Halloween Mayhem

EEEEEEK! Library Aide Shalesa is terrorized by the zombie version of I.T. Anthony. Staff members dressed up for Halloween, and among the spooky folks seen were a painter, a doctor, a couple of witches, a princess, Frankenstein, and the Cat in the Hat.

Costumed Kiddos Visit Lapsit

Halloween costumes are already being spotted at McAlester Public Library. Peyton, 18 months, (photo right)dressed up as a little monkey in a costume made by his grandmother. Other fantastic creatures who visited Miss Anita’s Lapsit on Tuesday at 11:15 were (bottom photo) Batgirl Akiera, Dinosaur Gavin, Princess Carissa, Peyton and Superman Clayton.

Children’s Librarian Anita Ross recently divided the Tuesday lapsits into two sessions. The first, at 10 a.m. is for groups and caregivers. The second, at 11:15 a.m. is for families. Lapsit is a story and activity program for children age three and younger.

Children are invited to visit the library’s Whiteacre Room on Friday from 4-5:30 p.m. for a Halloween Carnival hosted by the Teen Advisory Group. In addition to trick-or-treat candy, youngsters will get the chance to have their faces painted, create a craft and play a Halloween game. The teen hosts will be in costume and volunteers are welcome, Teen Librarian Sarah DiLorenzo reports.

Also on Friday, library staff will be in costume, so children and adults alike might enjoy stopping by the library to see what creative, scary or just plain silly outfits your library friends have come up with this year.

BOO!

Trick-or-Treat Friday at the Library

TEEN VOLUNTEERS drop bags of candy and treats into a box, as preparations were made last Friday for trick-or-treating at the library. Children are invited to attend a Halloween Carnival from 4-5:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31 in the Whiteacre Room. Activities will include face painting, a game and a Halloween craft.

Teen Gamers Welcome at Library

TEEN LIBRARIAN Sarah DiLorenzo is surprised by the game of “Life” while young patrons Jacob and Nathaniel enjoy her predicament.

THESE DAYS, GAMES MEAN

ANYTHING FROM DICE TO DIGITAL

They’ve been called the Millennials, the Wired Generation, young adults and Generation Digital.

Sometimes they’re still known by their more common name—teenagers.

And one thing about teenagers on which everyone can agree is their love for video games.

 It is with this in mind that McAlester Public Library now offers a weekly “game time” for young people in grades 6-12.

 “The library strives to offer relevant content to our teen patrons, and right now that means gaming,” said Sarah DiLorenzo, Teen Librarian. “We want to let young adults know there is more at their library than just books.

“Gaming at the library provides a safe environment, a social outlet and some interesting conversations. It also can be a gateway to more traditional library fare, like novelizations based on movies or games.”

 One young patron agrees. “Without the teen program, I would not be reading for fun like I am now,” said Colton James, 13-year-old seventh-grader. “The programs have opened my eyes to a wide variety of books.”

 Activity games like “Dance, Dance Revolution” are projected onto a 10-foot screen in the Whiteacre Room East every Friday afternoon from 3:30-5:30 p.m., and the teens enjoy interacting with the games and with each other.

 “Rhythm games like ‘Rock Band’ are active,” DiLorenzo noted. “They require interaction, thought, problem-solving, memory and hand-eye dexterity. You can’t be passive while playing these games!”

THE BIG SCREEN is used when video games are played during game time. Here, patrons Dacota and Brittany get ready for another active round.

But library gaming can slow down long enough for a roll of the dice, too. Board games have been purchased for game time, and DiLorenzo said the young people enjoy those as well.

 All this activity is building toward National Gaming Day on November 15. On this day, libraries across the country will participate in the largest simultaneous national video game tournament ever held.

 “Teens will be able to compete against players at other libraries and see their scores in real time, online, while playing at McAlester Public Library,” DiLorenzo said.

 Hasbro will also donate a copy of the board game “Pictureka” to every public library branch for National Gaming Day.

 All the video games are played on a Wii console purchased by McAlester Friends of the Library. Family Video has given the library a free rental account, for one video game per week.

 “This has helped us try new games and narrow them down to those most popular with the kids,” DiLorenzo said.

 She uses the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) criteria for purchasing video games.

 “I purchase only family-friendly games and games that have multiple-player options, so we have more than one person playing at all times,” she said.

 Teen programs also include a weekly movie every Tuesday beginning at 4 p.m.; a Teen Advisory Group, which meets monthly and plans to host a Halloween Carnival Oct. 31; a teen book discussion group; a Manga Club which meets the first Monday of each month from 5:30-7 p.m.; and other special programs.

 A monthly calendar of teen programs and activities is available at the front desk. For more information on these or any other library programs, call 426-0930.

First-Run Independent Film ‘The Grocer’s Son’ Tonight

“The Grocer’s Son,” a film from director Eric Guirdo of France will be presented tonight at 6 p.m. at McAlester Public Library. The encore presentation was scheduled after technical difficulties last month prevented the film’s first screening. The film will be shown with English subtitles, and free popcorn will be available.

The film is set in summer, when thirty-year-old Antoine is forced to leave the city to return to his family in Provence.  His father is sick, so he must assume the lifestyle he thought he had shed—driving the family grocery cart from hamlet to hamlet, delivering supplies to the few remaining inhabitants.  Accompanied by Claire, a friend from Paris whom he has a secret crush on, Antoine gradually warms up to his experience in the country and his encounters with the villagers, who initially seem stubborn and gruff, but ultimately prove to be funny and endearing.  Ultimately, this surprise French box-office hit is about the coming-of-age of a man re-discovering life and love in the countryside.

The film is the first in a series of first-run independent films from Film Movement, made available to libraries across the country. According  to the Film Movement website, many small but deserving films get squeezed out of theaters by Hollywood blockbusters and face skyrocketing marketing costs that make it impossible to reach appreciative audiences. Film Movement’s mission is to put its films in front of the largest possible audience. To meet this challenge Film Movement aggressively pursues all channels of film distribution including theatrical, institutional, television, retail, rental, in flight, on demand, and our first of its kind DVD of the month club subscription service, available to libraries and individuals.

Next on the schedule at McAlester Public Library is an Oct. 27 showing of the Italian Film “Days and Clouds” at 5:45 p.m. in the Whiteacre East. The November film will be Ben X, set for Nov. 24.

Staff Picks: Janice’s List of Great Reads

Here are the latest recommendations from McAlester Public Library staff members. This week, Circulation Librarian Janice Saaranen gives us the details on her list of ten books.

World War Z by Max Brooks–China has secretly developed a deadly virus. It escapes. If exposed, you die. You reanimate as a flesh-eating, brain-sucking zombie. Humans become the prey. Once bitten, you are infected. There is no cure, there is no hope. You’re a zombie!

In a series of journalistic-style interviews and monologues, Max Brooks tells the story of the world’s desperate battle against a zombie horde of 200 million, with first person accounts “as told to the author” by various characters around the world.

Chilling, grotesque and hysterically funny, the novel is surprisingly hard to put down. The jabs at various contemporary politicians and policies are an added bonus.

The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child–In 19th Century New York, the public flocked to collections of strange and grotesque oddities called “cabinets of curiosities.” A modern apartment tower is slated to rise on the site of one of the old cabinets, and when the excavators break into the basement, they discover a charnel pit or horror: the remains of 36 people murdered and dismembered over 130 years before by an unknown serial killer.

Enter FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. No trace of evidence is lost to the keen eye and near supernatural intellect of this mysterious, modern Sherlock Holmes. Follow the trail of forensic evidence from the New York Museum of Natural History to the sewers of Manhattan to the cobweb-draped lab of a mad scientist 100 years dead.

