Shelf Notes

In our July episode of Our Librarian Life, we talked about the 1924 Project, how Sara is undertaking her first batch of annual renewals, how important the old book resources like Jan Bloom's books and Valerie's Living Library website have been and continue to be to librarians, and what our librarian summer life looks like. If you head over to the show notes, you can find Sara's patron renewal packet as a download complete with new contract, house rules, and member stats.

Ouch. Yes... you can. But... then, almost certainly, they will fade into oblivion.

In this Card Catalog Ask the Librarian entry, Sara recounts her rookie mistake of trying to make her own barcodes with a thermal printer and the awful results. And, it turns out, her experience is not unique.

Read more about thermal printers and why they are not the librarian's best friend here.

In our Book Review Roundup, a joint project from Sherry Early at Semicolon and Diane Pendergraft and Sara Masarik of Plumfield and Paideia, 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.

We've been featuring:

• picture book treasures that Sara found at the thrift store
  
• children's books published in 1964 read for the 1964 Project
  
• picture books newly added to the forthcoming expanded edition of Picture Book Preschool
  
• current recently published children's fiction
• excellent and entertaining adult fiction appropriate for both teens and moms
• Caldecott and Newbery Award and Honor books
• books related to current events, such as the Olympics and even politics

So, you can find a wide variety of reviews for a wide variety of books, all reviews written from a Christian mom/librarian perspective. Don't miss out on the next issue of Book Review Roundup, in email boxes on Friday, August 23rd.

Subscribe to the Book Review Roundup newsletter here.

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

Rabbit Room Press now has 20th-anniversary editions of the Wilderking Trilogy by Jonathan Rogers, including newly-written material by the author and all-new illustrations by Joe Hox. They may smell faintly of the Feechiefen Swamp.*

The books in this fantasy trilogy, based loosely on the story of King David in the Bible, are The Bark of the Bog Owl, The Secret of the Swamp King, and The Way of the Wilderking,

*If book does not smell faintly of swamp, soak in tepid water for 3-4 months for dramatic results (may have an adverse effect on reading experience).

Purple House Press is releasing at least three new reprints during the first week of September:

• Birds and their Nests by Olive L. Earle
  
• The Story of Good Queen Bess by Alida Sims Malkus
  
• Pharaoh's Boat by David Weitzman (reissue)
  

To hear more about author David Weitzman and his story of Pharaoh's Boat, listen to this podcast from the archives at Plumfield Moms. Then, order your copy of the book from Purple House Press in September.

The Caldecott Medal is one of the most well-known book awards in the United States. It was established in 1937, with the first award given in 1938, and named in honor of the 19th-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott. Each year the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), chooses one medal winner and often several honors or runners-up. The award is given to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. Since 1922, a total of over 350 books have been recognized with either the medal or honor award.

Given the Caldecott Medal'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. They have put together a complete list of all medal winners and honor books since inception, and the Biblioguides Review Team is working together to read their way through the winners and to provide a review. Where no one on the team has yet reviewed a book, a description directly from the dust jacket or from the publisher has been provided. In some cases, they have shared a brief synopsis from The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books (1999).

See the Caldecott Medal and Honor List at Biblioguides

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 book club in a box. All you have to do is print and host!

First published in 1906, The Railway Children is a beloved family classic suitable to all ages. The main characters in this story are introduced as ordinary suburban children who lived with their mother and father and always had everything they needed. We are told in the first chapter that the “dreadful change came quite suddenly.” Father leaves and Mother and the children have to move to the country. “They did not guess then how they would grow to love the railway, and how soon it would become the centre of their new life, nor what wonders and changes it would bring to them.”

This guide has over 25 pages of everything you will need to host a memorable book club, from invitations and reading journals to enrichment suggestions, a coloring page, and no-fail book club conversation starters and questions in one digital download. Our good friends at Biblioguides have generously agreed to host the purchase portal for this guide, click here to purchase. Find more guides by clicking here.

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.

New to the Private Lending Library Directory at Biblioguides:

Convivial Culture Living Books Library in Eldorado, AR (Angela Bergeron, Librarian). Not yet officially open, but you can contact Angela for more information,

There are 91 libraries across the English-speaking world listed in the Private Lending Library Directory at Biblioguides. If you know of other living books lending libraries that are not listed, please ask 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 please share this list of libraries on social media whenever someone asks where they can find the "Good Books."

Officially Opening in August:

Dawn Treader Living Books Library, Grand Rapids, MI (Harmony Harkema, Librarian).

Libraries Moving into a New Space:

Hall's Living Library (Sandy Hall, Librarian) has moved to a new, larger space at Pray's Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, GA (near Atlanta).

His Word Christian Library in Chickasha, OK (Amanda Smith, Librarian) has a new location at Calvary Baptist Church, 1103 S. 13th St. in Chickasha. Open House for the new library space took place on Wednesday, August 7th and Saturday, August 10th.

Other Library News:

River City Library in Jacksonville, FL (Heather Jonson, Librarian) has rescued a bunch of new books to share with library patrons. See some photos here.

Loft & Field Living Library in North Branch, MN (Stephanie Lewis, Librarian) and Christian Home Education Resource Center in Albuquerque, NM are both now open for the school year, August through May.

Library Camp in Washington State by M'Lynn Kearney

Library Camp happened at The Kearney Library (M'Lynn Kearney, Librarian) July 29 – 31. This event began four years ago when two of my main library families, who do a lot of summer camping, said they’d like to have a Library Camp where they’d pitch tents in my front yard for two nights and assist me with library tasks. A gift from God’s hands, definitely. The campers arrived Monday, late morning, and stayed through Wednesday lunch. They provide breakfast and lunch for their families, and I prepare a couple of simple dinners. In previous years we’ve stopped work in late afternoon to do a river float, but this year’s weather wasn’t conducive to such. These two families and I also have a poetry club, so we shared poems one evening and danced our way through the second. The four children are now 9 – 16. Tasks accomplished varied from the all-important annual shelf cleaning to laminating paperbacks to making divider labels to putting barcodes in books to boxing up and listing books which I don’t have shelf space for. And more. Plus, acting on the idea of one of the moms, we did a literal shelf count of books on Wednesday morning, requiring me to increase my library size statistics from 15,000 to 19,000, with an additional 4,500 to fill up the edges. No wonder there are books on the stairs!

Do you have a library story to share with Shelf Notes readers? 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. 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 at thecardcataloglibarians@gmail.com to submit your library story to Librarian Notices.

Also, 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.