The Foolishness of Middle Age: When What You Did in the Past Leads You to Think You Can Do It in the Present

Ah, youth.  It leaves us with such pleasant memories.  While most of the time I can't recall what I ate last night or who I sat next to in high school Spanish class, I do have some fond childhood memories that have hung around.  One of them is of horseback riding.  And so, when I was perusing the tourist brochure information for Santa Fe, considering that this was our fourth trip out to Santa Fe, I thought I would shake thing up a bit.  Do some things that we hadn't done.  Really go out of our way to try new places and be adventurous.  After all, we didn't want to be accused of being old, stick in the muds, did we?

So, when I saw the blurb about Broken Saddle Riding Company, I thought, "This is perfect! We can take a two-hour horseback ride through lovely canyon trails and see amazing scenery. I've ridden horses before.  Lots of times.  In fact, people have said I am a good rider." (Foreshadowing: this was when I was 12.)

Flash forward to Monday in Santa Fe and me on the phone with the very matter of fact Harrold Grantham, owner of Broken Saddle.  He wanted to know how much I weighed and and how tall I was and whether I had ever cantered before.  Now, I would have been a bit put off if I hadn't read the google reviews that warned me that if you weighed over 200 pounds that you had better forget about riding horses with Broken Saddle.  The weight restriction was somewhere between 210 and 235 according to reviews I had read.  They said you had better own up to your true weight.  OK! They also said you needed to be honest about your abilities. OK!

IN WHICH I AM GRILLED BY A COWBOY

Fred was lying on the bed dozing, when Harrold started asking me questions:

"How much does your husband weigh and how tall is he?"  I asked Fred for the data.  He told me and I told Harrold.  Harrold asked me for my stats and I gave him what I thought was a true range given that I hadn't been friends with a scale in many months.

Then came the real question.  "Are you a beginner? Or can you canter?"

"I can canter, but I don't think Fred can canter."

Fred immediately sat up.  "I can canter!"

"You can canter?" I looked doubtful.  I put a hand on my hip and tilted my head as if to say, when have YOU cantered?

"I've cantered." He went back to lying down on the bed.

"Ok, we can both canter." I told Harrold.  I was banking firmly on my years of Girl Scout horseback riding and those times when I went riding in the mountains with friends.  In retrospect, how any times did I actually go riding?  Well, anyway, I have cantered.  I have, I have.  I can see myself cantering.

Harrold said, "Great.  I have you both down for Wednesday.  Advanced beginners."

WHERE I LEARN WHAT REAL HORSEBACK RIDING INVOLVES

It all started to go a bit wrong when we got there.

The Broken Saddle sign.

Looks like a nice place doesn't it?  It's in the town of Cerrillos, which has a population of about 300.  It's a very small place.  Broken Saddle is in the historic part of town.  A very old section of a very old mining town that sits next to a national park that has beautiful views of several different mountain ranges.

When we arrived, Stephanie, who was to be our guide, and Harrold, were getting our horses ready.  Harrold noticed right away that Fred was dressed like a New Mexican, not bundled up like someone from out of town: LIKE ME.  But it was said in a really nice way.  And I was toasty warm in my big yellow Lands End fleece-lined coat with my scarf and three layers of clothing.  I resembled a female version of the Micheline man.  If I didn't weigh 200 pounds when I was talking to him on the phone Monday night, I was probably edging close to it with all my clothes on now!

Fred and I took a quick potty break and when we got back, our third rider had joined us: David.  David lives in the area and is an actor, professor and all around amazing guy and was just there to get some pointers on his riding style BEFORE HE STARTED SHOOTING A FILM ON MONDAY WITH JUDE LAW AND NATALIE PORTMAN. Great.  No pressure.

Stephanie, our guide and David, soon to be in Jane Got a Gun.

So, Mr. I Ride Horses A Lot is coming on our ride to get tips on his riding form.  I am starting to feel a little inadequate.  Harrold and David start trading movie stories about how you can tell whether someone knows how to ride or not by how they approach a horse.  Harrold goes into this really funny story about a friend of his who got a part on the film The 3:10 to Yuma after being coached by Harrold and I'm thinking, "I know nothing about how to approach a horse!"

But after the story, I know that you give it two slaps on the nick and don't kiss it.  Crap.  What was I thinking.  I had come prepared to ace a basic Spanish test and everyone here is in AP Spanish 5!  I am so out of my league.  I don't even think I can fake my way out of this.