Join Pendergast, and an ongoing ensemble of characters from earlier Preston and Child novels, facing danger and death as a fresh spree of murder and surgical mutilations explodes around them and New York City is awash in terror.

Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy–Jack Ryan, now the President’s National Security Advisor, finds himself embroiled in the buildup to a new world war–one in which the stock market and national economic policy are as critical as advanced weaponry.

A power-hungry Japanese financier, blaming America for his parents’ death in WWII, plans to use his immense wealth to purchase his revenge. A fatal auto accident in the U.S., caused by faulty gas tanks in two Japanese cars, leads to the breakdown of U.S.-Japanese trade agreements.

As always, Clancy spins out story threads in a rich but bewildering tangle of plot and setting, then vigorously weaves them together. Here, the heart-stopping climax is unexpected, and horribly believeable.

The Sin Killer by Larry McMurtry–Sin Killer is the first installment in The Berrybender Narratives, following the adventures of the Berrybenders, a large, noble English family traveling the Missouri River in 1832.

This self-absorbed and spoiled family leaves England for the American West, as Lord Berrybender wishes to “shoot different animals from those he shot at home.” They travel toward Yellowstone aboard a luxury steamer, along with a motley group of servants, guides and natives.

The main story line follows the independent eldest daughter Tasmin, who escapes the steamer, meets and falls in love with Jim Snow, a.k.a. the Sin Killer. Snow, a rugged, buckskin-wearing Indian killer raised by natives, is a stoical, God-fearing man who won’t tolerate blasphemy. McMurtry’s matter-of-fact perspective leaves little room for tragedy or sentimentality, and instead emphasizes the high comedy of aristocrats in the wild, wild, west.

A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told Through Food, Recipes and Remembrances by Laura Schenone–For centuries, society has dictated that one of a woman’s most important roles is feeding the family. For many women, food preparation also included planting, gathering, foraging, storing, shopping, socializing, serving and cleaning up.

Drawing from a variety of backgrounds and recipes, this is a lively, loving tribute to the female culinary arts. Fascinating social history with a heaping helping of home cooking is thrown in for good measure.

The often-ignored connections among politics, women and food are made in describing events such as the 1917 food riots in New York City and lunch counter sit-ins in the 1960s. The book is chockablock with recipes, period illustrations and sidebars, including one on Sara Josepha Hale, who standardized the Thanksgiving holiday.

A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom–The author takes stock of the wife from the conception by the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans to her 20th Century manifestation as the New Woman. She explains the religious, legal and social practices of ancient civilizations that provided the template for the idea of a wife being the property of and subservient to her husband, her role limited to mother and housekeeper.

What she discovers is that the recent transformation of wifehood from sexless stay-at-home dependent to sexy supermom is actually the distillation of changes that have been going on for a long time, near a couple of thousand years.

The Annotated Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, annotated by Douglas A. Anderson–“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Welcome to Middle Earth and the breathtaking imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Within this version of the classic tale of hobbits, dwarves and elves, Anderson gives a comprehensive overview of Tolkien’s life and the publishing history of The Hobbit and explains how every feature of the story fits within the rest of Tolkien’s invented world.

Integrated with Anderson’s notes and placed alongside the fully restored and corrected text of the original story are more than 150 illustrations, Tolkien’s orginal line drawings, maps and color paintings, making this the most lavishly informative edition of The Hobbit available.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.D. Rowling–In this fourth installment of the record-breaking series by J.K. Rowling, young Harry Potter is thrust into a dangerous, magical competition he is not prepared for–he faces the nightmare of his worst enemy in the flesh–and most horribly, he is required to ask a girl to the school dance and actually dance with her!

Ingathering by Zenna Henderson–The People escaped the destruction of their home planet and crashed on Earth in the Southwest in the late 1800’s. Fully human in appearance, they possess many extraordinary powers. Hardworking, sober, responsible folk, all they want is to live their lives, raise their families, and create a new home for their kind. If only the children could refrain from flying in front of the new state-appointed school teacher!

