Column: Promoting diversity in a very white state like Maine

The Welcoming Library had arrived at Cony Middle and High School, and I needed help to put it together.

This Maine project is a traveling collection of books featuring characters from diverse ethnic groups and cultures. It’s a pop-up event. As district librarian for the Augusta schools, I thought this was a great opportunity.

Librarians, publishers and booksellers have been talking about the importance of diverse books for the past several years. It’s said that stories can be both mirrors and windows. Young people need to see themselves on the pages of the books they read; they also need to see how others live.

The Welcoming Library came in two large crates. Besides the books, there’s a display unit. I opened the first crate and saw a collection of wooden legs and dowels, square blocks, and flat pieces of plywood. I quickly closed it up. Yikes!

I have no spatial abilities whatsoever.

The next day, I took another peek and decided there must be directions in the second crate. Aha. There was a photograph of what the finished product should look like.

I called over one of our student interns. We are lucky to have, at the moment, four helpers who receive a half credit for working in the library. He took one look at the box of wooden pieces and said, with all the bravado of a 15-year-old, “Yeah, I got this.”

He asked if his friends could help—by chance, he had four of them in the library at that time. So I just stood back and supervised.

In educational parlance, I was going to be a “guide on the side,” not a “sage on the stage.”

Although I am a teacher as well as a librarian, I don’t often get to present students with a problem that they need to solve on their own. Well, in this case they were going to figure it out as a group, and that was even better. That replicates what happens in modern workplaces, where collaboration is so important.

Our intern, Bill, took the lead. With the photo on the counter, the boys started to connect the pieces, which either slid through holes or rested in indentations. A previous borrower had used some sticky putty to keep the elements together, but there were only a few small pieces of it. A couple of the students started thinking we weren’t going to assemble the display without glue, but there was no mention of adhesives in the users’ manual. “Let’s not worry about glue,” I said.

Things were put together and things fell apart. One of the boys declared the display defective and looked at me accusingly. “It’s free,” I said.

At one point, we all believed we had to slide several rectangular pieces of wood with holes in the middle down a set of dowels. It seemed impossible, and one of the rectangles had a split in it to show that previous users had failed. One boy was convinced that we were never going to put this together.

“We can do this,” I said, and studied the photograph. Then I realized this was a two-tiered structure. The rectangles rested on two sets of dowels.

There was a resurgence of enthusiasm. We could do it! As the boys neared completion, though, they realized something was still wrong. Then Bill exclaimed, “It needs to be vertical.”

We stared at him. No way! But he and his friends took the structure and gently flipped it. That did it. We had a display.

Well…the boys had given up on inserting two of four horizontal connectors. I hated to see them take everything apart, but I worried about the integrity of the structure without those pieces. I managed to wedge one in. One of the boys picked up the last connector and looked at it doubtfully. His friend said, “If the librarian can do it, you can do it!” And he did.

I had piled the books on a nearby table, but before I could put them on display, the boys did it for me. One said, “These books are about all kinds of different people.”

A friend replied, “And look at us. We’re all white.”

I think my heart skipped a beat. “And that’s exactly why the Welcoming Library is here,” I said. We just happened to be a white subset; we’re not all white at Cony, but we are a reflection of Maine’s status as the “whitest” state in the nation. Now we had a window; a mirror.

We affixed the banner that identified the Welcoming Library. It said “I’m Your Neighbor” in some 10 different languages.

The job was done; or maybe it had just begun.

Column: Going to the beach . . . it's not about tanning anymore

As a teenager and a young adult, I liked nothing more than going to the beach in the summer. My friends and I would spread towels and blankets on the sand and lie in the hot sun. We’d run in and out of the water, bodysurfing on the waves. Then we’d eat our lunches under the watchful gaze of opportunistic seagulls.

These days, I prefer the beach in winter.

The fear of further sun damage is one reason. I have never been able to tan successfully. But peer pressure convinced me I needed to try. All I did was burn and freckle.

Luckily, I came to my senses in my late twenties. I still went to the beach, but I always brought a tent-like cabana with me.

In winter, I don't have to worry about burning. Freezing is the concern. But if the temperature is in the upper 30s and there is no wind, sitting on the beach can be pleasant. The Norwegians have a saying: "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes." I have made this my mantra. I tell myself I can face any weather as long as I'm dressed appropriately.

