{"id":10356,"date":"2014-07-01T08:00:03","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/?p=10356"},"modified":"2015-09-07T16:38:28","modified_gmt":"2015-09-07T20:38:28","slug":"what-would-they-read-parks-and-recreation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/2014\/07\/01\/what-would-they-read-parks-and-recreation\/","title":{"rendered":"What Would They Read?: Parks and Recreation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"parks-and-recreation\"Those of you familiar with the lives of the employees of the Pawnee Parks Department know how they feel about the Pawnee Public Library.\u00a0 The presence of Ron Swanson’s crazy ex wife, Tammy, doesn’t help to mend the fences between these two village departments.\u00a0 However, I would like to believe that this rivalry between the parks Department and the library would in no way hinder Leslie Knope and staff in their love of reading.\u00a0 I mean, obviously they would probably have to get their books through Amazon or a bookstore so as not to encounter Tammy.\u00a0 Let’s see what books the Parks Department would read!<\/p>\n

Leslie Knope<\/strong> – Leslie is a very powerful woman who strives at excellence in everything she does.\u00a0 When I think about \"disreputable-history\"Leslie, I immediately think of Frankie Landau-Banks.\u00a0 In 2009 Printz Honor book<\/a>\u00a0The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks <\/em>by E. Lockhart, Frankie orchestrates a mission to infiltrate The Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, an all-male secret society on her school campus, of which her boyfriend is a member.\u00a0 Of course, being a member is not enough for Frankie’s ambition.\u00a0 Instead, she starts to design school pranks and directs the Bassets in carrying them out.\u00a0 Frankie is definitely a teen Leslie would be proud of if she were a citizen of Pawnee.\u00a0 Another title that I would set aside for Leslie is Hope Was Here<\/em> by Joan Bauer.\u00a0 Bauer’s story includes a mayoral race in a small town.\u00a0 When Hope moves to the small Wisconsin town from a fairly big city, she does not expect to get caught up in the situations of her new home.\u00a0 However, when the owner of the diner she works at decides to run for mayor against a corrupt politician, Hope jumps into local politics with both feet.\u00a0 Bauer’s book combines two of Leslie’s loves: politics and diners.<\/p>\n

Ben Wyatt<\/strong> – While Leslie is more serious and \"guyset on addressing the issues of Pawnee, Ben is a bit more on the whimsical side of things. When he was eighteen-years-old and mayor of a small town in Minnesota, he tried to create Ice Town, which failed miserably.\u00a0 He also loves board games and video games.\u00a0 I would give Ben the recently published book, Guy in Real Life<\/em> by Steve Brezenoff.\u00a0 This story follows the two gamers, Lesh and Svetlana, who meet both in real life and in an MMO game world.\u00a0 Also, the book takes place in Ben’s home state of Minnesota.\u00a0 While I don’t know if Ben would want to read this next book for fun, I do feel like he can relate to the main character and commiserate over their similarities.\u00a0 Janet Tashjian’s second book in her Larry trilogy called Vote for Larry<\/em>, follows the story of a teen boy who has such a following that he eventually runs for president.\u00a0 Things aren’t exactly what he expected them to be.<\/p>\n

April Ludgate<\/strong> – April brings sarcasm to an entirely new level.\u00a0 Everything she says is snarky and leaves \"struckpeople unsure of what she truly meant to say.\u00a0 If the main character of Struck by Lightning<\/em> by Chris Colfer and April were to have a conversation, bystanders would be amazed as the sarcasm storm created by the two.\u00a0 Therefore, I would definitely have to give her Colfer’s book.\u00a0 April shows compassion to only two things.\u00a0 The first is her lovable, clueless husband Andy.\u00a0 Other than Andy, April cares about animals.\u00a0 Animals, particularly dogs, were the first things to ever get April to show effort in her role at the Parks Department.\u00a0 Because of that interest, I would give her Straydog<\/em> by Kathe Koja.\u00a0 In Koja’s novel, a moody teen who doesn’t fit into the cliques at her school begins to volunteer at a local animal shelter.\u00a0 April shows her softer side in her relationship with her rescued dog, Champion, and the other dogs in need of homes in Pawnee. See April, we knew you didn’t hate everything.<\/p>\n

Andy Dwyer<\/strong> – Andy is clueless about a lot of things except for his wife April, his band Mouserat, and his desire to be in \"dearlaw enforcement.\u00a0 In response to his love of music and his goofy personality, I would recommend Dogbreath Victorious<\/em> by Chad Henry.\u00a0 I’m sure Andy would get excited just by the name of the band, being as it is similar to his band, Mouserat.\u00a0 In Dogbreath Victorious<\/em>, Tim’s band Dogbreath is ready to win Seattle’s Battle of the Bands.\u00a0 He did not expect to be beaten by anyone, especially not The Angry Housewives, a band started by his own mother.\u00a0 Andy loves to put on the persona of Bert Macklin, FBI agent.\u00a0 Occasionally he will act as Bert opposite a femme\u00a0 fatale role portrayed by April. \u00a0Dear Killer\u00a0<\/em>by Katherine Ewell is the story of a serial killer named Kit who has perfected the art of murder through anonymous letters directing her to her next victim.\u00a0 This definitely sounds like a case for Bert Macklin, FBI!<\/p>\n

Stay tuned for the next installment of What Would They Read?: Parks and Recreation.\u00a0 What book would Ron Swanson cuddle up with after a long day of widdling?\u00a0 Can I find a book that is cool enough for Tom’s rep?<\/p>\n

Brandi Smits<\/p>\n

Currently Reading: The Spectacular Now<\/em> by Tim Tharp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of you familiar with the lives of the employees of the Pawnee Parks Department know how they feel about the Pawnee Public Library.\u00a0 The presence of Ron Swanson’s crazy ex wife, Tammy, doesn’t help to mend the fences between these two village departments.\u00a0 However, I would like to believe that this rivalry between the … Continue reading What Would They Read?: Parks and Recreation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":547,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,2295,5693],"tags":[4688,1972,1671,1891,3240,2172,4584,2457],"class_list":["post-10356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-booklists","category-pop-culture","category-television","tag-chad-henry","tag-chris-colfer","tag-e-lockhart","tag-janet-tashjian","tag-joan-bauer","tag-kathe-koja","tag-katherine-ewell","tag-steve-brezenoff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ddKk-2H2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/547"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17078,"href":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10356\/revisions\/17078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yalsa.ala.org\/thehub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}