One Book, One Town, One Difficult Choice!

/ Sandy / 2 Comments

The Cheshire Public Library is planning on hosting a One Book, One Town program in 2025. For those unfamiliar with this concept, the idea is to select a book the whole town can read “together”. The library will host a kick-off party and plan programming based on the book’s narrative and themes. We are so excited for this chance to bring the community together under one book, and we’ve been giving the selection process a lot of thought. As a fun peek behind the curtains, I would like to talk a little about the books that we thought could be potential contenders and the reasons why they weren’t selected.

The first novel we considered for this program is Overstory by Richard Powers. This is a dense novel both in size (512 pages) and in content. The story follows 9 characters spanning from the 1950s through the early 2000s as their stories overlap. It’s difficult to say exactly what Overstory is about. It’s a novel about trees, but really, it’s a novel about people, nature and how closely these two worlds overlap. It’s a novel about the importance of paying attention to nature as well as tackling questions about what we can do, both as individuals and collectively, to protect nature and each other. It is beautifully written, each character given their own story and arc. It is also a powerful love letter to trees.

Ultimately, we decided not to choose this book for our program because of its length and concerns about being able to secure the author for an author talk. Powers will be busy with press for his new book titled Playground about oceans, which I am sure is as masterfully written as Overstory. If you can carve out time to read this novel, I highly recommend it.

The second novel in the running for this program was The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. Like Overstory, The Great Believers also made it onto the New York Times list of the best 100 books of the 21st century. The story jumps in time; one part is set in Chicago between 1985 and 1992 and the other in Paris in 2015. The novel is about a group of friends, predominantly gay men, navigating the AIDS crisis in its early days. This is the strongest part of the novel. Makkai captures the fear, loss, and grief from this era while still managing to tell a beautiful story about love and friendship. As the reader, it is easy to fall in love with these characters and feel tremendous sadness about the senselessness of their deaths.

Unfortunately, the parts of the novel that take place in 2015 are less effective. Much of these chapters, which concern survivor’s guilt and lasting trauma, feel extraneous and only serve to distract from the gripping 80s narrative. We decided against this book partly because of these jarring time jumps, as well as concern about the overall heaviness of the subject matter. That being said, if you are looking for something on the power of love and friendship, please don’t hesitate to pick up this book.

The last novel strongly considered for our One Book program was The Women by Kristin Hannah. The hype around this novel has been almost as big as the number of patrons requesting it at the library. The story is about combat nurses in Vietnam and their lives after the war. It’s a difficult read, particularly in its depiction of post traumatic stress disorder. The resources for soldiers returning from the Vietnam war were abysmal and the resources for returning female combat nurses were non-existent. The novel deals with the struggles of settling back into civilian life while having your war experiences repeatedly minimized or even denied.  

This book would appeal to a wide audience, particularly those who lived during the Vietnam War, those who served in the war, or those who are interested in the history of that era. We decided against selecting this book because Kristin Hannah’s speaking fees are prohibitively expensive.

We are hoping to finalize the book selection for the program by the end of this month so be sure to keep an eye out early next year for the book unveiling as well as a list of programs. We can’t wait to read with you!

Mondegreens

/ Susan O. / 1 Comment

Say What?

We’ve all been there, singing along with Elton John on the radio:

“Hold me closer, Tony Danza. Count the head lice on the highwaaaayyyy….”

Right?

But the song is Tiny Dancer, and they count the head lights on the highway.

Mishearing lyrics is as common as listening to music – and popular music is full of garbled lyrics open to guesswork. Does anyone really know (or understand) Springsteen’s (or Manfred Mann’s cover) Blinded by the Light? For years I swore Dolly Parton said Jolene had Ivorish skin and eyes of Bilbo green. Made no sense, but try as I might, that’s what I heard. Other people swear The Beatles are singing about the girl with colitis going by, Creedence Clearwater Revival wails about being “Stuck with an old diaper pin,” or “There’s a bathroom on the right.”

