Resources for Parents and Students at the Library

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

As we begin a new school year, there are many things to be excited about and sometimes a few things to be concerned about.  Our children get older and face new challenges.  Maybe they’ve had some difficulty with schoolwork or trouble with classmates.  One place I’ve always looked for help is at the library.  You can find books on all different kinds of parenting and educational issues.  There are also online sources of help available.

One new electronic resource that is newly available to Pioneerland cardholders is Tutor.com.  You can get to it by going to http://www.tutor.com/willmar and typing in your library barcode.  Live, one-on-one help is available from 2 p.m. to midnight.  You can even upload a paper for a tutor to work on with you.  There are resources to use on the site that are available all the time, including homework resources, SAT, ACT, and GED test prep guides, and even resume and interview guidance.  I took a quick look in the homework resources and found that you can choose a subject, like English, a school level, like elementary, and a more specific subject, like capitalization and punctuation.  Following that path, I found capitalization rules, a lesson in contractions, and some games that help teach capitalization and punctuation.  If you’re an iPhone or iPad user, you can download an app for the site.  I hope you’ll try it out!

We also have some new books at the Litchfield Library that may help parents to help and guide their children.  The book Red Flags or Red Herrings: Predicting Who Your Child Will Become is intriguing for parents who wonder how the traits they see in their child will affect their future.  The author, Susan Engel, is a developmental psychologist, educator, and mother.  She encourages parents to accept their children’s inborn traits, intervene for some issues, but to have perspective and not overreact about others. 

Nolo’s IEP Guide: Learning Disabilities is a legal guide written for parents.  Nolo is the premier publisher for legal books written for those of us who aren’t lawyers.  This book is a guide to advocating for your child who has a learning disability, understanding your child’s legal rights, developing an individualized education program, and resolving disputes with your school district. 

If you’re a homeschooler, you may be interested in Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything.  The author,  Laura Grace Weldon, advocates what she calls natural learning.  Falling somewhere between structured homeschooling and unschooling, Weldon recommends following the child’s interests, using meaningful work to teach, and connecting with others as natural ways to learn.  She also emphasizes the importance of play, curiosity, and slowing down.

Our new DVD Stop Bullying: Standing Up for Yourself and Others gives students concrete steps to take to respond to bullying.  This video is intended for students in junior high grades and up.  It shares advice from experts and stories from kids who’ve been in bullying situations.

Whatever kind of parenting or education-related topic you’re looking for, I hope you’ll take a look in our catalog or speak to someone on our staff to help you find something you can use.  And remember to try Tutor.com.  Have a great school year!

Raechel says.........

By Jan Pease

I’m introducing a guest book reviewer, 15 year old Raechel Kelly, who graciously agreed to produce three “teen book reviews” as part of “You Are Here” the summer reading program for teenagers.   Raechel is a delightful young person who happens to be an avid reader.    

One of her selections is the book, “Pearl in the Sand,” by Tessa Afshar.  Raechel says, “This book was an amazing retelling of Rahab, from the Bible, and her story of faith.  As reading it, I found that it really enchanted the Old Testament.  The book is fiction, and so cleverly written.  Ms. Afshar did a beautiful job with this Bible account, and I was blessed to read it.” 

I would add this bit of information from Amazon.com.  “Pearl in the Sand” was published in 2010 by Moody Press, and is available at Litchfield Library.  Tessa Afshar was born in a Muslim family in Iran and lived there for the first fourteen years of her life. She survived English boarding school for girls before moving to the United States permanently. Tessa holds an MDIV from Yale University where she served as co-Chair of the Evangelical Fellowship at the Divinity School. She has spent the last twelve years in full and part-time Christian work and currently serves as the leader of Women’s and Prayer ministries at a church in New England.

Another book chosen by Raechel is “Dug Down Deep,” by Joshua Harris. Raechel says, “I highly recommend this book to everyone.  This is a non-fiction read that uncovers a lot of truth, and shows the lies we unknowingly believe.  No matter where you are in this life, you will surely learn something from this book. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and have learned a lot from it.”

Me, again, adding a little more to Raechel’s thoughts.  “Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters” was published in 2010 by Multnomah Books.  It is available at Amazon.com and by interlibrary loan through Mnlink.  Joshua Harris writes about matters of faith for young adults and is best known for his books about relationships and dating.        

