Friday Reads: Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids, by Scott Hershovitz

A Facebook friend who also happens to be a librarian recently posted “If you want to have a cursory understanding of a complex topic…get a children’s book about it.” Brilliant counsel! And while that’s not exactly what I did, it was in the back of my mind when I stumbled on Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids, by Scott Hershovitz.

Nasty, Brutish, and Short isn’t a children’s book, but it is a book by a philosopher recounting conversations he’s had with his young sons, Rex and Hank, about philosophy. I figured if he could make philosophy accessible to them, maybe he could do the same for me. That, it turns out, was his plan all along. As he writes in the introduction, “[t]his book is inspired by kids, but it’s not for them. In fact, kids are my Trojan horse. I’m not after young minds. I’m after yours.”

In twelve chapters, each devoted to a topic ripe for discussion (rights, punishment, authority, knowledge, truth, etc.), Hershovitz shares stories of children (his own and others’) initiating and participating in philosophical inquiry with greater facility than most adults. In fact, as he goes on to show, they often wind up pondering the exact same questions as renowned philosophers of yore! (Examples include the shifted color spectrum, credited to John Locke, Aquinas’ first cause argument, and Descartes’ Cogito: “I think, therefore I am.”)

Chapter Four of Nasty, Brutish, and Short, titled “Authority,” is a good example of how Hershovitz approaches his subject. He begins with a kid-related anecdote—his son Rex refusing to comply with his father’s request that he put on his shoes. Kids’ chafing at parental authority is nothing new. What kid hasn’t uttered the phrase “You aren’t the boss of me!” to a frazzled parent seeking compliance? And what parent hasn’t responded “Because I said so” when asked “Why” by a stubborn child?

For Hershovitz, however, such encounters are great jumping off points for discussions about power vs. authority, the nature of obligation, and the role reasoning and responsibility should play in compliance. He writes about these concepts as they play out in contemporary life–between bosses and employees, parents and children, teachers and students, the government and the governed. (Gordon Ramsay in Kitchen Nightmares even makes a cameo.) He shares various philosophers’ takes on authority, as well as highlights from his many conversations with Rex and Hank about the subject.

By the end of each chapter you realize not only that Hershovitz has gotten you to “do philosophy” with him, but also that philosophy—thinking carefully about important things–is something worth practicing ourselves and encouraging in our children. (Don’t worry—Hershovitz is well aware that there is a time and a place, especially with kids!)

In his conclusion, titled “How to Raise a Philosopher,” Hershovitz reminds us of what he thinks the goal should be:

The aim is not to raise a professional philosopher. It’s to raise a person who thinks clearly and carefully. It’s to raise a person who thinks for themself. It’s to raise a person who cares what others think—and thinks with them. In short, the aim is to raise a person who thinks.

Definitely a worthy goal! And an inspiring read!

Hershovitz, Scott. Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids. New York: Penguin, 2022.

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NCompass Live: Learning Opportunities and Resources from WebJunction

Come on a tour of WebJunction and learn how to build your library-specific knowledge, skills, and confidence on next week’s NCompass Live webinar on Wednesday, October 18, at 10am CT.

WebJunction provides a range of library-specific, online, and on-demand courses and webinars to help meet your continuing education needs. Whether you are looking to pick up a new skill, or to find inspiration for a new idea, these resources can help you take the first, or next step. With the support of the Nebraska Library Commission, all of the content, webinars and courses are free, and you’ll find topics ranging from customer service to organizational management to space planning. Join this session for a tour of WebJunction and to hear about these flexible and dynamic learning opportunities!

Presenter: Kendra Morgan, Program Director, WebJunction.

Upcoming NCompass Live shows:

  • Oct 25 – Pretty Sweet Tech: How Augmented Reality Can Create Optimal Literacy Experiences
  • Nov. 8 – Racial & Gender Bias in Search
  • Nov. 22 – Best New Children’s Books of 2023
  • Dec. 6 – Using Creativity to Grow & Develop
  • Dec. 13 – Canvaholic
  • Dec. 20 – Summer Reading Program 2024: Adventure Begins at Your Library
  • Jan. 17, 2024 – Auditing Library Websites
  • Jan. 24, 2024 – Best New Teen Reads of 2023

To register for an NCompass Live show, or to listen to recordings of past shows, go to the NCompass Live webpage.

NCompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.

The show is presented online using the GoTo Webinar online meeting service. Before you attend a session, please see the NLC Online Sessions webpage for detailed information about GoTo Webinar, including system requirements, firewall permissions, and equipment requirements for computer speakers and microphones.

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#BookFaceFriday “Daughter of Fortune” by Isabel Allende

Fortune favors the #BookFaceFriday!

This #BookFaceFriday is written by one of the many talented authors we are celebrating during National Hispanic American Heritage Month (September 15- October 15), Isabel Allende. Set against the backdrop of the 1849 gold rush in California, Daughter of Fortune (Harper Collins, 1999) is available as a Book Club Kit, as well as an audiobook in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries. You can find many more of Allende’s works as ebooks and audiobooks in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries, as well as all of our curated Hispanic Heritage Month collection titles.

“Until Isabel Allende burst onto the scene with her 1985 debut, The House of the Spirits, Latin American fiction was, for the most part, a boys’ club comprising such heavy hitters as Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Mario Vargas Llosa. But the Chilean Allende shouldered her way in with her magical realist multi-generational tale of the Trueba family, followed it up with four more novels and a spate of nonfiction, and has remained in a place of honor ever since. Her sixth work of fiction, Daughter of Fortune, shares some characteristics with her earlier works: the canvas is wide, the characters are multi-generational and multi-ethnic, and the protagonist is an unconventional woman who overcomes enormous obstacles to make her way in the world. Yet one cannot accuse Allende of telling the same story twice; set in the mid-1800s, this novel follows the fortunes of Eliza Sommers, Chilean by birth but adopted by a British spinster, Rose Sommers, and her bachelor brother, Jeremy, after she is abandoned on their doorstep.”

– Margaret Prio, Oprah Book Club

Book Club Kits Rules for Use

  1. These kits can be checked out by the librarians of Nebraska libraries and media centers.
  2. Circulation times are flexible and will be based upon availability. There is no standard check-out time for book club kits.
  3. Please search the collection to select items you wish to borrow and use the REQUEST THIS KIT icon to borrow items.
  4. Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team

Love this #BookFace & reading? Check out our past #BookFaceFriday photos on the Nebraska Library Commission’s Facebook page!

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Throwback Thursday: Greenhouse at the Immanuel Deaconess Institute

Happy #ThrowbackThursday from Nebraska Memories!

This week, we have a black and white photograph, from 1937, showing the interior of the greenhouse at the Immanuel Deaconess Institute, which was located near 34th & Meredith in Omaha, Nebraska.

This image is published and owned by Alegent Health Immanuel Medical Center. This collection shows the rich and well documented history of the buildings, people, and artifacts of the Immanuel Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. An archive of thousands of photo, papers, and items has been maintained for over 120 years and carefully stored and housed on the campus of Alegent Health Immanuel Medical Center.

See this full collection and more on the Nebraska Memories archive.

The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.

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Book Club Spotlight – How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

cover for How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. 
Four different colored hummingbirds fly around a flower in a glass vase

In 1960, ten-year-old Julia Alvarez left her home in the Dominican Republic for the United States, and by 2013, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama and had an honorary doctorate from Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra. So, to end Hispanic Heritage Month, we’re Spotlighting Alvarez’s debut book, which has been widely studied and lauded as a hallmark in Latino Literature. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is an episodic novel that encapsulates the Dominican immigrant identity in the United States and their struggles of assimilation, heritage, and identity.

When Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía were children, their family was forced to flee the Dominican Republic to escape the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. But that was 30 years ago, and now the sisters who are “too American” for their parents find themselves lost in an identity they never had the chance to form. As the narrative progresses (or regresses), short vignettes of each sister encapsulating their lives move backward in time toward their beginnings in the Dominican Republic. They struggle to cope with the distinct differences in women’s liberation and expectations between their two homes. In the United States, they are expected by their peers to be free-spirited, educated, and beautiful. At the same time, their visits back home are shadowed by the traditional values of Catholicism, a patriarchal society, and their own set of beauty standards. Torn between being acceptable in each culture but still their own people, each member of the family faces immense pressure and collapse. Their mother dreams of becoming an inventor, and their father struggles with sudden poverty; Sandra becomes weighed down by the impossibilities of beauty and stress, while Yolanda, a struggling writer, is caught between her cultures of liberation, joy, and failure. Even 30 years after immigrating, each of the four sisters tries their best to live up to unreachable standards and criticism but never quite feels whole, as if some part of themselves was left back in the Dominican Republic, where they were pushed too soon from their nest. 

