Monthly Archives: November 2016

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Saturdays @ the South: A Pinterest Primer

imagesWe’ve mentioned Pinterest a few times here on the blog because we at the Library use it as a resource for creating booklists for our patrons. It’s a great tool for keeping our patrons updated with the latest books; introducing them to what we call “read alikes,” books that, if you liked book X, you may also like these similar titles; and suggesting books that fit into a certain theme. All of the titles we feature on Pinterest have links directly to the catalog so that interested patrons can request those books with fewer clicks and no searching. But one thing I’ve noticed is that here on the Free For All we’ve never instructed those who may need it how to use Pinterest. I’ve had a few patrons mention how they find Pinterest intimidating, so I thought I would give a bit of a Pinterest primer to provide those of you who would like to take advantage of this tool, can do so without being overwhelmed.

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Let’s start with the basics. Pinterest is like a digital version of a cork board or bulletin board that people use to put ideas they like, things that inspire them or helpful hints they’d like to remember or refer to later. It is an image-based social media tool, so unlike Facebook or Twitter, what you respond to and view are pretty much exclusively pictures with minimal to no words. If you like a picture you can “pin” it, i.e. click on it and save it to a board. You can organize those pins onto different boards depending upon themes. When you go to the Library’s Pinterest page, we have many boards on the site,  each with its own theme. Each of our pins is almost exclusively the image of a book cover whose title will relate to that board.

Unfortunately (and this wasn’t the case when the Library first started using the site), you need to have a Pinterest account in order to click on pins. Singing up is free and all you need is a valid e-mail address. You will be asked to pin a few things and create a board to get started, but after the initial setup, you don’t have to pin anything unless you care to do so. If you choose to follow either a pinner or a board, new pins posted by these sources will appear in your home screen. I think this is where people tend to get overwhelmed because it is an uncurated blast of information. The good news is that once you have a Pinterest account, you can visit the site of pinners (like the Peabody Library, or other libraries who have great boards) and see what they have to offer without reviewing your feed. Simply go to the direct link for their site (ours is www.pinterest.com/peabodylibrary) and you can see what might be new there. You can browse through boards that interest you by clicking on that specific board. You don’t need to pin books in order to request them. Simply click on the book cover to open the pin, then click the book cover again to be taken directly to the catalog so you can request the book your interested in. You don’t even need to follow the library (though we’d love it if you did) in order to access our boards or request books.

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If you decide pin stuff, you can use Pinterest as a de facto hold list by creating a “things I want to read” list (or “things I want to see” list as we have movies listed on Pinterest, too!) if you see things you like but don’t want to read them right away; but don’t forget you can also suspend your holds in your library account. If you don’t want Pinterest to bombard you with notification e-mails (this is a BIG issue for many of us with bloated inboxes) you can make sure Pinterest won’t send you notifications in your settings:

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I wanted to offer this post in the hopes that those who are vaguely aware of Pinterest and the fact that the Library uses it as a tool would be more comfortable discovering what we have to offer there and know that Pinterest can be a fairly passive form of social media that doesn’t have to infringe upon what may be already overloaded screen time. If you do use Pinterest, in any capacity, let us know how you use it and how we might make our site better for you! Till next week, dear readers, know that all of the library’s tools are here for you anytime.

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A Commemorative Five Book Friday

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The Library is closed today, beloved patrons, in honor of Veteran’s Day.  As we mentioned before, the origins of the holiday are rooted in the armistice that ended hostilities on the western front during the First World War, on November 11, 1918.

Generally speaking, the United States’ involvement in the First World War was quite an ambivalent one; it sold arms to both the Allied and Central Powers, even while it remained nominally neutral, and only sent soldiers in early 1918.  As a result, we don’t talk about the First World War nearly as frequently, or as in-depth as we do the Second World War, despite the fact that it was, perhaps, the most impactful event of the 20th century.

