Taking back the flames: Book burning

Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen: Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people.
-Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1820-21

This month 80 years ago, smoke billowed over German university towns.

Parading members of the German Student Association burned over 25,000 books in May 1933. Over 40,000 gathered in Berlin as speakers decried corruption and immorality and encouraged the next generation to “commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past.”

Berlin book burning, 1933. Wikipedia, from German Federal Archive.

Works burned included anarchist, socialist, Jewish, pacifist writings–and anything else seen to undermine the German spirit.

The burned authors include playwright Heirich Heine, who had written his above warning over a hundred years earlier. See the list here

You’ll find their writings and books about them at the library:

Albert Einstein: Einstein: His Life and His Universe, Possessing Genius, many more
Jack London: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, The Sea Wolf,
Upton Sinclair: The Jungle, Dragon’s Teeth
Franz Kafka: Metamorphosis and Other Stories
Ernest Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories, The Sun Also Rises
Karl Marx: The Communist Manifesto, Capital
Helen Keller: The Story of My Life

Children’s Book Week

Welcome to Children’s Book Week!

Their spines might be thinner, illustrations more prevalent and plots a lot less complicated, but a good children’s book can be packed with entertainment AND meaning–not to mention you can read it cover to cover in one sitting!

Reading aloud to children produces nothing but benefits–not only increased vocabulary and comprehension, but also independence and engaged learning.

Here is one list of the Top 100 Children’s Books of All Time, including Green Eggs and Ham, Goodnight Moon, Blueberries for Sal, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, and Stone Soup.

The American Library Association comes out with their favorite children’s books each year. Check out this list of notables for 2013.

Do you have a favorite book from your childhood? What children’s books have you discovered as an adult? We’d love to hear about it!

Finding the miraculous

Do you believe in miracles?

Five loaves of bread feeding 5,000, a Minnesota-led hockey team’s victory over the Russians, a man awaking from a 19-yearlong coma–even our breaths in and out and the expanse of sky above our heads. Whether your interpretation is based in faith, luck, coincidence or plain skepticism, wonderful, inexplicable things happen every day.

According to Walt Whitman,

“…every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same;

every spear of grass–the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them,

All these to me are perfectly unspeakable miracles.”

At the library

Proof of heaven: A neurosurgeon’s journey into the afterlife	Alexander, Eben
Life’s greatest miracle	DVD
Miracle	DVD
Once upon a town: The miracle of the North Platte canteen	Greene, Bob
The mold in Dr. Florey’s coat: The story of the Penicillin miracle	Lax, Erik
An invisible thread: The true story of an 11-year-old panhandler, a busy sales executive, and an unlikely meeting with destiny	Schroff, Laura
The miracle detective: An investigation of holy visions	Sullivan, Randall

Dragons & tiaras: Princess books

National Princess Week starts today–and you don’t have to look any further than the pages of a book to get into the royal spirit!

Princesses are more popular than ever, and production companies make no pretenses about cashing in on their sparkly, fairy tale appeal. But you’ll find many books featuring princess heroines who aren’t your typical damsels in distress!

Check out these book suggestions! More ideas here.

If you’re looking for something…

Nonfiction
Ella: Princess, Saint, and Martyr by Christopher Warwick

High Society: The life of Grace Kelly by Donald Spoto (Large print)

Marie Antoinette: The last queen of France by Evelyne Lever

Glass slipper, gold sandal: A worldwide Cinderella by Paul Fleischman
Historical
The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory

Anacaona, Golden Flower: Haiti, 1490 by Edwidge Danticat (Junior, “Royal Diaries” series)
Empowering
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (Junior)

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix (YA)

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede (Junior)

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley (YA)

Thought-provoking
Cinderella ate my daughter: Dispatches from the frontlines of the new girlie-girl culture
by Peggy Orenstein
Fun for kids
(Don’t forget about our Princess storytime bag with princess books and activities!)

The paper bag princess by Bob Munsch

The princess and the pizza by Mary Jane Auch

The kite princess by Julia Clare Bell

The very fairy princess follows her heart by Julie Andrews

The princess and the pig by Jonathan Emmett
Classic
Check for your favorites at the front desk or our online catalog!
For more fairy tales, take a look at our past post.

