Shelf Notes

In the March episode of Our Librarian Life, we were joined by Sarah Kim and Tanya Arnold from Biblioguides to talk about what BG is, why it is wholly different from something like LibraryThing or Goodreads, and how librarians can use it for themselves, as well as offer it to their patrons as a value-added resource.

Join us by listening in your favorite podcast app or at this link.

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!

New releases will be 15% off: Home Ranch, Mary Emma & Company, Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek, Shy Stegosaurus of Indian Springs, Theras and His Town, Mr. Emerson's Cook, The John Bull, Sabre Jet Ace, and two that are new to paperback, Cranberry Thanksgiving and The Little Old Man Who Could Not Read.

The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek was one of Purple House Press's first books, way back in 2001. Since that time people have been asking for them to reprint the sequel too. It's finally happened! The Shy Stegosaurus of Indian Springs is back again after being out of print for many, many decades. We hope you enjoy the new covers. Jill wanted them to match this time around. They are both unabridged and contain all of the original illustrations by Hubert Buel and Paul Galdone.

Also, prepare for the May sale! The links to the May sale are on the site under the drop-down menu SALES + BARGAINS and here's the direct link to both: https://www.purplehousepress.com/collections/may-sale-25-off and https://www.purplehousepress.com/collections/may-sale

Living Book Press has been releasing a lot of excellent books in the last few months in a variety of subjects and levels like, Gene Stratton Porter's Freckles, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow, John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra, and David Livingstone's Missionary Travels. Check out all of the newest releases here: Living Book Press New Release List.

Oh, what a treat this book is! Bravo to Living Book Press for not only reprinting the “Eyes and No Eyes” series by Arabella Buckley, but also for updating it with gorgeous full-color photos that cannot fail to aid the reader in nature study and invite us into the magical natural world around us. For those who love the old illustration - have no fear! Anthony retained everything and merely added to it.

Take a look at some of the interior text and illustration as well as Sara's review of By Pond and River, here.

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 a Plumfield and Paideia booklist, especially for boys.

Moms often ask us for book recommendations for their 8-12-year-old sons. This particular gender and age reader combination can be challenging for many families. Even if the boys are reading independently, many simply do not dive into novels the way girls seem to.

Keeping in mind that boys tend to love “real” things, we encourage mamas to investigate as many high-quality nonfiction options as they can. Most boys tend to have a couple of clearly defined interests (horses, sports, military history, engineering, knights, etc.), so mamas can start there. Look for nonfiction in that preferred subject area. If you let him, he will chase the rabbit trails that lead into other subject areas.

Beyond non-fiction, however, there are many excellent fiction books that boys love (that aren’t fantasy). This post will always be a work in progress. We will list what we have now, and then we will update it as we add more reviews in this category. This list is not exhaustive – it is just a short cut to some of our favorite books that boys love.

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.

Near the end of Sterling North’s Rascal, Sterling and his aunt Lillie discuss what Sterling might want to be when he grows up. Aunt Lillie thinks Sterling’s deceased mother would have wanted him to be a writer. When he asks why, she says; “And then you could put it all down, the way it is now . . . You could keep it just like this forever.”

That is just what North has done. He has preserved for us a snapshot of life in an American World War I-era small town. I am writing this almost exactly 100 years after the events in this book. Daily life for Americans has changed more in those 100 years than for any people at any other time in world history. There are references throughout the story to activities and objects that were familiar to most people in 1918 America, but will be unfamiliar to most of today’s young readers. Finding out about some of these things will give you a better picture of the time in which Sterling grew up. We should learn from everything we read, but we don’t want to analyze the enjoyment out of his story.

This guide has over 30 pages of everything you will need to host a memorable book club from invitations and reading journals to enrichment suggestions and no-fail book club conversation-starters and questions in one digital download.

Sherry Early, librarian at Meriadoc Homeschool Library and reviewer at her blog, Semicolon, has been reading and reviewing, for the past couple of months, as many of the books of author Meindert DeJong as she could manage to find. Mr. DeJong, who came to the United States from the Netherlands when he was eight years old, is perhaps the most lauded and awarded American children's author of all time.

Shadrach, about a pet rabbit, and Hurry Home, Candy, about a stray dog, were both Newbery Honor books in 1954, The House of Sixty Fathers, set in WWII China, won a Newbery Honor in 1957, and Along Came a Dog won DeJong his fourth Newbery Honor in 1959. The Wheel on the School, set in DeJong's native Holland, was the Newbery Medal award winner in 1955. In 1962, Meindert DeJong was the first American to be awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal by the International Board on Books for Young People. And finally, in 1969, Mr. DeJong's novel, Journey from Peppermint Street, another Dutch-setting story, won the National Book Award for the best children's book of the year.

Click on the titles of his books to read the reviews at Semicolon, and for a bonus review, check out The Easter Cat, also by Meindert DeJong. Mr. DeJong's books are well worth adding to your library, wherever you find them.

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

• Families United Lending Library in Ohio is scheduled to open May 1.
• Dawn Treader Living Books Library is planning to open for membership in August, 2024. Harmony Harkema, Librarian.
• Branching Out Library in Millport, NY. "The hope is to be open in May." Cindy McCarthy, Librarian.
• Lambs into Lions Library in Springdale, OH is open and lending. Aurora Shreck, Librarian.
• Lionheart Living Library in Johnson City, TN has Five-in-a-Row boxes just about ready to go, and will be opening August 1, 2024. Allison Dykes, Librarian.

To commemorate their anniversary, the library has planned a series of events, including an author event and a writing and publishing workshop, over the next few months. These events are open to the public. Tiffany Slack, Librarian.

Living Learning Libraries in West Palm Beach, FL is sponsoring a Curriculum in the Courtyard event on April 26, where library members and guests can buy, swap, sell, or donate used homeschool curricula. Michelle Howard, Librarian.

Covenant Family Library in Martinsburg, WV is hosting the informational meeting for a new Charlotte Mason co-op, for the Mountain Laurel CM Community on April 18th. The

library is also hosting a DIY Curriculum Sale on Saturday, April 27. See the library Facebook page for more information. Elizabeth Jones, Librarian.

Helen Living Library, also in West Virginia, is currently closed for Spring renovations. Amanda Moore, Librarian.

We at The Card Catalog hope you are enjoying the resources we have provided there, and we also aspire to make our monthly newsletter, Shelf Notes, a valuable source for news and encouragement to the private lending library community. There are a few ways you can help us do this:

1) if your library story is not already published on our Librarian Notices page at The Card Catalog, we would love to talk to you about adding your story there. Please email us thecardcataloglibarians@gmail.com to submit your library story to Librarian Notices.

2) We really enjoy hearing about what’s going on in your library and sometimes publishing that information in brief in Shelf Notes. If you have any of the following going on in your library, please email and share the information with us and give permission for us to share in Shelf Notes: library opening events, special events, book clubs, moving the library, special anecdotal stories of patrons served, anything at all that would be encouraging or helpful to other librarians like you.

3)if you have a library email newsletter, please add this email address to your mailing list thecardcataloglibrarians@gmail.com . We have tried to subscribe to some of your newsletters, but we probably haven’t found them all. We also would love to hear from you about questions you would like answered at The Card Catalog. And if you have answers to commonly asked questions, we would love to see those as well.

Thank you for all that you are doing to connect children and families with good, life-giving books. Keep on doing what you are doing, and we pray for God’s blessing on all our work. 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.