03/06/2013
02/06/2013
02/27/2012
02/13/2012
01/17/2012
Understanding the Semantic Web
I feel like I've just begun to conquer Web 2.0. I'm collaborating, creating, gathering, and using information like a madwoman. That's why I'm more than just a little aggravated that Web 3.0 is starting to shoulder its way into our consciousness. For a long time, I told myself that I didn't care what Web 3.0 is, that I'd be long gone before Web 3.0 became a reality. Then, when I realized Web 3.0 is actualy on its way- NOW- I decided I just couldn't understand what it is. The semantic web? What the heck?
Well, now I, and you, have no excuse for pretending that Web 3.0 is too difficult to understand. Click on one of the links above and you'll go to a great article from HowStuffWorks about how Web 3.0 will work. And below is a wonderful video created by Manu Sporny, President and CEO of Digital Bazaar, Inc., which explains the Semantic Web in very easy-to-understand terminology.
No more excuses. This is important. Just watch:
12/13/2011
Best Books of 2011
I have never done a Best Books list, mainly because although I absolutely love to read these types of lists, I generally have a hard time choosing ten favorites from a given year. I read so much, but for me to put a book on a BEST list, it had better be damn good. And some years, as much as I read, I don't read ten great books. Let's see if I make it to ten for 2011. My favorites, in no particular order:
Marie Lu's smart, fast-paced addition to the dystopia coterie begs for a sequel. Violent and bloody, Legend is an in-your-face commentary on how the chasm between the haves and the have-nots in our society continues to expand.
Not a YA novel, but I'm pretty sure The Magician King, the sequel to Grossman's The Magicians will show up on a lot of high school reading lists. It's Harry Potter for grown-ups, wizardry with humor and intellect. Completely unpredictable and totally original. I loved it.
Of the spate of dystopian novels from this post- Hunger Games YA literary landscape, Delirium stands out. Sure, it's set up for a sequel, but that won't interfere with your enjoyment of this story. Is a life without love a life at all? Delirium is a perfect read for those who grew up reading The Giver and now want a YA experience.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is a creepy, weird, atmospheric book. I love the harsh and hearty Welsh island setting. The odd, quirky characters remind me of a kids' version of Twin Peaks. I think the use of the old photographs is a little gimicky, and sometimes, author Ransom Rigg seems more enamored of the photos than how they actually fit into the story. But, Miss Peregrine is s curl-up in a blanket with the lights low kind of read.
Gothic and steampunky in a really cool way, Kenneth Oppel's This Dark Endeavor tells the story of how a teenage Victor Frankenstein became the grown-up mad scientist we all know and love. What I liked most about the book is that Victor reveals every flaw in his own character, laying bare his jealousies and weaknesses.
By far my favorite book of the year. Not a YA book originally, but it's now being marketed as one. Two magicians are unknowingly pitted against one another in a strange contest; of course, they fall in love. I was so sorry to get to the last page, I read it twice. The Night Circus is magical. Really.
Rae Carson's The Girl of Fire and Thorns is one of the most unusual books I've read recently. Take a reluctant princess, marry her off to a weak but kind king, sprinkle in war, palace intrigue, a vulnerable stepson, and some newfound pluck, and you've got this coming-into-her-own novel. There are a few dead spots in the plot, but the writing is beautiful and the sequel is certainly coming!
There! I got to seven! Now, there are a bunch of other books that I enjoyed this year, books that I sped through and thought were pretty interesting reads. But they aren't quite "Best Books" material: Divergent, Supernaturally, Variant, Glow, iBoy. Read any of these and you won't be disappointed. I'm hoping to be a bit more openminded in 2012, not so harsh in my criticism of most of the stuff I read. we'll see. We'll also see if I get my book written...
11/18/2011
iLike iBoy
Kevin Brooks's new novel iBoy is built on a completely preposterous premise. That's why I didn't want to read the book at first. Well, that and the silly title as well as the laughable line just below the title: Search. Shock. Destroy. Really? Really?
Well, I'm glad I got over all of that and started reading because iBoy was, in the end, a totally unexpected, very powerful book. I still think the title is goofy and that "Search-Shock-Destroy" thing is ridiculous, but I hope other readers will overlook these details just enough to give iBoy a try.
Tom Harvey lives with his grandmother in an apartment tower in the lower middle class London projects of Crow Town. He hates life in Crow Town, the violence of the gangs, the drug deals, the hopelessness that permeates each day there. So when his childhood friend Lucy asks him to come up to her apartment after school one day, Tom almost allows himself to feel happy at the prospect of reconnecting with her. But that moment of brightness is shattered when, as Tom approaches the building, someone throws an iPhone at him from the very top floor, smashing his skull and embedding pieces of the phone in his brain.
As Tom recovers from that incident, a terrifying and unimaginable realization dawns on him: he is no longer just Tom, a very average British teenager. The chips from the iPhone that have fused with his brain have given him extraordinary powers- powers to search for, find, and manipulate information; powers to influence and control; powers to make him practically invincible.
Now Tom has a choice to make. Should he use these abilities to exact revenge on the gang of boys that assaulted and horrifically violated Lucy? Tom knows the gangs have ruled by violence, so should they now die in the same way? But if he destroys them with his rage and inconceivable powers, what does that make him?
