Shelving is Therapy - and Why You Should Click to Give

I feel like a teen just sitting here at this little laptop in this little library. Sometimes I feel older than other kids I know, and right now it just feels good to be, like, your typical high-schooler pitter-pattering away on the laptop.

Although my mind is programmed as, "I should not be sitting here having fun on the computer. I need to work: shelve, check in, answer the phone." But Wednesday is not a storytime day - I am free to hang out. I'm so used to being here on Monday and Friday to help out.

Library work, I think, is therapeutic - checking books in has kind of a rhythm to it; and shelving, especially, requires a lot of concentration but very little brainpower. Perfectly soothing and steadying.

I think I'm starting miss it a bit. I definitely feel a prick of jealousy for the volunteer who is shelving now. I think she sort of has to do it, as, you know, a signed-up volunteer, rather than a walk-in one such as myself (Mondays and Fridays are not really walk-in days - I've been working at story hour for five years and am not about to stop this wonderful three hours a week!).

So anyway, Happy Earth Day. I'll repeat what I said on St. Patrick's Day - my blog is terribly green, is it not?

Please, please, please, please, in honor of Earth, will you Click to Give at The Rainforest Site? - http://therainforestsite.com. The more Clicks, the more money goes to conserving our pretty chattery creepy wet green forests. There are all sorts of organizations on the site - child health, literacy, animal rescue, breast cancer, and hunger - as well as the rainforest.

I make an effort to do it every day and woul be enormously grateful if you did, too. You can pick one, or do all of them. Or just a few. It's up to you.

~Emily

Parrotfish Vs. Luna

After I read "Parrotfish" by Ellen Wittlinger, I wondered why on earth people kept comparing it - often putting it down in the process - with another novel about transgendered teens, "Luna" by Julie Ann Peters. So I read "Luna" (though the first Julie Ann Peters book I read was "Between Mom and Jo" which pretty much rocked) and finished it yesterday.

And here are ...

Reasons to like "Parrotfish":

1. It's a riot.

2. It will stay with you because it's hilarious AND touching AND infuriating.

3. The main character's first-person narration is pretty much priceless. Grady. Rocks.

4. It gave Benjamin the idea to get me a bottle of organic peppermint shampoo for Christmas.

Reasons to like "Luna":

1. It's intense and fascinating.

2. It's really multifaceted.

3. It rips at your heart really hard. You know ... in a good way.

I can't help it. I think I like "Parrotfish" just a little bit more. But "Luna" will never leave my heart.

~Emily

P.S. I just started another Julie Ann Peters novel. It's called "Far From Xanadu." Methinks this Julie Ann Peters is a really marvelous writer.