I’m inheriting two programs as the new children’s librarian – a weekly toddler storytime, and a monthly bookgroup for ages ten and up. I had a sort of trial run for storytime this week, filling in for someone on vacation. It was actually one of the preschool storytimes, but still – it warmed up my muscles. I did a fish theme and read Fish is Fish, Clara and Asha, and Fish Eyes, along with a flannelboard version of The Fish with the Deep Sea Smile. It all went over swimmingly (haha) and I was delightfully surprised to see how entranced the kids were by Clara and Asha, which I’d worried was better suited to a cozier setting and fewer children. But they lapped it up – and according to one of the other librarians, they even squealed at a few points. I read Fish is Fish first, since it was longest and I was worried about attention spans. Fish Eyes was great towards the end, because I didn’t have to worry about losing the threads of a story as they interrupted and crowded around to point out their favorite fish. Have I mentioned that I love reading aloud? I’ll have my regular storytime starting in October, when our next cycle starts up.
The book group is a more challenging crowd. They don’t squeal. I’m taking over starting in September, so I sat in on this month’s discussion. There were five kids, and I’m terrible at guessing ages but they looked like a range from ten to fourteen or so. It had been free choice month, so they each talked about some of the best things they read over the summer – everything from Harriet the Spy to Specials. I loved hearing their reactions to things. For September, the librarian currently running the show booktalked three titles and then opened the floor for nominations, and then they voted for their top three choices.
Eragon won out by one point over Shakespeare’s Secret, so it looks like I’ll finally have to tackle that dreaded title. The boy who nominated it was super excited, since he’s been trying to get the group to read it for ages but is always outvoted. Me? I tried to listen to the audio version a few years ago and didn’t even make it through a whole cassette. The way I figure it is that I’ll either give up partway and run next month’s discussion blind, or it will be so terribly bad that I’ll get a good laugh and make it through. The one-star reviews on Goodreads are making me think it could go either way. How much am I willing to suffer for the bookgroup? Stay tuned – I’ve got until the 15th.
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August 21, 2009 at 3:27 am
anne
The reason that book was such a success was because of how it was marketed. If you can’t get yourself through the book, take the time to learn about the marketing and you can maybe veer the discussion there if it turns out that you’re not the only one who hated it: What decides what books become famous? Would this book have been so successful if the author and his parents hadn’t promoted it so vigorously at the beginning? How important is the author’s personality/age/photo for you in deciding whether you like a book?
I mean, I loathed Eragon. I couldn’t even get through it by playing games with the sentence structure to keep myself awake (though noting that nearly every noun has two adjectives carried me through maybe a whole chapter). K loves it, the whole series, and reads and re-reads them. We manage to talk about it by talking about how creative Paolini was for his age and how it’s important for kids to explore that creativity and isn’t it neat that his parents encouraged him so much etc. Because I can’t say a nice thing about the book itself. I’m assuming here you might have to take a new tack in order to keep enthusiastic young Eragon-lover from certain death, should his peers take to hitting him with the book. It is awfully heavy.
August 30, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Joe
I feel like I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t read Lord of the Rings already. I liked parts of the book. The magic in Eragon is a lot more enjoyable than in a lot of fantasy books. It’s like the opposite of harry potter sort of. I think that the author could get better with time and experience, but the book seems like it was written by a teenager!
August 31, 2009 at 8:30 am
jessmonster
Thanks for the tips, Anne! I like your adjective game. I might also amuse myself by making predictions.
Joey, you know it WAS written by a teenager, right? The boy who nominated it has just started reading LOTR, and I’m curious to see if that changes his impression of Eragon, or if you have to read LOTR first to notice that it’s glorified fanfiction.
September 1, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Joe
Yeah, and that’s why I gave it a chance. And frankly it’s pretty good for a teenager, but it could definitely be a lot better.
I *hated* the elf woman in Eragon. I can’t remember why, I just remember hating her haha.
But seriously, the book and the universe have potential, it’s just not… up to par with the classic epic universes that we grew up with. I got halfway through the second book, and just set it down.