Practically Paradise Blog - Diane Chen
"Have you seen the Picture Window Books series featuring Kylie Jean? We currently own Kylie Jean Drama Queen, Kylie Jean Rodeo Queen, Kylie Jean Blueberry Queen, and Kylie Jean Hoop Queen. They aren’t processed and checked out through our circulation system yet because I cannot pry them out of the hands of these sixth grade girls long enough to slap a barcode on the books. This is a re-creation of a typical conversation. Fortunately some of the boys were playing with my flip camera and recorded part of it, but NO, I’m NOT going to show the video since it was totally a bad hair day and I have deleted the video. Girl 1: Here, Ms Chen! Here’s that book Kylie Jean Blueberry Queen I borrowed from you to review. I’m sorry I kept it so long, but my sister wanted to read it too, and then my friend in science class saw it and she needed to read it last weekend. Could you hold it here because Eliana is grabbing her overdue book so she can read it, too, and I told her she’d better hurry because Mariam said she was going to get it first, but Mariam already read Kylie Jean Drama Queen so she should have to wait. Ms Chen: Wait a minute! I lent you the book so you’d write a review for me and I could share it with blog readers. I still need to hold on to it so I can catalog it after tutoring today and read it myself so I can write about it. Girl 1: Well, I know you need a review so how about you just tell your readers that girls in fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, and seventh grade will love to read this, but that the eighth graders might want some more romance stuff instead. Umm, and tell them that I really like the cover of the book because it’s pretty and Kylie Jean could be any of us girls with brown hair, and that everyone wants to read it, and that it’s funny, and that it’s quick to read, oh, and tell them that we convinced the computer teacher to let us go to the website during class and we found an event kit there and our reading teacher Ms H says if you want, she will help us have a Kylie Jean party and she has a beauty queen tiara, oh, yes, and tell your readers that my Nana let me make the recipe in the back and it even tasted good, and oh, yeah, I think every library should have every one of these books, and I really need the Kylie Jean Rodeo Queen next and I saw that Lillian had it and she said I could read it (if you say it’s okay) and she put me on her list cause she knows you want lots of people’s opinions about it so she’s got a list and people are borrowing it from her and she knows you won’t mind. Maybe I can have Tiajah come tell you about the one she’s reading – the Hoop Queen one – cause she said she liked it and she won’t let anyone else read it til she reads it a second time. Ms Chen: Okay, I think I can almost remember what you told me but you should really try to breathe more when you are talking. Maybe I should just give you the stickers to put on the books and somebody can drop by to let me know where they are. You know I like to track how many people are reading these new books I review so I can have accurate numbers. Girl 1: Ms Chen, you are so silly. You just need to add up all the girls in Ms H and Ms M and Mr W’s class cause we all read this one and then you can just pretend it was checked out and then you’ll know its popular for your numbers. Girl 2: Hey, Ms Chen, she better be giving you that book back because I got here first and I need to read it. She only let me read it to chapter four on the bus. Is that author Marci Peschke going to write some more books about Kylie Jean because I have some ideas to share with her and maybe then she can share some profit with me, too? My mom said I should just write my own book but I told her all about plagiarism and that I would have to invent my own person or go to jail and my mom said I should ask you how to write to the author to ask her. Do you think Wednesday Morning would make the pictures for me? Ms Chen: The illustrator is called Tuesday Mourning" - Practically Paradise Blog
February 20, 2011