The post below is from a librarian at Central, it does not relate to the photo above or below.

“I went to Brown Square Health Center and gave away 20 copies of No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and a couple copies of Mudbound.   I had one woman who was so happy to get a book, she called her husband to tell him she had gotten it, and showed me a photo of her cat, Bella, who would be keeping her company as she read.”

Phillis Wheatley Community Library

Phillis Wheatley Community Library

Send all your photos to Nanci.Rosenberg-Nugent@libraryweb.org

Thanks!

This is the book I am giving. I am very excited to be able to hand this book to people and tell them about it. Many people  especially young people do not know about the Dust Bowl and the worst hard time. Despite the problems, the 1930s is my favorite time period. Although known as the “dirty 30s” because of the dirt from the frequent dust storms, there were many good things about that time period. It was a simpler time and people pulled together to save their families and their land.

Timothy Egan’s book is about the dust bowl and tells the story of the people or “nesters” who farmed the  around the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. They were given plenty of warnings against farming and plowing in this area but ignored them all.
Rain is scarce in the plains
and it stopped raining in 1931. Wheat farmers tried plowing more and more but when wheat prices crashed they left their fields, and without any natural anchors for the soil, the soil calcified and started to blow. These farmers and their families saw their land destroyed by ten-thousand-foot-high dust storms that overtook the landscape causing illness and death to people and animals.

Housekeeping became almost impossible to do. The dust took over and women hung wet sheets in the windows to try and keep it out. Black clouds of grasshoppers took over and ate anything that was left in the fields. Many children died of pneumonia, livestock died as they had no water and they were full of the dust. Not only did the High Plains feel the effects of bad farming but many times the blackened clouds reached all the way to the  East Coast effecting New York City and Washington, D.C.

Egan’s book leads up to April 14, 1935 an unusual day for spring 1935 the sky blue and the sun warm. People were glad to see the sun shine and sky blue, so they shoveled out their houses and tried to clean up. “Then, with only a few minutes’ warning, “the mother of all dusters” swooped out of the north, “the air snapping like gunfire.” The day that is now known as Black Sunday had arrived. April 14, 1935 saw the air so thick with blackness people were lost and could not breath. The fear of being buried alive gripped many.

This is a thrilling story of man’s ignorance about how to farm, the devastation nature can cause and how it can effect many people. It is also a story of the families on the High Plains, some who made it through the storms and some who didn’t. In 1935 Roosevelt established the Soil Conservation Service. As a result, irrigation began and trees were planted. When the rains fell again and wheat prices began to rise in the 1940′s farmers began to plow again and ripped out many of the trees.

Read the book, it goes into a lot of detail about that time period and the people who survived and those who did not.

World Book Night US: Washington, Michigan, and New York attract the most volunteers Read more here and here.

World Book Night U.S. has delineated the top giver towns, cities and regions per capita. “Doing it just by pure number and by individual towns and cities didn’t capture the full picture of where the most givers are,” executive director Carl Lennertz commented. “Yes, the five big cities top the list in order of population, but then it begins to follow along the lines of both very involved bookstores and libraries, as well as places with community-minded citizens and/or a population in need.”

The top 10 WBN giver regions per capita: 1. West Seattle Sound (Bainbridge Island/Kitsap/Olympic Peninsula), Wash. 2. Lansing/Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo, Mich. 3. Buffalo/Rochester/Oswego/Brockport, N.Y. 4. Los Angeles beach towns 5. San Joaquin Valley, especially Fresno and Bakersfield, Calif. 6. East Bay: Oakland, Berkeley and all of East Bay, Calif. 7. Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill Triangle, N.C. 8. Eugene/Salem/Corvallis, Ore. 9. Palm Beach County, Fla. 10. Hudson Valley, N.Y.

One of the clearest memories I have of elementary school is my 6th grade teacher reading the story of Persephone, Demeter and Hades to the class from Edith Hamilton’s classic, Mythology. The Greek gods captivated me from the start. After that day in class, I scoured the library for every book even remotely hinting of Greek mythology, so you can imagine my delight when I picked up The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. The gods, alive and well in Manhattan? Monsters and godlings among us? A dangerous quest? Oh yeah!

Percy Jackson isn’t like other kids, a thought that becomes fact when, in the first chapter, he turns his evil Math teacher to dust with a ballpoint-pen-turned-sword. His life goes from bad to worse when he’s sent home from boarding school with an invitation not to return next year. Living with his stepfather, Smelly Gabe, is even worse than boarding school, but life gets even more complicated when Percy and his mother are attacked by The Minotaur while fleeing to the safety of Camp Half Blood, a training ground for demi-gods. Percy soon learns that his real father is the god Poseidon, and he is potentially one of the most powerful “heroes” to come along in years. But all is not well on Mt. Olympus. Someone has stolen Zeus’ thunderbolt, a most powerful weapon, and all fingers point to Percy. To prove his innocence, Percy, along with Daughter-of-Athena Annabeth and a satyr named Grover, embarks on a dangerous quest to the Underworld, where he learns a thing or two about friendship, trust and self-worth.

Action abounds from the first pages of this book. Great characters, great story, superb writing. My only quibble comes from the feeling I kept getting that I was reading a Harry Potter book. We have a boy who never fit in, finding out he has remarkable powers, teaming up with a smart, sassy girl who has equally strong powers and a less talented but very amusing third boy — all sent off on a quest to recover something very powerful that, if in the wrong hands, could mean the end of the world. Throw into the mix a mysterious, powerful, and dangerous evil thing that everyone thought was dead and we have…..Sorceror’s Stone, anyone?

Despite the similarities to HP, The Lightning Thief was a fabulous read, and I can’t see any kid putting it down. Read the first chapter to a class and I guarantee they’ll be in the library looking for this one.

These books are waiting for all the WBN Givers. Please thank our shipping department who stacked and alphabetized the boxes for us. Remember, for those who picked Central as a pick up location, you can pick your books up here on April 18 at the WBN Reception from 4-7 pm. The reception is in the Bausch & Lomb Public Library Building, 1st floor, Kate Gleason Auditorium. See you there!

Two favors: 1) Please do not go inquire about your box at your store or library yet. They are super busy and not all store or library staff will be up to speed on WBN until the week of April 15.

2) Don’t forget to check out all of the downloadable items in the Resources section on our website.  You’ll find templates for everything from bookmarks to stickers to our logo, for those of you who are especially crafty and want to make a t-shirt for yourself!  You’ll also find brief descriptions of every book, some giver tips, and a recipient letter you can print off and put in the copies you hand out.  Check it out here (or copy/paste this URL into your browser:

http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/resources/resources-for/givers).

For book descriptions click here .

As always, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates and other information.  This week, we’re posting regional maps of givers across the country–four new ones each day!

Thank you so much for your support of World Book Night!

Best,

The World Book Night Team

There are many “givers” in the Rochester area who will be out on April 23 giving away 20 copies of one of these 30 books selected for the global event this year.

JS

The World Book Night t-shirts are here. They will be given out with WBN books to the Givers at the reception April 18. This reception is from 4-7 at the Central Library. See you then!