Category Archives: Books

Books

Book Bouquet: Children’s and YA Books about Native Americans

Each week we look at a collection of a few books on a topic. You can explore the books on your own, or use them as a foundation for building a display in your library! 

(All the book links below lead to Amazon; if you click on one and buy things from Amazon, CMLE may receive a small percentage of Amazon’s profits. Thanks!)

It’s the week of Thanksgiving and that often means classrooms and libraries will highlight books about Native Americans. It’s great to want to help students learn more about Native American culture, but easy to fall into using books and activities that promote stereotypes. Instead, read this article and try these tips and books suggested by Debbie Reese, assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and tribally enrolled at Nambé Pueblo.

  • Choose books that are tribally specific

  • Use present tense verbs to talk about Native Nations

  • Choose books by Native writers

  • Use books by Native writers all year round

Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith, Ying-Hwa Hu (Illustrator), Cornelius Van Wright (Illustrator) “Jenna loves the tradition of jingle dancing that has been shared by generations of women in her family, and she hopes to dance at the next powwow. But she has a problem—how will her dress sing if it has no jingles?
The warm, evocative watercolors of Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu complement author Cynthia Leitich Smith’s lyrical text as she tells the affirming story of how a contemporary Native American girl turns to her family and community to help her dance find a voice.”

The People Shall Continue by Simon J. Ortiz, illustrated by Sharol Graves “Traces the progress of the Indians of North America from the time of the Creation to the present.”

 

 

If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth “Lewis “Shoe” Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: the joking, the Fireball games, the snow blowing through his roof. What he’s not used to is white people being nice to him — people like George Haddonfield, whose family recently moved to town with the Air Force. As the boys connect through their mutual passion for music, especially the Beatles, Lewis has to lie more and more to hide the reality of his family’s poverty from George. He also has to deal with the vicious Evan Reininger, who makes Lewis the special target of his wrath. But when everyone else is on Evan’s side, how can he be defeated? And if George finds out the truth about Lewis’s home — will he still be his friend?”

We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorrell “A look at modern Native American life as told by a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. The word otsaliheliga (oh-jah-LEE-hay-lee-gah) is used by members of the Cherokee Nation to express gratitude. Beginning in the fall with the new year and ending in summer, follow a full Cherokee year of celebrations and experiences.
Appended with a glossary and the complete Cherokee syllabary, originally created by Sequoyah.”

Pemmican Wars (A Girl Called Echo) by Katherena Vermette This is the first graphic novel in a new series! “Echo Desjardins, a 13-year-old Métis girl adjusting to a new home and school, is struggling with loneliness while separated from her mother. Then an ordinary day in Mr. Bee’s history class turns extraordinary, and Echo’s life will never be the same. During Mr. Bee’s lecture, Echo finds herself transported to another time and place—a bison hunt on the Saskatchewan prairie—and back again to the present. In the following weeks, Echo slips back and forth in time. She visits a Métis camp, travels the old fur-trade routes, and experiences the perilous and bygone era of the Pemmican Wars.”

Did we miss a book that you’d like to recommend? Let us know in the comments!

Books

My War Gone By: I Miss it So

Book Bites are quick, five minute looks at a book from readers. Try a new book this week!

Today’s book is from Lydia:My War Gone By: I Miss it So, by Anthony Loyd . 

Want to be a full book group member? Join us on Patreon! For as little as $1 a month, you can support the podcast as well as helping to keep Official Office Dog, Lady Grey, in treats.
 
We also have new episodes of our leadership podcast: Linking Our Libraries dropping every Thursday morning; subscribe to get it in your app, or stream it on our website.

Check out this episode!

Books

Book Bouquet: Geocaching

Have you been geocaching?? We’re into it!

And while we haven’t updated our pages in a while, we have travel bugs out there in the world that are traveling from cache to cache – exploring the fun things they can find!

If you like the idea of being on a constant hide and seek adventure and exploring new places both at home or when you are traveling, geocaching is for you!

You can get all the info on their website, and we have some suggestions below.

We put five tracking bugs out there into the world, to see where they would go when (if?) people would pick them up and move them to new places. We have one that has been doing some moving around lately: Library Travel Bug. Check it out to follow its adventures!

You may need a few items or some more information about geocaching – check them all out at Amazon! (We get a small percentage of Amazon’s profits if you buy things when you click thru that link, so we really appreciate it!)