IN WHICH WE ARE ASSIGNED HORSES

Harrold pulls a horse forward and looks at us. I am standing there motionless thinking to myself, "Don't call my name! Don't call my name!"  I don't want to go first.  I am suddenly realizing that all my Girls Scout training is for sh*t and that I don't know crap about riding horses.  Advanced beginner my ass.  I'm less than a beginner. I should be in the baby beginner class.  Do they have an infant class?  A fetus class.  Yeah, get me in that class!

"Fred, get up here.  This is Duke."

"Oh, thank God!  Fred is first."  I think to myself.  I was, honest to God, praying. Someone heard me.  The buzzing in my head has lessened somewhat.  I can hear Harrold again.

"Now, most people think that you hold on to the horn, but you don't." What! OMG! He's telling us not to hold on to the horn.  OMG!  Wait, what did he say?  He's on about something, "keep your heels down" blah blah blah "thighs" OMG what is this about not holding the horn?  Why else is it there if you aren't supposed to hold on to it?

Harrold is now explaining the true purpose of the horn as my mind rebels and I am feeling a little faint.  Evidently my legs are supposed to do all the work.  Oh great.  They are sure ready for that.  Then he calls my name.  Fortunately, David gets called at the same time, so no one is watching as Danvers and I meet and I get settled on her.  She is, I will come to learn, lazy and eager to be at the back of the pack.  

IN WHICH CANTERING BECOMES A SERIOUS LIFE THREATENING EVENT

Now you have to understand that I am the oldest child.  As such, I take rules quite seriously.  So, being told that I needed to NOT hold the horn and I needed to keep my heels DOWN and I need to use my THIGHS to stay on the saddle, I tried my best to do all of these things.

I was trying so hard to do all of these things that I really couldn't be bothered to look around at the scenery.  I would hear the occasional remark from someone about it being lovely and put my head up, but for the most part, I was living in terror for when we were going to canter.  And then it happened.  Stephanie said, "Let's kick it."

And so I did.

It was so bad.  Really bad.  So bad, I thought Stephanie might fall off her horse she was so startled.  Evidently, I was leaning REALLY far off to the left.  Perilously out to the left.  and I had really loose reins, so Danvers could do whatever the hell she wanted and there I was, no hand on the horn, flying way out on the left side, free like a bird in the wind, yet, not screaming like I felt like doing.

Stephanie had us stop.  She said, "Hey, Cheryl! You were really leaning out to the left side!"

"Oh, really?"  OMG! Kill me now. Don't let's do that again.  Please let me hold the horn!

"Yeah!  You need to shorten up on those reins quite a bit and get centered."

"OK."  Or just kill me.  You could just kill me.  And the horrible other part of me was thinking, poor David, he has a film to go to.  What if he doesn't get enough cantering because of the awful old woman in his horse group?  What if he fails because of me?  I can't not canter!  I have to suck it up.  "OK. I'll do that."

IN WHICH I FIGURE OUT A SNEAKY WAY TO HOLD THE HORN AND DANVERS' LAZINESS IS EXPOSED

After the second round of cantering where I still leaned, but not so scarily, I finally figured out a way to sneak my hand around the base of the horn and not appear to be actually holding the horn.  I'm sure Stephanie probably knew, but by this time, I didn't care.  I was just trying to hang on.

As we reached a long straightaway, Stephanie said, "This is where the horses really like to let loose."

"Joy."  I thought to myself.  

Everyone broke into a happy canter and Danvers broke into her sneaky rocking trot.  I, however was prepared for her.  After the last canter, Stephanie had warned me that Danvers was lazy and that the reason I was having trouble with the canter was Danvers was doing a rocking trot that was really uncomfortable because she didn't want to run in a canter.  I would have to kick her into a trot.  Leave it to me to have to get the horse that needed an alpha.  And I am such a dominant personality too!  Every time Danvers tried to creep back into a painful rocking trot, I would kick her back into a canter and it was smooth and lovely.  It was almost worth it.  I felt almost centered.  I felt almost good.  And then we stopped and I blew it by forgetting which hand had the reins and screwing up my stop just as Stephanie and David looked at me.  

Oh for Pete's sake.  Could I never catch one break?

Fred and I seated on Duke and Danvers, respectively. We are smiling.

I made it through the ride.  I would say that if I were to do it again, I would categorize myself as a beginner who could not canter.  Broken Saddle Riding Company is a serious horseback riding company and you need to know your stuff.  They are professionals. They have great horses. They have amazing scenery.  

If you haven't cantered in last 5 years, you are not an advanced beginner.  And if you don't heed my warning, then you will be like me, hobbling around like I have been for the past two days. In pain. Barely able to move.  Because you tried to make your thighs do all the work and not hold the horn.

Heed me now, or heed me later!

