For many years I considered fall as my favorite season. Several years ago, I changed my opinion! Spring has to be the most beautiful season because of all the lovely flowering trees and other plants. After a dreary, cold winter, it is heavenly to see trees flowering out in showy displays of white and shades from fuchsia to the softest pale pink.
The 2013 Pulitzer Prize for fiction was announced recently; it was The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson. It is a novel telling the story of growing up in a North Korean orphanage and the protagonist’s life after leaving the orphanage. I’ve got it checked out, but it’s still on my to-read list.
Sometimes, events occur that shake my image of the world. The bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon and the explosion at a fertilizer plant in West Texas are examples. They left me with an unfocused image, causing me to reflect and rethink.
I have found two books whose main characters face life shattering events beyond their control. Both novels lend me insight into the human condition and help me regain a little clarity.
I often find myself wishing that I could bike to work. And no, I’m not talking about hopping on a Harley and buzzing around at 70 miles an hour. I am a librarian after all, and I’d much rather get out my banana-seated, basket-sporting Huffy bicycle and pedal to work. Unfortunately, 12 miles is a little too far for these legs to travel on a bike. Maybe the coffee shop is more doable!
The RT Booklovers Convention is coming to Kansas City May 1st through May 5th! Anyone who enjoys reading or who is involved in the industry is welcome to attend. It’s an experience you will never forget.
What better way each year to celebrate the infamous April Fool’s Day than to dress up! Here at the Midwest Genealogy Center, we are all about history, family, and maybe not dressing up, but definitely about making history come alive! We started this fun "History Dress Up Day" five years ago when we moved into our new building. Since then we have had staff dress as ancestors of all descriptions.
It’s time for one of those little-known quasi holidays. May is National Barbecue Month! With the weather starting to warm up, people are beginning to go outside not only out of necessity, but for pleasure. What goes better with tailgating and gardening than a little bit of barbecue? Perhaps ice cream, but the Library doesn’t have a program on how to make ice cream (though we do sometimes let the teens attempt to make the biggest ice cream sundae in the world).
My husband is not a reader. In fact, before I started working at the Library (just over a year now), he never read anything except the directions on new gadgets and gizmos we got for Christmas. He is incredibly intelligent, but a bit dyslexic and finds reading to be anything but pleasurable. As an avid reader, I always just chalked this up to an idiosyncrasy about him that, while I didn't fully understand, I could certainly live with.
Are you a writer or author? Just a wannabe? Come join us at the Smithville Branch on May 9, 2013 from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. for Hero’s Journey: Building blocks for Writing Adventure.
