Doll Lust

Our newest addition is slowly revealing herself to us. Her name is Miss Pearl Sparrow and she is the librarian on my Our floating bookmobile!

Pearl (as she will be commonly known) is a combination of both Miss Sparrow, the delightful librarian in Maud Hart Lovelace's Deep Valley books, and real-life librarian Nancy Pearl. 

Nancy Pearl (born Jan. 12, 1945) is an American librarian, best-selling author, and literary critic. She achieved broader fame with Book Lust, her 2003 guide to good reading. She is also the author of a novel and a memoir.

Our Pearl is a quiet, bookish 9-year-old girl. She wears glasses (like Me!), and adores clothing that is inspired by books. You should have seen her eyes light up when she saw the two Nancy Drew dresses (with book cover aprons!) and Paddington Bear outfit that survived the fire!

Pearl's two great ambitions in life are to grow up to be a children's librarian, AND become the inspiration for a Librarian Action Figure by Archee McPhee. 

Pearl is busy dusting and cleaning Our Library. Our books suffered extensive smoke and water damage during the fire and she has plenty of work to do. 

She has Tasked Me with finding a new bookcase. Our former bookcase was an empty whiskey gift box that formerly held three bottles in a former life. It made a great bookcase when it was on its side, so Momma and I need to find another, or maybe a wooden teabag display case.

Any ideas?

She Who Must Be Named

Please Pardon my Excitement, but look at what Who Momma found at Goodwill today after dropping off a bunch of stuff! And she was only $9.99!!

Momma has not found an American Girl doll at Goodwill in 10 years. The other, Goodwill Molly, melted in the fire. This one is in better shape and came with all her clothes and a box!

At first Momma thought she had gray eyes, but decided they were blue upon further inspection. 

Currently sold as American Girl Just Like Me #23, she features:

• Classic Face Mold
• Light Skin
• Freckles
• Straight Brows
• Light Brown Hair with highlights and a Left side-part
• Light Blue Spiral Eyes

Now, what shall we call her? Who, or what, shall she be? Inquiring minds most definitely want to know!

Any suggestions?

Bluestocking? No. Blackstocking? Yes!

Inquiring minds have been asking about the status of my library in the sky.

So far I have mini copies of:

• Meet Kaya
• Meet Felicity
• Felicity's Surprise
• Very Funny, Elizabeth
• Meet Caroline
• Meet Josefina
• Josefina's Surprise
• Meet Kirsten
• Kirsten's Surprise
• Meet Marie-Grace
• Meet Cécile
• Meet Addy
• Addy's Surprise
• Meet Samantha
• Samantha's Surprise
• Nellie's Promise
• Meet Rebecca
• Meet Kit
• Really Truly Ruthie
• Meet Molly
• Molly's Surprise
• Brave Emily
• Meet Julie

I also have nice little copies of:

• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• A Christmas Carol
• Horton Hears a Who
• It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
• Mother Goose in Hieroglyphics
• The Night Before Christmas
• Olivia Saves the Circus
• Peter Parley’s Book of Fables
• The Quest of the Missing Map
• Robin Hood
• The Tales of Peter Rabbit
• The Wizard of Oz
• Woodworth's Cabinet Library

Please let me know if you have any mini suggestions - or donations!

Meeting McKenna

Meet McKenna Brooks, American Girl's 2012 Girl of the Year! She's a determined girl who uses her strengths to turn challenges into triumphs. McKenna is 18 inches tall, with brilliant blue eyes that open and close. She has long, caramel-colored hair that can be pulled high for gymnastics practice, or styled up in twists for a fancy occasion. 

Balancing school and sports is a challenge for McKenna Brooks as she enters fourth grade. When she struggles with reading, she must find a way to keep up. Can McKenna use her strengths as a gymnast to succeed in the classroom, too?

I somehow doubt McKenna and I shall become close friends since I don't see myself doing gymnastics, but I shall do everything in my power to encourage her (and everyone else) to read!

(Men's gymnastics competition was popular enough to be included in the first "modern" Olympic Games in 1896, but the first women's Olympic competition was not held until the 1928 Games in Amsterdam.)

And speaking of reading, her bed comes with three great books:

• Judy Moody by Megan McDonald
• Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
• Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion

Just what I need for my floating bookmobile!

It was a dark and stormy night....

WARNING: Do not read if you can't accept silliness in its proper context.

I know it's not Talk Like a Pirate Day anymore, but I believe I have found a series o' 10 books (for now) t' include in me floatin' bookmobile.

Oops, sorry.

The Liturgical Mysteries by Mark Schweizer. Have you read them?

Li-tur-gi-cal mys-te-ry n.

1. A religious truth that is incomprehensible to reason and knowable only through divine revelation.
2. Any one of a series of absurd novels featuring choir-director/detective Hayden Konig.

