Sun City

Sun City

We’re in Phoenix, my beloved is playing golf and I’ve amused myself with some friends from my Betsy –Tacy list who enjoy garage sales and thrift stores as much as do.

Thursday we set out for Sun City, which was worth the trip, even without all the goodies we found.  What an eerie, Stepford Family quality the place has.  There are no children no young people at all, they aren’t allowed.  No schools, no playgrounds, no swing sets or tricycles on the lawns.  Everyone we saw was white, tanned and elderly.

Men are men, regardless of their age and when it comes to toys they must have the latest and greatest.   In this case, the toys are golf carts.  We saw one particularly dapper gentleman tooling along in a brushed chrome number with shiny chrome hubcaps.  Took “Pimp My Ride” to a new level.

The houses are the epitome of “Little Boxes on the Hillside (or since we’re in Phoenix the sand).  All looking just like and frozen in a time wrap dating back to when they were  first built.  The first wave, built in the 1960s are all flat roofed with shag carpet and  harvest gold and avocado green appliances. The second wave, done in the 1980s are just a bit bigger and had lots of fake wood paneling.  I understand there is now a third wave of Sun City McMansions, but we didn’t make it that far.  It’s to new to have many estate sales.

We encountered flocked wallpaper, gold gilt upholstery, pink and turquoise tile and shiny Formica flecked counters.  The furniture had a similar frozen in time look. Sun City residents mostly hail from the Mid West, and acquired their furniture before the South West desert look was chic.   Overstuffed chairs, ornate pseudo Victorian chairs, “Early American” sofas– complete with hideous plaid or floral upholstery.  Large TV consoles and I lost count of the number of entertainment centers containing record players.

Phoenix is in the midst of the drought and new houses don’t have lawns  - they have heat tolerant desert plants.  Not so in the first Sun City dwellings.  The residents seem to have done their best to replicate their former homes complete with lawns.  Only the lawns have long since died and have been replaced by artificial putting green cloth.  And a very bright green it is too. It’s Saint Patrick’s Day every day in Sun City.   The 1980s home tend to be of the cactus and clay pot school of decorating – much more environmentally friendly.

The estate sales were the most fascinating.  It was an exercise in sociology to see what people choose to bring with them.  I was amazed at the number of furs.  Not new furs, but old 1950s mink stoles and those gruesome fur pieces where the minks are all biting each other on the butt.  Hanging in the closet at one house was a WW II era mink coat – padded shoulders and all.  Just the sort of the thing the Andrews Sisters would wear on a USO tour.  It had a monogram  and came from a furrier in New York City.  It was also very, very tiny and judging from the polyester double knit pant suits for sale it’s owner outgrew it years and years ago.  Oh what stories that coat would tell and why did its owner bring it with her to the desert?

We were looking for books and they provide the best snapshot of who once lived in the house.   Just about every sale had a local cookbook or two from the owners’ hometown.
One home had a shelf full of “how to write” books, another had shelves of theology titles.
Just about every book every issued by a book club was to be had as well as many, many Readers Digest condensed books and National Geographic’s.  Some folks knitted, some did needlework and many, many, many  were golfers.   Our favorite house had art books – not coffee table art books, but technical how to draw books, all dating from the 1940s and 1950s.  Tossed in with those were children’s books, mostly from the 1960s – nice, hardbacked with the dust jacket children’s books from a time when the only kiddie lit people owned were Little Golden Books.  

The saddest houses were the houses with no books at all.  

“A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them.”
Horace Mann

Musings From Phoenix

We’re in Phoenix, AZ – it’s my Spring Break (Yeah for Spring Break!) and My Beloved has a golf school on her agenda. It just happened to be in Phoenix and just happened to take place during my Spring Break. Clever woman, My Beloved.

Assorted musings include:
Woman with large rumps should not wear Capri pants and stiletto sandals. They resemble a watermelon balancing on two toothpicks.

The checkers at the Fry’s on Baseline Road in Phoenix are delightfully friendly and helpful. Such a refreshing change from the bored, with attitude teenagers at my local Kroger.

People who frequent the library for free internet access via the library computers are sorely lacking in the social skills and will not hesitate to bite one’s head off at any imagined slight or honest mistake. I am very grateful I have my own computer.

In conjunction with that, free wi-fi is one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century.

And further more, I am very grateful I no longer work in a public library so I don't have to deal with clientele who don't want to give up their computer terminal because their time is up

Why did it take us only 3 hours to fly to Phoenix but then take 2 hours to retrieve one’s luggage and rental car? The Phoenix airport has ; in its infinite wisdom built a central rental car terminal. It’s Aggie Architecture at its best - the ramps are so tight and narrow that the shuttle buses they use can’t navigate it.

No matter what town I visit I always seem to find the day-labors site. Must have something to do with my fondness for thrift shops.

Phoenix in March is heavenly – the temps are a prefct mid 70 with not a smidgeon of humidity.

Phoenix & Scottsdale must have strict signage laws. Not only are the buildings low – I’ve seen few about 4 stories, the signs are also low to the ground. Very refreshing to eye after Houston’s visual pollution. Everything is painted in desert blending colors too – nothing garish or gaudy. The freeway noise muffling walls are inlaid with the most interesting Southwestern designs. Houston should take some lessons.

A Book Sailing We Will Go...

A Book Sailing We Will Go….

Woo- Hoo! I’m on Spring Break and the book sale season has begun. We kicked it off with the annual Boerne Library Sale, followed up by the next day with a Mini-Monster book sale in Austin.

The Boerne sale begins on Friday at noon so I started my Spring Break 1 day early. My principal knows my book buying forays add hundreds of dollars to books to the library so she is lenient about awarding personal days.

We set forth at 6am and sailed into New Braunfels by 9:30, just in time for the thrift stores to open up. Not much in the way of goodies but such is life. Hopefully no scores meant the book sale would be good to us. Book Sellers are perpetual optimists.

Boerne is a small town, about an hour north of San Antonio that for some reason has a stellar sale. Well laid out, well organized, not to pricy and in a building that is big enough to accommodate the crowds. Boerne is a well-heeled area, catering to retirees who are enjoying the good life. There is a also a population of ex-hippies, artsy crafty people who love the Texas Hill Country - not only is it beautiful, but it is also the vortex of all things liberal in Texas. Overall, it adds up to a population of avid readers.

By 11:30 the line was 50 people long and growing. Most book sellers know each other by sight so there was lots of chatting going on, talk of past finds, future finds, the fate of Abebooks.com, whether or not it was worth it to open an e-bay store and acceptable book sale behavior.

It is a hot topic in the book-selling world. Technology has radically changed bookselling, what with the Internet and Scoutpal almost anyone can become a bookseller – at least for a little while.

In the old days book sellers relied on notebooks and their memories, which were prodigious and photogenic. Scoutpal enables one to scan or type in an ISBN and instantly find the value of a book according to Amazon. One does not need to know anything about books; one just needs to know how to type. At least that is what they think.

Dubbed the “scan monsters” they are considered lower than low. Many good booksellers use Scoutpal - I for one swear by it. However, we also have an intrinsic knowledge of books and use it as an additional tool, but not as our only tool. We go thought the tables, book by book, selecting what we want and setting them aside to check later when we cull prior to buying.

The scan monsters don’t operate like that. They sweep the contents of an entire table into boxes and carry the boxes to a corner where they scan every title and toss the discards, helter skelter into a pile. To them books are commodities. Period. Often they operate in a family – 3 or 4 of them grab up armloads of books while several others scan away in a corner. They horde stacks and stacks of books and allow no one else near them.

One of the worst offenders lives in Houston, nobody knows her name but everybody knows her. She arrived and the buzz started as folks pointed her out and recounted horror stories of her past behavior.

At the stroke of noon one the sale organizers opened the door and climbed on a chair to make some announcements. After the usual thank you for comings she stated that, based on past behaviors, they had made some changes in the rules. Anyone caught hording books, cleaning off tables or being rude or greedy would be asked to leave.

The line broke into wild cheers and applause.

Just like Queen Victoria, the Scan Monster was not amused.

The Backlash

….is beginning. Texas, especially Houston, Dallas and San Antonio opened up their cities, wallets and hearts to the residents of New Orleans. Many, many of them were flown and bussed to the Lone Star State and housed in shelters, hotel rooms and apartments. Donations of cash, food, clothing and furniture poured in. FEMA and the city of Houston provided housing vouchers, Medicare agreed to pick up the health care tab and FEMA provided money for living expenses. Schools waived records and birth certificate requirements and took in all students with no questions asked.

It has now been six months. Many of evacuees are still here; the majority former residents of the Lower Ninth Ward, which may never be rebuilt. These are the poorest, the least educated , the medically fragile and are ill equipped to cope with a series of disasters which would stagger the most well adjusted. These folks have lost their family support system and all that is familiar. Back in the Big Easy their safety net was tenuous at best and in Texas it is non existent.

All of New Orleans’s dirty laundry came with them. Gang wars, turf wars, drug dealers – career criminals who thumbed their nose at the Louisiana justice system. Our crime rate is soaring.

