Reading about Laura Ingalls Wilder

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Minnesotans love Laura Ingalls Wilder.  She was a Minnesotan for part of her childhood, so On the Banks of Plum Creek is set here.  Personally, I love the window into history that Laura’s well-written children’s books give us. 

 Pioneerland libraries are bringing in a Laura Ingalls Wilder interactive history performer between late October and Thanksgiving.  Historian Melanie Stringer acts the part of Laura in the mid-1890s, when she, Almanzo, and their young daughter Rose had settled on Rocky Ridge Farm in Missouri.  Stringer has studied Wilder extensively, and she travels the country presenting Laura as she might have been after she had lived through the events in her books but before she became a writer.

The programs in Meeker County are happening in early November.  Our first “Meet Laura Ingalls Wilder” program will be in the community room behind the Grove City Library on Friday, November 2, at 6:00 p.m.  The event at the Litchfield Library will be on Wednesday, November 7, at 6:00 p.m.  Cosmos Library hosts its program in the community room next to the library on Thursday, November 8, at 10:00 a.m.  And Dassel Library’s program will be held upstairs at the Dassel History Center and Ergot Museum at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 10.  All are free to attend, funded with assistance from the Clean Water, Land, & Legacy Amendment, and there’s no need to sign up.

So what can you check out at the library if you want to learn more about Laura before or after the events?  We have many things to choose from.  We have the Little House series itself in the children’s department, including some in audiobook format – good for a family road trip.

The library has the recent adult novel Caroline: Little House, Revisited by Sarah Miller.  This popular book imagines the story of the Ingalls family from the perspective of Ma Ingalls.  If you’ve ever thought about what Caroline must have gone through every time Charles decided to move the family, this may be a book you’d enjoy.

The recent non-fiction book for adults, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Frontier Landscapes That Inspired the Little House Books, takes a nature-focused approach to understanding the series.  Author Marta McDowell deeply researched the locations featured in the novels, and she details the landscapes, wild plants, and gardens from each place.  The book is full of illustrations and maps. 

Caroline Fraser won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for her book Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  This comprehensive historical biography of Wilder is based on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records.  Fraser demonstrates that Wilder’s life was even more difficult than her books show, despite the hardships they describe.

I just finished reading Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, the bestselling book that the South Dakota Historical Society published in 2014.  It was Wilder’s first crack at writing down her life story, and it demonstrated to me how good she was as a novelist.  As she revised the stories multiple times, Wilder fictionalized some characters and events, and she made her word choices more vivid, which made the novels suspenseful and moving.  This scholarly book also makes it clear that Laura wrote the books and had good instincts for them, and her daughter Rose did not.

If you are enthusiastic about Laura like I am, or if you just want to learn more about the realities of pioneer history, come to one of our programs.  If none of the dates in our county work for you, check out the whole Pioneerland schedule on our website, because Melanie will be performing in Hutchinson, Atwater, and in many other communities in the region. 

Outstanding books by Minnesota authors

By Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

The 2018 Minnesota Book Awards were presented on April 21. This was the 30^th annual awards ceremony, which is sponsored by the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library.  These awards celebrate Minnesota authors and illustrators.

This year’s award for children’s literature went to A Different Pond by Bao Phi.  This picture book tells a story from Phi’s childhood.  He would wake up early with his father to fish in a Minneapolis pond before his father went to work, as a way to help feed their family, and his father would tell him about a different pond he used to go to in Vietnam.  “A Different Pond” was also a Caldecott Honor Book this year, and we have it at the Litchfield Library.

The award for genre fiction went to The End of Temperance Dare by Wendy Webb.  This Gothic thriller is set in a former tuberculosis sanatorium, now turned into an artists’ retreat.  The new director is expecting a peaceful change from her old job as a crime reporter, but a sense of impending doom strikes her as soon as she arrives on the grounds, and she begins to suspect that the artists have been gathered there for a sinister purpose.  The Litchfield Library also has a copy of this novel.

