The Wait is Over…
Posted by: Cindy Dobrez and Lynn Rutan
Cindy: Our middle school students demanded a reserve list for Christopher Paolini’s new book Inheritance (Random/Knopf 11-8-2011) last school year the minute the publication date was announced. It was 7:30 a.m. yesterday when the first student asked if we had the book yet! Um, no…the bookstore isn’t open and our UPS delivery of the preorders doesn’t arrive until mid-afternoon (it didn’t arrive yesterday). But with that kind of demand and enthusiasm for reading , what’s a middle school librarian to do? Use my lunch break to go out in the rain to buy a few more copies to tide us over.
My two amazing secretaries fired up the laminators at each building and had the books protected, processed, and in the hands of eager readers in short order. Here’s a photo that one snapped of three students sharing a copy. These students are assigned to the library when they are not attending enrichment classes at our local college so they took a minute to enjoy the opening page together. They set that limit, though. One page and then back to their homework for the class. What discipline!
Far more herculean than my lunchtime book buying feat, is that of Daniel Kraus who somehow managed to read the 78 chapter tome yesterday and get it reviewed and online this morning. Someone buy that man a cup of coffee! We’d love to hear what you think of this concluding volume. Do you agree with Daniel?
Lynn: Tech-savvy teens have brought a whole new meaning to patron requests! Not only are teens aware months in advance of new installments of favorite series but they immediately start nagging librarians to be first in line the minute the date appears! Teens like ours who are spoiled by access to large numbers of advance reader copies just can’t get their heads around those publisher lay down dates for the MOST highly anticipated releases. We explain over and over that NO one gets advance copies on these and finished copies absolutely cannot be sold until the starting gun sounds (so to speak). I actually revel in their pain in the face of all the “teens don’t read anymore” Cassandras. Tell that to the kids lined up in the library yesterday morning the minute the doors opened. I have a HUGE sympathy though for the impact on reviewers like Daniel Kraus who have to burn the midnight oil to get these enormous books read by dawn! Is that the sound of snoring over in his cubicle?
