Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Library Student True Confessions

One of the listservs that I follow is the ALA-YALSA listserv, which is a part of ALA that deals with young adult services.  The most recent viral thread is confessing love or distaste for books that librarians are supposed to love or despise.  It has been hilarious and eye-opening.  It prompted me to do my own true confessions.  As is my custom, I did this in a list.  I would love to hear any response to this and to what your true confessions are about books and libraries.  You don't have to be a librarian or library student to answer, just a book lover.

Shannan's True Library Student Confessions

1.  I don't like cats.  I am horribly allergic to certain types of cat hair and I must have Benadryl handy.  Besides, cats look at you like they can see your soul.  It kinda creeps me out.

2.  I have never read any Twilight or Hunger Games books.  I don't like trilogies.  The master of dystopia is George Orwell and the master of fantasy is Ray Bradbury.

3.  The classics mostly bore me.  When I was about 8, my mom bought me a set of classics that were sort of adapted for a child's understanding.  They were great!  That's how I read "The Count of Monte Cristo", "Treasure Island", and piqued my lifelong love affair with "Little Women."  However, when I got to high school and was expected to read the real ones, I was bored out of my skull.  Kids don't learn to love reading from classics.  They learn to love reading from Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume.  

3.a.  Books that everyone should at least read once:
Little Women, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Long Dream (a little known Richard Wright - brilliant), Invisible Man (Ellison), Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe), Jane Eyre and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Original, not bastardized version, please).
3.b.  Books I hope to never have to pick up again:
The Sound and the Fury, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Heart of Darkness, Catch-22, Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter.

4.  I am more Bronte than Austen. When I was 9, my dad offered 3 months of "Right On" magazine if I read "Jane Eyre." Hey, it sounded like a good idea in 1979 and so I went for it.  Best line in all of literature:  "Reader, I married him.   I have been to the Bronte sisters childhood home in England.  It really is Wuthering Heights!! 

5.  I adore Southern writers, being Southern myself, but I cannot abide Faulkner.  I love Welty, Percy, Lee, Capote, Flagg, Toole and Andrews, but I just can't deal with Wild Bill.

6.  Hemingway is largely unreadable.  This dude is majorly overrated.  "The Old Man and the Sea?"  AAARGHH.

7.  Unless I am in a movie, I am not standing in line for hours on opening night to pay for a ticket to the midnight showing.  (See Twilight and Hunger Games referenced above).

8.  I love everything Alice Walker has ever written, especially her short stories and short novels (Meridian should be required reading for every girl going to college), but I have tried to read The Temple of My Familiar about 12 times and I can't get past the first chapter.  

9.  I have tried to read "The Hobbit"and I just don't get it.  I really love The Chronicles of Narnia, however.  My dad bought me the boxed set when I was a kid.  (Yeah, I had amazing parents).  

10.  I freely admit to my addiction to Danielle Steel and Jackie Collins.  I can't tell you anything about the Dark Ages, because I was sitting in the back of my 10th grade World History class reading "Lucky."

11.  The appeal of manga, anime and most graphic novels totally escapes me.  

There, AAAAAAHHHHHHH.  Off my chest.  What are your true confessions?

4 comments:

  1. I completely, totally, without reservation, unequivocally agree with your assessment of Hemingway. Terrible! (Are we somehow exposing our lack of literary sophistication??) However, I am not opposed to a trip to Key West to explore the man's aura :)

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    1. I think a trip to Key West would be totally appropriate to support reader's advisory!

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