Linda LeGarde Grover won the award for memoir and creative nonfiction with Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year. Onigamiising is the Ojibwe name for Duluth, “the place of the small portage.”  Grover is an Ojibwe elder and a professor at the University of Minnesota – Duluth.  The essays in this collection originally were published as monthly columns in the Duluth Budgeteer newspaper, and they are reflections on life through the seasons of the year.  Litchfield Library has this memoir.

The novel and short story award went to What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah.  This is a collection of fantastical short stories about the ties between family members, lovers, and friends, and between them and the places they call home.  Arimah has previously won awards for her stories in magazines; this is her first book, and it has also won a number of honors.  The Litchfield Library owns a copy.

The award for poetry went to Heid E. Erdrich for Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum for Archaic Media.  Heid is a professor at Augsburg University, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, and the sister of novelist Louise Erdrich.  This is her second book of poetry to win the Minnesota Book Award.  Communication and technology are the themes of this collection, which is on order for the Litchfield Library.

Andrea Swensson is the host of The Local Show on the radio station The Current.  She won this year’s award for Minnesota Nonfiction with Got to Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound.  This book explores the development of R&B, funk, and soul in the Twin Cities, starting with 1958, the year Prince was born.  This book is available at the Dassel and Glencoe libraries and can be ordered by our patrons.

The other winning books were The End of the Wild by Nicole Helget (middle grade literature), The Exo Project by Andrew DeYoung (young adult literature), and The First and Only Book of Sack: 36 Years of Cartoons for the Star Tribune by Steve Sack (general nonfiction).  Read Minnesotan!

Book award season

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Let’s talk book awards.  This past week brought us book awards big and small, with the Pulitzers and the Minnesota Book Awards, and our library has a number of them available for you to check out.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.  Although this book has gotten great reviews and has been up for other literary awards, not many people have heard of it.  A mixture of thriller and satire, this novel is described as smart and perspective-changing.  The narrator is a Viet Cong secret agent who evacuates with the last of the South Vietnamese flying out of Saigon.  He then continues to spy on a general and others as they start a new life in Los Angeles in the ‘70s. 

The Pulitzer for history went to Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T.J. Stiles.  This biography digs into who George Armstrong Custer was as a person, intense and full of contradictions.  The author focuses on how Custer lived on a frontier in a sense of the time period, uncomfortably navigating the major changes in society that came in the middle of the nineteenth century.  Expect to have your ideas about Custer challenged if you read this one.

The Minnesota Book Award for general nonfiction was awarded to No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, and Other Transgressions by Ryan Berg.  Berg was a caseworker in a group home for homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) teens in New York.  Twenty to forty percent of homeless teens in the United States are LGBTQ, mostly because of family conflict and often because their parents have forced them out of the house.  Berg attempts to find patterns in the stories of the kids he worked with, trying to figure out what would help them build healthy relationships and successful lives once they aged out of the foster care system.

Erin Hart’s The Grave Soul won the Minnesota Book Award for genre fiction.  This is the 23^rd book in her Jane Lawless mysteries series, which has been going since 1989.  Jane is a (fictional) Minneapolis restaurateur and private investigator.  In this installment, Jane is hired by a man who wonders if his girlfriend’s recurring nightmare about her mother being murdered is true, even though it doesn’t agree with her family’s account of how she died. 

The Minnesota Book Award for memoir and creative nonfiction went to Karen Babine for Water and What We Know: Following the Roots of a Northern Life.  Babine’s essays explore how the land affects the people who live on it, and how water is a part of human stories.

Minnesota Modern: Architecture and Life at Midcentury by Larry Millett won the Minnesota award given by the Minnesota Book Awards.  How’s that for enough uses of the name of our state?  Millett is known for books on Minnesota architecture, such as Lost Twin Cities and Once There Were Castles, as well as a series of novels about Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota.  “Minnesota Modern” explores houses and public buildings that were built between 1945 and the mid-1960s. 