This positive approach makes me feel better about winter in general, but I know it's not completely true. Blizzard conditions keep me at home. Ice on the ground prevents me from walking outside for exercise. I'm just not up to snowshoeing to a beach, if that's the only way to access it.

Other than that, I will try my mightiest to get there.

Because it's therapy. Sea therapy. I like to get by the water any time of year. But I feel the need most strongly in winter. I spend most of my work week indoors. Though I try to walk outside every day, the aforementioned ice, as well as rain, sleet or below-zero temperatures can force me to exercise inside.

I am not sitting on my deck or porch, or gardening, or sightseeing, as I do in the summer. I'm inside, wearing sweaters and thick socks, reading. Or maybe even napping.

I need the beach.

Few others want a winter beach. Oh, they do want to go to the beach in the winter, but not to a winter beach. They want to visit Myrtle Beach. Miami Beach. Malibu.

I have nothing against going to warmer climes in the winter. But, really, that is a summer beach experience. There are crowds. It is hot. When I go to a Maine beach in winter, I'm looking for something different.

Besides the sea, besides the fresh air, I crave quiet. Stillness. Solitude.

When the temperature was close to 40 on a weekend day recently, I rejoiced. This was the perfect time for my husband, Paul, and I to go to a nearby harbor. There's a walk along the waterfront, and several small beaches along the way. Even in the summer, I can sit outside there because there's shade. There are always lots of people around then, though.

I wondered if there would be anyone else out and about on the waterfront on this day. The weather certainly was much milder than it had been. But when we arrived at the parking lot to set off on our walk, there was only one other car. We saw a few people walking, but not one dog, which was highly unusual.

When we finally reached the beach, it was deserted. There were a few people in a nearby boathouse, but no one on the rocky shore. And it was a very low tide.

If I had gone to swim, I would have been disappointed. But a low tide is good for beachcombing and wandering.

I walked to the edge of the water, and just stood. Pilings covered with seaweed were arrayed on my left. They looked like dead trees without branches. A crow perched on one of them. He allowed me to take his photograph before flying off with a loud "Caw, caw."

Then all was silent again. I noticed a seagull floating in a small circle of water several feet from the shoreline. A loon appeared in front of me, perhaps three yards away. The bird dove and then reappeared six yards away. It dove again and then I lost sight of it.

I saw movement on the horizon. Was it a boat? The docks at the town landing had been pulled in several weeks earlier. We had seen lobstermen and women bringing in their empty traps for winter storage. The busy season was winding now.

But what I saw on that more recent visit was a lobster boat. I recognized it because it is painted a shade of aqua that you don't usually see on boats. It passed by, headed for the landing, but it was too far away for me to hear it.

I enjoyed the silence, the view, the smell of the sea air for a few more minutes. Then I rejoined Paul, who had been beachcombing. He fills jars with his treasures. I fill my soul with my time on my winter beach, and I hope that it takes me through the week ahead.

Column: The Beatles, Joan Didion, and our strange, turbulent times

In the late fall of 1968, I walked to the school bus stop at the corner of my street. My neighbor, Frank, was already there. He was 11 and I was 12. Frank was holding a record album, which he proudly showed me.

What was this? The cover was completely white, totally unadorned, without any photographs of a musician or a band on it. I squinted and saw that there was some writing on it: “The Beatles.”

It was, of course, the double-record set that would come to be known as “The White Album.” At age 50, it is an undisputed cultural icon.

At the time, to a sixth-grader, it was an oddity.

In that pre-Internet era, without a 24-hour cable news cycle and social media, I doubt that I knew this album was coming. I was an avid listener of the local AM rock-and-roll station, but even if the DJs had talked about it, I wouldn’t have paid much attention. My parents never let me buy rock albums. I had a metal box filled with 45 rpm singles, but I wouldn’t have an album of my own until I started earning my own money.

Mom and dad grew up during the Depression, so I just assumed they didn’t want to spend money on record albums. “The White Album” went for about $10, at a time when milk was a dollar a gallon. Singles were less than a dollar.

