Happy Birthday Katherine Paterson

October 31st isn’t just for dressing up in a silly costume and mooching candy off your neighbors. This year, October 31st means that award winning author Katherine Paterson will turn 87. Her books have won dozens of awards, including two Newbery medals and a Newbery Honor Award.

In honor of her upcoming birthday, I decided to read her Newbery Honor winning book, The Great Gilly Hopkins. In it, Paterson captures the complex inner life of a foster child who appears indifferent and tough on the outside, but on the inside, struggles with a deep need to belong. The book is narrated from Gilly’s perspective, beginning with her arrival at yet another foster home. Readers watch Gilly grow and change as she chases fantasies of the mother who abandoned her and wrestles to form new connections. 

Paterson explains in her author’s note that she wrote this book after some rough experiences as a foster parent. As issues would come up, she found herself using the short-term nature of foster parenting as an excuse for not fully investing in her foster kids. “I was appalled” she writes. “How would I feel if the world treated me as though I were disposable? I wrote the book to answer that question” (212).

At the climax of the book, Paterson poignantly describes Gilly’s need for her permanent, non-disposable identity to emerge and be recognized. Gilly wants,

To stop being a ‘foster child,’ the quotation marks dragging the phrase down, almost drowning it. To be real without any quotation marks. To belong and to possess. To be herself, to be the swan, to be the ugly duckling no longer─Cap O’Rushes, her disguise thrown off─Cinderella with both slippers on her feet─Snow White beyond the dwarfs─Galadriel Hopkins, come into her own. (Paterson 176-177)

We see Gilly reacts to the feeling of being “disposable” in a variety of escapades and internal struggles throughout the book. In an interview with “Reading Rockets,” (a national public media literacy initiative), Katherine shares that she avoids making her characters the perfect example. Gilly Hopkins remains human and flawed on her coming-of-age journey. Paterson says,

Gilly is not what you’d call an admirable character. In fact, the first time someone told me she was a wonderful role model for today’s children, I nearly died. I thought, ‘Do you really want a role model for your children who lies and steals and bullies the handicapped and is terribly racially prejudiced? I don’t.’

But, of course, she’s a very angry child, and she acts out her anger in very inappropriate ways. We understand why she’s angry, but she has to change, or the book fails as far as I’m concerned. (Reading Rockets Interview)

Paterson herself seems like a woman willing to change, especially when it comes to her perspective on people who are different from her. Paterson grew up as a missionary kid in China, until her parents moved away as refugees from WWII. They moved back to China, but had to leave again when war with Japan began. Interestingly, Paterson would move to Japan after pursuing higher education in English literature, Bible, and Christian Education. (Reading Rockets Biography). Paterson notes that having a friend from Japan in graduate school changed her perspective on Japanese people, so much that she would enjoy four years in a country whose people once terrified her. Paterson says that books provide personal connections to countries and cultures we may never directly encounter. Through stories, we get to know people as people, instead of stereotypes (Reading Rockets Interview).

 The Great Gilly Hopkins showcases Paterson’s diverse life experiences, teachability, and heart for children. All this infuses her writing with authenticity and makes us resonate with Gilly’s journey, even if it is very different from our own. 

Happy Birthday, Katherine Paterson!

Till next time,

Kendra

Recipe for a Book Club

There’s something wonderful about a group of people gathered together to discuss a book. A good book club creates stimulating conversation, builds relationships, and feeds the appetite for more books. You only need a few ingredients to make a satisfying book club:

A good book

We are very good at this part. In fact, we have pre-made book club kits that you can check out for a month at a time! So, your group doesn’t need to pay for books, they can check them out and even renew them for up to two more months (as long as another club doesn’t reserve it first). These kits are located behind our front display shelf (to the right as you walk in the library), housed in cheery, green canvas bags. All you need is your library card. We’ve got quite a variety, from J.R. Tolkein’s epic fantasy, The Hobbit, to George Orwell’s chilling dystopian novel, 1984, to the real life story of Hidden Figures, to recent bestsellers like Before We Were Yours, and Killers of the Flower Moon. 

Location, location, location

It’s important to have your book club in a setting where people will feel comfortable. That being said, it’s also important to have a central location that’s convenient for everyone (including you). You may love having people over to your home, but if not, you can use our study rooms for free! They accommodate up to six people. If you have more people, or if you want to be able to eat snacks etc. don’t forget about our fabulous downtown coffee shops and eateries, or the beautiful Memorial Park just outside the library doors.

