Find an event you'd enjoy at the library

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

As spring continues on, our library events do, too. If you’re a reader, a gamer, or a knitter, mark your calendar for our ongoing groups and one-time special events.

We’re hosting a reception to congratulate Nancy Paddock on her Minnesota Book Award win. Join us in the meeting room on Saturday, April 28, from 2-3 p.m. Nancy will speak for part of the time and will otherwise be available to talk with people. We’ll serve refreshments. This is a big deal in the world of books in Minnesota, so we need to celebrate.

4-H at the Library meets after school on Thursday, April 26. It’s open to kids in kindergarten through fifth grade. Darcy from the Meeker County Extension Service always has a variety of fun and educational activities for the kids to do, and it’s free to attend. Through the school year, we host this on the fourth Thursday of every month. We’ll have it a couple of times this summer, too; watch for our summer schedule to find out when.

I’m going to reduce game night to one Monday a month plus some Saturday events. Look for our choose-a-game night, with a selection of chess sets, board games, and card games, on the first Monday of the month from 6:30 – 8 p.m. This means no game night on April 30th; come on May 7th.

We’ve had an enthusiastic response to our Dungeons & Dragons nights with requests for more time to play, so we had a Saturday afternoon event on April 21. We’ll do it again on Saturday, May 19, from noon to 4 p.m. If you enjoy making up stories along the lines of Lord of the Rings and the Drizzt Do’Urden books, or if you like to play World of Warcraft, you might find it fun. It’s very social but much more slow-moving than a video game, and you have to use your imagination.

Knitting club is still meeting on the first and third Thursdays of the month from 4:30-5:30. Their next meeting is May 3rd.

The next meeting of the after-school book club is Thursday, May 10th. They’re reading Mary Poppins this month. This group is for 3rd through 5th graders.

Story times will continue through May 11th. At that time we’ll have a break of a few weeks while Jan hosts elementary school class visits and we get ready for the summer reading program. We are getting all set for summer already.

One last note about something that isn’t an event: I have a survey running through April 30th on how ebooks are affecting the use of print books. If you’re an ebook reader, whether you check them out or buy them, I’d love it if you took the survey. You can follow the hyperlink at the beginning of this paragraph to the online survey or you can pick up a paper copy at our front desk. Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to take the survey.

The Library is a Magic Door

By Jan Pease
As children, moms, and dads poured into the library for Toddler Time last Wednesday, one of my co-workers overheard a small child exclaim, “The Library has a magic door! I do magic! Of course, we know that it was really the door opener, pushed by a little hand that opened the door, but what a great thought. The library has a magic door; the library is a magic door.

I wrote this essay on Saturday, after we finished an exciting week here at the library. On Wednesday, 29 children, moms and dads came to Toddler Time. On Thursday evening, 44 children, moms and dads came to the library for a Head Start field trip. On Friday, 36 children, moms and dads came to Preschool Story Hour. All of these families are making a big investment of time and energy in their children’s lives and deserve a round of applause. They are introducing their children to the wonder and magic of books.

Our spring story times have centered on nonfiction books. Animals are always an interesting subject to talk about with young children. This week we learned about Pandas and enjoyed a book with life-size pictures of zoo animals. I was amazed at how much these young children already know. We listened to animal sounds and the children recognized all of them except the zebras, who have a very strange call a combination whinny/bark.

I’m excited about story hour on Friday, April 20th. PAK, (Parents And Kids) a local group of parents and children who get together for interesting times and look for ways to serve our community, is coming to present a special story hour about Earth Day. PAK also has activities planned for Saturday, the 21st and the PAK parents will explain all about them. By the way, Earth Day is observed on Sunday, April 22nd.

Finally, the phrase “the library has a magic door,” rattled around in my head all week. I knew it from somewhere, but who said it? I finally found a small book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, in which he describes the books in his personal library. The title of the book is “Through the Magic Door,” and you can read it online at books.google.com, as it hasn’t been in print for about 60 years. He describes each book in his personal library as an old friend, in a surprisingly chatty work that gives a glimpse of a creative and educated mind. I wish I were as well-read.