New Orleans schools were known to be inept, corrupt, and more interested in lining administrator’s pockets than educating children. The kids are low, low, low. They need counseling, they need remedial help, they need health care, they need parenting and they need manners. Fighting appears to be the problem solving method of choice. We are having problems and it is worse at the high schools. Schools are struggling and money that could be spent on education is going for additional security.

Texas never spent much on heath care for the indigent - we have some of the highest rates of uninsured in the nation. Our clinics were barely coping and now the Medicare wavers are running out and the emergency rooms are swamped.

FEMA took what little Section 8 housing Houston had and our own poor have nowhere to go. We had long, long waiting lists for public housing and they have suddenly become much, much longer.

Houston is a hard city to be poor. A car is almost a necessity, housing is expensive, social services inadequate and there is a long tradition of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. Low skill jobs pay barely minimum wage and there is a large underground economy of illegal immigrants who will work for well below that wage.

The Mayor of New Orleans now says he does not want any one to come back who “won’t work”. Many of the folks now in Houston cannot work. They have never worked, they have no skills, they are ill or they have multiple small children. Welfare has supported them for at least 3 or 4 generations and the culture of getting up every day and going to work is alien to them. They are the very old and the very young – grandparents raising their grandchildren and great grandchildren. The parents? In jail, on the streets, in and out of drug rehab, and unable to raise their children.

So, they are all ours. Thousands of new residents needing millions of dollars in services that Texas taxpayers must pay for. The Federal Government seems to have billions to rebuild Iraq but very little for the Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and other hurricane-affected areas.

The administration has taken NIMBY – Not in My Back Yard to a new level.

Other Duties as Requ

Other Duties as Required….


All school librarian jobs come with a list of “other duties as required” which is long and varied.   I know of one librarian who is responsible for all the laminating at her school.  Over 1000 pieces a month – she even keeps a count!  Librarians are frequently responsible for lunch or playground duty.  Sometimes the library is closed and the librarian becomes an emergency classroom teacher when a sub is a no show.

My own list is lengthy.  In my 15 years, I have:

1. Chaperoned field trips


2. Baked dozens and dozens of brownies to serve at reading celebrations


3. Supervised kids in trouble when the Assistant Principal’s office is on overflow


4. Housed a student when their teacher just “had to get him/her out of their sight”


5. Provided jobs for teacher assistant subs that nobody wants


6. Tutored


7. Taught Gifted and Talented classes


8. Set up computers, TV/VCR combos, DVDs.  Somehow; if it plugs in, then it’s my job


9. Moved the library- twice


10. Kept children who couldn’t go on field trips


11. Provided extension cords, batteries, puppets, globes, tape, pencils, scissors, overhead lamps,  chocolate and hugs


12. Rearranged furniture to accommodate  last minute speakers


13. Served as the cafeteria when the cafeteria was needed for a program.


14. Instructed teachers in Password  101


15. Made coffee


16. Cleaned tables


17. Hosted showers and parties

However, last Tuesday, during the TAKS test I had the end all of be all  “other duties as required”.

The TAKS test is an all day affair.  The students are allowed if they need to or wish to stay after school to finish it.  Tuesday’s test was a marathon in endurance.  The kids overflowed the library and this was despite some teachers opting to keep their kids in class.  Accommodating this many children gets tricky since the rules require that a trained in test administration, certified teacher be in attendance at all times.

One of  the 5th graders, who in charge of his only 1 year younger sister couldn’t find her anywhere.  We finally figured out she’d gone home on the bus and since he had the only key to their apartment, she was locked out.  Her apartment complex, which is Section 8 housing and  filled with Katrina evacuees via  FEMA vouchers is not the sort of place where a pretty little 10 year girl needs to be hanging about with no place to go.  Her family is from New Orleans too and they haven’t any friends here.   The girl has some issues and isn’t allowed to stay home alone.

The Principal dispatched me to go and get her and bring her back to school to wait for her brother to finish up.   I took the apartment key, got into my car and set off.

The apartment complex was grim, it is large and sprawling, the buildings painted the color of elephant poop (it helps keep the gang graffiti under control), the parking lot full of ruts and holes and the grass dry and battered into a matted pulp. It was swarming with children, running and out from the dented cars and the dumpsters, swinging on the spindly trees and climbing on the balconies and railings.  Leave It to Beaver or Maybury RFD is wasn’t.  

I found the girl sitting on the front stoop of her apartment.  Just sitting, not looking anxious, not wondering just sitting looking resigned.  I told her I needed to take her back to school and she said she couldn’t go till she walked the pit bulls.  One was chained to the railing by the front door, the other inside in a crate.  

So we opened up the door and there was indeed a dog in a crate.  The only other furniture was a new couch and chair that had a “rent to own” look about them and the largest big screen TV I’ve ever seen.  We walked the dogs, chained them up again and headed back to school.

I’ve had many, many “other duties as required” but this is the first time I’ve been asked to walk the Pit Bulls. .

Luckily they were friendly Pit Bulls..

More Bookselling

I'm a regular columnist with Bookthinker! I'm so excited - I've always loved to write. I recommend BookThink to all aspiring booksellers - it's so informative and the people who frequent it are always polite and civil. It's a very pleasant change from the E-Bay booksellers forum, where folks are downright snarly.

Here is this month's effort!

The Career Romance Novel
By Guusje Moore

Last month’s column dealt with Malt Shop novels – teenage girl gets the boy of her dreams – all written and set in the 1950s and early 1960s. So where did these girls go after high school graduation? Why, they reappear in the Career Romance Novels, also published during the same time period.
CRNs were written during an era when many middle to upper middle class families sent their daughters as well as their sons to college. After all, a college education would equip her to be a better wife and mother. In addition, she would more likely meet a white collar husband within the ivy halls. If by chance she was not engaged her senior year, she could at least support herself until Mr. Right came along. Of course, this was all pre Betty Freidan and The Feminine Mystique.
<http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=62>
CRN heroines are not the saucy, sexy Cosmo Girls of the swinging sixties; these are "good girls" who wear hats and gloves to work and might give up a chaste kiss on the final page. Oddly, Career Romances were virginal precursor of the highly successful Chick Lit genre. As an aside, Chick Lits, which are easily spotted in their hot pink covers, do well in lots if you can get the books cheaply on FOL bag day.
Most titles followed one of two rigid formats. Either the name of the main character appeared first followed by her career choice (e.g., Beth Hilton, Model, Sue Barton, Senior Nurse, Nancy Runs the Bookmobile) or there was simply an allusion or the actual job title (e.g., The Girl in the White Coat, Flight Nurse, Miss Library Lady). You will note that there are not many doctors, lawyers or engineers in these series. The jobs dramatized are very traditional and typically female dominated – e.g., teachers, decorators or secretaries. You might run across an occasional dancer or actress, but most of these books are about realistic career aspirations.
Nurse CRNs books almost deserve a column unto themselves. There are hundreds of them. When listing a nurse book, be sure to put "nurse" in your title if doesnÂ’t appear in the book title. There are lots of nurse memorabilia collectors, and this will drive them to your auctions. Most nurse CRNs are stand-alone titles, but there are series as well. Two queens of the genre are Cherry Ames and Sue Barton. Cherry even has her own website, which also has information on other nurse books:
<http://www.cherryamespage.com/>
The Tiny Pineapple is another good resource:
<http://www.tinypineapple.com/bookshelf/nurse_books/>
A friend once described Cherry Ames as "The Nurse with ADD" since Cherry changes jobs with more frequency than a two-year-old throws tantrums. There are 27 books in the series, and several were recently reprinted. As with most any series, the last appearing books are the most valuable - in this case, Jungle Nurse and Ski Nurse can net $200 and up on eBay. The earliest books are the most common but are still well worth grouping into lots. Research what you find and plan your auctions accordingly.
Sue Barton, a spirited redhead, was created by Helen Dore Boylston. The series follows her career from student nurse through her marriage and the birth of her children. Some of her struggles with career and motherhood still ring true today. The Sue Bartons with full color dust jackets showing head and shoulders pictures of the heroine command the best prices. Individual copies often sell for $50 more, even in an ex-library state. Non ex-libs with dust jackets can go for well over $100. However, since sheÂ’s not been reprinted, any Sue Barton book sells, even the paperback or British versions. (See the Cherry Ames website for more information.)
Helen Dore Boylston also wrote a four-book series based on an actress - Carol Page. Titles include Carol Goes Backstage, Carol Goes on Tour, Carol Plays Summer Stock and Carol Goes on Stage. These are one of my holy grails. I have never read one, let along owned one. They sell for a pretty penny, but were I to find them, I think I would add them to my personal collection. An interesting piece of kiddie lit trivia is that Helen Dore Boyston is reputed to have been the lover of Rose Wilder Lane, only child of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House Books (more on her in a future column). And there is a theory that Lane did more than edit her mother’s books – she actually wrote them.
<http://www.elliemik.com/boylston.html>
As I mentioned, most career books are single titles written by a variety of authors, though Betty Baxter Anderson wrote quite a few of them. It is not as important to memorize authors names in this sub-genre because they are more commonly collected by job description or publisher runs. CRN publishers attempted to cover as many careers as reasonably plausible. Keep an eye out for Dodd Mead’s "Career Books" and J. Messner’s "Career Romances for Young Moderns" – two of the more prolific publishers. Most collectors try to complete full runs by publisher, though some specialize in specific careers. Besides nurses, there seem to a large number of teacher and librarian novels out there.
<http://www.jenw.org/home.htm>
As with the nurse books, always list the career in your title, and, if you have room for the phrase "career romance" or "career girl," include it also.
Once our career girl met Mr. Right, the wedding was the next event on the agenda. Actually, there are not very many wedding or marriage books, perhaps because these books were written for teenage girls whose imagination went no further than a misty veil and a handsome groom waiting at the altar.
There are, however a few to look for. Prices have dropped sharply since most have been recently reprinted, but ex-library copies still appeal to nostalgia buffs. Rosamund Du Jardin wrote two – Double Wedding and Wedding in the Family, both of which start with an engagement ring and end with tossing rice. Maud Hart Lovelace (another author who deserves an article) ended her very popular Betsy-Tacy series with Betsy’s Wedding. Lenora Mattingly Weber married off Beany Malone in Something Borrowed, Something Blue. She then added one more to the series – Come Back Where Ever You Are, which detailed Beany’s experiences as young wife and mother. It was one of the few books that dealt with married life. The only other one I can think of is Anne Emery’s Married on Wednesday.
Most of the time you will only find ex-library copies of these books. Hardback with a dust jacket under mylar is most preferable, but library bindings with pictorial covers are also saleable. Since these are young adult novels, you may find them in a teen fiction group at library sales.
So, keep your eyes peeled for Brenda Becomes a Buyer, Jet Stewardess, Jinny Williams: Library Assistant or Sue Barton, Staff Nurse. Grab the covers showing a dewy eyed bride in a trailing white dress, and youÂ’ll be smiling right along with the wedding guests.

