“Nebraska, Where Dreams Grow” by Nebraska author Dorothy Weyer Creigh 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.
Fifty-one vignettes present Nebraska history from the point of view of those who lived their lives on the Great Plains. Topics include ice harvesting, Chautauqua, mail-order brides, World War II, television, and Big Red.
TBBS borrowers can request “Nebraska, Where Dreams Grow” DBC02044 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.
Here are the UNP books the Clearinghouse received in January and February, 2025:
The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1888-1891, Volume 1, by Henry James, edited by Michael Anesko, et al. Series: The Complete Letters of Henry James
This first volume in The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1888–1891 contains 171 letters, of which 119 are published for the first time, written from late November 1888 to April 20, 1890. These letters continue to mark Henry James’s ongoing efforts to care for his sister, develop his work, strengthen his professional status, build friendships, engage with timely political and economic issues, and maximize his income, which included hiring an agent. James details his work on The Tragic Muse, “Mrs. Temperly,” “An Animated Conversation,” “The Solution,” and other fiction. This volume opens with James in France and concludes with James on the Continent. Dee MacCormack introduces the volume, paying close attention to James’s increasing interest in the theater.
Men of God : Medicant Orders in Colonial Mexico, by Asunción Lavrin. Series: Confluencias
A broadly researched cultural history, Men of God offers a path to understanding the concept of religious masculinity through an intimate approach to the study of friars and lay brothers in colonial Mexico. Though other scholars have focused on the missionary work of the Augustinian, Franciscan, and Dominican friars, few have addressed their everyday lives and how the internal discipline of their orders shaped them. In Men of God Asunción Lavrin offers a sweeping yet intimate history of the mendicant friars in New Spain from the late sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries.
Focusing on these individuals’ lives from childhood through death, Lavrin explores contemporaneous ideas, from how to raise a boy to the friars’ training as novices, and the similarities and differences in the life experiences of lay brothers and ordained members. She discusses their sexuality to reveal the challenges and failures of religious manhood, as well as the drive behind their missionary duties, especially in the late seventeenth through the eighteenth centuries. Men of God also explores the concepts and realities of martyrdom and death, significant elements in the spirituality of the mendicant friars of colonial Mexico.
Of Corn and Catholicism : a History of Religion and Power in Pueblo Indian Patron Saint Feast Days
In Of Corn and Catholicism Andrea Maria McComb Sanchez examines the development of the patron saint feast days among Eastern Pueblo Indians of New Mexico from the seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century. Focusing on the ways Pueblo religion intertwined with Spanish Catholicism, McComb Sanchez explores feast days as sites of religious resistance, accommodation, and appropriation. McComb Sanchez introduces the term “bounded incorporation” to conceptualize how Eastern Pueblo people kept boundaries flexible: as they incorporated aspects of Catholicism, they changed Catholicism as well, making it part of their traditional religious lifeway.
McComb Sanchez uses archival and published primary sources, anthropological records, and her qualitative fieldwork to discuss how Pueblo religion was kept secret and safe during the violence of seventeenth-century Spanish colonialism in New Mexico; how Eastern Pueblos developed strategies of resistance and accommodation, in addition to secrecy, to deal with missionaries and Catholicism in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; how patron saint feast days emerged as a way of incorporating a foreign religion on the Pueblos’ own terms; and how, by the later nineteenth century, these feast days played a significant role in both Pueblo and Hispano communities through the Pueblos’ own initiative.
Unsettling Cather, by Marilee Lindemann and Ann Romines. Series: Cather Studies, Volume 14
American author Willa Cather was born and spent her first nine years in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Here, as an observant daughter of a privileged white family, Cather first encountered differences and dislocations that remained lively, productive, and sometimes deeply troubling sites of tension and energy throughout her writing life.
