#ComicsWednesday: Tetris: The Games People Play by Box Brown

There is no shortage of acclaim for the perfection of Tetris*. Its cultural impact cannot be overstated. Tetris has wormed its way into the life of anyone who’s been in proximity to a computer, Gameboy, Nintendo, arcade, etc. Despite its influence, the Tetris story has not been properly canonized. Box Brown succeeds in doing so with Tetris: The Games People Play. He begins with Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov and his friend Vladimir Pokhitko musing on the origin of games and puzzles, their connection to art, and their capacity to enhance our humanity. He then goes through an in-depth history of the politics, business, and controversy of Tetris. The story is surprisingly deep and convoluted for a game so simple in design. The tale, warmly colored in yellows and blues, is constructed fluidly with mixed styles that fit together like squares. The book succeeds alongside other great graphic novels in that the arrangement of the story seems like it could not have existed in another medium.

Outside the historical narrative, Brown discusses the purpose and role games have. They exist not just to escape, entertain, or pass time. Brown poses that the experiences and strategies used extend to our higher-order thinking (namely the prefrontal cortex); we assess a task, accomplish it, and feel good from it. He further argues that games are about connection and the depiction of human drama, all in the pursuit of fun. Tetris: The Games People Play pushes in the much-needed direction of games as art and culture. As Box Brown says, games “define our human identity.”

~Garrett, Circulation

* see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnztj1UlkQs if you need convincing

#ComicWednesdays: CatStronauts Mission Moon by Drew Brockington

Do you love cats? How do you feel about outer space? I love cats and I also love space, so CatStronauts Mission Moon by Drew Brockington was perfect for me.

The world is in an energy crisis! Worldwide blackouts have alerted the President that the world is running out of power. Since switching to battery-use only is not a long-term solution, he consults the World's Best Scientist who comes up with a plan. Build a solar plant on the moon! Sending the CatStronauts to the moon is their best bet for clean, renewable energy. (I wish it worked like this in the real world.) Our CatStronauts are the commander Major Meowser, pilot Waffles, inventor Blanket, and science officer Pom Pom. We follow them as they train for their mission and blast off to save cat-kind!

Cat. Astronauts. CatStronauts. I feel like I don't even need to say anything else, because that sounds so awesome on its own. This comic is perfect for all ages.There's a lot of puns and funny imagery to keep younger kids interested, but there are some jokes for older folks too. (The Neil Armstrong cat cameo comes to mind.) Basically, if you like cats, space, or both cats and space, check out CatStronauts Mission Moon. And then check out CatStronauts Race to Mars. Be on the lookout for CatStronauts Space Station Situation in October.

- Libby, Youth Services

I Read Banned Books, 2017

“A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone” - Mary Jo Godwin

It is once again Banned Books Week, a time of year when we celebrate our freedom to read. Some years I set out to read a controversial book with the idea that exposure to new ideas and life experiences will help me to grow as a human being. Other years I am surprised to learn that a book I read and loved is considered controversial. This year, I've found myself frequently considering Mary Jo Godwin's quote about how it is likely that each of us will be offended by something on the library's shelves.

As a librarian, I consider myself a champion of intellectual freedom, but even so I can admit that there are books and movies in our library that I don't like. If I am asked for a personal opinion, I will likely say that X or Y isn't for me, but if I'm doing my job right no one will feel shame for liking something I don't. Because, in the end, this job is about helping you to find the information and entertainment that you want and need.

I recently read a middle grade novel that explores the idea that some books contain things that are not just offensive, but outright dangerous to readers. Specifically, children. The protagonist of Ban This Book by Alan Gratz is a fourth grader who loves the escape of reading more than anything, and then her favorite book ever (From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg) is removed from her school's library.

Gratz does an excellent job of exploring book challenges and their impacts.* I think Ban This Book has the potential to spark some interesting discussions, and I wish that I'd had it to read when The Giver by Lois Lowry was removed from my fifth grade classroom. My parents handled the situation well, working with the parents of some of my friends to create a mother/daughter book discussion group so that we could read The Giver outside of school. It dealt with some challenging issues and I was glad to be able to talk about it with my mom, but it was still strange to have a book that I was forbidden from mentioning at school.

Based on ALA's Top Ten Most Challenged Books List for 2016, if I were in middle school today, it's possible that the controversial book would be George by Alex Gino. George is a story written for middle-grade readers about a child who wants more than anything to play the part of Charlotte in the school production of Charlotte's Web, but everyone knows that a boy can't play a girl's part. George, however, knows that she isn't a boy, and a transgender child is too controversial for some. It was, in my opinion, an incredibly sweet book and a great choice for any parents who might want to start their own controversial-books book discussion group, or who just want to share a good book with their child.

~Sarah, Adult Services


*Americus by M.K. Reed is a graphic novel aimed at teen readers that explores the impacts of a book challenge over a fictional series that features witches and magic, and it is also worth checking out.

