Evan Johnson
The first priority with the little library was deciding a theme and making sure text choices fit that theme. Our theme was “Develop an Imagination, Learning, Sharing Stories.” My first choice was really easy. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick matches all the requirements. The historical fiction picture book and novel tells the story of a young boy in Paris trying to solve a mystery, while also teaching the reader about the history of film and enveloping each reader into a brand new world. This book also fits the location of our little library, which is a “local” (or small-town) movie theater, as the story involves Georges Méliès. Méliès is a pioneer filmmaker. When standing outside of the previously mentioned theater, I would hope people would be having a conversation about the start of Hugo Cabret’s story. He was a young orphan in a train station in Paris who ran into an old man, Georges Méliès, at a local toy store. I wish for someone to ask, “So he started his relationship with the inventor of movies by stealing?” “Sure,” is the answer, but that is not the important part. The important part is that the boy had a story beyond being chased down by police guards when stealing croissants.
The next two choices for the little library were a little bit more difficult. However, I looked back at the theme and eventually came up with an idea. The pick of You Look Like a Thing and I Love You by Janelle Shane was inspired by my recent fascination of computers and appeal of a more educational book. This last appeal lends itself to theme of learning as well. When I first started reading the book, I was quite surprised by how much I was entertained. It contains many examples of Shane’s own AI experiments, as well as some comical pictures to go along. With all of this in mind, I thought that Shane’s book was a good fit for our little library. My third and final choice for the little library came in the form of a video. Choosing which video was the hard part. After looking through my YouTube history, I noticed a person who I have been watching a lot recently: Tom Scott. His videos were often both entertaining and educational, fitting the overall theme well. Despite its blatantly “clickbaity” title, “This Video Has…Views” has a really hopeful message associated with it. Tom shares his story about his time spent on “Web 2.0,” where people could create anything with just a little bit of coding experience. He eventually mentioned that every bit of code will break down, but one can still leave a positive impact with anything they create online. If anything, this is what I want people to talk about after watching the video. The code that updated the video title was never the important part. Both of these past two choices involved computers, and that was on purpose. Going into the future, more and more people will be online, and the use of artificial intelligence will probably skyrocket. It is important to develop a deeper understanding of how computers work, but also for the reader to comprehend that they can leave behind a positive impact when on their computer. They can help remove the human biases from artificial intelligence or make someone’s day better with a Twitter bot. To clarify for both Shane’s and Scott’s work, that is what I would want people to talk about after reading after enjoying my final two choices.
Our second priority with the little library was deciding where to put our little library. Yet, one thing was clear. We wanted to get people interested in reading and I thought the location should have a “local” feel to it. The original idea was for the little library to be at a community center. We eventually chose a movie theater. We were thinking, maybe the people who went to the movies almost exclusively could become interested in reading because of our little library. Choosing the texts was mostly done on our own, but we still had the theme to go by.