The essays in Cather Studies, Volume 14 seek to unsettle prevailing assumptions about Cather’s work as she moved from Virginia to Nebraska to Pittsburgh to New York City to New Mexico and farther west, and to Grand Manan Island. The essays range from examinations of how race shapes and misshapes Cather’s final novel, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, to challenges to criticisms of her 1935 novel, Lucy Gayheart. Contributors also frame fresh discussions of Cather’s literary influences and cultural engagements in the first decade of her career as a novelist through the lens of sex and gender and examine Cather’s engagements with region as a geopolitical, sociolinguistic, and literary site. Together, the essays offer compelling ways of seeing and situating Cather’s texts—both unsettling and advancing Cather scholarship.
New state agency publications have been received at the Nebraska Library Commission for January and February, 2025. Included are reports from the Nebraska Auditor of Public Accounts, the Nebraska’s Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education, the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy, various Nebraska Legislative Committees, and titles from University of Nebraska Press, to name a few.
With the exception of the University of Nebraska Press titles, items are available for immediate viewing and printing by clicking directly in the .pdf below. The University of Nebraska Press titles can be checked out by librarians for their patrons here: Online Catalog.
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 Aimee Owen, Government Information Services Librarian; or contact Bonnie Henzel, State Documents Staff Assistant.
The sun is shining and the birds are flying! If the springtime weather has you in the mood for romance then this #BookFace has you covered! “Birding with Benefits”, Sarah T. Dubb’s debut novel (Gallery Books, 2024), follows divorcee Celeste on her “year of yes” which leads her to John, the shy but sensitive birdwatcher.
“The slowly simmering romance that blossoms between plucky heroine and heart-of-gold hero results in some love scenes that are as hot as the desert sun in July.”
— Booklist (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. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,898 audiobooks, 36,794 ebooks, and 5,133 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!
This week’s FR is a twofer, but they are interconnected and the only other way to do this in a non-twofer fashion would be to post about the first book today, then the second one next time I’m up (which is June 27). Forget that. First up, at 656 pages, And the Band Played On takes some commitment, but is a relatively easy read. Author (San Francisco Chronicle reporter) Randy Shilts died from AIDS related complications (Kaposi’s sarcoma and Pneumocystis pneumonia) at the age of 42 (in 1992). This book skips between the media coverage (and non-coverage) of the epidemic, the medical community’s research and response, the political response/non-response, and individual stories of those that suffered and succumbed to the horrible disease (or had friends or family that succumbed). Shilts spends time covering the discovery of what was known in the early days as “gay cancer”, the likely proliferation and spread through bathhouses, the scientific research (many ego clashes at public health institutions), community activists, and the push/pull with government research and funding. The essential discovery by French researchers was plagiarized by American scientists, taking credit for the discoveries of the French. After reading the book, which abruptly ends without much time spent on repurposed drugs and the development of new ones, I found myself disappointed in the public health system yet again, but optimistic about the rogue frontline doctors and community activists who fought the large bureaucracies. I asked, what happened next? What about the FDA, the buyer’s clubs, and what about AZT? None of that was covered much by Shilts in depth, so I reached out and found the rest of the story in Good Intentions: How Big Business and the Medical Establishment Are Corrupting the Fight Against AIDS, by Bruce Nussbaum. I had to order it on ILL and pay the $3.50 fee. It was worth it, but every library should carry these two works for narratives about the AIDS epidemic.
Nussbaum’s work is an informative continuation of the story, but no less depressing. Many of the same actors from the work of Shilts appear, but instead of the push/pull between doctors jockeying for credit to discover things in the lab, the push/pull largely takes place between federal health agencies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, frontline doctors, and community organizations (notably ACT-Up). This clash of egos and scientific ineptitude led to many more needless deaths and suffering. One of the main villains is the NIAID, headed by Tony Fauci, who quickly proved his agency was in way over their head. NIAID took over from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), because AIDS is obviously an infectious disease, and it was hard for the NCI to argue that point. The problem was that NIAID had never been involved with drug development, and it took the agency years to figure things out. NIAID got a brief reprieve when Fauci poached more experienced oncologist Daniel Hoth from the NCI. NIAID spent copious amounts of tax dollars, placing its chips solely on AZT, like some drunk playing Big Red at the craps table. Those taking AZT in the early days (large doses) needed blood transfusions to stay alive, because it caused anemia and toxicity to bone marrow.
