Makerblog: Evolution of a yarnbombing tag

Summer of Peace and Charter for Compassion in #LakeCountyCA: celebration in #yarnbombing. Pics atfacebook.com/yarn.bombing.a… twitter.com/CynthiaParkhil…
— Cynthia Parkhill (@CynthiaParkhill) March 11, 2012

A multimedia tag for the main branch of the Lake County library is my most ambitious yarnbombing tag to date, embarked upon to honor the Summer of Peace and the Charter for Compassion in the County of Lake.

In keeping with my emphasis upon Yarn Bombing @ Your Library, the tag was attached to the peace pole at the Lakeport library. The story of its assembly is highlighted in social media and curated with Storify.

YA book blog: Hungry by Alethea Eason

Book cover: Hungry by Alethea Eason

Upon learning of my YA book blog project for my Cuesta College course in connecting adolescents with literature and libraries, Middletown Library director Gehlen Palmer recommended Hungry by Alethea Eason (HarperCollins Publishers, 2007).

Deborah and her parents are aliens masquerading as human, living on Earth as part of a planned invasion. They exist by once-a-year killing and feeding upon humans’ “essence.”

At the story’s beginning Deborah partakes of anonymous fare provided by her parents. Deborah is horrified when her parents demand that she eat her best friend, a human named Willy, to prove her maturity.

In spite of its science fiction trappings, I see this story similar in many ways to others depicting inter-generational conflict between members of immigrant families. The parents cling to the traditions that define their culture while the child wants to be a part of the dominant society.

I think teens will enjoy and be able to relate to the conflicts faced by Deborah: having her own ideas about what is right, becoming aware and acting on them but not wanting to disappoint her parents.

Gary Dickson departs Record-Bee

You’re a really good person, Gary. I look up to and respect you. From Lake County Record-Bee publisher Gary Dickson’s farewell column for the Record-Bee: “My dad is suffering from terminal cancer and I am heading back to Wichita, Kan. to be there with him and for him.”

Originally posted to Facebook

TED News live-Tweets Susan Cain presentation

Curated in Storify: Susan Cain, author of “Quiet: The Power of Introverts,” makes a presentation during Technology Entertainment Design 2012.

YA author profile: Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan’s first Young Adult novel, The Lightning Thief, debuted in 2005. According to New York Times reviewer Polly Shulman, the book casts its hero in the “Harry Potter” model: “an ordinary boy who at first seems set apart from his peers, not by any special talent but by his painful home life and his difficulties fitting in.”

Percy, or Perseus, Jackson learns he is the half-human offspring of a Greek god and mortal. He is brought to Camp Half-Blood, where he meets demigods like himself. An oracle’s warning sends him and campmates on a quest to retrieve the god Zeus’s stolen lightning bolt. The quest takes the teens to various locales around the United States.

Riordan works full-time as a freelance writer (Gale). He worked as a middle school English teacher from 1990 to 1998 and lives with his wife and two sons in San Antonio, Texas. Reviewer Bob Minzesheimer, in his review for USA Today, states that “Riordan, a former teacher, blends page-turning action with mini-lessons in mythology and history.”

Riordan has been honored both as teacher and as writer: he was given the Master Teacher Award by Saint Mary’s Hall in 2002 and inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2003 (Gale). The Lightning Thief was a New York Times Notable Book for 2005 and in 2011 the Children’s Book Council honored both Riordan and his book The Red Pyramid with Author of the Year and Book of the Year for Fifth to Sixth Grade respectively (Gale).