Shelf Notes

Contract and membership renewals. Do you have membership contracts for your library? If so, how do you do it? In this month's Our Librarian Life, we talk about why Sherry uses an annual contract and why her renewal period is in January. Sara talks about how she is nearing the end of her first year and is wondering how to best get all of her patrons renewed for the first time. We also discuss how we each organize our historical fiction and picture books. Join us by listening in your favorite podcast app or at this link.

Librarians are talking about Biblioguides. What is Biblioguides? Why does it matter to me as a librarian? How can I get the most out of it? How can I offer it to my patrons affordably? In this episode of Our Librarian Life, we sit down with Sarah Kim and Tanya Arnold of Biblioguides to explore those questions and more. The episode posted this week and you can find the show notes here.

In the Small Publishers corner of the newsletter each month, we hope to draw your attention to something lovely from one of our beloved small publishers. We are so grateful for the good work these publishers do to revive otherwise lost good, true, and beautiful books!

In 2022, at the age of 101, beloved children's author Leonard Kessler left this world. Kessler was a fantastic gift to the world of children's books! In 2000, Jill Morgan of Purple House Press, reprinted the beloved Mr. Pine books and, with Kessler's permission, named her publishing company after that perfect book: Mr. Pine's Purple House. When he died in 2022, the New York Times wrote a beautiful piece on Kessler. You can read it here. Judy Schachner's husband read the obituary and contacted Kessler's favorite publisher in the hopes that Jill might want to bring a few of Judy's books back too. She did! In 2022, she released The Grannyman and bits & pieces. After a short wait, Mr. Emerson's Cook is making its debut at Purple House Press! All three of the books are available for sale and are 15% off.

It's that time of year! Anthony Coafield at Living Book Press is getting ready to celebrate birthday season in both his family and his company! Mark your calendar! Living Book Press's annual Big Birthday Sale will be from March 23-31. LBP has released so many new books in the last few months, this is the perfect time to stock up!

In honor of the sale, next week the Plumfield Moms are re-releasing the interview they did with Living Book Press, Purple House Press, and Smidgen Press. You can find the episode in your favorite podcast app now and you can find the show notes here: https://plumfieldandpaideia.com/show-notes-small-publishers-purple-house-press-living-book-press-smidgen-press/

In this section of the newsletter each month, we want to highlight book lists we have found to be particularly good for librarians. This month, we would like to draw your attention to something interesting that Biblioguides is doing with the Newbery Award.

From their site:

The Newbery Award is one of the most well-known book awards in the United States. It was established in 1922 and named in honor of the 18th-century publisher John Newbery. Each year the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), chooses one medal winner that they recognize for their contribution to American children's literature and often several honors or runners-up. Since 1922, a total of over 400 books have been recognized with either the medal or honor award.

Given the Newbery Award's prestige it would be easy to assume that the award winners are all excellent books for children. The Biblioguides Team has not found this to be the case. We always want to provide parents with the information they need to make the best book decisions for their families. With that goal in mind, we've put together a complete list of all medal winners and honor books since inception, and the Biblioguides Review Team is working together to read our way through the winners and to provide a review. Where we have not yet reviewed a book, a description directly from the dust jacket or from the publisher has been provided. In some cases, we have shared a brief synopsis from The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books (1999)

Our Thoughts:

The ladies at Biblioguides assembled a reading and reviewing team that consists of their team of six as well as a team of six librarians and reviewers. Sherry, Diane, and Sara are on that team. It is our combined goal to read all of the Newbery Award books and as many of the Honor books as possible and then give our honest feedback about how we think each particular book would be received by the readers in our care.

The books are organized by year, and you do not need a Biblioguides membership to see and use the list. The project is a living thing and is constantly being updated. It is our mutual aim to give librarians, home librarians, and families as much information as possible to make the best decisions possible for their own reading and book buying. We are working on other lists like it as well, so stay tuned!

In January we announced that the Plumfield Moms are creating custom book club guides perfect for librarians (and others) to use in their libraries. Each PDF guide comes with 25-35 pages of resources, questions, background information, invitations and book marks, participant journals and more. Think of it as a bookclub in a box. All you have to do is print and host! Because you are a subscriber to Shelf Notes, you can download The Princess and the Goblin for free! Just email Plumfield and let them know you would like to have The Princess and the Goblin Book Club Guide (plumfieldandpaideia@gmail.com). If you would like to see more of the guides, go to the guide page, here. You can hear the story behind these new book club guides on the Plumfield Moms State of the Podcast episode, here.

Last month, in her lending library, Sara hosted a book club discussion for Gary D. Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars. Considering that in our last issue we featured George McDonald's The Princess and the Goblin, you may be wondering why we decided to go from a children's classic to a much more modern middle grade novel. The answer is simple: we think Gary D. Schmidt is an incredible author who has written some fantastic middle grade books that are just as important as many of the classics we love.

