Mark Your Calendars!

Straw Bale Gardening Workshop at the Library

Join us next Monday evening in the meeting room.  The event is free and you don't need to sign up to attend.

To see a demonstration of the straw bale gardening technique, go to the ACGC High School in Grove City that afternoon.  Again, that workshop is free to attend and you don't need to sign up.

Investigate a new mystery

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Mysteries are everlastingly popular at the library.  These days a mystery novel can be many different things:  paranormal, Western, crime, Nordic (or imported from other parts of the world), historical, or cozy.  Some novels are almost impossible to classify, as publishers come out with more that cross genres.  Is Gone Girl a mystery?  It is, but not in the usual sense.  Our library has a wide range of mysteries/thrillers/crime novels to please a range of readers.  Following are some of the newest.

Bad Wolf is a dark police procedural originally written in German.  Author Nele Neuhaus has incorporated the Red Riding Hood fairy tale into this sequel to Snow White Must Die.  One odd thing about this series is that Bad Wolf is actually the sixth book in the Bodenstein and Kirchhoff series, while Snow White was the fourth.  They are simply the only Neuhaus novels so far published in English.

Joanne Fluke’s latest Hannah Swensen mystery is Blackberry Pie Murder.  This seventeenth series entry finds the Lake Eden, Minnesota, resident planning her mother’s wedding and getting arrested for murder.  This is a culinary cozy mystery, and some reviewers have complained that the book contains more recipes than story.

By Its Cover is the 23rd Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery by Donna Leon.  Leon is known for incorporating politics, morality, Italian culture, and a strong sense of place into these procedurals.  In this novel, someone has stolen pages from rare books in a Venetian library and a visiting American professor is suspected.  Leon is an American expatriate living in Venice.

Joyce Carol Oates’ novel Carthage is a serious literary mystery.  The story concerns the disappearance of a misfit sister and the suspicion surrounding her future brother-in-law, an upstanding young man who has returned from Iraq deeply wounded physically and mentally.  The novel has gotten marvelous reviews, being described as unsettling, intense, and brilliant.

Casebook is a coming-of-age novel by Mona Simpson that could be described as a mystery.  The nine-year-old protagonist sees himself as a detective, in any case, spying with his best friend on their parents.  The boys find much more than they expect or want to know.  Reviewers have praised this one, as well, saying that it’s witty and full of heart.

City of Darkness and Light is the latest in the Molly Murphy series.  Author Rhys Bowen sends Molly fleeing to Paris, where her art-student friends have vanished.  It’s 1905, and Impressionism is giving way to Fauvism and Cubism in this historical mystery set in the French art world.

If these don’t sound like your cup of tea, try the new Charlaine Harris paranormal Midnight Crossroad, watch for the upcoming Longmire Western Any Other Name by Craig Johnson, or pick up a cat mystery by Rita Mae Brown.  A mystery can be many things.  Try a few to see what appeals to you.

I'm so Dizzy, My Head is Spinning!

By Jan Pease

So many things are happening this week at the library that my head is spinning.  Wednesday, the 7^th of May is our last Toddler Time until June 11^th. I don’t know where the time has gone.  Toddler Time has been so much fun this winter.  Babies and toddlers through age two, plus older brothers and sisters, sing songs, do silly dances, and listen to a simple book.  We are very good at playing with the bean bags, singing, and dancing.  Listening to a story is a challenge at this age, but sometimes it happens. 

Thursday, May 8^th is Beginner Book Club at 3 p.m.  We read  Bad Kitty Gets a Bath which is a funny, funny book.  Discussion may get a little silly, but that’s all right.   I’ll hand out the book for June, The Trouble with Chickens, by Doreen Cronin.    Doreen Cronin has written hilarious books such as Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type, and The Trouble with Chickens  is full of her signature humor.  Beginner’s book club is for students  in grades 1-3. 

Friday, May 9^th is also our last Preschool Story Hour until June 13.  Children ages 3-5, along with older and younger siblings, come to sing, dance, hear a story, and work on a project.  I love to watch them work so seriously as they practice those small motor skills that become so important as they get older. 

On Saturday, May 10, at 10:00, we’ll have “Once Upon a Time Story Time.”  Our fairy tale will be Jack and the Beanstalk.  We’ll have a good time having a circle time, reading the story, and working on an art project. Please practice saying Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum.  By the way, does anyone know what that means? 

