I got humiliated by a librarian today...

[Cruel2BKind]

Have you heard of the Inheritance cycle? Maybe you have and maybe you haven't, but it is a series of four books written by a man named Christopher Paolini about dragon riders. At the release of the first, they got quite a bit of fame because Paolini was fifteen when he started writing it.

The fourth book is going to be released on the 8th of November, and when I found out, I was SUPER EXCITED!!! It has been five years since he released a book, and this is the last one.

I decided that I wanted to reread the first three, so I went to my college library for the first time (other then to use one of the study rooms) to look for them. I have the books at home, but I thought it would be nice not to lug ten pounds of books to college.

I looked all over the libraries 3 levels, and I got royally confused. There were so many help-desks, that I was asking over and over again, only to learn that they had no idea where the fiction was.

Then I did find one, and when I told her I was looking for Eragon, she told me that it was in the 'juvenile fiction' section in the basement. That was all I needed to know, but she reassured me, speaking very slowly, that if I ever needed help, there were several desks. I just wanted to go and read my children books in peace and she wouldn't shut up!!! She was talking to me like I was retarded!

Oh, and I discovered the books when I was 11, its Paolini's damn fault for taking so long! :embaressment:

 

[Stella_Omega]

Too funny!

I would probably talk to you in the same way, though, if you came to me looking for those books. Sorry.

 

[Bellatrixie]

To make you feel better I will confess that when I am not reading erotica (which is most of the time lmao) my other genre of preference is YA fiction. We are waiting for book four too...and I still have to get reading The Necromancer by Michael Scott and book two of Rick riordan's new series...

And I am 38 so there is no excuse for me

Steph

 

[PennLady]

I'll confess that one of my favorite series is Redwall by Brian Jacques, who passed away a year or so ago. I'm a couple of books behind on it. If you think it's bad reading YA fantasy fiction, at least yours involve people. The characters in the Redwall books are all animals. So, yes, I have a series of YA books about mice, squirrels, woodchucks, foxes, wolves, snakes, owls and other birds...

And I am 41. I've been reading these books for at least six or seven years, maybe longer.

 

[bronzeage]

Simple solution:

Ask her when she gets off work and say you want to buy her a latte and review her reading list.

 

[sr71plt]

Eragon wasn't quite the "teenager" miracle it as hyped to be. His parents worked in publishing and really worked his books over before seeing that they got published. Pretty much a promotional stunt--and it seems to have worked a charm.

 

[estragon]

Eragon wasn't quite the "teenager" miracle it as hyped to be. His parents worked in publishing and really worked his books over before seeing that they got published. Pretty much a promotional stunt--and it seems to have worked a charm.

Nothing like first-class editing, I always say.

 

[SquiresBoy]

I felt the same way at our library. They have a couple of Neil Gaiman's books in the children's section, and Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson wrote a couple of Peter Pan books that were supposed to be really good. So I shamefully ran into the kid's section, figured out where the books were, and took them up to the counter.

The librarian looked at the first Peter Pan book and said, "I have been wanting to read these for so long. Let me know if it's any good!"

Phew, saved from humiliation!

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I'll confess that one of my favorite series is Redwall by Brian Jacques, who passed away a year or so ago. I'm a couple of books behind on it. If you think it's bad reading YA fantasy fiction, at least yours involve people. The characters in the Redwall books are all animals. So, yes, I have a series of YA books about mice, squirrels, woodchucks, foxes, wolves, snakes, owls and other birds...

And I am 41. I've been reading these books for at least six or seven years, maybe longer.

I love those books! My favorite was 'Outcast of Redwall'

I didn't know that Brian jacques was dead!

I used to get so bothered that the rats were always the bad guys though, I always had pet rats growing up

 

[Handley_Page]

Anyone else read the "Dragon-riders of Pern" stories ?
I really like them. They are simple and pointed but good.

 

[PennLady]

I love those books! My favorite was 'Outcast of Redwall'

I didn't know that Brian jacques was dead!

I used to get so bothered that the rats were always the bad guys though, I always had pet rats growing up

Actually, he died earlier this year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Jacques

They are great books. He did great work with accents, etc. Wasn't there one book where a rat had been raised at Redwall? Or maybe it was a weasel. Yes, "bad" rodents like rats, etc., were always bad guys in Redwall.

Anyone else read the "Dragon-riders of Pern" stories ?
I really like them. They are simple and pointed but good.

I never could quite get into Anne McCaffrey, though I tried. Really. I read several of her books b/c I kept thinking either they'd get better or I was missing something. I guess it just didn't mesh for me.

 

[lovecraft68]

I confess that when my daughters first got into them I read a few of RL Stine's Goosebump books. I remember thinking "Hey a couple of these aren't bad!"

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I confess that when my daughters first got into them I read a few of RL Stine's Goosebump books. I remember thinking "Hey a couple of these aren't bad!"