In retrospect, however, I think they were comfortable letting me buy two songs at a time, songs they might have heard on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” An album might include tunes that they would deem inappropriate. As an example, there was no Rolling Stones music in my collection. Herman’s Hermits, with their light, innocent pop sound, was the kind of band my parents could live with.

They would not have been happy with a record that included titles such as “Sexy Sadie" and “Happiness Is a Warm Gun."

It would be a few years before I had a chance to listen to “The White Album" in its entirety, and even longer before I recognized its importance. The Beatles’ previous release, “Sgt. Pepper,” with its narrative structure, was more accessible to a kid my age (although I wouldn’t truly understand it until I was a young adult). Still, I had my favorite “White Album” songs, such as “Back in the USSR," and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

In August of 1969, members of the Charles Manson cult murdered actress Sharon Tate, three of her friends, and a visitor at Tate’s home in Los Angeles. The next night, they killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home. The words “Helter Skelter” and “Pig” were written in blood at the murder scenes. These were references to “The White Album” songs “Helter Skelter” and “Piggies.”

It turned out that Manson had been inspired by “The White Album” in horrific ways. He heard a call to revolution, anarchy and race wars.

The Manson murders shocked Americans. They sickened us, but they scared us, too. There was no real motive behind them—just a misinterpretation of song lyrics to fit a twisted mind’s needs.

Later, I would learn that members of The Beatles wrote the songs that would eventually appear on the album while they were in India, studying Transcendental Meditation under the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. While in college, I too studied TM, although this was in the city of New Bedford, Mass., and did not lead me to write songs like “Rocky Raccoon.”

I was doing graduate work in 1979 when Joan Didion’s collection of essays, “The White Album” was published. I loved the book and wrote a review of it for the college newspaper. The eponymous essay is not about The Beatles album of that name. In fact, The Beatles are never mentioned. Instead, the essay reflects how the album represented the strangeness, the turbulence and the self-indulgence of the late 1960s. Didion writes about her obsession with violent crime and her encounters with the band The Doors; Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver; and the star witness in the Manson trial, Linda Kasabian.

Some critics have called The Beatles album a mess, arguing that it could have been shorter and better edited. But we were living in a mess at the time. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated in May, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in June. The Democratic National Convention was a violent shambles.

Didion begins her essay with this: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Those words spoke to me as a writer, then and now. Here's a story about me: I have “The White Album” in my iTunes library. Sometimes, if I’m sitting on a train, earbuds in place, I marvel for a moment that I can just hit play and listen to it. And that, if I want, I can choose to play “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” first. And that, once again, we are living in a strange, turbulent and self-indulgent time.

Column: Promoting kindness in a world that desperately needs it

Our country is angry and divided.The Kindness Bulletin Board is a refuge from the hate.

I’m a school librarian, and one of my colleagues found the idea online. The board, located in the high school/middle school library, is titled “Throw Kindness like Confetti.” Post-it Notes and markers are available nearby for students and staff to express good thoughts. These could be shout-outs to people or just a simple reflection on what makes the writer happy.

Our library student interns assembled the board. This itself was an exercise in goodwill. We have three helpers that particular period, and they didn’t know each other well before they started working at the library. On the surface, they have little in common. We’ve asked them to work together, cooperatively, and they have. But more than that, they have fun doing so. They don’t just tolerate each other; they enjoy accomplishing tasks together.

Once the board was finished, it didn’t take long for the first postings to appear. We were surprised and gratified when we spotted this one on a bright orange Post-it: “I appreciate every librarian in the library because they are always so kind to me. It makes the library a comforting place.”

We do see the library as a sanctuary. Sure, our main activities are checking out books, teaching research skills, conducting other library programs and helping students with research. But we know that when students have at least one adult at school with whom they can connect, they are more likely to be successful.

The library staff is, just by the nature of our job, accessible to all students. When they come up to the circulation desk to check out a book or a laptop, or ask to borrow a pair of scissors, they’ll encounter a friendly face. We don’t grade students, and we certainly don’t question them about their reading choices, so I think that helps them view us as especially non-judgmental.

The library is also a special place in the building. Students can choose to come to the library from lunch, break or academic make-up time. High school students can spend their study halls in the library as well. Once they’re in the room, they can work entirely on their own or with a friend. We don’t enforce silence, but we do encourage quiet. The library is a place where it is acceptable to be alone, to be focused and studious and even to be silent.

