Within the last decade, I have discovered a new hobby: cemetery walking which makes me a taphophile. This has taken me to many spots (though not yet international travel for it) around the area and in other states– it might be a quick stroll or it might be an early morning intensive. I’ve completed a cemetery crawl. I read books about them. And this past week, I finished a four week course on cemetery symbolism. Excitingly, I had signed up for the course before realizing that the book Grave from the series Object Lessons was written by the same person that would be running it. Needless to say, I knew I was going to nerd out. And nerd out I did.
And one cemetery that came up often in the discussions was Pere-Lachaise. It’s basically the mecca of cemeteries so imagine my excitement when I received a copy of the book The Secret Life of a Cemetery: The Wild Nature and Enchanting Lore of Pere-Lachaise by Benoit Gallot. This insightful mix of biography of Gallot’s residence inside Pere-Lachaise as an administrator (where he both works and raises his family on premises), cemetery history, and homage to the ecosystem that exists inside this one, and others, if you choose to see it. What started with a picture of a kit fox walking the grounds on his social media became the book about more than just the fox.
It’s a call to taphophiles like me to book travel to Paris and spend all my time walking the 110 acres.
I happened upon Kitt’s quote on social media a while back and immediately saved it both because I’m an avid cemetery walker, so the tombstone reference made me pause but also because as a human being (and likely ones of the reasons I love being a librarian) is that I get to learn every day. We should all strive to learn every day. It’s why librarians curate digital and print collections for others in order to share the joys of learning every day.
I trotted it out again yesterday after signing off on the first of four two-hour webinars I will attend this month. Within five minutes I was furiously taking notes and felt a warm, fuzzy feeling that lasted the entire two hours that this was money well-spent. The expert delivering the content was super knowledgeable and I was with like-minded individuals. The subject has been a hobby of mine for about a decade and I realize that the more I do it, the more I don’t know. So I sought out people who do know more to tell me what they know. And what’s more, she even provided additional materials on top of the wealth of resources she shared. I couldn’t have asked for a better use of my time and energy.
So, here is your permission if you need it to go out and learn something whether it’s free or costs money. Now more than ever, we need to find hobbies and interests that make us feel alive and challenged and connected to a community.
Years back, our high school library celebrated the national Free Comic Book Day on the Monday following the nationally-celebrated first Saturday in May event.
It began when a comic nerd named Jay was interning with a social worker at our school and asked about helping kick one off and it slowly grew from there. Even after he was gone, he would return to help whether bringing tabletop games, and ideas to introducing me to people in the field who could also contribute. He’s about bringing people together over comics and he writes about it in magazines and on websites like this 2022 article called Why Buying Your Kids More Comic Books Can Benefit Their Mental Health for Inside Hook.
Then the pandemic hit and like many events, it fell by the wayside until this year. We were going to be hosting Steve Sheinkin as our author visit about a month before Free Comic Book Day and I wanted to make the connection between his award-winning Bomb being turned into a graphic novel and his Rabbi Harvey comics to comics in general whether our high schoolers were already fans or not. It’s as much about exposure for a new group of comics lovers as it is a place to connect for tried-and-true comics lovers.
Jay again stepped up when I reached out because I had mentioned wanting to do a panel or have experts on hands during our lunch shifts. Then we’d have passive activities (and a few active ones) surrounding the learning.
I worked with my Japanese Culture Club to design the activities and then invited classes from departments like art to take part. They heeded the call and brought down classes to learn from our panelists who ranged from a comics shop owner to an illustrator of several graphic novels who I was surprised to learn was local. The others were collectors since childhood, an independent publisher of comics, and contributors to the comics field in other capacities. But more than that, the students sat down and decoupaged a coaster from old comics, worked on a Marvel puzzle, and helped add pages to our pop-up zine.
We’re happy that these moments were captured by professionals in our district’s Communications department and shared with the school community. The smiling faces holding comics. The serious focus while creating their art. The intense language of a gaming tournament after school. Even though it was a long day setting up and breaking down, soaking up their enthusiasm is what keeps all of us in education young.
You know what the trouble is with stunning books like Kate Messner’s The Trouble With Heroes that dropped yesterday?
It makes people like me stay up past my bedtime to finish it.
It’s been a few years since I decided to forgo sleep on a school night so that I could finish a book, but I do remember those books that compelled me to do so in years past: The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner, The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee, Murder Among Friends by Candace Fleming.
But back to Kate Messner’s mesmerizing middle grade with a little story about the full-circle moment of completing it ahead of the New York State Library Association’s School Librarians Conference happening in Rochester this week. Because last year at about this time, the conference was in Lake Placid and Kate Messner was the keynote closing lunchtime speaker on Saturday. Regaling the audience with stories about her curious discoveries that become series like the History Smashers, she talked about the project she launched with a stellar cast of authors– a series of chapters books called The Kids in Mrs. Z.’s class, and she shared mockups of the cover of the yet-to-be-released The Trouble with Heroes; she asked the librarians which cover we liked best. When I saw the advanced copy available on Netgalley, I quickly requested it, but I know myself. I know that when I’m really excited about a book, I (oppositely) avoid it as long as possible because then when it’s read, I can’t go back and read it for the first time. Ever. Again.
