Study Buddies discussion
Reader's Resources
>
Does your public library have The Study Series?
Mod
My local library (Mesa, AZ) has all three titles at all of their branches. :)
We own a copy of Poison at our branch, but one of our other branches has copies of Magic and Fire. And those were only purchased after a few of us employees insisted!!! Still, that's only one whole set between three library locations...: (
Yep! I heard of the book on a different website I frequent and checked Poison Study out of the library. I will hope that they will get the new series, too.
Mod
Oh yes! My library in Utah has all three of the study books. When Fire Study came out, there was quite a long waiting list for it.
Ok to give more people an opportunity to read this awesome book I donated a set to the Northridge and UCLA and GCC libraries. WOoOOOOT WOOOooOOooT!!!
Mod
my local library is privately funded--so they tend to only get in 'popular' bestsellers and everything else is through donations. I had donated a mass market PB of Poison Study (back when I thought they were all coming out in MMPB), but someone never returned it and I can't afford to shell out $12-$14 a trade paperback to get all 3 and hope no one steals them.
Not only does my library own all three of them, they actively suggest them to readers. We have a questionaire you can fill out and the librarians will email you suggestions based on your preferences from the questionaire. As a matter of fact, that's how I first heard of these books.
Mod
I wish my library would give suggestions, like Tina's does. That's really cool. (Not that I have that much of a problem for finding books I want to read!) I read these books out of my local library, but they originally only had the first two. I then suggested that they purchase it, but since I couldn't wait I had to do an interlibrary loan to get the third. They finally got a copy of Fire Study... like 3 months after I had read it!
My local library is nice enough but some of the librarians are very...opinionated on what should and should not be read by age levels. I remember one time, when I was 16, the librarian getting offended because I wanted to take out a fictional accounting of a prostitute's life.
Tracy, I think that statement needs to be printed and enlarged for every library to have up somewhere. That incident was my first case of having a librarian veto my decision on what books to take out. My HS librarians actively encouraged me to read as much and as often as I wanted (in fact they encouraged me to spend my lunch/study hall period with them if I wanted to, which I did) and were constantly slipping me books that were 'banned' by the School Board.I don't understand why banning books is something people want. You have them screaming that the youth of today is illiterate and then you have the same bunch screaming that the youth of today shouldn't read Huck Finn or Things Fall Apart or any number of books. And those are just the classics. It turns my stomach to think about it.
Ridiculous people.
Mod
Mod
I don't have kids but if I did, I would much rather have them reading about "bad" things than participating in them in reality. I was probably reading about sex by the time I was 10 (my mom's romance novels were not heavily guarded!) but I didn't actually participate in anything remotely sexual until I was 24! FYI that guy is now my hubby, the one and only.
The other issue I have is with people who have a hard time understanding the differences and confluences between fiction and non-fiction. Fiction isn't real (! some people don't seem to be able to grasp this) but it refers to pieces of our reality and helps us understand/contemplate it. So I don't get it when people get so bent about magic and Harry Potter and Philip Pullman and that kind of thing. I wouldn't call myself pious (I'm Catholic) but I also don't think "magic" is equivalent to "devil worship" as some people try to make it seem.
I think people who think that need to read a book, or possibly two.
Mod
I constantly have to explain to my library co-workers that the bookstore has literally prepared me for everything.
The problem with ALA's Freedom to Read statement is that it's merely a guideline and not a law. I'm usually 100% For all of ALA's "guidelines" and see them as rules, but I also know a lot of teachers, librarians (not the ones at my library =), and administers that do not agree at all. It makes me so mad.
It makes me so mad when people try to censor what kids read. I'm in school to be a teacher right now and I've worked with after-school programs for four years. I don't care what kids are reading, as long as their reading. Like when the first few Harry Potter books came out and people were all upset about kids reading about witchcraft or whatever, I was constantly explaining to parents that their kids were going to read the books, and if you have a problem with some content, read it with your kids so you can discuss it with them instead of trying to bann it from your house. Especially when it's a book all their friends are reading!Also, I have always been an avid reader. As a result I read at a high school level in second grade. There weren't many choices of "appropriate" reading material that I wasn't bored by. I was constantly reading about sex and drugs way before sex ed in school. Meanwhile I have always been extremely careful about any activities that could keep me from getting what I want in life (a college degree, a teaching certificate, the chance to travel...)
Alethea, my library is in Illinois about an hour from Chicago in Elgin.
Problem is the media always makes such a huge deal out of extreme cases of kids believing everything they read/watch/play. For every kid that has killed himself trying to be Gaara from Naruto by burying himself in sand there's 2000 that have read it, said its cool and thought nothing else of it! Or for every satanic teen who has a copy of Harry Potter in their locker and threatens to hex a classmate there are thousands of others who don't.I read about sex when I was about 7 years old because my mom had Victoria holt books laying around and the dark covers with the fierce women on them intrigued me. I continued to read romance novels even as my mom forbade me to take sex ed in school. Directly or indirectly I was much more aware of myself and how quickly a situation could spiral out of control in HS and avoided such situations until i met my first boyfriend in college and we're almost on 5 years. Meanwhile 4 out of the 5 friends I had in HS either was pregnant in HS or got so quickly thereafter.