Goosebumps? That series was THE SHIT!!! I freakin loved those books when I was a kid, and he had almost a hundred of them, not including goosebumps 2000, choose your own adventure, or his individual horror stories. It spawned video games and three shows and books based on the shows, it was awesome!!

My favorites where 'egg monsters from mars' 'how I learned to fly' 'the haunted mask' and all of the evil dummy books. 'one day in horrorland' also counts.

Did anyone read animorphs? Every kid loves animals, and these books were about a dying alien running from a race of parasitic aliens who enslaved whatever race they came across. He finds five kids wandering after dark and gives them morphing technology to fight the yeerks. You could touch an animal and gain their DNA, and then you could morph into them!! I loved those when I was a kid, but I could never find all of them, there were somewhere around fifty.

They always had a really cool cover where they would show one of the kids morphing.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XR5TVK5SL.jpg
http://i.neoseeker.com/boxshots/Qm9...spicion__frontcover_large_7XDCuwC7vS95woH.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f1/Animorphs_36_The_Mutation.jpg
http://animorphsforum.com/ebooks/covers/bk17.jpg

Try telling me that you didn't fantasize about doing that shit when you were a kid!

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XR5TVK5SL.jpg
http://i.neoseeker.com/boxshots/Qm9...spicion__frontcover_large_7XDCuwC7vS95woH.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f1/Animorphs_36_The_Mutation.jpg
http://animorphsforum.com/ebooks/covers/bk17.jpg

Try telling me that you didn't fantasize about doing that shit when you were a kid!

Nope, can't say I did.

Then again, this thread has led me to the conclusion that I read the wrong sort of books growing up . . . .

As for library humiliation (wow, that sounds kind of dirty), I blush when I check out romance books.

 

[MagicaPractica]

LOL I'm 37 and I enjoy juvenile and YA fiction a lot. One of my favorite books is The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper I reread it every so often. As a librarian I encourage people to consider good books written for other ages as still good literature. Many that are put in juvi weren't even written for that age group decades ago. I don't think anyone should discount a book just because the reading level is labeled for a certain age.

 

[PennLady]

Nope, can't say I did.

Then again, this thread has led me to the conclusion that I read the wrong sort of books growing up . . . .

As for library humiliation (wow, that sounds kind of dirty), I blush when I check out romance books.

I bet you read Adam Smith and all his economic buddies, right?

I read whatever I could get my hands on. I hated to be bored and so I had books with me all the time. I will say that I did not read a lot of the YA romances when I was in high school, although I did read some. Mostly I read sci-fi. Even today I grab whatever I feel like reading.

 

[lovecraft68]

Goosebumps? That series was THE SHIT!!! I freakin loved those books when I was a kid, and he had almost a hundred of them, not including goosebumps 2000, choose your own adventure, or his individual horror stories. It spawned video games and three shows and books based on the shows, it was awesome!!

My favorites where 'egg monsters from mars' 'how I learned to fly' 'the haunted mask' and all of the evil dummy books. 'one day in horrorland' also counts.

Did anyone read animorphs? Every kid loves animals, and these books were about a dying alien running from a race of parasitic aliens who enslaved whatever race they came across. He finds five kids wandering after dark and gives them morphing technology to fight the yeerks. You could touch an animal and gain their DNA, and then you could morph into them!! I loved those when I was a kid, but I could never find all of them, there were somewhere around fifty.

They always had a really cool cover where they would show one of the kids morphing.

My favorite was the haunted mask

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

I bet you read Adam Smith and all his economic buddies, right?

I read whatever I could get my hands on. I hated to be bored and so I had books with me all the time. I will say that I did not read a lot of the YA romances when I was in high school, although I did read some. Mostly I read sci-fi. Even today I grab whatever I feel like reading.

Hahaha, no. I waited until college to reach that level of nerdiness. And oh, how it keeps escalating . . . .

But since I was at a boarding school for high school, I was pretty limited to what they had in their library and bookstore. They had a lot of great books, but I don't remember them stocking YA-type stuff.

 

[jomar]

You asked her for an obscure book and she led you to the back of the library, her rear shimmying beneath the tight knee length skirt as she led you down the stacks. At the end of the aisle she turned, flicked backed her shoulder length blond hair and gestured to the shelf. She smiled, said "Oh, here it is," kneeled, then looked up. She and reached up and unbuckled your belt and...

Aw, fuck it. Second person stuff sucks...

 

[MagicaPractica]

You asked her for an obscure book and she led you to the back of the library, her rear shimmying beneath the tight knee length skirt as she led you down the stacks. At the end of the aisle she turned, flicked backed her shoulder length blond hair and gestured to the shelf. She smiled, said "Oh, here it is," kneeled, then looked up. She and reached up and unbuckled your belt and...

Aw, fuck it. Second person stuff sucks...

And I just found out it's positively illegal during NaNoWriMo.