I would go on from there to say that the library is a magic door. I hope that the children who walked through our door this week will always have a love of literature and learning. I’m glad that the library is a magic place for them and for me, too. See you at the library!

Wrapping up the Minnesota Book Award nominees: Poetry & Minnesota

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian


Over the past few weeks, Jan and I have told you about the nominees for most of the Minnesota Book Award categories. This week I’ll tell you about two more: the Minnesota category and the poetry category.

The Minnesota award is given to a nonfiction book with a topic on Minnesota history, nature, social customs, or nostalgia. This year’s nominees are Anishinaabe Syndicated by Jim Northrup, The Pillsburys of Minnesota by Lori Sturdevant with George S. Pillsbury, Pioneer Modernists by Julie L’Enfant, and Sisterhood of War by Kim Heikkila. We have the books by Sturdevant and Heikkila.

The Pillsburys of Minnesota tells the history of the Pillsbury family in the milling and lumbering industries in our state. The family was central in making Minneapolis the milling capitol of the world during their heyday. The book also looks at the Pillsburys’ role in Minnesota politics, the University of Minnesota, and cultural institutions and charities in the area. Sturdevant is a Star Tribune columnist.

Sisterhood of War: Minnesota Women in Vietnam tells the stories of 15 military nurses from Minnesota who served in the Vietnam war. The women talk about why they enlisted, their experiences during the war, and how they were changed by it. The book also discusses how this group came together after the war to heal from their experiences and to work for the creation of a national Vietnam Women’s Memorial. Heikkila teaches courses on U.S. history at St. Catherine University.

The poetry award is given to a book of poetry. This year’s nominees are Bodies of Light by Athena Kildegaard, Buddha, Proof by Su Smallen, Invisible Strings by Jim Moore, and Whorled by Ed Bok Lee. We have the books by Moore and Lee.

Invisible Strings: Poems, published by Graywolf Press, is a collection of brief, haiku-like poems. The collection centers on everyday events in our personal lives that connect invisibly to the larger world, with themes of love, loss, and the passage of time. Moore is a resident of both St. Paul and Italy and has had six previous books of poetry published.

Whorled: Poems focuses on our global culture, with thoughts on war, industrialization, technology, and immigration. Lee was raised in South Korea, North Dakota, and Minnesota, and he has studied in Russia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, and America. He is a professor at Metropolitan State University. The Star Tribune listed this among its best books of 2011.

You can find the entire list of nominees for the awards at http://www.thefriends.org/. The winners will be announced this Saturday, April 14th.

Minnesota Book Awards Celebrate Children's Books, too!

By Jan Pease

The list of finalists for the 24th annual Minnesota Book Awards also includes great books for children and young adults. Here are the finalists for the Children’s Literature award, sponsored by Books for Africa.

“BookSpeak! Poems About Books,” was written by Laura Purdie Salas, who says on her web page, “I love living in Minnesota and writing about anything that catches my interest. I get lots of ideas from my daughters, Annabelle and Maddie, and my supportive husband, Randy. It's never the ideas they suggest I write about; it's the funny things they do that get my brain moving.” “In BookSpeak!, 21 wild, wacky, and winsome poems showcase the magic on a single bookshelf. Characters plead for sequels, book jackets strut their stuff and a raucous party starts when the lights go out at the bookstore!”

“Friends: True Stories of Extraordinary Animal Friendships,” written by Catherine Thimmesh, who stated on her website, “My ultimate dream was for a job that didn’t exist: an all-purpose idea-thinker-upper. (My dream was very specific: cool office with toys and gadgets, a chair that swiveled, and clients who paid me to solve their myriad problems with incredibly creative solutions.) I’ve lived my whole life in, or around, Minneapolis, Minnesota. I currently live in Eden Prairie, Minnesota near a small lake with my husband and two children (Jaimie, age 13, and Simon, 11). Writing is my full-time job and I love that I actually did end up being a professional idea-thinker- upper—though just not as I had originally imagined.”

