OH MY GOD...YES, IT'S THE DEWEY DECIMAL RAP.

You know you've "made it" when kids are making their own mocking versions....



I like this LIBRARY RAP:



I'm going to tell every fool who comes into the bookstore wanting to use it like a library - by purchasing stuff (books - or worse, DVDs that they've WATCHED - yes, opened the shrinkwrap) and then returning it - over and over again - to WATCH THESE VIDEOS! UGH... I've asked customers: "Why don't you just go to the library?" "The what?" they ask. "The Library." "What is a library?" S-C-A-R-Y.

OR what's really funny/scary is what happened once: I guy came up to me and said
"Where can I rent this?"
"Rent this?" inquired
"Yeah. Rent this," he said, as he held up a book.
"I said, "You mean check it out, like you do in a library."
He said "Yeah."
I repeated "Check this OUT?"
He nodded.
"I said "Like a LIBRARY?"
He said "Yeah."
I said "This isn't a library. It's a bookstore."
He just stared.
"Um...You have to buy the book," I added.
"I can't rent it?" he asked.
"No," I said.
Mind you, he WAS NOT foreign. He did not have an accent.
"I have to buy it?"
"Yes."
"Then I don't want it," he said.
"Well why don't you go to the library," I suggested.
"What's a library," he said.
"You know, you can check out books and stuff," I said.
"Oh," he said. "Well where is one?" he asked.
I explained where to go.
"It's too far away," he said, and walked away.

I told my sister, who works at the Columbia University Library, to check out these raps and she said, "I'm not that kind of librarian. I'm not a library dork." Oh, dear sister, we all are. YOU ESPECIALLY.

E READERS FOR KIDS - LIKE WATCHING TV?

If you've been following my posts you may have guessed that I'm not a big fan of e-readers. I have my reasons. This is another reason why I think they're problematic:

B&N's Nook folk have designed applications for its reader and for the iPad: "Where the best children's stories come to life." Their re-design of classic books has made them "come to life" so much so that you may as well just pop in a DVD and forget the book entirely.

Here's an example:

GO, DOG, GO!, which is a beginning reader, starts out in a male voice--"There they go... Look at those dogs go!..."



And as the voice prattles on the screen zooms in on the image:



Hmmm. Where did the text go? As a beginning reader, I think the text probably needs to be present for the child to learn how to read. As is, the "book" presents itself more as a movie... or it tries its darndest to be one. It's too bad, isn't it? It's unfortunate that all books don't eradicate all of their words and just have omniscient voices that shout out from their speaker boxes and characters that animate themselves from behind the plastic screens for the children of America.

1) I had a hard time learning to read. This will take the pressure off other kids. Perhaps they won't get an eye twitch like I did.
2) We don't need more literacy, do we?