Posts on rants

When in the course of human events one has a lousy customer service experience, one must, of course, blog about it.

A little role reversal is a valuable thing. When doctors become patients, teachers become students, customer service representatives become disgruntled customers, and librarians become patrons, we suddenly see the world from the other side of the desk—and sometimes, we find, we don't like what we see.

This morning, I stepped into the role of patron at my hometown library. (I work in the next town over.) I've had a poor customer service experience there previously, in the circulation department, but I thought I'd give Reader's Assistance a try. I'd looked in the mystery section for Charlie Huston's vampire detective series, to no avail, so I went up to the desk.

Two librarians were sitting behind it talking. They looked up at me as I approached and continued to talk for several seconds. Finally, one of them said, "Yes?"

"Hi!" I said. "I'm wondering if you can tell me what the most recent book in Charlie Huston's vampire detective series is."

The librarian began clicking and tapping away at her computer. Finally, she said, "The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death."

I waited a moment. The title didn't sound right (the other books in this series have very catchy, hard-boiled names), but I thought I'd at least take a look. When the librarian said nothing more, I said, "Okay. Can you tell me if it's checked in?"

"That's what I'm checking. It should be over in the fiction section." She pointed a vague finger.

"Okay, great. I was looking in the mysteries before. That must have been my problem."

I went to the fiction section and found Charlie Huston's books. The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death, of course, is not a vampire detective book. But some earlier books in the series were there. I took one back to the reference desk with me.

The librarian did not look happy to see my return. I smiled. "I found the book you told me, but it wasn't in the right series. This is the series I'm interested in." I opened the book to the publications list. "The Joe Pitt Casefiles. I didn't remember the name."

The librarian somehow completely misunderstood me. "Well, it doesn't say it's new, but it might be in the new book section."

We walked over, and I said, "Is this the vampire book we're looking for?"

"We're looking for the one I told you about before."

"I found that book. It was by the same author, but it wasn't in the series I wanted."

"Well, then, I don't understand what you're asking me." By now the librarian had gone from seeming mildly put-out to downright hostile.

I patiently opened the book to the publications lists again. "This author writes several series. This is the one I'm interested in: the Joe Pitt Casefiles. This one was published in 2007. I want to know if there's a more recent one."

Resignedly, the librarian spent several more minutes at the computer without talking to me. Meanwhile, I began to feel sick with anger and anxiety. I wished I could grab her computer and look up the information myself, or at least say, "Are you searching all libraries? Have you considered googling the series to get a full listing?" But I hate outsiders telling me how to do my job, so I kept my mouth shut.

Finally she said, "I think this is the one: My Dead Body. 2009."

"Okay. Do you have it?"

"One library has it on order." She didn't offer to reserve it for me.

"Okay. Well, thanks a lot!" I said brightly.

"All right." I left the library and bought a burrito (clearly my only course of action at that point).

Storytime is over; let the rant begin. My problem with this whole "customer service transaction" is not that I walked away empty-handed. My problem is that everything about the librarian's speech and body language, from beginning to end, screamed, "Get out of my face, you stupid patron."

Let's take a look:

• "Yes?" is not a greeting or an offer of assistance. It's something you say when someone's interrupted you.
• She didn't smile. She barely made eye contact.
• She either didn't listen to my question or didn't compare what she saw on her screen with what I'd asked. (The book she directed me to had nothing to do with vampires.)
• She didn't listen to what I said when I returned to the desk.
• She got angry with me for, apparently, not communicating what I wanted.
• When someone says "thank you," the appropriate response is "you're welcome."

Oh, and another thing? There's a Joe Pitt novel that came out in 2008 and, while that library does not own it, other libraries in the consortium do. She easily could have ordered it for me... if she'd been remotely interested in actually answering my question.

The experience brought home for me how important friendly faces and can-do attitudes are at the library reference desk. I think my library (the one where I work) does very well, on the whole. At least we do in my department. When people approach the desk, we say, "Hi! May I help you!" We say, "You're welcome." We listen carefully to our patrons' questions. We do our best to answer them accurately, using not just the catalog as a resource but also our coworkers, the Internet, and other reference materials as necessary.

That's the way it should be. The fact that it's not that way everywhere makes me sick. These are the librarians who give us all a bad name. The ones who embody the stereotype of the antisocial shusher. The ones who make patrons of all ages afraid to approach the reference desk with their questions. The ones whose "best" is somehow worse than my "worst."