Raechel’s final selection was an entire series of books, “The Knights of Arrethtrae” by Chuck Black.  Rachel says, “I couldn’t pick just one of the six books to review, so I decided I’d do the whole series.  These books were so great in many ways.  They’re filled with excitement, bravery, courage and most importantly, faith in the Lord.  The books are individual stories of knights and ladies as they go through with their training and missions.  These books blessed me hugely, and encouraged me.”

I would add that this is a series of books published in recent years by Multnomah.  They are available at amazon.com and by interlibrary loan through Mnlink.  Chuck Black, according to amazon.com, spent eight years in the Air Force traveling the world as an F-16 fighter pilot and a communications engineer. Today, Chuck is the author of seven novels and a product-design engineer. He has invented or co-invented eleven patented construction products now being sold internationally.   He lives with his family in North Dakota.

Thanks, Raechel, for enthusiastically taking on this challenge.   We’re looking for other teen book reviewers, so please speak to a staff member at the library if you’re interested.   See you at the library!

How Can We Help Your Business?

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

I would like to thank the Litchfield businesses who supported our summer reading program this year with prize donations for the kids.  McDonald’s, Burger King, and Pizza Hut (so sorry for leaving you out of the newspaper column!!) donated many gift certificates for food items at their restaurants.  The kids love getting them as prizes for reading logs that they complete.  Thank you for supporting literacy in our community!

I would also like to extend an invitation to the businesses in Litchfield.  Our library is available to serve you.  We work regularly with teachers, clergy, parents, students, seniors, and other members of the community.  But we don’t often work with our local business people.  I’d love to do more to serve this group.

 If there is something I can do to help you meet your business’ information needs, I hope you’ll come in to talk to me, give me a call at (320)693-2483, or send me an email at elizabethc@litchfield.lib.mn.us.  While you may not think you’d have a use for the books we have on hand, we can find all kinds of information for you.  I used to work in the corporate library of a financial services company.  While it has been some years since then, it was in the age of the internet and electronic databases.  I used to work on competitive intelligence, stock quotes, information to be used in marketing materials, and a variety of industry information.  At the public library, we don’t have access to the fee-based business & legal databases that a corporate library has, but there are many sources out there that are free or paid for by the state of Minnesota.  I’d be happy to meet with you to set up an alert service on the topics your business needs to track.  Through the Electronic Library for Minnesota, we could set up an ongoing search of newspapers or business journals that would automatically send you articles on your competitors, your industry, or other specific topics in the news that could help you keep on top of your business environment.

Our library does have some recent books that may be of interest to managers, entrepreneurs, and other business people, too.  Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders: The Three Essential Principles You Need to Become an Extraordinary Leader, by Rajeev Peshawaria, discusses the characteristics that make the best managers and executives.  Peshawaria has worked in leadership development at American Express, Morgan Stanley, and Coca-Cola.  The book has gotten excellent reviews from vice presidents at PepsiCo and GE Aviation, as well as book reviewers, for the way that it presents case studies of leadership in a variety of companies and how inspiring it is to managers at every level.

Another new book on management is Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best… and Learn from the Worst, by Robert I. Sutton.  This book draws upon psychological and management research to find out what a manager can do to motivate and manage his or her employees and create a better workplace and a more successful organization.  Sutton is a professor at Stanford.

The 24-Hour Customer: New Rules for Winning in a Time-Starved, Always-Connected Economy is a book on marketing in our new electronic reality.  The author, Adrian C. Ott, is the CEO of a Silicon Valley consultant business.  She shares new ways of capturing the time and attention of customers who are connected to their screens and multi-tasking all the time, using case studies from iPhone, Amazon, and Johnson & Johnson, among other companies who are doing well with Web 2.0 and 24/7 commerce.

Some other new business titles you may want to check out include The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge; Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down; and Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story. 

If there are business titles you’d suggest for our library, let me know and I’ll be glad to consider them.  Our library is here to serve the entire community, and I’d love to know how we can better meet your business’ needs for information. 

"How I Spent My Summer Vacation"

“How I Spent My Summer Vacation:" sweat beading on my face, running down into the third shirt of the day;  babies crying, small children running around, while I tried to think of ways to occupy older children who just don’t seem to understand how great a book club could be, and who really miss having access to computers and the Internet.  Kids asking “do you have a “Star Wars”  book” and having to tell them to try one of three or four big bins of books, which made finding a book title like finding information on the Internet. We knew it probably was there, but had no idea where.  I have a new fondness for Mr. Dewey and his decimal system.