Mishearing lyrics like that is called a Mondegreen, a term coined by Sylvia Wright in 1954, when she insisted the lyrics to “The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray” were not “laid him on the green” but “Lady Mondegreen.” If you continue to insist your misheard lyrics are correct, even when given the correct ones, it’s called a mumpsimus (in case you needed a new word today). Of course, sometimes the misheard lyrics are just more fun to sing (such as headlice on the highway), and you sing it that way anyway.

Mondegreens aren’t limited to modern music. One of the more common ones is hearing “Gladly the cross-eyed bear” for the line “Gladly the cross I’d bear” in the hymn Keep Thou My Way. Mondegreens are made by our own brains by substituting things that make more sense to us, whether by word or experience. If you don’t know the actual word, your brain substitutes one it already knows that is similar. If you’ve got no experience with something, you might automatically substitute something you do know: the folksong Golden Vanity talks about the lowland, lowland sea, but if you’re from Appalachia, and have no idea what a lowland sea is, the words became lonesome sea. Thankfully more of us are familiar with head lights than head lice.

Some mondegreens were so popular and universal that the bands themselves started singing them that way. ELO’s Don’t Bring Me Down is almost universally sung as “Don’t bring me down. Bruce!” but the word was originally groose, which was a nonsense placeholder word during the writing that was liked so much, it was left in the final song. Eventually they, too, sang it as bruce. Jimi Hendrix and John Fogerty also embraced and sang their own mondegreens.

Mondegreens bleed over into books – Vivian Walsh’s book, Olive, the Other Reindeer plays on misheard lyrics of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and A Monk Swimming by Malachy McCourt is taken from the misheard prayer line, amongst women. The Lonely Planet travel guides are taken from the misheard lyric lovely planet from Joe Cocker’s rendition of “Space Captain.” Ed McBain has a mystery novel, Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear.

Here are some of the more common mondegreens in modern music. Check out the songs, and listen for yourself. Can you hear both versions? What are some lyrics you mishear all the time?

Purple Haze, Jimmy Hendrix: I want to kiss this guy, is really, I want to kiss the sky.

Lodi, Creedence Clearwater Revival: Stuck with an old diaper pin for Stuck in Lodi again.

Bad Moon Rising, Creedence Clearwater Revival: There’s a bathroom on the right/ There’s a bad moon on the rise.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, The Beatles: A girl with colitis goes by/ A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin: And there’s a wino down the road/ And as we wind on down the road.

Blinded by the Light, Bruce Springsteen: Wrapped up like a douche with a Corona in the night/ Wrapped up like a deuce, another runner in the night.

Higher Love, Steve Winwood: Bake me a pie of love/ Bring me a higher love.

Dancing Queen, ABBA: See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen.
/See that girl, watch that scene, digging the dancing queen.

Joy to the World, Three Dog Night:  Joy to the visions that the people see/ Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea.

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite, R.E.M.:  Calling Jamaica/ Call me when you try to wake her (Wait – it’s NOT Jamaica?)

Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana: Here we are now, in containers/ Here we are now, entertain us

Blank Space, Taylor Swift: Got a lot of Starbucks lovers/Got a long list of ex-lovers

THIS is a deuce coupe, running in the night

Freedom to Read

/ Beth Piezzo, Library Director / Leave a comment

Almost every evening, my husband and I take a walk around our neighborhood in New Haven.  And stapled to almost every telephone pole, are numerous flyers in varying states of decay. Notices for tag sales, concerts, scientific studies and lost pets paper poles along our route.  Occasionally, someone uses this unofficial public forum to express their political viewpoint.  Recently I passed a flyer with language that I found offensive, and my first urge was to rip it down.  After all, technically people aren’t allowed to post flyers on telephone poles.  And there are children walking by who shouldn’t be exposed to that kind of language.  I would be doing a good thing for our neighborhood by removing the offensive poster.  And then my personal feelings took a backseat as I reminded myself we live in a society where free speech is a constitutional right.  While I may have a negative reaction to flyers or books with viewpoints that I disagree with, I prefer to live in a world where everyone is free to choose what they read or don’t read.  So, I averted my eyes and kept walking.

