Census hiring event cancelled for 1/18

The US Census hiring table that was scheduled for Saturday, January 18, has been cancelled because of the weather forecast.

Book sale cancelled

The Friends of the Litchfield Library book sale scheduled for January 18 has been cancelled due to the weather.

Friends of the Litchfield Public Library meeting

The Friends of the Library will meet at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, January 21, in the library meeting room.  New members are always welcome.

Information table about census jobs

A representative from the U.S. Census Bureau will be available at an information table at the Litchfield Public Library from 10 am to 1 pm on Friday, January 24. Learn about how to apply for one of thousands of temporary 2020 census jobs.

Census results determine how funds are spent on roads, schools, and hospitals, as well as the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Pay for Meeker County census workers starts at $19 per hour. Information is also available at 2020census.gov/jobs.

NOTE: the event scheduled for Saturday, January 18, has been cancelled due to the weather forecast.

Maker Space snowflakes

Snow is Falling, Books are Calling

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

This year’s adult winter reading program has begun, with the theme “Snow is Falling, Books are Calling.”  Our winter reading program is intended to encourage and reward reading by adults during this cold and snowy time of year, like we do with the kids during the summer.

Sign up between now and March to participate, and you’ll get a red and black buffalo plaid-accented book bag while supplies last.  You’ll also get a stack of book review forms and a card for keeping track of the reviews you turn in.

When you turn in a short book review for something you read between the day you sign up and the end of March, library staff will stamp your card.  When you’ve turned in three, you can choose a small prize.  When you’ve turned in three more, you can choose another prize, plus we’ll put your completed card into a drawing.  The Friends of the Litchfield Public Library sponsors three gift certificates to local businesses for that drawing.  The program can be completed only one time per person.

The small prize choices this year include a mug, a book light, a phone charger adapter for the car, a large candy bar, buffalo plaid earrings, and a mouse pad.  As always, these are the choices while supplies last – although we won’t run out of candy bars. 

You can read anything you like for the program.  It doesn’t have to be a library book or something new.  You choose what you’d like to read.  It can even be an ebook or audiobook – that’s still a form of reading!

The book review forms are short, with no spot for a name, so they’re anonymous once you turn them in.  We set them in a basket at the front desk, and you are welcome look through them to find out which books our library users recommend or don’t recommend.

So once you sign up, what should you read?  I have a list of the most popular books in Pioneerland Library System last year, which is almost like a recommendation from the thousands of people who use the libraries in our region.  The most popular book of the year was “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens.  That novel about a girl abandoned to grow up alone in the marshlands of North Carolina was published in August 2018 and is still in high demand in our library system and around the country.

The other top adult novels of the year were “Wolf Pack” by C.J. Box, “Neon Prey” by John Sandford, “The 18^th Abduction” by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, “The Great Alone” by Kristin Hannah, “Every Breath” by Nicholas Sparks, “Someone Knows” by Lisa Scottoline, “Long Road to Mercy” by David Baldacci, “Holy Ghost” by John Sandford, and “The Boy” by Tami Hoag.

The adult nonfiction books with the most checkouts in Pioneerland in 2019 were “Becoming” by Michelle Obama, “Educated” by Tara Westover, “Girl, Wash Your Face” by Rachel Hollis, “Girl, Stop Apologizing” by Rachel Hollis, “Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann, “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance, “Love Thy Neighbor” by Ayaz Virji, “The Pioneers” by David McCullough, “A Woman of No Importance” by Sonia Purnell, and “The Library Book” by Susan Orlean.

There’s no risk to signing up for the winter reading program.  We won’t call you to see if you’ve finished your books yet.  Why not challenge yourself to a goal of reading a few books this winter?  Reading books can help you be more creative, focused, and empathetic.  And in case you’ve forgotten, which many of us do when life gets busy, reading can be fun.  Like the winter reading program slogan says, books are calling to you!

Trending Now!

By Jan Pease

“Retrospection: in retrospect: thinking about or reviewing the past, especially from a new perspective or with new information.” (Encarta Dictionary: English)    I will now use the word in a sentence: I hereby declare an end to retrospection because we live life forward, not backward. 

What’s ahead in 2020?  Well, prepare for a lot of puns about perfect vision.    

  

Please notice that I wrote the year out, as suggested by friends on the Internet.    It’s too easy to alter a date written as 01/08/20.  I doubt it was an issue on January 8, 1920.   The teens are behind us, and now it’s time for the twenties.   Will we look back on these years as the roaring twenties?

Children’s picture books and chapter books emphasized kindness and friendship in 2019.  Betsy Bird, writing in School Library Journal, mentioned this trend.   Books about children dealing with grief, empathy and friendship were a trend in 2019 that I hope will continue.  In her article, she quotes author Celia Perez as saying “often adults just want to sit back and wait for the kids of today to grow up and save the world.”

I’ve seen a lot of unicorn hats this winter.  The staff at giant book publisher Scholastic predicts that unicorns will also show up in children’s literature this year.  Katie Carella, an executive editor at Scholastic also suggested that more slightly scary books will be popular, because children learn to process their feelings by experiencing scary things in a safe way.

Video games are more popular than ever, and they are showing up in books and as books.  At Litchfield, Minecraft books and Lego books are very popular.  Also, expect to see more strong female and diverse characters in books. 

Pugs. Yes, pugs are trending and will continue to be popular.  Are you familiar with something on Instagram called the Pugdashians?   I wasn’t, until now.  There are some funny books featuring pugs;
my favorite is probably “Pugs of the North,” by Philip Reeve.






Ms. Carella also sees a trickle-down effect in children’s books caused by the still popular “Game ofThrones.”  Stories about dragons are always in demand  in Litchfield!

Over the decades (!) I’ve worked here at the library, I’ve noticed an interesting change in the nonfiction section of the children’s department.  Nonfiction titles are not just published for children to use in writing reports, but are designed to entice children to read about real persons, places, and things.  They are colorful and attractive and about all sorts of interesting things. Expect to see even  more books about making things, and learning about sports.

Of course, any book that is standing in a display or on the shelf can be borrowed and enjoyed. 2020 is a marvelous time to be alive, and well, and reading.  See you at the library!