The Litchfield Library has copies of all of these books, as well as There’s Something I Want You to Do by Charles Baxter, the winner of the Minnesota Book Award in the novel and short story category, and Red: A Crayon’s Story by Michael Hall, the winner in children’s literature.  Other Pulitzer Prize and Minnesota Book Award winners are available to order in our catalog.  Enjoy some of the best writing our nation and our state have to offer.

What's new at the library?

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Our library system is looking for local artists to design our adult winter reading program artwork for next year.  Every year we have a winter reading program for adults beginning in January.  When you sign up for the program at our library, you get a book bag.  When you turn in your book reviews, you get a coffee mug.  This year the items we give participants will feature a design by an artist who lives within the Pioneerland or Plum Creek library systems, since the two systems have begun collaborating on the program. 

The slogan is Book Your Winter Getaway.  We plan to continue using this slogan for years to come but feature different artwork each year.  The slogan needs to be incorporated into the artwork, along with “Winter Reading Program”. 

The artist whose design is chosen will receive a $500 prize, and his or her design will be used on our posters, bookmarks, reading logs, and incentives throughout southwestern Minnesota.  The winner will be chosen by a committee.  The deadline for submission is October 20.  You can pick up a copy of the guidelines and submission instructions at our library or follow this link: http://www.plumcreeklibrary.org/Online%20Docs/Art_Work_design_solicitation_2014.pdf

David Housewright

We are bringing Minnesota mystery author David Housewright to the area with Legacy funding this fall.  He will be speaking at the Dassel History Center on Saturday, October 11, at 2 pm.  Housewright won an Edgar Award for Best First Novel for Penance in 1996.  This is a national award from the Mystery Writers of America.  He also won three Minnesota Book Awards, for Practice to Deceive, Jelly’s Gold and Curse of the Jade Lily in 1998, 2010, and 2013.  The Devil May Care is his latest novel.

Housewright will be speaking on the third floor of the Dassel History Center & Ergot Museum.  This event is free to attend and you don’t need to sign up to attend.  The Friends of the Dassel Library will be serving light refreshments. 

New library cards

Our patrons have been asking for key-fob library cards.  These mini duplicate cards are like those you get from businesses that have rewards cards, a small version you can attach to your key chain.  I am pleased to tell you we now have them available.  Those who are getting their first library card will have the choice of a regular card or one with a key-fob card to go with it.  If you already have a card and you want to get the new style, we will have to charge you $3 for a replacement card like we would when your card is lost.  But you do have that option to make the change even if your card isn’t lost. 

This should be convenient for someone who uses their library card at home on the computer for ordering materials and leaves it on their desk, or for those who don’t bring their wallets or purses everywhere they go.  We do require the patron’s library card when you pick up their requested materials, so this may make dividing up family errand running easier for some.  How you use the new style of library card is up to you, but we hope it will make using your library card more convenient.

All of these things are happening at the library because someone had a great idea.  When you have an idea about what would make the library better, let us know. Maybe we’ll be able to make it a reality, too!

Book event with local author Megan Kiffmeyer

Remembering the Dakota Conflict

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Although the Dakota Conflict was especially on our minds last year because it was the 150^th anniversary, we are again at the anniversary in the middle of August.  Many local people come to the library looking for books on the history of the war, and our collection does include many books about it, old and new. 

One of the newest is practically a pamphlet at 22 pages.  Red Earth, White Road by Janet Timmerman is part of the Rural and Regional Essay Series.  The series is supported and distributed by the Society for the Study of Local and Regional History at Southwest Minnesota State University.  Red Earth, White Road tells the true story of the LaFramboises, a mixed-race family caught between the two sides of the U.S.-Dakota Conflict. 

Birch Coulie: The Epic Battle of the Dakota War is a nonfiction account of the decisive battle, written by John Christgau and published in 2012.  It should not be confused with the 1957 novel Birch Coulie by Bernard Frances Ederer, which we also have in the library.  The Christgau book is described as dramatic but accurate and balanced.