 They will be haunted by what they do and don’t remember. 

Julia Alvarez 

Told using a reverse timeline, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents keeps the reader in a sense of hesitation and disarray as we are pulled further back into the sisters’ own discordant existence between cultures. Their story is complex and reflects the natural uncertainties and confusion of being out of one’s space and into a new and unknown environment. Perfect for reading groups of mature Young Adult readers and above, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents opens itself up to deep and possibly intense discussions of the self. The stories explore the Female experience as much as it explores the Immigrant one, as a perfect study of Intersectionality (a type of analysis coined by feminist scholar and American Civil Rights leader Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw). Exploring how every aspect of our identities is shaped by the other, or as Alvarez puts it in her Authors Note: “There is nothing shameful in being a complex human being.”

Last week (October 1-7) was Banned Books Week– and Julia Alvarez is no stranger to censorship. How the García Girls Lost Their Accents has had its fair share of challenges and bans- even being banned from the whole of Johnston County, NC, including classrooms and school libraries. During that time, Alvarez spoke with the National Coalition Against Censorship about her experience.

Here is a small excerpt: 

NCAC: How does removing a book from a school district affect students’ educational experience?

Julia Alvarez: The sad thing about the controversy, over and above the fact that students have missed out on the reading experience of that book, is what this models for them about an experience that is difficult or upsetting.  I grew up in a dictatorship, where you couldn’t talk about difficult situations – there was this culture of silence.  We would run into a problem and have no one to talk to.  What’s modeled there by banning the book is what I find most upsetting: that it is appropriate behavior in a free country when someone is expressing something we don’t want to hear, to silence them.

NCAC: Why do you think it is important to teach literature that some might deem controversial or difficult?

Julia Alvarez: Schools provide safe spaces to talk about controversial issues, and literature presents characters portraying human experience in all its richness and contradictoriness. Reading is a way to take in the difficult situations and understand them.  The whole point of reading a book in class is to have discussion about what these situations are like.  You have writing, discussion, and classroom exercises on it, and kids come out of it having digested the experience with ways to feel and talk about it.  How wonderful! 

If you’re interested in requesting How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies available. (A librarian must request items)

Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Algonquin Books. 1991

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NCompass Live: Letters About Literature 2023

Learn about Nebraska’s state reading and writing contest for youth, Letters About Literature, on next week’s NCompass Live webinar on Wednesday, October 11, at 10am CT.

The Nebraska Center for the Book is a statewide organization dedicated to the promotion of reading in all its forms. Its annual Nebraska Letters About Literature contest allows students in 4th through 12th grade to write to authors (living or deceased) about their favorite book or poem about how his or her book affected their lives. This session will provide helpful information for teachers and librarians interested in the competition. It will also cover the submission process and be an excellent opportunity to ask questions about the entire competition process. Teachers will be interested in this program that will help enhance and extend their classroom instruction.

Presenter: Tessa Terry – Communications Coordinator, Nebraska Library Commission.

Upcoming NCompass Live shows:

  • Oct 18 – Learning Opportunities and Resources from WebJunction
  • Oct 25 – Pretty Sweet Tech: How Augmented Reality Can Create Optimal Literacy Experiences
  • Nov. 8 – Racial & Gender Bias in Search
  • Nov. 22 – Best New Children’s Books of 2023
  • Dec. 6 – Using Creativity to Grow & Develop
  • Dec. 20 – Summer Reading Program 2024: Adventure Begins at Your Library
  • Jan. 17, 2024 – Auditing Library Websites
  • Jan. 24, 2024 – Best New Teen Reads of 2023

To register for an NCompass Live show, or to listen to recordings of past shows, go to the NCompass Live webpage.

NCompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.

The show is presented online using the GoTo Webinar online meeting service. Before you attend a session, please see the NLC Online Sessions webpage for detailed information about GoTo Webinar, including system requirements, firewall permissions, and equipment requirements for computer speakers and microphones.

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Friday Reads: Chapter and Curse

With the cooler weather (and tonight’s freeze warning!), it seems like the sort of morning for another cozy mystery.

Chapter and Curse, by Elizabeth Penney, is the first book in the Cambridge Bookshop series. The third book will be published later this month. Lovely settings, interesting characters, good mysteries, plenty of literary references.

Molly Kimball and her mother, Nina, desperately could use a change in their lives. One day, they receive a letter from Nina’s Aunt Violet asking for help with the family’s struggling 400-year old bookshop in Cambridge, England. Molly (a part-time librarian) jumps at the chance to leave Vermont and help revitalize the family business, while Nina looks forward to reconnecting with family.

They arrive to find the “Thomas Marlowe Manuscripts and Folios” bookshop in rougher shape than expected, especially financially. With loans rapidly coming due, a cousin is threatening to sell the bookshop to a big-box store (which also threatens the other small shops along the same street). Molly decides that the bookshop will host a poetry reading, in coordination with the village’s book festival, to bring in new customers and raise some money.

The event appears to be a huge success until Molly finds one of the guests murdered (and evidence pointing directly towards her great-aunt). Was this driven by the bookshop’s recent money troubles? Blackmail of some kind? Or was it connected to the evening’s famous poet, who happens to be one of Violet’s oldest friends? What really happened with the rest of their friend group over fifty years ago? What other secrets does this charming little street hold?

Determined to clear her great-aunt’s name, Molly tackles these questions with the help of new friends, a possible romantic interest, a few odd family members, and a cat named Puck.

  1. Penney, Elizabeth. Chapter and Curse. Sept. 28, 2021. St. Martin’s Paperbacks.
  2. Penney, Elizabeth. A Treacherous Tale. August 23, 2022. St. Martin’s Paperbacks.
  3. Penney, Elizabeth. The Fatal Folio. October 24, 2023. St. Martin’s Paperbacks.
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#BookFaceFriday “The Giver” by Lois Lowry

We’re united in our love for this #BookFaceFriday!

Let Freedom Read! That’s the theme of this year’s #BannedBooksWeek. We are celebrating with a banned #BookFace! The Nebraska Library Commission supports readers and the freedom to read so we make sure our various collections reflect that. “The Giver” by Lois Lowry (Houghton Mifflin, 1993) has been banned or challenged in the US since 1994, less than a year after it’s publication, cited for “violent and sexual passages, infanticide and euthanasia.” The Giver received the 1994 Newbery Medal, given for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. It’s available as a book club kit, or as an eBook and Audiobook on Nebraska OverDrive Libraries. A book is considered challenged when calls are made for it to be banned or removed from the public’s access. This is one of many banned or challenged titles NLC has available in our Book Club Kit Collection, titles like Looking For Alaska by John Green, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and the Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling, just to name a few.  This week’s #BookFace and other banned books can be found on the NLC Book Club Kit webpage. This service allows libraries and school librarians to “check out” multiple copies of a book without adding to their permanent collections, or budgets. NLC also has several banned or challenged titles available to our Nebraska OverDrive Libraries.

“Lois Lowry has written a fascinating, thoughtful science-fiction novel. The story is skillfully written; the air of disquiet is delicately insinuated. And the theme of balancing the virtues of freedom and security is beautifully presented.”

— Horn Book (starred review)

You can find more information about Banned Books Week and the fight against censorship at ALA.org/advocacy/bbooks! What are you doing to celebrate Banned Books Week? Let us know!

Book Club Kits Rules for Use

  1. These kits can be checked out by the librarians of Nebraska libraries and media centers.
  2. Circulation times are flexible and will be based upon availability. There is no standard check-out time for book club kits.
  3. Please search the collection to select items you wish to borrow and use the REQUEST THIS KIT icon to borrow items.
  4. Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team

Love this #BookFace & reading? Check out our past #BookFaceFriday photos on the Nebraska Library Commission’s Facebook page!

