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We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, a multitype system serving all types of libraries. We are here to help you find new books, for yourself or for your library.
This season we continue to travel around Minnesota but this time we’re learning about all the fascinating historical sites our state has to offer and giving you a book prompt inspired by each site.
We will share six book suggestions to meet that prompt, to get you started on reading new books. You can also take that prompt and find any other book to meet the challenge!
This week we encourage you to explore the story of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe through museum exhibits, objects, demonstrations, and tours, and shop for locally made Native American arts and crafts in the restored 1930s trading post. To celebrate this museum, read a book about arts and crafts.
We give you links to each of these books on our show notes page, taking you to Amazon.com. If you click on any of them, and buy anything at all – including a nice book – Amazon will send us a small percent of the profits they made on these sales. Thank you for supporting CMLE!
Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists by Jill Ahlberg Yohe
Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists explores the artistic achievements of Native women and establishes their rightful place in the art world. This landmark book includes works of art from antiquity to the present, made in a variety of media from textiles and beadwork to video and digital arts. It showcases artists from more than seventy-five Indigenous tribes to reveal the ingenuity and innovation that have always been foundational to the art of Native women.
Beautifully illustrated and enriched by the personal reflections, historical research, and artistic insights of leading scholars and artists in the field, Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists pays tribute to the vital role and creative force of Native women artists, now and throughout time.
Spider Woman’s Children: Navajo Weavers Today by Barbara Teller Ornelas and Lynda Teller Pete
Navajo rugs set the gold standard for handwoven textiles in the U.S. But what about the people who create these treasures? Spider Woman’s Children is the inside story, told by two women who are both deeply embedded in their own culture and considered among the very most skillful and artistic of Navajo weavers today. Barbara Teller Ornelas and Lynda Teller Pete are fifth-generation weavers who grew up at the fabled Two Grey Hills trading post. Their family and clan connections give them rare insight, as this volume takes readers into traditional hogans, remote trading posts, reservation housing neighborhoods, and urban apartments to meet weavers who follow the paths of their ancestors, who innovate with new designs and techniques, and who uphold time-honored standards of excellence. Throughout the text are beautifully depicted examples of the finest, most mindful weaving this rich tradition has to offer.
Almost Lost Arts: Traditional Crafts and the Artisans Keeping Them Alive by Emily Freidenrich
Almost Lost Arts features the stories of 20 artisans who have devoted their lives to preserving traditional techniques.
From globemakers and bookmenders to cassette tape manufacturers and neon sign makers, the profiled artisans represent a diverse mix of media, ages, genders, and cultural backgrounds.
Gorgeous photographs reveal these craftspeople’s studios from places like Oaxaca, Kyoto, Milan, and Tennessee.
• Each maker is accompanied by an in-depth profile telling their story
• Features two essays that discuss the challenges and rewards of engaging deeply with the past
• An inspiration to makers, collectors, and history lovers
Almost Lost Arts is a celebration of tactile beauty and a tribute to human ingenuity.
This book takes readers in-depth with each artisan and explores how people around the world are saving traditional arts from obscurity.
• A visual delight and an inspirational read for anyone who treasures handmade goods: collectors, makers, and those who dream of quitting their office jobs and learning a craft
• The perfect gift for artists, makers, collectors, crafters, fans of vintage ephemera, history lovers, trivia buffs, travelers, parents, and millennials
• Elegant three-piece case and foil stamping make this a highly giftable book
• Great for fans of Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional American Skills by Reader’s Digest, Cræft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts by Alexander Langland, and In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs by Grace Bonney
Miss Scarlet’s School of Patternless Sewing
With the second book in her Crafty Chica series, Kathy Cano-Murillo returns to the list with the story of a woman who finds her life’s true path by teaching others to stray outside the lines.
Scarlet Santana is never happier than when creating fabulous fashions for women of all shapes and sizes. Now, after years of hard work, she finally has the chance to live her dream and study under the hottest designer in New York. To raise money for her move, Scarlet opens an after-hours sewing school in a local record shop, teaching a type-A working mom whose rigid parenting style is causing her family to unravel and an enigmatic seamstress with a mysterious past.
But as stitches give way to secrets and classmates become friends, the women realize an important truth: There is no single pattern for a good life. Happiness is always a custom fit.
Watermark: A Novel of the Middle Ages by Vanitha Sankaran
The daughter of a papermaker in a small French village in the year 1320, mute from birth and forced to shun normal society, young Auda finds solace and escape in the wonder of the written word. Believed to be cursed by those who embrace ignorance and superstition, Auda’s very survival is a testament to the strength of her spirit. But this is an age of Inquisition and intolerance, when difference and defiance are punishable “sins” and new ideas are considered damnable heresy. When darkness descends upon her world, Auda, newly grown to womanhood, is forced to flee, setting off on a remarkable quest to discover love and a new sense of self . . . and to reclaim her heritage and the small glory of her father’s art.
Paper, Scissors, Death by Joanna Campbell Slan
Every scrapbook tells a story. Memories of friends, family . . .
and murder?
Mousy housewife Kiki Lowenstein has two great loves: scrapbooking and her young daughter, Anya. But her happy family album is ruined when her husband, George, is found naked and dead in a hotel room. As Kiki tracks down George’s murderer, she discovers his sordid secret life.
Cruel taunts by George’s former flame compel Kiki to spout an unwise threat. When the woman is murdered, Kiki’s scissor-sharp words make her the prime suspect. She could be creating scrapbook keepsakes for the rest of her life-behind bars. Supported by her loyal friends, along with a little help (and a lot of stomach flutters) from the dashing Detective Detweiler, can Kiki cut the true killer out of the picture and design a new life for herself and Anya?
CONCLUSION:
Thanks for joining us! We’ll be back next week with a look at the next county and the next book prompt!