A Couple of Random Thoughts

Dad's Instructions for Optimal Viewing of The Wire
1 disc per viewing
2 rotations through each season
watch in order season by season

My father and I have found a shared fandom. He's going to mail me his DVDs of The Wire so I can get caught up. The above method was recommended to maximize noticing the little details that will be important in later episodes.


Warriors In the Library
During my time as student librarian in a local elementary school this past semester, Erin Hunter's Warriors series was flying off the shelves. Kids would have the next one on hold before the library could finish processing the books. So, now that my semester is over and I have some free time, I read the first one. The series is about clans of wild cats prowling the forest and warring over territory. The clans are structured like tribes with a leader, a medicine cat, warriors, mothers caring for kits and warriors-in-training: our protagonists. The series begins with a house cat, referred to by the warriors of ThunderClan as a kittypet, joining up with the clan. It had one little off-putting thing at the beginning: a male tortoiseshell cat. (Tortoiseshell cats are always female, I think it's the red color in the fur that is genetically sex linked). But I let it slide, and ended up enjoying the book.

Then while I was sleeping that night I had an idea. I frequently have ideas in my sleep. A Warriors themed library program. You could put up little posters of cats with library instructions on them. Call them InfoClan. They could have names like Bookheart and Shelfclaw. Maybe their leader could be Searchingstar- the leaders' names always end in -star. Anyway, it would be a cute way to hook the kids. They would be interested in finding and looking at the different cats and that would encourage them to read the library tips.

As a side note, www.warriorcats.com is quite a site (quite a sight?). I just checked it out now so I could make the above link, and it has an animated intro and lots of neat things once you get into the site. According to "StarClan," my warrior name is Rainfire. Nice. Definitely something to look at for the next time I find myself in an elementary school.

...And Speaking of Books and Websites
Audrey, Wait! came in for me today. I originally heard about it on the YA YA YAs and thought it sounded like fun-- when Audrey breaks up with her boyfriend, he writes a song and gets famous, leaving Audrey to deal with the paparazzi (and it's blurbed by Meg Cabot and Rachel Cohn!). I had a quick look at the website while I was at work today and it looked bright and exciting. There was a soundtrack posted for the book as well as a tabloid generator.

I must remember, when I have a library of my own, to make connections between books and websites. There is fun and probably something educational in there.