T minus One and Counting

It’s tomorrow. The day of decision. The day of destiny. The day of reckoning. D-Day. The Last Judgement. The bump at the end of the road. The last supper.

Tomorrow is the TAKS test. The all important, all things hinge on , oh no we don’t teach the test, we teach the curriculum (yeah right!) TAKS test.

It’s a killer day – 8 year old children are expected sit still, and focus on all day reading test. Those who fail get pulled for yet even more intensive tutoring so they can re-take it in May. Those who fail it then end up in summer school so that they can have one more try at it in late June. It’s three strikes and you’re out – or 3 strikes and you repeat the grade. The same goes for the 5th graders.

So much rides on this test – my Principal’s job, our school’s reputation, a teacher’s future class assignment, a child’s future & the neighborhood real estate prices.

Yet so much of it is totally out of our control. We ask the parents to ensure their kids have a good dinner, an early bedtime, a calm morning and a good breakfast. However, we can’t be sure this is going to happen and for some of our kids we know it won’t. Many of our parents have the most tenuous of childcare arrangements and by this time of the month, the cupboards are bare.

There are many things wrong with No Child Left Behind and the emphasis on tests, tests and more tests. The worst thing, in my opinion is that while we only have the kids 8 hours a day, we are still held responsible for what happens to them the other 16. Not to mention what happened to them the first 4 years of their life and the 9 months they spent in utereo.

On the Road to Nowhere

My school has a high mobility rate (worse since Hurricane Katrina) - students come and students go. It’s not uncommon for some of our kids to attend 2 or 3 different schools over the course of the school year.

Last August one of the new students really stood out – after all most 5th graders don’t come accompanied by their own parole officer. He was very tall, already a year and half-older than most of our other 5th graders (ah, the joys of double retainees). Well spoken, well mannered when he wanted to be, very intelligent, read way above grade level and wrote with a maturity far beyond most 5th graders.

He also had attitude with a capital A, a chip on his shoulder, street smarts and no work ethic whatsoever. He argued with everyone and anyone, instigated fights, and quickly became a frequent guest of the Assistant Principal.

Our principal, well aware that African American Males are an endangered species, gave him chance, after chance, after chance. She mentored him , had parent conferences, sent him to counseling, moved him to a different classroom, even approved a transfer when his mother moved out of the attendance zone.

Everyone thought he was turning over a new leaf till a couple of "never been trouble, always well behaved" girls tentatively approached their teacher and spilled out a sordid tale of sexual comments, harassment, verbal threats and what in the workplace would be considered “a hostile work environment”.

Once they broke the ice the stories came tumbling out. He would follow kids home and jump them once they off school grounds, he sat in the very back of the bus and talked trash well aware that the bus driver could not hear him. He had issued threats of what he would do if anyone dared report him. In short, he had pretty much terrorized the class.
Since he was extremely intelligent he had a genius for saying just the right thing when confronted and knowing just what he could away with when the teacher’s back was turned.

His behavior gave the principal no choice but to revoke his transfer. He’s going from our school, which while we may be 85 % free lunch and everything that goes with it, is still a very good school. We care about the kids, we nurture them, our kids learn and our test scores are excellent. He would have had a chance with us; in fact, we were most likley his last chance

Come Monday he will be attending school in a neighboring district, in an area of town noted for its high crime and low performing schools. Next year he’ll be at middle school with an even worse reputation, and the high school, should he manage to stay in school long enough to get there is even worse.

It is all so very sad, here is a young man who has so much potential yet at age 11 his life script is already written. By the time, he is 21 he will be either in a wooden box or in an iron cell.

Even though we are supposed to leave no child behind some cannot be salvaged.

MeMe of Three

This MeMe is making the rounds of the blogsphere and it is also making the rounds of the Betsy-Tacy listserv. Which makes perfect sense since it’s a list of women who read and love the Betsy Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace. Those of us on the list are compulsive readers who will read the ads while riding the subway, the back of the cereal box or a tattered magazine in the doctors office so it’s not surprising we are also passionate about children’s literature.

I don’t like to resort to MeMe’s - include to many in your blog and it starts to read like you’ve joined the Stratemeyer Syndicate, but I’ve got a cold and I’m feeling brain dead. This one is short and rather fun.

What are your three favorite children's series?
1. The Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace.
2. The Shoe Series by Noel Streatfeidl.
3. The Beany Malone / Katie Rose and Stacy series by Lenora Mattingly Weber

What are your three favorite non-series children's books?
1. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
2. Miss Happiness and Miss Flower by Rumer Godden
3. An Old Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott

What are your three favorite children's book characters?
1. Ramona from the Henry Huggins / Ramona books by Beverly Cleary. She still makes me laugh
2. Emily Webster from Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace. I was so like Emily when I was in High School
3. Jane Ellison in the Jane / F-H series by Anne Emery. Unlike many teenage heroines, Jane wasn’t perfect, in fact she fumbled and bumbled as much as I did as a teenager. It was nice to know I wasn’t alone.

Commentary:
This list is from the books I read growing up as child and still read and reread. I’ve found few contemporary children’s novelists whom I adore with the same passion, though I have many, many favorite picture books that I use over and over again in my lessons.

And of course I had to leave out many, many books – the Melendy Family series by Elizabeth Enright, Hitty Her First 100 Years, the books by Rosamund Du Jardin, the old, non PC Bobbsey Twins, the original Mary Poppins & Winnie the Pooh books (not the Disney versions), many other books by Rumer Godden and Frances Hodgson Burnett, Black Beauty, the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Moffat books by Eleanor Estes…the list goes on and on and on.

I’m not going to pass this MeMe on to anyone in particular. If it sends you down memory lane, then take it and run with it!

Comma Comma And

The TAKS writing test is just around the bend and our 4th graders are busy, busy, busy with “Writing Camp”. Think Boot Camp for budding writers and you get the picture. The main difference between the Marines and us is that our recruits don’t enlist, they are conscripted.

I took another teacher’s after school tutoring session and after taking one look at the TAKS packet (there is nothing more soul destroying than a TAKS packet) I tossed it aside and opted for “quick writes” instead.

We are blessed with some amazing on-line resources, including United Streaming, which I’ve renamed “The Cyber Blockbuster”. Its forte is streaming video but the site also has a section of teacher tools, including illustrated writing prompts.

I put one up and we started brainstorming. Our students have a tendency to make a long list of traits when they are writing description so I’ve been teaching the concept of “comma, comma, and”. Think 3, as in The 3 Bears, The 3 Pigs or The Holy Trinity. We seem to be inatly programmed to look for patterns of three. Using “comma, comma, and” really does help a passage “flow”.

After 20 minutes we’d came up with a pithy paragraph describing the night flight of an owl. I used a laptop and projector and typed their suggestions in MSWord. The kids found the programs ability to do automatic spelling and grammar checks most intriguing. They have to use paper and pencil so not only do they have to worry about content; they also have to sweat the mechanics. That is a tall order for a 9 year old, especially for one for whom English is not their first language.

They then choose another prompt and we all sat down and started to write. I joined them and all of a sudden, I noticed I could no longer hear their pencils scratching on the paper. I looked up and they were all staring at me - I’d scratched out a sentence. A teacher admitting to a mistake? Unheard off! Aren’t teachers supposed to be perfect?