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Geocaching, by Editors & Staff Geocaching.com “Geocaching has steadily grown into a fun and enduring outdoor adventure and with the popularity of GPS units and the development of applications for nearly all of the most popular smartphone platforms, it has become an adventure that’s available to pretty much anyone.

In The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Geocaching, Third Edition, the editors and staff of Geocaching.com open the world of geocaching up to a much broader audience and take the reader through all of the core essentials for caching including how to play, tips and tricks for finding and placing caches, variations on traditional caching, and much more. In addition, the reader can learn about exciting new changes to the game and the new GPS-enabled games that will take cachers to an entirely new level of fun and adventure.”

 

How To Puzzle Cache, by Cully Long “Faced With A Map Full Of Blue Question Marks And No Idea Where To Start? Geocaching novices and pros alike are often daunted by puzzle and mystery caches. Ciphers, enigmatic photos, nonsensical text, or just a blank page — it often isn’t clear what the Co wants or expects you to do, and even less clear how any of it will lead you to a cache. This Book Will Help You Ask — And Answer — All The Right Questions. 300 pages of lessons, tips, tricks and hints for dealing with even the trickiest puzzle caches, plus step-by-step techniques that start with examining the cache page and lead you through codes, ciphers, steganography, math, music, and dozens of other common puzzle cache types will have you on the trail in no time.”

 

Geocaching logbook, by Journals Unlimited, “Uniquely guided format includes; Find Name, Posted by, Difficulty rating, Terrain rating, Size, Searched with, Coordinates, Information, Hint, Contact geocache owner, travel bug/geocache info, Date Searched/Found/Not Found, lined back-side of page for notes. Each of these guided pages repeats allowing one page for 88 finds. While there are many geocache logbooks on the market that stay with your cache, this is the first of its kind designed for the treasure seeker to carry with them and log in all of their finds.”

 

You might want a cool shirt to wear as you cache!

Not All Wander Lost Geocaching T-Shirt  (available in a variety of podcasts)

 

 

You can use the app from geocaching.com and use your phone to cache; but a handheld gps is more useful. There are lots of different ones you might try; I’ve had a few Garmin devices and had pretty good luck with them. Here’s one for you to get the idea, but there are lots of other Garmins and other brand names. Feel free to browse around other devices if you like different features (fishing info, hunting, hiking, etc.).

  Garmin eTrex10 GPS

  • Rugged handheld navigator with preloaded worldwide basemap and 2.2-inch monochrome display
  • WAAS-enabled GPS receiver with HotFix and GLONASS support for fast positioning and a reliable signal
  • Waterproof to IPX7 standards for protection against splashes, rain, etc.
  • Support for paperless geocaching and Garmin spine-mounting accessories. Power with two AA batteries for up to 20 hours of use (best with Polaroid AA batteries)
  • See high and low elevation points or store waypoints along a track (start, finish and high/low altitude) to estimate time and distance between points

Do you want to drop your own travel bugs? It can be a fun way to interact with people, and tell them about your library or other cool programs!

4 Pack Travel Bugs by Groundspeak

Books

The Backstagers

Book Bites are quick, five minute looks at a book from readers. Try a new book this week!

Today’s book is from Mary: Backstagers, by James Tynion. 

Want to be a full book group member? Join us on Patreon! For as little as $1 a month, you can support the podcast as well as helping to keep Official Office Dog, Lady Grey, in treats.
 
We also have new episodes of our leadership podcast: Linking Our Libraries dropping every Thursday morning; subscribe to get it in your app, or stream it on our website.

Check out this episode!

Books

We Heart MN: Snowplows

In this series, we’ll pick some of our favorite things about Minnesota and share some related book suggestions. (We’re open to your suggestions! Comment below or email us and tell us some of your favorite MN things!)

via GIPHY

It is November and wow, winter came quickly this year. We’ve already had plenty of occasions to see snowplows on the road, so here are some books if you or your young patrons or students are interested in learning more:

Small Walt by Elizabeth Verdick (shout out to an MN author!) “Small Walt and his driver, Gus, take on a blizzard! All the bigger snowplows doubt that Walt has what it takes to plow the roads in the storm, but Walt is determined to prove them wrong.”

Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton “In this enduring winter favorite from the Caldecott Medal winner Burton, Katy the snowplow finally gets her chance to shine when a blizzard blankets the city and everyone is relying on Katy to help dig out.”

Good Morning, Snowplow! by Deborah Bruss “As the rest of the town settles into bed, one man, his dog, and a trusty snowplow get ready for a night’s work.”