Maw Books » library

Not Your Ordinary Trip to the Library

Natasha Maw — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 03:21:35 +0000

Why, yes, that’s a hissing cockroach. And yes, my four-year-old is holding it.

Kudos to fantastic library programs!

(I think.)

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I Can’t Stop Watching This Video . . .

Natasha Maw — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:08:01 +0000

My sister-in-law emailed me this video a couple of days ago, and then my husband later skyped it to me as well. After watching it at least five times, I tweeted about how hilarious it was. Seeing Angie at Angieville post it this morning I probably watched it again another five times. And then I realized that if I was watching it that much, then I should also post it here as well.

It’s a parody about libraries based on the Old Spice commercials. I have a special affinity for the video as it’s about the Harold B. Lee library (a gorgeous library at which I’ve spent much time) at my alma mater, BYU.

I love it.

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In Which I Hit Up the Friends of the Library Book Sale

Natasha Maw — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:27:28 +0000

It’s been awhile since I’ve hit up our Friends of the Library book sale. I probably should donate for membership for Friends of the Library (only $12 a year!) so I can go to the preview sale. We went on the first day it opened to the public but about 7 hours after they had opened. While there were thousands and thousands of books, I felt like I wasn’t finding a lot of gems this time around. But as it was, I still spent $25 and didn’t have to pay for a parking ticket like we did last year when we got so involved in browsing we let our meter expire. It was probably good that we had our two little impatient boys in tow or else I might have bought even more.

I have this goal to read all of the Newbery books (see my progress on my challenge blog). This will take me years to do but I have been enjoying the journey. I picked up all the following Newbery books. Some of them were published in the sixties or seventies and not taking the time to find out if they were still in print, I couldn’t pass them up.

A perfect copy of Mudbound which I’ve had on my list for a long time. The Shattered book is about children in war which will be perfect for the Social Justice Challenge. I’ve never read John Green yet (!) so excited to pick up one of his books.

Although I’ve already reviewed the following books, I read them all from my library and NEEDED to add them to my permanent collection. I do, however, already own That Went Well by Terrell Harris Dougan but it was one of those books that I just HAD to rescue (surely I’m not the only one who rescues books). She’s a local author and this memoir was fantastic. I’ll be passing it on to another Utah book blogger.

And last, three travel guide books which I hope will come in handy as I prep for my upcoming Book Expo America trip next month:

The book sale continues tomorrow where an entire bag is just $5 and each bag thereafter is $3. This is usually when I go to hit up the children’s picture books but I must admit that I’m currently overwhelmed with the number of picture books we have, so debating if I want to make the effort. To go back or not to go back?

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Racking Up the Library Fines

Natasha Maw — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:22:24 +0000

What we told ourselves we would spend on library fines for 2010: $0

What we I have already spent on library fines for 2010: $8

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Talking Library Fines – Somebody Please Make Me Feel Better

Natasha Maw — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:35:33 +0000

Don’t tell my husband but I have $20 worth of fines on my library card right now. Hey, it would happen to you too if you happened to have five Thomas the Tank Engine DVD’s checked out and all overdue at $1 a day. That’s in addition to the $30 I’ve probably paid this year.

I used to be so organized but I have found that I really have been paying a lot to the library lately. I don’t mind the occasional few dollars because I realized that those overdue fines go straight back into operation costs. But when I’m surpassing $50 bucks and the year is just half over, I’m beginning to wonder what’s wrong with me.

My library does a fantastic job sending me emails and I normally have a place in the house where borrowed books and DVD’s are supposed to be. What are your tricks for making sure you get your library items back on time? Obviously, my system isn’t enough for me lately (my husbands solution is to just not check out movies, which hit us the most). And who has me beat? What’s the largest dollar amount you’ve paid in library fines?

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What Happens When Your Kids’ Favorite Librarian Calls in Sick

Natasha Maw — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 08:43:42 +0000

We have been going to storytime regularly three times a week at two different branches for 2 1/2 years. My two little boys LOVE one particular children’s librarian, Miss Allison. I bow down to her awesomeness. She is FANTASTIC. Very energetic, engaging, lots of songs, rhymes, reading time, and play time. She remembers all the kids names, gives lots of hugs and knows that my little boy loves the librarian mouse. She always accommodates him by taking him out of his cage. She even holds new train books as they arrive to give to K. because she knows how much he loves them. Miss Allison is everything I think a children’s librarian should be.

