Dolly Parton was not only a music industry icon, but a literary icon as well. One of the biggest legacies she left behind is the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which is a book gifting program that mails free, high-quality books to children from birth to age five, no matter their family’s income. If you’re interested in learning more about her life and legacy consider checking out “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton” by Martha Ackmann (St. Martin’s Press, 2025), which is available as an eBook and audiobook on Nebraska OverDrive Libraries. Ackmann is a journalist who writes about women who have changed America. You can find this title, along with Dolly Parton’s own books including two autobiographies, two children’s books, her collaboration with James Patterson, and her cookbook through Nebraska OverDrive.
“This smart, sparkly, and fun biography is as irresistible as Parton herself.”
―Library Journal,starred review
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 196 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 29,164 audiobooks, 45,416 ebooks, and 6,269 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
Mom, Dad, and their two young sons go to a farm for a week’s vacation. Sam and Eli meet the farm’s two rescue donkeys, Lucky & Norman. The donkeys step back from the fence and will not come forward. The farmer tells them all they must give the donkeys time to trust them, and he has some ideas for what the boys can do.
It isn’t until the morning of the third day of their week that Lucky & Norman were at the fence waiting for them. Now they could play together with them, and they did – all day. The boys and the donkeys had a great time.
A few days later, the boys are sad because they must leave the next day and will never see the donkeys again. The farmer has some words of advice. And as the family drives away, Mama says. “The quiet ache of goodbye…but also, the gentle joy of remembering.” It is bittersweet.
Becoming Utopia centers on the tiny community of Bishop Hill, Illinois, whose marketing materials call it “Utopia on the Prairie,” home to a radical communal religious sect that emigrated from Sweden in the 1840s. Through rich textual and ethnographic analyses, Margaret E. Farrar and Adam Kaul tell the story of what happens when a small, historically significant Midwestern community negotiates the contradictory impulses of twenty-first-century place-making. At first glance, Bishop Hill is simply a small heritage tourism destination in Midwestern flyover country, but further inspection reveals it to be a complex place that mixes a deep nostalgia for the past undercut by complex origin stories of displacement and colonialism, an active historic preservation movement amid futuristic green energy technologies built by multinational corporations, and a commitment to localism in the context of omnipresent globalization.
Based on fifteen years of fieldwork, Becoming Utopia is an interdisciplinary contribution to conversations about the importance and meaning of place-making, heritage-making, and sustainability (social, economic, and environmental) in the twenty-first century.
Every Sky at Home: Essays on Landscape and Family, by Joe Wilkins. Imprint: Bison Books.
Joe Wilkins was born and raised on the Big Dry of eastern Montana, and make no mistake—those sagebrush-studded prairies and hard badlands raised him just as much as did his mother, as his elderly grandfather, as the memory of his father, who died young, leaving his family mired in poverty. Older now than his own father ever was, Wilkins reckons with this inheritance of landscape and loss and catalogs his travels across the country. From Iowa to Mississippi to the North Country of New York, Wilkins is a perceptive, fierce observer of rural life, and once he and his wife settle in western Oregon to raise their son and daughter, he turns his attention toward the wild places they find themselves drawn to. In this literary reckoning, each essay endeavors to more intimately understand the loves and landscapes that have made, and are making, Wilkins and his family.
Fascist Legacies: Far-Right Ideologies Then and Now, edited by Ari Kohen and Gerald J. Steinacher. Series: Contemporary Holocaust Studies.
The world has changed since the 1930s, but human nature has not. What can we learn when comparing far-right populism in the United States to far-right populism elsewhere? How can we better understand the underlying ideas and ideologies that seem to transcend time and place? How can we best address them? How can we communicate what we have learned about these issues to those outside of academia? These are the central questions in the three-part conversation of Fascist Legacies.
The first part of the book examines the rise of authoritarianism in Europe, the United States, and Latin America; the second part analyzes aspects of the far right and discusses the best strategies for teaching about fascism; and the third part focuses on the relationship between white nationalism, individual Christian churches in the United States, and antisemitism in the past and present. By discussing different aspects of the current global rise of right-wing populism, Fascist Legacies helps readers better understand what is happening in our societies.
In the early eastern theater of the American Civil War, the Northern and Southern armies saw little of combat and little of each other, with most of their military intelligence more akin to propaganda than objective fact. However, by 1862 both sides knew through bloody experience how the other could fight, though gaps in knowledge of the other’s tactics and political strategies remained. Perhaps most important, Northern soldiers had by then spent significant time in the South, and as they witnessed firsthand the effects of slavery, their attitudes hardened toward the South.
Covering all aspects of the war in Virginia in the first six months of 1862, Forward to Richmond treats the military actions in the Shenandoah Valley, the Piedmont, and the Peninsula as part of a theatre-wide campaign. Brian K. Burton goes beyond military events to also examine the political, social, and diplomatic interactions with military events, including the meetings of Union soldiers with Southern civilians and African Americans, ultimately leading to a turn away from conciliation and a beginning of a move toward support of emancipation.
Anthropology is inseparable from writing, whether in field diaries, letters, articles, or books. Among these writings, letters form paper bridges—holding a special place as material artifacts uniquely capable of building scholarly communities and sustaining relationships with field collaborators long after the fieldwork is completed.
