Libraries Rock!

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Are you going to see Shrek?  Once again this year, we have someone from the library staff who is in the cast of the Litchfield Community Theatre musical.  This time it’s Tiana.  Last month Jan was in Steel Magnolias, last spring Mary directed Honk! Jr., and last summer Elle was in Fiddler on the Roof.  I guess we’re a theatrical bunch at the library.

We have the original Broadway cast recording for Shrek the Musical available at our library.  It was recorded in 2009 in New York, so this is a very new show. 

Have you taken a look at our other music CDs lately?  It’s still a small collection, but it’s growing.  Most of our music CDs are next to the adult audiobooks, near our movies.

One of our newest CDs is To Be Loved, by Michael Bublé.  It just came out in April.  It includes the single “It’s a Beautiful Day” that you might have heard on the radio.  As usual, this old-school crooner covers many classics, including songs made famous by Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.  Reese Witherspoon and Bryan Adams also make appearances on the album.

The Okee Dokee Brothers gave a concert in Litchfield earlier this year as a fundraiser for the new playground.  We have their Grammy-winning CD available to check out.  Look on the children’s side of the library to find this one.  Can You Canoe? won the 2013 Grammy for best children’s album.  The Minnesota singers (friends, not really brothers) traveled by canoe from Minneapolis to St. Louis for a month and wrote these songs about their adventure.  Along with the folk CD that appeals to all ages, there’s a DVD of them performing their songs and traveling down the river.  I’ve seen them perform live in Duluth, and I was happy to find that they were not at all the annoying kind of children’s musicians you sometimes find.  They were funny and hip and really, really musically talented.  But then they did win a Grammy, so I guess that should be obvious.

We also have a few of Jim Gill’s CDs available now for checkout on the children’s side of the library.  Families who come to storytimes here are familiar with many of his songs.  Jim performed a concert in Litchfield this year, as well, to the tremendous enjoyment of the crowd of families who went to it.  His newest CD, Jim Gill Presents Music Play for Folks of All Stripes, was named a 2012 Notable Children’s Recording by the American Library Association.  That’s the equivalent of a Caldecott or Newbery honor book, since the ALA gives those awards.  Jim incorporates all kinds of great learning activities for young children in his songs, while having plenty of wacky fun at the same time.

Besides the “Folks of All Stripes” album, we also have Jim Gill Sings Do Re Mi on His Toe Leg Knee, Jim Gill Sings Moving Rhymes for Modern Times, and Jim Gill’s Irrational Anthem.

Back over on the adult side of the library, we have Uncaged by the Zac Brown Band.  It won the 2013 Grammy for best country album.  The band is described as country/folk/bluegrass, and the album as a laid-back mixture of even more musical styles, including reggae and R&B.

I hope you’ll find that our music collection has some up-to-date offerings that you’ll enjoy.  Come in to discover something new!

This 'n That

By Jan Pease

A very large tree has sprouted near the children’s desk.  It is a book display celebrating the summer reading theme, “Dig Into Reading,” one of the largest and most dramatic displays ever seen at the Litchfield library.  A giant flag on the east wall of the children’s department is titled “Where Do You Read?”   If you give us a picture of yourself reading in your favorite spot, we will put it up on the wall.  Digger the mole is hiding here and there in the children’s department, and children are guessing how many gummy worms are in the jar.  Summer things are already happening here, even if our patrons come in wearing hoodies and jackets.  Come in, get your children signed up for summer reading, and help them avoid summer reading loss.  Math worksheets are also available at the children’s desk, because children lose even more of their math skills over the summer break. 

As a younger mom, I didn’t understand how much students lost over the summer.  We always tried to get out daughter outside and doing.  She seemed to do all right in school, and usually tested right at grade level.  Now that I know that students usually lose about 2.6 months of math advancement over the summer, I know that I should have been very diligent about that during the summer.  Reading wasn’t as much of an issue at our house, because when our daughter discovered our  treasure trove of history books, she read at a college level without knowing it.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss.  

