Closed for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day

Closed for Veterans Day

Pioneerland libraries will be closed on Monday, November 11, for Veterans Day.

Closed Labor Day

The Litchfield Public Library will be closed on Monday, September 2, for Labor Day.

Closed for Independence Day

Pioneerland libraries will be closed on Thursday, July 4, for Independence Day.

Closed for Martin Luther King Day

Pioneerland libraries will be closed on Monday, January 21, 2019, for Martin Luther King Day.

Grownups, Find Some Christmas Cheer at the Library

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield Head Librarian

It’s the holiday season!  Pioneerland libraries will be closed on Monday, December 24, and Tuesday, December 25, for Christmas.  The following week, we will be closing at 5 p.m. on Monday, December 31, and we will be closed on Tuesday, January 1, for New Year’s.  Otherwise the hours will be normal all of the other days.

Christmas books, movies, and music are always in demand this time of year.  We’ve got some new additions for grownups available.

12 Days at Bleakly Manor is an inspirational mystery that we just got in large print.  Author Michelle Griep launched a series called “Once Upon a Dickens Christmas” with this novel.  Set in England in 1851, this story is set up when guests receive mysterious invitations to spend Christmas at a manor home and are promised a substantial sum of money if they stay the entire twelve days.  A formerly engaged couple finds they are both among the guests.

Deck the Hounds is the latest Andy Carpenter novel by David Rosenfelt, but apparently it can be enjoyed even if you haven’t read any of the others.  Criminal defense lawyer Andy gives a homeless man with a dog some money, then later learns that the dog is quarantined for biting someone who attacked them.  Andy and his wife give them a place to stay at Christmas, and Andy’s legal services come in handy when the homeless vet is accused of a crime.  This sweet Christmas mystery is recommended for animal lovers. 

Yet another cozy Christmas mystery, Lark! The Herald AngelsSing is part of the Meg Langslow series by Donna Andrews.  Meg discovers a live baby in the manger while directing a nativity pageant.  A note suggests that the baby’s father is Meg’s brother, and Meg sets out to find out who the baby’s parents actually are.  Along with the mystery aspect of the story, this is a funny and heartwarming novel.

Some of our other new Christmas novels include Six Cats a Slayin’ by Miranda James, Christmas on the Island by Jenny Colgan, The Christmas Star by Donna VanLiere, and A True Cowboy Christmas by Caitlin Crews.

Don’t forget the Christmas DVDs:  Christmas in the Air is a Hallmark Christmas movie that has just been added to our collection.  Those seem to be more popular all the time!  Catherine Bell stars as a professional organizer who is hired by a frazzled widower with two young children.  He’s a toy inventor who has twelve days to get his life and business in order before pitching his new products.  It sounds like it has exactly the kind of opposites-attract, gentle romance you expect from a Hallmark Christmas movie.

Do you remember Pat Boone’s holiday specials on TV in the ‘70s?  Two of them have just been released on the DVD Pat Boone and Family: Christmas and Thanksgiving Specials.  You get the whole Boone family, plus Dinah Shore, Rosemary Clooney, Tom Bosley, and other stars from years ago.  Now, if they would just release the John Denver and the Muppets Christmas special from the ‘70s, I’d be really happy.

Whether it’s a music CD, a movie, or a book for kids or adults, our library has a huge number of holiday items available to check out.  Pick up a cookbook of party recipes for New Year’s Eve while you’re here, too!  Have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Thanksgiving Movies at the Library

Library column for 11/21/18

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

“Come, ye thankful people, come, Raise the song of harvest-home; All is safely gathered in, Ere the winter storms begin.”  This Thanksgiving hymn by Henry Alford was written in 1844, but here in rural Minnesota we still understand the importance of bringing in the harvest before winter begins.  My neighbors were working hard at that in the little bit of warm weather we had lately.

The Litchfield Library, along with all Pioneerland libraries, will be closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving.  We’ll be open normal hours the rest of the week.  As you gather with family and friends, or as you have a quiet day at home, perhaps you’d like to have a Thanksgiving movie on hand to watch after you’re done eating turkey.  There are a number of movies in the Litchfield Library collection that have some connection to the holiday.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is the obvious choice if you have children in the house.  Not as good as A Charlie Brown Christmas or It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, this 25-minute TV special from 1973 is still fun.  Charlie Brown has a predicament: what to do when his pushy friend Peppermint Patty invites herself and others to his house for Thanksgiving dinner, even though his family is going to be leaving for his grandmother’s house?  Snoopy saves the day with an assortment of snacks served on the ping-pong table.  To be like Charlie Brown, my family usually eats popcorn, pretzels, toast, and jelly beans on Thanksgiving night, a tradition we started when my kids were little.