“The Last Day of Kindergarten,” by Nancy Loewen was inspired by her own daughter’s love of Kindergarten and reluctance to leave it for first grade. On her website, Ms. Loewen says she “married (her husband) Bill in 1986. We have two children, Louis and Helena, both teenagers. We live in the Twin Cities with our dog, Dorie; two cats, Cyrus and Obi; and guinea pig, Freddie. My hobbies include reading, cooking, gardening, walking my dog, and playing Sudoku on my phone while I’m waiting in the car for my kids.”

“Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature,” is by author Joyce Sidman. Her award-winning books include "Dark Emperor" (A Newbery Honor Book), “Song of the Water Boatman” and “Red Sings from Treetops” (both Caldecott Honor Books), “Butterfly Eyes” (Cybils Award), and “This Is Just to Say” (Claudia Lewis Poetry Award). She says on her website, “Even though I now live in Minnesota, I'm a Yankee at heart.”

I should thank each of these gifted writers for providing me with this article. Each author has a website that gives glimpses into her life and writing. When I am introduced to a new author, I use a search engine and type in the author’s name. Many authors now connect to their readers through their web pages, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Years ago, the only way to contact an author was through a publisher, which was iffy at best. Now direct communication is possible. I hope they don’t feel that we’re intruding, but I love to know that Catherine Thimmesh lives near a lake in Eden Prairie, or that Nancy Loewen has a guinea pig named Freddie.

Watch for the announcement of the winners of the Minnesota Book Awards April 14th. I’ll see you at the library!

Library now offers database of Independent Review articles

The Litchfield Library has gotten a subscription to a database that includes the past 12 years of the Litchfield Independent Review.  You can search for articles from August 2000 to the present, searching for words in the headline or anywhere in the article.  You can even choose a particular issue to browse.  It does not have any images, so you'll only find the articles.  You can access the Independent Review search here: http://infoweb.newsbank.com/signin/LitchfieldPublicLibrary/MLRB

The database also includes newspapers and news magazines from throughout the United States.  Access the entire database here: http://infoweb.newsbank.com/signin/LitchfieldPublicLibrary

If you use the database on the library computers, you can get right into it without signing in.  If you access the database from home, you will have to sign in with your library card. 

I believe our local library should offer access to our local publication.  I hope you'll find this a useful resource!

-- Beth Cronk

Find Minnesota's best new fiction at our library

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian


Last week I told you about the nominees for two of the nonfiction categories of the Minnesota Book Award. This week I’ll tell you about the fiction categories for adults.

In the novel and short story category, four books are nominated: In Caddis Wood by Mary Francois Rockcastle, The Law of Miracles and Other Stories by Gregory Blake Smith, The Long-Shining Waters by Danielle Sosin, and Merit Badges by Kevin Fenton. We have the Rockcastle and Sosin novels.

In Caddis Wood: A Novel is about a couple whose long marriage is in jeopardy. The story is told in alternating perspectives of husband and wife as they gather with their grown children at their cabin in Wisconsin. It reflects on the competing demands of love, family, and career, incorporating the woods around them as an essential part of their memories together. Rockcastle is the director of the Creative Writing Programs at Hamline University.

The Long-Shining Waters won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize in 2011. It tells the stories of three women who lived by Lake Superior at very different times. The first is an Ojibwe woman in 1622, the second a Norwegian immigrant in 1902, and the third a bar owner in 2000. Sosin says she wrote her debut novel to answer the question, “What is it about Lake Superior that makes it so powerful, and haunting and mysterious?”

The four novels nominated in the category of genre fiction are Big Wheat by Richard A. Thompson, The Bone House by Brian Freeman, Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley, and Northwest Angle by William Kent Krueger. We have all of these books at our library.