I had never heard of them until a friend (He Who Shall Remain Nameless) shared with me The Pirate Eucharist - from the fourth book, The Soprano Wore Falsettos.

I mean, who can resist this:

Arr Father in heaven, hallow’d be yar Name, yar kingdom come, yar will be done, on arth as in heaven. Give us today arr daily ration. Fergive us arr sins as we fergive those scurvy dogs who sneak up behind us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Far thine be the kingdom, and the pow’r, and the glory, farever and ever. Aye, aye.

You can even hear an excerpt HERE.

Just the fact that Schweizer has had the distinction of receiving a Dishonorable Mention in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest makes me a fan!

Being proper I shall start with the first, The Alto Wore Tweed. I'll let you know how it goes.

Free people read freely

I don't know about you, but I plan to dedicate my week reading extra banned books.

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

For more information on getting involved with Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read, please see Calendar of Events, Ideas and Resources, and the new Banned Books Week site. You can also contact the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 4220, or bbw@ala.org.

Banned Books Week 2011 will be held Sept. 24 - Oct. 1.

Keep calm and read on

Clinton Corners, N.Y.

I read about The Most Wonderful Library this weekend, and if Miss Sparrow and I weren't so firmly committed to our floating bookmobile I'd make one myself!

A TARDIS* library! (Well, sort of.)

It's actually a recycled K8 English Telephone Box in Clinton Corners, N.Y.

The good citizens of Clinton Corners got an old Telephone Box, installed shelves and put in a light powered by a solar panel.

Coed-y-Paen, Wales

Northumberland

I have since discovered they got the idea from a similar library in Coed-y-Paen, Wales (but a scoundrel stole all its books!), and a Northumberland Telephone box contains a heart defibrillator!

Now that's what I call living green! 

The very thought of a TARDIS library makes my heart palpitate. (It's a good thing the one Telephone Box has a defibrillator in it!) Just think how I could save banned books!

*A TARDIS is a time machine and spacecraft in the shape of a 1960s-style London police box in television's Doctor Who.

O Captain! my Captain!

Sam expressed interest is seeing my "newfangled" airship, The Enterprise, so I arranged for a private tour.

Not that it's hard when you're the Captain.

She was surprised that the blueprints were in German but I reminded her that I met Ferdinand von Zeppelin in 1863 when he acted as an observer for the Union Army Balloon Corps during the American Civil War.

I like to think I helped spur his interest in dirigibles and flight, so when I asked for my own little zeppelin he was happy to oblige. 

Sam, Ruth, and Josefina Ester seem impressed with my floating bookmobile. Sam wants to know if I can fly them (including Uncle Gard) back home to New York once they're ready to leave the World's Fair.

I don't know if she'll be so eager once she finds out how cold it can get up there....

My smelling salts again, please

This time I think I truly shall swoon.

Porter Grand, the co-author of my aforementioned Little Women and Werewolves, has put her stamp of approval on My bookmobile flag!

I am off to find more books for the "fiercest of book collections." 

Any recommendations? 

Under the brave black flag I fly

Miss Sparrow liked My flag idea but gave me a couple of suggestions.

So here we have it!

Do you think this is a Worthy Flag for the first floating bookmobile?

Now, to find Betsy Ross....

Come Josefina, in my flying machine

Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

I think this New Business Venture has gone to My Dear Miss Sparrow's head.

I walked into the library today to show her my idea for our floating bookmobile's flag and found her humming this song: 

Oh! Say! Let us fly, dear
Where, kid? To the sky, dear
Oh you flying machine
Jump in, Miss Josephine
Ship ahoy! Oh joy, what a feeling
Where, boy? In the ceiling
Ho, High, Hoopla we fly
To the sky so high

Come Josephine in my flying machine
Going up she goes! Up she goes!
Balance yourself like a bird on a beam
In the air she goes! There she goes!
Up, up, a little bit higher
Oh! My! The moon is on fire
Come Josephine in my flying machine
Going up, all on, Goodbye!

Alfred Bryan / Fred Fischer, 1910

Hmm, I wonder if she'd like to be addressed as Josefina?

She had a cozy little face,with half a dozen tiny moles. Her eyes were black and dancing. Her hair was black too, curly and untidy.

The great library in the sky

Miss Sparrow (the librarian) is a Genius.

It turns out her ancestor is Captain Jack Sparrow - she's a Little Vague as to just how long ago.

However, I was telling her about My desire to be an Air Pirate and she told Me that being a pirate isn't as glamorous as many think.

But then she confided that she was getting bored with life as a small town librarian.

So we started laughing about where do librarians go when they retire.

And. It. Hit. Us.

The Great Library in the Sky.

Yes, we shall start the first floating bookmobile.

My piloting skills plus her librarian skills shall lead us to Boldly Go Where No Library Has Gone Before.

Stay tuned for developments....