This is how I spent eight Mondays (my day off!) this summer.  It’s easy to focus on the negative aspects of the situation as we brought the summer reading program to Cosmos.  Their librarian had retired, their library had burned, and the community was devastated by a series of storms and a fire that damaged a major business in the community.  Pioneerland Library System had a book drive, with more than 3000 excellent-quality books gathered for the children of Cosmos, and sent me with our student employee, Elle Dinius to provide books and activities for children.

 I will remember the positive experiences Elle and I had as we provided a summer reading program without having a library building.  First, the people in Cosmos were extraordinary. Custodians at the school were wonderful; they assured me that play dough will come out of the carpet.  The City of Cosmos personnel were always helpful and the principal of the school was delightful.  The parents who brought or picked up their children were enthusiastic about their children reading during the summer months. Bags and bags of books went home, and bags and bags of books came back.  Parents universally told me how much the Cosmos library meant to them, and how much they hoped a new library would be possible. Joy Housman brought her entire daycare, which added to the excitement every week. 

Special memories include a little girl telling me that she’s read more than 170 books this summer.  I remember a mom surprised at the sight of her very active little boy sitting with me and working diligently on a necklace and later, a bracelet of large beads strung on a leather cord.  He didn’t know that he was developing math skills like sorting and estimating.  He told his mom proudly that he was being very good!  I was able to fill requests for specific books for a young man.  I enjoyed our mad scientist experiments where we made bouncy balls and Flubber.  I marveled at their patience as several of the older children made little classic wooden cars. We made sun catchers and wind chimes, scratched off black coatings to reveal colorful designs; we decorated door hangers and large wooden butterfly magnets, and made  lots of cool necklaces and bracelets.

My final story time with the younger children was Monday the first of August.  Most of the children of all ages gathered around as we read the trickster tale “Love and Roast Chicken,”  by Barbara Knutson.  The older children listened from the table where they were working on projects, even if they were too grown up to sit in the circle.   They asked to sing the “Little Drop of Rain Song,” which in June they weren’t all that interested in singing.  They made felt guinea pigs, since the hero of “Love and Roast Chicken” is a guinea pig in Peru. When we made Flubber, it was such a big hit that the younger children wanted to make some, too.    Except for the heat, it was a really, really, wonderful afternoon.

I’ll be going back to Cosmos on August 15^th for a party in the city park to celebrate a great summer.  I already have some things in mind to try next year if Pioneerland asks me to visit Cosmos for another summer reading program, because I would definitely do it again.

Find Great Summer Reads at the Library

It’s already August.  If you’re looking for a book to take with you on vacation or you’d just like another good book to read before the summer’s over, our library has some good summer reads.  These titles have come up on lists of this year’s best summer books, from CNN to Oprah to NPR.  The Litchfield Library owns copies of all of these books, and a few are available to download from our new e-book and audiobook service.

One of this summer’s big hits is In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson.  Larson is the author of the bestseller Devil in the White City.  In the Garden of Beasts is a nonfiction book that reads like a thriller.  It’s the story of the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany and his daughter, who gets involved with Nazi high society and has an affair with the head of the Gestapo.  This is a title we have available as an e-book, as well as in print at Litchfield.

Another of this summer’s big books is State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.  A pharmaceutical researcher goes into the Amazon jungle in search of the remains of a colleague and to find her former mentor, who is studying a tribe’s ability to bear children at an advanced age.  This novel is described as a serious work of literature with a strong sense of place and plenty of adventure and suspense.

Like Larson’s and Patchett’s books, The Year We Left Home is on multiple lists of the best summer reads of the year.  This novel, by Jean Thompson,  is the story of an Iowa farm family over the span of three decades, from the 1970s to the 2000s. Chapters are narrated by a variety of characters, all searching for happiness and meaning in their lives.  Many reviewers praised the realism of the characters.

Another literary adventure novel that came out this summer is Once Upon a River, by Bonnie Jo Campbell.  Her 16-year-old main character is described as a female Huckleberry Finn, who sets out on the Stark River in Michigan to find her missing mother after the death of her father.  The story is described as violent but inspiring.