This teacher isn’t, at least not when it comes to writing!

When we finished one of the kids looked up at me and said “This was fun”.

Ah, there is nothing sweeter to a teachers ear than knowing a lesson hit home!

Superbowl Thoughts

• Mick Jagger looks damm good for a man in his late 50s. Especially considering he's not exactly lead a snow white life. And for sure he has no arthritis in his hips and knees! How'd he get lucky? I do think he's got a couple of socks stuffed in his crotch though. He did however keep his pants zipped up so we'll never know for sure.

• So far I've not seen any particular memorable commercials, other than one sponsored by the NFL where they admitted that some folks (raising hand in agreement) really do watch the game for the commercials.

• I've got a potentially high dollar book on E-bay, auction ending tonight and stupid me didn't snap that it's ending in the middle of Superbowl Sunday. I have fingers crossed that there are 2 bidders out there with high proxies and a good sniping program.

• The game is really boring. Not much is happening - players run up the field, they run down the field. They fall down. They challenge the official's calls. It's all defense and on offense. This game is always more hype than substance.

• I guess I could go to the grocery store. I bet there aren't many people shopping . But the couch is so comfortable.

• I've seen many promos for shows I don't want to see and movies I don't want to spend money on. When it comes to me, many, many advertising dollars are being wasted.

• Oh, the Disney World ads are spot on. I rather like the NFL photo montages of players holding the trophy too. What happened to Frito Lay and the beer companies? I've not seen a mention of their products. I bet Superbowl Sunday is their equivalent of Black Friday.

• Oops, Pittsburgh just ran for a touchdown on the 2nd half kick off. I think they are going to win. I'd like that. My Dad was always a Pittsburgh fan.

Did you multi-task during the game? What was your activity of choice?

Going Going Gone

Going, Going, Gone….

In our never-ending quest for new stock, my E-bay bookselling buddy and I went to our first auction. Oh, yes, we’d known about auctions for years, but we’d never been to one.

Thanks to my column in Bookthink I received an e-mail from an Austin bookseller telling me that L.L. Auctions had one on their calender that promised “children’s books”.

Since we were total auction novices, I e-mailed Lisa, the owner and asked her some rather basic questions. Her response was so friendly and welcoming that we decided to give it a whirl.

The inventory list said their were four “lots” of books. We had no idea what a lot consisted off, but we emptied my car and on a grey, cool Sunday, we took off for La Marque, a small town south of Houston. La Marque is a small town consisting of down at the heel buildings, failed businesses and many trailers, all in poor repair.

We pulled up to the auction site, a small warehouse / small business park. The tenants seemed to have forgotten to pay their electric bill and their rent, hence the auction. They also hadn’t paid for plumbing – the facilities consisted of a porta potty. We were assured there was no running water on site (wrong – more on that later).

The interior was dim and dusty and stacked almost to the ceiling with everything, including the kitchen sink. School desks, old air conditioners, antique furniture, a canoe, football uniforms, dusty toys, old clothes, dishes, the valuable, the trivial, the worthless and the forgotten.

We found our first “lot” in a corner -some 50 unwieldy boxes of books, books and more books. We dug into a few and they appeared to be the cast offs of an old elementary school. The other lots were equally large and the contents appeared to be similar.

Most of the folks were regulars – they stood around chain smoking and chatting of past auctions and bragging on their E-bay sales. Many had the “ex biker look” - beards, gimme caps, beer bellies, bad teeth accompanied by that “dipped lightly in grease” aura. Everyone was quite friendly and it was interesting to listen to their stories.

The list of goods was long we settled in for a long wait. Lisa was efficient, organized and amusing and she moved along quickly. Most of the items went for pennies on the dollar – it was definitely a place to pick up some bargains.

While there was a great deal of interest in some tubs of old videos, nobody appeared to want the books and we ended up with 3 lots. By this time, it was 3pm and we could see a storm brewing on the horizon.

We ripped open the first box and started culling. Some gems, much, much, much chaff. Due to space and time constraints, we knew we could only take the books worth listing and that we would have to consign the others to a dumpster. Luckily, for us, many of the other buyers had a serious case of Packrat and started gathering up what we’d left behind. We happily told them to take whatever they wanted. My friend made a quick call to her husband and he gamely agreed to drive down and help us out.

In the midst of it all we discovered there was indeed running water in the building. A cheap PVC spigot broke off a pipe and water shot out in a 50 foot stream. People scurried to grab their items, ran for buckets and searched futilely for the shut off valve. This did not exist because there was not supposed to be any running water in the first place. One inch of water soon covered the floors and started streaming out the doors and into the parking lot.

A rumble of thunder sounded and became apparent there was going to be water both underfoot and overhead. We loaded up our cars – the increasing dim light made it impossible to continue sorting and headed out as the first drops began to fall.

Said drops quickly became a downpour, a deluge and a monsoon. Hunger had set in so we crept along the freeway until we saw a promising looking Mexican restaurant.

Chips, queso and a potent Margarita quickly improved our outlook on life.

Would we do it again? In a heartbeat, only this time we are bringing our own book boxes, a box cutter, a dolly a flashlight and our rubber boots!

A Bit of Levity

When it comes to the Education Biz, January is such a drab month. Winter Break is over and done with, Spring Break is so far away and the TAKS test looms. The shine is off the new shoes and the backpacks are frayed, as are the teacher’s tempers and nerves.

We needed a bit of levity, frivolity and general silliness. One day I caught our new Assistant Principal wearing some funky bear paw slippers. Back in his kindergarten days, he wore them when it was time to “Slip into Books”.

From that “Slip into Books” day was born. We kept it a deep dark secret from the kids. The wall were papered with signs saying “Feet = Books”, “Something Odd with Happen on Friday”, “What did the Teachers Forget? “, “Blame it on Mr. A” and “It’s all Mr. A’s Fault. The kids helped make the signs, which heightened the excitement since they had no idea what was going to happen.

Wild rumors swept the school. The teachers weren’t going to show up, Dr. Seuss was coming for a visit, we were going to invaded by aliens, Mr. A was going to walk around books glued to his foot or the teachers were all going to wear chicken suits. We never did figure out the logic of that last one.

They resorted to bribery. “Oh, you’re the best librarian ever. You can tell me, I promise not to tell anyone”. Several budding con men claimed they did know and that they would, for a price divulge the secret.

Friday rolled around and most all of the teachers exchanged their shoes for fuzzy wuzzy slippers, the more outrageous the better. That morning the hall, where the students wait for the breakfast lines to open rang with giggles as they admired their teachers choice of footwear.




We’d told the kids that there was a pizza party for the first ones to figure out the slogan.


Their minds started whirling and twirling. Again, some were utterly outrageous “Stomp on Books”, “Stamp Out TAKS” (we wish) but as the morning progressed and we started giving out hints, some got pretty close.

5 of my morning library kids were determined crack the code.

“Let’s go to slippers.com” one suggested.

“No, we’d better try slogans.com” said another.

“Ms. M, how many words? “ pleaded another

“3” said I, the instigator of the event.

“Books, one of the words must be books” chorused another.

“Yes”. I was being very cryptic that day.

“What’s the rest of it? “ they asked, hopefully.

“It’s got a verb”

“Verb, what’s a verb” they inquired.

“Figure it out, you learned that last year”. Mean old librarian knows the TEKS all to well.

Quick group consult and verbs begin to bandy back and forth. One comes to the conclusion that it has something to do with slipper.

“Slipper with Books?”

“Slipped on Books?”

“Slip on Books?”.

“Wrong preposition”

“What’s a preposition?”

“Anything a plane can do to a cloud”. That one is courtesy of my own 4th grade teacher.

“Whaaaatttttt????”

Quick grammar lesson and I’m caught in the middle of an Outburst game or I’ve time traveled back to the days when I used to watch Password on TV.

“Slip through Books?”

“Slip Over Books?”

”Slip Under Books?”

“It’s a compound preposition.”

“Huh???”

”As in compound word”

“Slip around books?”

“Slip into Books”.

“You got it!”.

The team members break into wild cheers and high fives and rush out to tell all the other students that they “know” but that they are not telling!

By 9am I have a winner for each grade. With one exception, all the winners are teams of 2 or 3 kids who got together and brainstormed.

And amongst all that fun we actually accomplished some educational objectives.

The kids practiced prediction, had a real life lesson in reasonableness, expanded their vocabulary, reviewed grammar and most importantly learned the value of cooperation and teamwork.

Two heads really are better than one.

Anyone care to join us for pizza on Wednesday?

Grumpy or Things That Annoy Me

I’m feeling feisty tonight – maybe it’s hormonal, maybe it’s just the after the holidays doldrums. I amused myself while driving home this evening by making lists of things That Annoy Me. I make lists, I can’t help it, I’m a Virgo.

Drivers who miss their exit and rather than going to the next one, choose to veer across 3 lanes of traffic, ignoring the other cars swerving to get out of harms way. Why are there never police cars around when you need them?

Loud cell phone conversations. Trust me, if you life is that interesting and noteworthy you’d be on the cover of People Magazine. Until they come calling, please lower your voice!