YALSA Creates App for Finding Teen Books

Just read about a great new app in the Summer 2012 YALSA magazine.  It is called the Teen Book Finder and it is available for free from iTunes.

Screenshot of the Teen Book Finder

Screenshot of the Teen Book Finder

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Bitterblue is a sequel to Graceling, but not to Fire . It does take place about 8 years later in the Graceling timeline. You really need to read the one before the other. There are just too many relationships and interconnections that begin in the first one and continue in the second that for you not to have read the first you will have missed out on quite a lot.

Now, having said all of that, and being a school librarian, let me state that this book is definitely for grades 9 and up. It is a fantasy book, but it is a dark fantasy and there are some very serious subjects covered (rape, murder, cutting, mind control) and while these are not graphically detailed, it does make for some   creepy diary entries. There is a love scene between the main character and one of her male interests (I won't spoil it by saying who), but it is off the page and circumspect.[ creepy diary entries. There is a love scene between the main character and one of her male interests (I won't spoil it by saying who), but it is off the page and circumspect.

I found myself carrying the book from room to room and really being fascinated by the plot. However, I just couldn't see how it was all going to tie up. It does, but it seems to take an inordinately long time for it to happen. And Bitterblue seems to take a long time coming to realize that the mountains of paperwork are delaying tactics and she should be suspicious. So, while I loved the characterization of Bitterblue and her new friends she finds in the city and the returning friends from Graceling, I was frustrated by the convoluted nature of the plot. Some characters were lovely: Giddon and I love Death (pronounced like teeth) and Lovejoy. The setting of the town was great and you get a real sense of the castle and how Leck has really destroyed this city and her people.

It's a fascinating book. Really and truly. I enjoyed reading it. But I was also a bit let down at the ending. I'm not sure what happens next and that left me with an unresolved feeling.

I thought Graceling was tied up more neatly. This one meandered a bit. As my review is doing.... (hide spoiler)]

I found myself carrying the book from room to room and really being fascinated by the plot. However, I just couldn't see how it was all going to tie up. It does, but it seems to take an inordinately long time for it to happen. And Bitterblue seems to take a long time coming to realize that the mountains of paperwork are delaying tactics and she should be suspicious. So, while I loved the characterization of Bitterblue and her new friends she finds in the city and the returning friends from Graceling, I was frustrated by the convoluted nature of the plot. Some characters were lovely: Giddon and I love Death (pronounced like teeth) and Lovejoy. The setting of the town was great and you get a real sense of the castle and how Leck has really destroyed this city and her people.

It's a fascinating book. Really and truly. I enjoyed reading it. But I was also a bit let down at the ending. I'm not sure what happens next and that left me with an unresolved feeling.

I thought Graceling was tied up more neatly. This one meandered a bit. As my review is doing....

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Awesome Day, Awesome Keyword Worksheet

We have recently redesigned our keyword search sheets and have found that we are getting better results from the kids than we were before.  It is fascinating how the whole design process works.  We will be having Grant Wiggins come in and teach us about backward design and can possibly make it even more successful, but I have been delighted in the response to this new worksheet.  


Our history teachers are amazingly collaborative and give up time to us to have the kids do the worksheets and have them as homework in order to get a better research question as a result.  Too often students would start with a broad topic and the keyword worksheet would give them lots of keywords, but they weren't relevant or weren't specific in a way that helped them to derive a narrow research question.  


So, we thought about what our intention was: to have the worksheet funnel them down to a narrowed topic that would then bring them to create a narrowed research question.  We hand out the a double sided worksheet to the kids the night before with instructions to fill it out on the topic of censorship on the front.  We will go over that topic as a class.  


They are to find keywords relating to who, what, where, when and why (causes and outcomes) and then come up with a narrowed question.  As they read their encyclopedia article on censorship (whatever kind they choose), they will begin to narrow down the type of censorship they are looking for, say, book censorship

• Who:  Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Joseph Stalin, Native American Indians 
• What: book censorship,textbook censorship, government censorship
• Where: High School
• When: 3rd century BC to present
• Why: Teens are given fewer choices to read; subject matter may not reflect the reality of a historical event, based on the perceived feelings of the governing community (Native Americans, for example)
• Narrowed Topic: 

  Is our history education being adversely affected by textbook censorship?

I watched a girl go from doing a paper on Jerusalem, to doing research on how Islam, Christianity and Judaism portrayed Jerusalem in their sacred texts and what that could mean. 


It was working!


Then came the moment that they had to find primary sources, and secondary sources.  We had told them all where to go.  They had their keyword worksheets.  But would they use them?