They're also the ones who remind me, when I return to my place behind the desk, how to do my job right. And for that, Ms. Crabbycakes Librarian, I thank you.

Andrew Karre points to this obnoxious article in School Library Journal: "Tough Love: An Open Letter to Kids' Book Publishers," by Diantha McBride.

McBride does begin by saying these are her suggestions of things she wishes publishers would do differently; fair enough. But I wish she'd taken a more straight-forward approach. Some of her suggestions are ones I think most librarians would get behind. Others are just her own pet peeves, but the article's snarky, know-it-all tone gives the impression that they are universal truths recognized by librarians everywhere. And that puts me off. Because that just ain't so. Quite the contrary.

First, though, two points I strongly agree with.

"1. Bulk up those bindings." Yes—especially for books expected to sell big. If they sell big, they'll circulate big. Of course, the cheap glue of graphic novels is the worst. A library that can afford to replace those copies will, of course. But so many don't have the budget.

"3. Give that cover a makeover." Aside from books that are simply old and worn, the books that circulate least are the ones with unappealing covers, especially those using dark or drab colors, "ugly" people (I'm not getting all Seventeen here, I mean paintings that make ordinary characters look strange), and quiet landscapes that don't feature people or animals.

Okay, now the major disagrees.

"2. Better editing." This is the one Andrew addresses so eloquently, so I won't rehash it. Suffice it to say: I agree with him. I've read plenty of books that I thought were overlong (*cough* The Sweet Far Thing *cough* Breaking Dawn *cough* The Amber Spyglass *cough*), but I've also read plenty of long books that were just as long as they needed to be.

Sure, we want well-edited books, but how exactly is page length the measure of good editing? Some readers, young and old, love to be absorbed in epic tales that go on for hundreds or thousands of pages, across dozens of volumes. The equation of "good" with "short" only works when you're a struggling reader or you've got a book report due the next morning. Neither is a universal truth.

Subset of item 3: "Please, no more stupid titles." IMNSHO, stupid titles are the ones that misrepresent a book's contents. Good titles are the ones that, in combination with an intriguing cover, make the potential reader want to know more. How, then, is How Could You Do It, Diane? a "stupid title"? Do what? I'd love to know! Judging by her examples, McBride seems to think that "stupid titles" are long titles. But based on her opinion of long books, I suppose that's no surprise.

"5. More boy books." There are so many problems with McBride's argument here. First, the erroneous implication that there's a shortage of children's books with male main characters. Seriously, librarians, booksellers? Back me up: when's the last time you had trouble coming up with a boy-centered novel to sell a reader? Second, the implication that these "boy books" must be novels, when studies have repeatedly shown many male readers' preference for nonfiction and alternative media.

But what really boils my blood is that McBride's argument is slavishly patriarchal. We live in a society, in a world, where men (especially white men; especially Christian white men; etc.) are given the greatest privilege. Is the reason boys won't read about girls, but girls will read about boys (a common, but in my opinion fallacious, argument) because of cootie-phobia? No. It's because our culture values boys more than girls, just as our culture values white people more than black people. (And my library's disproportionately poor circulation of books with African-American characters shows it.) And librarians, teachers, and parents reinforce that preference over and over and over with sexist reader's advisory.

Thank goodness we have Diantha McBride to advise us. She tells us, "I've noticed that lots of books with female characters aren't really about being female," and offers examples of novels with strong female characters that could have had male protagonists instead. Hey, listen up writers and editors! Any book that doesn't specifically deal with breasts and periods and pretty, pretty princesses should be about boys. Because boys don't see themselves reflected in literature, film, politics, science, or sports nearly enough. Because boys are the default. Because we're lazy slaves to the patriarchy.

Excuse me while I barf.

Look, I appreciate McBride's plea for more books geared toward reluctant readers—assuming that's what she's really getting at with her comments on page length and "boy books." (I strongly suspect it is.) But that's it's own issue, a subset of what children's publishing really needs. We need more well-edited books, whatever their length. We need short page-turners, long thought-provokers, and everything in between. We need more books about strong boys and strong girls, whether or not they're about "being male" or "being female"—likewise, books starring ethnic minorities, sexual minorities. We need books packed with action; we need books examining character and identity. We need fiction and nonfiction. We need it all.