Brooks does not make the experience of iBoy an easy one for his readers. The level of violence in the novel is jarring and sickening, and it is rendered so realistically that it takes one's breath away. The bad guys here are about as bad as humans can be, just soulless, hollow people living in futile circumstances. What makes the reader push forward is Tom, a boy who knows he's not special but who has somehow become inexplicably special. While the fights flare in Crow Town, the real battle is within Tom's own psyche, and the reader feels every one of Tom's wrenching emotions and strains with every one of Tom's impossible choices. Brooks gives Tom incredible humanity even as part of him has become inhuman.
Forgive Brooks the absurd premise of iBoy and read it. The book is both thrilling and heartbreaking in equal measure, and Tom, the haunting, haunted hero, is beautiful and tragic in equal measure, too.
10/14/2011
EReading: Is this really what we want?
I just received an email from Overdrive, a huge ebook distributor, for an ebook webinar that they're holding. The text in the email says this:
"How do you engage students who spend more time reading from a screen—on their cell phones or computers—than they do from the printed page? With eBook and audiobook downloads.
OverDrive, the leading distributor of eBooks and more for libraries and schools, invites you to learn how to make reading cool with the devices students use every day."
Reading this made me squint pensively at the screen of my laptop. Are ebooks the only way we can "make reading cool"?
My husband and I were just commenting last night to one another about the fact that our kids, who are both teenagers, spend most of their day engaged with their phones. They do everything- literally everything- with their iPhones. They communicate with people, watch TV and movies, listen to music, surf the web, read, and more, all on their phones. Does that mean that doing these things in other ways, like reading from a printed book, is NOT cool?
When did we have to start pandering to kids to get them to read or to get them to start thinking that reading was cool? Is this the message we really want to send to kids? That we want them to engage with their screens even more?
Obviously, Overdrive has an agenda here. They want to sell ebooks, so they're making it sound like that's the way to go. I don't blame them for that. But, is it what we (teachers, librarians, parents) want? I am not at all convinced that ebooks make reading cool. Reading makes reading cool. It's just a cool thing to do. I think Overdrive is sending the wrong message, albeit one that is to their advantage, when they say that ebooks are what's going to make reading appealing. Shouldn't the stories be doing that? And do we want to lose our kids to their screens even more?
I'm not signing up for Overdrive's webinars.
09/26/2011
Goliath: The Final Book in a Trilogy of Hugeness
Scott Westerfeld is going to have to start writing another gargantuan book series pretty soon. I just finished Goliath, the third book in the Leviathan series, and I am going to go into Westerfeld withdrawal by November. Also, between this series and Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices series, I've become a tad crazy for the steampunk stuff. Someone pointed out to me that the Leviathan books are not technically steampunk, as the engines described in the book don't run on steam. I don't care. So, don't tell me again that I'm mislabeling the series. At Powell's Books, they put Behemoth on the shelf in their steampunk display, so hah!
Goliath begins right where Behemoth left off: World War I rages on across Europe and Asia. It's Clankers vs. Darwinists in this revisionist version of the Great War. Aleksander, the heir to the Austrian throne, has just helped lead a revolution in Turkey and is back on the British airship Leviathan with his best pal, Dylan Sharp. By now, Dylan's secret- that he is, in fact, Deryn Sharp, a girl in disguise- is no longer quite so secret. People seem to be finding out or figuring it out left and right. But as long as the crew of the Leviathan doesn't know, Deryn is fairly certain she can stay on and continue to fly, which has always been her dream. It's when Alek finds out she's not who she says she is and worse, that she's in love with him, that things get a bit wonky.
In the meantime, the Leviathan is on a mission to Siberia to rescue the brilliant scientist Nicolas Tesla, who claims to have built a weapon so powerful that merely showing it to the world will stop the war. Anxious for peace, Alek falls in beside Mr. Tesla, against the better judgement of his advisors and friends. Alek feels that ending this war is his destiny, his great legacy, and no one can talk him out of going along with Tesla's plans. What Alek refuses to acknowledge is that Tesla is a bit of a madman, and his motives may not be as peaceful as Alek thinks.
As the Leviathan crisscrosses the world from Tokyo to Mexico to New York, Alek and Deryn meet a host of historical figures: Tesla, William Randolph Hearst, even Pancho Villa. How far will Tesla go with his weapon Goliath? Is he, and in turn, is Alek, willing to raze an entire city to show the weapon's power? And how can Alek, a royal heir fall for Deryn, a commoner?
Goliath is a fit ending to Westerfeld's action-packed series.The plot zooms along, as was the case with the first two books, though the characters take more time for quiet contemplation in Goliath than in the previous volumes. His descriptions of air battles and the inner workings of the Leviathan are phenomenal. When Deryn and Alek fight to stay atop the airbeast in a driving rainstorm, the tension is palpable. The final battle scene along Long Island Sound leaves the reader breathless as the Clanker water walkers clash with Mr. Tesla's "ultimate weapon." Keith Thompson's gorgeous illustrations put the reader right in the center of the action, too. As far as characterization, it is Alek who is really in the spotlight in Goliath. Deryn's presence is crucial, but in this book, she's more the girl waiting for her prince while Alek wrestles with his destiny. For those who loved Leviathan and Behemoth, as I did, Goliath does not disappoint. Boys may snicker at the awkward romance, but Westerfeld doesn't dwell on the kissing for too long. There's plenty of swashbuckling, steampunk-tough combat for all.
Disclaimer: I was not given any compensation, monetary or otherwise, by the publishers of Goliath for this review.