LOL

 

[Sugary_Comfort]

Oh I hate it when the put books that aren't exactly for kids in the juvenile section.

I only read romance and YA (and then on a rare occasion I'll find some erotic stuff to read). I've read some fantasy/fiction books but that's super rare. I'm a really picky reader so I don't care to try new authors for fear I'll get a book and the writing be horrible.

My favorite author is a YA author. Tamora Pierce. Her stuff is geared more towards girls, but the stories are awesome! I ADORE her Immortals quartet. All but maybe 5 books of hers are considered YA. The 5 that are put in the kid's section are the four from her Circle of Magic series and then probably Melting Stones. I'm not sure about the 5th one, I've not been to the library in ages, but there's nothing about sex or drugs in it so I'm guessing it's in the kid's section. Er, well, it'd be in part for pre-teens.

All her other books have some mention of sex, love, or drugs and the books tend to cover the main characters' teen years. Two series beginning when the characters are 10 (those are the ones who become knights) and one begins when the character is 13, and another when the character is 16. Those are just her Tortallan universe ones, though. The others are her Emelan ones and the first four the kids are 11 and the next four they're around 15, then there's a stand-alone with them in it and they're 18-20.

I also looooved Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy. Those are YA. Currently reading The Nine Lives of Chloe King series, that's YA. Twilight series, Inkheart trilogy (or whatever it's called), and a few others.

I prefer YA novels. I think the stories are better.

As for Eragon...I got to the last chapter or two and just couldn't bring myself to finish it. I don't even know how I made it through as far as I did. Whoever edited the book wasn't paying close attention because I found quite a few inconsistencies. The last one that bugged me was something about how the author was going over everything in this office, as well as the people in it, but forgot to mention one guy who'd been standing in the room the entire time so when he suddenly spoke and no one seemed surprised I was like, wait a second, when did he get there? So never got past the first book. That'll teach me to try a book just because someone says it's good. Normally I don't. Eragon was the second book I did that with, the first one being Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, but I only read that after I'd found Tamora Pierce and realize fantasy books were pretty cool. That was in 2000. Before that, I'd never even heard of Harry Potter.

 

[MagicaPractica]

Oh I hate it when the put books that aren't exactly for kids in the juvenile section.

I was only referring to books that were written for the general populace a hundred years ago, such as Tom Sawyer or Little Women. Fairy tales were for everyone long before they were written down (and romanticized by Walt Disney.)

 

[Stella_Omega]

My favorite author is a YA author. Tamora Pierce. Her stuff is geared more towards girls, AND the stories are awesome!

Fixed that for you

Tamora Pierce is on of the defining authors of YA. Her books are beautifully plotted, have a fantastic balance between adventure and character development, satisfying endings, excellent language use...

Christopher Paolini is one of the defining authors of none of the above. His first book reads like a fifteen year old boy wrote it after getting all excited by the LOTR movies. I could not read much more than than halfway through it. The movie looks like someone bought the rights to something they thought might cash in on the LOTR movie popularity.

 

[Sugary_Comfort]

Fixed that for you

Tamora Pierce is on of the defining authors of YA. Her books are beautifully plotted, have a fantastic balance between adventure and character development, satisfying endings, excellent language use...

Christopher Paolini is one of the defining authors of none of the above. His first book reads like a fifteen year old boy wrote it after getting all excited by the LOTR movies. I could not read much more than than halfway through it. The movie looks like someone bought the rights to something they thought might cash in on the LOTR movie popularity.

Hehe Tammy is definitely amazing! Her books helped me through all the rough parts of my teen years. Without them I don't think I'd be here. From them I realized that books give us a world to escape to for a time. So when I got into writing that's the main goal I had in mind, to give others a place to run to when things get too crazy or hard. Then I read through her short stories book, Tortall and Other Lands and in it it talks about why she began writing her books in the first place. Turns out she began with the same thing in mind as I have. I actually cried when I read that. I LOVE her!

And I read somewhere that Paolini's parent's made him sit and write for a few hours each and every day. He wasn't allowed to do anything else until he'd written something. When I read that I was like, "No wonder all this stuff sounds so forced."

Really, despite the book not being the most well-written thing ever, it was fairly decent so the horrible movie has no excuse. They had plenty to work with and improve upon. They could have made it so the movie was better than the book. Bleh.

And MagicaPractica, I wasn't referring to your post. I was talking about the main post. But I did notice that some books we think of as kiddy books are not exactly something most of us want our children reading.

I read Peter Pan several years ago and was shocked by a few things. The biggest one being that Barrie had it written down that Tinkerbell had come back from an orgy. I looked the word up, thinking maybe there was another meaning to the word, but all the meanings were sexual. But I think I heard the word used sometime this year as a term meaning gathering or something and it wasn't anything sexual. So maybe Peter Pan can still be for younger kids, but I still think I'd hold off on reading the actual book to my child until he's nearing 10.