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Throwback Thursday: Wayne State Homecoming 1965

Celebrate Homecoming with #ThrowbackThursday!

This week, we have a black and white photograph featuring John Neihardt at Wayne State College’s homecoming in 1965.

This image is published and owned by Wayne State College. One of three state colleges in Nebraska, Wayne State College, originally the State Normal College at Wayne, held its first session in September of 1910. Photographs included in this collection feature the buildings and grounds of the campus, athletic teams, the Student Army Training Corps, and other groups.

Check out this collection and many more on the Nebraska Memories archive.

The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.

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NCompass Live: APPLE in Kansas – Training for New Library Directors

Are you a new public library director? Join us as we talk about what you really need in order to excel at your job on next week’s NCompass Live webinar, ‘APPLE in Kansas – Training for New Library Directors’ on Wednesday, October 4, at 10am CT.

Robin will discuss the year long intensive training program that is available for new directors in KS – APPLE, Applied Public Library Education. She’s been with the program since its first year and will talk about how it came about, how it has evolved to its current form and how it will be changing in the future. She’ll cover topics that are presented to new directors as well as the “intangibles” of the training – such as the network of peer support that every new director who goes through the program has access to. Join us as we talk about what new library directors really need (supported by 10 years of surveys and feedback forms) in order to excel at their jobs.

Presenter: Robin Hastings, Library Services Consultant, Northeast Kansas Library System (NEKLS).

Upcoming NCompass Live shows:

  • Oct. 11 – Letters About Literature 2024
  • Oct 18 – Learning Opportunities and Resources from WebJunction
  • Oct 25 – Pretty Sweet Tech: How Augmented Reality Can Create Optimal Literacy Experiences
  • Nov. 8 – Racial & Gender Bias in Search
  • Nov. 22 – Best New Children’s Books of 2023
  • Dec. 6 – Using Creativity to Grow & Develop
  • Dec. 20 – Summer Reading Program 2024: Adventure Begins at Your Library
  • Jan. 17, 2024 – Auditing Library Websites
  • Jan. 24, 2024 – Best New Teen Reads of 2023

To register for an NCompass Live show, or to listen to recordings of past shows, go to the NCompass Live webpage.

NCompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.

The show is presented online using the GoTo Webinar online meeting service. Before you attend a session, please see the NLC Online Sessions webpage for detailed information about GoTo Webinar, including system requirements, firewall permissions, and equipment requirements for computer speakers and microphones.

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Friday Reads: Ponyboy, Poetry, Kees, and You

I have started reading too many books to write about just one, so for this post, this time, I’m writing about four books. A debut novel with Nebraska connections getting national critical attention, a poet often overlooked in favor of more famous compatriots, another Nebraskan of cinematic mystique, and a brand new non-fiction book about tech that will make you want to put down your phone camera. Let’s go!

Longlisted for a National Book Award, and written by an author born in Nebraska, Eliot Duncan’s Ponyboy is a globetrotting story with a trans, addicted protagonist—but the story is about relationships: between parent and child, within friend groups, and also the relationships we have with ourselves–and with our pasts and our futures. This is the first novel from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumnus. More about the book, the author, and recent press can be found at the author’s website .

I recently read about Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945, and I want to read more of her work. I checked out this enormous book, The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry, because it shows each work in its original language as well as its translation into English. Being able to read Mistral’s poems in Spanish and English helps me appreciate her intentions and the beauty of her work. Mistral wrote about unexpected things in unpopular ways. You can read some of her work here.

Weldon Kees is a fascinating character, born in Beatrice in 1914. He had a colorful and exciting life in Nebraska and neighboring states, eventually moving to California, where he disappeared in 1955. He produced art in many forms, and also worked as a librarian, among other interesting jobs. After seeing a recent story about new acquisitions related to Weldon Kees at University of Nebraska Libraries, I picked up a used copy of The Ceremony & Other Stories. I am still waiting for the movie of his life. Check this link for a photo from Kees’ diary in 1954 to see a list of books and movies he enjoyed that year.