Shoddy bindings on library books. More specifically shoddy bindings on all the Harry Potter books, even when said books are bought from a library jobber and said publisher knows that said books are going to end up in a school library. The signatures should not fall out of the books on the second circulation. While they are at it, said publisher can improve the bindings on the Captain Underpants books too.

People who buy “junk food” using Food Stamps. Yesterday I ended up behind a woman who spent $93 on assorted chips and sodas and then paid with her “Lone Star Card” (Texas Food Stamps). The Texas food stamp allotment is minimal at best so that $93 was most likely a large chunk of her monthly allowance If the computers can block out diapers and toilet paper, why can’t they block out Cheetoes and Pepsi? I wonder how much Frito Lay’s contributes to political campaigns? Are we feeling cynical tonight or what?

Parents who don’t bother to get up with their kids in the morning. It was cold today. Kids showed up at school in shorts and sleeveless shirts. No coats.
“Didn’t your Mom tell you to wear a coat?”
“She was sleeping. ”.
And no, Mom does not work the night shift, the day shift or any other shift.

Loud Commercials. It is not necessary to boost the sound on the ads. All that makes me do is scramble for the remote and search for the mute button.

Hallmark Holidays. Boss’s Day, Secretary’s Day, Grandparents Day, Step Grandparent’s Day, Sweetheart Day, Mother in Law Day, Nanny’s Day, Dentist’s Day, Car Mechanic’s Day ….what’s with all these days and since when do each of them require cards, flowers and a gift? It adds up. Though if you find a good car mechanic that would be worth a card.

Blogs that sing and dance. I surf blogs in the living room while My Beloved watches TV – or be more accurate plays with her new universal remote. Tinkling music emanating from my computer interrupts her concentration. Let your words do the talking. Do remember that sentances start with a capital letter and end with a period.

And just what annoys you?

A Garage Saleing We Will Go

A Garage Saleing We Will Go

Thanks to my friend Pie and a stack of yearbooks, I meet up with another budding book seller and garage sale fanatic.

Being as Type A as am I if not more so, she’d organized and plotted out the sale locations on Mapquest. The weather was perfect so off we went.

Our first sale was a Phantom Sale, but undeterred we pressed on. Second sale consisted of several newly graduated college students selling the leftovers of their old life. Tossed in for good measure were some bits of pieces belonging to the mother of one of them. Mother appeared to be a craft aficionado and a bit of a cut glass collector. My friend, who knows about the latter, picked up some nice pieces. The sale was bookless- rather surprising considering the age of the students but I ended up with some storage baskets.

Following some signs we came upon another "college students entering into a a new phase of their lives" sale. The former phase was Hotel Restaurant Management and I spotted some likely looking tomes. I flipped them through ScoutPal and was well pleased with the results. In my eyes, the day was already a success and anything else pure gravy.

The next sale was a hop out and hop back into the car experience – thank goodness neither of us needed baby clothes. However, the Hispanic mothers were in garage sale heaven. Garage saleing is very popular with the Immigrant community- groups of women in mismatched double-knit and their small children pile into a battered van and set forth. There is usually one schoolchild along who functions as the translator. I’m not in the least interested in what they are seeking so we get along just fine.

Hunger set in after a couple of more sales so I proposed we take a break at El Rey.
El Rey is a funky little place on a bustling corner of yet another neighborhood in transition. The patrons sit on diner style stools and watch the day labors loitering on the corners while sipping lattes that cost half the price of those at Starbucks. El Rey started out a blue collar Cuban / Mexican greasy taco place but the clientele is becoming more and more upscale. Luckily, the prices have not.

Signs lead us to yet another unadvertised sale – this one in a metal warehouse surrounded by up and coming houses. The area inside the 610 Loop is undergoing a massive revival and building boom.

The goods had that flotsam and jotsam look of storage unit culls. I asked and it turned out I was correct – the man who owned the place specialize in buying the contents of foreclosed storage units. Boxes of battered Christmas decorations, piles of toys, tools, stacks of books and out of style but not old enough to be funky clothes were heaped about looking lost and forlorn. I found a few books, my friend found some collectibles and I may have a source for future book buys.

Looking at the book titles, I determined I was buying the former possessions of an African American school teacher or Elementary Education student. You can tell a great deal about a person by just scanning the books they owned – or once owned. Storage Unit sales always slightly depress me – someone once loved all those things and now they are gone from their lives, spread out on the driveway and being sold for pennies on the dollar. .

We finished up with a couple of thrift stores and called it a day.

Went home, listed the books and 3 sold by the end of the evening. 3 Wham, Bamm, Thank You Ma’am sales in one day. Wish all days were so productive!

And not only that, I’ve made a new friend. I’ve made two through helping Pie through her illness. Guess when a door closes another door, if not two really do open.

I have tomorrow off.

Life is good.

Houston (and America) We Have a Problem

My school is mostly ESL / Bi-Bilingual, which means we have numerous bi-lingual classes. Bi-lingual is sometimes a euphuism for mono-lingual and the lingual of mono is Spanish.

Intellectually and professionally, I understand the arguments that children learn best in their native language and that the transition to English will be smoother if they have a firm foundation in reading and writing in their first language. I understand we have to value their language and culture. I don’t want a repeat of the days when children were punished for speaking Spanish at school. With the Hispanic population in America growing by leaps and bounds it can only be to anyone's advantage to be fluent and literate in both English and Spanish. I wish I spoke better Spanish though I'm learning – my new words of the week are "Platypus" and "burrow".

But these children are being done a disservice since born in Texas , American Citizens are graduating from the 5th grade and aren’t capable of reading a newspaper or carrying on a conversation of any depth in English.

The recent immigrants (and no, we don’t ask their mode of transport) are not part of this problem. They apply themselves to learning English and are extremely motivated. Many of them pick up the language quickly and immerse themselves in books

In my district, children who enter bi-lingual education have an opportunity to “exit” at the end of the third grade if their test scores warrant the move. Those children do just fine; sometimes 4th grade is a bit rocky but by 5th grade they are on track with their English only peers. They have a future and a future that includes college and the American Dream.

However, there is also a group of about 15 or 20 kids from our 3 bi-lingual classes who don’t exit. They end up lumped together in a 4th grade and then in a 5th grade bi-lingual class. There are all sorts of reasons - they aren’t to bright, they aren’t motivated, they are lazy, their home life isn’t supportive of education, they miss many days of school or they frequently change schools. By 5th grade these kids, who have been together since PreK are a tight little world. They live in a 100% Spanish environment at home and it’s no different at school.

Most of them read on a 2nd or 3rd grade level at best and once they get to middle school they are tossed into ESL or English only classes where they encounter textbooks they can’t comprehend and lectures they don’t understand. No wonder the Hispanic drop out rate is so high.

It’s not for lack of good teachers. The bi-lingual teachers, all the teachers at my school are hard working and dedicated and really, truly care about all the children and want them to succeed.

Do I have a solution to this problem? No. Bi-Lingual education is a hot potato. There are so many stakeholders. You have the publishers who produce the materials, the university programs who train the teachers, the administrators within the school districts, the politicians who need the Hispanic vote and members of the Hispanic community themselves. They all want a piece of the pie.

The only ones are going hungry are the kids who, at the age of 10 are are on hot career track to being day laborers and hotel maids. There isn't a piece of that pie in their futures.

The Meme of Seven

It's been awhile since I've been tagged and since I throughly enjoy Ms. Cornelius's blog I'm catching this one rather than ducking!

Seven Books (Or Series) That I Love
Number 1 with a bullet - The Betsy Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. I've read them since I was 8 and can't count the number of way they have enriched my life.
The Shoe Series by Noel Streatfeild - another set of children's books I can & do pick up and read again and again. These are oh so very English.
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Yes, I know it's racist and the history is inaccurate but nothing tops the battle of wills between Scarlett and Rhett.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. A turn of the century coming of age story that still speaks volumes today. I so was Francie while growing up.
The Beany Malone/Katie Rose series by Leonra Mattingly Weber. More kid lit. Can you tell I'm a children's librarian and book seller?
Susan Howatch's thick family sagas. My favorite airplane books.
Katherine by Anya Seton - one of the best historical novels ever written.

Favorite Movies - I haven't been to movie theater in eons. To expensive, to nosiy and to many rude cellphone addicts. My movie tastes are frozen in time
All About Eve with Bette Davis
The Best of Everything with Joan Crawford
Rebecca - the Alfred Hitchock version
Gone with the Wind (no big surprise there!)
Anything with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
Singing in the Rain - Gene Kelly
The Wizard of Oz - Judy Garland

I Just Can’t Do (Or Don’t Wanna)Stop
Reading!
Visiting thrift stores
Loving My Beloved and our cats
Buying good quality kitchen/ kitchen equipment
Buying books
Eating Vietnamese Food
Living in transitional neighborhoods

Things to Do Before I Die
Retire!
Sell books on E-bay/Amazon on a full time basis
Revist Paris & Amsterdam
See my children happy and well established
Get out of debt (see what I can't stop doing!)
Learn French
Spend a month in London

Things That Attracted Me to Blogging:
I've always wanted to keep a journal and now I am!
The chance to share
The opportunity to be part of an internet community
Honing my writing skills- I'd gotten sloppy
I needed another time wasting passion (yeah right!)
Personal satisfaction
It's got a spell check! Of course it doesn't always work to good!

