By Nicole Fowles
Glad You Asked
This week libraries across the United States are celebrating National Library Week! It’s a time to recognize our nation’s libraries, library workers’ contributions, and to promote library use and support. This year’s theme is “There’s More to the Story,” which illustrates the fact that in addition to the books in library collections (available in many formats!), libraries offer so much more!
Many libraries now lend items like museum passes, board and video games, musical instruments and more — including your Delaware County District Library. The next time you’re in a DCDL branch, ask about our Culture Passes, which provide free entry to places like the Central Ohio Symphony, Columbus Museum of Art and the Franklin Park Conservatory. For weekend family fun, check out a board game. Stay tuned for a big announcement this summer regarding musical instrument lending.
Libraries also bring communities together through programming, providing entertainment, education, and connection through book clubs, storytimes, crafting classes, and language learning. Library infrastructure advances communities, providing internet and technology access, literacy skills, and support for businesses, job seekers and entrepreneurs.
So far this week we’ve already celebrated Right to Read Day (Monday) and National Library Workers Day (Tuesday). Today, we celebrate National Library Outreach Day. Take the opportunity to say thank you to our Outreach staff and wave at the Bookmobile as it drives through your neck of the woods. Tomorrow, we’ll celebrate Take Action for Libraries Day, a day to rally advocates to support libraries.
National Library Week traces back to 1958, when research showed that Americans were spending less on books and more on radios, televisions and musical instruments. Concerned that Americans were reading less, the American Library Association (ALA), with help from the Advertising Council, celebrated the first National Library Week with the theme “Wake Up and Read!”
In recent years, the American Library Association has kicked off National Library Week with the release of its State of America’s Libraries Report, which includes the list of the most challenged books of the previous year. ALA documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. The unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022 nearly doubles the 729 book challenges reported in 2021.
I will allow you the opportunity to entertain your own curiosity and choose to look up the books from this year or any of the past years at www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10. When you decide what you’d like to check out to read for yourself, see if any of these “Must Reads” from NoveList’s April 2023 list should also be added to your “to read” pile.
• “Off the Deep End” by Lucinda Berry. Jules Hart’s life will never be the same since the car accident that killed her son Gabe, especially because Gabe’s best friend Isaac made it out of the same wreck alive. When Isaac later goes missing, the boy’s mother blames Jules for the disappearance until an even more disturbing possibility comes to light — a serial killer. The quick, intricate plot also contains a surprising, yet plausible, twist.
• “Liar, Dreamer, Thief” by Maria Dong. Starring: mentally and financially struggling Katrina Kim, who increasingly relies on maladaptive coping mechanisms to deal with her isolation and soul-sucking job. Katrina discovers that she and Kurt (a more successful colleague that she’s barely spoken to) seem to have a lot in common, and she begins to fixate on him in unhealthy ways. Then a shocking, disturbing event leaves Katrina wondering if Kurt might have been watching her as intently as she was watching him.
• “Our Share of Night” by Mariana Enriquez. 1981 Argentina: Newly widowed medium Juan travels to his late wife’s ancestral home with his young son, Gaspar, in tow. But then…When Gaspar begins exhibiting his father’s paranormal abilities, Juan must fight to protect him from the clutches of his in-laws’ immortality-seeking cult.
• “The Golden Spoon” by Jessa Maxwell. At the Vermont estate of “America’s Grandmother” Betsy Martin (a cookbook author who’s maybe not as sweet as she appears), a 10th annual televised baking contest begins, complete with white tent, six contestants, and a young new male co-host. Someone substitutes ingredients, leaves a fridge door open, etc., and then adds murder to the menu.
• “The House Guest” by Hank Phillippi Ryan. After losing her job, L.A. single mom Paige Lancaster returns to her small Connecticut hometown to move in with her mother. Soon Paige is under enormous pressure to get involved with the demanding Parent Booster Association at her daughter’s school, led by her high school boyfriend’s intense, overachieving wife.
If you have a question that you would like to see answered in this column, mail it to Nicole Fowles, Delaware County District Library, 84 E. Winter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740-362-3861. You can also email your questions by visiting the library’s web site at www.delawarelibrary.org or directly to Nicole at [email protected]. No matter how you contact us, we’re always glad you asked!
