Module 1: Bats in the Library

Hello, I'm Richard Nimz, prospector of the written word and literary explorer extraordinaire.  I've started this blog to fulfill a class assignment on youth literature.  I'm thinking that I might continue this for a different audience (if I remember and I feel like it), but for now, I'm going to stick to the curriculum.  Right now, that means Books about reading, and I've decided that means Bats in the Library by Brian Lies.

Citation: Lies, Brian  (2008).  Bats at the Library.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Summary: The book has a pretty simple plot, as most picture books are.  Basically, someone left a window open at the library and a whole bunch of bored bats take that opportunity to go to the library.  From there, the book prettymuch details things that ordinary people might do, such as have a storytime or play with the photocopier, or things that normal people wouldn't do, such as make shadow puppets or play in the water fountain.  Finally, though, daybreak comes and the bats flee the library until next time.

My impressions: I had to choose between this book and The Plot Chickens by Mary Jane and Herm Auch, and I decided to pick the one I liked the best by far.  I like the concept of animals doing human things in a library, and the fact that these are bats (which usually get a bad reputation) makes it even better.  The bats actually look really cute rather than scary here, as bats that eat fruit or insects as opposed to blood tend to do.  The rest of the artwork is good, too, and the portion where bats imagine themselves in the books they're reading really is one of the best sections of the book by far.  The entire book is told in poem, and told nicely in poem, although that really doesn't hold a candle compared to the illustrations.  In closing, I can totally understand why this book was placed on TIME magazine's top 10 list of children's picture books for 2008: to quote Amy Lennard Goehner, it's a "beautifully illustrated rhyming tale..." that delivers well "the message that's every parent's mantra: reading rocks!"

Uses: I would love to share this book with kids as part of a storytime, but I think that there are other ways to put it to use.  Firstly, the furry/anthro population gets a bad rap as being inappropriately interested in animals when they really just think animals with human traits are cool.  I could use this as a display to show that what the furry fandom thinks is cool is not always indecent.  Alternatively, I could use the section of the book that shows the bats putting themselves in their favorite fiction to kick off the child portion of a fanfiction day at the library, letting the kids think of ways they could insert themselves into their favorite books or movies (or I could just use the picture as a decoration, with the author's permission, of course).

In closing, I think that this is a fun book that should be shared with children.  Try and locate it the next time you're at the library.

Sources:

Goehner, Amy Lennard  (3 Nov. 2008). "Bats at the Library, Written and illustrated by Brian Lies - The Top 10 Everything of 2008 - TIME. TIME Magazine. Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1855948_1863719_1863734,00.html