Basically, children's publishers? Please keep responding to the broad and varied needs of today's diverse young readers. That's it. That's all I ask.

ETA, 7/1/09:
After this knicker-twisting experience, my final patron brought my evening to a most satisfying conclusion. This seventh grade boy, avid fantasy reader, walked away with The Hero and the Crown and The Will of the Empress—books by two foremost women writers of fantasies starring kick-ass women—and didn't betray a single misgiving about the protagonists being female. Booyah.

I've latched onto a couple of interesting discussions taking place in the Kidlitosphere in the past 24 hours. Take a look...

• Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect asks why we read. Her question is spurred by a profoundly irritating, borderline offensive review of Twilight in The Atlantic, "What Girls Want," by Caitlin Flanagan. The column is rife with gross generalizations and ignorance of teen literature, not to mention multi-directional sexism and heterosexism. Even if I weren't a person who hates being told what I think, what I feel, what I'm like, or who I am (does anyone?), I'd still want to remind Ms. Flanagan that one person's experiences do not a broad-sweeping phenomenon make.
• Liz at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy asks what personal area of expertise results in a "fail" moment when the book you're reading gets it wrong. For me, it's dog ownership and librarianship. And, I suppose local information. (I still haven't gotten over James Howe sending that giraffe to the nonexistent zoo in Kalamazoo!)

Ooo, some parents make me so mad!

Tonight I was walking through the junior high section when I overheard an exchange between a mom and her daughter, who appeared to be about twelve years old. The girl had picked out a book from the S.A.S.S. series.

Mom said, "That looks a little too snacky. Let's look for something else. Let's see, have you ever read any Virginia Woolf?"

Alternate-Universe Me snatched the S.A.S.S. book from Mom's disapproving fingers and whacked her over the head with it. Respect-Patrons'-Privacy Me walked away seething.

What is it about free reading that some parents don't understand? What's wrong with "snacky"? Why must reading be a chore?

Author Shannon Hale has a nice article in the October School Library Journal about how assigned reading (including Virginia Woolf) temporarily destroyed her love of reading, though she didn't realize it at the time. Alternate-Universe Me would have strapped this mom to a chair and made her read the article.

This story has a slightly more satisfying conclusion than I would have expected, however. A few minutes after my eavesdropping, the girl and her mother came to the desk asking for diary/memoir recommendations (Mom's idea again). The girl had, of course, returned the S.A.S.S. book to the shelf, but at least she'd replaced it with some other good books actually written for people her age. Still, Alternate-Universe Me couldn't help manifesting for a second.

Me: Oh! You decided not to take the S.A.S.S. book?
Girl: Um, no. I changed my mind.
Mom, to girl: Why was that?
Girl: Um, that was the book you said looked like a 'TV book.'
Mom: It did look like a 'TV book.'
Me: They're definitely not 'TV books.' In fact, those books are really interesting and fun. They're all written by authors who have special knowledge of the countries they take place in. They're a window into another culture.
[That's right, spread it on thick...]
Mom: Do you want to go back and get it, honey?
Girl: Um, no, that's OK.

I console myself that maybe next time they're here, when the girl picks up an S.A.S.S. book, Mom will say OK. If only the same could be said for any book that girl picks out.

ETA, 10/23/08:
For the record, I can only guess at what "TV Book" was supposed to mean. Did they mean a book based on a TV show? Did they mean a book that "rots the brain"? Regardless: HMMMPH!

Recently, both Fuse #8 and PRINT magazine in its article "Cover Girls" discussed the covers of particular children's and YA as they've been redesigned over the years. Jacket Why and Collecting Children's Books are two more of my favorite blogs that address the trends and changes in children's/YA book cover design.

I love this kind of stuff. Book jackets are the clothes books wear; they grab your attention and make you give that book the sly up-and-down look. It's interesting to see what fashions (if any) hold up over time and which are as hopelessly out of date as that orange and avocado flowered sofa you picked up at a yard sale for $10. (I really did once buy a sofa of said description, back in college. It was six feet long and the most comfortable piece of furniture EVER. But boy, it was ugly as sin.) I believe an unattractive cover can staggeringly reduce a book's readership. It doesn't matter how often we say not to judge a book by its cover; readers of all ages will.

