TRL manager refects on sharing session for Tangerine (23 Jun 05)

[Manager of TRL reflects on the sharing session on 23 Jun 05, at Tampines Regional Library (TRL)]

This morning, Thursday, 23 June, 9am at TRL, was the second session when staff gathered to discuss one of the books chosen for the READ! Singapore campaign. Ten of us huddled around the table waiting for Krist, our new Children’s librarian who facilitated the session.


Children's Librarian, Krist (center), with TRL Manager, Zahra Aljunied (right)

Krist: Thanks for facilitating the session. I loved your "philosophical" treatment of the story. We had a good discussion on the symbolic tangerine fruit that appears throughout the book –the whole bunch of the fruits in a basket and how this symbolized something else when Nick passed it to the old man in the bus. You treated the story well. And thanks for preparing the map of Vietnam with the background. We should use the same edition of the book in future! But it was quite fun though to try to match the pages in your first edition of the book with our later one.

Fawzia: Thanks for sharing notes on your trip to Vietnam - the place where your grandmother came from. Although you didn't quite see some of the things that Nick saw, maybe you didn't venture as far as he did.

Hafsah: Thanks for sharing the "confusion" that I also felt when reading the book, especially on Colin's treatment of flashbacks. I thought I was the only one. However as librarians, we like order and wished that Colin had stuck to using proper punctuation for all the dialogue in his book.



Michelle: Well you agreed with Nick that "ignorance is a bliss" but I do hope you choose a developing country for your holiday destination some day. It could be an eye opener. And do continue to read beyond Chapter 1. Trust me it gets less boring beyond that as Nick goes on his journey up North towards Hanoi.

Mala: Must read the book, OK, so you’ll know more about the many Vietnamese girls that you were fascinated with as Krist shared the book. You mentioned how you liked the “ao dai” that Fawzia bought back from Vietnam.

Zuraina: Do you need an answer to why Colin chose Tangerine? Then read the book so you could see the link as Krist had shared.



Hui Hiang, Radia and Sok Cheng: I hope the session spurs an interest in you to read on.
And Colin would be coming to TRL on Saturday, 9 July. We would all be ready with lots of questions for him!

PS: Hope all of you like the “surprise little gifts” picked as you dip into my black bag after you shared something about the book. Those were little things that I got from Indonesia. Hmm…maybe I could write something about my next adventure like Colin did…

S. Zahra Aljunied, Manager, Tampines Regional Library (TRL)