Book Discussion: The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel

Colossal Labs aims to introduce mammoth genes into the Asian Elephant for conservation purposes. The project claims: "The return of the Woolly Mammoth to the Arctic tundra it roamed thousands of years ago has significant benefits for combating climate change. Mammoths will stir up the icy surface of the landscape, stomp out-thick, low-oxygen trees, and expose healthy, carbon-trapping grasses. That action can restore the tundra, which in turn protects the climate and balances greenhouse gasses."

Read more: https://colossal.com/how-de-extinction-works/#:~:text=The%20return%20of%20the%20Woolly,healthy%2C%20carbon%2Dtrapping%20grasses.

My critiques:

• Dialog is clunky and unbelievable. All three female characters have the same voice and personality. 

Eve’s and Vera’s young lives involve constant travel: “They had grown up on the road, on the move, in countries all over the world. They had been brave, or else they had had no choice.”

What does this nomadic life give to Jane and Sal’s daughters, and what does it take away?
Consider how the family functions when they are abroad versus when they are home in Berkeley. Which lifestyle do you think is better for them as individuals or as a family?
Jane is the only female scientist on her research team. In what ways does her gender hold her back? Do you think this phenomenon is limited to science? What does it mean that Jane’s daughters observe this kind of sexism in action? Do you think Jane would make the same daring choices in response to it all if her daughters weren’t in the picture?


How would you describe Eve and Veras relationship to each other. What do each of them desire in life?

How do Eve and Veras vision of the future differ?

In what ways does Jane fail and succeed at parenting the girls?

• Jane is a woman achieving alongside her family, not in spite of it
• When Pearl is born why isn't Jane documenting anything. Is this a science experiment or just a wild, fun adventure for her?
• On page 121 why all of the sudden does Jane give the girls a pass for drinking but reacts so strongly about Eve being sexually active?
• When Pearl is born Jane is totally unprepared. Has no idea what to feed her.
• Jane is constantly texting Helen about Pearl when Helen is in the hospital with George. She texts as if she is the priority.
• When Jane sends the girls out to get baby formula and coconut milk why didn't she think to tell them to get a bottle too!
• pg 211 the girls escape from the boat with a hole convinced Helen is trying to kill them all only to then go their mom and ask if they can leave her there alone and go find the place their dad died. If they were so concerned why on the next page are they trying to leave their mom alone with perceived danger?
• Jane avoids ever asking for her husbands police report of his death. Why?

Okay WTF is up on page 123 with Eve artificially inseminating herself with caveman DNA. Was that believable?

Also WTF is up on page 180 when Jane instinctually tried to breast feed Pearl?

Describe Vera’s relationship with Lars. In what ways does this teenage romance point to shifting dynamics between Eve and Vera? Jane’s reaction to learning that they are dating causes Vera to do something very unusual with the remnants of her father’s research. What do you think she is trying to prove to her mother—and more importantly, to herself?


For a nonspeaking character, Pearl plays an essential role in this story. What did Pearl make you feel? What did she symbolize for you? What do Eve’s and Vera’s reactions to Pearl show us about their feelings toward their mother and their status in the family?


Do you think Helen was trying to kill the girls by sending them out on a boat with a hole in it? What motives would she have?


What events lead Eve and Vera to start becoming distrustful and suspicious of Helen and george?


Did The Last Animal make you think at all differently about the history or future of the planet?

What do you think of the idea of bringing back extinct species? What might happen if science takes gene editing more into its own hands?

Book Discussion: Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

A woman in upstate New York who works transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach becomes infatuated with one of his clients, a repressed married woman from Switzerland who has a refreshing attitude towards trauma.

Have you ever been to Hudson, NY? How would you describe it? Similar or different from the author?

What does the beehive inside the house represent? Is there a metaphor buried there? (maggots at the heart of the hive)

In the beginning of the book we learn that Greta was diagnosed with Emotional Attachment Disorder by a therapist. (a behavioral disorder that effects the ability to form and maintain relationships.) In what ways does this manifest in her relationship with Big Swiss?

