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216 N Marshall Ave

Litchfield MN 55355

(320)693-2483

All Pioneerland

While all Pioneerland Library System buildings remain closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Curbside Pick-up of library items is available. You may place items on hold using the online catalog. Library staff will call you to schedule a pickup time once your hold is ready. Pickup days/times vary by location. Please contact your library if you have questions or need assistance in using this service.

Friday, February 15, 2019

Book Club Kits: The Latest and Greatest


by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Our Friends of the Litchfield Public Library group is always looking for ways to help the library.  Recently they received a donation from Joe and Nancy Paddock of ten copies of Nancy’s Minnesota Book Award-winning memoir.  The Friends purchased a tote to put them in and gifted the set to the library.  Our library system cataloged it as a book club kit, and it’s now available for anyone in the system to borrow for use with their book club or other group.  You can find it by searching “Book Club in a Bag: A Song at Twilight of Alzheimer’s and Love.”

You can find all of the book club kits in Pioneerland Library System by searching “Book Club in a Bag” as a title.  They really aren’t in bags; they come in plastic tubs.

One of the newest book club kits is “Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be” by Rachel Hollis.  This was, and continues to be, one of the most popular books of the past year.  Litchfield Library has owned a print copy of this book since last April, and it has yet to make it to the shelf; it has been checked out to people on the waiting list this entire time.  We also got an audiobook copy in November.  The twelve-copy kit belongs to the Dawson library, but you can request that it be sent here if you’d like to use it for your book club or group of friends.

On Tuesday, March 5, Hutchinson author and historian Mary Krugerud will be giving a presentation at the Litchfield Library about her new book, “The Girl in Building C: The True Story of a Teenage Tuberculosis Patient.”  Join her in the meeting room at 6:30 to learn about the history of tuberculosis, its treatment, and Minnesota sanatoriums.  Minnesota Historical Society Press recently published this collection of Marilyn Barnes’ letters to her family from the Ah-gwah-ching State Sanatorium in Walker, Minnesota in the ‘40s.  Litchfield Library has a copy of this book, but Dawson Library has a ten-copy book club kit available to order.

My adult book club is currently reading “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead, using the twelve-copy book club kit from Montevideo Library.  This book won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.  It’s an imaginative take on the actual history of slaves escaping the South.  If you’d like to join us, you can check out a copy at the library’s front desk and come to the meeting at noon on Tuesday, March 12.

Another new book club in a bag is “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” by David Grann.  We read this interesting true crime book in the adult book club last year.  This tub contains ten copies of the book, and it’s housed at the Montevideo library.
Benson has an eight-copy book club kit of “Sister Secrets: A Brother’s Reveal” by Matthew Valan.  I wasn’t familiar with this title, which was published by North Dakota University Press in 2018.  The author is a minister who lives on his farm near Moorhead, and he delves into his family history with this story of his two sisters who were diagnosed too late with bipolar disorder. 

If you have a book club that you can trust with copies that are checked out to you, a kit is a great option for getting many copies at once.  There are 71 different book club kits in Pioneerland with more added all the time.