Now it’s also a place to express positive thoughts. The kindness movement—yes, it’s a thing—arose from R.J. Palacio’s children’s book, “Wonder.” It’s the story of Auggie Pullman, a boy who looks different, and his first school experience, as a fifth-grader. Auggie must adapt—but so must his classmates. Their teacher, Mr. Browne, posts a different “precept” each day; the first is a quote from Dr. Wayne W. Dyer: “If you have a choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.”

Promoting kindness may seem a simplistic reaction to what ails us as a society, but the message is one even small children can understand. I was in an elementary school as students formed two teams to play “Library Jeopardy.” One boy arrived late, and as he went to join his classmates who were sitting on a rug, several scooted away from him. All I needed to say was “be kind,” to put a stop to any further shunning.

I know I didn’t resolve the bigger issue in that moment; of course I didn’t. But the more students practice being kind on the surface, the better they get at it. True change is sure to follow.

We exercise our heartstrings when we write that a certain teacher “rocks” and post it on the Kindness Bulletin Board. When we publicly wish a friend a happy birthday. When we tell our audience, “Kindness is caring for someone even when they may not care for you.”

“Sunflowers still grow at night.”

“You are beautiful.”

“Saying hi makes people smile.”

Reading others’ happy thoughts also makes people smile. Students like to spend time with their cats and dogs and friends; they like llamas and goats; and, not surprisingly, since they’re teenagers, they like food. No one yet has mentioned any material items, and that is certainly refreshing.

“Share your love with people who need it.”

“Focus on the good things in life.”

The other day I checked the board and saw this: “Boron. Actinium. Oxygen. Nitrogen. Find the symbols!”

They spell “bacon.”

I smiled. I may not eat pork, but this student made my day. Winter has arrived early, and with a vengeance. Our climate is in trouble. Children are being teargassed at the southern border. The Kindness Bulletin Board is a true blessing.

Column: Coloring as a "cure" for stress, inattention and overthinking

As we gather together to celebrate Thanksgiving this week, let us remember the power of coloring books.

And coloring sheets. And, of course, the collaborative coloring poster.

All of these can be found in the high school/middle school library in the school district where I’m the librarian. I am always gratified when I walk into the room and see groups of students sitting peaceably around tables, coloring.

Our current contentious political environment has reached into our personal lives, and many people have reported that their relationships with family members and friends have frayed because they can’t agree with one another. A striking public example: Six siblings of U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) ran ads supporting his rival in the midterm elections. (He won nonetheless.)

Thanksgiving could prove challenging for many families. That’s why I’m suggesting they get out the coloring books.

Last week, two of our student library aides and two of their friends were in the library workroom. They were busily coloring Thanksgiving-themed pages for a bulletin board. They are sophomores. It didn’t matter. Today’s coloring transcends age.

I first brought coloring to the library because I began seeing coloring books for adults. I’d had one as a teenager—it was pages of psychedelic designs of the type that were common in the 1970s. But that was one book. Now it clearly is a trend. I was intrigued and bought one. Soon I had to have the best colored pencils. Then I needed quality markers as well.

If I liked it so much, wouldn’t my students?

We set out coloring pages with a sign inviting students to “Relax…Color.” It quickly became a popular activity. High school students’ schedules are more flexible than their middle school counterparts, so they are the ones who are usually wielding the colored pencils. The high school students have 75-minute periods. They have study halls. They have a 20-minute period in which they can work with teachers to make up work. If they don’t have any to do, they can come to the library.

I’ve noticed serious students take a break from their studies to color for 10 minutes. Then they return to their carrels and their books and computers.

This is a wise move. The brain works better after a break.

Young people today face many pressures. Many parents want their children to excel in both academics and sports. Technology is all encompassing, and the social media world can be dangerous and cruel.

Coloring can be a respite. It is low-tech, tactile and creative. Students often color together, which provides face-to-face time that is healthy and socially enriching. Last year, we introduced collaborative coloring posters. These are set out on a table. Students come and go, coloring in parts of the poster. Sometimes teens who don’t know each other start coloring together. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect some friendships have been formed this way. I know at least one romance blossomed!