Big Wheat: A Tale of Bindlestiffs and Blood is a murder mystery that takes place among the threshing industry of the plains in 1919. The main character Charlie witnesses a serial killer burying his latest victim in a harvested wheat field before he joins a traveling threshing crew. Soon both the killer and the law are after him as a witness and a suspect. Reviewers say that the history is as appealing as the mystery, as the book covers the time when threshing machines were replacing manual labor.

The Bone House is a modern mystery set in Wisconsin and Florida. A high school teacher loses his job in Door County over accusations of an affair with a student. A year later the student’s younger sister is found dead near where the teacher and his wife are vacationing. A detective works with the wife to solve the murder.

Death of the Mantis: A Detective Kubu Mystery is set in Botswana. Detective David “Kubu” Bengu investigates a series of murders that seem to be committed by a nomadic tribe. Kubu travels deep into the Kalahari, struggling to solve the mystery and to stay alive. Michael Stanley is the pen name of two retired professors, Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Sears lives in South Africa and Trollip divides his time between Minnesota and Africa.

Northwest Angle: A Novel is the latest in the Cork O’Connor series of mysteries. Cork and his daughter are on a houseboat vacation on Lake of the Woods when a violent storm strands them. They discover the body of a teenage girl who had been tortured and a baby boy who is still alive. Cork must solve the murder and the identity of the baby while protecting his own family from the killers.

If you’re a fiction reader, check out these titles to find some of the best fiction produced by Minnesota writers in the past year.

Find your favorite nonfiction nominees for the Minnesota Book Award

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian


The Minnesota Book Awards Gala is coming up on April 14th. You might have heard that Litchfield’s own Nancy Paddock is a finalist in the category of memoir and creative nonfiction. You might not know that Minnesotans are invited to vote for the Readers’ Choice Award, which can be given to any finalist for the awards. During the month of March, you can go to http://www.thefriends.org/ to see the titles that are up for all of the awards and cast your vote for your favorite. If you’d like to read some of them while there’s still a little time, you can find many at our library.

Nancy’s book A Song at Twilight of Alzheimer’s and Love: A Memoir has been praised by local readers and by national and regional reviewers for the beautiful writing and for the meaningful look at memories, the changing roles of parent and child, and the struggle to accept the heartbreak of losing parents.

Three books are up against Nancy’s in the memoir and creative nonfiction category: For Love of Lakes by Darby Nelson, The Last Deployment by Bronson Lemer, and Sheepish by Catherine Friend. We have two of them in our library, the titles by Nelson and Friend.

For Love of Lakes is a book of natural history, environmental science, human history, and appreciation of American lakes. Nelson is a retired professor and aquatic ecologist who has a message about our stewardship of this natural resource.

Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep, and Enough Wool to Save the Planet is by the author of Hit by a Farm. It’s a collection of stories about the author’s farm in southeastern Minnesota, her thoughts of giving up sheep farming, and the so-called fiber freaks who are the buyers of her product.

If you’re interested in reading some of the books nominated in the general nonfiction category, ones that are not in competition with Nancy’s book, you can check all of those out from our library.

In Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America, author Shawn Lawrence Otto examines the devaluation of science at a time when knowledge of science is key to understanding many political issues.

In Punishing Race: A Continuing American Dilemma, University of Minnesota law professor Michael Tonry takes a critical look at the racial disparities in the criminal justice system. He proposes policy changes to bring about a more just society.

The book Trout Caviar: Recipes from a Northern Forager, by Brett Laidlaw, is a cookbook for eating locally and seasonally in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Laidlaw adds foraged foods to other sources of local foods he features: farmers’ markets, artisan producers, gardening, hunting, and fishing.

Vikings in the Attic: In Search of Nordic America, by Eric Dregni, is an exploration of Scandinavian culture and heritage in the Midwest. Dregni touches on everything from odd foods and traditions to serious political and social issues throughout the history of Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and Finns in our region.

In addition to the two nonfiction categories, Minnesota Book Awards are given for genre fiction, novel and short story, poetry, young people’s literature, children’s literature, and books about Minnesota. I encourage you to go to thefriends.org to look through the entire list and find something that interests you.