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Any world map owes more to the First World War than, perhaps, to any event since.  As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the war in Europe, the nations of the Middle East, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia were created (badly–the mapmakers had never been to that area of the world, and had no idea about the real populations of the places they defined).  Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were established.  Germany was significantly reduced in size and industrial potential, which became a staple demand of the Nazi party in later years.  The Russian Revolution, which occurred in 1917 as a result of the extreme deprivations of the war, formed the Soviet Union; though the Cold War wouldn’t officially start for another 36 years, tensions between the Soviets and the United States were present even in 1918.

In somewhat lighter news, the spork–or, at least, it’s grandfather–was utilized by the American Army, after a model invented earlier in the century known as the “runcible spoon” after an Edward Lear poem.  Hoping to save on metal that could be used for munitions, the Army combined a spoon and fork with rivets for soldiers, giving rise to the most entertaining piece of flatware available.

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The First World War is considered the first “literate” war, meaning that the vast majority of soldiers were able to read and write, and, as a result, there are a wealth of memoirs, letters, and novels available to help us learn about the War.  We’ve all heard about All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms, but did you know that J.R.R. Tolkien based The Lord of the Rings on his experiences as an ambulance driver during the First World War?

So this Veterans’ Day, here are five books about the First World War and it’s enormous legacy to help you understand why this day, above all other days, is one to be remembered:

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2650670The Greatest Day in History: Nicholas Best charts the events leading up to Armistice Day 1918, the day the First World War finally came to an end, using newspaper sources, private diaries and letters, as well as later memoirs and novels in order to show what a life-changing day November 11, 1918 was, not only for the men at the front, but for the nurses and drivers behind the lines, the government officials who had directed the war for over four years, and the civilians at home who had suffered through total war in their own way.  From prisons to Parliament, from ocean-bound ships to mud-stained hospitals, the voices in this book bring the end days of the First World War to life, and help us realize its full impact.  And because Best offers each voice without a great deal of commentary, these voices are allowed to speak fully for themselves in a way that becomes utterly haunting.

3199105To End All Wars : A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918: “The War to End All Wars” is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot when we talk about the First World War, but no one ever stops to think about what participants truly meant when they used the phrase.  The First World War was not fought in order to bring unending peace–instead, it was so brutal, so terrifying, and so destructive that it was thought that no war would ever be able to surpass it.  Adam Hochschild’s ground-breaking work focuses on another aspect of the war that offers new insight into the phrase–by looking at those conscientious objectors who were imprisoned, punished, and ostracized for their stance against violence.  This is not a typical history of pacifism, however,  Hochschild shows protestor’s stories within the context of the war itself.  Many of those who spoke out publicly against the war had family members off fighting, showing yet another way in which war could tear families apart.  With infinite sympathy and customary insight, Hochschild’s book is a vital addition to the history of the First World War, and those who fought to end it.

3454965Wounded: A New History of the Western Front in World War I: The First World War helped scientists and military tacticians develop whole news ways to kill and main–the flame-thrower, poison gas, and aerial bombardments were all created by and for the First World War.  But, along with those developments came rapid advancements in medicine that still change lives today, from plastic surgery to blood transfusions, from skin grafting to prosthetic limbs.  Emily Mayhew’s book turns away, largely, from the destruction of war to look at the medical network that was established with stunning speed in order to treat those injured by war. She focuses not necessarily on battle fronts, but on the journey of the wounded, from the front to mobile hospitals and triage units to base hospitals, creating a whole new kind of history of the First World War that reminds us of some of its more positive and enduring legacies.

2357816Her Privates We: 1929 was a big year for war fiction; people who had served in the war were finally able to discuss the events in a comprehensive way, and the reading public were eager “to never forget”–or, in the case of people who were too young to serve, were eager to hear stories of the Front.  Frederic Manning’s book was published in this first wave of war literature, along with Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.  Manning was an Australian poet who served with an Irish regiment throughout the war, and this book was meant both as a tribute to the men with whom he served, and as a way for him to cope with the horrors they all endured.  For me, it is one of the best books to come out of the First World War.  Manning didn’t try to dress up his experiences–there are plenty of expletives (which got the book expurgated and occasionally banned in its early years), as well as men’s frank conversations about prostitutes, death, and lice.  But what also comes through is the absolute devotion that Manning felt for the men with whom he served, and the strange beauty that he was able to find in the midst of the war.  His prewar career in writing poems about nature gave him the strength to write about the front as a place that was at once terrifying and haunting and strangely captivating, and the result is a book that will take your breath away–I know it did for me.

