Horticultural society makes donation for gardening books

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

The Meeker County Horticultural Society has given a generous donation to the four libraries in Meeker County to purchase new gardening books. These books have been arriving recently, ready to be checked out.  Members of the horticultural society assisted in choosing the books. 

At the Litchfield Library, the books are Butterfly Gardening with Native Plants: How to Attract and Identify Butterflies by Christopher Kline, The Downsized Veggie Garden: How to Garden Small WhereverYou Live, Whatever Your Space by Kate Copsey, Essential Pruning Techniques:Trees, Shrubs, and Conifers by George E. Brown, Grow Native: Bringing Natural Beauty to Your Garden by Lynn M. Steiner, The Mother Earth News Guide to Vegetable Gardening, Mycorrhizal Planet: How Symbiotic Fungi Work with Roots to Support Plant Health and Build Soil Fertility by Michael Phillips, The Perennial Matchmaker: Create Amazing Combinations with Your Favorite Perennials by Nancy J. Ondra, Raised Bed Revolution:  Build It, Fill It, Plant It… Garden Anywhere by Tara Nolan, RHS Companion to Wildlife Gardening by Chris Baines, Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style by Joseph Tychonievich, Victory Gardens for Bees: A DIY Guide to Saving the Bees by Lori Weidenhammer, and The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: The Essential Guide to Planting and Pruning Techniques by Tracy Disabato-Aust.

New to the Dassel Library collection are 100 Plants to Feed the Bees: Provide a Healthy Habitat to Help Pollinators Thrive by the Xerces Society, and Teeny Tiny Gardening: 35 Step-by-Step Projects and Inspirational Ideas for Gardening in Tiny Spaces by Emma Hardy. 

The additions to the Grove City Library are Drought-Resistant Planting: Lessons from Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden by Beth Chatto, and Homegrown Pantry: A Gardener’s Guide to Selecting the Best Varieties & Planting the Perfect Amounts for What You Want to Eat Year-Round by Barbara Pleasant. 

The titles added to the Cosmos Library collection are The Children’s Garden: Loads of Things to Make & Grow by Matthew Appleby, and Glorious Shade: Dazzling Plants, Design Ideas, and Proven Techniques for Your Shady Garden by Jenny Rose Carey.

These new books can be found on the libraries’ shelves of new arrivals.  All of these books are also available to be ordered by anyone in the library system, to be picked up at your nearest library.  Many other gardening books are available on the shelves in our local libraries, some donated in the past by the horticultural society. 

Thank you to the Meeker County Horticultural Society for making so many beautiful and practical books available to the gardeners in our area!

Teens, get your work published in the zine!

by Mariah Ralston Deragon, Litchfield library assistant

What is a zine? We’ve been getting this question a lot lately at the library! The short answer is that “zine” is short for “magazine”. That means a zine can potentially cover a very wide range of topics and genres.

This summer, the Litchfield Library has started making zines with kids ages 12-18. We call it our “Teen Zine”.  So far the zine has included pencil sketches, comic strips, short stories, doodles, and collaborative writing. I discovered the idea for zine making at the library after attending the Twin Cities Zine Fest in Minneapolis last summer. The Rochester Public Library was tabling there with some teens that had started a zine group at their library.

After the Zine fest, I started doing some research using MnLink at the library. I discovered that zines are considered to be a form of self-publishing. Self-published pamphlets and newsletters can be traced all the way back to Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, which was started in 1757. (From “Make a Zine!” by Bill Brent)

This popular “Almanack” was full of word-play, calendars, weather forecasts, poetry, puzzles…you name it.

Jumping to present times, self-published books and zines can be found at many bookstores world-wide, and in countless variations. Regarding zines in particular, I found this quote from Stolen Sharpie Revolution by Alex Wrekk to be helpful…

“A zine is an independently created publication. The contents are anything you want them to be like; personal experiences and stories…music related writing, gardening tips, travel stories, comics, photography... Zines can be put together by one person or a group of people and they are usually photocopied.”