Local author Dean Urdahl’s Uprising Saga centers on the Dakota Conflict and its aftermath, within the context of the Civil War.  The four novels in the series are Uprising, Retribution, Pursuit, and Conspiracy.  Representative Urdahl was a history teacher for 35 years, and he incorporated his extensive knowledge of this time period into his novels.

 38 Nooses: Lincoln,Little Crow, and the Beginning of Frontier’s End tells the story of the conflict through the stories of several people: Little Crow; Sarah Wakefield, a captive of the Dakota who was vilified for defending them; Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple, an advocate for the Indians’ cause; and President Lincoln.  This nonfiction book by Scott W. Berg has gotten great reviews nationwide.  As he details the stories of these individuals, Berg also places the Minnesota events in the context of the Civil War, the history of the Dakota, and the U.S.-Indian wars.

 The Dakota Prisonerof War Letters is a collection of letters written by the Dakota men imprisoned at Camp McClellan in Davenport, Iowa, after their death sentences were commuted.  Dakota elders and retired Presbyterian ministers Clifford Canku and Michael Simon translated and chose the fifty letters included in the book.  The book provides the text of the letters in the original Dakota, the literal translation word-by-word into English, and a translation into contemporary Standard English.  The letters have been stored at the Minnesota Historical Society for decades.  They were written to Stephen Riggs, a Presbyterian missionary who created the written Dakota language.  He shared the letters with the prisoners’ families.  This book is unique because these are the prisoners’ own written accounts of what happened during the conflict and at the prison camp, never before published.

These are just some of the recent books related to the conflict that we have in our collection; older books are available, as well.  We also have resources on microfilm.  We have manuscripts from the Dakota Conflict of 1862 collection and other documents from the Minnesota Historical Society that relate to the conflict.  Our staff can show you how to use the microfilm reader if you’d like to explore those resources, or we can direct you to any of the books that you would like to find.

A 19th century Manannah man -- or woman?

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Someone told me recently that there is a book about a woman who lived as a man in Meeker County in the mid-1800s.  I had never heard about this part of our local history, and I was glad to find I’d already gotten the novel for our library: The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell, by William Klaber.  It just came out in June. 

Lucy, who took the name Joseph, lived near Mannanah in 1857 and 1858.  According to The First Hundred Years: A History of Meeker County, by Patrick Casey:

“In 1857 she spent much of her time in and around Manannah, doing chores, chopping wood, etc., dressed in male attire.  Sometime in 1858 it was discovered that she was a woman and the fact that she dressed as a man seems to have shocked the morals of certain members of the community and she hailed before Judge Robson’s court.”

A.C. Smith, the author of the 1877 book History of Meeker County, was one of her defense attorneys.   She was charged with “falsely impersonating a man to the great scandal of the community and against the peace and dignity of the State of Minnesota.”  No one produced evidence of Lobdell doing anything more than dressing as a man.  The court found her not guilty because they said the right of women to “wear the pants” had been established since the time of the Roman emperor Justinian. 

The story of Lobdell’s life is much longer and more complicated than the brief stay in our area.  If you’re curious about her beginnings as a musician and hunter in New York, her desertion by her husband, or her long stretches living as a man and marriage to a woman, check out the novel.  It even has footnotes about all of Lobdell’s history that can be found, including her own writings.

Sometimes it’s fun to be able to picture the setting where a story takes place.  Other recent books set in Minnesota, present or past, that we have at the library include:

·         Criminal Enterprise by Owen Laukkanen, set in St. Paul;
·         The Icecutter’s Daughter and The Quarryman’s Bride, the first two books in The Land of Shining Water series by Tracie Peterson, set in Waseca, St. Cloud, and Minneapolis;
·         Red Velvet Cupcake Murder by Joanne Fluke, set in fictional Lake Eden;
·         Tapestry of Fortunes by Elizabeth Berg, set in St. Paul;
·         Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger, set in fictional New Bremen in the Minnesota River Valley;
·         Vacationland by Sarah Stonich, set at a lake resort in northern Minnesota; and
·         Silken Prey by John Sandford, set in Minneapolis.