Putting your group at ease

Even though your group is most likely excited about the book they’ve just read, many people are shy about sharing in a group setting. Help your group feel comfortable by first making sure everyone knows each other. Sometimes an ice-breaker is helpful. For example, have each person share their name and favorite restaurant downtown. Even if most people know each other, make sure that any new members are introduced and have a chance to meet existing members. You might set the atmosphere with some soft music or a candle (just make sure it’s battery-operated if you’re hosting in the library). Drinks or a simple snack can also go a long way in making people feel at home.

Plan for discussion

Next, you’ll want to talk about the book, of course. You can find book-specific reading questions online. For example, the Galesburg Library in Illinois has this list of free PDF discussion guides for specific books, or, you can google “Book discussion questions for [your book’s title]” and pick a guide that looks interesting to you. There are also some generic questions that work for almost any book. Generic questions might be, “What was your favorite part of the book?” “Was there anything that surprised or offended you?” “How did the ending make you feel?” “What insights (if any) did the book give you into the world you live in every day?” “What did you find easy or hard to relate to (characters, events, places, etc.)?”

Common Challenges

• • The Over-Talker If you find that one person tends to dominate the group, try directing specific questions to specific people: “Dorothy, what did you find surprising about the book?” You might also tell the group that every person gets two minutes to share what answer the question you’re currently discussing. You can even set a timer! This is beneficial for the whole group because it makes space for multiple perspectives.

• • Conflicting, strong opinions If you are discussing a controversial book that may cause conflicting opinions, take a moment to set a group expectation of  listening respectfully to each person’s opinion without interrupting. Acknowledge that there may be disagreement, but that each person can look to learn from each of the others, even if they have different opinions. It may be especially useful to employ a timer in a situation like this. Remind your group that the point of a group discussion is not to merely air your opinions or “vent,” it is to create a constructive exchange in which each member shares and also listens carefully to everyone else. This can be challenging, but the rewards are worth the effort.

• • Awkward silences Awkward silences may actually be less of a problem than you feel they are. Oftentimes, your group members are very engaged, they just need some time to think or refresh their memories. Silence can be your friend. Be brave and wait it out. If you’re dealing with chronic awkward silence, try sharing  some background about the book or the author, or go back to your trusty strategy of asking the question to a specific person. 

 

 

Maybe you’d like to join a book club before you start your own. This is the perfect time to

The Morning Book Club at the library enjoys discussing their latest read over some tasty treats.

join one of our library book clubs, because the groups are making their final reading list for the coming year. That means you can weigh in with what you want to read. Right now we have two book clubs for adults: One on the second Monday of the month at 7:00 p.m. (currently reading Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash), and the other one on the second Tuesday morning of each month at 11:00 a.m. (currently reading Ghost by Jason Reynolds).  

 

Remember, you don’t need to be a literary expert to host a stellar book club (or be a stellar book club member!). A good book, a comfortable location, and a few conversation strategies are all you need. Let us know how we can help you get started!

Till next time,

Kendra

Rediscovering Fantasy

I used to enjoy fantasy, and then, I’m not sure what happened. Maybe it was too many textbooks to read in college. Maybe it was getting too practical and thinking I had more important things to do. But, whatever the reason, I left fantasy on the shelf.

This month, I decided to read a Newberry Medal winning book. The Newberry Medal was created in 1922 to honor and promote quality children’s literature. The award is given by the American Library Association, specifically the Association for Library Service to Children, which includes children’s librarians from schools and libraries.

Incidentally, a Newberry Medal winner is a category on our Adult Reaching Challenge. Since the challenge is meant to expand participants’ reading palates, I felt that a young adult fantasy novel would certainly expand mine. The book title that caught my eye was The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnill─a high fantasy novel.

The book draws you in quickly with an abandoned baby, a benevolent witch, and a whole village lost in fog of sorrow. Each year, a baby must be sacrificed, to save the village. Or so the story goes.

Luna is the helpless baby left in the woods to die for her people. But when Xan, the witch who carries her away, accidentally feeds the baby moonlight, she changes Luna’s destiny─and the destiny of Luna’s village─forever. The struggle escalates between good and evil, truth and deception, sorrow and hope.

