Hello and welcome to Episode Twenty of Page Turn: the Largo Public Library Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah!
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The Spanish Language Book Review begins at 13:42 and ends at 17:38
The English Language Transcript can be found below
But as always we start with Reader’s Advisory!
The Reader’s Advisory for Episode Twenty is The Cartel by Ashley. If you like The Cartel you should also check out: Dutch by Terri Woods, Dallas by Treasure Hernandez, and Thugs and the Women Who Love Them by Wahida Clark.
My personal favorite Goodreads list The Cartel is on is If I Were Stranded On an Island, I’d Need the Following to Survive…”.
Today’s Library Tidbit comes to us from Denice and is all about the new STEAM Spot!
My name is Denice and I’m here to talk about a new addition to our Library, our STEAM Spot! To let our audience know, STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math. This lovely room was funded by the Friends of the Largo Library. Thank you, Friends!
So, why is STEAM important? It promotes problem solving, and creative and analytical thinking. Many of the jobs that affect our economy include STEAM subjects. For example, accounting, architecture, medical research, and environmental studies all involve STEAM. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, STEAM occupations are growing at 17%, while other occupations are growing at 9.8%. With the accelerating pace of social and technological change, the World Economic Forum estimates that 65% of children today will end up in careers that don’t even exist yet. For example, social media manager is a job position that did not exist 20 years ago and technology is just going to keep on accelerating. It’s important to teach children about STEAM.
I teach a variety of STEAM classes, for example I teach:
Hour of Code
Code Squad
Robot Invasion
Lego Constructors
Internet Safety
Animate with Stikbot
Computer Whiz Kids
Typing Kids
A lot of the classes I teach have to do with coding or one can also call it programming too. But what exactly is coding? Code is a set of instructions (or rules) that computers can understand; it might be helpful to think of code as a recipe. People write code, code powers computers and computers power many everyday objects like phones, watches, microwaves and cars. In fact, almost anything powered by electricity uses code.
So, what do we call people who code? We call them coders, programmers, developers, computer scientists, software engineers, etc. Although, just as people can understand different languages, computers can understand different programming languages. For example, there is Python, C, C++, Perl, Visual Basic, Java, Javascript, Ruby and PHP, among others). To illustrate, C++ is a programming language that is good for graphics-heavy applications, like video games. Javascript is for websites and web applications. As I mentioned before, we use a similar version of Javascript in Bitsbox and CodeMonkey.
Many parents are looking for other ways to get their kids coding! Even former President, Barack Obama, is on-board, encouraging children to not “just play on your phone. Program it.” So our STEAM Spot provides the perfect setting for classes in basic computing, coding, robotics, stop-motion animation, and more! If you are interested in your child participating in one of these classes, they are free but registration is required. There are age requirements for these classes and I open up registration 30 days prior to the class. Parents can sign up their child/children on our websites and a link to that will be in our show notes.
Check out Former President Barack Obama’s speech right here!
If you aren’t sure what dabbing is click this video.
A huge thank you to Denice for coming on. If you want to enroll your kid or kids into a STEAM program check them out here.
And now it’s time for Book Traveler, with Victor:
Welcome to a new edition of Book Traveler. My name is Victor and I am the Community Outreach Librarian here at the Largo Public Library.
In this segment I am going to talk about a book we have in the Spanish collection. Today’s title is The Shape of Water by Guillermo Del Toro.
Synopsis: Visionary filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro and renowned author Daniel Kraus combine their formidable talents in a love story as moving as it is fascinating. The Shape of the water is set in Baltimore during the Cold War, at the Occam Aerospace Research Center, which recently gained an extraordinary and potentially valuable being: an amphibious man captured in the Amazon. What follows is an emotional love story between this being and one of the cleaning women in Occam, who is mute and communicates with the creature through sign language. Developed from the outset as a groundbreaking simultaneous launch, the same story recreated by two artists in the independent media of literature and cinema, The Shape of Water interweaves fantasy, horror and romance in order to create a story that is as exciting on the page as on the big screen. Prepare for an experience different from everything you’ve read or seen.
Opinion: The book is divided into four parts, the first entitled “Primigenio”, in which we read Strickland’s trip to the Amazon and how he captures the creature, while we begin to meet the characters like Elisa and Lainie. The second part is titled, “Women Without Education”, in this part we meet more characters, and we have begin to see the love story of Elisa and the creature. The third part is called “Creative Taxidermy”, in this section interesting things begin and also begins the whole part of Occam’s escape with the creature. And finally “May Your Heart Suffer No More”, this part is the whole end of this beautiful and dark love story.
The idea of love between two such different beings, a woman and a strange creature, may not be something easy to understand if it is seen superficially, especially because in this story the princess cannot speak and the beast does not become a prince, but The Shape of Water is more than that, it seems to be a social reflection. Through the characters Del Toro and Kraus represent in subtle ways, racism, homophobia and intolerance.
If you have seen the movie, you will realize that the book goes deeper into the characters, letting us know them better. We have more knowledge of where Elisa comes from and her past, even some moments of her life at the orphanage. We also get put into the head of the psychotic villain, making us see all the paranoia that he had inside from the beginning and all that madness that was probably born from his dark past. Other characters like Zelda and Giles also conquer you from the beginning, here we get to know them better, and I have to admit that I like the character of Zelda even more in the book, especially for their moments with Elisa, which are more that in the movie and that make me appreciate their friendship. Everything Zelda does for Elisa is admirable.
Anyway, it is a good book, at first it is a bit strange the relationship of the creature with Elisa but the message of love and acceptance in it is unquestionable.
It’s all for today, until the next edition of Book Traveler. Goodbye.
Thanks everyone for listening some upcoming library events to keep track of:
December 2nd Get Your Groove on: Freegal Music at 6:00pm in Jenkins Room A
December 3rd Census: Non-Population Schedules at 11:00am in the Local History Room
December 5th Wire-Wrapped Crystal Necklace at 10:30 am in Jenkins Room A
-Registration is Required
December 9th Interacting with Florida Wildlife at 6:00pm in Jenkins Room C
December 10th Holiday Cardmaking at 6:00pm in Jenkins Room A
-Registration is Required
December 11th Getting Started with Facebook and Twitter at 3:00pm in the Computer Lab
December 12th Library Catalog Searching for Genealogists at 10:15 am in the Local History Room
December 12th Illuminate Your Ornaments at 4:00pm in Jenkins Room A
-Registration is Required
December 16th Gourmet Marshmallows at 6:00pm in the Jenkins Wing
-Registration is Required
December 17th Downton Abbey: the Movie at 5:30pm in Jenkins Room C
-Registration is Required
December 18th Medicare 101 at 3:00pm in Jenkins Room C
December 21st Might Our Ancestors Have Met? At 11:00am in Jenkins Room A & B
December 28th RootsMagic User Group at 10:00am in the Local History Room
I know in the podcast I said the dates we will be closing for the Christmas holiday, however, we will be closing early on November 27th and will be closed on November 28th and 29th for Thanksgiving. Sorry for my confusion!
We still wish everyone celebrating a Holiday a very happy one.
Have a great day everyone we hope to talk to you again soon!
For everyone interested our intro music is by Break the Bans and the outro music is by Jahzzar, both artists can be found on Free Music Archive.
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