3784204Three Comrades: Most people I know had to read Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front as part of their studies of the First World War, and while it is indeed a powerful and insightful book about the German experience of the war, very few people realize that the book wasn’t Remarque’s only novel.  In fact, he wrote three books about German veterans of the First World War, culminating with Three Comrades.  This novel is set in Germany during the early years of the Nazi rise to power, and tells the story of three veterans who run a car repair business, fall in love, have adventures, and continually cope with the war they can’t forget, and the world it forged.  Though not specifically about the First World War, Remarque’s book is a deeply moving, stunningly emotional reminder that no war is ever over for those who lived through it.  Even as these three inseparable friends race cars and swindle hypocritical customers and seek out cheap drinks, the war is a constant presence with them.  The Library’s Classic Book Group read this novel, and universally agreed that is was one of our favorite books to date, and one that lingered long after the final page had turned.

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!

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Let’s Do This.

Question: What Are You Doing Today?

Answer: Unless you took part in Massachusetts’ Early Voting Opportunity, I sincerely hope that “Voting” makes up at least part of your answer.

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After 19 months of campaign speeches and television commercials and pop-up ads and debates and late-breaking news announcements, it’s finally, finally time when we, the people, get to do something, to have a say in who makes our laws, and what those laws are.

I think it’s easy, in a time when your opinion is solicited from so many places, whether it’s the comment cards at a restaurant or a feedback response request from an online vendor, a telephone survey from the cable repair service or an online form from the car dealer, that we forget what a rare and precious and incredible thing an election really is.

So get out there and vote, ok?

If you need information about where to vote, you can find it right here: Google’s voting map

If you need a refresher on the Ballot Questions in Massachusetts, check out the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Website here.

If you encounter any problems at the polls, remember: first, address the officers monitoring the polls.  Then call 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

And remember, in the words of Franklin Roosevelt, a pretty good president himself:

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.

 

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Making Magic: Sacred Space and Kindred Spirits

*This post is part of Free for All’s “Making Magic” series, which will focus on Kelley’s exploration of the opportunities in the library’s Creativity Lab.

“The hardest thing about writing is applying your butt to a chair.” That’s the advice that my college creative writing professor gave us as freshman and, although it sounds like an easily dismissed oversimplification, I find that it holds true for most creative pursuits. Whether you paint, write poetry, work with clay, embroider, or compose music, it’s all too easy to tell yourself that you’ll work on your project later, when you have more time or when there are fewer distractions at home.

Recently, I’ve been reading a book called The Invitation by Oriah, and in the chapter about commitment she tells us that when you think about it, there are really very few things that actually have to be done. Do you have to feed your children? Yes. Do you really need to dust your house? It could probably wait. I’m here to tell you that there will never be more time and that there will always be new distractions to replace the old ones, so go put your butt in that chair.

When I want to focus on a project, it usually goes better when I bring myself to a space designed for that purpose, but many of us don’t have such a space available to us at home and that’s why the library’s Creativity Lab is so important. In the Making Magic posts I’ve talked a lot about the equipment, classes, and stuff that the Lab has to offer, but I haven’t talked about what in my opinion is the most important thing about the Lab, and that’s the Creativity Lab as a creative space.

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Housed way down in the Main Library’s lower level, visiting the Creativity Lab can feel like you’ve entered another place entirely. It’s a space where 3-D printers gently buzz while sewing machines thrum along their seams, and everyone knows that it’s OK to get a little sawdust or some vinyl scraps on the floor. Yes, there is plenty of mess in the Lab, but from that mess comes magic.