I was especially struck with the theme of narratives and who controls them. The people inside the village (where babies are sacrificed) and the people outside this village, each have a distinct understanding of the world. Their respective understandings are informed by the stories that both groups believe and pass on to their children. Ethyne is a villager who fights for freedom and realizes the power of the stories we hear:

“A story can tell the truth, she knew, but a story can also lie. Stories can bend and twist and obfuscate. Controlling stories is power indeed. And who would benefit most from such a power?” (pg. 309)

It’s a timely reflection for our own times. What stories do we retell over and over that we never examine? What do we believe about people or events just because someone told us? I’m not talking about being cynical or questioning everything, but just about being receptive to the truth. For example, the Morning Book Club this month is exploring some of the narratives we rehearse about race by reading Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Stevenson’s story is no fantasy, but fantasy may give us permission to think about real stories in a new way.

Whether it’s book club, the reading challenge, or listening to an audiobook on your commute, I hope you’ll discover content that challenges your thinking and inspires your imagination.

Happy reading,

Kendra

Spring Hacks from the Library

The Library is brimming with resources for every season. Spring is in the air, and we have a smattering of Spring-related tips, how-tos and ideas on our shelves just waiting to come to life. Take a moment and smell these book-flowers!

Spring Cleaning

Cleaning by Real Simple will help you put together your supplies and tackle every surface and room in your house. This is a great overview of cleaning guidelines and insights. Find it in Nonfiction 648.5 Sq5.

How to Clean Practically Anything by Consumer Reports. The Spring sunshine is ready to pour into your living room, but, what’s that? The windows are full of grime from a long winter. Gross! But never fear, a quick and nontoxic solution will make those windows sparkle. Consumer Reports recommends a solution of 3 tablespoons of vinegar and 1 quart of water. You can also try half vinegar half water (203). Nonfiction 648.5 C76

Green This: Greening Your Cleaning by Deirdre Imus

Nothing says fresh like fresh clean laundry. But maybe someone in your house is allergic to dryer sheets or scented detergents. Deirdre Imus, in her book Green This!, Suggests tossing in half a lemon’s worth of juice into your washing machine as an alternative odor-remover (75).

One thing that really makes a difference in the bathroom are clean drains. Try this drain cleaning hack from Green This!: mix together a little baking soda, salt and lemon juice to form a paste. Cover your drain and surrounding area with the paste and let sit for an hour─or all day if you want! Rinse it off when you’re ready and bingo! Clean drain with no toxic chemicals. The spring air just got a little fresher, my friends (91). Nonfiction 648.5 Im9

Spring allergies:

Giant Book of Kitchen Counter Cures by Karen Cicero and Colleen Pierre

Allergies are one of the worst parts of Spring. You probably know that what makes allergies so unbearable is a little compound called histamine. Well, it just so happens that something called quercetin encourages our bodies to stop making histamine. Where to get quercetin? Blackberries. Who knew? But this juicy fruit isn’t just a yummy snack anymore. And the included recipe for Blackberry-peach crisp looks berry, berry delicious!! (66-67) Find it in nonfiction 613.2 C48.

The Allergy Bible by Reader’s Digest

You can guess this is a hefty but readable resource about allergies of all kinds. There is a part specifically on hayfever with a list of symptoms and treatment ideas. Find it in nonfiction 661.9 G14

Spring Gardening

Grow It Cook it edited by Deborah Lock

This colorful book shows kids the basics of gardening and cooking! From how to plant a seed to how to make chocolate mint mousse, this book is sure to inspire both outdoors and in! Find it on the shelf in the juvenile section 635 L78.

Gardening Lab for Kids by Renata Fossen Brown gives you 52 gardening experiments to try at home. There’s also great gardening tips for the novice adult gardener too! Find it in the juvenile section 635 B81.

Spring Fever:

Poetry Let’s face it, there’s something about trees budding, seeds sprouting, and warm breezes blowing that makes us want to join in the fun. Poetry is a beautiful way to celebrate spring. April is national poetry month. Perhaps you’ll want to soak in some Emily Dickinson, whose nature poems might just bring words to some of your pent-up enthusiasm about Spring:

The robin is the one

That interrupts the morn

With hurried, few, express reports

When March is scarcely on

(Dickinson from “Nature” IV, pg 78. The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson 811.4 D56).

Or you might chuckle at Robert Frost’s “A Girl’s Garden,” which spins the tale of a young girl and her garden. One verse notes:

Her crop was a miscellany

When all was said and done,

A little bit of everything,

A great deal of none (Frost 134 811.5 F92).

Or, why not write a poem of your own? Find a sunny spot and sit down with a notebook and pen. Write whatever comes to mind about what you see.

Library Activities

We have plenty of activities to help you let out your Spring energy right here at the library. For example, did you know that the children’s room has a bulletin board every month with a different activity? You can do the activity at the Library, or take it home. This month you can make a whimsical cloud mobile.

