Nowadays, it looks like everything’s getting the LEGO treatment, even J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy trilogy, The Lord of the Rings!  It’s not hard to see why that’s the case, given the number of enthusiastic kids that come to both of the Lego Clubs at our own library.  Here’s what the heroic Fellowship of the Ring looks like in LEGO form:

Legos aren’t exactly what I have in mind whenever I’m reading Tolkien’s epic novels, but they’re pretty adorable, aren’t they?  As a fan of the books and Legos in general, I’m excited about the two combining!  You can find out more about them on LEGO’s official website.  And if you have children over five who want to come join us in making their own Lego creations, our next meetings are February 13 for ages 8+, and February 27 for ages 5-7!

. . . OR SHOULD IT BE “THE GRIEF”?

I’m holding a 100 year-old copy of Edith Wharton’s The Reef that is part of West Chester Public Library’s collection.

In a search to find out whether it was recorded in the library’s old accession books, we found the following:
The Reef, by Edith Wharton, published in 1912, was purchased early in 1913 from John Wanamaker’s store, Philadelphia, for $1.17.
(I didn’t know that Wanamaker’s sold books, but according to the accession records, WCPL purchased numerous books from them. I wish I could have seen the store in 1913!)

I’m thinking this copy must have been required reading at some point because of the commentary on the opening page. Someone wrote (thankfully in pencil) “good” in the corner. Another person followed that with “good?” and in still different writing, someone had replaced the title with “The Grief.”

Wouldn’t you like to know how
many people have picked up this
very book in the last 100 years? I,
for one, love the feeling of holding
a 100 year-old book in my hands. I
think I’ll read it.

Contributed by a Staff Member and Devoted Reader.

LG’s note – this book suffers from the 100 year curse, meaning the curse of acid paper.  The pages of this book are already very brittle; dog-ear one of the pages, and the corner will simply break off.  We’ll retire this little tome to the special collection shelves and replace it with a new copy.

Did you know that trying to hit the piñata is a Christmas tradition in Mexico?  Or that some families in Southern Italy will decorate their trees with chocolates and fruit to be eaten at the end of the Christmas season?

As December 25th draws near, it can be fun to learn about the different holiday traditions in other parts of the world, and here in the Children’s Section of the library, we have some great books that teach children about how Christmas is celebrated in other cultures!  Most focus on specific countries, such as Christmas in France and Christmas in Australia, while others talk about traditions in multiple nations.  Here are just a few of the interesting celebrations that you and your children can learn about:

Mexico- Mexicans celebrate this time of year with tradition called “Las Posadas,” which takes place on the nine days leading up to Christmas Eve.  Children travel from house to house, pretending to be Mary and Joseph, and ask for a place to stay.  Each night, a different house is picked to be the “posada” or “inn,” that welcomes everyone inside for a party!

Sweden- In addition to Christmas, Swedish Christians celebrate the feast of St. Lucia on December 13th.  Before dawn, the oldest daughter in the family dresses in white and delivers breakfast to the rest of her family, while wearing a wreath with candles on her head.  This custom originated with the story of St. Lucia, who delivered food to persecuted Christians at night, and used a wreath of candles to light her way.

Australia- Because the seasons in Australia run opposite to the United States, Australians celebrate Christmas as a summer holiday, with many people going to the beach, hosting barbecues, and even watching fireworks!

It’s been a good month to be a fan of YA Literature- especially the film adaptations of YA Literature!  Along with the theatrical release for one of the final movies in The Twilight Saga and the DVD release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Lionsgate finished its first full preview of its upcoming adaptation of The Hunger Games.  So far, it looks like their promotional campaign is working because we can barely keep this trilogy on our shelves before another eager reader picks them up!

If, by chance, you don’t know anything about the books and are wondering what all of the fuss is about, The Hunger Games is a trilogy set in a dystopian future where North America is divided into twelve districts and one Capitol in a world called Panem.  Every year, the Capitol forces its districts to provide one boy and one girl “tribute.”  All twenty-four children must then battle to the death in an event called “The Hunger Games.”  The last one standing wins a lifetime of luxury.  The book’s heroine, Katniss Everdeen, comes from one of the poorest districts in Panem and chooses to enter the Games after her little sister is randomly selected to be the girl tribute.  And to make things even more complicated, the boy tribute of District 12 is a friend who saved her life when they were children.

You can watch the trailer here!

What I find especially interesting about this particular film adaptation is that the attempt to capture the spirit of Suzanne Collins’ novel shouldn’t end with the movie itself.  It’s a thrilling, suspenseful book where almost every chapter ends with a cliffhanger.  But one of the most important aspects of The Hunger Games is its commentary on our own nation’s  desensitization to violence.  At the Capitol, where nobody’s children are ever in danger of being selected to compete, the Games are treated like a weird mix between American Idol and the Super Bowl, an big event that’s fun to watch, even though what’s actually happening is horrific.  With this in mind, an important question arises: how can Lionsgate promote this exciting story without undermining the tragedy behind it?