When you’re looking for an idea for a good book to read, stop in to browse our shelf of new adult books or ask someone on the library staff for help.  We strive to offer a wide variety of books to appeal to all different kinds of readers.

Weather Permitting - A Severe Weather Event at the Library

Author event at Litchfield

Library

Thursday, May 2

6:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Out of the Blue:

The true story of two sisters and their miraculous survival of one of the most powerful

tornadoes in Minnesota

history

by Scott Thoma

Forewords by KARE 11 meteorologist Jerrid Sebesta and Tracy resident Seth Schmidt

On June 13, 1968, the town of Tracy was struck by the first recorded F5 tornado in Minnesota history. Nine people were killed and 125 others were injured. Nearly one-fourth of the town's homes were destroyed, plus the elementary school and several businesses.

About the Author:

Scott Thoma is uniquely qualified to write Out of the Blue, having lived in Tracy when the tornado struck. He boasts a resume that includes parallel award-winning careers as both a sports reporter and sports editor at a Minnesota daily newspaper for nearly 30 years. Thoma currently lives in Willmar, Minnesota.

Paperback - $14.95– PUB DATE: June 2012

Read local! Find the best Minnesota books at your library

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

This year’s Minnesota Book Award winners were just announced on April 13 at the awards gala in St. Paul.  Books created by writers or illustrators who are Minnesotans are eligible.  Panels of volunteer judges, including such people as booksellers, librarians, publishers, book reviewers, teachers, and writers, choose the winners.

Our library has several of the winning books available for you to check out. 

This year’s award for general nonfiction went to David Treuer for Rez Life: An Indian’s JourneyThrough Reservation Life.  Treuer is a professor and novelist who won the Minnesota Book Award in 1996.  He lives part-time on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota.  The book focuses on the Ojibwe reservations of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.  This first nonfiction book by Treuer is also the first book written by an insider about Indian reservations.

The award for genre fiction was given to David Housewright for his mystery, Curse of the Jade Lily.  Housewright won an Edgar Award for his first novel in 1996, and two previous Minnesota Book Awards in 1998 and 2009.  Curse of the Jade Lily is the ninth novel in the Rushmore McKenzie crime series.  The 200-year-old Jade Lily is stolen from a Minneapolis art museum, and the thieves offer to sell it back at less than its value if private eye McKenzie acts as the go-between.

Atina Diffley won this year’s award for memoir and creative nonfiction for Turn Here Sweet Corn:Organic Farming Works.  Diffley and her husband owned and operated one of the first certified organic farms in the Midwest from 1972 to 2007.  They now run a consulting business, Organic Farming Works, LLC.  In this memoir, Diffley tells their story of starting out in organic farming when it was a new thing.  She focuses on human relationships with the earth, plants, animals, and communities.

The Award for Minnesota was given to Gwen Westerman and Bruce White for their book Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota.  This nonfiction book pulls together a detailed history of the Dakota people living in Minnesota for hundreds of years, based on oral history interviews and archives.

Louise Erdrich won the National Book Award for The Round House before the book won the Minnesota Book Award for Novel and Short Story this year.  Set in 1988 on a reservation in North Dakota, the novel tells the story of a 13-year-old’s quest with his friends to find answers about a traumatizing, racist attack on his mother.  Tragic, comic, and spiritual, many have described this as Erdrich’s best novel yet.

Come to the library to find some of the best books our state has to offer from the past year and from the past twenty-five years of the Minnesota Book Award.

How to Read Minnesotan

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Come to the library to find some new books with Minnesota ties.

