North York Central Library Blog

Opening Doors to Your Future - 2012 Career and Job Fair

Come and join us Thursday, March 8, 2012 for the Career and Job Fair, Opening Doors to Your Future

When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Where: North York Central Library, 5120 Yonge St.

Exhibitors include: Canadian Tire, InCharge Canada, Paragon Security, VHA Home HealthCare, and many, many more!

For more information, call Terruce Lau at 416-392-4107

Bring copies of your resume, print and electronic versions, and be prepared to "knock the socks" off potential employers with your professionalism.

Be confident and self-assured. That first hand-shake can tell employers that YOU are the one they are looking for!

Remember to "Dress for Success!" Be neat, tidy, and not overdressed. Whatever your age, dress appropriately--don't try to appear older or younger than you are.

Some additional job fair TIPS, from Toronto.ca:

• Know the companies that will be attending and research the ones that interest you
• Bring a number of updated resumes, up to 25 or more if it is a large event
• Prepare to be interviewed on the spot--be able to summarize your skills and abilities in a few minutes or less
• Decide which employers you want to see first. You don't want to get so caught up with going to all the booths that you miss out on the ones you are really interested in
• Network with other participants--you may hear about additional job opportunities or benefit from the experiences the others had
• Follow-up after the job fair. Phone or e-mail the company representatives you met

I look forward to seeing you. Remember the date-- March 8!

Literary Westerns take on Wild Frontiers

Most of us think of Westerns as stories of wild frontiers, dangerous outlaws and brave sheriffs, good cowboys and bad indians.  Westerns, by both Canadian and American contemporary authors are quite, quite different.  Since Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian they are also much more violent.  Modern Literary Westerns are generally well researched historical fiction, often based on real people, set in the wild west with all it's natural beauty but with no space for romantics.

Aside from the recent Canadian bestseller The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt which was nominated for countless awards and won the Governor General's Award, contemporary authors who write Literary Westerns are few in number.   Below is  a list by Canadian authors that you might like to explore.

• Englishman's Boy by Guy Vanderhaeghe [also a film]
• Outlander by Gil Adamson
• Truth & Bright Water by Thomas King

 

To be truthful, the real reason I write this post is that I've just finished a Literary Western (or is it Historical Fiction?) called the Color of Lightning by Paulette Jiles.   The North York Central Library Book Club will discuss this book for Black History Month at our meeting on Wednesday February 29th.  The Color of Lightning is also available as a Book Club Set.

 

Paulette Jiles is American but now lives in Canada so we can count her as one of our own.  "The Color of Lightning" is based on a true story of the life of freed slave, Britt Johnson, who moved with his family to Texas after the Civil War.  Britt's wife and children are captured and enslaved by Kiowa/Comanche Indians.  He sets out to bring them back and in the process finds a means of getting very rich.  Into the mix comes a Quaker Indian Agent who despite his best intentions is almost as destructive to the native population as the settlers and the small pox.

 

 

 

Comtemporary authors of the Literary Western take us to wild frontiers and in the process often tell us hard truths about our past in which we were often violent, intolerant and not a little bit ignorant.  I'm sure we'll have a great discussion at our book club meeting.  

 

Being Weird Is Not Actually A Bad Thing

Smell that?  Fresh, cool air.  The perfume of Japanese cherry blossom trees surrounding us, the colour of dandelions brightening up our yards, and the sun warming our emotions.  Ahhhhh…spring is in the air!  Um, well, maybe not quite, but we’re so close I can feeeel it.  Can’t you?  And it’s never too early to begin thinking about your botanicals, right?

When it comes to gardening it’s not simply about the spring season.  In fact, different types of gardens can provide plants all year round. 

Gardening tips, methods and formulas are often a combination of friendly advice and trials and tribulations.  Your gardening goals will help you make decisions about what you want to plant, how much energy you can afford for maintenance,  your location and other preferences. 

Don’t have a yard?  Well that’s ok.  Believe it or not, it’s still possible to have a great garden.  Apartment Gardening by Amy Pennington is an excellent source for planting using plastic containers, glass jars and window sill boxes.  Learn, not only how to grow pretty plants, but vegetables too.

