tuesday june 17
As little girls, I think every woman of my generation fell in love with Atlantic coastal island life when we read Misty of Chincoteague (1947) by Marguerite Henry. The adventures of Paul and Maureen Beebe and their family seemed so exciting and wonderful! I was fascinated by the ponies, the ocean, the islands, and daily island life.
The book opens with the escape of terrified ponies on board a Spanish galleon that runs aground in a storm in the early years of Spanish exploration. These ponies were the ancestors of the present day island ponies that live all along the barrier islands of the east coast.
Henry was awarded a Newbery Honor for Misty of Chincoteauge. She followed it up in 1949 with Sea Star, Orphan of Chincoteague that she was inspired to write on a visit back to Assategue Island, the home of the ponies. Later, she wrote Stormy, Misty's Foal (1963) after the devastating 1962 "Ash Wednesday Storm" ripped into the islands.
I have had the extreme privilege of seeing the wild island ponies on North Carolina's Outer Banks islands. They weren't afraid of us humans, but they really didn't have much time for us, turning their backs pointedly as we tried to photograph them.
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monday june 02
I recently snagged Jim Malusa's travel and adventure book, Into Thick Air: Biking to the Bellybutton of Six Continents, published by Sierra Club Books. I found it to be an entertaining and quite amusing ride.
Malusa, a biologist and native of Tucson, Arizona, conceived of the idea of biking to the lowest places below sea level on each continent—he refers to these as "antisummits”—after he and his wife, Sonya, rode their bicycles through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, crossing over a 12, 400 foot high mountain pass to get to the Turpan Depression in the Takla Makan desert. It's the lowest point in western China, some 500 feet bellow sea level.
They are obviously a couple who enjoy cycling and have a taste for adventure.
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thursday april 24
Celebrating Spring and our earth, Mother Earth and Her Children: A Quilted Fairy Tale (2007) is a German children's poem with gorgeous needlework illustrations by quilter Sieglinde Schoen Smith. This is a modern translation by Jack Zipes of Sibylle von Olfers' 1907 German book, Etwas von den Wurzelkindern ("Something About the Root Children"). Soon we'll see Mother Earth's ABC.
Smith took Olfers' illustrations and created a gorgeous award-winning quilt based on the original illustrations. She started quilting for comfort after her son passed away, and the book is dedicated to him.
Another lovely book celebrating spring is Monarch and Milkweed (2008) by Helen Frost and Leonid Gore. Beautifully illustrated, the book describes the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly, so closely dependent on the Milkweed plant.
Another one for Spring is Ruth Brown's Ten Seeds (2001), the pictorial countdown from 10 seeds to one sunflower in the garden, naturally giving us ten more seeds.
Happy Spring!
tuesday april 22
The Earth gave us a little wake-up call a few days ago: an early-morning tremble from an earthquake centered 400 miles away in southern Illinois. Like a cat who brushes by your feet wanting some attention, I like to think that the Earth was doing the same, saying, "I need some attention, too." Just in time for Earth Day.
With the resurging awareness of environmental issues, there are tons of 'green' books that are slated to be published in 2008. Here are a few that are already in the Library's collection:
For adults:
The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time by Elizabeth Rogers
Making Kind Choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth- and Animal- Friendly Living by Ingrid Newkirk
For kids:
You Can Save the Planet: 50 Ways You Can Make A Difference by Jacquie Wines
The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming by Laurie David
And, an old favorite:
A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry
Happy Earth Day !
thursday april 17
My seven-week-old daughter and I went to Spring Grove Cemetery today. Unfortunately for her, she slept through her entire first visit and missed the beautiful spring scenery: pink blooms on weeping cherry trees, ducks ambling across tranquil lakes, and monuments to the departed stretching to the sky.
According to Cincinnati Cemeteries: The Queen City Underground by Kevin Grace and Tom White, Spring Grove Cemetery was created in 1845 after several cholera epidemics swept the city. It was designed to resemble a landscaped park that provided dignified burials and a pastoral setting for the bereaved—as it still does today.
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monday december 17
The beauty of light becomes more pronounced when contrasted with darkness. The December 22 Winter Solstice brings the longest night of the year and the perfect opportunity to create light with candles. For a unique solstice experience you might want to "unleash your inner druid" and have a solstice day - without electricity. At sunset, bring out the candlelight. "Candlenight" is a winter solstice celebration that started in Japan in 2003. Books such as Illuminations by Wally Arnold will inspire you to decorate with candlelight, while Light A Candle by Sylvia Browne will inspire some candlelight rituals. Candlegrove and School of the Seasons are among the web sites that are devoted to seasonal celebrations around the world.