Your Face Belongs to Us is an important story about what happens when technology moves faster than ethics or the law. Kashmir Hill writes about the tech company that best optimized facial recognition software, and the various motives of the people involved with the project. If you think they don’t have your best interests at heart, you are correct. No matter your opinion of facial recognition software, if you’re interested in the technology and its effects, this is some old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting that will surprise and disturb you.

Duncan, Eliot. 2023. Ponyboy : A Novel First ed. New York NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

Hill, Kashmir. 2023. Your Face Belongs to Us : A Secretive Startup’s Quest to End Privacy As We Know It First ed. New York: Random House an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Kees, Weldon and Dana Gioia (ed.). 1984. The Ceremony & Other Stories. Port Townsend Wash: Graywolf Press.

Stavans, Ilan. 2011. The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry : An Anthology. 1st ed. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.

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Throwback Thursday: A.O. Thomas Residence

Happy #ThrowbackThursday from Nebraska Memories!

This week, we have a 5″ x 3-1/2″ black and white photograph showing a large, two story house that belonged to  Augustus Orloff Thomas. He served as the first President of Nebraska State Normal School at Kearney. This home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and has been remodeled several times. Now, it serves as the Alumni House.

This photograph from 1908 is published and owned by the Calvin T. Ryan Library at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. UNK was founded in 1905 as the Nebraska State Normal School at Kearney. It joined the Nebraska University system in 1991. Images in this collection show faculty, students, buildings and activities from the first dozen years of the school’s existence.

See the full collection on the Nebraska Memories archive.

The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.

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Book Club Spotlight – The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba’s Greatest Abolitionist

Cover for The Lightning Dreamer by Margarita Engle. A hand raised with a black bird perched on the middle finger. Palm trees and hills line the background

Hispanic Heritage Month is from September 15th to October 15th, and to celebrate, we are Spotlighting The Lightning Dreamer, written by Margarita Engle, the first Latino awarded the Newbery Honor and the Poetry Foundation’s sixth Young People’s Poet Laureate.

A Golden Sower nominee, The Lightning Dreamer also has the unique distinction of being awarded the Pura Belpré honor, an award presented to a Latino/Latina writer who “best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.” Inspired by Engle’s Cuban heritage, this title is a historical fiction novel written in verse, following one of the country’s most prominent female writers, feminists, and abolitionists- Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, known here, as Tula.

Slavery was a way of life in nineteenth-century Cuba, and for young Tula, she believes that her future in an arranged marriage would be a similar kind of endless servitude. Cuban women were expected to be quiet and listen to the men rather than think for themselves—something Tula did a lot. And when she begins to read the banned works of abolitionist poet José María Heredia, her ideas grow restless and revolutionary. Breaking from expectations, Tula starts to write plays for the local orphanage, and her open views on abolition inspire her family’s cook to flee from the looming threat of enslavement. But her bold actions are belittled and mocked by her mother and others, and Tula is sent away from home after refusing an arranged marriage. At her grandfather’s estate, she falls in love with a former slave named Sab, who is desperately in love with another girl who will not have him because of his dark skin. His story moves Tula deeply, and as we follow her throughout the years, she becomes more confident and outspoken with her abolitionist and feminist poetry, even though the very act could put her in jail- or worse.

“I’m tired of being told
that my feelings are too wild.”

margarita engle

Written for readers in middle grades and up, The Lightning Dreamer serves as an introduction to Avellaneda (Tula) and other great abolitionist Latino poets such as José María Heredia and Jose Marti (a particular inspiration to Engle) and includes short bios and excerpts from Avellaneda and Heredia to tie the reader into the real-life story. While Engle’s depiction of Avellaneda meeting Sab is wholly fictional, the story is not. Avellaneda’s first and most controversial novel, Sab, about an enslaved Cuban boy in love with his master’s daughter, explores the humanity and ethics of Sab against the amoral white characters, a stance unheard of at the time. The novel was banned from her home country of Cuba because of the interracial love story, its critique of marriage, and its criticism of societal norms. While published a decade before Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the two share similar backgrounds and critical receptions when read today. Like many of Engle’s novels, The Lightning Dreamer centers around young people who choose hope in hopeless situations, which many may experience today. And Avellaneda put herself at considerable risk to publish Sab and bring hope to her home.

