Librarian is a Cool Job for the 21st Century

Venerable personal finance advisor Kiplinger.com includes Librarian as one of its "7 Top Jobs for 2007," right up there with several medical careers, college administrator and landscape architect. It's not often that the "experts" are so clued in!

Librarian.
Forget about the image of librarian as mousy bookworm. Today's librarian is a high-tech information sleuth, a master of mining cool databases (well beyond Google) to unearth the desired nuggets. Plus you'll probably have regular hours and good job security.

And generally work with other smart, interesting people. What's not to like?

Reading Across Borders Book #5 The Last Dragon

If it didn't say so right on the book, I would never have guessed that Silvana De Mari's The Last Dragon was originally published in Italian. The translation is that well done.

At first, the star of The Last Dragon is little Yorsh, a very young elf born into a world where elves are loathed, oppressed and hunted. All alone after rising floodwaters destroy his village, he is found and grudgingly cared for by two humans, a woman and a hunter, also fugitives. Escaping the town dungeons, Yorsh finds a carved rune that seems say he is destined to save the world by finding the world's 'last dragon.'

It all sounds like a hundred fantasies already read. The Last Dragon, though, has several unexpected twists, sorrow, action, humor, actors known but not immediately recognized, and many likeable characters. A definite recommendation for junior high and high school lovers of fantasy and/or romance.

More about the Reading Across Borders challenge.