrictions and found that while movies can't be shown as entertainment in class, they can be used in "face to face" instruction that supports the curriculum.)

Oh, I don't know. I suppose there are teachers out there who do try to introduce some classic films to their students in that way. Maybe what is really needed is a class dedicated to film on the high school level the way there are classes dedicated to literature or "English." Why not? Why not make a familiarity with Casablanca as important as a familiarity with Huckleberry Finn? Why not make introduction to the works of the great director John Ford as important as an introduction to the works of Hemingway?

If we don't do something along those lines we will continue to cheat our children of their birthright. I remember taking my little brother and sisters to a viewing of Michael Curtiz's The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn that a school was showing in its auditorium for free during the summer. It was an old movie even then but from the very first scene showing Errol Flynn (arguably one of the most splendid specimens of masculinity of his day) striding up defiantly to challenge King John and his entire court, the audience was swept away. Every kid should be able to see that, just for the joy of it.

You can call it Fall, but I like Autumn

I spent 9 years living in New England. My time there made Fall my favorite season. Orange is my favorite color so to have Mother Nature turn the everything orange, yellow and red bordered on perfection. There is nothing as beautiful as a tree in full color during a rain shower so the trunk is turned dark brown almost black by the rain making the leaves pop that much more. It is past peak leaf peeping season in New England. They have already had their first snowfall this year.

Here are some of my favorite children's books about Fall:

When Autumn Comes by Robert Maass

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

It's Fall by Linda Glaser

Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall

In the Woods: Who's Been Here by Lindsay Barrett George

Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington

Autumn Leaves by Ken Robbins

Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Besty Maestro

Of Migraines and Other Things

I woke up this morning and it was downhill from there. I won't go into gross detail, but at around 6 AM, I had an aura and I am not talking about the psychic phenom that some people claim to see surrounding all living things. No I am talking about the personal light show that I and other migraine sufferers get before the massive pain in the head actually strikes. Not all migraine sufferers get that early warning and I am sorry for that, because if they did they could do as I do and quick grab the medication that wards it off.

So by 7:30 AM I felt well enough, sort of, to come to work. Unfortunately, even narrowly missing a migraine leaves one (or at least me) feeling kind of punk, sort of stupid, logy and a bit nauseated. But as an alternative to the worst pain I ever have had to endure so far in my life, I'll take it.

I suppose now I should give a list of all the publications in the library that deal with migraine but darn it why should I? Are you guys lazy or what? It is about time YOU learned to use the library catalog, dagnabit!

Oh, did I mention that narrowly missing having excruciating pain also makes me irritable and jumpy? Well, now you know.

It was quiet when I got to work. I came in a bit early because well, when one is jumpy, irritable, sort of stupid and bit nauseated, one wants to have one's mind on other things. Now, carrying out routine tasks can be a good distraction but it doesn't really alleviate much and aside from the physical discomfort I must admit to also feeling depressed, maybe even sorry for myself. When I am in that mood, I walk. And this time, I walked into Youth (I really wish I could walk into youth having left mine far behind, but in this case I am talking about the Youth Department of the Central, Fort Worth Library).

And that is when I saw 13 year old Paris Milan's amazing butterfly collection. I stood entranced in front of these iridescent beauties, each one unique and utterly lovely. I found myself wishing that I could see them alive and flying and then I began to cry. And my depression lifted. I knew then that despite feeling logy, irritable and bit nauseated, I could still see beauty and be moved by it. That's worth knowing. Thank you Paris Milan.

And I also give thanks for The Fort Worth Library. I am proud that I work in a place that offers such resources for the restoration of the soul. Hey, I'll bet when you started to read this thing, you didn't think it would end up here, did you?

It Takes a Mighty Wind to Save a Village

Please pardon my incredibly poor attempt at humor with the title. I promise the entry is far more inspiring.

Remember the old School House Rock bit about how necessity was the mother of invention? It takes more than just necessity, it takes a very creative person to be an inventor. Not only do you need to be creative you have to have the courage to try and fail. Here in the Collection Management Department we received an advance copy of a book called The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind. I generally scan over all the nonfiction advance copies we get and this one really piqued my interest. It was about a boy in Africa who builds a windmill. In college most of the classes I took for my major were in international development so I have a passing interest about the Third World and development issues. It was getting good reviews so I ordered some for the library. But then I forgot all about it until I was watching KERA this past weekend. Right there on Think, Krys Boyd was interviewing William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, who served as an editor on the book.

William's story is truly inspiring. He lives with his family in Malawi a country in Africa that is surrounded by Tanzania, Zambia, and Mozambique. (You may recall that Madonna tried to adopt a child from there recently.) Malawi is a beautiful country with the Great Rift Valley running its length. William's family farmed for a living but didn't produce much beyond a subsistance level. This area was hit extremely hard by drought in 2000 and 2001. Kamkwamba was forced to stop attending school since his family did not have the funds to pay the school fees. But Kamkwamba did not turn his back on learning. He used his local library and one day saw a windmill in a textbook. That was all it took to spark this young man's imagination. At the age of 14 he set off to build a windmill that would change his family's and his village's fortunes for good. His windmill was built from pvc pipe and various found objects.

Kamkwamba has since built three windmills for his village which produce electricity for lights, radios, a TV, neighbors' cell phones, and water for household and field uses. But Kamkwamba doesn't want to stop with just his village. He envisions windmills all across Malawi bringing his fellow countrymen (and women) what they need most--electricity and water. Through these two things the people of Malawi can achieve food security for the long run--on their own.

I have to agree with Bryan Mealer that when so much of what we hear and read about Africa is filled with stories of genocide, kidnappings, bombings, famine and death, William Kamkwamba's story shines a truly bright light on all the good that is occuring on that vast and diverse continent.

Sticks and stones....

One of the best things about getting a new pet is coming up with a name for it. You can tell so much more about someone based on what his pets are named than their children’s names. Most often children’s names are based on family names or “safe” names that don’t engender teasing. You don’t have to worry about a pet being teased by other animals because of its name. Perhaps I’m assuming too much thinking that German shepherd Butch is not laughing at a bulldog named Fifi. Naaah….they are more interested in the who’s the top dog and what their nose it currently sniffing.

You can be so much more creative and humorous with pet names. You’ve got an endless supply of sources from favorite book characters, TV characters, songs and who knows what else.

Can you guess that a cat named Oreo was black on both ends and white in the middle or that a cat name Rocky Raccoon was gray with rings on its tail?

If you are a Science Fiction fan you will know where the cat names Ripley, Flinx and Kzin were derived.

From your childhood you might recognize one guinea pig’s name – Sam-I-Am; I-Am-Sam.

Any pop-culture fanatic should be able to tell you where the dogs Scully and Fox Mulder got their names.

The sky is the limit with pet names, but, in case you are not feeling particularly imaginative, the library has several books on naming pets that may be of help to you.


1000 Dog Names

1000 Cat Names


Don’t Call Me Rover




Best Pet Name Book Ever




If you are more inclined to going to the Internet for help there are several websites you can investigate. There are sites for cat names, dog names and pets in general.

Just say "no" to naming your cat Fluffy or your dog Spot.