Reading Room Blog

In the runup to the announcement of the prestigious Newbery and Caldecott Award winners on January 26, libraries around the country are holding “mock award” meetings where participants discuss a short list of children’s books worthy of the prizes.

The two hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth has prompted a flood of new books for children.  Barry Denenberg's "Lincoln Shot: A President's Life Remembered" is the most striking.

Dr. Seuss's birthday on March 2 has become cause for celebration in libraries and schools across the land.  At the Central Rappahannock Regional Library, free festivities for kids will be held this Saturday and Monday at various branches.  Check librarypoint.org for details.

Bring your school-age kids to the library this Thursday to for a real treat as Megan Hicks, storyteller extraordinaire, tells humorous stories about greed, gratitude, and why you must never forget to thank the good fairy.  She’ll be at the Headquarters library at 4:30, and at 7:30 she’ll be telling civilian stories from the Civil War and World War II to teens and adults at the Salem Church Library.  Her appearances are the final events in this year’s Ardiena Ann Tromley Family Storytelling Series.

What’s the most popular picture book of all time? If you, like me, guessed “Goodnight Moon” or “The Cat in the Hat,” you’d be close, but wrong. The children’s picture book that has sold more than either of those classics is Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” with more than 29 million copies in print.

The Newbery and Caldecott Medals may be better known, but the Coretta Scott King Awards, now in their fortieth year, have become a highlight of the American Library Association's awards ceremony.  Given to African American authors and illustrators for outstanding inspirational and educational contributions, these books are among the most distinguished of the year.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Here’s to shamrocks, shillelaghs, and most of all to shanachies!

For a thousand years in Ireland, storytellers known as shanachies were ranked second only to kings. Even into the twentieth century, they could be found telling stories in villages, where they kept alive the myths, history, folk and fairy tales of the Irish people. The shanachies may be gone, but their stories live on in the bounty of picture books and story collections for children.

When I think of Donna Leon, I immediately flash to a series by Andrea Camilleri featuring Sicilian detective Inspector Montalbano.

Hello!  These fantasy titles have interesting characters and keep you guessing as to what will happen next:

The Princess Bride
by William Goldman
The classic story of true love, sword-fights, revenge, death and miracles.

by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006

I've gotten to the age at which I am starting to strain to hear things, but I am glad to have gotten to that age, all the same. Here's a fine poem by Miller Williams of Arkansas that gets inside a person who is losing her hearing.

Going Deaf

No matter how she tilts her head to hear
she sees the irritation in their eyes.
She knows how they can read a small rejection,
a little judgment, in every What did you say?