Of Note

 A friend sent me the New York Times Book Review "100 Notable Books of 2025" article this morning (not sure if it's paywalled, sorry). I always experience a funny blend of feelings when I see the headline of one of these. Primarily excitement: I love a good list, and I like counting how many books of those mentioned I have read and putting others on hold. There's an undertone of trepidation, because invariably there are many, many books that I not only haven't read, I haven't even heard of them - and I don't consider myself someone who is completely ignorant of the book world. And then there is the merest soupcon of weariness and derision - the tiniest bit, really - because who has done the choosing, and what are the precise criteria, and what does 'notable' actually mean (at least they didn't call it the BEST books of 2025). Obviously there's an element of subjectivity. I always end up concluding that maybe I am just a basic reading bitch, and that's FINE. 

I had read five, which is laughably few and yet is more than in some years. One of them I hated, one of them I thought was over-hyped, one I loved, one I really liked, and one was strange and I admired it. I am currently reading two more, and one I just had to return because it was too overdue.

Honestly, I didn't find a lot to raise my eyebrows at in the list. It seemed like a pretty good mix of fiction, non-fiction, genre, current issues and biographies of significant personalities. I had a good number of them on hold already thanks to Sarah (HI SARAH). I put like twenty more on hold, just as I was getting ready to wind up my 'year of putting all the physical books on hold' experiment, thanks a lot New York Times Book Review.

It was Scholastic Book Fair week at two of my libraries, which is always a heady mix of excitement and chaos. I had two amazing parent volunteers to help at one school, which was great because we didn't think we'd end up having to use the card machine but one parent came in and two teachers and it took me a stupid long time to get it working - tech hates me. But we did a brisk business and the kids were happy.

One major shock was that the posters - which have been five dollars each since time immemorial - jumped to SIX dollars in 2023, and are now SEVEN dollars each. That's a hundred and forty percent jump in TWO YEARS (I think, math's not really my thing). One of the kids repeated this incredulously and I said "I KNOW. This is all on Scholastic, and we completely agree that it is (thinking: I can't say bullshit, I can't say bullshit) NOT COOL." 

Last Book Fair Post - Promise

You know how it can be really hard to do simple tasks when someone is watching you? Twice yesterday I had to look through the picture book racks for a Splat the Cat or Hot Rod Hamster book with a little boy shouting NO, NOT Hot Rod Hamster Wacky Whatever Race, Hot Rod Hamster MONSTER TRUCK MANIA, or NO, NOT Splat the Cat What was That, Splat the Cat MAKES DAD GLAD. Why, I whimpered, why on earth don't we keep all the Splat the Fucking Cat books together? Because some are picture books and some are Early Reader books (taller, skinnier, pre-chapter books) was the sensible answer, but when you have little Charlie breathing down your neck it doesn't help that much.

And the math. I am perfectly able to perform simple arithmetic, EXCEPT when someone is standing on the other side of the counter watching me. Then my brain suddenly comes to a hard stop while trying to make 10.00 and 7.00 and 8.00 and 11.50 come out to a reasonable sum. It doesn't help when a student's father starts shouting out numbers when I finally resort to the calculator - WRONG numbers, may I add. I should have just LET him overcharge himself by six dollars.

Eve, my sixth-grade daughter, was better at giving change than the ninth-grade volunteer we had. She gets that from her dad.

The parent volunteers decided we would keep the book fair open straight through from school dismissal until the end of parent-teacher interviews, letting the librarian go home for dinner and to walk her dogs. So when a student came in asking for an exchange or return, we had to make an executive decision. Sometimes it was easy - the kid wanted to exchange a Minecraft Combat Handbook for a Minecraft Construction Handbook. The one he wanted was a dollar more than the one he had. I told him to take it and bring back a dollar when he could. He did, which I was ridiculously pleased by. Then a girl came in with a poster she wanted to return. I was in the back room and Eve was at the cash. I watched, ready to step in if needed. The girl said "can I return this poster?" Eve asked why. The girl said "I was in a hurry and I didn't really read it." I couldn't see Eve's face, but I imagine her expression was as blisteringly incredulous as her tone when she said "Didn't READ it? It's a POSTER." The girl took her poster and left.

Eve was also the one to notice a bit of a disconnect between this girl's chipper expression

and the subject matter on the screens.

Read to connect to what, exactly? Serial killers? Odd choice, we think. Odd.

Day 20

Eve and I are home from the book fair and tired. We had an interview with her teacher who I already loved. She said Eve obviously doesn't face any academic difficulties, so she thinks they should focus on preparing for middle school and high school by working on the challenges of things like group work dynamics and subjects that Eve finds less engaging, like geography (poor kid has a little dead spot in her brain just like mine, where mapping skills should be). Then she said Eve was awesome, which, duh, but always nice to hear.

Then we went back to the book fair. It was crazy busy and crowded and I had to go out in the hallway every time somebody used debit or credit again and fighting through the throngs of people wearing winter coats made me claustrophobic and panicky,  but most people were awesome and we made a metric fuckton of money for the school library and by the end of the evening everything was hilarious and math stopped working in the library for a few minutes around seven o'clock and we thought about asking the principal if next year we could pipe oxygen into the library during the book fair like they do in Vegas. Then there was a lull and I walked around finding picture books and making them seem dirty (which wasn't that hard, really - There was an old woman who swallowed a stick? Oh what a trick, to swallow a stick? Seriously? Okay, she swallowed the stick to hit the puck, but come ON.) Then we played with the pom-pom pens that we had hidden behind the desk because the students kept whacking each other in the face with them. You click a little button that makes the pom-pom fly off, and it WAS oddly satisfying. 

Then we went to McDonald's and ran into some people who had been at the book fair, which made the night feel very small townish, in a good way. Then we came home and watched Bones. It started with a scene in a playground, and Eve said "oh, great. A bunch of kids are about to find a gross dead body. Why do we always watch this show while we're eating?"

Then she said something about dogs and I remembered that I had to show her this, which made me fall off my chair laughing earlier today. When she stopped laughing she said "WHY did she even sign him UP?" As a special bonus, we read the headline in the sidebar which said "Polish playground bans Pooh because 'it doesn't wear underpants'". 

And now I have to get ready for bed because Eve asked me if I would read the Bad Kitty Christmas book she got at the book fair to her just for fun. And I said I would. Because it does sound like fun.

Wordless Wednesday: Book Fair Day 2

Book Fair Day One

1) I thought of Nicole every time I said "the posters are five dollars each."

2) I thought "there's no way they sent us enough Frozen posters."

3) I told one grade six girl that the pointers were (also) five dollars each and she exclaimed "OH F..." and I gasped and she finished "OH FIVE, I only have FOUR, bummer!" That was exciting.

4) One little boy came back up the counter, clasping his Pokemon book and his Ninjago book, looked at me and the librarian and said 'You guys are the BEST'. 

5) I only screwed up simple addition once. Maybe twice.

6) I ranted (probably for the dozenth time) that all the erasers should be the same price, and whoever added a .50 to ANY price should be shot. Or relieved of their position at Scholastic. Or made to work the book fair without a calculator. Don't even get me started on the 1.25 highlighters.

7) There are no cake pop erasers this year so we haven't had to tell anyone not to bite the erasers. There are, however, pencils with Groucho Marx nose/moustache combos on them, which have been held up to many, many faces. I don't bother to tell them not to do it, but it grosses me out a little. 

8) I was disproportionately cranky about the 'borrowed' pencils for the wish lists. We started the day with almost twenty pencils, and after two classes we had almost none - rotten little pencil thieves. Some teachers were awesome about sending their kids back to return the pencils, some were ridiculously defensive - "most of my kids brought their own pencils" - THAT PENCIL AREA ON THE COUNTER DIDN'T EMPTY ITSELF, SIR. When I came home to grab lunch, I took some pencils back from last year's school supplies. They all have EVE A. carved into them. I will HAVE my pencils back.

9) The woman I volunteered with last year is coming on Wednesday and she's bringing a BABY. On Wednesday I will be working the BABY FAIR, and someone else can do the math and find the fucking unicorn books.

Our book fair was blessedly boner-free
Photo by IIII Chin

10) At one point, Katy the librarian came back to the desk to check the flyer because someone had asked her if we had a book. I asked her what she was looking for and she said "Do we have Fart Powder: Who Cut the Cheese?" This was particularly marvelous because Katy has a British accent, and after she said it a few times I was on the floor laughing, and told her I have to record her saying it so I can play it back when I'm sad. P.S. We did not have Fart Powder: Who Cut the Cheese. (You're saying 'fart powder' to yourself in a British accent now, aren't you? You're welcome).

11) I used to spend hundreds of dollars when I worked the book fair, on books for my kids. Today I spent twenty, on a cool washi tape craft kit, because ninety percent of the books are too young for my kids. That made me sad, but not as sad as I thought it would. 

12) Fart powder.