Maybe you need some chill time as an adult. We’re hosting our second annual “Coffee and Coloring” event On Friday, April 5th. Drop by anytime between 6:00-8:00 p.m. and enjoy some coffee and tasty treats. We’ll also have our regular story times, movie matinees, young adult programs and more! Check out our website for all the details.

Spring is here and we hope you’ll continue to enjoy all the Library has to offer: from house cleaning tips, to inspirational poetry, to coffee and coloring and─of course─books!!

Till next time,

Kendra

Community Book Project

When I come to the Library, I see our town. I see young mothers with adorable toddlers struggling to carry an over-sized book. I see teenagers painting murals for Christmas on our windows, and grandmothers who read more books in a week than I will all year. I see aspiring gardeners and knitters and home-improvers. I see people working hard and people relaxing; laboring over math problems and chuckling over Youtube videos.

Every now and then, I get a snippet of someone’s story. The more snippets I get, the more I realize our town is full of remarkable people with an incredible range of experiences, opinions and ambitions. Together, we make up a community─and a pretty great one at that! Sure, we have our problems, but generally, we like living here (and I’m not just being Pollyanna, you can read for yourself in the 2017 Resident Survey).

If you’re like me though, you miss out on much of our community’s perspectives because you tend to travel in the same “circuit” around town. For me, it looks something like, work, church, the grocery store and the houses of my friends who generally go to the same church, work, or grocery store as I do. Routines aren’t bad─they’re very helpful. But sometimes I get so absorbed in my rhythm that I miss the voices of people outside of it. It’s kind of like muting the treble and only listening to the baseline of a song: It’s still nice, but it’s missing a lot of the beauty that makes the song a song.

In the interest of hearing more voices and celebrating community, we’d like to invite everyone to write a book together. We’re calling it: The Community Book Project. You can lend your voice with words or with pictures, in Spanish or in English. Every piece will have something to do with community: what makes it work, why it’s important, how you’ve experienced it personally, etc.

Would you tell us about a friendship that has meant the world to you? Write a poem about what it means to listen to someone different from yourself? Compose a photograph to make us ponder why relationships are worth the risk?

We want to hear your perspective about community. E-mail your masterpiece to us at Library@siloamsprings.com. Complete details for submission are found when you click HERE.

We can’t wait to show you the final copy. The book will be kept at our Library and at the Siloam school libraries. Since the book is all about community, The Friends of the Library Bookstore will also have the book for sale and they will invest all profits back into projects that benefit the community.

Speaking of the Friends of the Library, we’d like to say a big THANK YOU to them and to Generations Bank, for providing funding for this exciting endeavor. And thank YOU in advance for investing your time and talent into the Community Book Project.

Till next time,

Kendra

New Books in Our Own Backyard

Happy 2019! Of course, I always get a little blue packing up the last Christmas tree ornament and finally acknowledging that the Christmas cookies are too stale to eat anymore. But when the house is clean and the fridge is full of fresh groceries─I remember the excitement of new beginnings.

In the spirit of starting fresh, I decided to find a new book. As Wizard of Oz heroine, Dorothy Gale famously says: “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard.” I wasn’t looking for my heart’s desire exactly─just a book─but still, I decided not to look any further than my own backyard and read a book published right here in Siloam Springs.

And what a gem I found: Growing Up R.I.C.H.: Raised in Crazy Hollow by Jean Hurt. It’s a delightful collection of short stories and poems about her life growing up in Arkansas and Oklahoma during and after the Great Depression. Although a dark time historically in many ways, Hurt’s writing shines with humor. She writes in her dedication: “I have tried to tell about the depression without being depressing.”

The book details one hilarious anecdote after another: how to dislodge a turnip from a cow’s throat, an intricate revenge plot using cow manure, the comedy of a cold, drunk man and some borrowed long johns, and on and on. Woven into the stories is a picture of what life was like for many people in our area of the country decades ago. We follow Jean into Saturday nights with neighbors listening to the radio and eating popcorn, scrubbing laundry on a washboard, and walking in shoes repaired repeatedly by hand.

Hurt’s stories refreshed me with their originality, humor and perspective. Maybe you’d like to be refreshed with a new book too? If so, you’ll be excited about our 2019 Reading Challenge. First of all, there are PRIZES! To participate, pick up a list of categories and choose one that intrigues you (for example, “a nonfiction novel based on a true story”) then find a book that fits the category (I know some helpful librarians if you get stuck here). Read your new book, then pick a new category and start again. Oh, and to get in the drawing for a PRIZE write down your reads on an official reading log at the reference desk. Our first PRIZE is coming from Heart of the Home store downtown. Prizes from more fabulous businesses to follow!