When speaking with OM about her trauma Big Swiss says on page 8 "I'm not attached to my suffering. I'm not attached to what happened to me. I don't believe it explains everything about me, because I haven't made it part of my identity. I'm a worker, not a wallflower. I would never call myself a "survivor" I'm just -not one of those trauma people." Is trauma something you think a person can ever get over? Does making trauma part of your identity hold you back or fuel you?

On page 79 Big Swiss says she accepts some responsibility for her attack because she went to his house on his own volition and ignored her instincts.  Does society condition victims to think they were players in their own trauma? What are your thoughts on this? 

On p. 247 Greta mentions Big Swiss might have something to teach her about living. To "eradicate self-pity and replace it with something productive." How do you think one can actually accomplish that?

Did you find OM an effective therapist?

Big Swiss was not able to orgasm for her whole life until the mid-point of the book. She describes masturbating to images of flowers. Is this just a metaphor or do you think there is something deeper there?

What do you think drew Big Swiss to Greta?

Throughout their affair what traits or behaviors do Greta and Big Swiss bring out in each other?

Was Greta obscuring her true identity from Big Swiss an ethical violation? How would you have handled it if you were Greta?

On page 216 at the dinner party with Luke Big Swiss says that the Swiss "like to keep each other in check. Americans could never handle that, because they're such infants, and so easily rattled. They can't ride the train without getting their feelings hurt. They can't walk down the street without being offended." Do you think this is true of Americans? If so why is that?

There are times that Greta seems to be hostile or antagonizing to Big Swiss. Where does that behavior come from? P. 232 Big Swiss tells her her tough girl routine is transparent.

What did you think of the ending?

Book Discussion: The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer

On page 241-242 Greta confronts the readers and asks "why is it impossible to be a woman?" She states that men are always free to be themselves and asks "When has a woman ever been forgiven?" In our modern society how does it differ between a man or a woman receiving forgiveness? Is one gender easier to forgive? Is one gender more permanently harmed from making mistakes?

Did Dr. Cerletti's electroconvulsive therapy work on Greta? In the beginning he tells her "what they are trying to do is bring her back."

If you were able to transmigrate to two other versions of yourself in a time before our own, which two time periods or years would you travel to?

What do you think drove Greta to continue the treatments and travel back in time? What was she trying to accomplish?

Where there any discrepancies in the science of the time travel in this book that bothered you or took away from your enjoyment of it?

In the beginning of the novel on page 8 Felix asks a neighbor who was reprimanding him and Greta  "When you were a little girl, madam," he said, gesturing to her, "was this the woman you dreamed of becoming?" How did this foreshadow other events in the novel?

Handmade Holidays Stenciled Tea Towels

Tea towels are everywhere now with cool designs and cheeky sayings. Stenciling with paint is a cheap alternative to silk screening or iron on designs. This project was created (and images below) from these directions: https://makinglemonadeblog.com/diy-tea-towel-tutorial-stamped-kitchen/ 

Supplies Needed:
Steam Iron
Water for Iron
Linen Flour Sack Towels 28x28
Liquitex Fabric Effects Medium
Acrylic Paints ( I like Liquitex Basics brand)
Stencils: these are the ones I purchased
-Martha Stewart Large
-Phrases
-Borders
-Birds
-Letters
Foam brushes 
Paper plates
Plastic Knife to mix paint
Blue painters tape
Table covering (I use white tablecloths)

1. Start by washing and of course ironing the towels.

2. Prepare your paint on your plate.  If you have fabric paint, then you can skip this step.  If you have craft paint, mix it with a two parts paint, one part Fabric Painting Medium using the plastic knife.  It’s great stuff to have on hand, by the way– even though it’s white, it won’t change the color of the craft paint you are using.  It turns any craft paint into fabric paint!

