Week 6 Prompt: Horror: It’s not just for Halloween Display

The horror genre seems to get pushed aside until October because it is the easiest time to create a scary display. I think it would draw more interest to create a horror display when patrons aren’t necessarily expecting it.

For the display, a large banner will exclaim: Horror: It’s not just for Halloween. I think the horror genre is perfect for incorporating integrated advisory because horror appears in many formats at the library. It’s important to include multiple formats within displays because it makes sense to highlight all the materials and resources the library provides. The display will feature horror books (fiction and nonfiction), graphic novels, movies/TV shows, and audio books. I will also include several readers’ advisory lists: horror author lists, horror read-a-likes, horror author read-a-likes, horror book adaptations, and if you like this movie/TV show you might like this book. I am a big trivia fan, so I think horror trivia featured in the display would add a bit of interactivity and make patrons take a closer look at the display. I will also include some passive readers’ advisory by creating horror read-a-like bookmarks and placing them in horror books. The bookmarks will feature condensed versions of the lists. Facebook posts featuring pictures of the display and reviews of horror books and movies will take the display online.

Gentle Reads: Big Stone Gap

Author: Adriana Trigiani

Title: Big Stone Gap

Genre: Gentle Reads

Publication Date: 2000

Number of Pages: 272

Geographical Setting: Big Stone Gap, Virginia

Time Period: Historical (1978)

Synopsis:

Welcome to Big Stone Gap, a small town in the mountains of Virginia. Meet Ave Maria Mulligan, town pharmacist/resident spinster. At 35, Ave Maria is not married and has become accustomed to being alone. After her mother’s death, Ave Maria’s life begins to change in unexpected ways. Her mother’s biggest secret comes to light: the man Ave Maria thought was her father is not. On top of this bombshell, Ave Maria must deal with her feelings for her best friend, Theodore Tipton, and the sudden advances of Jack Mac. She must also contend with her aunt who wants to take everything away from her. With the help of her friends, including outspoken Bookmobile driver Iva Lou Wade, Ave Maria has a lot to figure out.

Characteristics of Gentle Reads: 

• Upbeat/Optimistic tone 
• Homespun dialect, characters’ Southern pronunciations are written how the characters talk. 
• Relationships between characters play large role in story; close-knit community 
• Takes place in small town in a Southern, rural area 
• Gentle, leisurely pace. Chapters are quite long at about 20-30 pages. 
• While sex is discussed, no explicit sex or violence is present in the story 
• Mostly profanity-free, but a couple words are present throughout the book which could be offensive to some readers 
• Light and humorous, characters and situations are somewhat comical 
• There are health scares and deaths, but they are handled in a gentle way; something good seems to come from tragic situations. 

Big Stone Gap Read-a-likes:

• Where the Heart is by Billie Letts 
• The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen 
• Home to Harmony by Phillip Gulley 

Author Read-a-likes

• Lorna Landvik 
• Dorothea Benton Frank 
• Fannie Flagg 

Thoughts:

This is not a book I would generally read, but I enjoyed this book more than I anticipated. While it was sometime unrealistic and a bit cheesy, the story kept me interested. I could identify with Ave Maria in many ways (I’m in my 30s, unmarried, completely unattached, live in a small town that I moved back to after college), so I think that increased my interest in the story. I was surprised that sex was discussed in the book, but the text book said this book was on the edge of gentle reads. I will admit, sometimes it is nice to read a story that is simple and light. This is the first book in a series, and I am thinking about reading the other books to see what happens to the characters. 

I was also going to write a horror annotation, but I switched to Science Fiction. Stay tuned next week for my Sci-Fi annotation on Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.