Research for this article contributed by Scott King-Owen, Ph.D, Teacher, Bexley City Schools.
One month before the First World War ended a second wave of the deadly Spanish Influenza pandemic, initially spread in military encampments by troop movement, found its way into the civilian population of central Ohio. Like Covid-19, a century later, the absence of medicine for treatment or a vaccine for prevention necessitated avoiding crowds, through isolation or quarantine, to control spread of the respiratory virus.
Hanukkah is right around the corner, so what better time to dive into our collection and find books that will help us celebrate this special time of the year.
If you’re looking for books to sharpen your hosting skills or to learn more about Hanukkah, look no further than these titles:
As 2020 comes to a close, I asked staff to reflect on their favorites books, movies, and albums from this year. Some staff found it easy to narrow it down, while others couldn’t choose just one! Here are the BPL staff favorite books of 2020:
Christian’s Pick – The Lucky Star by William T. Vollmann | print
David’s Pick – COVID-19: The Pandemic that Never Should Have Happened and How to Stop the Next One by Debora MacKenzie | print
Hannah’s Pick – Wilderness Chef: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking Outdoors by Ray Mears | print
Juliana’s Favorite Memoir – This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire by Nick Flynn | print
Juliana’s Favorite Fiction Read – Writers & Lovers by Lily King | print / digital
Leann’s Science Fiction Pick – A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green | print / digital
Leann’s Favorite Thriller – The Guest List by Lucy Foley | print / digital
Nichole’s Pick – Being Lolita by Alisson Wood | print
Sue’s Pick – Deacon King Kong by James McBride | print / digital
Our favorite films from 2020 include:
Christian’s Pick – Feels Good Man *currently unavailable through the CLC
Juliana’s Pick – The Devil All the Time *currently only available on Netflix
Nichole’s Pick – The King of Staten Island | DVD / Blu-Ray
And finally, our BPL staff favorite albums from 2020 include:
Christian’s Pick – Heaven to a Tortured Mind by Yves Tumor | CD
Hannah’s Pick – Old Flowers by Courtney Marie Andrews | CD
This November marks the 30th anniversary of Native American Heritage Month, as declared by President George H. W. Bush in 1990.
The month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people. Heritage Month is also an opportune time to educate the general public about tribes, to raise a general awareness about the unique challenges Native people have faced both historically and in the present, and the ways in which tribal citizens have worked to conquer these challenges.
The feeling of a ghostly presence, knickknacks moved out of place, someone or something tapping one’s shoulder, but is Jeffrey Mansion, the Jacobethan Revival home on North Parkview Avenue, haunted?
Tales of its haunting have been attributed to unidentified individuals and their mysterious and unreported deaths. Perhaps it’s the spirit of a young woman, said to have been murdered there, that haunts the third floor, or that of a man, one supposedly hung himself in the towerwhileanother from the staircase.
Donated to the City of Bexley in 1941, the original owner, former Mayor of Columbus Robert Hutchins Jeffrey, had the stone and brick residence built in 1905. He had long since moved out when he died in 1961 at Grant Hospital. His wifeAlice Kilbourne Jeffreydied inside the home in 1922, but only after an illness lasting several months.
During the seventies, children experienced sightings of a witch, her white hair outlined by light in a second floor window. Then, opening the window, in a “scratchy, shaky, haunting voice,” the woman scared the children off. But, that was just Violet Ketner, who with her husband John, were live-in caretakers for nearly two decades. “I’m not really afraid,” she told a reporter from the Dispatch. “I’ve never seen anything.”
For more ghostly tales and scary stories from around Columbus and Ohio explore these titles:
With just less than a month to go, the second meeting of the BPL Virtual Book Club is just around the corner! The upcoming meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 4 at 7PM, and we’ll discuss the book Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie. It’s an award-winning book, well received by critics and readers alike, and is sure to generate an engaging discussion. Register to join us! I’m still in the midst of reading the book, but I’m enjoying it so far. It seems like a book I could usually finish in just a day or two, but I’ve been trying to take my time with it. Not only to better prepare for the discussion, but I also have a feeling it is a book I’ll be sad to see end.
If you’re like me and don’t want to race through the book just yet, you might be looking for another book to absorb yourself with in the meantime. These books share a variety of themes with Shamsie’s: identity, belonging (especially as experienced by an “outsider”), and the nuances of strained/difficult relationships. They follow well-developed, complex and sympathetic (though often flawed) characters. They’re books that evoke a strong sense of place and that attempt to humanize and explore sometimes difficult political stories; i.e., my favorite kinds of books. Indeed, several of these make my list of all time favorite reads!
A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza / print | digital
Banned Books Week was launched in the 1980s, a time of increased challenges, organized protests, and the Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982) Supreme Court case, which ruled that school officials can’t ban books in libraries simply because of their content.
While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read.
Every year, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles a list of the top 10 challenged books to bring to light censorship that still plagues libraries and schools.