Greener living is everyone’s goal these days, so why not start living green (and I don’t mean limiting to green clothing, green paint, green furniture or green hair).   Small Green Roofs by Nigel Dunnett [et al.] has made building for conservation possible for the homeowner.  Learn which plants to choose for various locations such as garages, sheds, houses and more.  Saving energy and living green are not impossible.

String-of-hearts, jack-in-the-pulpit, voodoo lilies…sounds like a deck of cards (ok, maybe not voodoo lilies, but still a good one).  Welcome to a world where the gambler’s choice is Bizarre Botanicals: How to Grow String-of-Hearts, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Panda Ginger, and Other Weird and Wonderful Plants.  Authors Larry Mellichamp and Paula Gross know how to entice the adventurous gardener with vivid photos and tips on cultivation.  These unique plants will teach you that being weird is not actually a bad thing (trust me…I would know).

                                           

So put on those gardening gloves, dig up your trowel from that soil of dirty garage junk, and plant your feet firmly into the germinating and sprouting world of gardening (you like that, eh?).

Cool Family Time

From the October 12, 2007 Toronto Star article, Premier Dalton McGuinty declared Family Day as a new civic holiday for every third Monday in February.  This year, Family Day marks its fifth anniversary.

About.com provides a list of activities and attractions for parents and their children to enjoy.

While the Toronto Public Library honours this day of rest, here is a fun e-book title to consider downloading.

 

So, what family is not somewhat awkward at times?  Mike Bender and Doug Chernack published a 68-page e-book that is sure to assure us all that no particular family holds the exclusive title for supreme awkwardness--we all have some funny pictures to share. 

Esquire.com wrote an (2009) review for the original website, awkwardfamilyphotos.com, prior to the (2010) release of the their book.  Here is one photograph of a cozy yet awkward family gathering taken from their website:

 

This brings to mind many past holiday celebrations where there was just too much food consumed to remain awake. 

 

On a more somber note, the following is a family that one would be wise to respect.  HowStuffWorks.com provides useful background information on this family as well as a handy "family tree" diagram:

North York Central provides a wide selection of true crime titles including titles on the Mafia family.  For instance, André Cédilot has written an impressive (2011) title on the Canadian Mafia:

 

Maclean's, Montreal Mirror, Bloomberg, CBC, and The Telegraph provide enough ammunition to include this title on one's true crime reading list.

 

So, what is a family without a family tree and the strength it draws from the roots? 

 

Learning about  family ancestry develops an appreciation of how our ancestors helped to contribute to our current history.  The Internet provides access to a common global community where information of the past and present are virtually accessible.

 

We hope that these titles will be interesting to you and we hope your Family Day is shared with the ones you love.

Canadian Opera Company Opera Talks Part 3: Semele by Handel

Thursday, March 22, 2012
7:00 to 8:00 p.m.
North York Central Library Auditorium

Visual artist and director Zhang Huan blends a baroque aesthetic with the splendor of China in Handel's opera of endless pleasures.  Using an actual Ming Dynasty ancestral temple as his canvas, Huan paints a breathtaking and playful picture to accompany Handel's sensuous score.  Canadian Opera Company members will balance tidbits of opera history with guided listening, images and production insights!  Call to REGISTER: 416-395-5639.

Also, be sure to visit NAXOS, the online music library available through Toronto Public Library's website and listen to great music spanning medieval to modern - classical, jazz, electronic, world music and more, and find expert educational content.

 

 

 

 

Sale at Book Ends North

Book Ends North describes itself as a "great place to get good books cheap".  Located on the concourse level beneath North York Central Library, Book Ends has been operating since 1993.  Run by volunteers from Friends of the Toronto Public Library - North Chapter, the bookstore sells withdrawn library materials.  The money raised helps support Leading to Reading, the library's children's literacy program.  Since its inception over $800,000 has been donated.

In the store you will find a selection of fiction and non-fiction books, magazines, CDs and DVDs for adults and children. 

With a sale this week, the books are an even better bargain.  The sale takes place February 2-4, 10 am-4 pm.  With a few exceptions, books will be sold for .25-.50. 