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tuesday november 27
Alan Weisman's provocative and deeply depressing book The World Without Us does offer a few optimistic scenarios. The good news (1) Look at the New England forests. Early settlers chopped them down but later abandoned their farms, and now the trees are all grown up again. In a few more generations the forests will look pretty much like they did before the European settlers came. Already, three coyotes have made their way across bridges from New Jersey and into Manhattan.
The other good news (2) In the long run, global warming isn't that big of a deal, because in 5 billion years the sun is going to expand and suck in all the planets, anyway. Also, given the wobble of the earth and its slightly erratic orbit, unless we've really screwed things up, another ice age is inevitable no matter what we do, and it certainly would be more convenient to have one in 14,000 years rather than in 1,000 years. Think of New York City and England as tundra, for example.
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tuesday november 20
Who doesn't love the Moon, sometimes lovely, sometimes spooky, always fascinating with its undeniable influence over the time and tides of earth?
The Native Americans all over the continent mark time with the moon, but they count 13 of them. A lovely book that explains this is Joseph Bruchac's Thirteen Moons on Turtle's Back: A Native American Year of Moons (1992).
Long Night Moon (2004) by Cynthia Rylant describes the full moon in 12 months of the year, explaining the names of each. Another gorgeous book is by Penny Pollock, When the Moon Is Full: A Lunar Year (2001).
In How the Moon Regianed Her Shape (2006) Janet Ruth Heller borrows from Native American tales to tell the story of the moon phases. Included is interesting factual information on the moon, along with a list of names of each full moon.
We'll have a full moon this weekend, and if my reckoning is right, it will be the Frosty Moon. Or the Beaver Moon. But either way, it will be beautiful!
monday october 29
I had a whole year of South Carolina history in eighth grade, but the fact that rice was once grown there escaped me. Well, it was, from the end of the 17th century up through the end of slavery times. The eight counties that William Dusinberre calls "the Low Country" in his book Them Dark Days were in fact major producers.
The reason, of course, that the rice business did not continue long after the Civil War was because the labor involved in growing the rice was so difficult, and the conditions (malaria, again) so unhealthy in the South Carolina swamps that it was impossible to find paid workers to do the job. The swamps are now swamps again; one major plantation has become a wildlife refuge.
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monday october 08
I don't know why, but as far back as I can remember I've had a passion for scuba diving. There's something about entering a completely different environment surrounded by a strangely organic and colorful world that is just mind-bending. In Stephen Harrigan's book
Water and Light: A Diver's Journey To a Coral Reef, he asks the question about his own passion for diving and where it originates
. In an attempt to answer this question, he sets out to spend several months diving off
Grand Turk Island. He explores the quiet, exquisite, and powerful beauty of coral reefs along dozens of sites around the island.
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friday september 14
I learned just a few years ago that you can't drive your car all the way from Alaska to the bottom of South America, and I found this unsettling in the same way I found it unsettling as a child to learn that Baja, California, is actually a part of Mexico.
The problem is the Darien Gap, an area of about 30,000 square acres of swampy, mountainous, and otherwise difficult geological features between Colombia and Panama, that has been breaking hearts and ruining lives for centuries, even before Colombian paramilitary groups got into the act. The Gap now refers to the uncompleted stretch of the Pan-American Highway. Centuries earlier, the Gap referred to a possible break in the mountains, sort of like the Cumberland Gap, that would allow the building of a canal joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. An Englishman named Dr. Edward Cullen claimed to have found just such a gap.
Well, we all know what happened with that idea.
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wednesday september 05
It’s hurricane season once again, with the recent anniversary of Hurricane Katrina serving as a grim reminder. On September 8, 1900, an even deadlier hurricane swept the coast of Galveston, Texas, killing as many as 10,000 people and changing the city forever.
Erik Larson, bestselling author of The Devil in the White City, tells the story of this hurricane and its impact on Isaac Cline, the meteorologist who believed no storm could ever seriously damage Galveston.
Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History combines the science of weather with personal accounts of survivors to track the hurricane from beginning to devastating end. At the eye of the storm are Isaac Cline, the rivalry with his fellow weatherman (and younger brother) Joseph, and the overconfidence of the age, when turn-of-the-century meteorology (and the newly formed United States Weather Bureau) could not prepare the residents of Galveston for a hurricane of this magnitude. By the time they realized evacuation was necessary, it was too late.
