Category Archives: Books

Book Bouquet: International Fall Celebrations

Each week we assemble a collection – a bouquet, if you will – of books you can read for yourself, or use to build into a display in your library. As always, the books we link to have info from Amazon.com. If you click a link and then buy anything at all from Amazon, we get a small percent of their profits from your sale. Yay!!! Thanks!!! We really appreciate the assistance! 💕😊

This week we’re reading about fall festivals from around the world! Learn more in this article from Mental Floss.

Harvest Moon Festival (Korea)
Sori’s Harvest Moon Day: A Story of Korea by Uk-Bae Lee
“Sori and her family travel to her grandmother’s home for Chu-Suk, the celebration of the harvest moon. The whole family gathers together for the ancient traditions, including dancing in Pung-Mul, the folk festival, and eating the delicious food that Sori’s grandmother has prepared. “

Guy Fawkes Day (England)
Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot by Antonia Fraser
“In a narrative that reads like a gripping detective story, Antonia Fraser has untangled the web of religion, politics, and personalities that surrounded that fateful night of November 5. “

Moon Festival (China)
A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin (we love this one!)
“Little Star loves the delicious Mooncake that she bakes with her mama. But she’s not supposed to eat any yet! What happens when she can’t resist a nibble? In this stunning picture book that shines as bright as the stars in the sky, Newbery Honor author Grace Lin creates a heartwarming original story that explains phases of the moon.”

Day of the Dead (Mexico)
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
“Every year, Ceyala “Lala” Reyes’ family–aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and Lala’s six older brothers–packs up three cars and, in a wild ride, drive from Chicago to the Little Grandfather and Awful Grandmother’s house in Mexico City for the summer. Struggling to find a voice above the boom of her brothers and to understand her place on this side of the border and that, Lala is a shrewd observer of family life. But when she starts telling the Awful Grandmother’s life story, seeking clues to how she got to be so awful, grandmother accuses Lala of exaggerating. