Shelf Notes

We devoted the December episode of Our Librarian Life to Kirsten Turner and the Packhorse Librarians who are doing yeoman's work in providing good books to those impacted by Hurricane Helene. Learn all about how the 21st Century Packhorse Librarians came to be and what Kirsten and her supporters are doing in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia to bring hope through living books to storm-damaged areas. Listen now on your favorite podcast platform. Submit your private lending library question to our Mail Pouch here.

Robin Pack of Children's Legacy Library in Tennessee says, "The Picture Book Preschool pouches are starting to go on the shelves for checkout! Each curated pouch holds 8-10 books on a particular topic. There will eventually be 52 pouches in all! If you have littles, this is heaven sent." Picture Book Preschool is available for purchase at Biblioguides for only $10.00. Grab a copy for your library and encourage parents of preschoolers and primary age children to purchase their own list and then check out the books from your library.

Over 25 years of homeschooling and nearly 50 years of collecting books, historical fiction emerged as Sandy Hall's go-to choice for read-alouds and leisure reading. As her collection grew, she organized these books chronologically, making it easy to find engaging stories for any historical period they studied. Whether you run a lending library or simply cherish historical fiction, this curated list of nearly 1800 titles can assist you in organizing your collection or finding a book for a specific era.

In August and September of 2024, Sara Masarik gave three talks on the importance of good and great living books. She was invited by a local classical school to aid in the faculty and staff in-service in August, and then came back to give a parent version of the talk in September. There was significant interest in the talk from lending librarians and others, so Sara gave the talk a third time in her library. By popular request, the talk was recorded and is now available for purchase! Divided into two videos, the first part is the talk itself with the slides Sara used. The second part is the Q&A from her library event. Purchase of the talk includes both videos as well as a PDF of the handout she used. 100% of the proceeds will go to support The Card Catalog and all of the work we are doing to support living books lending librarians.

We’re growing! The Card Catalog now has its very own home at TheCardCatalogLibrarians.com. This dedicated site is packed with everything you love, including a brand-new Resources Page! The Resources Page has links to all of our favorite library tools and materials, all collected for your convenience.

You'll also find curated book lists, helpful videos, frequently asked questions and answers, and much more—all at The Card Catalog.

And that’s not all! Plumfield and Paideia is also moving to its new site: PlumfieldMoms.com. Both sites will continue to provide the rich content, thoughtful reviews, and inspiring ideas you’ve come to expect from us.

Check out our new resources today and see how we’re making it easier than ever to find what you need to enrich your library or homeschool!

Visit us at:

📚 TheCardCatalogLibrarians.com

🌸 PlumfieldMoms.com

In our Book Review Roundup, a joint project from Sherry Early at Semicolon and Diane Pendergraft and Sara Masarik of Plumfield Moms, you can find book reviews for all kinds of books from picture books to middle grade fiction to adult novels and nonfiction to help guide your book buying choices as you put together your own unique lending library.

Books with review links in Book Review Roundup, Issue 14 are:

🎭 Arts & Literature
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea
The Life of Chesterton: The Man Who Carried a Swordstick and a Pen by Holly Lee
The Story of the Three Wise Kings by Tomie dePaola
The Swedish Nightingale: Jenny Lind by Elisabeth Kyle

🌼 Nature & Science
What’s Inside a Flower by Rachel Ignotofsky

📖 Fiction for Middle Grade & YA
Jack vs. The Tornado by Amanda Cleary Eastep
Faker by Gordon Korman
Library Girl by Polly Horvath

📜 Historical Fiction
A Triumph for Flavius by Caroline Dale Snedeker
Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge

🌍 History & Culture
New Found World by Katherine Binney Shippen

🐾 Animal Stories
The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
Mystery in the Night Woods by John Peterson
Jenny and the Cat Club by Esther Averill

📚 Books About Books
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs

💡 Inspiring Picture Book Biographies
Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco
Mr. McCloskey’s Marvelous Mallards by Emma Blands Smith

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!

Two new reprints from Purple House Press are now available: There Was Once a Slave: The Heroic Life of Frederick Douglass by Shirley Graham (reprint of a classic Messner biography) and A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia by Alice Turner Curtis. Purple House will be offering more books in the Little Maid series by Alice Turner Curtis soon.

And bring out the party hats because Purple House Press is celebrating its 25th birthday in April! To celebrate sticking around for 25 years, they're having a blowout sale! You can see all of the books that will be 60% off and the ones that will be 40% off from February 1st through April 30th.

The recent sale at Bethlehem Books is over. However if you are the librarian for a private lending library or a school or church library, you can get sale prices all year long at Bethlehem Books.

Sherry Early of Meriadoc Homeschool Library in Houston, TX has three lists of favorite books she read in 2024. Maybe some of these will be favorites for you or for your library in 2025.