Something I haven't seen discussed, though, is the face books present to potential readers once they're on the shelf. In libraries and bookstores, where face-out shelving is at a premium, readers' first impression of a book isn't the cover. It's the spine.

My general impression is that books have improved immeasurably in spine design in the past couple decades. When I think back to my childhood, most of the hardcover spines I remember had plain printing in a stately serif font; the paperbacks bore the title and author's name in simple, black caps. I think we're seeing many more wrap-around jacket designs now, more artistic typography, and generally more creativity in book jacket design, spines included.

When readers are faced with rows upon rows of spine-out books, what draws them to a particular volume, causes them to pull it off the shelf so they can then be enticed by the cover design and the jacket copy?

I believe it's two interrelated variables: the title and the spine design. The title is the spine's most important content. First and foremost, the title should be easy to read. Readers should be able to identify the book without squinting or pulling it off the shelf. That's something the old-style, no-nonsense, K.I.S.S. spines had going for them: pure functionality. Artistry is important, but it should come in a rather distant second.

Here are book spines that score high on both title legibility and artistic design, making them magnets when I was looking through the stacks:

In contrast, here are some things I don't like to see:

• Print that wears off the binding after a few reads. Yes, Series of Unfortunate Events, I'm looking at you.
• Low contrast between title and background.
• Highly stylized writing, whether it's print or cursive.
• Gold or silver foil, which is very susceptible to shadow and glare. (Orphan of the Sun actually liked the light in my office, but I no longer have a bloody clue what the foil-lettered book beneath it is.)

Another thing that drives me crazy, from my library-centric point of view, is titles that are placed near the bottom, rather than the top, of the spine:

Most libraries place books' location stickers within the two bottom inches of the spine. For functionality's sake, libraries cannot simply move those stickers around on a book-by-book basis. The only exceptions we'll make are for a book like, say, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

It would be far better if publishers simply avoided placing vital information in those bottom two inches of spine. From readers' point of view, I'd say the least vital spine information is the publisher's seal. If that's a blow to the publisher's ego, too bad. From the library's point of view, the author's name is second-least important, since the location sticker—especially for fiction books—generally includes the author's name. If one thing should be legible, without a question, it is the title.

The situation worsens when you take genre stickers into account. Now, genre stickering is a discussion piece of its own (do genre stickers ghettoize the collection?), but a great many libraries use them. My library's practice is to place the genre sticker immediately above the location sticker, effectively covering the bottom three inches of spine. We could reduce that space by placing genre stickers below the location stickers, but that's where our "new book" labels go:

But even when we switch the stickers around, we still run into problems with many books:

I've suggested that my department reduce the problem by adopting a different stickering practice for its fiction collections, something more like this:

But in general, I think the world of books would be better if publishers simply kept titles higher on the spine. Even a long title can be made to fit in a compact space, with high points for legibility and artistic design:

That's my soapbox rant, a week late and, as promised, not particularly controversial. But again, it's something I haven't seen discussed, and it bears consideration.

As most kidlit blog readers probably know by now, Colleen of Chasing Ray has invited everyone to "enjoy a week of posting loud and long about those things that have been driving them crazy in the publishing world" as of this Monday. In the linked post, she offers up a number of the latest kidlit kerfuffles for potential dissection.

I do plan to post about one of my publishing pet peeves, but I sincerely doubt it's the kind of thing that will start any intense discussion. I discovered many years ago, and have rediscovered periodically along the way, that getting into intense, protracted, online discussion stresses me out. I'm glad people are out there discussing things with vim and vigor—we learn and grow in talking things out—but I try to keep some distance between those discussions and myself.

Basically, I'm just not a fan of drama. Work drama, friendship drama, family drama—count me out, please. It isn't that I don't have deep feelings and strong opinions on the matters at hand. It's that I value my emotional well-being too much to go there. Confrontation, even politely worded (hopefully) online confrontation, sucks away my time, energy, self-esteem, and productivity. I try and save those things for my writing and family life.

This wuss tips her hat to all the wave-makers. I look forward to the discussion... from a safe distance.

This week’s Savage Love struck a chord with me. (Why am I mentioning a sex advice column in a blog that’s largely about books for young people? Bear with me.) The column, “How to Cope in the Closet,” features three letters by gay teens and serves as a reminder that as much as things on average are improving for queer youth in America in terms of support and acceptance, there’s such a long way to go.