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tuesday august 07
I would prefer a place without snakes, even though I imagine Mia Farrow bravely took snakes into consideration when she offered to exchange herself for "Suleiman Jamous, the humanitarian coordinator of the Sudan Liberation Movement."
This is the first of two entries about the Darien Gap, the 30,000-acre area between Colombia and Panama. The Gap is what makes it impossible to drive from Alaska to the bottom of Chile. You can't go from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the Darien Gap either, because of mountains, swamps, rivers, and dense jungle. Another problem: paramilitary guerrillas, who will kidnap you if they find you, which they will. The native peoples aren't especially friendly either.
The paramilitary groups include two left-wing groups, the ELN and the FARC; and one right-wing group, the AUC. You may ask yourself, If I have to be kidnapped by a paramilitary group in or near the Darien Gap, which should I choose? Two books that could help you decide are Leszli Kalli's Kidnapped: A Diary of My 373 Days in Captivity and The Cloud Garden, by Tom Hart Dyke and Paul Winder.
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saturday august 04
Summer is here in all of its glory, and we must revel in it as much as possible. It is quite simple really: just sit outside and feast your senses on the birdsong and the fireflies. The best recipe for tomatoes: pick one from the vine and eat it, the drippier the better. For those who prefer more detailed instructions, here are a few books that can tell you how to enjoy summer, and even if you already know how, their beautiful illustrations could easily occupy a long afternoon in the shade.
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wednesday august 01
The Discovery Channel is in the midst of their annual Shark Week celebration. From July 29th-August 4th, Discovery is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Shark Week. Tonight's episode, "Perfect Predators", airs at 9 pm. The Newport Aquarium is also getting in on the fun with Shark Fest. Receive free giveaways, pet sharks, and see sharks fed daily. For those of you obsessed with shark attacks (and I know you're out there), check out the International Shark Attack File. It might surprise some of you to learn that Florida, not Australia, leads the world in shark attacks. Since 1990, Florida has seen 365 attacks, compared to Australia's 94.
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thursday june 14
Some of my happiest times have been spent in the company of chickens. Their unabashed presence can turn a day from gloomy to whimsical.
If you are interested in trying out a little flock of chickens, here are two very enjoyable titles on the subject:
Keeping Pet Chickens (2005) by Johannes Paul tells us how to "bring your backyard to life and enjoy the bounty of fresh eggs from your own small flock of happy hens". Well illustrated, but lighter on the information than the following selection.
Keep Chickens: Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs, and Other Small Spaces (2003) by Barbara Kilarski is a cleverly written, enthusiastic book of instructions for those interested in fresh eggs and gardening help from a little flock of hens. She understands and explains very well the quirks and personalities of chickens.
Two more excellent resources:
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tuesday may 29
The Butterfly Show has taken flight at the Krohn Conservatory in Eden Park through June 24th!
When I think of butterflies, I always think of the butterfly alphabet by nature photographer Kjell Sandved, whose amazing butterfly photographs can be seen in A World of Butterflies and the children’s book The Butterfly Alphabet.
Originally from Norway, Sandved came to the United States in 1960 to research a wildlife encyclopedia that he was working on. The Smithsonian Institution invited him to view the museum’s collections, and that’s when he peered into a cigar box of butterfly and moth specimens and first saw a letter ‘F’ on one of the wing patterns. He taught himself how to take photographs, and a quest for an entire alphabet had begun.
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wednesday may 16
My husband and I went camping this past weekend. Much to my dismay, the campground facilities were “primitive”--no electricity, flush toilets, or showers. And while this was not really “roughing it” by any stretch of the imagination (bug spray, grilling supplies, and cans of beef stew could easily be picked up at the corner campground store), it was nice to commune with nature if only for a few days.
The book I read around the campfire was a bit somber, so my thoughts turned instead to Bill Bryson’s hilarious misadventure, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. Bryson decides to tramp the “AT”—the 2,100-mile trail connecting Georgia to Maine--and brings along his notoriously out-of-shape, Little Debbie-eating, childhood sidekick Stephen Katz. What ensues is a hike to remember, not only for the beauty of their surroundings, but the people they encounter (an annoying hiker named Mary Ellen) and the things they hope not to encounter (bears).
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thursday may 10
Several years ago I read an amazing novel titled Water Music by T.C. Boyle. It's a rich, darkly comic story which focuses on a character named Mungo Park and his expedition of the Niger River during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries . The novel is full of energetic, hilarious, and often bawdy prose. I was about halfway through the book when I learned (somehow or another) that Mungo Park was an actual historical figure.