Coincedence or otherwise, none of them read anything more then a Cosmo and learned about sex from Health class. Which doesn't teach you about what happens when your hormones overwhelm you.
My public library currently has all three. I'm not sure how much they move. Every public library has a process on how to handle challenged materials and usually public libraries never pull something off the shelf. When I was working at the public library, we had a challenged book in the children's section, that we just ended up moving to the adult section. I wish it wouldn't happen as often as it did, but books do get challenged often enough.
My library, in Washington has only Poison Study, but other branches in the system do have Magic and Fire Study.
None of the libraries in my state have the Poison Study series which is a big disappointment.
So here in Santa Cruz, I looked online at different libraries in the area, and 4 libraries had the Study Series!!
Lexie wrote: "Problem is the media always makes such a huge deal out of extreme cases of kids believing everything they read/watch/play. For every kid that has killed himself trying to be Gaara from Naruto by b..."Very true Lexie, I was one who didn't start reading until I was way out of high school so I was also one that was pregnant (I didn't happen to get married first) but still I was preg after one month of marriage and I was 18 at the time, But I was not one that new very much about sex and how to control my emotions I think if they start at least in middle school learning how to control them that they will have more success in not getting the way I was so soon. LOL OK well that was probably more than you needed to know :)
Mod
Now the problem I have is deciding whether to buy the YA covers or the original. The YA ones will attract more attention, but there's no Fire Study.
I would say go with the original ones first, then buy the YA covers when Fire Study comes out in it.
Jane, When I request books at the library for purchase, I include the ISBN so that they get the right copy. Maybe try that and definitely try to get them to get Fire Study.
Mod
I was going to get them the YA covers, but there's no Fire Study. So I'm just going to go with the originals.
I didn't donate them before because a lot of donations slip out of the library and into the Friends of the Library Bookshoppe without review from the librarians. I also didn't realize they were paying attention to my random conversations about books and ordering ones that I had suggested. I had to make sure that my donations wouldn't "accidentally" end up in the Bookshoppe. The Library Assistant that I talked to also works at B&N, so she's already heard about the series (and has it on her to-read list). She'll probably be the first to check them out.
We have that problem too at the library. Fortunately we have people working at the public library who are big fantasy advocators, so we have all three books already. When I worked there, we were always swamped with books, that I don't think they looked to add any books unless specially requested by the patron, or the book was a bestseller that was well-known and was in great condition.
my school library has the harry potter series and the twilight series but it doesn't have any of the study books
Since they are not as popular and not really YA books, that doesn't surprise me. Have you checked your public library Thu?
Not yet haha I lost my library card. I should find that soon.
If you can't find it, you can always get a new one, usually it's just a few bucks for the new card.
yeah I think I might buy a new card but my parents have to drive me everywhere so they might get mad if they have to drive me to the library like a couple times a week so I usually use my school's library
Yeah, that's rough when you don't live two blocks over from the library like I do. I used to be able to see it from my backyard too... I was just lucky growing up I guess.
yeah I have to drive like 10 or 15 minutes to get to a library so thats why I just use my school's library
That makes sense. Sounds like your parents don't use the library much either, or you could just convince them to wait to go until you're home from school.
I didn't start reading until after I had my kids so I wasn't really into the library at all, I didn't start the library until last year I think, didn't know what I was missing
I lived at the library from age 5 pretty much. I spent most of my summers there before we had air conditioning.
no my parents don't like reading they like playing sports like basketball and racketball and tennis and stuff like that.
My mom read all the time when I was little and we would all sit at her feet while she read to us it was great, but I always struggled with reading myself so I had to make myself sit down and learn to read all over again and now I cant put them down LOL
My mom still works at the public library, so she is also using it more. That's how I started using libraries more, was I started working there and then I remembered what a lovely place it is. My dad just doesn't read along with my little sis.
my parents always claim that they don't have time to read because they play sports. I used to hate reading until I started on this whole fantasy thing
That's lame... everyone should read, even if its one book a month. They could always read nonfiction.
Hubby says the only books he will read are the ones with lots of pictures LOL
haha my english teacher makes us read like 1-2 novels a month and like 4-5 short stories
That's too funny. I like how school made me read some of those classics. It's nice to be able to talk about them every once in a while to people.
oh yeah we're reading cyrano de bergerac right now
Thu wrote: "oh yeah we're reading cyrano de bergerac right now"That is actually a good book and there are some Literature that is good but there are some that I just couldn't get into
Glendale Public Library for example has Poison and Magic but not Fire Study. And I also found out thanks to the magic of the internet, that someone's got Poison checked out right now :) Very soon (allowing time for processing), the LA Public Library - Eagle Rock branch will have all 3! Yay!!
Jane and I are working on getting Study into more libraries. Just for fun, see if your library has them. (Post info here!) And if not, place a request! I'm sure there are many more people who would love to read the books if only they didn't have to pay for their copy ;)
We *heart* public libraries and think everyone should have access to free reading material and literacy. Yes!!!