In the first letter, a lesbian in high school who since coming out has dealt with daily harassment and ostracization by her peers and the unresponsiveness of school staff. Or the second letter, by a gay boy from an evangelical Christian family who, since being caught with gay porn on his computer, has been interrogated nightly by his parents about whether he has a girlfriend yet. Even the final letter, by a gay boy now out to his supportive family, is sadly telling; he and his boyfriend were too scared to come out until they were caught making out by his parents.

These aren’t the worst stories you’ll ever hear, of course—to quote the girl in the first letter, “nothing too terrible, no physical violence.” What they are is typical stories. Par for the course.

I’m always agog when I encounter adults in their 20s and 30s who claim they went to a high school where “no one batted an eye” at kids who were queer or suspected of it. These adults are never queer themselves, so I’ll excuse a little naïveté, but still I wonder what planet they’re from. At my high school, in the mid-1990s, if no one was harassed or bashed (yeah, right), it was for the simple reason that nobody was out.

At that time, in my county there was no in-school support for queer and questioning teens, besides talking to a guidance counselor (whose quality varied). The only non-university support group in the area was hosted by the lesbian and gay resource center downtown. Kids regularly came from 20 miles away, and sometimes it was more like 50.

Since that time, brave kids at my hometown high schools have started gay-straight alliances, which I’m sure has done wonders for the climate. But this was in a fairly cosmopolitan city, for its size. What about all the places in America that, twelve years later, are still without a lesbian and gay resource center with 50 or even 100 miles, much less a GSA in every high school?

Where am I going with this? Well, I believe positive books about being GLBTQ are probably the closest thing to a universal support system available to queer youth in America. (Yes, there’s the Internet. The Internet is fantastic. But it’s as easy to find the wrong stuff as the right—maybe easier.) I say this because public libraries, assuming they’re conforming to the Library Bill of Rights , make these books available to any person in the community, for free, anonymously. These books will never make up for or excuse a negative climate for Q&Q kids, but they offer solidarity, reassurance, information, and hope.

Now, one thing that bothers me about the children’s book industry is the way sexual orientation and gender identity (“alternative,” that is) are still overwhelmingly treated as illicit topics for mature readers only—like sexual intercourse or drugs and alcohol. I say illicit because for the most part you only see these topics treated in books marketed for high schoolers. One industry professional told me coming out novels are overdone, yet said in the same breath that sexual orientation isn’t an appropriate topic for a middle grade novel. To which I can only respond: you’re wrong.

Coming to terms with being straight, gay, bisexual, trans, fill-in-the-blank starts long before puberty hits, whether you’re conscious of it at the time or not. No sexual/gender identity is illegal. It isn’t a disease or psychological disorder. And (going out on a crazy liberal limb here, I know) it’s not a sin to live your life with honesty and dignity. If children’s book professionals support this view and want to do their bit to improve the social climate for Q&Q youth, they need to shake off the notion that high school is the right time to start talking about it. High school is too late. “Better late than never,” yes, but too late just the same.

Three notable middle grade exceptions to the trend are James Howe’s Totally Joe, Alex Sanchez’s So Hard to Say, and Lisa Jahn-Clough’s Country Girl, City Girl, each of which has middle school age characters coming to terms with sexual orientation. These books make concrete what ought to be obvious: that middle grade books with queer characters aren’t any more illicit than Jenny Han’s Shug, Jerry Spinelli’s Love, Stargirl, or the slew of other books for that age group that include a chaste boy-girl kiss.

Off the soapbox for now. Let me take the opportunity to link to some of my favorite websites to learn about GLTBQ books for young people.

Worth the Trip - Uber-librarian KT Horning blogs about youth books new and old with GLTBQ characters and/or themes.

I’m Here, I’m Queer, What the Hell Do I Read? - Writer Lee Wind posts GLTBQ book blurbs as well as blogging about various other queer media issues.

Great Gay Books for Teens - An annotated bibliography by authors Alex Sanchez and James Howe.

ETA, 3/25/08: In my list of middle grade GLBTQ books, I somehow managed to forget David LaRochelle's Absolutely, Positively Not. The main character is in high school, but the book, which is laugh-out-loud funny, definitely speaks to a younger audience as well. Has there ever been another queer book to win the Sid Fleischman Humor Award?!