This is the case with The Trouble with Heroes. I had read a few pages about a week ago. I had already made notes to myself and highlighted moving quotes. And I told myself. I have to prolong it until I realized the publication date was April 29th and it has had so much buzz that I thought, I’m going to dive in. And that’s just what I did. How easy was it to get lost in Finn’s story– a seventh grader who makes a bad decision, but instead of a strict punishment, the adults around him know that he needs nature healing after the death of his father– a man who was forever memorialized as a hero on September 11th saving a woman. A man who was haunted by the demons of that day. Who then was a paramedic in the city for years including the recent pandemic. What a tough time to be in healthcare. Yet he always had the Adirondacks.
Astute readers know that Messner herself is a 46er, a person who has summited all 46 High Peaks of the Adirondack Mountains. It would be assumed, she wanted to write a bit of a love letter to this journey that’s physical as well as spiritual for many who set that goal.
Now Finn will be hiking them, many of them with a drooling, hairy sidekick, Seymour the dog pictured on the cover, and a cast of mentors who summit with him. I can wax poetic about the storytelling, the humor, the character development, the setting, the message but I will not because I will tell you: read it yourself. Everyone deserves an experience like reading Messner’s stunning story, both kid and adult. I will however share a favorite page of verse (from the advanced copy) that’s another “trouble” with The Trouble with Heroes— and that’s that it’s too poetic for its own good:
Too Much Time to Think
The trouble with long hikes
is that your brain has to come with you
and on the way back when you’re trudging
the last muddy miles,
it has plenty of time to think about stuff
like metaphors.
That May after Mom and I moved back,
she and Gram had figured out
how to handle pickup orders from the shop.
I was making deliveries on my bike
and riding around in the sunshine was pretty okay.
I’d just gotten home when the phone rang.
You know the call I’m talking about.
I’m not going through it again.
Except to say it felt like that spot
in the brook where the rocks fell away.
Like I was falling
and falling,
heart sinking, stomach twisting
never saw it coming.
I should have.
But I didn’t.
Later today I’ll be stopping by my local indie bookstore to purchase two copies. One to keep and one to give to a kid I know should read it. I’ll also be adding several copies to the shelves of the school library I work at. Do yourself a favor. Support Messner by doing the same. Your kids will be better for it. And we want Messner to keep writing.
I see all of you tea drinkers out there on National Tea Day. I raise my big, hot black tea mug with a dash of milk and honey to you as I turn the next page of my book.
Spring break is around the corner for us here in upstate New York and it’s not that I’ve worked excessively hard these last few weeks, but it will still be nice to not have to show up to my day job for a week to rest and recalibrate (read: still do work for other job-y things but also find time to drink copious amounts of tea and tackle my TBR mountain). Here are a few highlights from the last few weeks:
Presented two full-day workshops back-to-back on new books with my presenter extraordinaire, Stacey, halfway across the state.
Had an author visit at our high school– fourteen years and running! It’s always stellar to walk away from the day knowing that students had new core memories created by making connections and learning a few things along the way.
Celebrating School Librarians Day by sending well-wishes to school librarian friends of mine near and far last Friday while gearing up to talk libraries for National Library Week this week.
Still trying to read all the books all the time. My Netgalley TBR is immense, I culled copies from my TBR shelves in my studio, and (unsurprisingly) a bevy of audio holds arrived from the public library all at once that I must address.
Each work day includes literary lunch. It’s simple: I sit alone in the workroom and eat my lunch while reading.
Boom. Literary lunch.
I have been doing this for years. It A) gives me quiet time without human interaction to recharge and reset for the second half of the day, and B) builds a regular opportunity to read each day that I can look forward to, C) helps reduce my TBR pile.
For close to fifteen years, I have moderated a young adult book group for local educators through a collective. Many of those years were in person meetings at local school libraries based on who was attending the meeting and who volunteered to host. But the pandemic moved us online and then the convenience of the platform as well as the expansion of who attended meant that it was easier to sign up than dive forty minutes to an hour for some folks.
Over the years, librarians and educators have retired who were active members. Others have gotten busy with other activities and duties and have stopped coming. Other newer members have come regularly. And one thing stays true, that everyone has a book personality.
We do not have a set reading list. Participants talk about what they’ve read most recently and how it can be relevant to our school libraries and classrooms. That’s the beauty of the book group. Thus, we can count on certain genres or categories to be represented based on participants’ personal reading enjoyment. We have an Austen lover who finds every retelling to read and talk about. We had a woman whose parents were academics of English history and thus every historical fiction period piece featuring the reign of kings like Henry VIII would be shared. We had another who couldn’t bear to have an animal die in a book. Count on me to bring a dark or disturbing book.
I love getting to know everyone’s book personality. Of course we all read outside our comfort books, but it’s nice to know that my weakness is another’s strength.
I spent part of my winter break watching documentaries of the 3-5 episode variety about newsworthy events that have occurred, unconscionable crimes committed, or about people. I much prefer a documentary over a movie with a fictional premise. It would make sense that my love of documentaries is because I love nonfiction so I thought I would share a few recently-read nonfiction titles.
Two that focused on women in history. In particular, I’ve talked about How To Be A Renaissance Woman: The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity by Jill Burke to several people including one of our cosmetology teachers at our high school.
An essay collection about the 2000s by Colette Shade which I had fun with in remembering this time, especially the term Y2K!
I love a good biography or autobiography or in the case of Mo Rocca’s newest, a collective biography. Both were fantastic audiobooks.
And last, a Youth Media Award winner. A book published in another country in a language other than English translated for an American audience featuring the homes of animals near and far. Intricately drawn with straightforward but lyrical text, I enjoyed Home by Simler.
Readers Be Advised 