Intended for a bit older audience than Charlie Brown, Pieces of April is a 2003 movie about a free-spirited 21-year-old attempting to make Thanksgiving dinner for her estranged family.  Her parents, siblings, and grandma drive to New York City from suburban Pennsylvania while April discovers her oven doesn’t work, and she turns to her eccentric neighbors for help.  Katie Holmes stars in this comedy about family dysfunction; critics say it’s endearing, if a little edgy.

Holiday Inn is one of those 1940s classics: Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and music by Irving Berlin.  A couple of friends who have left show business run an inn that is open only on holidays – a perfect vehicle for a movie full of holiday-themed musical numbers.  There is a Thanksgiving holiday in the movie, and the Christmas scenes include the song “White Christmas,” so you can start to get in that holiday spirit, as well.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop isn’t a favorite of movie critics, but you might get some laughs out of it anyway.  Kevin James stars in a story about a New Jersey security guard who defends a mall from a group of organized criminals who take shoppers hostage on Black Friday.

Do you watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thanksgiving morning?  The movie Miracle on 34th Street begins with the parade, where the actor playing Santa is discovered to be drunk and is switched with a very popular replacement.  The replacement is then hired to work as Santa in the store, but things take a turn when he claims to be the real Santa Claus.  The 1947 version, starring Maureen O’Hara and Natalie Wood, won three Oscars.

I am thankful for all of the library users and supporters in our area who help make our library a hub of the community. I wish you and yours a peaceful and bountiful Thanksgiving Day. 

Pioneerland libraries closed Monday

Celebrate Your Freedom to Read

by Beth Cronk, Meeker County Librarian

Happy Independence Day!  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” These words from the Declaration of Independence remain inspiring and relevant today, 242 years after they were written.  This week we celebrate America, in all of its imperfect glory.  

Our founding documents are essential for all Americans to read.  The National Archives have the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights available to read at www.archives.gov/founding-docs.

You can also find them in our new library book, The Handy American Government Answer Book: How Washington, Politics, and Elections Work by Gina Misiroglu.  This resource also explains how Congress and the courts work, what the roles and responsibilities of the president are, what civil liberties and civil rights are, plus a number of other issues related to how our government works.  It’s all organized in a question and answer format; for example: “Why was Samuel Adams called the Father of the American Revolution?” “What is the role of the first lady?” and “How are interest groups regulated by the government?”

Thomas Paine said, “It is the object only of war that makes it honorable.  And if there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.” (This and all quotations in this article are from Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 2012) You can read about this war in our new book, The West Point History of the American Revolution.  This history covers everything from the causes of the revolution and its first battles to Yorktown and beyond, discussing the adoption of the Constitution and the formation of our country. 

For some perspective on our current era, Jon Meacham wrote The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels.  The phrase comes from Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address: “The mystic chords of memory...will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” In this new book, Pulitzer Prize-winner Meacham examines other critical times in American history when fierce partisan division threatened our country.  He reminds us that we have faced political turmoil many times in the past, and we have come through better than before. 

George Washington said, “I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.”  Mohammed Al Samawi fled Yemen for the United States in 2015.  In his new book The Fox Hunt: A Refugee’s Memoir of Coming to America, Al Samawi tells his story of becoming an interfaith peace activist after secretly reading a copy of the Bible.  Extremists in Yemen threatened his life for working with Jewish and Christian people, and then he was trapped in his apartment in the midst of a battle.  He reached out on Facebook for help, and four Americans helped him get out.  This suspenseful story is being developed into a movie. 

At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”  James and Deborah Fallows traveled the country for the past five years doing research for their new book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America.  They found people in middle America banding together to find practical solutions to societal problems, and the book is quite optimistic.  Duluth, Minnesota, is one of the cities featured. 

Thomas Jefferson said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”  This week we celebrate our freedom.  May we, like Jefferson, be curious readers who are always looking to improve our minds and education, for the benefit of our wonderful nation. 

Closed for Independence Day

Pioneerland libraries will be closed on Wednesday, July 4, for Independence Day.

Closed for Martin Luther King Jr. holiday

Pioneerland libraries will be closed on Monday, January 15, for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Readin' Around the Christmas Tree

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Christmas is only a few days away.  If you’re in the Christmas spirit and you have time to read a book (You have time to read a book at Christmastime? What's your secret??), the library has a number of this year’s new holiday books you could bring home to read during this coming week.