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Open Labs occur on a regular schedule to accommodate makers who want to work on independent projects, and when makers are perched on chairs and stools throughout the room working on projects that vary from custom 3-D printer designs to robots to patchwork quilts, there is a silent hum of energy to the space. Even when you don’t know exactly what other makers are working on, there is a sense of excitement, a sense that something important is happening, a sense of wonder, and one of the terrific things about being surrounded by wonder is that it often inspires you in your own work.

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The Creativity Lab gives you the space you need to focus and work independently, but at the same time there is a sense of creative community. Everyone there is inventive, imaginative, or visionary and when a group of people with those attributes comes to work side by side, it’s a powerful thing. These are people who make stuff happen, who bring their imaginings to life. These are all people like you, who come to the Lab looking for a space where they can lose track of time while they do something they love.

Sounds perfect, right? So, your task today is to stop reading this post, and go apply your butt to a chair. You’ll be amazed at what you can create when you give yourself the time, and find the right space, to let your mind run free.

If you want to learn more about Open Labs and their hours, check out the Creativity Lab’s calendar of events.

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Saturdays @ the South: NaNoWriMo

crest-05e1a637392425b4d5225780797e5a76November has arrived and with it, longer nights, cooler days and fading colors on the trees. But November doesn’t always have to be about withering or fading. Sometimes, November can be about creation and the making of something long percolating, and that is precisely what NaNoWriMo is about.

Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? It stands for National Novel Writing Month and what started in the San Francisco Bay area in 1999 has grown into a worldwide phenomenon that encourages anyone and everyone to sit down and finally write that novel they’ve been meaning to all these years. The goal for NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. The organization has no supposition, however, that these 30 days of writing will produce a completed, polished, edited novel. The idea is to just get those who want to write, writing every day. And because what’s life without motivation, writers who register on the NaNoWriMo site can set up goals for word counts by certain dates and earn badges to keep them motivated throughout the month.

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For those of you who are curious, or prefer to set smaller goals, here is the breakdown of how much regular writing would need to happen to reach NaNoWriMo’s goal:

  • 12,500 words /week
  • 50 pages / week (with a standard double-typed page of about 250 words)
  • 1667 words / day
  • ~6.5 pages / day
  • at an average typing speed of 60 wpm, that’s about 30 min/day of writing (though that doesn’t account for thinking time….)

And because our regular readers know how much I love infographics, here are some tips from NaNoWriMo in infographic form:

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Finally, if you still need that last bit of motivation to get in front of your legal pad, typewriter, laptop, journal, etc., here are some bestsellers that began as NaNoWriMo projects:

3097346Night Circus by Erin Morganstern

A mysterious circus comes to town completely unannounced and only at night. In it two magicians, who were born and raised exclusively to duel in the circus, will ultimately fight in a battle to the death. Unfortunately, neither of them knows this as they fall deeply in love and must balance their performances with their desires as the fate of the circus and everyone in it hangs in the balance.

2372449Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

In a traveling circus during the depression, Jacob meets Rosie, an untrainable elephant for whom he is charged to care and Marlena, the equestrian star who is married to one of the circus’s trainers. The three bond over their desperate situation as they struggle for survival in this 3rd-rate circus.

3421888Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

College freshman Cath has been told by her sister that she needs to move on from the beloved fandom they once both shared as they grow apart. Cath copes with the difficult transition by writing fan fiction for the very fandom her sister has turned from. This terrific YA novel is about holding on and letting go.

3437613Cinder by Marissa Meyer

This edgy, futuristic take on the Cinderella fairy tale, Cinderella is a cyborg, a master mechanic and blamed by her stepmother for her stepsisters illness. But her life soon becomes entangled to the planet’s handsome prince, pulling her into an intergalactic struggle that will lead her to uncover secrets to her own past.

It’s estimated 500,000 people worldwide will participate in NaNoWriMo this month.  So, till next week, dear readers, know that if you do plan to write this month, you’re in good company.