The HBO series Game of Thrones has renewed interest in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series.  The first novel in the series, A Game of Thrones, came out in 1996, and the newest  installment, A Dance with Dragons, just came out this month.  It’s topping the best-seller lists.  We have this title available as an e-book, too.

Sister is the debut novel by Rosamund Lupton, an experienced screenwriter.  It’s a thriller about a woman investigating her sister’s supposed suicide, which she is sure is really a murder.  Reviewers say it’s both a page-turning, fast-paced mystery and a heartwarming story about the bond between sisters.  This, too, is available as an e-book on our Overdrive website.

The newest version of the Wyatt Earp story is Doc, by Mary Doria Russell.  Russell researched Doc Holliday’s life from his aristocratic beginnings in Georgia.  She based her idea of Doc’s character on the evidence that he was very close to his mother, who died of tuberculosis when he was fifteen.  The novel is a blend of fact and fiction, humor and action, set in Dodge City.  This is a title that we have available as a downloadable audiobook on our Overdrive site.

As for my own summer reading, now that I’m done with textbook reading for my summer class, I’ve started on The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan.  I think I’ll move on to The Hunger Games next.  I like young adult fantasy; there are so many good books in that genre these days.  I’d love to re-read Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows now that I’ve seen the last movie, but there are so many interesting books I haven’t read yet!   Whatever you enjoy reading, I hope you’ll find a book that interests you before the summer is up.

It's Raining, it's Pouring Young Adult Books in Litchfield!

The young adult section is an interesting place to find books that can be surprisingly provocative.  These aren’t the safe, comfy stories about nurses or college students I remember from back in the day.  Here are some new titles that promise some great summer reading.

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.”  Ally Carter’s description of her character, Kat Bishop, makes me want to read both “Heist Society” and “Uncommon Criminals,” the second book in the series.  I think of movies like Ocean’s Eleven, or “The Thomas Crown Affair” with criminals that you just have to like in spite of their vocation. 

In the city of Jewel, safety and temperance are prized above all other virtues. Goldie, an impetuous girl with a talent for petty thievery, is eagerly awaiting her Separation, in which her silver guard chain connecting her to her parents for safety is finally cut. When tragedy strikes and the city’s sly and deceptive ruler, the Fugleman, cancels all Separations indefinitely, Goldie decides she’s had enough of safety and runs away to the fascinating, mysterious Museum of Dunt. Yet this museum is no dusty educational edifice, as Goldie soon learns: it has moods and feelings like a living being. Its shape-shifting rooms house not historical artifacts, but great and terrible powers that, if unleashed, could destroy the city. “Museum of Thieves” begins a new series by Lian Tanner, an author who lives in Tasmania with her tabby cat. Interesting characters, twists and turns and a plot full of action make this a promising series to follow.

“Between Shades of Gray,” by Ruta Sepetys, is a novel based on the real experiences of Lithuanians deported to Siberia, whose only crime was that they were Lithuanian, forcibly deported by Stalin in 1941.  The harrowing experiences of Lina, whose life is forever changed, give an authentic voice to people who, according to the official Soviet version of history, don’t exist.  I found this to be one of those books I just had to pick up and scan a few pages while trying to work at the desk.  I’ll just have to bring it home, because I can’t do justice to the subject or characters by reading a page now and then. 

Neal Schusterman, who has written many young adult novels, imagines a terrible future in which teenagers can be forced to give up organs for transplant.  In Schusterman’s horrific society, the second civil war was fought over abortion. To end the war, a compromise was reached that ends the practice of abortion but creates an alternative called "unwinding." Between the ages of 13 and 17, parents or guardians can choose to have their child unwound, which involves having every part of their bodies harvested to be "donated" to another person so, technically, they don't really die. The complex and compelling plot follows three teens whose stories intertwine when they escape while on their way to the harvest camps. Fifteen-year-old Connor's parents can no longer control him. Lev, a tithe, was raised by religious parents for the sole purpose of being unwound. Risa, a ward of the state, is a victim of shrinking budgets since she is not a talented enough musician to be kept alive.  “Unwind” asks the question, “What if your parents could unwind you?” 