The bookstore is open Thursday-Saturday each week, between 10-4.

Keep informed about future sales on the Book Ends Facebook page.

Follow Book Ends North on Twitter.

Related Posts:
Book Ends South - New, Improved, Bigger, and Better @ Toronto Reference Library

The Re-Invention of Hugo Cabret: The Boy Who Loves Movies Gets One of His Own

Hello Everyone,

I'm Not Quite Miss Rumphius and this is the blog for the Children's Department at North York Central Library. Welcome back!

Brian Selznick's giant door stopper of a book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, has a perfectly nice cover. But it's not ever going to be the most inviting book to pick up, especially for a child who's thinking about reading a really big book on their own for the first time and isn't quite sure they can pull it off. But never fear -- as mothers everywhere are fond of saying, it's what's inside that counts.

And what insides this book has! Author Brian Selznick lays out an engrossing story about a twelve-year-old boy, Hugo Cabret, an orphan who is living within the cavernous walls of a Paris train station in 1931. Hugo yearns for a way to reconnect with his beloved father who has recently died. And he thinks he may have found the way to do this, through a mechanical man called an automaton that his father was working on at the time of his death.

First, however, Hugo must repair the automaton, with all its complex clockwork and intricate parts -- no easy task. At the same time, Hugo must avoid detection by the cruel Station Inspector. How Hugo overcomes his difficulties and breaks free from his small, lonely world is due to three things: his knack for fixing things, his love of movies, and a chance encounter with a shopkeeper who, like Hugo, has a few secrets of his own.

Selznick fits all the parts of this story together like the inner workings of one of the huge, smooth-running clocks that Hugo maintains. But it's the unique format of this book with its many black-and-white pictures -- not pure novel, not picture book, not graphic novel either -- that makes this book as marvellous as it is.

The illustrations, which are also by Selznick, don't just add to the story. They are the story. Like still frames from a movie, the illustrations show different vantage points -- up close on one page, now far away on another page. You feel like you could fan through the book's pages, like you do with a flip book, and watch all those images come to life.

It's because of those pictures, and the clever way they're used, that the reader moves smoothly and effortlessly through Hugo's often dangerous, always interesting world. We experience what Hugo experiences, at the same time he does.

It seemed almost inevitable that a book that celebrates movies, and one that uses movie-making techniques to tell its story, would be made into a movie itself. And, of course, that's exactly what has happened. But Hugo -- the movie uses a shortened version of the book's title -- isn't just any movie. It's a movie by famous filmmaker Martin Scorsese and most reviewers agree that he has done a terrific job of remaining true to the book while at the same time giving the story a new life on film.

Even if you haven't seen it, you probably already know some things about Hugo, including the fact that it recently nabbed an armful of nominations for the 2012 Academy Awards. What you may not know is that there is a companion book to the movie, and it's definitely worth your time, even if you're not planning to watch Hugo on the big screen anytime soon.

Think of this book as more than something that goes along with the movie. It's also a delightful companion to the original book. It's the place where Brain Selznick talks about where he got the idea for the story, how he came up with Hugo's name (it came from a toy he loved when he was a boy) and his connection to the world of movies (he's related to David O. Selznick, the producer of Gone with the Wind.)

There's a section written by Martin Scorsese about the early days of movie-making and another section on real-life filmmaker Georges Melies, who plays a key role in both the movie and the book. And there's also an excellent chapter on automatons, those weird mechanical beings that can walk tightropes, play the piano, write poems and that seem, well, almost alive.

In short, this companion has something for everyone -- for anyone about to read the book, for someone who has read the book and wants to know more about Hugo's world, and for those people who have seen the movie and are interested in a behind-the-scenes look at how movies are created. It's filled with photos and drawings, sample pages from the screenplay and the musical score, costume sketches, and much, much more.

Best of all, it's easy to pick up and carry around, and just right for dipping into again and again. It's the perfect book about a movie about a book that celebrates movies. (And you know how common those are.)

Happy looking and happy reading,

Not Quite Miss Rumphius