Wet and Wild

It's week #4 of our Summer Reading program, so here's your new question. Remember the third floor of the library is chock-full of contests and we will be giving the contest winners gift certificates to local merchants. The following question is for The WILDerness Films contest and the prize will be a $25 gift certificate to STARBUCKS! If you know the answer, drop by the third floor and fill in a ballot OR email us at Readers2@dppl.org.


Where would you find the Niagara of the South?

A Confession

In 1982 I was 14 years old. I wanted to grow my hair long but my parents wouldn't let me. I listened to music constantly. I love bands like Rush, Van Halen, KISS, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. It was all hard rock and heavy metal. It was before all those hair bands started to appear silly (or perhaps it was because I was 14).

I was appalled when I heard that Eddie Van Halen, the greatest guitarist in the history of guitarists performed on the song Beat It on the new Michael Jackson album Thriller. I couldn't not hear it. It was on MTV nonstop and on every radio station. Usually when a song gets overplayed I get sick of it really fast. Not this time. I grew to love it. I had it on tape. I listened to it over and over. I sang it, I danced to it (and metal heads never danced to anything), but all in the secrecy of my room. I can still hear it in my head.

It Doesn't Matter Who's Wrong Or Right Just Beat It, Beat It, Beat It, Beat It. . .

I've been harboring that little secret for 27 years. If my metal friends back then knew I liked that song I would have been ridiculed. I'd have been forced to hand in my leather studded wristbands. So I kept it a secret. And yesterday Michael Jackson died. Say what you want about him, but the man could write and perform a song. Many openly loved him and his music, many others did so in secrecy. It's time I got that off my chest.

Anyone else have a song or album you secretly loved?

Grab Your Sunscreen and Chick Lit and I'll Meet You at the Beach

Summer is finally here and if it stops raining, you can find me at the beach with a new chick lit book.

This genre of fiction is one of the newest stars in the constellation. The subject of chick lit is almost always urban, single, career women in their 20s and 30s and the tone is light and funny. These gals like to work, break up with their boyfriends and buy shoes. And if you think that you can't judge a book by its cover, think again at least as far as Chick lit is concerned: the book covers routinely feature stilettos, designer bags and neon pink backgrounds.

This doesn't sound like literature that would be birthed from the Women's Liberation movement but it is. Starting in the late 1960s, women have been entering the workforce in droves and choosing career paths in professions once denied to them. They have also been delaying marriage and children: today, the average American woman marries at age 26. These lifestyle changes have created a new phase of life for women - after high school and before the committment of motherhood, and it is this phase that is described most often in Chick Lit.

But can you really call it feminist literature??? It seems to focus on hyper-consumerism and obsession with ex-boyfriends, hardly traditional feminist priorities. According to many, however, chick lit is feminist literature, a new type of feminist literature that examines the interplay between women and popular culture and takes itself far less seriously than the women's libbers of the 1970s. Even the word "chick" is regarded differently. Once a word of derision, it is now a perfectly acceptable appellation. Chick is now chic.

Today, the Chick lit boom that started with Bridget Jones' Diary and Sex and the City has traveled around the world with original titles originating in India, Russia, Sweden, Italy, Indonesia and Japan to name a few. Here's a list of new titles you can find a little closer to home on the third floor of the Des Plaines Public Library:

Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

Summer House by Nancy Thayer

Hot House Flowers and the Nine Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin

Dune Road by Jane Green

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells

Queen Takes King by Gigi Levangie Grazer

The Wedding Girl by Madeline Wickham


Pick one up on the 3rd floor and I'll see you on the sand. I'll be under the giant straw hat reading a book with Jimmy Choos on the cover.

P.S. I am not one of the woman in this photo. I have a bigger... hat.