3. Lay out the towel and decide where you want the design to be.  Unless you are doing an allover design, it might help to first fold the towel as though you are hanging it.  See which part is showing, and that’s the part you’ll want to paint.  Feel free to mark with seamstress chalk or tape if you wish.

4. Place a piece of cardboard underneath the fabric so paint doesn’t bleed through.

5. To stencil the towel:  Tape your stencil in place using an easy release tape like painters or masking tape.  Use a foam brush to lightly tap paint all over the stencil. Use a different foam brush for each color. If you only have one wash it between uses and make sure all the water is dry otherwise the water from the brush will make the paint bleed on your towel.

6. Wash and dry foam brush between colors and be careful to not smear the other paint on the towel if you are working on different areas.

7. Let dry for 24-48 hours, and heat set with an iron.

Harry Potter Trivia Year 2

This was our second year doing a Harry Potter Trivia night and it sold out yet again with 18 teams registered. This event takes about 2 hours and is limited to ages 18+. Big shout out to Kristina Ronald and friends at the Guilderland Public Library for letting me use two of their rounds from a previous trivia night they ran. You will also want to download and install this font on your computer in order to see the fun Harry Potter font on the documents below.

All the rounds were a hit except for the Hogwarts Class Catalog. They thought it was too hard and missed HP in it. So if I were to do this again I would swap that round for something else. 

Round 1: Name the Characters-Name the character from the films whose face is covered with a white circle. We are looking for first and last names of the characters. 

Powerpoint Presentation Questions

Blank Sheets and Answer Key

Round 2: New Phone Who Dis?-Name the character who’s texts appear in blue in these made-up text message exchanges.  We are looking for first and last names of the characters (when applicable.)

Powerpoint Presentation Questions

Blank Sheets and Answer Key

Round 3: Chapter Illustrations- Using the picture “bank” write the correct matching book number in the blank space. Bonus points if you can name the chapter.

Blank Sheets, Questions and Answer Key

Round 4: Hogwarts Class Catalog-I hope you have been practicing for your NEWT’s because in this round we will go through the Hogwarts class catalog and ask you questions based on those classes. Some of the classes you will find represented include: Divination, Astronomy, Herbology, History of Magic, and Care of Magical Creatures. Fair warning, these are real world questions so if you are a good friend who came tonight with not much Potter knowledge this is your round to shine! 

Blank Sheets, Questions and Answer Key

Round 5: Spells-Remember matching games from your years at Howarts. Well, this is like that. On a separate sheet is the word bank (warning there are more words than questions.) Fill in on the answer sheet the correct spell name. Since this is your final round, each correct answer is worth 2 points.

Blank Sheets, Questions and Answer Key

PRIZES:

I made four different prize packs based on the four Hogwarts Houses. First place team gets to pick their prize pack and so on down the line.

Ravenclaw:

-Shirt

-Socks

-Perfume

Gryffindor:

-Shirt

-Socks

-Perfume

Hufflepuff:

-Shirt

-Socks

-Perfume

Slytherin:

-Shirt

-Socks

-Perfume

Buttons, one button per prize pack

Best Team Name: Pez Dispensers 

Last place: I always give out a last place team prize. It is all a lot of fun with a little light teasing but it also keeps teams from leaving early if they have low scores. This game I gave out bags of jelly slugs 

Best Costume: Lunch Bag

Harry Potter Escape the Room

Ages 14+ (too difficult for younger folks)
Escape room designed using the plans of librarian Beth Crawley from the Programming Librarian Interest Group on Facebook

1.  Scenario Card: You must navigate the room and complete the clues in order to find your lost Hogwarts Express ticket and catch your train to Hogwarts on time. Good luck. You have 30 minutes to complete the room and are allowed only 1 hint. If you want a hint ask one of the moderators by yelling “HINT” from the top of the stairs in your best indoor library yell.

The moderator will hand the group a lockbox with a blue multidirectional lock on it with a riddle on the top that reads:

Start at the end.

2. On the table will be three of the HP books. In the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, hidden among the pages is the Marauders Map.