Since then, I've been interested in finding a more factual account of Mungo Park and his exploits in Africa. So, I was happy to find the book The Cruelest Journey: 600 miles to Timbuktu by Kira Salak. On this solo journey, the author traversed the Niger by kayak and modeled her course after Mungo Park's own journey there over 200 years ago.
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friday may 04
I visited my parents in South Carolina with the agenda that they might like to fund some of my son's college tuition. Instead, my mother let me ransack the abandoned WalMart that was being used to store books for her library's book sale. She said I could take whatever I wanted. These were reject books that had already been picked through during two used-book sales this year. Many, I noticed with annoyance, were my own books, which I'd left at my parents' house in the '70s. I ended up with about 6 boxes, including books and other interesting stuff I stole took from the pharmacy, which has also been abandoned since 1989.
When I got back to Cincinnati, I realized that no eBay person would ever buy about a third of the books I'd taken; another third, I kind of wanted to keep for myself. East of the Sun: The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia by Benson Bobrick, published in 1992, falls into this category.
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wednesday april 25
Every time I take a walk on my lunch hour, I pass by a florist’s shop. I try to peek inside the open door and catch a glimpse or a whiff of the beautiful roses, lilies, tulips, and gerbera daisies for sale. Sometimes I see a customer leave with a parcel of flowers or a bouquet in a vase and I happily imagine them sitting on my desk.
Author Amy Stewart loves flowers too. In her new book,
Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers, she travels around the world and behind the scenes to catch her own glimpse of the cut flower industry. And what an interesting glimpse it is!
Stewart visits California, Miami, Holland, and Latin America to see firsthand how flowers are bred, grown, shipped, and sold. Along the way, she tells intriguing stories, such as the quest for the elusive blue rose or the eccentric breeder of the popular 'Stargazer' lily.
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tuesday april 10
As referenced in a previous post, April is National Gardening Month. The library has something to pique the interest of every gardener, whether you're dealing with a gardening challenge (too much shade, too little space) or trying to develop a focus (a color-themed garden or container gardening). Dig in!
- If you feel like your front yard could use a little sprucing up, check out The Welcoming Garden for ideas on how to turn it into a gardener's paradise.
- Shade puts a positive spin on this gardening challenge by addressing the different types of shade and the plants that thrive there.
- Garden lovers who love to garden but who have very little space to do it in should pick up Plants for Small Spaces.
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monday march 19
The Vernal Equinox comes every year in the Northern Hemisphere around March 20. Spring arrives! Day and night, for one 24-hour period, are equal.
I find that springtime light brings a lifting of moods and a deep contentment that never fails to brighten my spirits. I have dug up a variety of books from a variety of subject areas, all about spring:
Chasing Spring: an American Journey Through a Changing Season Bruce Stutz writes about following spring from the Gulf of Mexico to the Alaskan arctic, experiencing renewal and joy at the beauty of the awakening season.
Boys of Spring: Timeless Portraits from the Grapefruit League, 1947-2005 Ozzie Sweet is a renowned photographer, and this book of baseball photographs will get you in the mood for a game.
Everything for Spring: A Complete Activity Book for Teachers of Young Children: Activities for March, April, and May Spring fever is especially rampant in classrooms. These activities will help keep our youngest students busy.
The beautiful symphonic works of Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring and The Tender Land cannot fail to move you; available on CD or cassette.
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saturday december 23
I've got to admit that I got the recommendation for Hit by a Farm by Catherine Friend from another library blog. And I'll also admit that "lesbian examines ram testicles" is an awfully good first chapter hook. However, although this book has a lot of the standard "city slicker encounters the country life" episodes, it's so much more than that.
Hit by a Farm expertly describes what an all-consuming force a small family farm can be, and many scenes made me glad to be a generation removed from it. It also covers the author's struggle to write and maintain a sense of her own identity when confronted with endless lamb births, digging holes for miles of fencing, and the day-to-day hard work that left her tumbling exhaused into bed instead of writing (though obviously not forever since this is her book).
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friday october 13
Wow--that was sudden! Just the other day I was looking out the window of the car and noticed the trees starting to change. Today there's a nip in the air and it really feels like fall. According to the National Forest Service, fall color will be at its best between now and the end of October. What better time to grap a map or a few guidebooks and take to the backroads for a day or a weekend?
We have a lot of travel books for the Midwest that could be useful for planning a little leaf-watching jaunt. The title Scenic driving: Kentucky might be just the thing if you want to head south. There's a very nice route from Frankfort to Florence which takes a detour through the picturesque town of Rabbit Hash. It's probably a good idea to see the town now, after the midwest premiere of the movie, who knows what'll happen?