Please give your children the gift of experiences this summer.  Visits to the library, to museums, to parks, to plays or musicals, talking to older people in your family all provide rich memories that will stay in the hearts of your children forever.

Classes visited the library the final weeks of May and first week of June.  I visited Ripley School to make up for a visit cancelled by the weather, and also had the privilege of visiting the Kindergarten classes.  We enjoyed reading Mo Willems’ new book, “That is NOT a Good Idea.”   Students read the book aloud with me, especially as my voice became weary.  The anticipated ending of the book is that the goose becomes a key ingredient in soup, but Mr. Willems gives it a twist.  The goose shoves the fox into the pot and serves her children fox soup.  Perhaps it was a little too twisted for the youngest students, but they laughed and laughed.   

On a personal note, I’m enjoying rehearsals for a reader’s theater presentation of “Steel Magnolias,” which will be presented June 22nd at 7 and June 23rd at 3 at the Litchfield Opera House.  I am honored to be among a circle of friends gathered together by Carole Wendt.  I love to act, but have trouble learning lines and songs these days.  To be honest, moving around onstage is also a problem for me.   So reader’s theater is perfect.   The challenge of finding a character’s voice and becoming that person, without makeup and costumes, can be difficult, but it’s rewarding.  Ya’ll come over to the opera house and see us, y’hear?

The Library is Alive with the Sound of Music

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian


Have you gone to see Fiddler on the Roof? I haven’t gone yet, but I plan to go so that I can see our library staff member Elle Dinius as Hodel. If the community theater production has gotten you in a musical mood, come to the library to find some CDs and movies to keep it going.

Do you have “Matchmaker” or “If I Were a Rich Man” in your head? We have the original Broadway soundtrack of Fiddler on the Roof on CD at the Litchfield Library. We also have the DVD of the movie, starring Topol. We even have the sheet music, vocal with piano accompaniment, so that you could try playing and singing the songs at home.

Want to go back and revisit last year’s community theater show? We have the DVD of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, starring Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae. You can watch Curly ride up on his horse and sing “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” and most of the cast dance and sing to “The Farmer and the Cowman”.

Are you going to go to Hutchinson community theater’s production of Singin’ in the Rain in August?  You can find Singin’ in the Rain starring Gene Kelly on VHS at our library, although you’d have to still have a VCR to watch it. A new anniversary edition is coming out on DVD, and I plan to get it for us. You can order the DVD currently from other libraries in the system.

Is anyone else excited about the movie version of Les Miserables that’s coming to theaters in December? I can hardly wait. While you’re waiting, you can watch our DVD of Les Miserables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary, Live. The actress who will be playing Eponine in the movie is in the concert. Her performance is breathtaking.

Among our DVDs, you can also find West Side Story, Forever Plaid, The Mikado, Dreamgirls, The Phantom of the Opera, Mary Poppins, Annie Get Your Gun, Cats, Hairspray, The Sound of Music, and Rent. I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting, and there are many more VHS tapes we still have in the collection.

A newly expanded part of our collection is the music CD section. Most of the new additions are popular music, old and new, but you can check out a few cast recordings and musical movie soundtracks. It’s a great way to learn the songs and be ready for a future community theater or high school theater audition. We have original cast recordings for The Music Man, Company, and The Phantom of the Opera, in addition to Fiddler. We have something called A New Recording of the Most Memorable Songs from West Side Story, and there’s a CD set of Showboat performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Barbra Streisand’s Greatest Hits includes some songs from Funny Girl.

In our book collection, we have a number of scores and books of sheet music from musicals. They’re old, but you can find many of the classics: Annie Get Your Gun, Cabaret, Camelot, Carousel, Guys & Dolls, The King and I, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music.

I hope you’ll think of the library when you’re looking for arts, music, and culture in our community.