PATRONIZE YOUR LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY OFTEN!
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DOWN CUT SHIN CREEK
by Kathi Appelt and Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer
©2001 During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the New Deal initiative and the Works Progress Administration to put citizens who’d lost their jobs back to work. One of the most unique and successful of these projects was the Pack Horse Library Project of Eastern Kentucky.
©2001 During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the New Deal initiative and the Works Progress Administration to put citizens who’d lost their jobs back to work. One of the most unique and successful of these projects was the Pack Horse Library Project of Eastern Kentucky.
Life in the Cumberland Mountains of that period was one of poverty and privation. Thousands of people lived up in the hollows, inaccessible by roads and completely cut off from the rest of the world. The Pack Horse Librarians (almost all local women who would be trusted as no outsiders would) brought bags full of books to isolated rural homes and one-room schoolhouses accessible only by horseback. They delivered books in the stifling heat and humidity of summer, as well as in frigid winter. The books and magazines were mostly worn-out discards from libraries, schools, universities, and private donations, as the WPA could only afford to pay the librarians $28 a month, with no money available for the purchase of books.
Illustrated with period photographs of the actual women who rode the library circuits, this book describes a typical day in the life of a packhorse librarian, the initial resistance and hostility they met from suspicious hill-folk, and the wonders of reading they brought to children, their parents, and solitary individuals living far from the beaten path.
THE DISMISSAL OF MISS RUTH BROWN
by Louise S. Robbins
This is the true story of one of the unsung heroes of the civil rights movement, a courageous white woman clearly ahead of the times.
Ruth Brown had been the librarian of the Bartlesville Public Library (Oklahoma) for 30 years when she was fired from her job in 1950. Her firing was supposedly on the grounds of providing “subversive” (Communist) materials to the public via the library collection.
After reading this well-documented book, it’s clear that she was fired because she had been promoting racial equality by allowing African Americans access to the library as early as the 1920s. She also wanted to have an integrated story time for children. At the time of her dismissal, the library was subscribing to two African-American publications, Ebony and Negro Digest. She really stirred the kettle when she took black friends with her to her church and when she invited two female African-American teachers to lunch with her at a local diner.
Her opponents used McCarthy era scare tactics to undermine Miss Brown’s support in the community. It was generally assumed that anyone who worked for civil rights at that time must be a communist. And anyone who supported her was guilty by association.
This was just one small skirmish in the struggle for civil rights. But it was indicative of the many small skirmishes that took place in this country during the turbulent 50s, in which white people stood up for racial equality against the powerful white politicians, business leaders, and power brokers who pugnaciously desired to keep the status quo.
This is not light reading. Some would find it dry, possibly boring. But the book is well worth reading, because it gives a much clearer understanding of the censorship issue and the obstacles African Americans faced in securing equal rights under the law.
THE CASE OF THE MISSING BOOKS
by Ian Sansom
Israel Armstrong, a proud, north London bookstore clerk of Irish-Jewish descent, embarks on the dream of his young lifetime: to be a real librarian, with his own library, in a small village in northern Ireland. The only Trouble is: when he gets there, he finds the library closed and all the books missing. That’s trouble with a capital T.
The young librarian encounters quirky villagers and endless problems as he sets out to find the lost books. He must also refurbish an old van to use as a book mobile, assuming he finds the books, because his library has fallen on hard times and is permanently closed. I found myself feeling sorry for Israel. He couldn’t win for losing!
This is a quick read because most of it is in short, snappy dialog. If you can read this book with an Irish accent, all the better! This story reminds me of slapstick --- a kind of “Who’s on First?” book. It just cracked me up, page after page! I really felt like I was right there in “the north of the north of Ireland” as I read about Israel’s dream-turned-nightmare. If you’re looking for a fast and funny mystery-comedy, you can’t go wrong here.
AND for the fans of series: this is only the first of four Israel Armstrong/The Mobile Library Mysteries.
THE CAMEL BOOKMOBILE
by Masha Hamilton
An idealistic young American woman named Fiona goes to Kenya to run a very special bookmobile. She travels from one remote village to the next, carrying books (and knowledge of the outside world) on the backs of camels.
Just like in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, this is another story of two worlds colliding: the modern Western world and the primitive culture of indigenous tribal life. Some of the natives are eager to embrace Western ways and experience life in the outside world, while others fight the idea, preferring to cling to centuries old traditions and superstitiously fearing the traveling library will bring bad luck and disaster to the village.
The story is told from the point of view of several characters: the librarian Fi, her African counterpart who accompanies her, a teacher who went to Nairobi to study and returned to teach in his home village, the teacher’s wife (who is dead-set against the bookmobile), a young Kenyan woman and her grandmother (both supportive of learning new ways), and a young man who was horribly disfigured in a hyena attack as a child.
I was surprised by the similarities with The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom. In both stories, young librarians go to a foreign land to bring books and learning to simple villagers in out-of-the-way locations. Their libraries are bookmobiles. And in both, missing books are the focus of the story. But while The Case of the Missing Books is a zany comedy, this novel is serious in its tone. I am interested in reading about African tribal life and the impact, both beneficial and detrimental, that foreigners have on indigenous peoples.
THE CASE OF THE MISSING BOOKS
by Ian Sansom
Israel Armstrong, a proud, north London bookstore clerk of Irish-Jewish descent, embarks on the dream of his young lifetime: to be a real librarian, with his own library, in a small village in northern Ireland. The only Trouble is: when he gets there, he finds the library closed and all the books missing. That’s trouble with a capital T.
The young librarian encounters quirky villagers and endless problems as he sets out to find the lost books. He must also refurbish an old van to use as a book mobile, assuming he finds the books, because his library has fallen on hard times and is permanently closed. I found myself feeling sorry for Israel. He couldn’t win for losing!
This is a quick read because most of it is in short, snappy dialog. If you can read this book with an Irish accent, all the better! This story reminds me of slapstick --- a kind of “Who’s on First?” book. It just cracked me up, page after page! I really felt like I was right there in “the north of the north of Ireland” as I read about Israel’s dream-turned-nightmare. If you’re looking for a fast and funny mystery-comedy, you can’t go wrong here.
AND for the fans of series: this is only the first of four Israel Armstrong/The Mobile Library Mysteries.
THE CAMEL BOOKMOBILE
by Masha Hamilton
An idealistic young American woman named Fiona goes to Kenya to run a very special bookmobile. She travels from one remote village to the next, carrying books (and knowledge of the outside world) on the backs of camels.
Just like in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, this is another story of two worlds colliding: the modern Western world and the primitive culture of indigenous tribal life. Some of the natives are eager to embrace Western ways and experience life in the outside world, while others fight the idea, preferring to cling to centuries old traditions and superstitiously fearing the traveling library will bring bad luck and disaster to the village.
The story is told from the point of view of several characters: the librarian Fi, her African counterpart who accompanies her, a teacher who went to Nairobi to study and returned to teach in his home village, the teacher’s wife (who is dead-set against the bookmobile), a young Kenyan woman and her grandmother (both supportive of learning new ways), and a young man who was horribly disfigured in a hyena attack as a child.
I was surprised by the similarities with The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom. In both stories, young librarians go to a foreign land to bring books and learning to simple villagers in out-of-the-way locations. Their libraries are bookmobiles. And in both, missing books are the focus of the story. But while The Case of the Missing Books is a zany comedy, this novel is serious in its tone. I am interested in reading about African tribal life and the impact, both beneficial and detrimental, that foreigners have on indigenous peoples.
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