That same Saturday, May 10,  GOAT, the Group of Advising Teens, will have their meeting at 2:00.  If you’re a teen, and would like to tell the library what to do, come to the meeting.  We want to hear your ideas.  Help us with more summer plans; get involved in the Murder Mystery Book Club,  tell us what  you are reading or would like to read. 

On Monday May 12^th, the book to movie club will be watching Ramona and Beezus at 3:15.  If you’ve read any of the Ramona books you will enjoy this movie.  This club is for students in grades 4 through 8.

The next meeting of the Brickheads Club is May 22 at 6:30 p.m.  The Brickheads area a group of very creative young people, ages 8-14, who like to build with LEGOS.  Some of their creations are displayed in the cabinet near the front desk. 

For most of May, we’re clearing the daytime calendar so teachers may schedule their spring field trips for their classes.  The spring field trips are a great time to visit the library and get students excited about summer reading.  The theme for summer is “Paws to Read.”  We are planning programs for everyone from babies and toddlers to teens.  Watch for more information, and expect to hear about animals.  Lots of animals. 

I’m a little sad to have our story hour programs end for the spring.  I had it in my mind that we had at least two more weeks.  But June and July are just around the corner, and we have so many things planned for summer.  We’ll publish the complete information later in May.  See you at the library!   

Read, Learn, Meet, and Discover

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

How has the library made your life better?  I saw a news story the other day about a study done in the U.K. that found that visiting the library made people as happy as getting a raise.  I wonder if it’s because browsing at the library is like shopping without having to pay for it!  For many people, the library is their happy place.

St. Paul Public Library has just started a neat public awareness campaign called “Because of the Library”.  It’s being run by their very active Friends of the Library group, the same people who organize the Minnesota Book Awards.  A big part of the effort is gathering people’s stories about the benefits they have gotten from using the library.  They are using the hashtag #BecauseOfTheLibrary on Twitter and Facebook to make it easy for people to share these stories.

We’d love to hear about it if our library or other local libraries have made a difference for you or your family, as well.  Feel free to tag us on Facebook or Twitter to share something good that has happened for you here.  On Facebook, we’re Litchfield Public Library (MN).  On Twitter, you’d add @litchlibrary to your tweet. 

What kinds of things could you share?  It depends on what matters to you.  Our library system’s new strategic plan uses the phrase “read, learn, meet, and discover.”  Those things all happen daily in our building. 

Have you found a great book?  Did a staff member help you find a new author that you’ve enjoyed?  Maybe you’ve checked out a book that helped you learn something and accomplish a goal.  If a librarian helped you find the information you really needed, we’d especially love to know about that.

Do you bring your child to story hour, book club, or Brickhead Club? Have you seen them learning new skills because of it?  Adults learn, too, whether in book clubs or at cultural events.  Sometimes the learning happens one-on-one when a staff person helps a patron with an e-reader or an internet search.

Have you used our study rooms to work on a group project for school or our meeting room to attend a support group or seminar?  Many meetings happen here, and it’s also an informal gathering spot for the community.

Do you use our public computers or wi-fi?  For many people in our rural area, this is the one place where they have access to the internet at reasonably high speed.  (You are going to love it this summer when it will get much, much faster.)  If you’ve used our computers or wi-fi to find a job, do your taxes, or make travel plans, that would be great to know.  If you use the resources on our library websites without coming in to the library, a shout-out on Twitter would be so fun to see. 

Your feedback helps us evaluate whether we’re meeting the goals of our strategic plan, and the point of the plan is to provide you with excellent library service.  Let us know if something good has happened for you because of the library.

Young Adults: The Golden Age?

by Jan Pease

The golden age of young adult novels continues with four new books on my desk this week.  I don’t know why this is a trend, but they each have one-word titles.

 

I’ve been waiting for Sunrise, by Mike Mullin, for about a year. This novel is the final book in the “Ashfall” trilogy.  This trilogy follows the fate of a young man who walks through the landscape of volcanic winter after the Yellowstone Caldera explodes.  Since there really is a possibility of the Caldera blowing, this book has a sense of reality most dystopian novels don’t share.  Most of the humans and animals in the Midwest die.  The remaining people either work together to survive, or degenerate into horrible outlaw gangs.  The novels are violent and graphic, so I recommend them for older readers.