Community doctors became effective at treating the symptoms of AIDS, by utilizing off-label drugs, and in some cases patients cooking up their own DIY style. Many of these doctors treated specific AIDS related ailments, such as Kaposi Sarcoma (KS), a rare cancer, or PCP (pneumocystis pneumonia). The problem with some of the therapies (notably AL-721) was the fact that they often weren’t made to specifications when manufactured at home, so their efficacy was difficult to determine. And, because there was little money to be made from their sale (AL-721 is a lipid mixture extracted from egg yolks), this ensured there were no clinical trials or widespread commercial development. The FDA was often blamed for holding up the development and approval of new drugs, although there was plenty of blame to go around.At a Congressional hearing, when asked by Rep. Nanci Pelosi (representing San Francisco), what he would do if he was an AIDS patient, waiting for the Federal Bureaucracy to approve treatments, Fauci (who’s agency had been allocated over $374 million by then to develop treatments) responded:
“I probably would go with what would be available to me, be it available in the street or what have you.”
What’s largely disappointing is that the process for testing, approval, and bringing drugs to market hasn’t changed much. Nussbaum summarizes this in his Epilogue:
“In the case of the disease AIDS, and probably in cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and others, a very small number of PIs [Principal Investigators – top scientists at medical schools and hospitals who ran research trials on drugs, and were critical of anyone else doing research outside of that framework], a dozen or two, have enormous power that they misuse. … nowhere is there accountability. The NIH extramural programs, especially NIAID’s AIDS Program, may well become known as the HUD of the nineties, in which billions of taxpayer dollars have disappeared into the private projects of a handful of scientists who insist they know what is best for the health of the country. It is simply not true; they don’t.”
Shilts, Randy. And the Band Played On. St. Martin’s Griffin, Revised Ed. 2007.
Nussbaum, Bruce. Good Intentions: How Big Business and the Medical Establishment Are Corrupting the Fight Against AIDS. Atlantic Monthly Press. 1990.
Join us tomorrow for the 2025 Big Talk From Small Libraries online conference. Registration is still open, so head over to the Registration page and sign up!
We have a full agenda for the day, with speakers from academic, K-12, and public libraries presenting on a wide variety of topics: reader’s advisory, interactive library displays, school/public library partnerships, marketing, sustainability, a Library of Things, Sensory Gardens, and much more.
And, Nebraska library staff and board members can earn 1 hour of CE Credit for each hour of the conference you attend! A special Big Talk From Small Libraries CE Report form has been made available for you to submit your C.E. credits.
This event is a great opportunity to learn about the innovative things your colleagues are doing in their small libraries. So, come join us for a day of big ideas from small libraries!
This year’s theme for Black History Month, chosen by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, is “African Americans and Labor”. Today’s Book Club Spotlight by author Gary Paulsen takes a well-deserving look at a Black man who not only served his community faithfully through his work but excelled far above his station. ALA Notable Book and One Book for Nebraska Teens 2017, The Legend of Bass Reeves, is at once a historical fiction novel and historical fact. Known for his outdoor adventure novels, Paulsen writes vignettes based on the life of Bass Reeves, interspersing them with historical background, making the case for Reeves to be the one true hero of the West.
An illiterate runaway slave, Bass Reeves was the true, unknown icon of the Western Frontier. Despite facing down the barrel of a gun countless times, he was never injured, and he never shot first. Having daringly escaped slavery at 17, Bass lived free in the lawless land of Indian Territory- run by gangs and thieves. After saving one of their own from wolves, he finds companionship and family with the Muscogee Creek people for over 20 years. Never one to slow or turn down a challenge, at the age of 51, Reeves took up the badge and became the most successful and feared Deputy Federal Marshal of the West, his life story rivaled only by the fictional Lone Ranger.
“They could kill him, but they’d never own him again.”
-Gary Paulsen
For readers 10 and up, The Legend of Bass Reeves is a mostly fictional account of the real man. Unfortunately, as an illiterate former slave, Reeves did not keep any journals, and not much was written about him while he was alive. Paulsen sets out to right some of this wrong, pulling Reeves from obscurity. For his young audience, Paulsen wanted to give the unstoppable and honorable Bass Reeves his due instead of the outlaws like Billy the Kid and Butch Cassidy. The Legend of Bass Reeves, while about the heroic man, also delves into the lawless West, from the makeup of the land, the communities, and the treatment of Black and Native peoples in an accessible way for young readers to understand and any Book Club Group to discuss the finer points of.
If you’re interested in requesting The Legend of Bass Reeves for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 11 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Paulsen, Gary. The Legend of Bass Reeves. Random House. 2006.
We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) is accepting applications for its Books Save Lives Grants, providing funding for school libraries, public libraries, and educational institutions in the United States to purchase diverse titles.
Each Books Save Lives Grant will provide up to $5,000 per recipient. Recipients will provide a list of requested titles to WNDB. WNDB will then vet the list and ship the approved books directly to the address provided.
Applications are due by March 14, 2025.
Applicants must work full-time at a school library, public library, or educational organization within the United States to receive a Books Save Lives Grant.
This is a United States-based grant. Nominated schools, libraries, and organizations must be located within a U.S. state.
Applicants must be located in areas impacted by book challenges and censorship efforts, whether on a local or state level.
The grant must be used to purchase diverse books. Recipients will provide WNDB with a requested list of titles. WNDB will then vet the list and ship the books directly to the recipient.
Recipients must complete two evaluation surveys after the books have been circulated.
Brrr!!! I don’t know about you, but this weather makes me want to stay indoors and curl up with a good book, like this week’s #BookFaceFriday, “The Cold Cold Ground” by Adrian McKinty (Blackstone Publishing, 2019). It’s the first book in the Detective Sean Duffy mystery series.
“A fascinating look at everyday life in Northern Ireland during ‘the Troubles.’ The protagonist is clever and funny, the interaction of the police and various factions is eye-opening, and the mystery is intriguing, with an unexpected twist at the end.”
— RT Book Reviews
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,898 audiobooks, 36,794 ebooks, and 5,133 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!
Everyone has their thing they completely nerd out over. For me, that’s ecosystem building. Ecosystems are how people come together to solve problems and drive change in the world. I’ve dug into problem-solving ecosystems, innovation ecosystems, tech ecosystems, startup ecosystems, and how each of these ecosystems overlap and work together in different ways.
Today’s Friday Reads is all about how businesses, universities, colleges, nonprofits, government agencies, and libraries come together to cultivate and support entrepreneurs along a difficult journey. The fun fact is that libraries are not featured very heavily in the book, but we do play a role. Makerspaces, innovation spaces, entrepreneurial resource referrals, guest speakers, workshops, meeting spaces, and so many other ways.
This book helped me better understand how the ecosystem works overall. It could help you too. When libraries understand the process aspiring entrepreneurs take to launch a startup business, and can identify partner organizations within the entrepreneurial ecosystem, it’s easier to identify unmet needs where the library can help. This increases the value of the library to the business community, and adds new grant and funding opportunities.
I read this book many moons ago, but I still revisit it to refresh myself and spark new ideas. If you’re looking for new ways to engage with your community, especially in the world of workforce development, give Startup Communities a read. Let me know if you want to nerd out with me about ecosystems when you’re done. I have some stuff for you.