3. On the map, the group will find the names of Moony, Prongs, Padfoot, but NOT Wormtail.

4. Hidden in the room will be a plastic rat. Taped to the bottom of the rat will be this riddle:

When you arrive at Hogwarts
On to your head this is placed
It will then tell you out loud
In which house you will be based.

5. This riddle will lead the group to the sorting hat. Inside the sorting hat will be a lockbox with a red combination lock. The group must use the numbers from the Quidditch match poster to unlock the box. The scores on the Quidditch match poster will read Gryffindor: 30, Ravenclaw: 20, Slytherin: 26, Hufflepuff: blank. This is the code to the box.

6. Inside the lockbox will be four cards, each representing one of the four Hogwarts houses. Each of the cards will have a number in each corner and a scrambled word on the back (this will represent the order of the houses/items). If you unscramble the words they will say: crown, locket, chalice, sword

7. The group will then need to find the four items in the room belonging to members of the four houses:

Ravenclaw: crown 

Slytherin: locket

Hufflepuff: chalice

Gryffindor: sword

8. On each of the items hidden in the room there will be a directional arrow. The group will have to put the items in order as per the numbers on the corner of the Hogwarts house cards.

9. The arrows on the items will open the blue multi-directionallock The combination is up (Ravenclaw), down (Slytherin), right (Hufflepuff) , left (Gryffindor)

10. Inside the multi-directional lockbox there will be a Howler. The Howler will read:

Excuse me!

How dare you lose your train ticket!

I am absolutely disgusted.

You better locate it shortly or you are going to be in serious trouble.

The train will leave without you mark my words.

If you do happen to make it on time just know that

If you put another toe out of line, you’ll be brought straight home!

Oh, and dear, if you’re looking for your next clue,

“I allow thedrinker to assume the form of someone else.”

11. This clue will lead the group to the bottles of potions, specifically the Poly Juice potion.

12. Behind the label of the Polyjuice potion will be XY390. This is the Azkaban number Sirius Black is holding.

13. Tucked behind the frame holding the Wanted Poster for SiriusBlack will be a postcard and blue decoder. Place the decoder over the postcard and certain words and numbers appear.

14. Once decoded, the code will read: I open at the close and 1/2/13

15. Inside the room will be a backpack. Inside the backpack will be miscellaneous items including a lockbox with My golden snitch written on top of the box.

16. When the group uses the code 1213 from the postcard to unlock the box with the 4 number combo lock they will find the goldensnitch and the train ticket (can be printed from the Scenario Card).

NOTES:

BOXES: I could not find lockboxes that would work for me so I made my own. I bought these plain wooden boxes from Amazon. I painted them in metallic colors and added this hardware to them. They came out wonderful and really fit the HP theme. 

POTION BOTTLES: I got the glass bottles from Amazon and printed the labels out. I applied them to the bottles with Modge Podge. I have a soap making business so I have lots of clay, herbs, etc. So I used those to make the potions and powders. Just make sure whatever you use is non-toxic. Some of the ingredients I used: tea leaves, carrot root powder, rose clay, calendula, charcoal powder, food coloring, vanilla, sandlewood. 

POSTCARD: Print out both sides and put together then laminate. To make the decoder I used a large index card and cut out squares to reveal the words I wanted below. A trick is to print a second copy of the postcard text, use an X-acto knife to cut the words out, then put over cardstock and trace the empty squares. Cut those out and you have a decoder you can

lay over the postcard to reveal the hidden message!

RED HERRINGS: 

• I used stuff laying around the library to actually make the room look like a study. In fact we used one of our study rooms! I used this fake brick wall since half of our room was glass and I wanted to obscure the view. 
• I put this cutie in a decorative birdcage I had previously bought at Michael's Craft Store. 
• I made our own Tom Riddles Diary 
• Printed out a couple of Daily Prophets (1) (2) I tea stained them to age them as well. 
• Not really a red herring but thought this would be helpful to put in the room to help those who have not used a combo lock in a while!