After our teens finish their writing, drawing, sketching, etc., we make photo copies of their work in black and white, using our trusty copy machine, and then we staple it all together using a saddle stitch stapler.

It just so happens that zine-making also fits into the library’s summer reading theme “Reading by Design.” Now that the zine group has gained some more members, it’s becoming more and more interesting to figure out how all the artwork and writing can fit together. And after everything’s edited together, photocopied, and stapled…we put the zine out at the front desk of the library for Litchfield patrons to enjoy. The zines are free, and available to anyone that wants one (while supplies last).

We will be making zines at the library on the 3^rd and 4^th Monday for the rest of the summer! 

Teens ages 12-18 are welcome to join us on July 24, August 21^st, and August 28^th from 3:30-4:30 p.m.

And it’s okay if you still don’t understand what a zine is… Come on down to the library; we would love to show you!

Who did it? New true crime

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Books that tell the stories of real-life crimes are always popular.  Usually called “true crime,” these books can combine the suspense of a mystery with the chance to learn about something that really happened.  True crime can also give the reader insights into human nature: why do people do bad things, and how do people survive when bad things happen to them?  The Litchfield Library has some new books that are classified as true crime.

One brand-new book is Mrs. Sherlock Holmes:  The True Story of New York’s Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case that Captivated a Nation by Brad Ricca.  Grace Humiston was the New York police department’s first female consulting detective, and the first female U.S. district attorney.  Despite her status as a legal pioneer and her family’s prominent social status, she has largely been ignored by history, even though she was famous in her time.  Humiston’s motto was “Justice for those of limited means.”  She solved strange cases all over the world, not only in New York City.  The book is being compared to Devil in the White City and In Cold Blood in the way it tells a gripping true story. 

Humiston was targeted by a secret organization called the Black Hand.  Another new book tells the story of a detective who took on this terrifying group: The Black Hand: The Epic War Between a Brilliant Detective and the Deadliest Secret Society in American History. Author Stephan Talty tells the story of Joseph Petrosino, who was called the “Italian Sherlock Holmes” at the time.  Early twentieth century newspapers really liked to compare people with Sherlock Holmes, I guess!    Petrosino was known as an ingenious detective and a master of disguise, so maybe the comparison fits.  The Black Hand started by extorting money from fellow Italian immigrants but began threatening a wider range of people.  Petrosino worked to shut down the organization as anti-immigrant sentiment gripped the nation.  A movie version is in the works, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

 Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is on the current bestseller lists.  Author David Grann also wrote The Lost City of Z, which has recently been adapted into a movie.  Killers of the Flower Moon tells a shocking story of corruption and murder.  In the 1920’s, the members of the Osage nation in Oklahoma were the richest people per capita in the world, because oil was discovered on their land.  Then one by one, members of the tribe were murdered.  People were poisoned or shot, or they died under mysterious circumstances.  Then the people investigating the murders started dying.  After more than two dozen of these deaths, the new Federal Bureau of Investigation got involved, but they didn’t know what they were doing and at first they failed.  Then an undercover team worked with the Osage to discover the truth.  If you’re looking for a real page-turner, check this one out.

For a more recent story, look for Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street.  Steven A. Cohen was a pioneer in hedge funds in the ‘90s, rising from a middle class background to become a genius Wall Street trader and a billionaire.  But his hedge fund was ultimately fined and shut down after the largest SEC investigation in Wall Street history.  His employees were convicted of insider trading, but Cohen went free and is still trading his own money on Wall Street.  Author Sheelah Kolhatkar details the case and asks whether powerful men like Cohen are above the law. 

When you’re looking for books like these, you can search “true crime stories” as a subject in the library catalog.  History and a bit of psychology, mixed with a thriller – that’s true crime.

The Lego Guy

The Lego Guy, Curtis Monk, will be presenting a program at Brickheads on Thursday, July 6, at 6:30 p.m. in the library meeting room.

Brickheads is Lego building for ages 4-14 plus parents.  Join us!

Sponsored by the Friends of the Litchfield Public Library.  Thank you!