Today, she called in sick. The nerve. Can you believe it? You mean librarians actually have the right to get sick? This translates into a disaster for my three year old. He pouted during the entire storytime because it wasn’t just “right.” Her absence at our library rocked his world. He was upset for a very long time. When daddy called on the phone several hours later and asked how he was doing, the first thing he said was “Miss Allison is sick.” Too cute and a true testament of the power of librarians in the lives of children.

Thank you Miss Allison for making a difference in my little boy’s world. And please, I hope you feel better. Don’t you know you’re not allowed to get sick? My kids need you!

Do you have a special librarian in your life? Or somebody who made going to the library special?

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In Salt Lake on Saturday? Meet Me at the Library!

Natasha Maw — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:39:19 +0000

So if you live in Utah and follow any of our local authors blogs (Shannon Hale, Sara Zarr, James Dashner, to name just a very few – we are so very blessed to have a lot of great authors here) then I am sure that you already know about Rapunzel’s Roundup this Saturday. No? Shannon Hale describes it so much better than I do, but in short, there is a big celebration at the Anderson-Foothill Branch library from 1-5 in honor of Shannon’s newest book Rapunzel’s Revenge and everybody is going to be there. There will be a panel, live music, games and more.

So if you’re in Salt Lake City and you are going, let me know! I’d love to meet up with you. The last author event I went to, I heard from a lot of bloggers that we’re there, but not until after the fact. Suey from It’s All About Books and I were literally shoulder to shoulder and didn’t even say hello!

So fellow Utahns, are you going?

Kicking off the Summer at the Library

Natasha Maw — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:12:12 +0000

Summer is in full swing here in Utah even if the weather isn’t (I’ve just turned on the heater again). Sadly, summer at our library means no more Tiny Tot storytimes because of the summer reading program, Catch the Reading Bug. When you go to storytime three times a week, and suddenly it’s over, what do you do with yourself?I did not sign up my two and a half year old for the summer reading program because I just don’t think that he’d understand the whole concept of tracking your reading and then getting a prize. He doesn’t understand the reward concept in our current battles with potty training, so I think the summer reading program would go over his head.

We did however, attend the kick off parties at not one, but two different libraries! I almost missed this great event, but my friend clued me in about ten minutes before start time and I raced on over to find that our library had been invaded by spiders, lizards, turtles, and snakes! Scales and Tails put on a amazing one hour show that was hilarious and kept my kids fascinated! This guy (Shane) brought out a 14 foot boa that just gave me the chills to look at and all the kids got to hold the animals and pet them. I was so disappointed that I didn’t bring my camera. But after getting on the Scales and Tails website, was so happy to see that he is doing the entire library circuit all summer long!

We just went on Friday and the next show was Monday (yesterday), so we went again. This time bringing my camera, my husband, and my seven year old niece, whom I won’t picture here because I’m not sure how her mom feels about her photo on the internet, but held more than one snake around her shoulders, a brave woman that one!

My 13 month old tried to climb on top of the turtle, he loved it so much. I couldn’t decide which photo I liked best, so you’ll get three.

Look at those eyes in the last photo. He was enamored with this turtle. I didn’t get a single decent photo of my two year old. Maybe we’ll try again at another library next month. Isn’t that cool? Can you believe that this was at our library? And the boa even licked the little ones hand. I was way more nervous than they were.

I did sign up for the adult reading program, which has a “Bee” theme. To receive special prizes throughout the summer I need to do nine things:

Read a Reader’s Choice title (a lot to choose from)
Download an eBook or an eAudiobook
Read a kid’s book about bugs to a child
Read a fiction book by an author whose last name begins with a B
Listen to an audio book (I still have to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)
Read a nonfiction book about insects (Will mostly likely read one of my books about insects in the garden)
Search a library database for info about insects
Read a book with bees in the title (Any ideas besides The Secret Life of Bees?)
Read a book (wait, that’s easy!)

I’ve read a lot of blogs about people joining their summer reading program. If you haven’t signed up yourself or your kids, what are you waiting for? Get to it!

Authors Here, Authors There, Authors Everywhere!

Natasha Maw — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:58:11 +0000

After my Friday evening at Stephenie Meyer’s book signing, my husband and I packed up the kids and headed to the Provo Children’s Book Festival. How could we not show up? It was free and all kinds of authors were just waiting for us to show up and meet them.

