LB LIBRARY’S SUMMER READING CLUB: APPARENTLY, SO GOOD IT’S WORTH SHOUTING ABOUT?
By Greater Long Beach
The Long Beach Public Library’s annual Summer Reading Club has begun its eight-week run at 11 libraries around town, and from the looks of the promotional materials, the 2012 version is really something to shout. It’s called: “Dream Big, READ!”
Just scanning those fat capital letters and the raised voices they imply can hurt your ears … almost as badly as school librarian Mrs. Broomeen made mine hurt with that quick twist she gave them when she found me absently reading aloud to myself among the periodicals. And then, the exclamation point? “Dream Big, READ!” Is that really necessary?
But reading is the point, right? And that’s where the Long Beach Library keeps the focus, eliminating so many of the old excuses for not picking up a book all summer. Becoming an active member of the Summer Reading Club is easy, from the online registration to the Smartphone access via the LBPL Mobile App to the book reviews that are postable on a Facebook page. Actually, it looks like you barely have to go to the library at all to “Dream Big, READ!”
But kids who do sign up at a library receive a free folder to keep track of what they’ve read. Organizers have worked a few breaks into the Summer Reading Club, too—opportunities to win a backpack, school supplies, tickets to sporting events (for kids), a Kindle Fire (for teens), and a Nook Color (for adults). In addition, there will be a variety of activities, crafts and presentations to blow off a little steam. None of that sounds very silent.
On the other hand, it’s not like anybody really wants to hear us whine about this. We’ve known this day was coming since the budget cuts began—the entire staff of shushers, gone, laid off, just like that! At the time, ironically, nobody made a peep. But ever since, a steady rise in the decibel level has slowly squeezed silence out of the library. Last we heard, it was sharing a flat with the Dewey Decimal System.
For more information please check out your neighborhood library, visit http://www.lbpl.org/news/displaynews.asp?NewsID=247&TargetID=1, or call 562.570.7500.
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Citizen Journalist Quotes of the Week — No Reasons Are Necessary
“All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.” — Edgar Allan Poe
“The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don’t know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.” — James Arthur Baldwin
“Dreams are illustrations… from the book your soul is writing about you.” — Marsha Norman
“In sleep, fantasy takes the form of dreams. But in waking life, too, we continue to dream beneath the threshold of consciousness, especially when under the influence of repressed or other unconscious complexes.” — Carl Jung
“Dreams are only thoughts you didn’t have time to think about during the day.” — Author Unknown
“Every dream that anyone ever has is theirs alone and they never manage to share it. And they never manage to remember it either. Not truly or accurately. Not as it was. Our memories and our vocabularies aren’t up to the job.” — Alex Garland
“The best reason for having dreams is that in dreams no reasons are necessary.” — Ashleigh Brilliant
(Source: worldofluciddreaming.com)
Citizen NON-Journalist Quote of the Week — Boring People
“Books Make You A Boring Person” — Cristina Nehring
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/27/books/essay-books-make-you-a-boring-person.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm