Traveling Through Time with Jeeves and Wooster

June 12, 2015June 4, 2015 / Mary / Leave a comment

Wandering through the fiction stacks looking for a good book, a title caught my eye: Jeeves and the Wedding Bells.

Boy, is that in the wrong place, I thought, knowing that the author of the Jeeves and Wooster series was the late, great P.G. Wodehouse. What was it doing on the shelves near Faulkner? I pulled it off and received a surprise. Sebastian Faulks was listed as the author and the full title was Jeeves and the Wedding Bells: an homage to P.G. Wodehouse.

I flipped open the cover and read the blurb on the inside: P.G. Wodehouse documented the lives of the inimitable Jeeves and Wooster for nearly sixty years, from their first appearance in 1915 (“Extricating Young Gussie”) to the his final completed novel (Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen) in 1974. These two were the finest creations of a novelist widely proclaimed to be the finest comic English writer by critics and fans alike. With the approval of the Wodehouse estate, acclaimed novelist Sebastian Faulks brings Bertie and Jeeves back to life in a hilarious affair of mix-ups and mishaps.

How had I missed this? I clutched my new-found treasure and remembered…

I was fifteen years old and a new Wodehouse fan, having discovered his books via my job as a library page. I was an avid reader and hungrily devouring all the new series that came my way. Granted, Wodehouse was not a new author even back then, but he was new to me and from my first story, Jeeves and the Tie that Binds, I was smitten. Wit, pacing, irony, farce, and Englishmen; I couldn’t read them fast enough.

I recalled my delight at spotting a Wodehouse title that I had never read before and how I would carefully stow it away on my book truck so that I could check it out at the end of my shift. That same joy was surging through me now. A new Jeeves and Wooster tale! For a brief moment, I was fifteen again.

If you have never experienced the joys of a P.G. Wodehouse tale, I highly encourage you to dig in. You can also watch the excellent Jeeves and Wooster T.V. series starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

Slow Cookers in the Summer

June 3, 2015June 3, 2015 / Mary / Leave a comment

I got my first slow cooker in December and it was love at first stew. All through the winter my family dined on soups and stews, chickens and roasts. But then summer approached and I thought, time to turn to my old friend the barbeque. Slow cookers are for the cooler months, right?

Wrong.

The library director told me she was planning a June display on slow cookers because slow cookers are great in the summer. No overly warm kitchen. No broiling in front of a grill. Simple. Slow. Cool.

New though I am to the slow cooker universe, I immediately grasped the possibilities. And the cookbooks. I went straight to the library shelves and discovered great recipes like braised pork shoulder with soft tacos and watermelon-tomato salsa and spicy veggie chili with summer squash and jalapenos from Year Round Slow Cooker by Dina Cheney. My mouth watered for easy cheesy sloppy joes, open-faced pizza sandwiches, and risotto primavera with chicken from Year-Round Slow Cooker Recipes by Better Homes and Gardens.

Looks like my slow cooker and I won’t be apart this summer after all.

The library has a host of books on display in our lobby during June so you and your slow cooker can enjoy the summer together:

Ten Good Moms from Fiction

May 11, 2015May 14, 2015 / Mary / Leave a comment

I’m not sure how the topic came up, but recently my daughter asked me if I could name the ten best moms from literature.

“What do you mean by best?” I countered. “Best written? Strongest? Nicest?”

“Just the ten best. I tried and couldn’t think of many, and the Internet wasn’t very helpful.”

“Well,” I began, resolved to be a good mom and take a stab at it. “How about Marmee from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women?”

“Yep, I thought of her. That’s one.”

“Caroline Ingalls from the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.”

“That’s two.”

“Molly Weasley from Harry Potter,” I said with a smile, thinking that this would be easy.

“Three.” She watched me.

“Ma Joad from Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. She was the strong one in her family.”

She considered this. “Okay, Four.”

“Um…” I thought. And thought. “Kanga,” I said after a long silence.

“She’s a kangaroo!”

“She’s a mom, the mother of Roo in A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books. She counts.”

She grinned. “Five. It’s not easy, is it? Shall we include Duchess the cat from The Artistocats?”

I ignored this. “What about that series you liked when you were younger? The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede. Cimorene was a good mother.”

“Yeah, but she wasn’t a mom until the last book.”

“It counts,” I said sternly.

“Six.”

We looked at each other in silence.

“The six best moms of literature doesn’t sound too bad,” I suggested.

“If you write a blog about it, ten would sound better,” she challenged.

So I took my quest in to the library and started asking my colleagues.

“Marmee,” everyone immediately said.

I explained that I had already thought of her, my dilemma in not being able to find ten, and listed the six I had come up with.

“Ramona Quimby’s mom,” the library director, whose name is Ramona, too, promptly said.

Seven.

“The mom in Fancy Nancy by Jane O’Connor,” one of the children’s librarians suggested. “Because a good mom should be fun, too!”

Eight. I was inching closer to the magic number.

“Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White,” the deputy director offered in an email later that day. “She is one of the best mothers in literature, both to her own future babies (whom she will never see, but provides for all the same) and of course Wilbur. And heroine of one of the best books of all times!”

Nine. One was a kangaroo and one was a spider, but I was not about to be picky.

Where, oh, where was the elusive ten?

It came, ironically, from the one who had started it all. When I went home that evening and listed the nine candidates, my daughter immediately said, “Keladry’s mom in the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce. She was a good mom and could out fight any man. I thought of her after you went to work.”

Ten. The magic ten. I smiled. She smiled. And then she asked, “Are you going to make a list for the ten best fathers, too?”

“Ten best fathers in literature,” I began to muse.

Expect a sequel in June, folks.

Who would you put on a list of the ten best moms in literature? Make a suggestion in the comments!

The Story Behind Draw a Bird Day

April 20, 2015April 17, 2015 / Mary / 4 Comments

In 1943, Dorie Cooper was a 7 year old living in England. Her mother took her to a hospital to visit her uncle who was wounded in the war. While they were there, Dorie’s uncle was very distraught, having lost his right leg to a land mine. In an attempt to cheer him up, she asked him “Draw a bird for me, please.” Even though he was unwell, he decided to do as Dorie asked. He looked out his window and drew a picture of a robin.

On April 7, 2015 the director of the Cheshire Library put a piece of paper into everyone’s mailbox. The page was blank except for one sentence across the top: Wednesday, April 8^th is “Draw a Picture of a Bird Day” followed by the line: Here is my picture of a bird.

What fun, I thought and took my paper home to plan a drawing for the next day. On April 8^th when I arrived at work, several staff had created bird drawings. There were all types from simple line drawings to colorful sketches. Owls, doves, robins, swans, and hummingbirds found their way onto the wall of our staff room.

After seeing her uncle’s bird picture, Dorie laughed out loud and proclaimed that he was not a very good artist, but that she would hang the picture in her room nonetheless. Her uncle’s spirits were lifted by his niece’s complete honesty and acceptance. Several other wounded soldiers also had their day brightened by the event and every time Dorie came to visit thereafter, they held drawing contests to see who could produce the best bird pictures. Within several months, the entire ward’s walls were decorated by bird drawings.

The next evening, as I was standing there looking at the pictures, I became curious about the source of Draw a Bird Day. So, I did some research and discovered the Draw a Bird Day website. I read with interest about Dorie and her uncle. And then came the third paragraph.

3 years later, Dorie was killed after being struck by a car. At her funeral, her coffin was filled with bird images that had been made by soldiers, nurses and doctors from the ward where her uncle had been. Ever since then, those men and women remembered the little girl who brought hope to the ward by drawing birds on her birthday, April 8th.

I was stunned. Dorie, the girl who had loved bird drawings, died at age ten? That was not the way I was expecting the tale to end. And then I read a little further.

Draw a Bird Day was never declared an official holiday, but it grew through those soldiers and medical personnel and their families. Today, it is celebrated world wide as a way to express joy in the very simplest of things in life.

I went back into the staff room and looked at the bird drawings again. I had enjoyed making my drawing and viewing the drawings of my coworkers. It had lifted my spirits to make that picture and to see the creativity of the people I worked with. It had, in fact, the same effect that it had in that hospital ward all those years ago.

Seventy-two years after a little girl asked her uncle to draw her a bird, people all over the world are still drawing birds on her birthday. Still celebrating hope and happiness. Still celebrating joy in the simple. Still sharing the fun.

Would you like to learn how to draw a bird? Try these titles:

National Joe Day

March 26, 2015March 13, 2015 / Mary / Leave a comment

National Joe Day is a little-known holiday. Although not designated by Congress as an official national holiday, it is celebrated every year on March 27th.

The point of the holiday is for everyone to call himself Joe for at least this one day. (If you’re female, you can become Jo—short for Josephine.)

We’ve all heard of Joe Blow, Average Joe, Ordinary Joe, Lucky Joe, Joe Cool, Good Joe and G.I. Joe. Joe simply stands for the everyman, for the underdog or the common man. By the way, Joe Blow was first recorded as military slang referring to the average working guy.

Curious, I skimmed through our online catalog to see how popular Joe was for book titles and hit the Joe jackpot.

Joe, A Novel by Larry Brown

Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won’t slow down–not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women.

Calico Joe by John Grisham

It’s the summer of 1973, and Joe Castle is the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone has ever seen. The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas, dazzles Chicago Cubs fans as he hits home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shatters all rookie records.

The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper

Right after high school, Joe Goffman left sleepy Bush Falls, Connecticut and never looked back. Then he wrote a novel savaging everything in town, a novel that became a national bestseller and a huge hit movie. Fifteen years later, Joe is struggling to avoid the sophomore slump with his next novel when he gets a call: his father’s had a stroke, so it’s back to Bush Falls for the town’s most famous pariah.

Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker

Joe Trona spends his days as a deputy for the Orange County sheriff’s department and his nights as an aide to Will Trona, the influential politician who rescued him from the Hillside Children’s Home. An expert in firearms and martial arts, Joe has been backing Will up for a long time. Still, his skill isn’t enough to keep Will alive, and when his father is killed right in front of Joe’s eyes, the young deputy vows to avenge him.

Joe College by Tom Perrotta

Danny, a Yale junior, is spending Spring break behind the wheel of the Roach Coach, his father’s lunch truck, which plies the parking lots of office parks in central New Jersey, using the time to try and make sense of a love life that’s gotten a little complicated. A comic journey into the dark side of love, higher education and food service.

Where is Joe Merchant? A Novel Tale by Jimmy Buffett

Where is Joe Merchant? That’s what his sister, Trevor Kane, the hemorrhoid-ointment heiress, wants to know. For Desdemona, Merchant is the missing link in her ongoing communications with space aliens. Tabloid journalist Rudy Breno only cares that Merchant gets bigger headlines than Elvis. And for renegade seaplane pilot Frank Bama, the mystery of the presumed-dead-but-often-sighted rock star is turning his life upside down.

Joe Victim: A Thriller by Paul Cleave

Joe Middleton’s story is this: He doesn’t remember killing anyone, so there’ s no way a jury can convict him of serial murder. He calls himself Joe Victim, trying, as he awaits trial, to convince the psychiatrists that he wasn’t in control of his actions, trusting that the system will save him in the end.

And if that doesn’t satisfy your Joe longings, there are entire series devoted to Joes:

Joe Burgess mysteries by Kate Flora

Joe DeMarco novels by Mike Lawson

Joe Grey mysteries by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Joe Gunther novels by Archer Mayor

Joe Kurtz novels by Dan Simmons

Joe Ledger novels by Jonathan Maberry

Joe Pike novels by Robert Crais

Joe Rush novels by James Abel

Joe Sandilands mysteries by Barbara Cleverly

So call yourself Joe, buy a cup of Joe, and peruse one of the many Joe books, all in celebration of National Joe Day.

(PS. Share this with all the Joes you know and make their day special.)