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Five Book Friday!

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Welcome to the end of another week, beloved patrons, and our first Five Book Friday post from November!  The last of our 30-day months for the year (not that there are many left), November is the kick off of the holiday season, so brace yourself (and don’t go into a crafting store unless you must–I nearly drowned in tinsel).  But there are plenty of holidays in November that fly under the radar, and deserve to be savored as well.  Here are a few days worth observing this month:

November 6: National Nachos Day!  So the story goes, a maître d’hôtel at a restaurant in Piedras Negras, Mexico named Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya invented the dish in 1943 when some American servicemen stationed in Eagle Creek, Texas, crossed the border for dinner.  The restaurant had closed for the day, but Anaya took pity on the men and invented a dish with tortillas, cheese and salsa, calling it  “Nacho’s especiales“.  Word of the dish spread, and very soon entered into immortality.

Also November 6: Daylight Savings Time: Commemorate the First World War, which established daylight savings time in order to save on fuel to light munitions works and factories, as well as to give workers a few brief moments in the sun every day, and spend an extra hour in bed!  

November 11: Veterans’ Day: Known in most countries as Remembrance Day (and formerly Armistice Day), this day commemorates the end of hostilities of the First World War, and a day to honor the fallen in that war and all subsequent wars.  However, the United States had already designated Memorial Day in May as the day to commemorate the fallen, so we acknowledge living veterans this day, as well as the end of the Great War at 11am.  The Library will be closed on November 11.

November 14: National Pickle Day: Did you know Americans eat approximately nine pounds of pickles a year?  Or that America is named after a pickle merchant?  Ok, Amerigo Vespucci started his career as a ship chandler, which means he sold supplies to outgoing ships, but his nickname was ‘the pickle merchant’.  Nerd alert.

November 28: National French Toast Day: French Toast was neither invented in France, nor by a French person.  The earliest reference we have to the dish is from the 4th century, where a Roman cookbook describes a dish called “Pan Dulcis”, which is essentially French Toast as we know it.  Since then, it’s been used the world over to bring new, delicious life to day-old bread.

And now, on to the books!

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3760358The Comet Seekers: Critics have been waxing rhapsodical over Helen Sedgwick’s debut, which opens on the barren plains of an Antarctic research station.  And it isn’t just because Sedgwick has created two indelible and beautiful characters in Róisín, an Irish scientist who treks around the world to study comets, and François, the base’s chef, who has left his hometown only twice in his life–it’s because she gives us not only their lives, but the lives that fill both characters’ past and future, and showing how they are all inextricably bound together. By moving through time to explore all that have made these two into what and who they are in their present, Sedgwick is able to tell a story that is as multifaceted, and as fascinating, as the comet that brings her characters initially together.  Publisher’s Weekly agrees, calling the novel “A haunting and wonderfully ethereal debut novel about first loves, inescapable loss, and the search for one’s place in a complicated world . . . Uniquely structured and stylistically fascinating, the multilayered story comes full circle in a denouement that is both heartbreaking and satisfying.”

3760365Smoke and Mirrors: Acclaimed mystery writer Elly Griffiths returns to post-World War II Britain, and her Magic Men series in this second adventure with D.I. Edgar Stephens and the magician Max Mephisto–who is currently starring in a production of Aladdin that has all of Brighton a-buzz.  But Stephens is on the hunt for a killer who strangled two children in the woods, then abandoned alongside a trail of candy in a gruesome recreation of “Hansel and Gretel”.  Does the answer to the case lie in the strange and disturbing plays that one of the children wrote?  Or is the staging of the bodies a clue towards the theater?  It lies with Stephens, and his erstwhile partner Max Mephisto, to find out the truth in this investigation, which Kirkus called “A dazzlingly tricky mystery, oddball characters, and an authentic feel for life in post-World War II England.”

