New Year's Resolution Update

My resolution for 2019 was to embrace my personal style, which is colorful and eclectic.  I sometimes feel pressured to dress and decorate my home the ways that other women my age tend to. However, most of the home decor trends simply do not appeal to me. I don't really like modernism or minimalism or neutral colors. In January, I wrote about wanting to makeover the front room of my house because it just didn't feel like me. I've been working on it ever since, and it finally resembles my kind of room.

I really wanted a fireplace. I thought it would match the vintage character of the house, and the wall of the front room always looked very blank, no matter how I tried arranging the room. I looked at a few mantels at antique stores but I ended up finding one at Salvation Army for $40. I bought it immediately and had my husband come pick it up. It's obviously meant to be a decorative one, but I already had a large candelabra that I placed in the bottom of it, and it fit perfectly. Above the fireplace is a print that a friend gifted me, depicting mermaids surrounding a champagne glass. Lots of flowers and candles around it, too.

In my front window are two branches that I spray painted silver. I hung them from the curtain rod with thin wire, and strung chandelier prisms on them. The catch the light as the sun rises over the pond in the morning, filling the house with tiny rainbows. It's like that scene in Pollyanna!

The couch was an old thrift store find in a very blah, neutral tan color. I covered it with a cozy throw blanket, and got new pillow cases to cover some throw pillows. We found the purple rug at Marden's and I put my beloved antique Ouija board (a find from the flea market in Maryland) on the coffee table.

We found this old desk, with wonderful green chippy paint on the roadside. Now it's a sofa table that holds some of my favorite antique books, and votives in jam jars.

I spent much of my spring break painting, and I decided to fill my front room with my own creations. This square canvas is an upcycled one which I coated with gesso, and used a palette of blues, greens and golds.

I watched The Unicorn Store on Netflix recently, and the character reminded me a lot of myself (and my friends agree). I shouldn't be embarrassed by my Care Bears and Rainbow Brite collection, or my paintings and homemade windchimes; it's just who I am.

I like my life to be colorful.

Little Women Graphic Novel

When I found out that there's a graphic novel adaptation of Little Women, I had to add it to my collection. It's not an illustrated mirror of the text, rather, it's a modern adaptation of Little Women featuring a diverse cast of characters.

Meg is the father's daughter, Jo is Marmee's daughter, and after their parents married each other, along came Beth and Amy. The updates to the family unit are explained in letters, emails, and journal entries that are sandwiched between the graphic novel scenes that depict the classic novel's storyline. As an avid fan of Little Women, and the various slipstreams that derive from it, I enjoyed the novel, and for the most part, I think it presented the major tenets of Alcott's text in a way that is fresh and easy to understand, attracting new readers. However, there was one change that I was a little uncomfortable with  *****SPOILERS AHEAD*****

I didn't like that Meg didn't end up marrying John Brooke, and that she broke up with him. I didn't necessarily expect that they would get married in a modern adaptation, in which the girls do not age (as they do in Good Wives, the second book of Little Women), but they could have ended up together in another way. They could have moved in together, or gone off to the same college together, or just left it as they're in a relationship. That change kind of got under my skin because it not only changes the story, but it changes the Meg character.

Meg March puts aside her childish desire for riches in order to marry John Brooke, going against the wishes of Great Aunt March, because she loves him. She wants to have a life with him.

There were other changes to other characters, too. For example, Jo comes out of the closet and is portrayed as same-sex oriented. That change didn't really bother me, because Jo never had the same priorities as Meg. She doesn't care about marriage or a home with children. She is fiercely independent, rejecting Laurie proposals, pleading with him "Please just be my comfortable friend." Since this adaptation seems to exist in a universe devoid of Good Wives, and thus would not include Professor Bhaer, it kind of makes sense that Jo begins this journey. Rather than going on to New York City, and succumbing to matrimonial fate, she shows her bravery in a different way. And, it adds another level of diversity to the story. Well done!

Because Jo's new journey seems so well constructed, I didn't find it necessary for Aunt March to also confess that she is same-sex oriented, and imply that the reason she is so cold and unfriendly is because she was never able to pursue her own happiness. Why can't she just be a woman who never married? Louisa May Alcott never married either. There are many women, of different sexual orientations, that choose not to marry. I feel like it would have made her a stronger character if she just said "I never married because I didn't want to rather than "I didn't marry because I was ashamed and in the closet for almost my entire life."

I di plan to add this book to the library collection soon, and I'll be interested to hear what the students (mostly the 4th and 5th grade girls who devour graphic novels) think of it.

My Tie Dye Library is OPEN FOR BUSINESS

This past Christmas, my husband gave me a Little Free Library.

Now that it's finally spring, I painted it, with help from Johnny. We gave it a very colorful, tie dye look, of course.

The inside is painted blue, and has mermaids:

Right now, it's just children's books, but as I clean out some of my own collection, I'll try to put some for grown-ups in there, too:

So, my Little Free Library is officially open!

Reflecting on a Solemn Anniversary

It's been about a month since I last posted. I have some good things to write about, but first I feel compelled to write about the 20th anniversary of Columbine. That tragedy has shaped the everyday reality and concerns of students and educators, and even though it has been two decades since the nation watched it unfold on TV, and we've had twenty years to learn from our mistakes and improve our safety efforts, we have failed, and we continue to fail.

I was in highschool when Columbine happened, and I remember watching every news station playing the footage of the students running from the school with their hands over their heads, to show they were unarmed. I remember going to the school library shortly after to read the TIME magazine that the faces of Eric Harris and Dylan Kleobold on the cover, framed by the yearbook photos of the victims.

My highschool, which was a small, private, Catholic, all-girls highschool, installed a camera and buzzer system right afterwards. And I felt alot safer.

The December after I got my first job in a school library, Sandy Hook happened. When we went back to school the following Monday, we were instructed not to bring it up, but if the students asked questions, we should try to be truthful and reassuring. I didn't plan to talk about it with my 7th grade advisory, but one of the girls immediately asked if we could talk about it because "it's almost Christmas time, but now those kids won't be opening presents." I don't remember the whole conversation, but I remember her saying that.

Last year, the nation watched again as teens fled from Stoneman Douglas Highschool in Florida.

I'm in a new school now, and during the new school year orientation, we had a two hour long training on active shooter scenarios. We have lockdown drills to practice safety procedures.

The day after our recent lock down drill, a kindergarten girl went running up to the library aide during recess, wanting to know what would happen if she was in the library and "someone tried to get in", where would they go?

Columbine's 20th anniversary is tomorrow, April 20th, and even though it should be a day of peace and reflection, we cannot escape what happened. Just this week, a teenage girl from Florida, who was apparently fascinated with Harris and Kleobold and Columbine, flew to Colorado, purchased a weapon and was considered a such a serious threat to safety that schools to perform lockout procedures and cancel school the following day.

Anyone who is familiar with Columbine knows that the school library is where the most damage occurred, and where most of the victims were found. And the librarians at both Sandy Hook and Stoneman Douglas pulled students and staff members in media storage rooms as danger loomed.

And every time I think about these events, and review lock-down procedures, I ask myself:

"When did this become part of a school librarian's job description?"

When did it become part of any educator's duties? Why is this still part of our reality when we've literally had decades to fix this problem? Can it even be fixed?

I love my job. I love doing book talks. I love planning STEM activities and makerspace projects. I love purchasing new books,, and seeing how excited the students get about them. I will gladly protect my students' rights to read, and their intellectual freedom, but no teacher should have to go into school worrying about what else we'll need to protect them from.

We can't keep hoping that "this one will be the last one".

I don't know exactly what the answer is, but I know we need one.