Wonder Book Review

“I know I’m not an ordinary ten-year-old kid.  I mean, sure, I do ordinary things…  And I feel ordinary.  Inside.  But I know ordinary kids don’t make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds.  I know ordinary kids don’t get stared at wherever they go…. My name is August, by the way.  I won’t describe what I look like.  Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.”

August Pullman was born with a birth defect that left him with a severe facial deformity.  August would wear a helmet when he was little so people wouldn’t stare at him.  His favorite holiday has always been Halloween, “I get to go around like every other kid with a mask and nobody thinks I look weird.  Nobody takes a second look.  Nobody notices me.  Nobody knows me.”

Homeschooled during his elementary years, August’s parents decide that he should attend a private school starting in the fifth grade, the start of middle school.  We experience the story through August’s eyes, as well as the perspectives of some of his friends and his sister, each giving their own viewpoint of their relationship with August and the cruelty that he faces from others on a daily basis. 

Wonder by R.J. Palacio teaches life lessons of acceptance, kindness and respect and should be read by everyone ten years of age or older.  While there is cruelty and meanness in this world, there is also goodness, kindness and compassion that we can find from people in this world as well.

MUVE and the Library

A MUVE stands for multi-user virtual environment that occurs online with multiple users playing the same game.  Creative and critical thinking skills are often utilized in these online gaming communities. Minecraft is probably one of the best known MUVE’s that I have observed being played but I haven’t actually played it myself.  One popular MUVE that I did play a lot of time about four years ago was the Facebook game Farmville.  We had to plant and harvest crops, take care of the animals and ask other players for parts or pieces to help us achieve activities.  You could visit other neighbors as well and help out on their farms.  It was a fun way of interacting with others.  (I did get caught up in some of the other Facebook games as well like CafeWorld, Cityville and Frontierville that did much of the same interaction as Farmville.)

Libraries can use interactive technologies by providing gaming programs that allow the users to interact with each other.  It would be great to offer programs for entire families like a WiiU or Xbox tournament or maybe a seniors- only class to instruct them on gaming systems like the Wii. I have watched middle school students in the children’s department at my library set up their own impromptu Minecraft party by getting on the computers and playing against each other.  It would be very easy to do gaming sessions since the computers are already networked together but it does set up some limitations like the number of computers available and if the network can handle the gaming technology.  Libraries though do need to offer this added technology to their patrons of all ages and must find creative and affordable ways to integrate MUVE’s into services and programs.

Social networks: Facebook and Twitter

Social networks have changed the way society exists.  Can we imagine what life was like before Facebook or Twitter?  Social networks have brought us a way to stay in touch with family members, school friends we haven't seen in years and new contacts we meet on a daily basis.  The ultimate goal of social media sites is connecting people to other people.

So let’s compare Facebook and Twitter.  How do they compare to each other? Both involve statuses to see what people are thinking or doing, and both can follow celebrities, friends, groups, organizations, and pages.  But they differ from each other in the following ways: Facebook is more personal with people sharing their life events through unlimited length updates and photo albums with the people they are friends with while Twitter has a 140 character length update limit, following thoughts of people and topics known as “tweets”.  On Twitter, you don’t have to be friends with people to see what they are saying about certain topics because of hashtags and you can follow trending topics.  Facebook has apps, games, chat options, and planning events while Twitter does not have these options.  Twitter is like a diary or journal while Facebook is like a scrapbook of your life.

Social media like Facebook and Twitter can be beneficial to libraries and librarians by connecting them to their patrons but it is important to come up with a plan of how to connect to patrons using these platforms.  Facebook is a great way to advertise programs or popular new books/media that have arrived at the library while a librarian using Twitter could be tweeting during the actual program giving thoughts, quotes or details of what is occurring.  Last year at the Indiana Library Federation’s CYPD (Children and Young People’s Division) Conference, tweeting was a fun and engaging way to find out what other librarians were thinking about the authors, speakers and workshops. 

Obviously social networks are here to stay and library and information science professionals need to strategize how to best implement these platforms into daily use.