Seven Things I Say Most Often
Deal with It
Just a second!
Turn that down!
Hey, you guys!
Where's your library book?
I love you
What are you watching on TV tonight?

Seven Impractical Things I Think Would Be Really Cool Anyway
That the defense department and Education department be required to exchange budgets
Never having to drive a car ever again because mass transit in Houton was so reliable & convienient
All children would be welcome and loved and nutured at home
Mandatory good manners & consideration in traffie, resteraunts, school, stores and theaters
Banning of all hand guns and sub machine guns.
Honset athletics, no faking of grades and taking of illegal drugs.

Now comes the hard part - tagging others. Memes can be trickly to lob forward.
I'll tag:
The Library Lady Rants - Pithy comments on life as an overworked working mother
The Other Mother - With a new baby in the family she has too much time on her hands!
Bookworm - Who designed my blog and some others I admire
Anything Said - Just because I love the way she writes
Karbon Kounty Moose - I miss her writing and hope all is well in her up there in the north 40
Chalkdust - The kind of teacher every first or second grader should have
Travels in Booland - Fellow librarian and a darned good writer

Beautiful People Drop-Out

We ate our first meal of 2006 at La Strada , a Houston institution and the #1 see and be seen restaurant of the Gay Community. Normally I'm not worth seeing and I know precious few people who qualify as worthy of being "seen"so needless to say, I don't match their customer profile. The music is loud, the food decent, and the service acceptable. However the people watching is second to none, especially for someone like me who spends most their time in either thrift stores or school settings. The people watching at those 2 places is sub par at best.

No so at La Strada. Many, many twinkies - skinny queens with 6 pack abs and the bubble butts- poster children for the metrosexual look. Tight pants, equally tight shirts and expensive haircuts. The hair cut du jour is short on the side, longer on the top and spiked to a point at the top of the forehead. The place appeared to be populated by a bunch of pencil heads, each with a cell phone growing out of one ear.

The women on the other hand had pencil toes. Teachers and librarians wear sensible shoes so it's been quite some time since I've seen fashionable footwear. Just when did 4 inch heels with impossibly pointed toes come back in style?

These were worn with camisole tops, very tight, low cut jeans and thongs. No, I'm not guessing they wore thongs, I know they wore thongs. I also know the color of said thongs. And the brand.

The women not wearing jeans wore flannel pajama pants. What's with that? Not only was the temperature 78 degrees but PJs really need to stay at home.

Definitely an experience that fell into the "something new and different".

But why, oh why did they have to have the music so impossibly loud? Perhaps that was the reason for all the cell phones. The only way you could have a conversation with your tablemate was to call them!

I'm in Cyberspace - for a Second Time!

Blogging hasn't produced a book deal yet, but it has conjured up a column. I've been a devote of BookThink site for some time and Craig, the editor asked if I'd be interested in writing for him. My second submission appeared today and the editor had some very nice things to say! Talk about the perfect Christmas Present!

You can find it, and the comments on the Book Think site , however since it appeared in Craig's freebie newsletter I can also include it on my blog.

Witches, Mice and Cats - Oh My!

When it comes to children’s books it is not Lions, Tigers and Bears - Oh My!
Instead it’s Witches, Mice and Cats- Oh Yes!

There is something about these three subjects, be they in a picture book or a fiction / chapter book that usually guarantees a sale. A "chapter book" for those who do not hang around school libraries is a child’s novel, called a "chapter book" or a "fiction book" to differentiate it from a picture book. Not only do they appeal to the collectors of children's literature and baby boomers bent on nostalgia but they are also tempting to people who collect anything witch, cat and mice related. Any picture or chapter book with a copyright date prior to 1963 is worth up if picking up the subject is witches, mice or cats and the book is in decent shape.

When it comes to witches, the wee ones rule. Little Witch, a chapter book by Anna Elizabeth Bennett will easily net you $50 on E-bay. Avoid the "I Can Read" series with the same title by Deborah Hautzig. The Littlest Witch by Jeanne Massey is another book you'd love to have fly into your bag. Weeny Witch by Ida DeLage is also a winner. DeLage wrote a series of picture books about an old witch that sometimes do well and sometimes do not. Then there is Little Left Over Witch by Florence Laughlin. This one is copyright 1978, which again proves that when it comes to bookselling all rules of thumb have their exceptions.

Patricia Coombs wrote numerous picture books about a little witch named Dorrie - snatch any that come your way. Prices vary widely, but a copy of Dorrie's Magic, the first in series just sold for $295.00 on E-bay. It didn't seem to matter that it was ex-library, had been rebound and was quite shabby.
Sally Watson is the author of Witch of the Glens - another that will easily sell for over $100. There is a paperback reprint, but her die-hard fans want a hardback. She wrote historical fiction; keep an eye out for her.

Witch on a Motorcycle by Marian Frances and Blue Nosed Witch by Margaret Embry do not command terribly high prices but they are tried and true sellers.

Of course old and ugly witches abound too. The Old Black Witch series by Wende and Harry Devlin is the top seller. The Develin's also wrote a series of holiday picture books - Cranberry Thanksgiving, Cranberry Halloween, Cranberry Christmas and so on so be on look out for them too. Librarians tend to weed by letter of the alphabet so you'll often several books by the same author piled next to each other at a FOL sale.

The queen of the Mice books is Mousekin by Edna Miller. Again, there are many in this series so don't pass up any of them. The Holy Grail is Mousekin's Golden House, in which Mousekin goes to live in a Halloween pumpkin. It will definitely top $50 and if you are lucky enough to find a really clean copy you're holding a three figure sale in your hands. There are assorted other Mousekins, most with a holiday theme. No matter the title, never pass up the royal little mouse.

Rumer Godden, a very prolific author of adult and children's books claims a couple of mouse books to her credit - Mouse House and Mouse Wife. Graham Oakley wrote the Churchmice series in the 1980s, he is currently out of print and many of his books sell in the $20+ range. Oakley very common at the library sales. The books are now 20 -25 years old, which puts them right smack in the weeding rotation.

Jill Barklem is the author of the Brambley Hedge series. Set, in the England these feature little mice in seasonal adventures. Some aren't worth much, but do well in lots, other titles - The Collected Works, The Baby Mice of Barmbley Hedge sell for $20 and more. Barklem spilled over into bric brac so when you are trolling the thrifts and estate sales keep an eye out for mugs and other assorted china pieces Her style is somewhat similar to Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit books.

Beatrix Potter, by the way is now in the public domain and is not worth bothering with unless you stumble across a first edition, something that is unlikely to occur at a FOL sale.

The Basil of Baker street series are regaining their popularity. Written by Eve Titus in the late 1950s, early 1960s they are about a mouse size Sherlock Holmes. These have double appeal since Sherlock Holmes collectors want him too.

I do realize I have omitted the most famous mouse of all - Mickey Mouse. He falls under Disneyana, not mice so I will leave him for a Disney expert.

When it comes to cats, even folks who never bother with kiddie lit know that a first edition of The Cat in the Hat will put food on the table for many, many months. However, the points on a Dr. Seuss book are complicated to extreme and way beyond my knowledge base. If you are lucky enough to find one, contact Craig. Quickly.

For the rest of us there is Esther Averill and her Jenny and the Cat Club series. Jenny and the Fire Cat was a Weekly Reader book club book and is common as dirt but the others are collectible. Prices have fallen a bit since some of her titles are once again in print but she is still a strong seller. As a rule, never buy Weekly Reader Book Club Books - they are to children's books what BOMC books are to adult book sellers.
Carbonel, King of the Cats by Barbara Sleigh has also been reprinted (reprints are the bane of my existence) but there is a still a market for the original edition. Once again, her other books are also collectible - she wrote a couple about witches and magic too. There is a sequel to Carbonel, Carbonel and Calibor which blessedly is still out of print.

Artist Peggy Bacon wrote childrenÂ’s books to pay the rent, and The Ghost of Opalina, written in 1967 would easily pay part of yours. I once found a copy in a thrift shop, bought it strictly because it had a cat on the cover and sold it on E-bay for $150. She is also the author of The Good American Witch, which does not go for what Opalina does but it will pay for a good meal in a nice restaurant. Look for Peggy Bacon among the art books too - she has quite following among print collectors.

Have you discerned a pattern that many folks who write witch books also write cat books and sometimes they combine the two in one story? Ruth Chew did that.. She is the author of the Would Be Witch, Witch's Buttons, Wednesday Witch, The Witch's Cat and more along the same line. She is not as sought after as she once was, but does well in lots, even in paperback.


As with any book, a first, with a dust jacket not ex-library will net you the highest price. Nevertheless, as with all children's books ex-library copies are often the only copies out there so do wander by the childrenÂ’s book section at the next Friend of the Library Book Sale.
Remember your mantra is "Witches, Mice and Cats - Oh Yes!"