The story of Franz Boas, one of the founders of American anthropology, can be imagined as a res publica literaria, a network that, like its Renaissance prototype, shaped the contours of transnational anthropology. This two-part volume chronicles more than forty years of Boas’s collaborations and friendships with Russian and Soviet anthropologists, following a small group of anthropologists as they built the house of Arctic and Siberian anthropology. Through these letters, readers are introduced to a lesser-known aspect of Boas’s political life and his ambition to redefine anthropology as a transnational discipline, one that transcended national borders and political obstacles. Through meticulously gathered correspondence from more than thirty archives in the United States, Russia, France, and Norway, The Franz Boas Papers, Volume 3 reveals an untold chapter in the history of anthropology.
The Missouri, American’s Longest River: a Cultural and Environmental History, edited by Jon K. Lauck and Harry F. Thompson. Series: The Center for Western Studies
Following the success of the Center for Western Studies’ first foray into river histories, Heartland River: A Cultural and Environmental History of the Big Sioux River (second printing, 2025), the CWS is publishing The Missouri, America’s Longest River in 2026 as part of its commemoration of America’s 250th anniversary. The book features chapters by thirty-five historians, scientists, and writers exploring the natural and human history of the waterway that defines the region that is the focus of the Center for Western Studies—South Dakota and the six surrounding states.
Chapter contributors represent the following institutions: Augustana University, College of New Jersey, Helena College, Loras College, Loyola University, Midland University, Minnesota State University–Mankato, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Northern Illinois University, Ohio State University, Oklahoma City University, Providence College, South Dakota School of Mines, South Dakota State Historical Society, South Dakota State University, State Historical Society of North Dakota, University of California–Riverside, University of Colorado–Boulder, University of Kansas, University of Kansas–Monticello, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, University of South Dakota, and the United States Geological Survey.
Oklahoma Reconsidered: a History, by Sarah Eppler Janda and Patricia Loughlin.
Oklahoma Reconsidered provides a concise and conversational history of Oklahoma from the 1700s and into the twenty-first century by two historians who show how Oklahoma has been shaped by wars, epidemics, civil rights movements, and unified efforts to heal after devastating terrorist attacks. While other books on Oklahoma history often linger in the nineteenth century, Oklahoma Reconsidered places the central focus on Oklahoma from 1907 to 2025—including the rise in the Latinx population in the state, the success of the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA basketball team as a unifying force in the state, and the significance of the McGirt decision in 2020, which granted tribal jurisdiction over much of eastern Oklahoma as Indian Country, offering a glimpse into the tensions between state and tribal authority
Star Bound: A Beginner’s Guide to the American Space Program, from Goddard’s Rockets to Goldilocks Planets and Everything in Between, by Emily Carney and Bruce McCandless III. Series: Outward Odyssey: A People’s History of Spaceflight
Star Bound is a book for anyone who wants to learn about the American space program but isn’t sure where to start. First and foremost, it’s a history—short, sweet, and straightforward. From rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard’s primitive flight tests in 1926 through the creation of NASA, from our first steps on the moon to construction of the International Space Station and planning a trip to Mars, readers will meet the people and projects that have put the United States at the forefront of space exploration. Along the way, they’ll learn:
• How the United States beat the Soviets to the moon
• Why astronauts float in space (Hint: It’s not for lack of gravity!)
• How fast spacecraft have to go to stay in orbit around Earth
• How we can “look back in time” through a space telescope
Authored by two veteran space writers with unique insights into the topic, Star Bound offers up the story of Americans in space with a focus on the cultural and societal contexts of the country’s most important missions. Vibrant, positive, and humorous, Star Bound is packed with facts, asides, and not-entirely-definitive lists of the greatest space songs, books, movies, and more.
Tied to Their Country: the Farm Crisis, Agrarian Activism, and the Rise of Rural Anti-Federalism, by Rebecca Shimoni Stoil.
Historically, rural spaces in the United States have encompassed a wide array of political cultures and affiliations, but in the late twentieth century, rural America became a breeding ground for anti-government militancy. Disparate groups coalesced around an ideology grounded in virulent rural anti-federalism. Although farmers today are often beneficiaries of federal programs and payments, anti-federal sentiments run rampant across rural America. The reason, Rebecca Shimoni Stoil argues, lies in the collapse of rural society during the Farm Crisis of the 1970s and 1980s.
In Tied to Their Country, Shimoni Stoil examines the immediate and long-term political repercussions of the Farm Crisis. Beginning as an agricultural crisis, it quickly enveloped all of rural America as banks collapsed, Main Street storefronts closed, and small towns became ghost towns. Because the federal government failed to offer farmers viable solutions, previously disparate ideologies converged in this political vacuum to advocate for agrarian America amid growing distrust of federal institutions and intentions. Farmers found their best strategy was appealing to romantic ideas of American traditions, and social conservatives quickly reciprocated, turning farm country into the heartland of social conservatism. The perceived failure of the federal government’s response to the Farm Crisis generated distrust, resentment, and a crisis of faith in government that resonates across rural spaces today.
Winner of the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction
Welcome to a dark country of sadness and wonder. Where a wedding dress turns a reluctant bride into a flock of birds, and families put on their wolf coats before devouring one another. These growling, prickly-feathered stories blur the lines between human and animal, living and dead. Teenage spirits are condemned to drive around their hometown forever. Five brothers learn that they were once crows. The bank hires a man to go into foreclosed houses and kill their monsters. Two sisters find an oven that can resurrect the dead. Plumbers kidnap mermaids trapped in a city sewer system. A mockingbird sings a woman’s sins. A boy with a single swan’s wing yearns to fly. And watching over all of them is the queen of the dead, who sends her vulture men to scavenge the bones. The characters in these modern fairy tales challenge expectations and norms in a dark and magical shared world.