• The Best Middle Grade Fiction I Read in 2024: A Baker's Dozen
  
• The Best Nonfiction I Read in 2024
  
• The Best Adult and Young Adult Fiction I Read in 2024
  

A week ago, I received a lovely message from a woman who had recently discovered my library (she didn’t mention how) and was overwhelmed with joy to find that “such beauty” was available to her. She lives 30 minutes away and homeschools her six children. She asked if they could come for a tour and possibly join. It just so happened that we were in a small enrollment window, so I was delighted to invite her in.

She visited today, and she is absolutely wonderful. We are going to love having this family as part of our community!

During our conversation, she shared that she subscribes to the Wild + Free magazine and had read an article about private lending libraries. Her curiosity led her to the Private Lending Libraries Directory, where she was surprised and thrilled to discover two libraries in Wisconsin—one of them within commuting distance of her home.

As we chatted further, she expressed her excitement about The Card Catalog and Biblioguides. Naturally, she decided to join! She was nearly in tears when she saw the World of Bees Wonder Box and Picture Book Preschool—resources that will simplify and enrich their Morning Basket time.

This marks the fifth family to find my library through the directory this year! Even if your library isn’t open yet, wouldn’t it be wonderful to know that people are interested? Joining the directory is easy and completely free.

By the way, if anyone has the Wild + Free magazine article about private lending libraries, we’d love to see it!

You can explore the directory here:

https://www.biblioguides.com/libraries/

If you need help adding or updating your listing, check out this step-by-step guide we made.

At The Card Catalog website, and here in Shelf Notes, we Card Catalog Librarians are working to encourage and support private lending libraries. Our goal is to see private living books libraries spread across the United States and around the world. If you run a private living books lending library or are considering starting one in the future, here are some ways you can help us achieve that goal:

1. Add your library to our Private Lending Library Directory
   If you have an operating private lending library anywhere in the world, please add it to our Private Lending Library Directory at Biblioguides. It's quick, easy, and free. Listing your library helps encourage others on the same journey and can also attract new patrons to your library. Find a step-by-step guide here.

2. Update your listing
   If your library is already listed in the directory, take a moment to check your listing and make sure the information is up to date. We want this directory to be a current, reliable resource for anyone searching for these special kinds of libraries in their area.

3. Share our resources
   Explore the many helpful and informative pages at The Card Catalog—including librarian Q&A, library stories, past Shelf Notes issues, our library resources page, and more—and share them with others who may be interested in starting their own private lending library or learning how they work.

4. Share your library story
   If we’ve already published your library story on The Card Catalog, please help spread the word by sharing it with others. If your story is still in progress, why not share it with us? We’d love to publish the story of how your library came to be, how it operates day-to-day, and how it’s growing and evolving. Send your story to thecardcataloglibrarians@gmail.com, or reach out if you’d like help organizing and publishing it online at The Card Catalog.

5. Submit pictures for our Shelf Notes Photo Feature
   We’re also looking for more photos for our Shelf Notes photo feature. If you have a favorite library shelf or a set of books you'd like to show off, please send us a picture. (We take photos of messy, non-perfect shelves, too.) You can email your photos to thecardcataloglibrarians@gmail.com.

6. Pray for us and our libraries
   Please keep us and the libraries and librarians listed in the Private Lending Library Directory in your prayers. There are now 102 private lending libraries listed in the directory from all across the English-speaking world. If you know of any other private lending libraries that aren’t listed, please encourage them to share their information so families can find the books that will speak to their minds and hearts at a library near them. And, whenever possible, share the directory on social media when people ask where they can find "Good Books."

We thought it would be fun to share some recent notes and articles from our Private Lending Living Books Librarians to kick off 2025:

Amanda Shirley, Librarian at Beautiful Books Library in Prattville, AL writes about Trading Story for Information "Our children need to feast on stories. And not just any stories. The best stories. When they do, these stories will go deep into the heart and lodge themselves there, where they begin a slow growth and do the character-shaping work that is needed to bring about the whole person and TRUE knowledge."

Librarian Ashley Borrego of Cornerstone Living Library in Lilburn, GA tells about the New Year's resolution that "changed everything", leading eventually to a commitment to reading, book club, and a library in New Year's Resolutions.

In her New Year's musing Now and Then , Liz Cottrill of Living Books Library in Bristol, TN, a seasoned homeschool mom and librarian, exhorts us to eschew worry. "We worry. I get it. I have worried enough for a hundred people over my kids in the 40 years I’ve been a parent. It hasn’t stopped now that they are gone. Some of us may not be addicted to drugs or devices, but we sure are addicted to worry. Worry is the most pointless, unproductive, unhealthy thing we can do today."

And Lorinda Newton of Newton Family Library in Clinton, WA gives an overview of her 2024 reading year and her plans for reading in 2025 at Lorinda's Ponderings on Substack.

Since this newsletter is called Shelf Notes, we thought we'd share a Shelf Notes Photo from one of the private lending libraries in our directory each month. Click on the photograph to see whose library this lovely nature shelf belongs in. Can you guess without looking? If you look closely at the book titles, you might find a few clues. Send us a picture of one of your shelves, and we'll feature your library in Shelf Notes!

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 news of events or new endeavors in your library, please share with us by email at thecardcataloglibrarians@gmail.com. Thank you for all 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.