A new nonfiction book from Oxford University Press, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World’s Most Celebrated Holiday, examines whether there is or ever has been a war on Christmas.  Historian Gerry Bowler specializes in the intersection of religion and popular culture.  He demonstrates that throughout history, beginning with the holiday’s controversial invention during the Roman Empire, Christmas has inspired debate and conflict.  Involving Puritans, Bolsheviks, Hitler, and Charles Dickens, this book can give you some historical perspective on the issue.

You can’t tell from looking at the cover, but Mercedes Lackey’s newest novel, A Scandal in Battersea, is a Christmas story.  This is the twelfth book in Lackey’s Elemental Masters series about Sherlock Holmes in an alternate, magical England.  John and Mary Watson, both Elemental Masters, are celebrating Christmas when they are asked to investigate the reappearance of missing women, all of whom have been driven mad by whatever happened after they disappeared.

The Usual Santas: A Collection of Soho Crime Christmas Capers is a collection of eighteen holiday stories.  The crime authors include Mick Herron, Timothy Hallinan, Peter Lovesey, and Lene Kaaberbol.  Expect humor, murder, and international locations from Sweden to North Korea.

For something gentler, Melody Carlson’s The Christmas Blessing may fit the bill.  Carlson is a bestselling author of Christian fiction, including many Christmas novels.  In The Christmas Blessing, Amelia despairs when the father of her baby is shot down in the South Pacific in 1944.  Without a job or money, she must decide whether to go to his high-class parents, who don’t know about her or the baby.

Debbie Macomber is another bestselling author known for her clean and gentle novels, including popular Christmas books.  Merry and Bright is her newest.  Merry Knight takes care of her mother who has multiple sclerosis and her brother who has Down syndrome, when she isn’t working overtime.  But her family is concerned she doesn’t have a social life and they set up an online dating profile for her.  She hits it off online with someone, only to be shocked when they meet in person. 

Elin Hilderbrand’s Winter Trilogy has just gotten a fourth book, Winter Solstice.  (Does that make it a quartet?)  The Quinn family is gathered for the first time in a long time to celebrate the holidays at the Winter Street Inn on Nantucket Island.  Many of their difficulties have been resolved, but their patriarch is dying of cancer.  Hilderbrand is good at writing characters; those who enjoy bittersweet family stories are likely to enjoy this farewell to the series. 

Other new Christmas books for adults include How the Finch Stole Christmas by Donna Andrews, Fatal Frost by Karen MacInerney, Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb, Sugar Pine Trail by RaeAnne Thayne, and The Amish Christmas Candle by Kelly Long, Jennifer Beckstrand, and Lisa Jones Baker.  

Pioneerland libraries will be open on Saturday, December 23, and closed on Christmas Day, which is Monday, December 25.  We will be open normal hours the rest of that week.  We will be closed on Monday, January 1, for New Year’s Day.  Happy holidays from the Litchfield Library staff!

Closed for Veterans Day

Pioneerland libraries will be closed on Saturday, November 11, for Veterans Day.  At the Litchfield Library, this means the Second Saturday children's activities and the teen program will not take place this month.

The libraries will be open on Friday, November 10.

Closed for Labor Day

Pioneerland libraries will be closed on Monday, September 4, for Labor Day.

Closed for Presidents' Day

We will be closed on Monday, February 20, in observance of Presidents' Day.

The luck o' the Irish

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of you who are Irish or Irish at heart!  I’m not a bit Irish myself and I usually wear my green with purple for St. Urho’s Day the day before.  But anyone can enjoy a book or movie set in the lovely Irish countryside or populated with interesting Irish-American characters.  Following is a sample of the newer Irish-related titles we have available at the Litchfield Library.

A fascinating new biography, The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero tells the story of Thomas Francis Meagher in the 19^th century.  Author Timothy Egan won the National Book Award in 2006 for “The Worst Hard Time,” a nonfiction account of the Dust Bowl.  Meagher was an orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s who led a failed rebellion against English rule.  He escaped from a prison colony in Australia and arrived in New York at the beginning of the Irish migration.  He led the Irish Brigade from New York in major battles of the Civil War, surviving improbable circumstances.  His dream was to bring seasoned Irish-American troops back to Ireland to win their freedom.

The movie Brooklyn was nominated for best picture, best actress, and best adapted screenplay at this year’s Academy Awards.  Eilis Lacey is a young woman in Ireland in the 1950s who goes to America to find work and also finds love, but she has to choose between the countries when circumstances change.  Our library also has the novel by Colm Toibin that is the basis of the movie. 

An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea is part of the Irish Country series by Patrick Taylor.  These books are set in a small village called Ballybucklebo, where young doctor Barry Laverty and older doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly practice together.  In this latest installment, readers also get stories of Dr. O’Reilly’s World War II experiences in a naval hospital and aboard a warship.  These books are recommended for fans of James Herriot and Jan Karon.