Some did.  Most promptly forgot them and had to be reminded repeatedly to get them out and look at them. Sigh.

It's a process.

However, I did have an awesome librarian moment. I taught a freshman boy how to search the Hathi Digital Trust, how to search within his text and find relevant pages and how to use the google site:edu command. About 5 minutes later, he was helping his neighbor find info and taught his neighbor how to use the Hathi Digital Trust and the site:edu command and said, "I learned everything I know from her." Meaning me and searching techniques! 

Woot! 

I was so proud of him.  Another kid in the class turned around and said, "Hey, you better apply to be a library proctor."

Jam, our library guide dog in training, checking a book out to a student.

Yes.  He better.  He's on our list of awesome kids.

Great book for those hard to please boys

Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick by Joe Schreiber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Awesome, fun read!  Give to those high schoolers who don't like to read and I guarantee they will like this.  Should appeal to both guys and girls.  The pace is high octane fast!  Essentially, Perry Stormaire is a senior, with a lawyer father who runs his life (read: Tiger Dad) and he is trying to get into Columbia.  The family has invited a foreign exchange student into their house for the year and instead of a gorgeous co-ed, they get Gobi.  Plain, banal, and needing much help, Gobi, whom good guy Perry looks out for at school.


But when his parents pressure him into taking Gobi to the prom as his date, the train comes off the track and that's when it all starts to go completely nuts!  So if you have teens who like action, assassins, mysteries, underdog heroes, a touch of romance, and some very close calls with death, the police and general mayhem, give them this book.


I can't tell you any more than to say that it kept me at the edge of my seat, so much that I finished reading it in two nights.  The characters are great.  The writing is funny, touching and really draws you into the moment. Two of my favorite lines from the book are: "I couldn't remember the theme of the prom but it seemed to be something along the lines of Social Darwinism Under the Stars.  Lights and shimmering tinsel had transformed the gymnasium into a pulsating soup of glandular hostility." I mean reallY!  How can you not love it?


I will say that having read some of the complaints about this book, you need to think of this book as a fantasy book, not a reality book.  It's like a die-hard movie.  Clearly, you will have to suspend belief. But if you can do that, it will be a fun ride.


A nice touch was having each chapter open with a college application question which the chapter then proceeded to answer in a roundabout way, which all plays into the climatic ending.


A must read for this year!


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Vampyres of Hollywood

Vampyres of Hollywood by Adrienne Barbeau
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I stand by my earlier statement in a review of a vampire book where the author had changed the vampire rules so that they could walk in the sun: YOU RUIN VAMPIRES AND YOU RUIN THE TENSION. There is something deliciously dark (no pun, or maybe, yes, pun intended) about having to live in the night.  Darn it! They are creatures of the night! When you change it, you ruin it.  I'm sorry, that's just the way I feel. Moving on....

So, the rest of this story features a madcap murder mystery that barely holds together.  It is told in alternating chapters by the police detective and the Chatelaine of Hollywood (head vampire and scream queen actress) as they both try to figure out who is killing actors, agents, directors.  There is some language and mentions of bondage and S&M clubs and the sheer brutality and gore of the murder scenes pop this up to 11th grade at least if not a faculty read.

I think the authors traded in a fast moving plot for character development.  I never felt an emotional connection to any of the main characters and therefore didn't care if they lived or died, making it hard to get through the end of the book.  I did finish it, but at the end instead of being breathless at the huge fight, I was ho hum.

And the huge fight at the end?  Doesn't make any sense.  It's not even worth writing a spoiler to try and figure it out.


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Collection Development: A Few Thoughts

This year we have a new headmaster.  While, this is nothing new to us in terms of what we do, we have found some small changes in policy are necessary.

Fortunately, what that means is that we are getting more departments involved in the selection of materials.  Of course, one of those hot button areas is the health and sex education sections of the collection.  One thing I would advise that school librarians do is to periodically look over your section, take the whole section down and then ask the relevant teachers to come over (for coffee and donuts, wine and cheese, whatever works for your school) and have a short meeting and go over the books that you currently have and have some print outs of books that you may want to order.

By opening the dialog and asking for help on a proactive basis and by having the materials right in front of them, you can ask if the materials meet the curriculum and the needs of the students.  Since that section can be a hot button issue, you can also begin to create some allies and a conversation about what it is that they need and how you can help them with resources.

Furthermore, with this particular subject matter, I would advise that you treat material on it as you would graphic novels.  My policy with graphic novels is to never put one on the shelf until I have looked or read every page, because graphic novels can look innocuous and yet be very adult and you don't want to label them for middle school, when they are for high school only.  I don't trust reviews on graphic novels.