Willa Cather and Letters, edited by Melissa J. Homestead. Series: Cather Studies.
Although it has long been claimed that Willa Cather destroyed most of her letters in order to protect her privacy, the record now makes clear that this is largely myth: The Complete Letters of Willa Cather digital archive has collected more than three thousand letters, and more are regularly being located. What can we learn about Cather and her fiction from such a wealth of firsthand writings? The essays in Willa Cather and Letters use a variety of approaches to consider both letters authored by Cather and letters written to her, shining new light on Cather’s relationships with her brother Roscoe Cather and her friends playwright and screenwriter Zoë Akins and opera diva Olive Fremstad.
Readers also come to understand Cather’s pleasure in artistic works produced by others, her experience of disability, and her appreciation of the GIs who read her books in Armed Services Editions. Contributors show how digital tools can be used to read across her letters at a larger scale, finding patterns and trends not discernible using conventional methods.
This free one-day online conference is tailored for staff from small libraries; the smaller the better!
Small libraries of all types – public, academic, school, museum, special, etc. – are encouraged to submit a proposal.
We’re looking for seven 50-minute presentations and four 10-minute “lightning round” presentations.
Do you offer a service or program at your small library that other libraries might like to hear about? Have you implemented a new (or old) technology, hosted an event, partnered with others in your community, or just done something really cool? The Big Talk From Small Libraries online conference gives you the opportunity to share what you’ve done, while learning what your colleagues in other small libraries are doing.
Here are some possible topics to get you thinking:
Unique Libraries
Special Collections
New buildings
Fundraising
Improved Workflows
Staff Development
Advocacy Efforts
Community Partnerships
That great thing you’re doing at your library!
Speakers must be from small libraries or directly partnered with a small library and submitting a proposal to co-present with the library. Speakers from libraries serving fewer than 10,000 people will be preferred, but presentations from libraries with larger service populations will be considered.
Big Talk From Small Libraries 2027 will be held on Friday, February 26, 2027 between 8:45 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. (CT) via the GoTo Webinar online meeting service. Speakers will present their programs from their own desktops. The schedule will accommodate speakers’ time-zones.
Truth really is stranger than fiction, this week we’re checking out all the nonfiction reads in our Book Club Kit collection. This week’s #BookFaceFriday is “You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington” by Alexis Coe (Viking, 2020). This title is available as a book club kit for your library. You can browse all the nonfiction titles available to book clubs, it’s a curated list located in the Browse Options section.
“In this breezy yet fact-filled revisionist biography, historian and podcast host Coe (Alice + Freda Forever) takes George Washington’s previous—predominantly male—biographers to task…Readers who like their history with a dose of wry humor will savor this accessible account.”
—Publishers Weekly
Book Club Kits Rules for Use
These kits can be checked out by the librarians of Nebraska libraries and media centers.
Circulation times are flexible and will be based upon availability. There is no standard check-out time for book club kits.
Please search the collection to select items you wish to borrow and use the REQUEST THIS KIT icon to borrow items.
Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team
Former adjunct professor of Museum Studies at JFK University, Karen Cushman’s debut novel, Catherine, Called Birdy, is a realistic but tongue-in-cheek portrayal of a budding teenagers daily life in 1290s England. A Newberry Honor Book and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, the novel follows our smart-mouthed and independent heroine as she grows into a thoughtful (but still spunky) young adult who finds her own way to survive and thrive under a system she is powerless in. Self-described as cunning, greedy, shortsighted, stubborn and morbid, Catherine is representation for the young, voracious girls of our modern era who don’t see themselves as the stereotypical pretty and charming medieval princesses of fairytales.
What 13 year-old wants to be married off to some stranger? Catherine, the daughter of a poor country knight sure doesn’t. Instead she’d rather be a crusader, a musician, or even a monk. Anything but a boring wife who is expected to sit around all day spinning and mending for the rest of her life. Utterly. Loathsome. As minor nobility, Catherine must endure a never-ending line of suitors, each more grotesque and less appealing than the last. But she has a plan. She will scare all her would-be-husbands away with elaborate pranks and wit until there are none left and she will be free forever.
“There was a hanging in Riverford today. I am being punished for impudence again, so was not allowed to go. I am near fourteen and have never yet seen a hanging. My life is barren.”
– Karen Cushman
Before the concept of “teenagers” existed, children were thrust straight from childhood into adulthood with nothing in between. This was especially true for daughters of nobility or gentry. Instead of joining the workforce under an apprenticeship where they could learn and grow, they were often married off by their parents to ensure land deals among other forms of wealth and safety. Cushman wrote Catherine, Called Birdy as an introduction for young readers to see the Middle Ages not as something completely foreign, only different. Readers will be introduced to the intricacies of medieval life including the feudal system, day-to-day chores, and living situations, by Catherine’s funny but strong and intelligent voice. Just because these young girls were expected to act and behave like grownups, didn’t mean they were. Afterall, people have pretty much been the same forever. We aren’t necessarily smarter or better than those who came before. We just have running water, antibiotics, and child labor laws.
The 2022 movie adaptation starring Bella Ramsey, Billie Piper, and Andrew Scott is available to watch on Amazon.