The Minnesota Book of Skills

The Minnesota Book of Skills: Your Guide to Smoking Whitefish, Sauna Etiquette, Tick Extraction, and More is a fun, brand-new book from the Minnesota Historical Society Press.  Author Chris Niskanen has put together a collection of short overviews of many topics, such as building your own backyard ice rink, portaging in the BWCA, finding agates, and backing up a trailer.  I was curious to read the sauna etiquette section, since my grandma had a wood-burning sauna I used often as a child.  I learned from the book that there’s a Finnish word for the combined smell of the steam, wood, and woodsmoke of a sauna: löyly.  Now I know that it’s löyly that makes me powerfully nostalgic for Saturday sauna nights.  This is a book I plan to read further and probably give for Christmas gifts, because I think it’s both useful and entertaining.

We Sinners

Another book I look forward to reading doesn’t take place in Minnesota, but it could have been set here because the same religious and ethnic group lives in our area.  We Sinners by Hanna Pylväinen is a novel about a Finnish Laestadian Lutheran family in Michigan.    Each chapter is told by a different person in the eleven-member Rovaniemi family.  Some of the children stay in the church, and others leave.  Some readers have told me that they loved it and learned so much more about Finnish Lutherans, while others have said they’ve been disappointed that it didn’t go deeper.  The final chapter, which takes place at the founding of the Laestadian church, tends to confuse most readers; it’s intended as historical perspective.    Amazon named this one of its best books of the month in August, and it has gotten good reviews elsewhere for Pylväinen's spare, nuanced writing.

Cooking With Pavarotti

A Litchfield writer praised for her nuanced writing, Nancy Paddock has a new book of poetry out this year that our library has added to the collection this fall.  Cooking with Pavarotti includes poems on the culinary arts and many other subjects.  This book is published by Red Dragonfly Press.  We do not yet have Joe Paddock’s new book, but I will find a copy for our library.

Mni Sota Makoce

Another new book from the Minnesota Historical Society Press is Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota.  According to the book, “The Dakota phrase Mni Sota Makoce, Land Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds, gives the state of Minnesota its name.” The book tells the story of the Dakota people in Minnesota: creation stories , archaeological history, interactions and treaties with European Americans, and modern efforts to reclaim traditional cultural places.

One Drop in a Sea of Blue

Yet another book from the MHS Press, One Drop in a Sea of Blue: The Liberators of the Ninth Minnesota, tells a little-known story of the Civil War.  In 1863, 38 men from the Ninth Minnesota Regiment held a train at gunpoint to free a fugitive slave and his family who had been captured and were being shipped out of state to be sold.  Because it happened in Missouri where the soldiers were not to interfere with Union loyalists who were slaveholders, the soldiers were charged with treason and imprisoned without trial for two months.  Their case was debated in the U.S. Senate.  The book follows these 38 after their release, as they rejoined their regiment to be defeated at Brice Crossroads.  Some were imprisoned at Andersonville stockade.  The Ninth suffered unusually high mortality rates at Andersonville, but those who continued to fight helped to win the western theater of the war.    Fourteen of the 38 liberators survived the war and left behind accounts of their wartime experiences.  Author John B. Lundstrom tells a carefully researched story that is being described as a microcosm of the entire Civil War experience.

A library should have books that cover local interests.  I hope you’ll find something that interests you among these new additions.

Fun and History in Walnut Grove

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

On Saturday, July 7th, I led a group of people from Dassel, Litchfield, and Grove City to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Pioneerland Library System collaborated with Plum Creek Library System to our south to bring busloads of library patrons from our region to the pageant. This was sponsored in part by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, as well as by the pageant itself.

Our group went early enough to take in some of the other Ingalls attractions in Walnut Grove. We visited the dugout site, where the Ingalls lived during the book On the Banks of Plum Creek. It’s a privately-owned farm where the family allows tourists to visit for a small fee. The dugout itself collapsed long ago, but the sunken spot is there to see. The Ingalls family certainly lived in small houses for most of their lives.