Mindfulness training is a trend in education right now. Our minds are filled with noisy distractions—binge streaming, video games, social media. This affects even our youngest students. The day after Halloween, a pre-kindergarten class delayed its library visit for 15 minutes so the youngsters could run around the playground. They were overstimulated by the holiday (and the sugar).

Coloring focuses the brain. We need to concentrate in order to fill in those little spaces. We need to be in the moment.

It is a respite from overthinking.

Colors can change our moods. If pink makes us happy, then we can make rose-colored cows and petal-blossom stars.

Coloring is a creative act that even nonartists can succeed at. It’s satisfying to see that our finished work looks good, even though we can’t draw a box in perspective to save our lives.

When students see a collaborative project hanging on the wall of the library, they know they have been part of something that is bigger than themselves. Especially if they are nonathletes, they may feel proud of being part of a team.

From the librarians’ viewpoint, coloring is a good option for the student who is having a bad day, who otherwise might act out in unfortunate ways. There are students who eat their lunch quickly and don’t want to stay in the food court for social reasons. They can come to the library to color. And we appreciate the art work that results. The library has never looked so colorful.

This year, for the first time, we had a coloring problem. A student wrote his name on a collaborative poster and he and another boy scribbled on it. I happened to be covering the circulation desk when it happened, and the damage was done so quietly, I didn’t even notice it was happening.

We dealt with the situation, and the perpetrators have returned to the coloring table without incident.  It’s surprising, really, that it hadn’t happened before. But coloring seems to calm people, rather than incite them to graffiti. Hopefully we have returned to our enviable status quo—a peaceful world of color and creativity; a sanctuary from the vicissitudes of the real world.

Column: Reading is the key to knowledge, analysis, and action

The memoir “I am Malala,” by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafzai, is the community read this year at Cony Middle and High School. As the librarian for the Augusta School District, I’ve been discussing the various themes that arise from Malala’s story with seventh and eighth grade students.

Malala was shot at point-blank range by a Taliban gunman as she rode home from school in her Pakistani city. The militant, extremist group wanted to silence Malala because she spoke out publicly about girls’ right to an education. The Taliban forbade young women from going to class; they bombed schools.

Why? That is an essential question. Why does the Taliban so fear education?

I was gratified that students knew the answer. That bodes well for the future of our republic.

These 12 and 13-year-olds understand that knowledge is power. It is far easier to impose dictatorial rule over people if they are uneducated. If may feel wrong to be prohibited from listening to music or watching TV, but how do you know what you could do about it if you’ve never studied history? Do you even know that revolt is a possibility?

How can you communicate effectively with others to effect change if you can’t read and write?

American slave owners knew the power of education. Slaves were rarely allowed to learn to read. Frederick Douglass was an exception, though his mistress later regretted having taught him. He wrote: “Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper. She seemed to think that here lay the danger. I have had her rush at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper…a little experience soon demonstrated, to her satisfaction, that education and slavery were incompatible with each other.”

Of course they were. The eloquent Douglass went on to be an inspirational and powerful abolitionist.

A while back, there was a poem of sorts that was used as a slogan for National Library Week: “The more you read, the more you know. The more you know, the smarter you grow. The smarter you grow, the stronger your voice, when speaking your mind or making your choice.” (A student recently reminded me that NBC also used it as a public service announcement.)

I’ve always loved this ditty, because it speaks the truth directly, simply and succinctly. The more we know, the better able we are to make our voices heard.

We just had a mind-blowing election. All sides, voters of every stripe, turned out in droves. Maine elected its first female governor. More than 100 women were elected to Congress. The president likes to call the media “the enemy of the people,” but the people are paying attention to the media. We are reading, watching and listening.

So when the president’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, recently tried to pass off an obviously doctored video, she was met with widespread derision. Viewers had watched live as President Donald J. Trump derided CNN reporter Jim Acosta. The subsequent film that showed Acosta pushing the arm of an intern who tried to take his mic was laughably fake.

Laughable, that is, if it wasn’t all so serious. The media educates us by telling us what is going on in the world. It helps us make our voices strong. It helps us make important choices, whether we’re at the car dealership or the grocery market or the voting booth (because we vote with what we buy as well as with the ballot). Whenever the media is attacked, whenever education is attacked, whenever free speech is attacked, our “danger danger” alarms should go off. Our spidey sense should be activated. Our antennae should be fully extended.