As soon as we arrived, we found ourselves in the elevator with Nathan Hale. And this is a embarrassing story that is even more embarrassing because I’m fessing up and telling you about it. I really should keep this to myself. I made a complete idiot of myself by saying, “Oh, you must be Shannon’s husband.” What was I thinking!?! Either he didn’t hear me or he was overly polite to correct me. Dumb me! Dumb me! I really hope that was my only blunder of the day. I’m so embarrassed! Have you ever done anything like that? Ugh. At least I knew he illustrated Shannon and Dean Hale’s latest graphic novel Rapunzel’s Revenge. That’s a photo on the right of Nathan hard at work doing portraits of the kids.

Because we didn’t show up at start time we caught the end of a book reading and Brandon Mull was just finishing up reading from Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star. He was getting quite a few laughs and was very animated.

Next we attended a science fiction/fantasy panel with the authors shown below. From left to right: James Dashner, Brandon Sanderson, Mette Ivie Harrison, and Brandon Mull.

More about each of them later. I tried to take notes but I was also trying to attend to my noisy kids at the same time. So I missed some of the finer details. Here are the notes that I jotted down:

Why do you write for children and young adults? And why fantasy?

Brandon Mull – I wrote down C.S. Lewis which looking back I have no idea where he was going with that.
Mette Ivie Harrison – Kids don’t prejudge a genre like adults do. And it’s not divided up into different genres. Fantasy is mixed right in with the realistic fiction.
Brandon Sanderson – “Why fantasy? Frankly, Everything else bores me. If you can have romance with a wizard in the story, why not?!”
James Dashner – He likes to make believe and pretend.

Where do you get your ideas?

Brandon Mull- I didn’t write anything down for Brandon. I must have been trying to find snacks for the kids.
Mette Ivie Harrison – Her problem is trying to get rid of ideas. She has way too many. She never writes her ideas down because they never leave.
Brandon Sanderson – He said that he is a meticulous planner and has multiple ideas at once. He described it as atoms in your head, zipping around, colliding and forming molecules. He writes down all of his ideas because he’ll never remember them. He’s always worried about the story that got away.
James Dashner – Said he didn’t really have an answer for that one. While driving, showering (but asked us to not picture that!), etc.

What books were influential to you?

Brandon Mull – Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. He always thought that if he punched the back wall of his closet he would be able to get through. Also Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien because he saw everybody reading it, but was told that he was too young (before age 12). So he read it and knew he was too young because he didn’t understand anything that was going on but he loved it nevertheless.
Mette Ivie Harrison – Arthurian legends, Perry Mason, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and all the Star Trek novelizations. She has to read an entire series all the way through before she can move on to anything else.
Brandon Sanderson – I don’t know the first book he mentioned but the second was the Dragonflight Series by Anne McCaffrey.
James Dashner – Fablehaven by Brandon Mull (obviously sucking up). Seriously though, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.

What is your favorite book that you have written?

Brandon Mull – Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague
Mette Ivie Harrison – Son of Arthur. Did I get this one right? Is this what she’s writing now or something she just wrote for fun?
Brandon Sanderson – A catraz Versus The Evil Libariansis the funniest and I didn’t catch the other book he mentioned.
James Dashner – Book two of 13th Reality serieswhich will be released next spring.

How do you learn to write?

Brandon Mull – Read a lot! Be critical and deconstruct your favorite books. Brandon wrote for a comedy troupe in college and because of the instant audience feedback became aware of what the audience wanted.
Mette Ivie Harrison – Sit down and write. You’ll never write anything perfect so don’t even try.
Brandon Sanderson – Read and practice!
James Dashner – Practice and be a voracious reader.

What type of creatures are going to be in your next book?

Brandon Mull – Griffins and dragons.
Mette Ivie Harrison – Something that she called a Snowbird, which when she thinks about it, is really just a dragon.
Brandon Sanderson – Undead librarian ghosts. Huh??
James Dashner – Some type of robotic monster.

Where do you come up with the names of your characters?

Brandon Mull – If it’s a everyman character he chooses a everyman name. Otherwise he looks for the “flavor of the sound,” brainstorms or it just comes.
Mette Ivie Harrison – Her husband wouldn’t let her name her kids after literary figures so she names most of her characters after them instead.
Brandon Sanderson – He just really, really likes the sound of Alcatraz.
James Dashner – Atticus is homage to To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Higginbottom was a kid in his high school.

Next was book signings! Everybody was really nice, especially since I admittedly hadn’t read many, if any, of their books. Gasp! I am looking forward to discovering many new great books! First up was Ann Dee Knight Ellis (left) and Jessica Day George (right). And I might note that this photo is my first ever debut of a photo of myself on this blog. Now you know what I look like. Lucky you.

