@ Your Library
Last call for artists to create a unique trading card. Our monthly all ages crafty art project will change next week. So if you haven’t had a chance to stop by and create your own unique card to trade with one of ours on display be sure and do so before the end of the month. Also, at the time I am writing this, there were still a couple of grab and go art bags for teens and adults. Create a fairy jar or Minnesota painting some afternoon or evening and stop back by the library in August for a new grab and go art project and ‘art in the park’ activity.
Most of the presidents have had numerous biographies written about them, and while we don’t have a separate biography for each president in the library we are always on the lookout for highly recommended presidential biographies and James Monroe: A Life by Tim McGrath is getting lots of buzz and hype. I will admit I haven’t tackled it yet and don’t know when I will as it is over 700 pages and I have lots of other books I want to get to. Among my current non-fiction reading is A Game of Birds and Wolves by Simon Parkin. It is the story of the women who helped devise the winning strategy that defeated Nazi U-boats. It is a fascinating story and provides lots of details about the game they created and the skills needed to figure out a winning strategy. And while we are talking WWII, I’ll add in A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel. This is the ‘rediscovered memoir of one woman’s harrowing escape from the Nazis.’ In 1921 a Jewish woman from Poland fulfills a dream and opens a French bookshop in Berlin. The memoir follows her journey from successful shop owner to refugee being secretly moved from safe house to safe house by strangers risking their lives to save hers.
We all need the occassional lift and Mr. Rogers never fails to life one’s spirit. The newest biography about him is Exactly As You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers by Shea Tuttle. It is so nice to read about someone who was exactly as seen. If you are in need of the message “You are loved, exactly as you are” this will be a very affirmiing book.
Blueberry season may be about over, but the gorgeous new book The Blueberry Cookbook by Sally Pasley Vargas makes me drool and want to find my own patch of blueberries to hoard.
A few mysteries to round out the week’s recommendations. Golden in Death is the newest J.D. Robb title featuring Eve Dallas investigating a murder with a mysterious motive and a terrifying weapon. Last Call by Frank F Weber references actual Minnesota murders to compile a spine-tingling thriller. The Sea of Lost Girls by Carol Goodman will uncover all the skeleton’s in Tess’s closet no matter how well they are hidden.