If you’re interested in requesting Catherine, Called Birdy for your book club, you can find the Request Formhere. There are 6 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Cushman, Karen. Catherine, Called Birdy. HarperTrophy. 1994
After a swanky evening soiree at the Library of Congress, a body is discovered in the library! What follows is a classic whodunit that will take readers from the inner bowels of the Library of Congress, Ford’s Theatre, the National Portrait Gallery, and the D.C. Public Library. “Larceny at the Library” by Colleen J. Shogan, is the perfect pick for this week, as we’re in D.C. for the National Book Festival this weekend! We were lucky to get to attend an event at the Library of Congress, fingers crossed we don’t find any bodies. This title is available as an eBook through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries, it’s a part of Shogan’s “Washington Whodunit” series. The series consists of eight books, seven of which are available on OverDrive.
Congressional staffer Kit Marshall is excited to attend a historic event displaying the contents of Abraham Lincoln’s pockets the night he was assassinated at the Library of Congress. The next day, a senior librarian is dead and several invaluable artifacts are missing. Kit’s husband Doug discovers the body and immediately becomes a suspect in the death and theft. Kit springs into action once again to figure out who is responsible for the crimes. Her sleuthing takes her to the DC Public Library, the National Portrait Gallery, Ford’s Theatre, and the most ornate, beautiful rooms at the Library of Congress. At the end, Kit must put her own life on the line to retrieve her most valuable possession, which goes unexpectedly missing as she hunts down the killer. —book jacket
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 196 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 29,164 audiobooks, 45,416 ebooks, and 6,269 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
I finally read The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett. I’ve watched almost all of the movies (there are 6) with William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. I wanted to see how it stood up to the movie, and vice versa. The movie is a thinner version of the book, but very true to the feel of the book. Several phrases are lifted straight from the book. It’s told from Nick’s point of view, in the Christmas season of 1932. Now a moment to set the time period. The radio, the phonograph (record player) and movies are the primary media, along with magazines and newspapers. Direct communication is through the dial phone. The FBI crime lab has just been set up. The 1932 Winter Olympics are at Lake Placid, the Lindburgh baby is kidnapped, Amelia Earhart flies from the US to Derry, Northern Ireland, and prohibition is still in full swing (it ends in 1933).The Miranda warning doesn’t become in use until 1966, and interrogations with the police can get violent. The primary long distance travel option is the train.
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
Nick Charles is the son of a Greek immigrant, who had been working for a detective agency, before he met, and married Nora, a socialite. Now they live in California, but have gone East to evade the holiday season with Nora’s family. They’re in the tax bracket that can rent a suite in an expensive hotel while in New York. Nick meets an ex-client’s daughter, Dorothy, daughter of Clyde Wynant. She hasn’t seen him for years, and can’t find him. Which is how the story begins, and the Charles’ involvement in the entire mystery. Several times I came across lines that are featured in the film, “you got types?” “Only you, darling—lanky brunetts with wicked jaws. Despite trying his best to not be pulled into the mystery of the murdered secretary, and the disappearing inventor, he is dragged into it. The Charles’ deal with gangsters (both known and unknown to Nick), the rich, and the Wynant family. Asta, the schnauzer is featured, too, and is female.
This was my first time actually reading Hammett, and was surprised at how many sections of dialogue were included in the movie. It’s written in very spare prose, without much of what Nick thinks of situations, except when he says what he thinks. A title this old does have some non–PC language, but not as much as one would think. Apparently, Hemingway liked Dashiell Hammett’s books, and he was admired by Hammett. Nora is definitely herself in the book, and they are both definitely care for each other. The characters do come across, even in this spare style of writing. But you’ll need to read it to find the twists that keep the mystery moving. It’s a snapshot of a very specific time.
Hammet had been with the Pinkerton detective agency, as a detective. The experience underpins his work, giving it a realistic feel. He’s credited for the Hardboiled Detective school of detective fiction. His books and short stories certainly influence film noir style movies. In 1990 the Crime Writers Association picked three of his five novels for their list of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. Of all his novels, The Thin Man is the only one to include comedy as well as detection. It is also his last novel.
The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Edition, a division of Random House, 1992 (First printed in 1933, 1934, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. trade paperback.
Most people would run away from a boy who runs around lighting things on fire and destroying everything in his wake. But not Mercy Thompson. She ran at first, then looked again and saw the scared little boy in the middle of the flames. Burning everything because he knew no other way to exist and deal with the world.
This young boy had been stolen by the fae as a young boy and shaped by dark forces into something he was never meant to exist: a fire touched shapeshifter who burns down the world. When everyone else ran or tried to take him out, Mercy saw something different and treated him with kindness and humanity. We’ll casually ignore that she can shapeshift into a coyote, was raised by werewolves, and hangs out with vampires. Let’s not get bogged down by details.
Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs became one of my favorites in the Mercy Thompson book series because of how this character learns and grows over time. It took one person to see him for who he was before he could start to take small steps towards being who he should have been all his life: a kind, gentle boy who wants to use his flames for good. His name is Aiden.
He comes onto the scene in a chaotic battle filled with anger and flames, knowing nothing of the human world except that he must burn everything around him to survive. Human connection, kindness and understanding are foreign concepts. He knew only a world of brutal captivity and servitude at the hands of the fae, doing as he was told.
Then he was pulled out of that world and tossed into a boisterous house filled with caring werewolves and camaraderie. Aiden had no idea what to do with kindness, assuming everyone was going to hurt him eventually. The transition was brutal and lasted several books. Between the pages, his journey towards living a new and better life silently continued.
