Ada May Day: A Mississippi Juneteenth

Today is June 19, better known in many circles as Juneteenth. On this memorable day in 1865, slaves in Texas were told that they were free, had been free, in fact, for several years. (Want to know more about Juneteenth? Check out our nuggets from a few years ago.) Nowadays, the day is celebrated across the United States as a day of African-American heritage and freedom. One of our faithful patrons mentioned Ada May Day to us as the Mississippi alternative. We have to admit, we had to look this one up (but boy, are we glad we did!)

Ada May Day springs from the Mississippi dialect for the eighth of May. Traditionally, this was the day that, in north-central Mississippi, was celebrated as "Emancipation Day, Mr. Lincoln's Day, or Freedom Day" (Clarion Ledger). It turns out that Mississippi was surrendered to Union Army forces on May 6, 1865 by a general in rural Alabama. Conjecture and folklore state that the news didn't reach the northern Mississippi area until two days later, on May 8.

Though the day has not been taken up nationally, like Juneteenth, it is still celebrated by Mississippians. We found one such celebration in this news article from The Dispatch (covering Columbus, Starkville, and the Golden Triangle). Many thanks to the McCain Library at the University of Southern Mississippi for their help tracking down this elusive holiday. We wish you a belated Ada May and a very happy Juneteenth!

Maines, John. "Ada May." Clarion Ledger 8 May 1987. Print.

Introducing Biblioteca en una Caja!

We have some new additions to our Book Club in a Box Program. We're proud to announce Bibliteca en una Caja. All of the titles available through the Family Kits are in Spanish. These kits seek to be a step towards meeting the literacy needs of the growing number of Spanish-speaking residents in the state of Mississippi. Any library can use these resources! Libraries sign up for the kits for a three-month period (time to receive, distribute, discuss, and send the kit back)

Family Kits

Family Kits- you or your patrons pick any 4 items to go in the box. You send me their requests and I make it happen! They can pick from any of the below.

Children’s/YA titles:

El Sonador (The Dreamer) – Pam Muñoz Ryan

Con cariño, Amalia (Love, Amalia) – Alma Flora Ada & Gabriel M. Zubizarreta

El Color des Mis Palabras (The Color of My Words) – Lynn Joseph

Cha-Cha-Cha en la Selva (The Animal Boogie)  – Debbie Harter

Me Ilamo Gabriela (My Name is Gabriela)  – Moniea Brown *bilingual title

Quiero a mi mamá porque (I Love My Mommy Because)  – Laurel Porter-Gaylord  *bilingual title

El camioncito Azul (Little Blue Truck)  – Alice Schertle

Esperanza Renace  (Esperanza Rising) – Pam Muñoz Ryan

Adult Titles:

Inglés para Latinos (English for Latinos) –William C. Harvey

Los Enamoramientos (The Infatuations) – Javier Marías

Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges

La Sombra Del Viento (The Shadow of the Wind) – Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Inquebrantable: Mi hitoria, a mi manera (Unbreakable: My Story, My Way) – Jenni Rivera

El Tiempo Entre Costuras (The Time Between Seams) – María Dueñas

Cuando Era Puertorriqueña (When I Was Puerto Rican) – Esmeralda Santiago

El ruido de las cosas al caer (The Sound of Things Falling) – Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Cien años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) – Gabriel García Márquez

Los Señores del Narco (Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and their Godfather)– Anabel Hernández

Films:

Viva Cuba

Atlético san Pancho

El Chavo: temporada 1 completa

Young Adult Titles

These kits come with discussion materials for book clubs and links to author readings, bios, etc.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children  by Ransom Riggs (10 copies in English, 6 in Spanish)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe – Benjamin Alire Sáenz (10 copies in English)

Have more questions? Interested in getting some of these resources for your patrons to use? Let me know! Feel free to contact me at either of the following: by phone at 601-432-4117 or email at amellon@mlc.lib.ms.us

This program is made possible in part by a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services to the Mississippi Library Commission.

D-Day: Books about the Beginning of the End of WWII

June 6 was forever seared into America's memory as D-Day in 1944. On that day seventy years ago, over 150,000 Allied troops landed on Normandy's beach to battle the Axis powers. The attack, known officially as Operation Overlord (referring to the land battle) and Operation Neptune (the naval part of the attack), led to an eventual Allied victory in Europe less than a year later. D-Day's cost was high; over 9,000 men were injured or killed that day. Putting an end to tyranny, though, was worth the price.

D-Day was immortalized in the highly acclaimed miniseries Band of Brothers and popular movies such as The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan. Some great books have been written about D-Day as well. For instance, did you know that the miniseries Band of Brothers is based on Stephen Ambrose's book of the same name? The Mississippi Library Commission has copies in both regular and large print of this book about E Company, a group of men who, like many others, trained and bonded together, and fought together, and even died together. It's an absorbing read and adds even more detail that the miniseries missed.