The more we read, the more we know. Without knowledge, we are doomed.

The 19th century educational reformer Horace Mann wanted public schools to turn out students who would be good citizens. He said, “Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark, all is deluge.”

A very modern thought. Nowadays, though, we see developing critical thinking skills as the path to good citizenship. To know the Holocaust happened is only a first step. When we ask how it could have happened, we learn that violent anti-Semitism dates back to the Middle Ages. We see how, tragically, it can continue today. We can’t act on issues, we can’t try to resolve problems, unless we understand them. Good citizens question, and questioning leads to understanding.

“Once you learn to read,” Frederick Douglass said, “you will be forever free.” To think. To speak. To make your choice. 

Column: Students from Syria, Iraq speak volumes through poetry

Last week in America was alternately frightening, horrifying and sorrowful. I was grateful to have something to look forward to on Monday afternoon: Making book spine poetry with students from Syria and Iraq.

I’m a school librarian here in Augusta, and this is one of my favorite activities. Students find books with interesting titles and then stack them to make poems. I take pictures of the creations, the students write them down, and then we share aloud. For fun, we respond to each reading by clicking our fingers, like the beatniks did at their poetry gatherings in the 1950s.

I am always amazed by the beautiful poetry students create. It ranges from dark to funny to ethereal. As a practical bonus, students often discover books they want to read as they explore the stacks.

Monday’s session, I expected, would follow along the same lines. Except for last week. And all the hate and vitriol that have been infecting our culture for the last few years. I didn’t think the angry rhetoric aimed at immigrants could get any worse, but it has, with the president sending troops to the southern border and threatening to end birthright citizenship.

As I have heard in the public square of the media several times in the last few days, “words matter.” As a writer and a librarian, I know that all too well. So I welcomed this chance for students to make their words matter. I looked forward to hearing what they had to say.

The first few minutes of making book spine poetry nvolves students standing around and feeling confused. How can we possibly find the right titles to tell the story of what we are feeling and thinking? These students faced the added challenge of making poetry in their second (or maybe even third) language.

To begin, a student has to pick up a book. It may not be the right book, but the act of holding the volume starts the process. One boy did so, and proudly showed me “Why We Came to the City.” It would become the last line of his poem, “City of Life.” 

I guess if I ever cease to be amazed at what happens next, I will have to proclaim myself jaded and burned out and skulk off into the sunset. Students start finding books, for themselves and for their classmates. They begin building their poems, often consulting with their friends. The excitement is palpable.

Some of the students wanted books with specific words in the title: Iraq, bees, wrestling. I helped one find a book about Germany. He then spotted the book “Hitler Youth,” and asked me about it. I briefed him on the Nazi organization for young men; he took that book also.

It turned out that the boy who sought the wrestling book actually wanted to learn more about the sport. I love it when that happens.

Soon it was time to return to the tables with our poetry stacks. (I always make one, too.) I photographed the poems, not paying close attention to them yet. Still, some of the book titles jumped out at me. There was “The Worst Year Ever,” and “Buried Heart” and “My Family Divided.” Perhaps the most jarring was “The Keeper of the Isis Light.” This is a 1980 science fiction novel in which Isis is a planet. I’d never seen it before and can’t imagine how the student found it. But it certainly had a place in her poem, which began with “The word is murder” and ended with “Peace like a river.”

The students, their teacher told me, were about to read the novel “Number the Stars,” by Lois Lowry, the Newbury Award-winning author who happens to live in Maine. The book centers on the Danish resistance movement during World War II. One student, aware of the murders in Pittsburgh last Saturday, made a poem he called, simply, “The War:” Blood for blood/Germany/Hitler Youth/Warriors/World War II/Blood will tell.

His teacher said this boy “wanted to make his poem about all the hate that is so hard to run from — for Jews and Muslims.”

On November 8 and 9, 1938, Nazis rampaged through Germany, torching synagogues and Jewish businesses, and killing some 100 Jews. Last Saturday, in America, a raging anti-Semite shot up a synagogue, killing 11 worshippers. There is no way for right-minded people to understand this.

