Today, Kim Paras, Weekly Reader's Manager of Copy Editing, muses on why she loves libraries.

My public library recently put a stack of forms on the counter that read "I love my library because ..." Beneath that opener was a bunch of blank lines.

Cool! The nerd in me was eager to tell my librarian why I loved coming to the library, why I visited so often, and why I would sometimes spend hours upstairs-"Where did that tall girl with the glasses go?"–only to reemerge with no books in hand.

Why do I love the library? For starters, I love to read! And to be surrounded by shelves and shelves of books? Oh gosh, just give me access to food and lock me in--seriously, I won’t mind. Sometimes I go to the library knowing exactly what I want. "It's Halloween and I'm in the mood for Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None." At other times I enter thinking I know what I want--"It's time to tackle Chekhov"--but then I leave the library with something entirely different under my arm, say, The Reader. "I must read the book before seeing the movie!"

When I was little and my mom would take me to the library, I would feel as if I'd entered a different world. I would begin wandering down the aisles, carefully slipping books from their shelves and reading the back covers, and everything outside--school, homework, even other people--would be forgotten. The library has the same effect on me today. The first thing that strikes me when I walk through the doors of the library is the quiet. Perhaps it is stating the obvious for me to point out that the library is quiet, but when you're there, no one has to shuss you. You just know, you know? You walk inside and you have taken a trip to, well, wherever you wish. You can lose yourself in novels, mysteries, biographies, history, poetry, plays, or nothing but dictionaries. And that doesn't begin to cover everything. No wonder some people actually get lost in the library.

The library also has that "library smell." Not a bad smell, mind you. Just a certain smell, the way school has a certain smell and the way a new car has a certain smell. And the library has its own sounds. Quiet, careful footsteps in the next aisle over. Creaking floors heard from rooms overhead.

For me, the library is an escape. When I'm in the library, 50 other people may be there too, but I feel like I'm alone, wandering the aisles, carefully slipping books from their shelves.

What do you love about the library?

Check this out! 

Leeawesome and her roommate were inspired to create this music video by the School Library Journal's Battle of the Kids' Books competition and High School Musical 3. 

Great job girls!

It's cold in New York this week. April promises a sea change and warm weather, but April fools. It's cold outside. Keeps raining. It's cold in the office and cold at night under the covers. I want to write about the spring, but it isn't spring really. I don't know what to write about. I don't even know what to blog about. National Poetry Month? If you have to ask about that, you'll never know. I might have a poem in my pocket, but I don't have inspiration.

Maybe I need to stretch and flex my literary muscles. A little exercise. Literary calisthenics. Back in school, my professors offered exercises to get out of a funk, a block, whatever. But now I have no professors, and I'm left to my own devices-- literary or otherwise. So, I've scoured the internet for a few good exercises to try. Hopefully, one will inspire me. And hopefully, one will inspire you too. If so, please send the fruits of your labor to word@weeklyreader.com. Title it "Student Writing Exercise." If you have an exercise of your own that you would like to share, attach it to the comments section. Enough winter laziness. Let's get writing.

From Poefrika:

Ten-Minute Creative Writing Exercise
If you think you don't have time to write, think again. See what you can produce with a simple set of writing prompts and ten minutes of your time with this creative writing exercise inspired by Rita Dove's exercise "Ten-Minute Spill."
Write for ten minutes, incorporating a common proverb, adage, or familiar phrase ("between the devil and the deep blue sea," "one foot in the grave," "a stitch in time saves nine," "the whole nine yards," "a needle in a haystack," etc.) that you have changed in some way, as well as five of the following words:

hill
apricot
fist
stone
bleat
cousin
turn
lick

Don’t worry about creating a story right now: just focus on following the parameters and writing for your ten minutes. Write down whatever comes into your head without worrying about whether it’s good or not. You might surprise yourself.

From author Aimee Bender's website:

Make a list of five areas about which you are an expert. Be honest. A true expert. Then, pick one and write a page of expertise, using vocabulary that may leave a reader out, vocabulary very particular to that particular area of knowledge. (It does not have to be "the floral industry"-- it can also be "ways to avoid saying hello" or "Dad's shoes". )
I think this is one way of interpreting what Flannery O'Connor means by "manners" and also what Junot Diaz means when he says it's okay (even good?) if a reader doesn't understand everything you say.

From the University of Iowa:

Think of a situation in which a long-held fear or anxiety that you have comes true (this should be a situation which could, but has not yet happened). Now, using the third-person mode of narration, write a scene – or a very short story – describing a fictional version of yourself dealing with the situation.

 

If those three ideas don't get you going, check out this AWESOME writer's hub titled Language is a Virus. This place is full of ideas, games, inspirations,  interviews and shrines to brilliant authors.

 

Good Luck!

You'll probably notice that there's no mention of potatoes in the following poetry. But you know where potatoes and poetry have recently intertwined? The Satire Issue of READ! That's right, our Lit Scene Investigation featured parodies of the following poems using potatoes as a theme. Sure these poems are examples of greatness in literature. But where do you put the ketchup?

This Is Just to Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Sonnet 18 Shall I Compare These to A Summer's Day
by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

TO STELLA

by Plato

THOU gazest on the stars, my star!

Ah! would that I might be

Myself those skies with myriad eyes,

That I might gaze on thee.