December 25, 2005

A Happy Holiday to All and to All a Good Day (and Good Night).

This has been an eventful year and I'm thankful for everyone whose blog I read and for everyone who reads mine. My life has been enriched a thousandfold.

The Dreaded Christmas Letter

This is the year I choose just which parts of the Holiday Season I wanted to observe. I love getting Christmas Cards and I love Christmas letters - they are so addictive so I wrote one and send cards to the women on my Besty Tacy List.

Dec, 2005

“When I am an old woman I will wear purple”
And
Write Christmas letters!

I don’t feel old, but according to Madison Avenue I am. To make up for not being a desirable advertising base I shall consol myself by composing the dreaded Christmas Epistle.

2005 was a year of milestones. Christine and Katherine both graduated from college in May. In typical fashion, they picked colleges 1,500 miles apart and said colleges scheduled their graduations on the same day. We elected to attend Christine’s in San Antonio. Lana is a graduate of Trinity and never thought she would have a legacy. Their father went to Miami. Katherine is going on to Graduate school so we told her we would catch her at the Master’s level.

Afterwards, Katherine moved to Fort Lauderdale to begin work on her Master’s in Marine Biology at NOVA University. She has a job and an active social life and despite having endured
Hurricane Wilma still adores South Florida.

Christine heeded the call of “Go West Young Girl” and packed car, baggage and cat and moved to Los Angeles. In the space of a month, she had an apartment and a job with benefits. . She’s poor, thanks to low starting salaries and the astounding cost of living in Los Angles. However, her job comes with liberal travel benefits and she is having a good time. She did tell me that life consists of getting up, going to work, coming home, going to bed, getting up, going to work, and repeat and repeat and repeat. I told her that is what being an adult is all about.

Much to everyone’s amazement Lana sold both her motorcycle and her SUV. She now drives a sporty sedan and would if she could, play golf 24/7. She is busy rebuilding the Texas Medical Center and enjoys her job, except when the alarm clangs in the morning.

I am at the “can’t change jobs because I need my pension” stage of life, but luckily, I still like my job, though it is exhausting. Trust me, teachers need all those breaks and holidays we get Bookselling on Amazon keeps me busy and I opened up an E-bay store this fall. My blog is still current and I am finding great satisfaction in honing my writing skills. It is as eclectic as I am and can be found at http://www.http:/guusjem.blogspot.com/.

In June I offered to help a bookseller who was very ill pack up some books. Things snowballed and when she died in October, I’d learned more about cancer, hospice, , home health care and courage than I ever thought possible. While it is not something I care to repeat anytime soon, it is also one I feel privileged to have been a part of. I also meet yet another big hearted internet community and enriched my life with some new friends.

All our traveling was stateside this year. We went to Duluth, Minnesota and had a lovely visit with a couple we’d meet on the motorcycle trip we took in 2004. We had our first look at the Great Lakes and got to wear sweaters in June. July took us to North Carolina for the every 5 year family reunion – our first since my father died. We had some mis-adventures with B&Bs and fell in love with the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. My E-bay bookselling pal and I made assorted book buying trips to such exciting towns as Waco Port Arthur and Boerne.

The days and weeks seem to speed by faster and faster – yet another symptom of growing older but not up (to quote the Bard, Jimmy Buffet). Considering how quickly this year flew by, 2006 should be gone in the blink of an eye.

We hope it brings you much joy and happiness.

The Stages of Christmas

Being off work gives me the time to muse and ponder. We appear to at the time of our life where we are having an "Un Christmas".

When you are child Christmas is the high point of the year. You can't wait, you listen for Santa Claus, you help pick out the perfect tree and thrill at the sight of the ornaments reappearing each year. Christmas is cookies, carols, presents all add up to total and utter excitement.

You go to college and Christmas means going home, sleeping late and relaxing. Yes, the tree and ornaments are important but so is sleeping late, eating your Mom's cooking, catching up with all your friends and of course presents ( you fervently hope for some of the green folding kind).

Then there is "Our First Christmas" together. You put up a tree, by your first ornaments, shop for the perfect present and cook your first Christmas dinner. Much to your amazement, it turns out quite nicely; thank you very much.

You have your own children and pressure begins. You want their Christmas to be magical, perfect in the best Norman Rockwell, Leave it to Beaver, Tiny Tim, It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street tradition. You bake, you decorate, you take them to see Santa Claus, you spring for a velvet dress for the annual picture and Nutcracker expedition. You scour the stores for that one Rainbow Brite Color Kid they do not have and want so desperately. You take them tree shopping and decorate it while carols play in the background. You wrap presents, watch the children shake them, find stocking stuffers and take a zillion pictures. It’s all great fun but somehow you never quite measure up to your expectations.

Said children grow up, go to college and graduate and begin their own lives.
Trying to figure out what clothes are acceptable or what the latest electronic gizmo that’s needed by Generation Y is an exercise in futility so you opt for gift cards. Baking seems rather pointless, what with the extra 20 lbs that you are suddenly packing.

And then you realize Christmas isn’t about all the stuff, the trappings and the trimmings. It’s about realizing your children are all grown up and doing a good job of making their own way in the world. It’s about having a few days of leisure, looking Your Beloved napping on the sofa and realizing that life is very, very good indeed.


Christmas – no tree necessary.

Why We Don't Have a Tree This Year

My Beloved spent 3 years remodeling a major mall. Christmas began in mid October and she was responsible for coordinating the construction without affecting the retailers’ bottom line. This was accompanied by non stop Christmas elevator music and crowds of shoppers. By the time the job was over her only opinion of Christmas was a resound "Bah Humbug".

Our Christmases are always been spent at her Mother’s house. In the best Southern Matriarchal tradition, the family gathers at the appointed hour for food and festivities. Her mother has an unsurpassed knack for decorating and the house always looks like a stage set for Southern Living or a Christmas store window. Food's really good too.

Our girls live on the respective coasts and arrive home on Wednesday the 21st of December.

“Shall we go get a Christmas Tree?” I propose.

“Nope, not tonight, we are having dinner with our Dad, he’s about to leave town and then we’re going out with friends”.

Thursday morning they both drift downstairs at around noon both looking a little worse for the wear.

“Want to go pick out a tree?” They both scrabble for aspirin bottle and return to bed. Looks like they celebrated a bit too heartily the night before.

They reappear at dusk; we go out to dinner with them and some of their friends. We go home; they head out with said friends.

Friday morning we come downstairs to find one friend has spent the night and all three of them are scrabbling for the aspirin bottle.

“What about a Christmas Tree?” I ask.

“Can’t, we’re having lunch with A., then Uncle Bill is taking us to dinner, then we’re going out with K & V.”

That brings us to Saturday, Christmas Eve Day. One gets up early to meet some friends for breakfast. The shock of seeing the sunrise is so great that she must go back to bed to recover upon her return. Her sister opts to sleep till 1pm.

“Christmas Tree?”

“I’m going to the movies” says one, “I’m spending the afternoon with A”says the other.

”What time is dinner?” – unlike Christmas trees, which would require their participation they have a stake in dinner which doesn’t.

“6” I say – “everything you asked for, turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.”

“Great, we’ll be home – can we bring A, K and V?”

“Sure”

Since I’m not feeling like being the Little Red Hen this year, there won’t be a tree at our house.

And you know what, that’s perfectly OK with me.

You Get What You Pay For....or Money Talks

My Beloved is recovering from sinus surgery. Her doctor of choice specializes in plastic surgery to the rich and famous and the ladies who lunch, though he has a small group of ENT patients. My Beloved also likes her hand held so I've been accompanying her to the follow up visits.

It's interesting to compare this office to that the emergency rooms that I spent so much time in this past fall.

The walls of this waiting room are painted that of so flattering pink, the lighting is dim and the chairs are cushy and comfortable - no rows of plastic airline waiting room seats for this guy. Not one single tattered copy of Readers Digest or a 3 year old People Magazine. The waiting room is stacked with pristine copies of W, Harpers Bizarre, Town & Country and Vogue.

His staff is all young & slim, with short skirts, high heels and collagen lips. It is obvious they get a hefty staff discount on his services. Instead of scrubs printed with puppies and kittens (size XXL) they wear white lab coats with their names embroidered (in pink) over the left pocket.

The clientele is Anglo, female and over 40. The combined cost of their jewelry, purses and shoes is most likely more than the GNP of some third world nations. Every hair on their head is professionally colored and styled, every nail carefully painted and filed.

This office hasn't one single notice about letting the staff know if your insurance has changed. They know most of their clients are here by choice and will be paying in cash. The brochures (glossy and professional done) do mention a payment plan option, if you should need it.

I flashed back to one of the emergency room visits I made with my friend Pie. It was a Saturday, she'd fallen and we ended up at the closest hospital.

The chairs in the waiting room were hard, uncomfortable and there wasn't an empty one to be found. The floors were battleship grey linoleum, the walls green and lighting harsh and florescent. The noise level was deafening a combination of blaring televisions and ringing cell phones. The clientele was as diverse as the city of Houston and the majority of the people were Hispanic or African American. Many extended families, many whining children who had colds or earaches. The staff was harried, overworked and wore comfortable shoes and baggy scrubs.