P.S. I try not to inflict my niche interests on the wider world too much, but this week, I let my nerd flag fly! Join me.
He was inaugurated on February 6th and the 2023-2024 National Ambassador, Meg Medina, attended.
As quoted in the article, Barnett said, “It’s a profound honor to serve as ambassador. When I got the news, I was speechless, which is unusual for me.” He has chosen to “celebrate the children’s picture book” and the way they “blend words and illustrations to create a uniquely powerful reading experience.”
Congratulations to Mac Barnett! Certainly a popular author with children and he has a lineup of over 60 books he has written. What is a favorite title with the children in your community?
I have read a lot, but not all of his books, one of my favorites is Sam and Dave Dig a Hole from 2014, illustrated by Jon Klassen and named a Caldecott Honor Book. Readers will be delighted by all things the diggers missed.
Another favorite of mine is Mac Undercover from 2018, the first book in his series titled “Mac B., Kid Spy” a novel for grades 3-6. Mac secretly helps the Queen of England – who is disgusted by his attire and “bad” English, but does appreciate his help. Silly and clever, Mac ends up in unexpected situations wondering how he will escape and solve the mystery.
I hope the young readers in your community will love the idea of Mac Barnett as the 2025-26 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature!
“Watchers on the Hill: Pine Ridge Portraits, #2” by Nebraska author Stephanie Grace Whitson 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.
The sequel to “Secrets on the Wind: Pine Ridge Portraits, #1”, this novel centers on Charlotte Valentine. Once a flirtatious beauty seeking a military husband, Charlotte has been changed by life’s trials. Returning to Fort Robinson for peace, she finds herself faced with two former suitors. She can trust only in her faith to heal and move forward.
TBBS borrowers can request “Watchers on the Hill: Pine Ridge Portraits, #2” DBC02058 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.
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I’ve picked something red for this week’s Friday Reads: Gail Simone’s debut novel, Red Sonja: Consumed.
But, Sonja’s flowing red hair is really the only thing this book has in common with the day. While there are romantic relationships in this story, it’s definitely not a romance novel. Far from it. This is a beautifully written, classic sword and sorcery tale.
Full disclosure: Gail Simone is my favorite comic book writer. I will read anything she writes. From Wonder Woman to Secret Six to Batgirl to Uncanny X-Men, and yes, Red Sonja, I haven’t been disappointed yet. She is well-known for reimagining established characters by telling insightful, deep stories with strokes of humor and some surprises.
That same writing style comes through in Red Sonja: Consumed.
With the flashbacks to Sonja’s past, and her tragic childhood, Simone creates a riveting character study of grief, loss, and overcoming immense hardship. The adult Sonja must travel back to her homeland of Hyrkania, to stop an unknown evil that is attacking her people. She is brash, snarky, and thoroughly enjoys every fight she gets herself into. And her warhorse, Sunder, is the best sidekick, fighting right there by her side.
The first half of the novel gradually sets up the exciting second half. It may feel like things are moving along too slowly, but when everything comes together later on, it’s totally worth it.
Yes, there are violent scenes and bloody battles. Oh, look at that. More red! 😉 What do you expect from the She-Devil with a Sword? But, that’s not all. Ultimately, Red Sonja: Consumed is a fun, fierce tale – full of intrigue, action, magic, and monsters.
Happy Valentine’s Day! If you’re in the mood for love, you’ve come to the right #BookFaceFriday! “Business Casual” by B.K. Borison (Berkley, 2024), is the fourth book in the Lovelight series of contemporary romantic comedies.
“The way Borison softly weaves together a friends-with-benefits and opposites-attract romance, while also incorporating Charlie’s ADHD and people-pleasing and Nova’s perfectionism, will keep readers starry-eyed as they imagine visiting the beloved small town of Inglewild…This final and fourth book in the “Lovelight” series, after Mixed Signals, is a knockout.”