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thursday september 14
I'm still weirded out by finding an apparently homeless guy sleeping on my futon. Not so much that, but my reaction, which was, when he asked me for a drink, to say I had milk and grape juice and feel guilty that I didn't have more juice varieties. (His response was, "No, man, I mean something to drink.") Am I just a compassionate person, or foolish and insane?
Two of the books I read suggest the term "houselessness" rather than "homelessness" because of the connotations of "home." Under the Overpass, by college student Michael Yankoski, tells the story of the five months he and his friend Sam spent on the streets of five large cities, as a religiously inspired experiment. In format, the book is a lot like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. Michael and Sam sleep in shelters, eat in soup kitchens, and make small amounts of money playing "worship songs" on their guitars.
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saturday september 09
I've never really bothered about locking my door, because if anyone wanted to get in, it wouldn't be that difficult to break a window, and then I'd just have to have it fixed. Before you look up my address, though, note that I've kind of rearranged my position on the lock issue since this morning, when I went downstairs and found an apparently homeless guy sleeping on the futon in my living room. He'd eaten some soup and drunk a full bottle of vermouth. He stole $40 from my purse and made me drive him to Price Hill, so that's why I was late.
I think a lot of people would have been more upset than I about this--actually, I felt ashamed about how long my grass was and was glad I'd stayed up late steamvaccing the rug. Probably I would have been more upset if I hadn't already started my Travels With Lizbeth blog.
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tuesday august 22
I didn't set out to write about plane disasters involving athletes, but I just sort of happened upon two new books on the subject this week.
The first is Nando Parrado's Miracle in the Andes. Nando Parrado, of course, is the hero of Piers Paul Read's 1974 Alive! which you've certainly read or heard about unless you are too young. Parrado was one of two Uruguayan rugby players who crossed some of the highest peaks of the Andes, 62 days after the team's small plane crashed. They hoped to reach rescuers in Chile, which they believed to be much closer to the crash site than it was. Of the 45 passengers and crew members, 15 survived.
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friday july 28
State Fair by Arthur Grace (2006) captures in black-and-white photos an amazingly accurate feeling of The Fair. Look deep: next to the slightly strange is the touchingly wholesome; these are lovely images of innocence and accomplishment that I recognize and lived through with my own family.
Fairs have always been big, important parts of our summers. We are regulars at the Hamilton County Fair. In years past we have been exhibitors, showing 4-H cattle, dogs, chickens, and rabbits. One of my daughters was even the Hamilton County Fair Queen! My other daughter was, however, Grand Champion Poultry Showman, an accomplishment that should not be underestimated.
Our Hamilton County Fair is not the biggest or grandest, but it is a 151-year tradition that will hopefully survive its current monetary hard times. It definitely has its share of faithful fans.
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monday july 24
I recently read Two Cats and the Woman They Own or Lessons I Learned from My Cats by Patti Davis.
Ward Schumaker's sensitive illustrations lift this small book out of the ordinary.
Cat lovers will recognize several universal kitty moments. Each chapter has a Life Lesson attached to it. Life Lesson 2 says, "There is an art to properly receiving gifts. Even if you don't like the gift, you should cherish the giver and praise her generosity." The gift in this case was a large dead rat.
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tuesday july 18
This morning a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk perched on the edge of my deck. As I watched the bird with his striped front turn his head watching for small bird prey I thought about the amazing book To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession by Dan Koeppel. I listened to the audio book version during the chill autumn days last year.
In addition to examining the complex relationship between Koeppel and his father, Koeppel discusses the rules of the science/sport, obsession. Bird-witched! How Birds Can Change a Life by Marjorie Valentine Adams is a complementary bird-watching book. This collection of articles by a major contributor to birding in America helps the beginner understand how and why the rules of the American Birding Association work.
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friday july 14
Have you watched a movie or show and wondered how they got that animal to perform? Do you want to be one of the trainers for these cute, scary, furry, or deadly animals?
Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched : Life and Lessons at the World's Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers will introduce you to the intense, exciting. exhausting world of training wild animals.
Amy Sutherland spent a year following students at the prestigious
Exotic Animal Training and Management Program at California's Moorpark College. Despite long hours, difficult conditions, and dangerous animals, competition for slots in the program is intense and the rewards at the completion are high. During her year with the students, Amy discovered that human behavior can be as challenging as animal behavior. She wrote an article for the
New York Times (
free registration required) about how she used the techniques that she learned to train her husband. But beware, as Amy found out, any "animal" can be retrained.