If you’re interested in requesting The Lightning Dreamer for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 8 copies available. (A librarian must request items)

Engle, Margarita. The Lightning Dreamer. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. 2013

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Nebraska Public Media Book Club Kit Inspired by the new Ken Burns documentary The American Buffalo

In partnership with Nebraska Public Media, the Nebraska Library Commission has added 30 copies of Great Plains Bison to our book club collection. Book club kits with 10 copies are also owned by: Bellevue Public Library, Kearney Public Library, Lincoln City Libraries, and the Regional Library Systems

This book club kit explores the themes of conservation, restoration and respect. What can we learn from the stories of bison and the Pawnee seed keepers? How can conservation be practiced today?
The book club guide includes:
Discussion questions
Additional reading suggestions and organizations to explore
Two recipes from Chef Anthony Warrior

Great Plains Bison, written by buffalo rancher Dan O’Brien (also featured in The American Buffalo), traces the history and ecology of this American symbol from the origins of the great herds that once dominated the prairie to its near extinction in the late 19th century and the subsequent efforts to restore the bison population. A project of the Center for Great Plains Studies and the School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska; published by Bison Books.

Seed Warriors, directed by Rebekka Schlichting (Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska), follows a group of seed keepers in their ancestral homelands of Nebraska as they seek to regain sovereignty over the food system. By reclaiming their sacred corn seeds, they work to return to the healthy, traditional lifeways of the Pawnee people. Learn more at PawneeSeed.org.

Produced in collaboration with Nebraska Public Media for the HOMEGROWN: Future Visions digital shorts series. HOMEGROWN: Future Visions is a Co-Production of Firelight Media and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), with funding provided by the CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (CPB), In Association with PBS

Ken Burns’s newest documentary, The American Buffalo, tells the dramatic story of the near extinction and improbable rescue of America’s national mammal. Premiering October 16 on PBS and the PBS Video App. Learn more at PBS.org/americanbuffalo.

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Friday Reads: So Many Steves: Afternoons with Steve Martin by Steve Martin and Adam Gopnik

This is another Friday listens as this title is only available in audio format. Published by Pushkin Audio  (co-founded by Jacob Weisberg and Malcolm Gladwell) — “Pushkin audiobooks are not your typical author-in-front-of-a-microphone productions. They are immersive — you hear the actual voices of the people being interviewed, archival footage, and beautiful scoring.” I’ve been a Steve Martin fan since his white-suit and arrow-through-the-head days. His SNL skits from Dancing in the Dark with with Gilda Radner to the Festruck Brothers with Dan Ackroyd were legend. Years ago, he loaned a piece of art from his collection  for an exhibit in the Sheldon Museum of Art and I often sat and watched it after my campus walks.  The proximity was oddly thrilling.

This audio-biography is a series of conversations recorded over the course of a year between Steve and long-time friend Adam Gopnik.  The two met in the fall of 1990 at a controversial exhibit Gopnik curated called High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture at the Museum of Modern Art. They shared many conversations since that time and decided to record Adam, asking questions about Steve’s evolution in both his personal and professional life. The topics cover Steve as magician, standup comic, actor, writer, playwright, musician, composer, and art collector. Hence the title, So Many Steves, that was inspired by a poem written by e.e. cummings, So Many Selves.

I saved this book to listen to on the morning of my birthday while I walked. I learned that Steve used Carl Reiner as a personality mentor watching and studying Carl’s ease with people in conversation employing deft humor. When Tommy Smothers said that “talking to Steve Martin is like sitting in a room alone” – you understand, Steve knew he needed help overcoming his off stage social ineptitude. The best takeaway was Steve reflecting on his life in the late 80s at a time when he began trusting his craft and wondering what was different. There was a Hungarian word for this, Pihentagyú, which means “a relaxed brain.”  It describes a quick-witted person who can come up with sophisticated jokes or solutions because their mind is at rest. With a relaxed brain, it is easier to think quickly and clearly.  I would credit this to both age and experience, so listening to this while marking another year was especially meaningful.