Ann Dee Knight Ellis debut YA novel This is What I Did came out last summer. I’ve since visited her blog here and read reviews of her book and I have to tell you, I’ll be reading it for sure. I kinda felt guilty that I didn’t have her sign a book but she was very nice. And I read from her blog that the library where this event was held was where she had her wedding party. It’s a beautiful library with a really nice ballroom.

Jessica Day George is the author of Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow (which is the one she signed for me), as well as Dragon Slippers and Dragon Flight. I look forward to reading all of these books. She told me that Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow is the best of the three and if I were to only read one, it should be that one. Visit Jessica Day George’s website here.

Next up: James Dashner. How’s that for a big photo.

This was the first time that I’ve met James Dashner although we do have a back history. My husband Taylor is an aspiring writer. While on the train to work one day he noticed a guy reading over a manuscript and so Taylor asked if he was a writer. It was James Dashner going over the final proof of The 13th Reality: The Journal of Curious Letters. He was kind enough to answer all kinds of questions and even emailed Taylor with some further advice. When James saw Taylor he said, “Hey, the guy on the train!” When I introduced myself as Natasha Maw, he immediately said, “Oh yeah, the one with the blog!” Yay! He knew about my blog without my having to mention it! Plus we found out that we literally live down the street from each other (okay a few miles, but still). He signed our book by saying, “So glad to know you guys. Keep writing.” He was really awesome and loved to talk. So stop by his blog here and find out what he thought the highlight of the festival for him was. Book two of The 13th Reality series comes out next spring.

Who’s next? It’s Brandon Sanderson. And what an awful picture. You would think that we could have come up with something better than this. Please disregard the backlight and the girl in the background. My degree is in photography so I really hate photos like this. But it’s the best I’ve got and I obviously wasn’t taking the photo.

I have to admit that my husband did most of the talking here as my kids were almost on the verge of a breakdown. I believe that they talked about how to write, book suggestions and the likes. My husband says that Brandon told him for a really good story you need 3-4 really good ideas and 3-4 good ideas per character.

Brandon is a new to me author and I asked him which of his books I should read first. Especially to someone who is new to the Fantasy genre and who has never read any C.S. Lewis or J.R.R Tolkien (Gasp! Well, I have read The Hobbit). Brandon said Alcatraz Versus The Evil Libarians was really funny and if I could get past the weird names in Elantris that would be my best bet. I told him I actually never sound out names while reading, I see it but don’t register it. Sometimes I’ll finish a book and not know the names of main characters. So we bought Elantris so he could sign it and I think my husband took it to bed with him last night. Visit Brandon’s website here.

Next I met up with Mette Ivie Harrison. And even my little guy got in on the action.

Mette Ivie Harrison signed Mira, Mirrorand inscribed “the best magic is love!” I’m looking forward to reading this one to find out what it means. Mette’s other books are The Princess and the Houndand The Monster in Me. Read Mette’s blog here to find out what she thought of the event and I’m pretty sure the person in question is Stephenie Meyer who was in town doing a book signing. And Mette is a runner who apparently ran a half marathon the very same morning.

Next was the very gracious Sara Zarr.

I have seen Sweetheartsbeing reviewed by bloggers everywhere. So how could I resist picking this one up to be signed. I’m also looking forward to reading Story of a Girl, which was a National Book Award finalist. She said to let her know if I enjoyed it. But if I didn’t like it, well, she’d rather not know. Read her blog post about the event. And I thought it very funny that the second photo down my husband is in the background (long hair, white shirt) and you can see my toddler’s legs hanging from his stroller.

Next we waited in line for Brandon Mull.

The first thing Brandon says is “Hey, I’ve met you!” But he’s not talking to me, he’s talking to my husband. And in fact it’s true. They did meet when my husband got the first Fablehaven book signed. And my husband afterwards emailed him for writing tips and Brandon was relieved to hear that he did email us back.

I knew it was risky but I went ahead and mentioned to Brandon that I had read and reviewed the first Fablehavenbook on my blog (my review here). “Thanks! Thanks so much” he said with so much enthusiasm that it almost broke my heart to tell him that the review was actually lukewarm. I mean I couldn’t tell him that it was a great review, what if he actually read it and then thought “She lied right to my face!”