Avid readers have recommended many titles to add to the collection, and young people are extremely good at suggesting purchases that fly off the shelves.  Because of the recommendation of a brilliant young man, we have added the five books in “The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica,” by James A. Owen.  Three Oxford men, brought in for questioning in a London professor's death in 1917, become companions on a voyage through the Archipelago of Dreams where they vanquish a usurper and restore the rightful king, proving themselves worthy to be Caretakers of the Imagination of the World. The three men are Jack (C. S. Lewis), John (J. R. R. Tolkien), and Charles (Williams–a lesser known writer of fantasy thrillers who belonged to the same Oxford literary discussion group, the Inklings). Their identities aren't revealed until the end, along with the premise that their journey became the wellspring for their subsequent fiction. Reviews for this series were lukewarm, but my young advisor is usually absolutely right about great fantasy novels for young adults. Look for “Here, There Be Dragons,”  “The Search for the Red Dragon,” “The Indigo King,” “The Shadow Dragons,” and “The Dragon’s Apprentice.”  These great books, and more, are waiting for you at Litchfield Library – see you there!

Your Privacy, A Librarian's Duty

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

I’m going to take the same route as my last column and give you a quick explanation to a common question first.  We have changed the link on our Chamber of Commerce library page so that it now leads you to our blog.  I know this has confused some people, because the “Litchfield Public Library” link used to lead directly to the Pioneerland catalog.  But it makes more sense for a link about the Litchfield Library to lead you to further information on our library, and I’d like our patrons to get familiar with going directly to http://litchlibrary.blogspot.com/ as our primary website.  On our blog, you’ll see “Library Catalog” as a choice on the right side of the screen.  This link will lead you to the catalog and the ability to view your account.  You can add either the Litchfield Library site or the Pioneerland catalog, or both, to your favorites on your computer, and then you can go directly there without following such a long path.

The main topic I want to cover today is privacy and how it applies at the library.  Maybe you’ve gotten frustrated in the past about not being able to check out a family member’s books with your card or without a card at all.  Part of the reason we require a card is to make sure that the person checking things out is the person to whom the library account belongs.  If someone comes in and claims that they’re you or that they’re checking things out for you, and we go along with that, you could have books or movies checked out on your card without your knowledge.  The other risk is that we could check things out to the wrong John Smith if we look you up instead of using your card.  If you think of it like a credit card, it may make more sense that you need to have the card with you.  You’re financially liable for the materials you check out.

But beyond identity issues, there are also privacy issues.  The books you order with your card are your business.  Most of the time spouses wouldn’t need to keep library books a secret from each other.  But can you imagine a situation in which someone is looking into divorce without having brought it up to their spouse?  Or a woman who is in an abusive relationship who is checking out self-help books on getting out of such a situation?  We certainly wouldn’t want to hand those items over to their partners, not knowing whether or not they need to be kept private.   Or just imagine that, when we call your house, we tell the person who answers which books have come in for you  --  but it’s your mother-in-law who answers and you’ve ordered books on pregnancy when you haven’t yet shared the fact that you’re pregnant.  Or if someone’s child is in the library picking up their own books and they ask, “Does my dad have any books in?”, we could be violating his privacy by saying yes and handing over a book that he ordered on cancer or another health concern that he has not told his child about.  Now if that child comes in with Dad’s card and says, “My dad has a book in and he asked me to pick it up for him”, we can certainly send that with the errand runner.  

Pioneerland Library System has a patron confidentiality policy in place, and all of our employees are bound by that.  We cannot share with anyone, not our spouses or our best friends – or yours--, what you checked out at the library, what materials you ordered or looked at, or what reference questions you asked us.  If you have to worry that we’ll tell people what you’re researching or reading, you might not come to us to find information.  That would be a barrier to your freedom to read and to your access to information. 

The American Library Association’s Code of Ethics states:

We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted. 

Librarians are ethically required to keep your information requests and your check-out history private.  It is no one’s business what you research, what you order, or what you’ve checked out from the library.  This is why we cannot bring up a list of what you’ve checked out in the past.  Unless you enable check-out history on your account, once you return it, it disappears so that no one could ever access it. 

ALA’s statement Libraries: An American Value says, “Free access to the books, ideas, resources, and information in America’s libraries is imperative for education, employment, enjoyment, and self-government.”  I take that principle of protecting your privacy to protect your freedom very seriously.  It’s important for our democratic society.  Librarians don’t have quite the same legal privilege as lawyers and doctors as far as protection of the professional-client relationship.  But if you come to me with an information request, I promise I’ll keep it just between us.  It's my duty as your librarian.