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor is another fascinating book about this epic part of Word War II. This book is filled with maps, which we absolutely love, and gives more details of the battle from perspectives other than just America's side. Drop by MLC and pick this one up in large print for an in-depth look at June 6, 1944.

Looking for less action and more intrigue? Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day by Stephen Talty is the book for you. It tells the story of Juan Pujol, a farmer, who became a double agent working for the Allies and deceiving the Germans. His deception was supreme: he convinced the Germans that an attack was aimed at Calais, hundreds of miles away from the Allies' landing point in Normandy. Stop by MLC to check this book out in regular print.

Mull this over on your way to check out your books: the D in D-Day may actually stand for Day. During World War I, the U.S. Army used the designations H-Hour and D-Day to indicate upcoming classified operations. Whatever the name of the day, we suggest commemorating those who fell in battle with one of these books or the many others we have to offer on World War II and D-Day.

http://www.army.mil/d-day/
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/05/opinion/opinion-d-day-myth-reality/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dday/sfeature/sf_info.html

Oh, Where Have You Been, MLC, MLC?

Oh, where have you been, charming MLC?

Have you noticed a dip in the amount of Facebook posts you see in your News Feed from your favorite community organizations and non-profits? Facebook is famous--dare we say infamous?--for changing their policies and procedures. (Just this morning they began rolling out changes in the layout for pages, so expect a new look for all those places you follow by June 13!) If you'd like to see more of your favorite places in your News Feed, we suggest the following easy-as-pie steps:

Visit the page you've missed seeing.

Hover you mouse over the Liked button until the drop-down menu appears.

Click Get Notifications. A check mark will appear.

We suggest doing this for all your favorite pages!

Want to further change what you see in your News Feed? Facebook has some pointers here: https://www.facebook.com/help/www/218728138156311?rdrhc.

If you also have the song "Billy Boy" running through your head now, here's a link to the music and lyrics: http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/games/songs/childrens/billyboymp3.htm. Enjoy!

Have questions? We have answers! Leave a comment or give us a call!

Graphic Novels @ MLC

Did you know that we have graphic novels in our collection? We sure do, and we want to tell you all about them!

So, what is a graphic novel? According to getgraphic.org, graphic novels are "similar to comic books because they use sequential art to tell a story", but they are "generally stand-alone stories with more complex plots." Graphic novels span many genres in both fiction and nonfiction.

So come on by and check out this select list of graphic novels:

• Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an Unpleasant Age by Ariel Schrag
• Templar by Jordan Mechner
• Battling Boy by Paul Pope
• Gris Grimly's Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus by Gris Grimly, assembled from the original text by Mary Shelley
• Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
• The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
• Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life by Ulli Lust
• Fun Home: a Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
• Woman Rebel: the Margaret Sanger Story by Peter Bagge
• Children of the Sea, volume 1 by Daisuke Igarashi
• Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
• The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media by Brooke Gladstone
• The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
• Habibi by Craig Thompson
• A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
• I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly
• Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth by F.C. Ware
• Set to Sea by Drew Weing
• Ooku, volume1, the Inner Chambers by Fumi Yoshinaga

http://www.getgraphic.org/whatisagraphicnovel.php

Book of the Day: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

We're excited! We're currently in the process of adding SO MANY new titles to our Book Club in a Box program! One title that I'm particularly excited about is Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

Here is the summary from the novel's Goodreads page:
"Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be."

I'm a huge fan of a good coming of age story (or bildungsroman, if you will) and I can't wait to dive into this one! The kit should be available for use within the month! 

Feel free to contact me if you'd like more information about this Book Club kit or any others that we have. I can be reached at amellon@mlc.lib.ms.us or 601-432-4117. Stay tuned for more information about all of our new titles!

Book of the Day: March: Book One

 

The Book of the day, March: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and illustrated by Nate Powell. This graphic novel is dedicated to the life and Civil Rights work of Congressman John Lewis, and has received the 2014 Coretta Scott King Award.  March begins with Lewis’ vivid description of his childhood in rural Alabama through his college years in Nashville, Tennessee.  During this time Lewis recalls his inspirational meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the start of the Nashville Student Movement, and his involvement in demonstrative sit-ins.  We also get to see other important figures of the Civil Rights movement such as: Rosa Parks, Jim Lawson and Z. Alexander Looby.

 

 Lewis even pays tribute to his school library and librarian, stating “I loved going to the library.  It was the first time I ever saw Black newspapers and magazines like JET, Ebony, the Baltimore Afro-American, or the Chicago Defender.  And I’ll never forget my librarian.” 

March: Book One is the first installment of John Lewis’ trilogy.  The next 2 volumes will be released over the next couple of years.  Come check out this book at the Mississippi Library Commission or your local library.  This novel is also a new title that will soon be part of the Book Club in a Box titles for public libraries.  For more information on Book Club in a Box contact Ally Mellon at 601-432-4117 or amellon@mlc.lib.ms.us.