Of the 566 books that were targeted, here are the most challenged, along with the reasons cited for censoring the book:
Reasons: for LGBTQIA+ content and a transgender character; for sexual references; and for conflicting with a religious viewpoint and “traditional family structure”
Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin | print / digital
Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, for “its effect on any young people who would read it,” and for concerns that it was sexually explicit and biased
A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss, illustrated by EG Keller | print / digital
Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content and political viewpoints, for concerns that it is “designed to pollute the morals of its readers,” and for not including a content warning
Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg, illustrated by Fiona Smyth | print / digital
Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content; for discussing gender identity and sex education; and for concerns that the title and illustrations were “inappropriate”
Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack, illustrated by Stevie Lewis | print
Reasons: featuring a gay marriage and LGBTQIA+ content; for being “a deliberate attempt to indoctrinate young children” with the potential to cause confusion, curiosity, and gender dysphoria; and for conflicting with a religious viewpoint
I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas | print
Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, for a transgender character, and for confronting a topic that is “sensitive, controversial, and politically charged”
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood | print / digital
Reasons: profanity and for “vulgarity and sexual overtones”
Drama written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier | print / digital
Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content and for concerns that it goes against “family values/morals”
Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling | print / digital
Reasons: referring to magic and witchcraft, for containing actual curses and spells, and for characters that use “nefarious means” to attain goals
And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson illustrated by Henry Cole | print / digital
Election Day 2020 is now a mere 43 days away. Somehow this seems like both a lifetime away and, well, tomorrow. Regardless of how you plan to vote this November, Bexley Public Library is here to help! To encourage everyone in the community to exercise one of their most fundamental rights, we are hosting two drive-in voter registration events with The League of Women Voters on Tuesday, (TOMORROW!) September 22 from 3-5PM and Thursday, October 1 from 5-7PM. Both events will be held in the BPL parking lot and will also feature musical guests and food trucks. Join us as we celebrate – maybe not the election itself, but at least our ability to have a say in its outcome! And be sure to visit http://bexleylibrary.org/vote or give us a call at 614-231-2793 to get more information on deadlines, procedures, accessing voting materials, etc.
In the spirit of the election season, I’ve composed a list of some of my favorite “political” (I’m using that term in a fairly broad sense) books. And while this list is attached to a post about preparing for the upcoming election, I’ve chosen books that, I think, are largely non-partisan, and don’t focus much on presidential elections or candidates. Rather, they’re books that have helped me better understand and refine my own political worldview, while also helping me better understand those views I may not agree with. Importantly, several of these books put the struggles and concerns of real people at their centers: in my mind, what politics should always be about. Such stories help us build empathy for, and an understanding of people who aren’t always politically aligned with us already. Happy reading!
The Populist’s Guide to 2020: A New Right and New Left are Rising by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti | print
Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis | print / digital
Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Hedges and Sacco | print
With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald | print
Strangers in their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild | print / digital
Did you know that tomorrow, September 15th kicks of National Hispanic Heritage Month?
“The observation started in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period starting on September 15 and ending on October 15.
The day of September 15 is significant because it is the anniversary of independence for Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September 18, respectively. Also, Columbus Day or Día de la Raza, which is October 12, falls within this 30 day period.”
https://www.hispanicheritagemonth.gov/about/
To celebrate, check out these titles written by Latinx authors!
The Overstory by Richard Powers is a lot of things, possibly too many, at once. But perhaps its most impressive achievement is how it decenters the human experience while simultaneously unfurling a compelling, complex, and ultimately human storyline via its nine main characters. Being a work of environmental fiction, and in particular being tree-centric, it’s not farfetched to expect a fairly breezy, peaceful read with the end result of appreciating nature a bit more. In reality, The Overstory is fraught with traumatic events and incisive critiques of our relationship with nature.
The Overstory is split into four sections: Roots, Trunk, Crown, and Seeds. In Roots, each of the main characters are introduced via a short story-esque passage that ultimately reveals the role trees play (or have played) in their lives. These range all the way from a dendrologist (someone who studies trees/wooded plants) to a young couple who, for much of their lives, don’t pay any attention to trees. In the book’s second section, Trunk, the narrative hops between storylines and the characters’ stories intertwine in various interesting ways, primarily by means of environmental activism. In Crown and Seeds, the fallout from the narrative climax unravels and the story draws to a close.
Tonally, The Overstory is alternately enchanting and disheartening. Passages describing the social nature of trees and how they communicate with one another inspire awe, but this awe is quickly eroded when reading about the sobering environmental devastation of logging, particularly in old-growth areas like the redwood forests in California. This frames one of the central conflicts of the book: environmental activists versus logging companies. And as the book is set in capitalist America, the victor of these confrontations isn’t exactly a surprise.
It’s difficult to overstate just how much is packed into the 500 or so pages of The Overstory. Existential meditations about humanity’s place on Earth, ruminations on the future of artificial intelligence- it is truly much more than a book about trees. Because of this, the book can teeter toward melodrama, and it loses a bit of steam toward the end. It can also be an exceptionally difficult read emotionally, as a human being and as a consumer. However, in a time where the consequences of climate change ominously loom in our everyday lives, the perspective Richard Powers offers is both welcome and utterly paramount.
For fans of Literary Fiction and Environmental Fiction, including Greenwoodby Michael Christie and Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