— 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. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,898 audiobooks, 36,794 ebooks, and 5,133 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!
Every February since the 1920s, the United States has celebrated Black History, and our neighbors up in Canada first observed the holiday in 1979. Like us, Canadians continue to celebrate Black History Month by uplifting and learning about “the legacy and contributions of Black people in Canada and their communities.” In honor of that legacy, today’s Book Club Spotlight, Washington Black, is a historical fiction novel by the incredible Canadian author Esi Edugyan. Edugyan, daughter of Ghanaian immigrants and an accomplished novelist, is not only the first Black woman to win the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize, but she won it twice!
Deep in the sugar cane plantations of Barbados, naturalist Christopher Wilde and his newly appointed eleven-year-old manservant Washington Black burst out of the treetops on a flying balloon named ‘The Cloud Cutter’. They are fleeing from Faith plantation, where Washington, a slave, has just witnessed the death of a white man, meaning he could very well be next. The pair journey across the world together, chasing after ghosts, until Washington must take up the mantle and chase after Christopher’s. A whip-smart marine illustrator and aspiring scientist, Washington Black may be physically free from the constraints of slavery, but its history refuses to let him go.
“I understood there were many ways of being in the world, that to privilege one rigid set of beliefs over another was to lose something. Everything is bizarre, and everything has value. Or if not value, at least merits investigation.”
– Esi Edugyan
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize (which Edugyan would go on to chair in 2023), Washington Black takes a look at what comes after slavery. Young Washington is taken from his world and his family by this White Savior, who ultimately leaves him. Washington, reeling from his abandonment with nothing else in the world, must create his future while facing systemic and racial challenges wherever he goes. Washington has a brilliant mind for marine biology but cannot exist in the same scientific circles as his white counterparts of the 1830s. It simply isn’t done. Even as a free man, slavery has left a mark on his life, physically, emotionally, and in his pursuit of meaning. This adventure novel takes its readers on a trip around the globe. Adult Book Club Groups will explore new locales, meet strange characters, and discuss how our destiny is unwittingly shaped by those around us.
If you’re interested in requesting Washington Black for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Can’t stop, won’t stop with this week’s #BookFaceFriday! First published in 1975, “Tuck Everlasting” by Natalie Babbitt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux,2007) was an early Golden Sower nominee and is still a mainstay in classrooms across the country.
We have 11 copies for your reading group to borrow in our Book Club Kit collection, and you can also find it in audiobook format in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries. It’s only one of many book club kits school and public libraries can borrow for their school-aged reading groups. You can browse our collection by genre, grade level, or keyword search; use the keywords “Golden Sower” to find all the titles we have that have won or been nominated for the award. Best of all, loan periods are flexible to meet your group’s needs!
“Rarely does one find a book with such prose. Flawless in both style and structure, it is rich in imagery and punctuated with light fillips of humor. The author manipulates her plot deftly, dealing with six main characters brought together because of a spring whose waters can bestow everlasting life. . . . Underlying the drama is the dilemma of the age-old desire for perpetual youth”
— The Horn Book Magazine
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
One of the picture books School Library Journal included on their “Best Picture Books of 2024” list is I’m Sorry You Got Mad by Kyle Lukoff. Learning how to apologize, and mean it, is hard, and Jack is not yet convinced he should. But the teacher expects it.
Right off we know Jack must write a note of apology to Zoe, but the teacher must approve it first. His third attempt is the title of the book and he must try again. He is angry while working on the note and the other students have no trouble realizing it.
Through the rejected notes the reader/listener learns that Zoe’s castle was knocked over. And then we begin to learn the reasons this happened.
Finally Jack writes an acceptable note, and Zoe replies with a thank-you note. Maybe tomorrow they will build a castle together.
The artwork adds greatly to the story. In one illustration the pencil sharpener is roaring as Jack uses it – with a big frown on his face, the other students all noticing him. The reader/listeners can tell he is still mad. This is the complete package of story and art – and a great way to let young ones see someone practicing… fighting it… trying… and finally getting it right.