Families in Sara's library with younger readers were surprised by the contrast in language between the January and February book clubs. MacDonald writes in an old-fashioned fairy tale style. Schmidt's book features middle school boy sensibilities with all that goes with it. And yet, as the children noted during the club, Holling's choice of vocabulary and his self expression greatly improve as he spends the year reading Shakespeare with Mrs. Baker. In Holling we have an anti-hero who becomes a hero in the end.

Using our book club guide, Sara showed the kids a news clip of Walter Cronkite informing the nation that President John F. Kennedy was dead. (The kids did not know that Cronkite was a real news reporter.) And she showed them a short video on the mimeograph/ditto machines. They were stunned by the old technology. And, shockingly, they had no idea what a VW Beetle was. More than many books, Schmidt invites us into a very real and very specific setting, and it was a cultural experience for Sara's patrons.

If you would like to introduce your patrons to Gary D. Schmidt's writing, consider sharing with them the interview the Plumfield Moms did with Schmidt last fall. You can find it and other resources on Schmidt on their Beloved Authors page, here.

For over 28 years, Michelle Miller Howard has been a librarian, author, columnist, speaker, and home-educational consultant, specializing in top-quality “living books” and history instruction. It began in 1985 when, while home-educating her own children, she pioneered the first-known library of rare, “living” youth literature, which has been thriving ever since: Children's Preservation Library (in Michigan) now houses over 21,000 valuable volumes. She has since likewise founded Living Learning Libraries in Florida, with over 41,000 volumes in two branches: Jupiter & Palm Beach Gardens (West Palm Beach area).

Michelle is considered a national leader/expert on “living” libraries and literature, and helps others around the nation and overseas found and operate such libraries, including assistance to Hillsdale Academy (the K-12 classical school of Hillsdale College). She has developed a massive database on youth literature, and her first-hand knowledge of youth literature in all academic areas is unsurpassed. -Taken from Michelle's website, www.livingbookslady.com

In this new video series, Michelle tackles the top questions about living books and living book libraries. You can see the videos already posted at: https://www.youtube.com/@LivingLearningLibraries

Don't forget to check out our Michelle Howard page at The Card Catalog where you will find all kinds of resources from this long-time patroness of the living book library movement!

There are many kinds of wonderful picture books. But my (Sara) favorite, has always been the kind that invites me into a beautiful world that is lush with color, alive with whimsy, and still grounded in something substantial and firm. Because Barbara by Sarah Mackenzie and illustrated by Eileen Ryan Ewen is just such a book. This beautiful picture book biography does honor to the beloved Barbara Cooney and her legacy. Available for pre-order now, this beautiful picture book will be released in May 2024. You can read Sara's whole review here complete with lots of pictures.

Lots of private lending libraries are opening and "soft opening" and Grand Opening this spring:

• Briar Rose Living Library in Sault Ste. Marie, ON, Canada just celebrated its Grand Opening on Sunday, March 10th with a ribbon-cutting and a prayer over the library and its future patrons. Helen McKay is the librarian.
• Naglak Family Biblioteca, Librarian Carrie Naglak, "soft launch" was on Thursday, March 14th.
• Harmony Harkema is preparing to open Dawn Treader Living Books Library in Grand Rapids, MI in August. Follow @dawntreaderlivinglibrary on Facebook or Instagram for updates.

Book clubs this month and next in various private lending libraries:

• Meriadoc Homeschool Library is book clubbing The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald in March and the Poetry for Young People series in April, in honor of National Poetry Month.
• Cornerstone Living Library's book for book club on Friday, March 22, is The Green Ember by S.D. Smith.
• Shannon Tobias Memorial Christian Lending Library has a book club for ladies, reading and discussing Assaulted Caramel by Amanda Flower in April.
• Plumfield Living Books Library is doing The Railway Children by E. Nesbit and The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt for March and April book clubs.
• Briar Rose Living Library in Ontario, Canada is hosting for its March Themed Book Club on March 27th, Sherlock Holmes and the Detective Life.

Rebekah Hicks of HEART Community Library in Komoka, ON, Canada, has a small satellite library shelf at her homeschool co-op where the children can self-check out from a selection of books from her larger library.

C.F., librarian at Families United Lending Library in Summit County, OH, has already done a library presentation for one women's club in her area, and now she has been invited to present information on her lending library and the need for such libraries to another women's club in the area.

Three cheers for community outreach!

Please pray for the following libraries and librarians, in process or due to open soon:

Branching Out Library, Millport, NY, Cindy McCarthy, Librarian.

Knight's Harbor, Blairsville, GA, Jodi Garrett, Librarian.

Families United Lending Library, Summit County, OH, C.F., Librarian.

Lending Library, Canton, TX, Emily Manning, Librarian.

We love hearing about what you are doing in your private lending library. If you have news of events or new endeavors in your library, please share with us by email at thecardcataloglibrarians@gmail.com.