Visitors can wade in Plum Creek just like Laura, Mary, and Nellie did. Several people in our group went in. Luckily no one encountered leeches or a “crab” (I would imagine it was really a crayfish) in the stream, which Laura and Nellie did in the book.

I’m a lifelong fan of the Little House books, so it was exciting for me to stand in that place described so carefully by Laura. It looks like so many other places around Minnesota, but it’s been immortalized by being included in a classic children’s book.

After leaving the dugout site, I set our group free in the town of Walnut Grove to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum or to go to the Family Festival taking place that afternoon. I toured the museum, which is a group of small buildings. They include a schoolhouse, a dugout, a chapel, and some old-fashioned houses, and they house the museum’s collections. This museum has little that belonged to the Ingalls, but it teaches visitors about her life and times and her books, as well as the television series that was based loosely on the books.

In the evening we all boarded the bus for the pageant, which takes place a short distance outside of town. The chairs are on a hillside, with general seating open on either side for people who bring blankets or lawn chairs. The stage area includes a permanent dugout and a pioneer town backdrop. The production itself was impressive. It’s community theater that’s perfected by performing the show every year. The Ingalls family rides onto the stage area in a covered wagon pulled by a team of horses. The church is a massive set piece that’s put up by the cast and crew when the congregation builds a church in the story. The prairie fire is real fire, and really exciting. The “social” is a big dance number that is a showstopper. When Mary loses her sight, it’s very sad. Nellie and Willie are appropriately obnoxious. The play is funny, it’s touching, and it shows the immense difficulties that Minnesota settlers faced in the 19th century.

Our group enjoyed the trip very much. The participants ranged in age from 8 to senior citizen. They gave the program high marks for being very enjoyable, and some said they could not have had this experience without the library-sponsored trip. If you are a Little House fan who hasn’t been to the pageant, I recommend it to you as a great arts and history program that celebrates one of our most famous Minnesota authors.

Fun Minnesota Author Events This Month

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian


Our libraries in Meeker County have some exciting events coming up in the next week. All of them are brought to us by Pioneerland Library System with funding from Minnesota’s Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.

The first is a Minnesota author event in Dassel on Thursday, June 14. Mystery writer William Kent Krueger will be speaking at 2 p.m. at the Dassel History Center & Ergot Museum at 901 1st St N. Krueger is a four-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award. His novel Vermillion Drift was a New York Times bestseller. Krueger’s books are set in the north woods of Minnesota and feature the character Cork O’Connor, a former sheriff of Ojibwe and Irish descent. The latest in the series is Northwest Angle. The next one, Trickster’s Point, is coming out in August. I’ve heard Krueger speak at a conference, and he is an insightful, interesting man who is good at speaking to a full room or to an individual person. If you’re a fan (and I know there are many of you out there), I’d recommend this as a good opportunity to meet him.

The next is another Minnesota author, Mary Casanova. She will be speaking at the Grove City Library in the community room on Thursday, June 21, at 3 p.m. Casanova is a children’s author who writes novels and picture books. She has won two Minnesota Book Awards, a spot on the American Library Association Notable Books for Children list, and a Parents’ Choice Gold Award. She has written several American Girl books, including those featuring Chrissa, Jess, and McKenna. She has also written books that have no connection to American Girl, such as One-Dog Canoe, Stealing Thunder, and Utterly Otterly Day. Bring the family and meet an author who can help inspire your children to write and to have a life-long love of reading.

Finally, our third event will take place on Friday, June 22. Meteorologist Mike Lynch will be presenting a Starwatch program at the Forest City Thresher’s Building from 9 - 11 p.m. The building is across the road from the Forest City Stockade. The presentation will begin with a half-hour orientation to the night sky with maps, before looking up at the stars to locate constellations. Mike will also have large telescopes set up for everyone to look through. Bring chairs or blankets and bug spray.

For all of these events, there is no need to register or to pay for admission. Everyone is welcome to come and learn from some of the authors who live here in Minnesota.

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.