Lukoff, Kyle. I’m Sorry You Got Mad. Dial Books, 2024.
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.
The sequel to “Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them”, author Roger Welsch revisits his favorite pastime, tinkering with beat up tractors. The book follows the rescue of a scrap yard refugee Allis-Chalmers WC tractor; a journey that pulls Welsch deep into a bottomless morass of broken bolts, smashed fingers and frozen pistons.
TBBS borrowers can request “Busted Tractors and Rusty Knuckles: Norwegian Torque Wrench Techniques and Other Fine Points of Tractor Restoration” DBC02211 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.
Winter. Nebraskans are well-acquainted. Even in the milder times, like this year and the last, winter is a frigid creep around the fringes of our scarves, skulking under the brims of our hats.
There is an instinct to resist winter. It is, after all – even to those of us who love the cold – an inconvenient season. Our commutes become more challenging. Daylight is fleeting. And if we are not resisting winter, then we are doing our best to ignore it. After all, in an era of thermostats and DoorDash, many of us are not interrupted by the whole of winter. Unlike our predecessors throughout most of human history, we do not have to rely on a stockpile of firewood, or animals that also feel the sting of wind chill, or cans and jars preserving our fall harvest. This has changed what winter has become in our societies.
After experiencing a series of upturnments in her life, Katherine May set out to explore ways to survive winter. Not just the physical season of winter – although she spends quite a bit of time in the uppermost northern regions of the planet – but also the spiritual and mental winters that come from burn-out and illness.
After her husband’s sudden hospitalization, followed by the onset of her own chronic, unexplainable illness, May faces what all of us struggle with at one point in our lives: the realization that we need to rest, with no structured culture of rest and few ideas about where to begin. She wrestles with the guilt of “doing nothing,” even though what she is actually doing is allowing her body the time and space it desperately needs to recover.
May refers to this time of her life as a “wintering.” She uses winter as a central thesis of living more aligned with a seasonal perspective, with periods of fertility and fallowness. We are tempted to see time and life as a long, linear line. Birth and death are points A and B. Our jobs are 9 to 5. It leads to a very individualistic, self-referencing way of living. Perhaps we would be better served by viewing it all – our lives, time, the seasons – as interconnected cycles.
Winter brings with it discomfort, darkness, cold. In nature, winter is a time to be survived – however, as May uncovers, much of nature is centered around preparing for winter. Neither the door-mouse nor deciduous trees survive by staunchly ignoring winter, nor do they let winter take them by surprise. There is no “keep calm and carry on” philosophy (May is British). Instead – at the risk of anthropomorphism – nature accepts the reality of the changes of the season, and adapts. Some animals hibernate. Some tree lose their leaves. It is a period of dormancy, to weather the lean times of few resources.
May also explores how northern human cultures adapt to the long periods of frozen darkness that comes with living in the Arctic Circle. May explores the geothermal pools of Iceland, the customs of the indigenous Sámi of Norway, and the sauna culture of the Finns. These groups seem to share amongst each other the belief that winter is not something to be overcome, but something to be embraced in order to weather it. And it is weathered most of all by relying on community.
May, Katherine. Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. Riverhead Books, 2020.
This #BookFaceFriday wants to make you an offer you can’t refuse! “Sonny Boy” by Al Pacino (Penguin, 2024), is an intimate journey into the life of a Hollywood legend, with its highs and lows, and all the drama in between. Hoo-ah! It’s available as an eBook and Audiobook through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries, and is only one of many performing arts biographies and autobiographies available on OverDrive.
“The rare celebrity memoir that’s also a literary read. As funny as it is reflective, it shares stories behind Pacino’s hardscrabble upbringing, classic films and journey to icon status.”
— People Magazine
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,898 audiobooks, 36,794 ebooks, and 5,133 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!