Of course, I understand the value of print, and I am a long time audio book listener, but these hybrid audio presentations are exactly what I want from an author and performer. A conversational narrative accompanied with a specific soundtrack relevant to the story.  If this sounds like your kind of thing, check out Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon, a finalist for the 2023 audiobook of the year. Audible’s Words+Music recordings with over 35 notable musicians are also something to consider. There’s no shortage of ways to delight your aural senses.

Steve Martin and Adam Gopnik So Many Steves: Afternoons with Steve Martin. Pushkin Industries. 2023.

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Throwback Thursday: Allen Valish Orchestra

Happy #ThrowbackThursday from Nebraska Memories!

This week, we have a 2″ x 3″ color negative, portrait photograph of the Allen Valish Orchestra. Its members include Mike Palensky, Bill Andel, Bob Palensky, Milo Palensky, Allen Moravec, and Allen Valish.

This image is part of the Boston Studio Project and is owned by the Thorpe Opera House Foundation. The Boston Studio Project consists of over 68,000 negatives that record life in and around David City, Nebraska from 1893 to 1979. Harvey Boston, a professional photographer in David City, owned a portrait studio business from 1893 until his death in 1927. Negatives and ledgers describing each photograph are stored at the Hruska Memorial Public Library in David City.

If you or someone you know likes history, especially Nebraska History, check out the Nebraska Memories archive! It’s a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural materials and make them available to researchers of all ages.

The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.

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Take the Nebraska Digital Access and Skills Survey

CONTACT: Ezra Effrein at ezra.effrein@nebraska.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Take the Nebraska Digital Access and Skills Survey

September 14, 2023 (Lincoln, Neb.)

How satisfied are you with the quality of your home internet connection? Does your household have enough computer devices available? How confident are you in your internet skills? The State of Nebraska would like to know.

The State of Nebraska Digital Opportunities team will be hosting an online survey at https://go.unl.edu/nedigitalequity to gather this data from Nebraskan households. The survey will allow Nebraskans to indicate how many computer devices (laptops, smartphones, or tablets) they have in their home, the quality of their broadband service, their ability to use the internet, and more. The survey must be completed by September 27, 2023.

“I would like to encourage Nebraskans to participate in the survey and help the State of Nebraska better understand and address the digital needs of residents,” said Ed Toner, CIO for the State of Nebraska. “Having access to the internet and appropriate devices, as well as having the digital skills necessary to use these technologies, is becoming necessary to access healthcare, financial services, education, and other necessities.”

The survey, conducted by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, is a component of the State of Nebraska’s State Digital Opportunities Plan being developed by the Office of the Chief Information Officer in conjunction with the Nebraska Broadband Office’s broadband planning efforts. The development of the State Digital Opportunities Plan is funded through a grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

“Collecting this data is really the foundation of beginning to understand, prioritize, and formulating solutions to the most important digital needs and skills of Nebraskans,” said Patrick Haggerty, Director, Broadband Office, Nebraska Department of Transportation. “Thank you to the Nebraska Digital Opportunities team and the University of Nebraska for supporting this very important work.”

To learn more about the Nebraska State Digital Opportunities Plan, please visit nitc.nebraska.gov or broadband.nebraska.gov.

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What’s Up Doc? New State Agency Publications at the Nebraska Library Commission

New state agency publications have been received at the Nebraska Library Commission for July and August, 2023.  Included are reports from the Nebraska Administrative Services, Nebraska Colleges & Universities, the Nebraska Board of Examiners, the Nebraska Department of Labor, and new books from the University of Nebraska Press, to name a few.

Most items, except the books from the University of Nebraska Press, are available for immediate viewing and printing by clicking on the highlighted link above, or directly in the .pdf below.  You can read synopses of the books received from the University of Nebraska Press in the Book Briefs blogposts.

The Nebraska Legislature created the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse in 1972 as a service of the Nebraska Library Commission. Its purpose is to collect, preserve, and provide access to all public information published by Nebraska state agencies.  By law (State Statutes 51-411 to 51-413) all Nebraska state agencies are required to submit their published documents to the Clearinghouse.  For more information, visit the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse page, contact Mary Sauers, Government Information Services Librarian; or contact Bonnie Henzel, State Documents Staff Assistant.

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