Like learning how to live on a different planet, with people entirely different from yourself who connect and show care in different ways. You may have seen a similar scenario play out when people who grew up in less than happy circumstances try to navigate a comparatively normal world. Learning a new culture, new societal norms, and entirely new ways of showing up and existing in the world. Learning a new language of care and empathy.
In most academic articles and job training programs, they call this transition ‘trauma-informed librarianship, or ‘trauma-informed management’. Yet the training programs and guides I’ve seen don’t always reflect the lived experience of people who make the brutally hard transition from fully unlearning their own life and relearning patterns and behaviors they had never seen.
Mercy became the example Aiden could copy and learn from to figure out how to live life in the way he deserved. She didn’t start and stop at ‘well, sometimes he burns things’. She dug deeper and helped him become an emotional being who could make his own decisions and shape the life he wanted, on his own terms. Not everyone has Mercy in their lives.
Aiden’s story is more realistic in the way people actually learn and grow. There are points of forward progress, then frustrating setbacks while the outside world looks on in confusion at behaviors that oscillate from positive to negative, connected to distant, back and forth. This oscillation is not always covered in these starkly academic training programs and guides. Reading through stories of how trauma occurred and which events shaped a person is not the same as reading the messy story of healing and growth.
Werewolf, fae, vampire, and fantasy books are quietly riddled with these stories of healing and growth. Tracking story arcs as people move from a place of trauma and pain to wonder and excitement at what the future holds, then making that future happen. The path is not linear, and it looks different for everyone. It’s just easier to read about when the trauma happened in a distant, fantastical land that could never be seen in our world.
I read fantasy novels not to escape from the world, but to see the dark and scary parts of our world more clearly. So next time you see someone lashing out in a fit of rage, know that there is probably something that caused that behavior. The Mercys of the world are equipped to identify and handle this situation, but most people aren’t. Sadly, the cruel hard truth is that most people should probably run to save themselves. It’s hard to heal, and it’s hard to be a healer.
With more trauma-informed librarian courses coming out, and communities half-expecting libraries to take on the role of social worker, this seemed like a good time to put out the reminder that it’s not our job to fix people. I’ve seen people walk out of those training courses ready to take on the world, but with no lived experience of how the healing process works. Those courses exist to help you make sense of strange behavior, connect people who request referrals with connections to appropriately support resources in the right way, and keep yourself and your patrons safe.
Some courses claim to train you to be a trauma-informed ally, but those are loaded words that should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s not our job to heal people. We may sometimes play a small role, and we can exhibit kindness and compassion, but we’re not social workers. We’re not therapists. And it’s not on us to take on the flames and burn to heal the world.
So if you’re moved by the Aidens of the world, that’s amazing. But please look for these three things before you try to support the healing process: 1) Make sure you yourself know the pattern of healing and growth; 2) You need the emotional capacity and skilled technique to help without being dragged into an oscillating vortex; 3) The person you’re helping needs to be ready to heal and change. It also helps to have a trained therapist or support network in the background.
As librarians, we tend to be natural-born helpers and healers. But this story can help you see in exaggerated, dramatic detail what it takes to actually heal over time, and how the role of the healer requires grit and a realistic approach to change. So read on to find out how people realistically grow from wanting to burn down the world to trying to build back better. Then how to help without getting burned.
Back to school, back to school, to prove to #BookFaceFriday I’m not a fool!
It’s that time of year again, backpacks are packed, pencils are sharpened, and parents can drink their coffee in silence again. New beginnings and changes can be hard, make this transition a little easier by reading books with your kids about back to school. Book’s just like this title week’s pick, “Middle School: Just My Rotten Luck” by James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts. Perfect for grades 3-7, this is the 7th book in his Middle School series, this title is available as an eBook and Audiobook through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries, and is a part of the “New Chapters: Juvenile School Stories” collection on the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Kids & Teens page.
“TOUCHDOWN! James Patterson will have kids busting out laughing as they follow lovable bad-boy Rafe’s struggles to score big on the field—and in the social scene!
In this seventh Middle School episode, Rafe heads back to the place his misadventures began: the dreaded Hills Village Middle School, where he’s now being forced to take “special” classes. He also finds himself joining the school’s football team—alongside his main tormenter, Miller the Killer! ” —book jacket
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 196 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 29,164 audiobooks, 45,416 ebooks, and 6,269 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
Harper Lee’s 1960s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is a staple in American education, introducing students all over the country to racial inequality inside our justice system specifically in the deep south. And thanks to the success of the movie adaptation, the real-life courthouse in Monroeville, Alabama is now a museum where visitors can stand in the same room that the noble Atticus Finch fought for the freedom of the innocent Tom Robinson. Something that people might forget in the heartwarming story of Atticus and Scout Finch was that in the end, Tim Robinson never got his justice. He was murdered. Today, just an hour’s ride south of the museum that celebrates its part in Civil Rights history, is a correctional facility with the most death sentences per capita, providing it’s inmates with little to no representation. This is where the young Harvard Law graduate Bryan Stevenson is called to represent death row prisoners in the 1980s, and where his memoir Just Mercy begins.
