Library Column for August 4, 2023

@ Your Library

Puppeteer Christopher Lutter-Gardella will be here on Tuesday, August 8th at 3:30 pm with a hand puppet of his own and a puppet stage to facilitate a puppet show with your found object puppets created from the take home kits. Come and share your experience creating your own puppet, perform with your puppet and learn from others. This program is geared towards kids 8 – 13 and is made available with money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Legacy Fund.

Next week will be our last week of summer programming. Don’t miss the book club gathering from 12 – 1 pm on Monday or the book sale from 4 – 6 pm Monday afternoon. Tuesday will be crafting time from 11 am – 1pm (now is the time to get started on those Christmas crafts and gifts). Wednesday is the last Libratory at 11am, Thursday at 10:30 am is storytime and Big Play is Friday from 10:30 – noon. We’ll take a break from programming to begin preparations for our fall programming. Stay tuned for further details later.

August is a great month to grab a book and spend time reading. Read together as a family, make it part of your every day. Read aloud and read silently, just read. Let your kids see you reading and let them know how important reading is. Read magazines, newspapers, paperback books, fiction or non-fiction, again, just read!

Here are some classics that remain popular. Frank B. Gilbreth’s Cheaper by the Dozen and it’s sequel Belles on Their Toes are funny, insightful and reminiscent of bygone days. In a similar vein try author Ralph Moody’s biographical stories of life in rural Colorado many years ago. Start with Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers. If you like the outdoor stories we have a number of old titles set in Alaska including Born On Snowshoes by Evelyn Berglund Shore about three sisters growing up in remote Arctic wilderness, Ida Blackjack: a true story of survival in the arctic by Jennifer Niven and several titles by Farley Mowat People of the Deer and The Snow Walker being two.

And of course if we are talking about books set in remote areas of long ago, check out our Minnesota history room for books about our past including Reflections of Rainy published by the Daily Journal or My Grandfather’s Knocking Sticks by Brenda Child or Pooner: a legendary fish tale by Thomas Edward Rolando or Border Warden by Murray Mills, They Used to Call Us Game Wardens, volumes 1 and 2 by Bill Callies or Poacher’s Caught and More Poacher’s Caught by Tom Chapin.

Authors who remain popular even though they are no longer writing include Agatha Christie. We still have 65 of her books. We still have more than 60 Louis L’Amour books on our shelves and approximately 50 Zane Grey titles. Marion Chesney and/or M.C. Beaton both occupy a lot of shelf space as does Patrick O’Brian and his popular Master and Commander series. So many books, so little time.

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