Fortunately, the studio seems to have successfully overcome this obstacle by focusing this preview on the characters, not the Games.  Rather than show off the bloody, action-packed battles that will inevitably unfold, it shows Katniss’s terror as Prim gets chosen to compete and she volunteers to take her sister’s place.  I’m glad they gave the trailer a grim tone because they could have easily taken it in the opposite direction- and that would have made the trailer eerily similar to the Capitol’s own treatment of the Games.

Our new LEGO Club, which meets every 2nd Monday of each month, is off to a great, imaginative start!  Here are a few pictures of their creations.

The rest can be found on our Flickr account!  They will remain on display in the Children’s Section of the library, and if your children would like to make their own LEGO designs, feel free to join us at our next meeting!  Registration is not required.  For more information, please click here.

Since the advent of Banned Books Week in 1982, more than 11,000 books have been challenged–with threat of banishment from school, library, or book store shelves–for expressing views, stories, or life histories that a group or, in many cases, one person has found personally offensive.  The offensives of these books include:

racism; pervasive vulgarity; glorification of drinking, cursing, and premarital sex; extreme moral shortcomings; drugs; objectionable covers; violence; pornography; biased portrayal of capitalism; sexual content; inappropriate parenting; weapons smuggling; gang violence; derogatory language; lacking literary value; being a holy book of Islam; homosexuality; sexual assault; language; incest; being a book about a prohibited breed of dog; smoking; being 0bscene; being trashy; being offensive.

Without the 1st Amendment and the work of librarians, book store workers, teachers,  organizations, and individuals, the 11,000+ books challenged since ‘82 might be missing from our shelves.  We would have an abridged version of  human experience.  The 1st Amendment protects your rights as a citizen and as a reader/writer/curiosity-seeker.  That protection also protects and respects the rights of fellow patrons whose views may or may not agree with your own.  Banned Books Week hopes to remind readers of their right to read and the danger that comes with censorship.

To Do’s for 2011 Banned Books Week  (September 24 – October 1, 2011)

This year marks the 1st year that readers from around the world can record themselves proudly reading a 2 minute excerpt from their favorite banned/challenged book and post the video on a dedicated YouTube channel.  For more information about “Virtual Read-Out” and how you can post a video for Banned Book Week, go here.

Check out the 10 Most Challenged Books of 2010 (out of 348) and the reasons here.

Take action!  Here is some information and ideas in pdf form for this year’s Banned Books Week.  Or here for a list of orgs.

Come to WCPL and check out a banned book!  Classics list here and contemporary list here.

Hi, I’m LMcCauley, the newest employee at the West Chester Public Library!  I’m very excited to be here and to have the opportunity to contribute to this blog!

With a movie adaptation of The Help becoming the top movie at the box office for three weeks in a row, and excitement over The Hunger Games movie getting released next spring, I thought it would be fun to look at other books that have been adapted into films in the past, and determine whether they were good or bad.    My favorite books are the Harry Potter novels, but I’d rather not look at them because I love them so much that I’d probably just pick apart at every little change that the movies made!

Instead, I decided to re-watch an adaptation of my second favorite book series when I was growing up: A Series of Unfortunate Events.  This is a pretty unusual group of children’s books about three orphans, the Baudelaires, who get sent to various guardians after their parents are killed in a fire that destroys their mansion.  If that wasn’t enough, they are constantly pursued by a villainous man named Count Olaf, who wants to steal the fortune they will inherit.  Every book starts out with a warning by the narrator that the story is going to be “extremely unpleasant” and the books almost never end on a happy note, but they are surprisingly entertaining as the Baudelaires move from house to house, avoiding Count Olaf and eventually stumbling on to a mystery that involved their parents.

There are a total of thirteen books in A Series of Unfortunate Events, so adapting each of them into movies would already be a difficult feat to accomplish.  So the filmmakers decided to combine the first three books into one movie.  Surprisingly, it works very well.  The plots of each novel obviously needed to be condensed, but the changes that were made do not detract from the unique spirit of the books.  The script recreates the same style and tone of the story with narration by Jude Law, who plays the author, Lemony Snicket.  Much like the books, he will often warn the audience to stop watching the movie, or say something like, “And they all lived happily ever after.  The End.  How I wish I could type that.”  The set designs and costumes are also gorgeous and look very similar to Brett Helquist’s illustrations.  And of course, there’s also the presence of Jim Carrey, who plays Count Olaf.  This might have seemed like a bizarre decision to fans of the book, because Olaf is such a menacing character, but he is also pretty outlandish and even comedic at times.  And in some cases, such as the scenes where Olaf is disguised as a scientist named Stefano, Carrey is just so funny that I actually preferred his version to the book’s!