Bryan Stevenson has spent his entire law career fighting against an uncaring system that disproportionately incarcerates and executes people of color, whether they are guilty of a crime or not. In Just Mercy, Stevenson details his first few cases, with a focus on his client Walter McMillion, who was sentenced to death for a murder of a white woman he could not have committed. At the time, reversing a death sentence in Alabama was near impossible, and those on death row were forced to wait for years until their time came. This cruel system which preys on the poor and disadvantaged who don’t have the resources to fight for their innocence or more just convictions. From this system and decades of dedication did Stevenson come to be known internationally as a crusader for human rights and his lauded non-profit organization the Equal Justice Initiative.
“Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving. The people who haven’t earned it, who haven’t even sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of our compassion.”
– Bryan Stevenson
It is impossible for me to lay out all the honors, medals, awards, and honorary doctorates that Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative have received, as well as the praise given to Just Mercy. When Americans are in the most desperate of situations, they still have human rights under the law, but sometimes it takes dedicated activists to achieve that justice. In moving yet accessible prose, Just Mercy reminds us that everyone is deserving of empathy, dignity, and understanding, even when they have done the unthinkable. Stevenson writes with an authoritative pen that takes the reader right to death row with him to meet these outcasts of society and remind us that we are all human. For readers who can handle frank and difficult discussions around race and the death penalty, Just Mercy is an unforgettable memoir that will move the heart and mind towards a more equitable future where people are treated without prejudice.
True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality follows 30 years of EJI’s work on behalf of the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. The film won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary, and is the winner of the National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications’ 26th annual Vision Award and a Peabody Award.
Michael B. Jordan portrays a young Stevenson at the beginning of his career representing death row prisoners in Alabama following the cases outlined in the memoir
A short comic series raising awareness about injustices in the prison system by drawing real life stories of those wrongly accused.
“The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, do we deserve to kill?”
If you’re interested in requesting Just Mercy for your book club, you can find the Request Formhere. There are 9 copies and 1 Young Adult Edition. (A librarian must request items)
Through the Bookmobile Grant Program, the Lois Lenski Covey Foundation awards grants to organizations that operate a lending bookmobile that travels into neighborhoods populated by underserved youth. The grants are for purchasing books published for young people preschool through grade 8, Early Reader books through Young Adult and Hi-Lo books.
Bookmobiles operated by charitable [501(c)(3)] and other non-taxable agencies, including public libraries or schools, are eligible. The Foundation provides grants to organizations that serve economically or socially at-risk children, have limited book budgets, and demonstrate real need.
Grants range from $500 to $3000 and are specifically for book purchases, and cannot be used for administrative or operational uses.
Only hardcopy (paper) applications will be accepted by mail. A link to a downloadable application and detailed instructions for completing and sending the application are available at the Bookmobile Grant Application webpage.
2026 Applications must be postmarked by August 15, 2026.
The purposes of the Lois Lenski Covey Foundation are to advance literacy and foster a love of reading among underserved and at-risk children and youth. Lois Lenski, celebrated author and illustrator of over one hundred children’s books and the 1946 Newbery medalist for Strawberry Girl, established the Foundation as a charitable institute in 1967. Since then the Foundation has assisted over 400 organizations in their efforts to nurture reading skills, gain access to books, and instill a love of reading.
“Floating upward through a confusion of dreams and memory, curving like a trout through the rings of previous risings, I surface. My eyes open. I am awake.” We’re coming home for this week’s #BookFaceFriday, “Crossing to Safety” by Wallace Stegner (Modern Library, 2002). Lauded as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century, this novel about marriage and friendship follows two couples across decades of love and conflict. Originally published in 1987, this title is available as book club kits for your library.
“A superb book. . . . Nothing in these lives is lost or wasted, suffering becomes an enriching benediction, and life itself a luminous experience.”
―Doris Grumbach
Book Club Kits Rules for Use
These kits can be checked out by the librarians of Nebraska libraries and media centers.
Circulation times are flexible and will be based upon availability. There is no standard check-out time for book club kits.
Please search the collection to select items you wish to borrow and use the REQUEST THIS KIT icon to borrow items.
Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team
I first learned of Nick Hornby’s 1992 memoir, Fever Pitch, in a May 29, 2026 NPR story about Arsenal winning England’s Premier League trophy for the first time in 22 years. I bought a copy for my son, an ardent Arsenal FC fan, thinking he might be interested. I got to it first though, and it turned into a good summer diversion—especially when paired with the World Cup!
Fever Pitch begins in 1968 when an 11-year-old Hornby attends his first Arsenal game. The book is divided into three parts, covering the years 1968-1975, 1976-1986, and 1986-1992. These parts are further divided into short chronological segments, each identified with a particular match (e.g., “Arsenal v Newcastle 17.4.71”). Unlike most memoirs, which leave the reader better acquainted with the writer, Fever Pitch has a narrower focus: the experience of being a sports fan. Emotionally, it is a detailed explication of despair and drudgery interspersed with rare bursts of rapture. And it is pretty specific to association football (what we in the U.S. call soccer) in England.
Someone steeped in English football lore would probably have different takeaways from this memoir than I did–references to famous Arsenal players of the past, as well as game play descriptions, went over my head. Still, I learned a lot. As part of his commentary Hornby references team origins dating back to the 1800s, football specials (trains chartered to transport fans to away games), hooliganism, terrace culture, and the tragic inadequacy of 100+-year-old stadiums built for smaller crowds. He also discusses fan racism toward black players, which he loathes. And while he admits he could stop going to games in protest, he also confesses “part of me, however, knows that I can’t stop because of the strength of my obsession” (183).