We must use our voices to speak against hate. These students, who came from war-torn countries to one deeply divided by bitterness and fear, spoke loudly and clearly through their poetry. Their words matter, and I am listening.

Column: Students try to win the other "great pumpkin"

When October begins, I go looking for a pumpkin. Not just any pumpkin. It must be a big specimen, a handsome one. It must be worthy of being called “a great pumpkin.”

I’m a school librarian, and I’ve been holding annual “great pumpkin” contests for close to 30 years. I started in my town’s middle schools, and now organize them for our grades 7-12 school.

They are unfailingly popular.

The contest is a simple one. Pick up the pumpkin and estimate its weight. Write your guess and your name on a slip of paper and put it in the entry box. On a specified date, the librarians will determine who has come the closest to the correct weight. That person wins the pumpkin.

Only once have we had a tie. I went out and bought a second pumpkin.

There is no denying the attraction of a large pumpkin. This year’s prize weighed over 30 pounds. It was not porch material. I couldn’t even see anybody putting it in their front yard unless they lived at the end of a long, secluded driveway. Evil passersby would be tempted to smash it, and the resulting mess would be horrific.

I could see this pumpkin in a backyard, on a tree stump or a boulder. It needed space and security.

I had to bring a library cart out to my car to transport the pumpkin into the building. It was lunchtime, and I had to pass through the food court. I drew many curious stares. One of our library “regulars” ran up to me. “If I brought a scale in and weighed it, but you didn’t know, would that be cheating?”

“Yes,” I said.

This was a high school student. When the middle school was merged with the secondary level in 2009, I wasn’t sure if the pumpkin contest would interest the older students. But I was bound and determined to carry on the tradition. It turns out that everybody loves a big pumpkin. Everybody wants to own a big pumpkin. It makes no difference whether you are 12 or 18, or an adult. We don’t let staff compete but they express admiration for the pumpkin, too.

I’m not sure everyone realizes that even the biggest pumpkins only cost $5 or $6. It’s really not a major outlay. You, too, can put a big pumpkin somewhere in your yard.

So, perhaps, the excitement is in the winning. In being right. In nailing it. That has happened once or twice—that is, a student has submitted the exact weight of the pumpkin.

Naturally, we weigh the pumpkin in great secrecy. No student helpers can be involved, as they invariably want to submit a guess. One of the staff (whoever can lift it) takes the pumpkin to the nurse’s office for a visit to the scale. We write the number down and place it in a secret location. Then we set out the pumpkin and the entry box, and wait for the entrants to come. Which they do. Posthaste.

On day one of the contest, the entry box looked full. But it couldn’t have been, because two weeks later, entries were still coming in.

It’s amusing to watch the students try to determine the weight. This year’s pumpkin was truly heavy; I pulled a muscle transferring it from the car to the library cart. But, of course, most students will pick it up, albeit briefly. Once in a while, someone will make a show of measuring circumference and height, as if that is going to help. Then again, I am such a failure at math, I can’t say that with any certainty.

It’s also a slightly scary sight. A seventh-grader, holding a 30-pound pumpkin—that is a recipe for disaster.

But we haven’t lost one due to a drop yet. One year, the pumpkin did start to rot, and I had to replace it.

It takes a certain skill set to make a good guess on the weight of a pumpkin. One teacher, who was just guessing for fun, said she tried to relate it to how it felt to hold her children when they were young.

That’s not something students would do, of course, but I bet the ones who come closest are thinking about the weight of things they’ve held. The family dog, perhaps. High school students may have weighed items in science class or in a trades course in the technical center.

Then there are those who just guess wildly. The estimates ranged from 10 pounds to 50.

There have been times when the winner was a known math whiz, but other winners apparently had hidden talents. Last year, for the first time, we allowed metric estimates. We have students who have emigrated from the Middle East, and they think in kilograms.

One of these students won last year, which isn’t a total surprise, as the metric system is more precise than our standard American method.

The best part of the contest is the awarding of the pumpkin and the announcement of the weight. The winner is always over the moon. There are several days of discussion centering on “I can’t believe it weighed that much!”

The great pumpkin contest is good fun. It brings students together as they lift the pumpkin and ponder its weight. And though we’ve been doing it a long, long time, it never gets old.