Wednesday, November 23, 2005

THANKSGIVING 2005

Thanksgiving is this coming Thursday, November 24. Of course, the Library will be closed. Most of us will be either hosting friends and family or will be travelling to someone else's home for dinner. Begun as a reminder of the survival of the Pilgrim settlers, in spite of great hardships,in the early 1600's, it has evolved into a holiday for celebrating families.

It is also everyone's favorite food holiday. The Elk Grove Library has had several displays up in Adult and Youth Services containing books about the holiday and about food to make for it. Most of the adult books are circulating, but a lot of the children's books have come back already and are displayed in Youth Services and near the Circulation desk; there are a few movies as well.

Some good recipe sites include:
All Recipes: Thanksgiving
Razzle Dazzle Thanksgiving Recipes
Butterball
Epicurious Thanksgiving
Food Geeks Thanksgiving Recipes
Land o' Lakes
Southern Food at About.Com--also links to other regional Thanksgiving recipes

To keep the kids amused while awaiting dinner, try these sites:
Kids Domain Thanksgiving Fun
Enchanted Learning: Thanksgiving Crafts
DLTK's Thanksgiving Crafts
Ben & Jerry's Thanksgiving Fun
Lil Fingers Thanksgiving
Black Dog's Thanksgiving Celebration
The Holiday Spot Thanksgiving Games--[annoying flashing banners, tho]
The Kidz Page Holidays
A Fun Zone Christmas Games--there are links to Thanksgiving games, too

More general information about Thanksgiving with links to even more sites can be found at:
History Channel's History of Thanksgiving
The Truth about Thanksgiving...

Feel a need to listen to Thanksgiving music? Try these sites:
Kids Connect Thanksgiving Music
101 Kidz Thanksgiving Music

Miscellaneous
Macy's Parade Official Site

Friday, November 18, 2005

GRAPHIC NOVELS IN ADULT SERVICES/STICKERS

Most of the fiction in Adult Services is shelved all together except for Mysteries--which are shelved in a separate section and are distinguished by bright yellow stickers with a black "sleuth" silhouette--and Large Print--which include LP Mysteries. Within the General Fiction and Large Print Fiction, a few other genres are recognizable by special stickers: Classics (white with the word "Classic"), Westerns (yellow with red cowboy silhouette or orangey with boots), and Science Fiction (blue with "space" graphic or dark blue with words "Science Fiction" and "space" graphic). Fantasy and Romance do not have stickers. In addition, Christmas books--both Fiction and Non-Fiction--have special stickers: red with a green fir tree silhouette.

The newest genre to have a distinguishing sticker is Graphic Novels--bright green with the words "Graphic Novel". There are only a few, so far, in the Adult section; there are hundreds in Youth Services, most of which are rated "All Ages" up to "Teen". A scan of the shelves found these Adult services Graphic Novels checked in:

Road to Perdition by Max Allen Collins
Sin City (7 volumes) by Frank Miller (NEW)
Hard Looks: Adapted Stories ed. by Andrew Vachss
War of the Worlds by Stephen Stern (NEW)
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair; adapted by Peter Kuper(741.5 KUP)
Birth of a Nation: a Comic Novel by Aaron McGruder and Reginald Hudlin (741.5 MCG)
Bram Stoker by Bram Stoker [short stories](741.5 STO)

Friday, November 11, 2005

VETERAN'S DAY

Today is Veteran's Day, formerly known as "Armistice Day", commemorating the end of "The War To End all Wars". Many official ceremonies and speeches will be given today honoring all American soldiers. Songs, poems, articles, and on-line links about WWI, veterans, and Veterans Day can be found at Butlers Webs, Spartacus Schoolnet, and Sheryl's Holiday Site: Veterans Day, including Colonel John McCrae"s "In Flanders Field".

The Elk Grove Library has many books written about World War I, as well as the other 20th Century Wars, and the men and women who fought in them. Here are a few about the Armistice and WWI:

Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918, World War I and Its Violent Climax (2004) by Joseph E. Persico (940.439 PER)

Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die: Memoirs of a World War I Marine (1993) by Elton E. Mackin (940.4 MAC)

Over There: A Marine in the Great War (1996) by Carl Andrew Brannen (940.4144 BRA)

Fighting the Flying Circus (1965) by Edward Vernon Rickenbacker. Edited and with a foreword by Arch Whitehouse (940.44 RIC)

The War at Sixteen: Autobiography by Julian Green
(Bio GRE)

Ace of the Iron Cross (1970) by Ernst Udet. Edited by Stanley M. Ulanoff. Translated by Richard K. Riehn (940.4 UDE)

The Doughboys; The Story of the AEF, 1917-1918 (1963) by Laurence Stallings (940.3 STA)

EGVPL has several movies--Here's a list from Reel Rant of Frank Steel's "Best War Movies"--(besides non-fiction documentaries) that touch on the experience of World War I:

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) (DVD)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1979) (DVD)
The Blue Max (1966) (DVD)
A Farewell to Arms (1932) (VHS)
Hell's Angels (1930) (DVD)
Sergeant York (1941) (VHS)
A Very Long Engagement (2004) (Foreign Film French DVD)
and
World War I Films of the Silent Era (DVD 791.4375 WOR)--fiction and non-fiction silents, including "propaganda" stagings