Anyways, I went on to say that I was obviously very much in the minority and everybody said that I had to continue with the series because it only gets better. And that he has some very enthusiastic fans out there. Plus, I’m fairly new and not well read to this genre, but discovering a new genre was one of my 2008 reading goals. He was glad to hear it and said that if I didn’t like the second book by the end that I should just move on and not bother.

And I wish that I had congratulated him on the recent birth of their baby girl. Brandon Mull’s other books include Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star, Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague, and The Candy Shop War. Visit Brandon’s website here and his blog here.

Who’s next? How could there possibly be more? Yes, it’s SHANNON HALE! I was most excited to meet Shannon. Probably because I’ve actually read her books and she had this energy around her that was amazing. And seriously, don’t you think we could be sisters? I think we have the same face shape.

Shannon was super nice. In fact, Shannon was our last stop of the day and my kids were done! Needless to say that they were making so much noise that Shannon called us up and we got to cut in line. Shannon signed Book of a Thousand Daysmy review here) with “For Natasha – You are cooler than yaks” and Princess Academy(my review forthcoming) with “For Natasha – Thanks for being such a wonderful mom and reader. You rock” and The Goose Girl (still to be read) with “For Natasha – Who is a true princess in disguise.” I thought it was fun that she took the time to write fun messages. And I realized that I left my copy of Austenland(my review here) at home. Didn’t even think of that one.

And if you’re wondering what Shannon was doing for dinner that night, I’ll tell you. Apparently having dinner with Stephenie Meyer. Fun! Visit Shannon’s blog here.

What a day!! So many authors. I only wish that we could have attended more of the readings and workshops but you can only do so much. And if you can believe it, this was the first annual Provo Children’s Festival. I can only imagine that it will only get better. There were also a lot of children’s picture book authors and illustrators as well.

So that was it. Hope you had fun reading all about it. And as I read these great books watch for upcoming author interviews because each one said they would love to do a Q & A. So if you’re not subscribed to my feed I suggest you do!

As for me, on to book reviews!

Recent Book Acquisitions from Huge Library Book Sale

Natasha Maw — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:00:56 +0000

Ah, the Salt Lake City library had their annual Friends of the Library Book Sale. First, I have to say that our city library is beautiful! I’ve never seen anything like it. Glass elevators, fireplaces, shops, gardens. Love it! Just to give you an idea of how extremely lucky I am:

Photo credit: A Weekly Dose of Architecture

And don’t even get me started on the children’s area! They even have a diaper changing room, nursing room, and a wonderful coat closet! Little things like that make me very happy. I wish I was able to come down here more often, as I visit our county branches more often. But a huge book sale will get me out of bed in the morning for a 7 am door opening. On Saturday books were $1 for hardcovers and .50 cents for paperbacks. Thank goodness our in-laws were in town so we could leave the kids behind because it was absolute mayhem! Shoulder to shoulder, packed. We went a little crazy and spent more than we probably should have but I couldn’t control myself. Today was the last day and so we went back again! Everything that you could fit into a brown paper grocery bag were only $5 and each additional bag was $2! You can’t beat that. And I still found a lot of stuff and came away with two bags today.

Here’s the bounty:

First two photos are mostly fiction books. All are in excellent, like new condition. Very few were even from the library inventory. Most were donated books.

These are mostly Young Adult or Middle Grade Fiction books that I thought sounded interesting or I already loved. Most of these did come from the library’s inventory.

A couple parenting books, a few film making books for my husband, photography books, and gardening books.

And a huge stack of picture books.

Jealous, yet? Well, not to worry. I thought of you the whole time and I kept seeing books that I already own and loved. I couldn’t pass them up. So here are some books that I bought just for you that will be included in my current giveaway. I will put up my full list of books for this giveaway after this post. Honestly, I wanted to wait to post the giveaway titles until after this book sale to see exactly what I had in the inventory. With the exception of two, all look brand new and are in excellent condition.

All in all we spent $103. That also includes about 30 CD’s. Not to shabby for approximately 190 items. And because we happened to get checked out by the oldest lady in the building, we think we are overcharged $7. But I was willing to let it go. Oh, and let’s not forget the $10 parking ticket that we got on Saturday. We parked on the street at a meter because you get two hours free parking. Surely, we wouldn’t be longer than two hours!! After four hours I hadn’t thought of the car once and we had a nice little surprise when we left. My first parking ticket.

Now the only problem is: where do I put all of these??!!

P.S. I’m about six book reviews behind. Having out of town guests set me back a ways. I hope to get more reviews up soon!