#ComicsWednesday: Atomic Blonde: The Coldest City by Antony Johnston & Sam Hart

I really enjoyed Mad Max: Fury Road (a.k.a. the car chase movie with interesting female characters), so when I saw previews for Atomic Blonde, another action film starring Charlize Theron, I was excited. So before I saw the movie, I checked out the comic it was based on, The Coldest City (the library's copy is retitled Atomic Blonde: The Coldest City to tie in with the film release), and I can tell you that the comic and the movie are meant for different audiences.


The Coldest City was written by Antony Johnston and illustrated by Sam Hart. Hart's striking black and white artwork with its focus on the characters set the story's emotional tone for me as a reader. I admire Hart's use of shadows to convey the way that secrets were hidden and revealed. The plot was an unremarkable spy story with twists and double crosses I didn't find all that surprising, though the story's setting in Berlin just before the wall came down marking the beginning of the end of the Cold War was interesting.

The plot follows a hunt for a list of the true identity of all spies active in Europe (more or less a MacGuffin) and features a female character in a sea of men who underestimate her. Regardless of the book's historical setting, I expect more from a book written in 2012 than I do one written in 1989, and found this choice exhausting.

The film adaption largely removes the importance of sexism to the plot, and swaps two speaking roles from men to women. However, when you add in the film's increased emphasis on graphically violent action sequences, this change is problematic at best (spoilers). The filmmakers also place a great deal of care into the soundtrack and some strikingly colorful visuals, creating a very different tone from the comic.

The movie was okay, but I prefer action movies with an emphasis on fun over gritty (the above gif was maybe the only funny part). What I really appreciated about the film was the way it made me reexamine my experience of the comic. At first read, The Coldest City seemed bland and predictable, but the movie helped me to appreciate its comparative subtlety and how the use of an unreliable narrator creates space for ambiguity.

~Sarah, Adult Services

#ComicsWednesday: Earth Before Us: Dinosaur Empire! by Abby Howard

Abby Howard has been one of my favorite web-comic artists for a long time. I discovered her on tumblr where she publishes short autobiographical comics. (Warning: some of her autobiographical comics are definitely for mature audiences.) From there I fell in love with her ongoing web comic Junior Scientist Power Hour. When I saw that she was releasing a science comic about dinosaurs for kids, I was psyched!

Earth Before Us: Dinosaur Empire! is delightful. Howard frames the information with a narrative about Ronnie, a little girl who flunked her dinosaur quiz at school. Ronnie needs to learn everything about dinosaurs so she can get 100% when she retakes the quiz - TOMORROW MORNING?! Luckily for Ronnie, her weird neighbor Ms. Lernin (recognizable to Howard's fans as herself) used to be a paleontologist. They travel back in time in Ms. Lernin's magical recycling bin through the power of SCIENCE MAGIC to learn everything there is to know about dinosaurs and other prehistoric life.

This is very much in the vein of the Magic School Bus, but Howard's humor is dry in a way that older kids and parents will appreciate. Fans of dinosaurs, funny comics, and learning will love this graphic novel. You can find it in the kids graphic novel section here at the library.

- Libby, Youth Services

Staff Review: The Hour of Land by Terry Tempest Williams

The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams stands a very good chance of being my 2017 best book of the year. I loved it so much I'm about to read it all over again. The book combines all my favorite genres: history, nature writing, memoir, travel. Published in 2016 to coincide with the National Park Service's centennial celebrations, The Hour of Land is a very personal tour, conducted by Williams herself, through a dozen of the nation's 58 national parks.

And what a tour guide she is. A naturalist, writer, and native of Utah, Williams is probably best known for her 1992 memoir Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place about losing her mother to cancer just as the Great Salt Lake floods, threatening the migratory birds Williams treasures. She's extremely knowledgeable, she loves wild places with a passion, and she possesses what I can only call a beautiful spirit: generous, gentle, peace-loving, compassionate. Plus, she's a terrific and highly poetic writer.

It's a pleasure to tour the country in her company, even when she's surveying wrenching scenes like the damage inflicted on Gulf Islands National Seashore by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 or the encroachments of the Bakken oil fields on Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. More often what she surveys is sublime, from Alaska's Gates of the Arctic and Wyoming's Grand Teton to Acadia National Park in Maine. She even makes a stop at Effigy Mounds National Monument here in Iowa.

Particularly pleasurable is the variety of approaches Williams takes to her park descriptions, focusing closely at times on ecology or American history, then shifting her lens to her own life and family. She includes letters, emails, and journal entries to fine effect and provides a wonderful personal anecdote about Lady Bird Johnson. Modern readers, who may be unaware of how our great park system got started, learn about the unflagging philanthropic and environmental efforts of such National Park greats as Laurence Rockefeller, Theodore Roosevelt, Stewart Udall, and many others. This book's a lavish banquet of luscious park detail and I, for one, could not get enough of it. How I wish Williams had visited all 58.

~Ann, Adult Services