This week the Cheshire Public Library is celebrating Freedom to Read Week (formally known as Banned Books Week) to highlight the dangers of censorship.  This annual celebration was launched in 1982 by the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) in response to an increase in book challenges.  Interestingly, forty-plus years after the first Banned Books Week, the nation is again experiencing an increase in book challenges.  According to the OIF, in 2023 4,240 different titles were challenged which represents a 65% increase over 2022.  Books representing LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals account for 47% of those titles targeted for removal.  According to the OIF Director, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, “This is a dangerous time for readers and the public servants who provide access to reading materials. Readers, particularly students, are losing access to critical information, and librarians and teachers are under attack for doing their jobs.”

It would be dishonest to say that librarians don’t struggle with buying books whose content they disagree with.  But providing a collection that represents diverse viewpoints is fundamental to supporting ALA’s Freedom to Read Statement which asserts that the ability to read freely is essential to our democracy.  This is not to say that everything published makes it into the collection as librarians also must be careful to curate materials based on the authority of the author, accuracy of content, and even price and format.  For a full list of the criteria used at the Cheshire Library please see our Materials Selection Policy.

As part of our celebration of Freedom to Read Week, staff have created two drop-in activities for all ages that will be available during our regular hours of operation:

Guess the Challenged Book Game where a copy of a challenged book has been shredded and placed in a jar.  Each day a new clue is added to help you solve the puzzle.

Shine a Light on Censorship Scavenger Hunt where each participant will be given a small black light to use to uncover cleverly hidden letters and solve a secret word.

Whether you stop in this week to try one of our activities or visit anytime in future, we hope you will register for a library card and borrow materials so you too can read often and read freely.

Exploring the Rich History of Cheshire

/ Cara / Leave a comment

Cheshire may be a small town, but it has an interesting and well documented history. Whether you have lived here all your life or just moved to Cheshire, you might have fun exploring the library’s local history collection.

You may be aware that the Farmington Canal ran through Cheshire and the rail trail goes right by Lock 12 park. If you have ever wanted to know more about the history of the Farmington Canal, we have the book: Reflections on the Canal in Cheshire, composed by Raimon L. Beard and published by the Cheshire Historical Society in June of 1976. This 81-page booklet gives a complete account of the inspiration, construction and usage of the Farmington Canal during a time when actual boats moved goods and people through the town of Cheshire. There are illustrations and some fun stories. It’s well worth the read and probably something to read while you’re sitting on one of the benches on the linear park.


If you’re curious about the earliest history of Cheshire, History of Cheshire Connecticut from 1694-1840, by Joseph Perkins Beach is a good one to read. It takes you from the arrival of the first ships in New Haven Harbor until 1840. The first half of the book is a historical narrative and the second half are records from various churches, tombstones, and the Town Hall, listing individuals who were born, baptized, married, and died in Cheshire.  The Cheshire Daughters of the American Revolution were responsible for getting this book finished and published. This is a good book for those who are looking for early history and it is also available for free online.

One book that I always love to read and reread is Landmarks of Old Cheshire, published by the Cheshire bicentennial committee in 1976. Landmarks is the go-to book for Cheshire history. It is logically laid out by geographical area and pulls from several historical accounts. It covers information and stories from the colonial area to the mid-20th century. Kathleen Gagnon did an incredible job providing about a hundred illustrations for this book. Even if you don’t read the book, just look at the pictures!

Glaciers to Greenhouses, the Changing Landscape of Cheshire Connecticut, from Mile-High Ice to Surburban Backyards is a recent book by local author Jeanne R. Stewart, our town historian from 2012-2019. This one takes quite a different spin on the history of the area. It begins with the ice age and the history of the Native Americans in our area, the Quinnipiac. The book includes many illustrations and is so wonderfully written that it is hard to put down.