There weren't many signs about insurance there either - but not because the people would be paying cash, but because most of the people couldn't pay at all.

All We Want for Christmas.....

Torrential rains blew through today. A veritable winter monsoon descended on the Houston metropolis. At 9:30, just as I ‘m explaining the STAR test to a group of 3 graders the lights go out. And stay out. It is very dark in the library which has only a few narrow windows.

No STAR testing will happen, no books will be checked out, no internet will be surfed, no stories will be read. I pull out my portable treasure box (a very fancy cigar box I got in a thrift store), drop a set of keys in them and we play “What’s in the Box”. The keys give way to a stapler, which gives way to my watch, which gives way to my cell phone.

It is still dark and in tromps a kindergarten teacher and her kids. It is their library time. Just what they thought I could accomplish is beyond me but it is her library time and she is going to have it. I resort to story telling and a from memory retelling of “The Polar Express”.

Lunch time rolls around. The first couple of grades get a hot lunch, since it was already cooked, the older grades get peanut butter sandwiches. I’d planned two Brownies and Ice Cream reading celebration lunches. We decide that brownies and ice cream taste better in the dark.

The lights come on at 12:30 but the rain is coming down harder, in fact it’s horizontal and we have open walkways ( a legacy of a building partly built in the pre air conditioning days). We also have thunder, lighting and a tornado warning. The sidewalks are flooded, the grounds are one massive puddle and the street in front of the school is hubcap deep in water.

Principal gets on the intercom and requests that all teachers keep their students in the classrooms. 10 minutes later a class shows up at the door. The kids are wet to the knees and their shoes are ruined.

“Didn’t you hear the announcement?”

“Yes, but it’s their library time.”

“But look how wet they are”

“Yes, they walked through rather than around the puddles”.

Of course they did, they are kids, all kids are genetically predisposed to plow through any body of standing water. The inmates appear to be running the asylum.

We proceed, at least we can check out books. They leave.

Another class shows up. ”Didn’t you hear the announcement? “

“Yes, but it’s not raining as hard as it was”

She’s right, we’re down to puppies & kittens as opposed to cats and dogs. However, from the looks of the sky, Tigers and Wolves are expected very shortly.

We suggest they go back before they arrive. We’ve turned all the computers off because the lights have begun to blink again.

Phone rings.

Teacher on the other end “Can we come to the library”.

“Didn’t you hear the announcement?”
Teacher “Oh I forgot”.

I check with the nurse who is across the hall. She’s having much of the same, complete with gashed chins and knees from kids who have slipped on the slick cement walks.

We e-mail the principal “Just what part of “wet” do they not understand?

Principal get back on the intercom. This time everyone finally gets it.

Forget the two front teeth, all we want for Christmas is some common sense!

Home Again, Home Again,Jiggity, Jig

The hospital threatened to keep My Beloved overnight but we dug in our heels and convinced them otherwise. We both knew from experience that I'd be doing most of the nursing care and we'd both rather be in the comfort of our own home.

So, here we are with pain meds, a DVD of The Thomas Crown Affair (Rene Russo is hot!), 6 sleeping kitties and a very high tech method to reduce swelling given to us by the hospital.

And just what is this high tech item? Why, a ziploc baggie of frozen peas! I wonder what the hospital markup is on those?

Observations in the Day Surgery Waiting Area

Small Children: Why do people bring small children? Small as in little children to young to be engrossed in a book or video game, can’t sit still and whine non-stop children? From the number of people in the extended family group it is quite apparent that someone could have stayed home with said child. Or at the motel room. Or taken said child to the zoo which is only half mile up the road.

Waiting : The number of people in this place without a book, magazine, a laptop or needlework is staggering. One does not wait here for a mere 10 minutes or so, you wait for a mind and butt numbing 4 or 5 hours. I cannot imagine doing nothing for that amount of time. I, being the classic Type A have my laptop, several magazines, a book and my Christmas cards.

DayTime TV: Just as mind numbing. Soap operas and game shows. This waiting room blessedly has nooks and crannies so it is possible to isolate oneself from the drone.

Telephone : There is only one. A woman with her appointment calendar open has it totally monopolized. She’s indifferent to the “3 minute” sign and the daggered looks of others who want to make phone call.

Computers : This waiting room has some exta plugs (a rarity) but no wireless networks. I know there are numerous ones in the hospital but they are carefully encrypted. Which I understand but it would be nice if they freed one up for their captive audience.

Coffee: Muddy.

But like Horton I'm faithful 100% so I sit, and I sit and I sit.

Report at 6:30 am.

And we wait. And we wait. And we wait.

My Beloved is scheduled for day surgery. Surgery Time: 10:30 am. Report time: 6:30 am. That means getting up at 5:30. That is normal for me on a workday, but My Beloved is not a morning person and arises much later. Nobody could ever tell us why a 10:30 surgery required a 6:30 arrival time.

We navigate the maze that is the Medical Center and arrive at the seventh floor desk. We are immediately directed to the first floor to fill out yet more paperwork. This is despite 2 pre-opt visits and yesterday evenings 45 minute phone call. Trailing bread crumbs in our wake we go downstairs, give more of the same answers and then follow our breadcrumb trail back to our original destination. Where we sat And we sat. And we sat. And we sat.

Horton the Elephant has nothing on us.

One Neighborhood...Part 2

Oddly enough our local paper, Houston Chronicle is running a series on the very subject I addressed yesterday. The neighborhood they profile is half a mile from where I live. My route to the silent Starbucks goes right past the corner of Washington and Shepherd. Sometimes on the way to work I stop for coffee at a little place around the corner from Case Juan Diego. On cold mornings there is always a line of bundled up people waiting in line for food. The day laborer site at 11th & Shepherd is within walking distance of my house.

Across the street from our house is a cramped, falling down house that houses a succession of Hispanic men, most of whom commute to work on bicycles. I know one works nights because I see him coming home as I am leaving for work. We nod and smile at each other.

They have assorted women and children coming and going. Sometimes they stay for a few days. Try though I might I've never quite been able to figure out the relationships.

I've often wondered what they think of us, with our revolving collection of cars (My Beloved changes her cars at the rate some people change their shoes), the constant arrival of packages, and expensive hobbies of golf and travel.

No matter what the anti immigration folks say, we need each other. Without the men across the street and the day laborers standing on the street corner just blocks away the entire economy of Houston (and the US in general) would come to a standstill. Without them My Beloved wouldn't have the labor needed to complete the buildings she builds and I wouldn't have any children to teach. There wouldn't be anyone to clean our house, serve our meals at the local coffee shops and cafes or manicure the golf courses we play on

Almost every good thing we have in our lives comes from the sweat of their brows and the aches in their backs.

1 Neighborhood, 2 Parallel, Never Intersecting Lives

The Houston Heights is, as I have mentioned in other posts a transitional neighborhood. It is located near downtown and appeals to those who like an eclectic neighborhood and loathe commuting. As with most transitional neighborhoods it is a mixture of the old and new, the rich and the poor, the falling down and the under construction and the Anglo and the Hispanic.

The same mix goes for the restaurants. There are a number of fast food places and independently owned cafes and coffee shops. Not much in the way of fine dining, due an early 20th century quirk, The Houston Heights is dry.

Normally on the weekend, we will go have breakfast at Java Java or one of the other cafes. The clientele there is much like us, gay & lesbian couples, single professionals reading the New York Times, young couples with one, very well cared for, doted on child, and retired folks with good pensions who have moved back into the city from the suburbs.

Dressed in name brand casual clothing, they talk in muted tones over their omelets, hash browns and lattes. They have the look that comes from time to exercise, money to pay for professional hair coloring and dental insurance.

Today I felt the need for my annual grease fix so I headed to Mickey D’s for a sausage biscuit and a potato cake.

I ran smack dab into the other population who live in the Heights.

I was the only English as first language person in the place. Actually, considering that I spoke Dutch before I spoke English it would be safe to say there was not one person, either in front or behind the counter who was born speaking English. The menu and all the signage was in both English and Spanish.

It was crowded with multigenerational, extended familes – mother, father, cousins, grandmother, children and assorted shirttail relations. Everyone dressed in that thrift store look – clothes that don’t quite match or fit. The women & girls like their clothes much to small and much to tight and the boys like their pants baggy and their shirts hanging to their knees.

Despite the fact that most people there were carrying an extra 20 pounds or more; food was being ordered with no thought to fat grams, cholesterol or future diabetes. The children carried much more poundage than their parents – the American passion for fast food is playing havoc with the offspring of the Hispanic immigrants. We see the same among the students at my school; so many of them, especially the boys are overweight.

No New York Times, no reading material at all and not much conversation. About the only activity was the chomping of jaws and fussing of the babies. Very little coffee was to be seen, most folks were drinking soft drinks. Mickey D’s prides itself on offering “healthy choices” but nobody appeared to very interested. Can’t say that I blame them – after all I skipped the orange juice in favor of hash brown cake!

It is interesting that these 2 very diverse populations live side by side, yet rarely collide. And it’s interesting to observe the businesses that have sprung up to serve them.