3796476 Certain Dark Things: Silvia Moreno-Garcia combines elements of Latin American folklore with a surprisingly modern twist on the vampire to bring this noirish, gritty tale to life.  At its heart is Atl,  a descendant of Aztec blood drinkers, who requires the blood of the young to survive.  Desperate to escape a vampire gang that is hunting her down, she grabs a young man named Domingo and flees, never dreaming that her split-second choice will lead to a real affection between these two survivors.  But as the cops, gangs, and vampires all move closer and closer to a final showdown, what chance does their fledgling bond have to survive?  The New York Journal of Books loved this novel, noting how it “beautifully and powerfully reinvigorates one of the seminal horror fiction monsters in some truly unexpected and sublime ways….this novel is by turns sensual and grim, introspective and disturbing, suspenseful and moving, and all told in the sleek and lyrical prose for which Moreno-Garcia is deservedly acclaimed.”
3810892The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novels of Ursula K. Le Guin: Le Guin is not only a pioneer in the science fiction and fantasy genres, for exploring issues of psychology, gender, and environmentalism in her work, but she has also influenced authors from a number of genres, as well, including Salman Rushdie and Neil Gaiman.  While collections of her stories have been published in the past, this is the first book to form a conscious retrospective of her writings, from the 1971 “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow” to her 2002 work “Paradise Lost”, allowing readers to follow Le Guin as she explains, to “wander around the universe, leaping from hither to yon”.  Though a big of a weighty tome, these thirteen stories are a sensational bit of escapism for fans and newcomers alike.  Publisher’s Weekly agrees, writing in their starred review that “Le Guin is never soggily sentimental, but throughout her long career she has preferred to deal with heartbreakingly real characters who discover that they can extend themselves into acts of generous compassion. These stories are wonderful, and full of wonder.”
3817990You Will Not Have My Hate: On November 13, 2015, Antoine Leiris’s wife, Hélène Muyal-Leiris, was killed by terrorists while attending a rock concert at the Bataclan Theater in Paris.  Three days later, Leiri wrote an open letter to his wife’s killers in a Facebook post that was read around the world.  His letter was one of deep grief, but it was also one of defiant hope, as he promised that his young son’s life would not be defined by the violence that took his mother: “For as long as he lives, this little boy will insult you with his happiness and freedom.”  In this book, Leiri shares the full story of his loss and his determined struggle to go on, forcing us to realize, in simple, stunning prose, what it means to be a survivor, and urging us all to find the hope to make a better world.  This is a book that is already been hailed as a best–and most important–book of 2016, and the Irish Independent notes that it is “An extraordinary read, honest, intimate and lightly poetic. It is a testament of love, loss and grief and also the often untold story of those who are left behind and must find a way to go on”.
Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!
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Yay Cubs!

Dear Cubs Fans (and baseball fans…and people in desperate need of a happy ending…),

Congratulations!  The Cubs won their first World Series since 1908!

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People and commentators have been throwing around facts to put that length of time in perspective: the last time the Cubs won the World Series, Teddy Roosevelt was President, women couldn’t vote, the First World War was still 6 years away, the Model T Ford was months old, the first fully animated film was created that summer…

But those are all big events, that are kind of difficult to take in.  None of us knew Teddy Roosevelt, and we’ve all see animated films in some form or another, so imagining their loss is really just theoretical.  So let’s think about the small scale….

In 1908, the Peabody Institute Library was 46 years old, having been dedicated on September 29, 1854.  It opened it’s doors on October 18.  It looked a little different, as well:

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Courtesy of the Peabody Archives

There was no Children’s Room in the Library–and wouldn’t be for 19 years.  When the Children’s Room was opened,  Miss Esther Johnson served as the first Children’s Librarian from 1927 until her retirement in 1977.*

It would be 53 years before any branch libraries were built.  The original West Branch was built in 1961, and the South Branch was opened in 1967, 59 years after the Cubs won the World Series.*

In 1908, Peabody itself was a town, and wouldn’t become a city for another eight years.