Toward the end of the memoir, as Hornby enters his early thirties, football is still his obsession. He describes it as “tyranny” and “a disability that has to be worked around” (205). It has seen him through his teen years following his parents’ divorce, and the depression that plagued him for most of the 1980s (something he mentions in passing and after the fact). But his life is starting to change. In “Arsenal v Coventry 22.8.89” he reveals that he’s acquired a mortgage and an accountant; his nightlife preferences have evolved; and he buys an Arsenal season-ticket for the seats in lieu of standing as he’d done in the past (224).
Fever Pitch ends in 1992, shortly after Arsenal wins the 1991 League Championship. We never really get to see Hornby on the other side of his transition to established adulthood. And as he, himself, states in a 2015 interview with The Guardian, “If I were to write Fever Pitch now, it would be older, wiser and more boring because one of the things that made the book was its lack of perspective.” If you find perspective overrated and you are a fan of English football, however, this might be the memoir for you!
I remember an intriguing footnote from one of my high school world history classes: Aristotle, one of history’s most influential philosophers and an early pioneer of scientific inquiry, served as the personal tutor of Alexander the Great, one of history’s most successful military commanders. What this simple fact leaves out are the complexities of their relationship. How did Aristotle and Alexander meet? What was their relationship like? How did a philosopher who preferred the painstaking study of plants and animals interact with a young prince seemingly born for the battlefield?
This is the relationship Annabel Lyon explores in her debut novel, The Golden Mean. But the novel is much more than a retelling of events beginning in 343 BCE. Its greatest triumph is its incisive portrayal of Aristotle and Alexander as two deeply flawed people with wildly different ambitions who nevertheless complement one another.
The novel’s themes reflect Aristotle’s own philosophy, particularly his ideas about friendship and love. Aristotle distinguished among friendships based on utility, pleasure, and virtue, and these different forms of connection unfold throughout the novel. King Philip of Macedon values Aristotle largely for his usefulness as a tutor to his sons. Aristotle’s relationship with his wife, Pythias, is more complicated. Their marriage was arranged, and although they may not share romantic love, they develop mutual respect and affection. Aristotle, meanwhile, recognizes Alexander’s extraordinary potential. Their relationship begins with a clear imbalance of power—the tutor and his pupil—but that dynamic gradually changes. Alexander eventually commands armies in battle, while Aristotle follows as a physician under his former student’s authority.
Although Aristotle and Alexander are destined for very different lives, each provides something the other needs. Their bond becomes what Aristotle might call a friendship of virtue: one rooted in mutual respect and in the desire to see the other become the best version of himself.
The novel does not romanticize the ancient world. Slavery, sickness, violence, and excess are depicted alongside intellectual discovery and military glory. Lyon strips away the grandeur surrounding the classical world and reminds us that Aristotle was only a man, as were Plato and the many kings, soldiers, and playwrights who appear throughout the story.
At the center of the novel is the idea of the golden mean, Aristotle’s belief that virtue lies between two extremes. Alexander challenges this theory: How can anyone determine where those extremes lie? He then offers his own proposition: If the theory were applied to people, Alexander would stand at one extreme and Aristotle at the other.
Perhaps that is why, despite the depth of their friendship, Aristotle and Alexander are ultimately destined to follow separate paths. Each may provide balance for the other, but neither can remain in the middle for long.to the world of Disney Fairies.
Lyon, Annabel. The Golden Mean. Random House Canada, 2009.
We’ve got wide open spaces for this week’s #BookFaceFriday, “The Rim of the Prairie” by Bess Streeter Aldrich (University of Nebraska Press, 1966). This Nebraska author has several books available as book club kits for your library, six including this title. Discover all the Nebraska authors and stories available in our collection, by searching the Nebraska Connection section under the Browse Options or the Nebraska 150 Collection.
“a poignant exploration of identity and heritage set against the sweeping landscape of the American Midwest. The story follows Nancy Moore, a spirited young woman who returns to the small town of Maple City, Nebraska, to visit the elderly couple who raised her. As she navigates the familiar rhythms of prairie life, Nancy grapples with the mystery of her own origins, a secret long guarded by those she loves. Through her encounters with the steadfast Warner Field and the colorful inhabitants of the community, she begins to understand the deep-rooted connections between the land and its people.”
―from the book jacket
Book Club Kits Rules for Use
These kits can be checked out by the librarians of Nebraska libraries and media centers.
Circulation times are flexible and will be based upon availability. There is no standard check-out time for book club kits.
Please search the collection to select items you wish to borrow and use the REQUEST THIS KIT icon to borrow items.
Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team
NASA is back in a big way! After the cultural and scientific success of the Artemis II mission this spring, and the blockbuster adaptation of Project Hail Mary, we are all looking up to the sky wondering what life is like up there and if we will ever see humans living among the stars. Humanity’s focus on our neighboring planet is a staple in the sci-fi genre. Adult novels like The War of the Worlds, Red Rising, and The Martian are popular standouts, but are a little too intense for young readers. As a 2023 Golden Sower Nominee, The Lion of Mars by Jennifer L. Holm takes a look into the future where space isn’t just for scientists and astronauts, but kids too! Her engaging and accessible novel is a great introduction to extraterrestrialliving with real science behind it.
In the future, there will be kids living on Mars. And eleven year-old Bell is as close to being a native Martian as you can get. As a baby, he was brought to the red planet to live in the US Colony along with other kids and a crew of quirky, but loveable scientists. Bell spends his days exploring the underground station he calls home, learns to grow algae, and plays on the planet’s surface. When a mysterious illness spreads to all of the grownups, Bell and his adventurous friends must leave the safety of the colony behind to save their home, breaking the most important rule of Mars: No contact with foreign countries, ever.
