A light-filled library in Minneapolis

Hennepin County Library's Central Library in downtown Minneapolis is quite new (2006) and impeccably planned. Filled with light, it's an inviting and gorgeous building with plenty of comfy places to sit.

The children's area is absolutely amazing, filled with places to study, read, and play. The teen section is quite small but popular - the teen librarian told me that the snack vending machines, and in fact all the features in the teen room, were a direct result of the input of more than 150 teens who took part in the planning process.

Hennepin County Library has a website that makes me envious - check out their "birth to six" section.

Review of Ever Breath by Julianna Baggott

Baggott, Julianna. Ever Breath. Random House, 2009.

I wasn't hooked by the Anbodies trilogy, written by Baggott under the name N.E. Bode, but her Prince of Fenway Park was fresh and unusual, so I turned to The Ever Breath with great anticipation.

Long, long ago, the world was inhabited by all sorts of folks and creatures, magical and mundane, before it was split into two worlds. Our world is the Fixed World, a place of no magic but whose creativity and imagination derive from our proximity with the Breath World, where all the magical creatures live. The worlds are connected by the Ever Breath, which resides in a passageway and has been guarded since time immemorial by a special family with ties to both worlds.

Twins Truman and Camille learn that they are members of this family when the Ever Breath is stolen and things on both sides of the passageway begin to fall apart. And if the passageway is severed completely, both worlds will begin to die. Truman and Camille journey to Breath World, where they must help a desperate group of revolutionaries find the Ever Breath before it's too late.

Anyone who has traveled in a very foreign land will appreciate Truman's disorientation as he puzzles over the strange food, customs, politics, and history of Breath World, details that are fluently relayed in a way that made me believe in this complex society and want to know more about its people. Mewlers, locust fairies, talking mice, people with horns - Breath World teems with unusual folks who get along with one another or don't. And all is not well by any means, as the Office of Official Affairs uses fear and intimidation to rule its people. Its slogan - "Us versus Them! The difference is simple!"

The first part of the book, before the twins get to Breath World, is a bit too long, and the last part is a whirlwind, too-quick effort to get the Ever Breath back, revealing a master villain who is a bit of a disappointment. In-between, however, the story is fascinating - and there is bound to be a sequel exploring more of the magical Breath World.

Recommended for fantasy fans who enjoy tales of magical worlds connected to ours, such as the Chronicles of Narnia.

The Underground Library

To get to the Walker Branch of the Hennepin County Library, you have to go underground - which makes it feel like a cozy mole hole when the temperature is 15 degrees, as it was today when I visited Walker.

Steve Lopez on Susan Patron

One of my favorite LA Times columnists writes about one of my favorite writers, our own Susan Patron.

Review of Clover Twig and the Magical Cottage by Kaye Umanskya

Umansky, Kaye. Clover Twig and the Magical Cottage. Roaring Brook Press, 2009.

Some heroines are bold and fearless, some are sweet and good - and some, like Clover Twig, simply like to keep things clean and orderly. Ten-year-old Clover's superb cleaning and organizational skills get her a well-paying housekeeping job with Mrs. Eckles, the gruffly kind but breathtakingly messy village witch. A perquisite of the job is her own little bedroom in the cottage's loft, a fine change of pace from Clover's slightly squalid and very overcrowded home, but a drawback is Mrs. Eckles' nasty witch sister Mesmeranza, who manages to steal the cottage and all its contents, including Clover, young Wilf the delivery boy, and Mrs. Eckles' huge and mangy cat Neville.

Clover doesn't wrest back the cottage or vanquish Mesmeranza (those feats belong to Neville and Mrs. Eckles' grandmother, respectively), but her common sense, love of order, and a dose of stubbornness do serve to counter the goofiness, ineptness, irrationality, and messiness of all the other characters - demonstrating that those fine qualities possessed in abundance by (for instance) many librarians can save the day.

This is a charming story that takes fairy tale staples like the plucky peasant girl and the witch's cottage in the woods and uses a whimsical and slightly dry humor to create a fresh and entertaining fantasy. Mrs. Eckles' love and admiration for Neville (who exudes both an appalling stench and a huge personality), Mesmeranza's fascination with footwear, her prison guard's doomed love for her allergic cat-obsessed secretary, Wilf's clumsiness, and Clover's mania for tidiness are all entertaining. At one point, Mrs. Eckles suggests that Clover, to pass the time, should take a potion that causes her to go berserk and make a huge mess. "The effects only lasts an hour. Then you goes back to normal and cleans up. You'd enjoy that part," she adds drily.

Recommended as a light and diverting fantasy for grades 3 - 5.

Climate shock

On Thursday, I went from 72 degree weather in Venice to a winter wonderland in Minneapolis. I love my town, but there is something to be said for tubing downhill on a snowy night - over and over and over.
Having to haul on gloves, hat, scarf, coat, and boots every time I go outside means I've been spending lots of time inside eating and reading; I finished and reviewed Drizzle by Kathleen Van Cleve for School Library Journal, the description of which alone had my niece and nephew arguing about who got to read the ARC first, and now I'm reading the most excellent Incarceron by Catherine Fisher, due out in January.

Leftover Christmas cookies, family, snow, and a tall stack of books. Life is good.

Books, kids, and videos - a fine combination

Storytubes is an annual contest in which kids, alone or in groups, create very short videos highlighting a book or books. It's run by a group of library systems, but any child can enter.

This would be a really fun library program for school-aged kids. I can imagine it taking at least 2 sessions - one to explain the contest, show them videos of previous award-winners, and talk with them about what books they might want to booktalk. The next session would be the actual filming - an inexpensive Flip camera or any video camera would do. And then the videos could be uploaded to Storytubes, assuming the parents of each kid had signed the permission form.

For a good time, check out the 2009 Judge's Choice winners. My favorite is the winner of the Group category, grades K to 6, and their version of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.