Henderson’s People stories tell of their struggles to fit in, fearing discovery, wary of the fearful and ignorant locals–the humans. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from the early 50’s to the mid-70’s, Ingathering includes all 17 of the People stories, including one never published before, “Michael Without.”

Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Goldstone–Set against the backdrop of the 13th Century, a time of chivalry and crusades, poetry, knights and monarachs, comes the story of four provocative sisters who rose from near obscurity to become the most coveted and powerful women in Europe.

The brilliant marriages of Marguerite, Eleanor, Sanchita and Beatrice, the daughters of the court of Provence, made them the queens of France, England, Germany and Sicily.

Plunged into the dangerous whirlwind of European politics, they survived war, treachery and rebellion, often through sheer strength of character and by relying on one another. Theirs is a compelling family drama of courage, sagacity and ambition.

Oodles of October Events, Displays

By KATHY MCGILBERRY

October opens with an open microphone here at McAlester Public Library. We’re smack in the middle of Banned Books Week and to mark the occasion, we’ll open up the Whiteacre Room to anyone who wants to come in and exercise the right to free speech at an Open Mic Night for adults. That’s tonight, Wednesday, Oct. 1 from 6-8 p.m.

 Adults are urged to read a passage from a favorite book, read original prose or poetry, perform a song or a spoken-word piece, or just rant.

 The festivities will be preceded by a movie screening. We’re showing the film based on Ray Bradbury’s classic “Fahrenheit 451.”

 Teens had their own Open Mic Night on Monday, and Teen Librarian Sarah DiLorenzo reported a good turnout for the event.

 So much is going on this month! It’s National Book Month and Teen Read Month. Teens can win five free Sequoyah Award-nominated books, plus a Halloween bag of candy, courtesy of a new contest created by DiLorenzo.

 All month, young adults in grades 6-12 can enter up to 10 times a week. Each book checked out equals one entry. The drawing will be held on Halloween.

 Also on Oct. 31, the newly-formed Teen Advisory Group (or TAG, to those in the know) will be hosting a Halloween Carnival in the Whiteacre Room, as a safe alternative to trick-or-treating. There will be games and candy for children in grade five and younger.

 Teen volunteers are welcome to help host the event, DiLorenzo said. A costume is required.

 Speaking of costumes, the library staff plans to show off their Halloween costumes that day too. You won’t want to miss seeing what everyone comes up with this year.

 All our regular events are on the schedule this month: Children’s Librarian Anita Ross hosts Lapsit and Story Time at 10 a.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively; Teen Movie Time is every Tuesday at 4 p.m.; Game Time for teens is every Friday at 3:30 p.m.; Teen Manga Club meets at 5:30 p.m. the first Monday of the month; and Adult Manga Club meets at 1 p.m. the first and third Saturdays of the month.

 Displays this month include “Books With Bite,” showing off vampire-themed young adult fare; “The Unexplained,” featuring all sorts of creepy adult and family fare; and “Oklahoma Rock and Roll,” highlighting the state’s current quest for an official rock ‘n roll song. You can get more information and vote at www.oklahomarocksong.org .

Our “Staff Picks” display continues, as the choices of Circulation Librarian Janice Saaranen give way to the favorites of Library Aide Linda Haile.

 And don’t forget all our other activities: Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma continues this month; we have movies galore scheduled, including our new first-run independent films; Family Fun Night is set for Oct. 21; and both day and night book clubs will meet at their regular times. Bodacious Bookies find their way through Amanda Eyre Ward’s “How to Be Lost” tomorrow at 1 p.m. in the Conference Room, and Night Readers heave and knuckle-bite their way through Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 21.

Friends of the Library meet Oct. 21 too, for a tasty noon luncheon and an equally tasty program.

 Come in and get a calendar, or check the website, to get all the details! We have so darned much on the schedule it’s getting too much for one blog entry.