The above are a few titles to get you started on your path to learn about Cheshire’s past. There are plenty of other very interesting books on Cheshire’s history that are available for checkout from the library. Come see us at the reference desk or give us a call at (203) 272-2245 ext. 33007 to learn more!

Did You Know: Lesser Known Library Materials

/ Coleen / Leave a comment

I was recently helping a patron at the circulation desk when someone returned a mobile hotspot. The patron I was helping was pleasantly surprised to learn that we have them available to borrow. As a result, I thought I’d write about some of the items the Cheshire Public Library has available that you may not be aware of.

We currently own six mobile hotspots you can borrow. What is a mobile hotspot? A mobile hotspot is a little box that works like a Wi-Fi router to bring you wireless internet. You power it up and can connect phones, computers, and TV streaming devices. They are great for traveling when you may not otherwise have access to the internet, and come with easy-to-follow directions on how to set them up and a number to call for help during library hours. Ask for one at the circulation desk on the main level or reserve one here.

Also great for vacation are selfie sticks! The two selfie sticks we have available use Bluetooth. You pair the selfie stick with your phone the same as other Bluetooth devices like speakers, keyboards, or Apple Watches by accessing Bluetooth settings on your phone. They are great for all kinds of situations: when no one is around to take your photo, when you want to photograph an expansive area beyond the reach of your arm, when you want everyone in your group to be in the photo, or when you’d rather not hand your smart phone to a stranger. Ask where to find them at the reference desk on the lower level or reserve one here.

Patrons are often surprised to hear we have boomboxes available to checkout. These are useful for audio books and music CDs. They can also play the radio, which is handy at the drive-in movies so your car battery doesn’t die! Ask where to find them at the reference desk on the lower level or reserve one here.

We also own three portable CD players. These include a car kit that attaches to your car stereo, making them another useful item for traveling! They are especially wonderful for listening to audio books during long drives when you don’t have a CD player in your vehicle. Like the selfie sticks and boomboxes, these can also be found on the lower level. Reserve one here.

While the games located in the Teen Room are for library use only, we do have an extensive selection of board games you can bring home to play. They are located on the main level near the Fiction books. You can find the list of what we own, and reserve one if you like, here.

Mobile hotspots and board games can be checked out for 2 weeks. Selfie sticks, boomboxes, and portable CD players can be checked out for 3 weeks. These items will automatically renew once as long as no one else has placed a hold on them.

Please note that the items listed above will be held behind the circulation desk on the main level for pick-up if you put them on hold, and not on the hold shelves at the front of the library. We ask that they all be returned to that same desk inside the library; they are all delicate, and we want to make sure they do not get damaged and are available for the next person.

The final items you can borrow for use outside the library are ones my own family has utilized throughout the years: museum passes! However, our passes are not just for museums. We also have passes for State Parks Centers, a Nature Center, and even Mystic Seaport! Look through our collection here, where you can decide whether to search by venue or date. You can reserve passes up to 30 days in advance.

Once you decide on your venue and date, simply print the pass from home*. If you don’t have a printer available, come to the library and ask to have it printed for you. Some of our passes are also available digitally and do not need to be printed at all. The printable/digital passes are good only for the date you reserve them, so no need to worry about late fees.

*While most passes can be printed out at home, the “CT State Parks Centers and Historical Buildings” pass must be picked up at our reference desk. This pass is subject to a $10 per day late fee. The “CT Science Center” coupon we offer must also be picked up at the library, but does not have any associated late fees.

The last items you may want to know about are not things to borrow, but rather things you may have left behind. The Cheshire Public Library has Lost and Found bins in both the adult and children’s areas; please ask about them next time you come in. We also keep smaller and/or more valuable items behind the circulation desk on the main level, so whether you are missing an earring, glasses, or a notebook full of all the books you’ve read, please be sure to ask.

I hope you found this information informative. If you have any other ideas for things you’d like to see The Library add to its collection, whether books or items, please let us know here. You never know, you might find it at at the library in the future!