We fear not thy cannon: Civil War writings

Nurse Annie Bell after the Battle of Nashville

The first shot of the Civil War was fired by Confederate forces at South Carolina’s Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. The War Between the States would last until 1865, leaving over 600,000 soldiers dead (the deadliest war in U.S. history), the infrastructure of the South destroyed, and slavery abolished.

Since April is also National Poetry Month, it’s fitting that we came across the Library of Congress’ page on Civil War poetry, including “Song of Southern Women:

“We fear not thy cannon, we heed not thy drum,
The deeper thy thunder the stronger we come.”

Soldiers rest after drills, 1864.

Many soldiers’ letters home and love letters are also archived online. One letter, made famous by documentary-maker Ken Burns, was written by a Union soldier to his wife, just days before he was killed at Bull Run:

“Sarah, do not mourn me dead; Think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again..”

At the library: Look for “Brother of Mine,” featuring letters from two Minnesota brothers, and Burns’ documentary. You’ll find its corresponding historical documents (including Sarah’s letter), maps and other information on the PBS website. Head to the 973 section to browse the nonfiction section!

Remembering through reading

Sunday evening marked the beginning of Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah).

During the Holocaust over six million people, mostly Jews, were systematically murdered. Over 40,000 facilities were used to kill two-thirds of Germany’s Jews and also people who were disabled, homosexual, civilians, ethnic (Romani, or gypsies) and suspected sympathizers.

Occurring just 70 years ago, this is a part of the entire world’s history that shouldn’t be forgotten. Through the prejudice and death, stories of incredible courage have emerged.

It’s often easier to follow the rules without causing a stir–take the Nuremberg Trials in which Nazi officers defended themselves by saying they were simply following orders. Today, we can ask ourselves how the rescuers of the Holocaust might be an inspiration for us to stand up for others in our everyday life, especially as genocide continues around the world.

Check at the front desk for books on the subject for all ages, then meet these Holocaust rescuers whose books are available at the library:

Irene Gut Opdyke: Polish housekeeper in German officer’s home. After witnessing the killing of Jewish civilians and children, she hid and fed a group of Jews in the basement of the home. When they were discovered, she became the officer’s mistress to protect them. A book and play have been released about her life and a movie is in the works.
Bielski Brothers: Three Jewish brothers who formed a resistance movement after the their family was murdered. The brothers’ forest camp helped liberate Jews from ghettos and grew to over 1,200 individuals who survived by collaborating with Soviet partisans and fighting.
Ona Šimaitė: Lithuanian librarian who used her university position to rescue Jews in the Vilna Ghetto by smuggling historical documents out and news, food and supplies in, while finding hiding places for children and providing families with forged documents. She was arrested and tortured in 1944 and brought to Dachau concentration camp, from which was liberated.

 

Judging a book by its cover

You’ve probably been told not to judge a book by its cover. But what about when we’re talking about real books? Most of us can’t help but be influenced by the appearance of what we’re reading.

Some media outlets, like the Atlantic, publish their top book cover picks each year. The Guardian likes to point out the cultural shift, featuring U.S. versions side by side with their UK counterparts.

Given the choice, most of us would more likely pick up a book with an appealing cover. So it’s probably a good thing that publishers are paying attention to cover designs to make sure their books get picked up off the shelves. Ebook platform OverDrive is introducing its Next Gen digital library websites–with covers prominently displayed.

As librarians, we’ve seen great books get ignored due to their covers. Take Lois Lowry’s fantastic young adult novel “The Giver.” If we had a penny for every time a reader brushed off its recommendation after glancing at the front jacket…

But does this judgment based on appearances make us bad readers? After all, covers can be misleading in the opposite way, too, since a cool cover doesn’t make for a good book. Sometimes the design itself goes awry. Case in point: February’s Anne of Green Gables proposed cover debacle, featuring a blonde model with a “sexy makeover”–and not a red hair in sight. The reader outrage was immediate, but it’s still not clear if the cover has officially been pulled.

And don’t get us started on the movie tie-in editions.

For fun, check out this article in which a 6-year-old literally judges classic books by their covers. About The Color Purple, she says: “This book has to be about the color purple. I think it’s a baby book. It looks like it would be very short. I think there must be a blob of purple that lives in that house. And the purple blob just stays in its home and is lazy. I think it looks like a very boring book.”

How important is a book’s cover to you?