Irish Meadows won a "Fiction from the Heartland" contest from a major romance writers’ association.  This faith-based novel by Susan Anne Mason tells the story of two sisters in 1911 who try to follow their hearts and their own ideas for their lives.  Meanwhile, their Irish immigrant father insists they must hurry up and marry well in order to save the family’s horse farm. 

The movie Song of the Sea was nominated for the Oscar for best animated film last year.  Siblings Saoirse and Ben go on a journey to find their mother who has disappeared, discovering the secrets of the selkies and the fairies.  Rated PG, this movie has been highly recommended by some of our young library patrons.

An Early Wake by Sheila Connolly provides some light entertainment for fans of cozy mysteries.  Part of the County Cork mystery series, American Maura Donovan continues to run her pub in Ireland and decides to bring in live music.  But when she finds a dead musician in her back room, her plan to keep her pub alive gets a bit complicated. 

Telling stories is an important part of Irish culture.  May the luck of the Irish be yours today and every day when you choose a story to read or to watch.

Closed for President's Day

We will be closed on Monday, February 15, for Presidents' Day.

Family movies for Christmas vacation

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Merry Christmas!  First things first: when is the library open during these coming weeks of holidays?  The library will be closed on December 24^th and 25^th. We will be open on Saturday, December 26^th.  Next week, we will be open normal hours Monday through Wednesday.  On Thursday, December 31^st, the library will close at 5 p.m. for New Year’s Eve instead of the usual 8 p.m.  We will be closed on New Year’s Day but will be open on Saturday, January 2^nd.

Next question: what can you check out to watch with the family during Christmas vacation?  I have some ideas from among some of our new DVDs at the Litchfield Library.

Disney releases a movie from their “vault” every so often.  The most recent was Aladdin in October.  We didn’t have a copy of that movie at Litchfield, so now we have the new Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.  This funny animated film from 1992 features the voice talents of Robin Williams as the genie.  Aladdin is the kind of movie that can entertain the whole family, both kids and adults. 

Another movie for all ages is Inside Out, the new animated movie from Disney and Pixar.  Pixar is known for playing with the viewer’s emotions, and this time around emotions are the actual stars of the show.  Eleven-year-old Riley has a difficult time moving from Minnesota to California, and we get to see what goes on in her head.  The characters Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust run headquarters, driving Riley’s thoughts and feelings and storing her memories.  When Riley’s core memories get colored by Sadness, the characters have to find a way to save the day.

If you want a trip down memory lane, you can check out Little House on the Prairie.  Remastered DVDs of the show have been released over the last couple of years, and we have seasons one through seven.  The final season will be re-released early next year.  I have to say that when I read descriptions of the episodes recently, I found they’re even more melodramatic than I remember. 

Tomorrowland is a new Disney live-action movie named after a Disney Parks attraction, like Pirates of the Caribbean.  This movie is a sci-fi adventure about a jaded inventor and an enthusiastic, science-loving teenage girl who need to work together to discover the secrets of a mysterious place called "Tomorrowland" to help make our world a better place.  George Clooney stars.  While this movie didn’t get the glowing reviews Inside Out did, it is supposed to be reasonably entertaining for young and old.

Shaun the Sheep Movie, on the other hand, is a favorite of movie critics.  Shaun the Sheep is a stop-motion British television show that is a spin-off of Wallace & Grommit.  In the movie, Shaun takes a day off and ends up in the Big City with the whole crew from the farm, and it’s up to him to find a way to bring everyone safely home again.  Although it’s intended to be a children’s show, the humor also appeals to adults. 

Fitting right into this week is the Christmas special The Toy Story That Time Forgot.  This 2014 TV program shows Buzz, Woody, and the gang at an after-Christmas playdate with Bonnie from Toy Story 3.  Tom Hanks and Tim Allen provide the voice talent, as usual. 

These DVDs are all new and popular, so you may want to reserve them instead of taking your chances that they’ll be on the shelf.  We will get only two deliveries a week during these holiday weeks, so things will also take a little longer to arrive.  Let our staff know anytime you need help requesting something.  Enjoy your holidays and have a happy new year!

When is the library open over the holidays?

Holiday schedule

Thursday, December 24: Closed
Friday, December 25: Closed
Saturday, December 26: Open

Monday - Wednesday, December 28-30: Open normal hours
Thursday, December 31: Closing at 5 p.m.
Friday, January 1: Closed
Saturday, January 2: Open

Santa Claus is coming to town!