Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

More nuts-sos in the news this week. A BoingBoing article stated that, "A judge has ordered JoAn Karkos of Lewiston, Maine to return two copies of It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health , which she checked out the Lewiston and Auburn public libraries last year. In September, Karkos sent letters to the libraries, including checks to pay for the cost of the books. The letters said, in part, 'I have been sufficiently horrified of the illustrations and sexually graphic, amoral, abnormal contents. I will not be returning the books.' The judge has ordered Karkos, who is being held in contempt of court, to return the books and pay a $100 fine by Friday at 4pm. If she doesn't comply, she'll be arrested. In 2007, NPR reported on the incident , providing several links, including a link to a letter Karkos wrote to the Sun Journal." I hope that lady doesn't try to read The Color Purple . It's not about Barney!

Today I subbed at Library Y, for the first time since before the summer. While all the librarians were working on the end of summer party I was manning the reference desk when I had this lovely conversation with a patron we shall call, "Lazy Mom," L.M. for short. L.M.: Hi. We are looking for your books for fifth graders. Where would those be? Me: Are you looking for a particular subject in non-fiction? Or are you interested in a fiction book? L.M.: Oh, just anything for a fifth grader. (Thanks for the clarity! UGH!) Me: (Adressing the child with the vacant face) Ok. Well, do you have any favorite authors? Any particular subjects or themes within the books that might be of interest? For example, do you like books with something like pirates or mysteries? Anything like that? Blank Faced boy: *** (no response) L.M.: Anything a fifth grader can read. He was supposed to read four books over the summer and...(and this is where she began laughing...LAUGHING!) well...we waited

Another crazy, busy weekend that looked like this: Dancing Friday night at one of the local hangs: Boogie Fever in fashionable Ferndale. A night of 80s music and failing miserably at behaving. This librarian took her bun down with full force. MEOW! Saturday morning was rough, hitting the ground running--literally. Woke up at 7:30am (this after turning in at 2am-ish), showered and headed out to corn country for our softball championships. Our team wound up losing 1, winning 1 and then being mercied in our last game, which I missed because I was already headed to work for our Summer Reading '08 Closing party, which was fun. "Smush smash bug bash" had lots of fun things for everyone to do: fold-out butterflies, insect stamping, bee hive painting, bug squashing (simulated by having the kids stamp balloons out (NOT one of my favorite games to play when slightly hungover), guessing jars, prize raffles and my favorite--BED BUGS! Bed bugs was a game where we had kids stand ar