And what of the books?  If you were a patron to the Library way back in 1908, what would be some of the new books you could look forward to checking out?   Here’s what a Five Book Friday in 1908 might have looked like:

1517110A Room With A View
A perennial favorite, and one of Merchant-Ivory’s most wonderful adaptations, E.M. Forster’s novel is at once a beautiful romance and a sharp social commentary on the strictures of British society.  When Lucy Honeychurch and her strict cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett arrive at the “The Pension Bertolini”, they are dismayed to find that the rooms they have been promised–rooms with a view of the Arno River–are instead rooms facing the interior courtyard of the hotel.  But Mr. Emerson, another British gentleman, traveling with his son George, offer to switch rooms with the ladies, setting in motion a trail of unexpected meetings, revelations, and wonderfully impetuous choices that make for engaging reading even today.

1537357The Wind in the Willows: In 1908, Kenneth Grahame retired from his job with the Bank of England to the English countryside.  There, he began expanding the bedtime tales he had told his son Alistair about a Toad, a Mole, a Rat, and a Badger, into a manuscript.  Though it took him some time to get the work published–and some help from Teddy Roosevelt, who loved the stories–the public loved the charming, utterly madcap, stories of Grahame’s animals, from Toad’s obsession with motor-cars to his escape from prison, and Rat and Mole’s adventures together.  Since its publication,the book has been reprinted and illustrated extensively, and was adapted by Disney into both an animated film (which, as mentioned was first presented as an art form to the public in 1908) and an attraction.

1270772Anne of Green Gables: Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic novel has been translated into over 20 languages, and savored by readers of all ages all over the world, but it was in 1908 when the 11-year-old Anne Shirley was mistakenly sent to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, a middle-aged brother and sister who had intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in Prince Edward Island.  Montgomery based a good deal of the story on her own childhood experiences on Price Edward Island, and crafted the characters, including the long-beloved Gilbert Blythe, on her friends and neighbors.  Her honesty, willingness to confront the real tragedies of life, along with the joys, has made this book one that speaks to readers across generations and language, and has made P.E.I. into a site of literary pilgrimage to this day.

2427520The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck: Beatrix Potter had already written eight other stories for children before composing this book about Jemima, an Aylesbury duck who strikes out on her own, but this book was an overwhelming success, remaining one of Potter’s most famous and beloved.  A retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood”, Potter’s story is of a duck who sets out to find a place to lay her eggs without human interference–and instead finds herself at the mercy of a sly, cunning, and hungry fox.  Potter based the farm on which Jemima lives on Hill Top, a working farm in England’s Lake District which she bought in 1905, and based many of the characters on the workers on the farm, as well as her dog, Kep, who ends up being the hero of this tale.  Graham Greene read, and commented, on this book while writing The Wind and the Willows, and by 1910, a plush version of Jemima was already being sold to children, complete with shawl and bonnet.

220px-scouting_for_boys_1_1908Scouting for Boys: Robert Baden-Powell served in the Second South African War, fought between the British and Dutch settlers in South Africa, and their allied African tribes.  It was a bitter, bloody, and drawn-out war (what was supposed to be a single battle lasted over three years), and convinced a large number of Britons to worry that their control over the world was slipping.  Upon returning home, Baden-Powell. inspired by seeing young boys, aged 12-15, assist the British Army, rewrote an earlier work on  scouting that was meant to organize and train young boys to be self-sufficient, strong outdoorsmen.  Though Powell’s work wasn’t specifically entitled to encourage boys to enter the military when they grew up, the sixth section of the book notes that “Play the game: don’t look on, The British Empire wants your help, Fall of the Roman Empire was due to bad citizenship, Bad citizenship is becoming apparent in this country to-day”.  The book became one of the best-selling books in history, and became the foundation for the Boy Scouts.  In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was founded by Baden-Powell as well.

And thus we conclude our tour of 1908, and return to the present with nothing but happiness for the Cubs and their fans, and relief that their long wait is finally over.  Hooray!

*Many of these fact came from a perusal of our Archives.  Check out their resources here, and their timeline of the Library here!