 Panic, by Lauren Oliver, reminds me of a few events I experienced some 43 years ago, although I never was in as much danger, or trouble, as the teenagers in Lauren Oliver’s town of Carp.  “Panic” is a series of challenges that teenagers can participate in just after graduation from high school. Sometimes people have died playing Panic.  The final event is a game of chicken, with cars running at high speeds and the potential for disaster. 

Author Chris Wooding has a new book, Silver, which starts like a typical British boarding school novel but, according to Booklist,  “Wooding has morphed a traditional English boarding school story—bullies, evil headmaster, well-intentioned teacher, and boy/girl drama—into a horror/survival story that would make William Golding and Gary Paulsen envious.”  Wow.  Lord of the Flies meets Hatchet?  The students find themselves fighting for survival with a biological weapon experiment that has somehow gone wrong. 

 “Conspiracy 365” was a riveting series that flew off our shelves.  Readers had to wait each month for the next book to be released. 

 The same publisher, Kane Miller, began a new series this year, “The Last Thirteen,” written by James Phalen.  Counting down from thirteen, this series explores the story of Sam, who is one of the last thirteen Dreamers. This information is quoted from the Kane Miller website: “Caught in a covert battle to preserve life as we know it, he must follow the clues to find twelve more Dreamers. Only this unique group can unravel the mysteries of an ancient prophecy and locate the long-lost key to Earth’s survival.”  The newest book is 9, and the countdown continues.

 If there is a trend in these books, it might be that authors are moving away from the paranormal and toward more action and suspense.  9, which is the most supernatural of the four books,  is still action-packed.  Of course, more action can mean more violence. The Ashfall Trilogy can be exceptionally gruesome.  At least there are no vampires, werewolves, or zombies.  See you at the library!

 

Winter is over, and winter reading is, too

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Our annual adult winter reading program is done for this year.  The theme was “Escape with a Good Read”.  We have a summer reading program for kids when they’re out of school, but we hold our adult program in the winter when most grownups have more time to read. 

Our winter reading program involves simply signing up (and getting a book bag for doing so), then turning in brief reviews for any books read between early January and the end of March.  This year we gave a coffee mug to everyone who turned in two reviews and entered people into a prize drawing when they turned in five.  Our Friends group donated prizes from local businesses for the winners.

We keep the reviews out in a basket at the front desk for anyone to read.  They’re anonymous, so all you know is that a local person wrote them.  I’ve gone through them to see what our local readers have reviewed and what they thought. 

Our adult readers turned in four reviews for three Lee Child books: The Affair, Bad Luck and Trouble, and 61 Hours.  All got very enthusiastic recommendations, with different reviewers saying the books are thrillers that you cannot put down.

We received four reviews of two Jude Deveraux books: The Blessing and High Tide.  That’s interesting because these aren’t new books; they came out in 1998 and 1999.  But I see that one of them is currently checked out again, for the 50^th time in our library.  People obviously love Deveraux’s books.  Our winter reviewers gave these romances four and five out of five stars. 

Four books by Al and JoAnna Lacy were reviewed: High is the Eagle, Let Freedom Ring, A Prince Among Them, and The Secret Place.  These are Christian historical fiction.  All of the reviewers  recommend these titles, giving them four and five stars.

Three Earlene Fowler books were reviewed by three different people (at least I’m guessing so based on the variety of handwriting styles): Broken Dishes, Delectable Mountains, and State Fair.  All are mysteries featuring the character Benni Harper.  All three people recommended them. 

One of the most-read authors in the program was William W. Johnstone, sometimes with J.A. Johnstone.  These are Westerns: Massacre at Whiskey Flats, Hard Ride to Hell, Trek of the Mountain Man, Savage Guns, and The Violent Land.  Three of these are in the Family Jensen series, one is in the Last Mountain Man series, and one is in the Blood Valley series.  All come recommended by possibly one reviewer.

The honor of being our most-reviewed author goes to Karen Kingsbury, with seven reviews turned in for six books: The Chance, Fifteen Minutes, Hannah’s Hope, Just Beyond the Clouds, This Side of Heaven, and A Thousand Tomorrows.  All were rated four or five stars.  One was described as “inspiring”, which is what Kingsbury is known for.

We will have the reviews at the front desk until the end of April.  If you’re looking for ideas about what to read, feel free to take a look.  And next year, I hope you’ll sign up for the program, too.  It’s very easy with no real commitment, just a way to track your reading and share your opinion of the books you read.  During a Minnesota winter, we can all use an escape in a good book.