Team Sign-up Sheet

Future Adult Program Ideas

• Get Lowes to come and do how-to demos on things like installing tile, hardwood flooring, building decks, using power tools, plumbing, dry walling, etc.
• Folded book heart https://www.instructables.com/id/Folded-Book-Art-Best-most-clear-Tutorial-available/
• Peep Literary Diorama contest  https://www.marshmallowpeeps.com/art-diorama-contests/ http://blog.fgculibrary.info/2017/03/08/literary-peeps-diorama-contest/  https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProgrammingLibrarianInterestGroup/permalink/1636619973082563/
• Bow making workshop
• Book wreath https://www.vintagepaintandmore.com/2013/11/book-page-wreath-tutorial.html
• Buy blank gift bags and cut out and paste completed adult coloring sheets on them to make cute customized bags. Embellish with glitter, ribbon, etc.
• Bob Ross painting night https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/07/04/painting-with-bob-ross-at-your-local-library-you-might-have-to-wait-in-line/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.223f9c83d169
• Canvas Pouring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wpvUXq--ss Do over metal pans to collect the drips
• 
  

Doctor Who Adult Trivia Night

I did a Doctor Who themed adult trivia night at my library. While I was hoping for more attendees (had 35, but have done similar programs in neighboring towns and draw more like 65 people) I was pleased with the great group I got.

Teams of 2-6 adults ages 14+ registered in advance. I actually had several teams with kids show up not knowing and I let them in. One of the teams comprised a father and his two girls actually took third place.

Teams all came up with some great team names: my personal favorite was the Ood couple. We had 5 rounds and finished up in 1 hour 40 minutes. The teams seemed to really love the questions and everyone had a great time. We even had a Dr. Who Meet-up.com group come.

Four people came in costume and the best one got a weeping angels coffee mug.

I made clusters of three prizes and the top 3 teams could choose their prize packages (1st place chooses first and so on.) The prizes were all Doctor Who merchandise.

After each round is over and the teams have turned in their sheets to the grading table I have my assistant grade as we go over the answers. Let the group yell out the answers. I only give team scores at halftime and of course at the end of the night.

Here is the blank template for keeping score 

Cool background you can use for your posters

As you go through and download the templates below please note some formatting may have changed from being uploaded to Google Drive. 

Round 1: Companions & Villains 
For this round show each slide on the screen one by one and have the participants write on their answer sheets the correct answer. Each correct answer is worth 1 point. No points are deducted for incorrect answers. When team is done have them bring it up to the grading table.

• Powerpoint Questions
• Blank Sheet for particpants 
• Answer Key

Round 2: Missing Words

For this round participants will complete one worksheet per team. Each correct answer is worth 1 point. No points are deducted for incorrect answers. When team is done have them bring it up to the grading table.

• Blank sheet for participants 
• Answer Key

Round 3: Who Dat?

For this round participants will have to write on their answer sheets which two characters are speaking in the dialog. At the beginning of trivia night have volunteers write their name on a piece of paper if they wish to volunteer to read the dialog. Each person gets one bonus point for their team. Pull two names out, hand each a script and tell them if they are reader A or B. Only one person from each team can read in each scene. Have them read twice aloud and then they can sit with their teams. Each correct answer is worth 1 point. No points are deducted for incorrect answers. When team is done have them bring it up to the grading table.

• Scripts for readers
• Blank sheet for participants
• Answer Key 

Round 4: Trivia

For this round participants will answer all questions. Read aloud the questions twice each. Each correct answer is worth 1 point. No points are deducted for incorrect answers. When team is done have them bring it up to the grading table.

• Trivia questions
• Blank sheet for participants
• Answer Key

Round 5: Where in the Universe

For this round show each slide on the screen one by one and have the participants write on their answer sheets the correct answer. Each correct answer is worth 1 point. No points are deducted for incorrect answers. When team is done have them bring it up to the grading table.

• Powerpoint Questions
• Blank sheet for participants
• Answer key