You never know when you might find something new─right here in your own backyard.

Till next time,

Kendra

Celebrating Eric Carle

Library Staff are dressing up like Eric Carle books this week. Tuesday’s outfit hightlights The Mixed-Up Chameleon.

If you grew up reading, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, you know why we’re spending a week celebrating its author, Eric Carle. Did you know his “hungry caterpillar” was originally going to be a green worm? With the help of editor, Ann Beneduce, the worm became the voracious caterpillar and lovely butterfly we love today.

Eric Carle’s life, in many ways, reflects a similar transformation. His metamorphosis took him from immigrant, to WWII victim, to stifled artist, to career man, to soldier, to illustrator, and finally to beloved children’s author and illustrator.

Like his caterpillar, life began on a nurturing, green leaf for Eric: his German immigrant parents encouraged his love of nature and art. While these early years in New York were sweet, Eric would be forced to “eat” many unpleasant circumstances in his hungry journey toward maturity.

When Eric was still a young child, his parents moved back to Germany. Unlike his American school, his new school in Germany valued rules above creativity. While his boyhood hands swelled from the disciplinary blows of a teacher, his heart shrunk deep inside as he quickly learned to comply with the strict regulations.

Eric Carle’s art adorns our Children’s Library.

Although his creativity was stifled, it was not snuffed out. Eric talks about going to visit a favorite Great Aunt, Tante Mina, who always offered him plenty of yummy snacks. He jokes that these memories formed a basis for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. At Tante Mina’s home he would also spend precious time with his Uncle August who was an avid painter and storyteller.

The start of WWII looked bright for Germany, but soon, his hometown of Stuttgart became a major target of Allied attacks. It wasn’t long before Eric’s new normal included rushing to a bomb shelter dug into a hill in the middle of the night. He was eventually sent outside the city to live with one of many families who took in children during this tumultuous time. Fortunately, Eric was placed in a nurturing home.

One pivotal bright spot during the war, was getting to meet with his art teacher, Herr Krauss. Krauss exposed Eric to expressionist art, which was forbidden in Germany at that time. Seeing Eric’s tendency toward this lovely but outlawed art form, his teacher advised Eric, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen today. Just remember their free and loose style.”  Eric remembered.

Eric Carle is the author or illustrator of over 70 books. Hop over to our Children’s Library and read some!

After WWII the library played a special role in Carle’s life. He continued to hate school, having gotten behind in his studies in the chaos of the war. A librarian helped him discover authors who had been banned before the war like Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka. He says, “I am not sure that I understood the deeper meanings of all their writings, but, with the librarian gently urging me on, I absorbed the heartbeat of every page.”

He entered a competitive commercial arts school after his secondary education was complete. After school and working two years, Carle finally returned to America. Armed with $40, an art portfolio and two years of work experience, he found a job with the New York Times. His budding career was interrupted by the Korean War, during which he served in the U.S. army stationed in Germany. The Army allowed him to live back at home with his own mother during this time.

In Germany, he decided to marry Dorothea Wohlenberg, the sister of a former co-worker. He and Dorothea moved back to America and had two kids. Another bitter circumstance arrived years later in the form of a painful divorce.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

As with any story of transformation, hopeful times came with the bitter ones. Carle started doing freelance work and met Dr. Bill Martin Jr. author of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Carle was thrilled to illustrate a book for children. Later on, he wrote the first version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (the version that featured a worm instead of a caterpillar).That worm-turned-caterpillar proved a turning point in his career, and Eric Carle began pouring himself exclusively into children’s books.

Carle includes the following thought in The Art of Eric Carle: “I am fascinated by the period in a child’s life when he or she, for the first time, leaves home to go to school. What a gulf a child must cross then: from home and security, a world of play and the senses, to a world of reason and abstraction, order and discipline. I should like my books to bridge that great divide” (38).

And indeed, many children have crossed that bridge from home to school with the colorful creativity of Eric Carle adding joy to the journey. Carle’s own journey was not an easy one: fraught with loss, pain, and even trauma─yet even the worms turned into caterpillars turned into butterflies.

This week we celebrate Eric Carle’s story, and all the stories that his books and pictures bring to life.

Till next time,

Kendra

 

P.S. Big thanks to my main source of info for this blog: Eric Carle’s “Autobiography: a Life in Words and Pictures” found in The Art of Eric Carle (Philomel Books). You can find this book on our display shelf at the Library.