“Sometimes when the grown-ups talked about life on Earth, it felt like they were remembering dreams. Water falling from the sky. Earth animals flying. Places called libraries, where you could simply walk in and take books home. It all seemed so fantastic.
– Jennifer l. Holm
For young readers grades 3-7, or anyone with a love for space adventures, The Lion of Mars is a classic sci-fi story in a thrilling, kid-friendly way where courage and community come together to save the day. Readers will learn what life would be like on Mars, from the daily chores, what it’s like to ride in a rover, and how to contact Earth from 191 million miles away! But life isn’t always easy or as fulfilling when you can’t run around as you please, to meet new people and learn about other cultures. Even though it takes place on Mars, the novel covers themes surrounding xenophobia, and isolationism in a way that kids can understand but isn’t too heavy handed for more astute readers.
If you’re interested in requesting The Lion of Mars for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Holm, Jennifer L. The Lion of Mars. Yearling, 2021
“Heart’s Desire: The Story of a Contented Town, Certain Peculiar Citizens and Two Fortunate Lovers” by Emerson Hough is now available on cartridge and for download on BARD, the Braille and Audio Reading Download service. BARD is a service offered by the Nebraska Library Commission Talking Book and Braille Service and the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled at the Library of Congress.
This early novel of the American West, published in 1905, tells of “Heart’s Desire,” a sleepy New Mexican town, and what happens when a scheming railroad baron and a conniving lawyer plot to bring progress and civilization to its citizens.
TBBS borrowers can request “Heart’s Desire: The Story of a Contented Town, Certain Peculiar Citizens and Two Fortunate Lovers” DBC02102 or download it from the National Library Service BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download) website. If you have high-speed internet access, you can download books to your smartphone or tablet, or onto a flash drive for use with your player. You may also contact your reader’s advisor to have the book mailed to you on cartridge.
You’ll have to look closely to find this week’s teeny tiny #BookFaceFriday, “The Borrowers” by Carnegie Medal winner Mary Norton (Clarion Books, 2003). This enchanting children’s classic about a tiny family living underneath the floorboards in an English manor is available as a Book Club Kit from the Nebraska Library Commission, with 8 copies for your reading group to borrow.
“The magic and charm of the writing convince children and grown-ups, too, that Borrowers really do exist.”
―School Library Journal
Book Club Kits Rules for Use
These kits can be checked out by the librarians of Nebraska libraries and media centers.
Circulation times are flexible and will be based upon availability. There is no standard check-out time for book club kits.
Please search the collection to select items you wish to borrow and use the REQUEST THIS KIT icon to borrow items.
Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 196 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 29,164 audiobooks, 45,416 ebooks, and 6,269 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
Bob Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song is a series of reflections put together by an experienced architect of rhythm and rhyme. For decades, Dylan has operated as arguably the ultimate poet-songwriter of the American mythos. In this collection of 66 essays, he turns his sharp, lyrical eye away from his own catalog to dissect the work of others, delivering a masterclass in musical appreciation that is deeply subjective, beautifully eccentric, and unabashedly hip. The most striking element of the book is its writing style; at first, I thought it came across as pretentious, but then I appreciated it as simply authentic Dylan. He rejects academic analysis. Instead, he leans into a hard-boiled, streetwise, pulp-fiction vernacular that feels incredibly timely and timeless. He writes in punchy, rhythmic sentences, often slipping into the second person to drag the reader right into the emotional stuff of a song. His prose mimics the cadence of a Beat poet or a 1940s film noir detective, filled with grit, smoke, and late-night desperation. He doesn’t just explain a track; he riffs on it, creating parallel narratives that match the mood of the music.
As a Nobel laureate in Literature, Dylan’s reputation as a master wordsmith precedes him, and this book reinforces that legacy. You are not reading a standard critic; you are reading a practitioner of the craft. He understands the architecture of a rhyme. He decodes the hidden nuances of simple phrasing. He honors raw, emotional truth over technical perfection. When he analyzes tracks by artists like Hank Williams, Nina Simone, or Elvis Costello, he exposes the very DNA of songwriting. His insights are poetic shortcuts. He captures the essence of a track in a single, vivid metaphor where a traditional reviewer would take three pages.
The book is chaotic and structured all at once, with clear intention. Dylan jumps from rockabilly to punk, and from country to soul, without a care for chronological order. He uses the songs as launching pads for brief, wildly entertaining rants on modern life, bluegrass, marriage, and the loss of the human touch in digital recording. He cares about music, and the book is a deeply personal curation. The omissions are just as loud as the inclusions, revealing the specific, roots-heavy landscape that feeds Dylan’s own creativity.
Given all this, Dylan is not without commentary on modern media:
Turns out, the best way to shut people up isn’t to take away their forum – it’s to give them all their own separate pulpits. Ultimately most folks will listen to what they already know and read what they already agree with. They will devour pale retreads of the familiar and perhaps never get to discover they might have a taste for Shakespeare or flamenco dancing. It’s the equivalent of letting an eight-year-old pick their own diet.
The Philosophy of Modern Song is a vital addition to Dylan’s body of work. It is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand how America’s greatest songwriter listens to music. It proves that even in his eighties, Bob Dylan remains the coolest, most unpredictable voice in American letters.
The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan, 2022, Simon & Schuster