Kids who love A Series of Unfortunate Events might dislike the differences between the movie and the books at first, but overall, the filmmakers show a lot of respect for the story they adapted and it’s a lot of fun to watch!  I’d recommend this movie to anyone who already enjoys the series or has considering giving them a try.

The 6th Annual Literacy Heroes Breakfast when we honor eight literacy heroes is fast approaching.  Set for Friday, April 8, 7:30am at Longwood Gardens, the breakfast is an occasion to honor  individuals, organizations and businesses that have fostered and promoted literacy in Chester County, and sometimes beyond, in the past year.

And, the library has its heroes too: heroes who support the Literacy Heroes Breakfast and WCPL’s mission and work in the community.  This year’s stellar sponsors are Verizon (Literacy Heroes Presenting Sponsor), and QVC, Inc and Exelon (both Literacy Heroes Lead Sponsors).

Not only do these wonderful folks support library programs and services with their sponsorships, they also assist with myriad tasks to help make the Literacy Heroes Breakfast a success.

Our other 6th Annual Literacy Heroes sponsors, some of whom like Verizon have been with the event for six years, are:

Category Sponsors :    CTDI, Hankin Group, Otto’s BMW

Contributing Sponsors:  1-2-3 Awards, Halladay Florist, Reino’s Design Print Mail, VideoNet, 6abc Action News, The Daily Local News, West Pharmaceuticals, CCIU, 1NBank, Proflowers.com, CitadelFCU, Kevin High Photography, PECO, West Chester LLC.

Read more about Literacy Heroes and on April 8 check back to see this year’s winners unveiled!  You’ll love the stories.

Today, two wonderful new children’s books crossed our desk.  Both elevate the humble book to art, delighting both the eye and the spirit.

The first is a simple story of two children and their families – one from Australia the other from Morocco – titled Mirror, by Jeannie Baker.  Sounds like a trite topic.  In the hands of author and illustrator Jeannie Baker the trite becomes magical.  There is an introductory text given both in English and Arabic.  The rest of the story is told in wonderful pictures – collages Baker created to tell the story of the seemingly vastly different lives of the two main characters.

The key is that Baker tells the stories of the two families side-by-side: the “English” story moves from left to right on one side of the book; the “Arabic” from right to left on the opposite side.  You have to see this, hold it in your hands and page through the book to truly appreciate the art – both of the collages and of the construction of the book itself.  The pictures here only give you the general idea.

The other book is one I want on my shelves!  What fun…

Barney Saltzberg has created a wonderful little book designed to encourage creativity (not just in children!) and a willingness to see a Beautiful Oops! as a new possibility.  Saltzberg plays with a torn page and a spill, a bent corner on a piece of paper and a scrap of paper, not to mention the inevitable “little drip of paint,” to create a crocodile or a penguin or a fun playmate. 

There are flaps to lift and peek under and pages to turn to see what happens to the “oops.”   Exploring the hole in a paper is the best, in my estimation!

More photos are over on our Flickr page.

Now that I have a B&N Nook I’ve been looking for ebooks to read.  One place that has turned out to be a fun look into the past, and source of some interesting reads, is the Gutenberg Project.

At first, it looked like most of what was listed was digital versions of musty, boring old tomes that didn’t look in the least bit interesting.  Then, I found the Cooking & Food listing (I’ll share how I got to this and other lists in the GP files in a moment).  I collect cookbooks (very selectively) and was fascinated to find not just English language cook books listed, but some in French, Spanish and German.

I was able to look through a 1918 war-time cookbook that gave homemakers recipes that saved on “Wheat, Meats, Fat and Sugar” – foods desperately needed by the US Army to feed soldiers and in the effort to keep Europeans from starving.  Interesting to note that this little cookbook advocates eating less red meat for health reasons!

Another list of interest was Travel.  There I found travelogues covering Russia in 1858, France in 1917, the “new found lands of Virginia,” and “a lady’s life on a farm in Manitoba.”  You can read Henry James’ account of his travels in France and Anthony Trollope’s A Ride Across Palestine.”

These titles are all free to download and read when you want for as long as you want.  You can easily access this list through the Chester County Library System’s website, then click on the Downloadable Audio & eBooks icon.  The direct link is here.

To download, view and transfer titles (to an ereader) you’ll need the Adobe Digital Editions software, available here. Follow their instructions to set up an Adobe account and authenticate your PC.  Then plug your ereader into the PC, download/save the GP title you want to your PC, add it to the ADE library(via the “Library” drop-down menu), and then transfer to the ereader.

Happy reading.  Who knows what you’ll find.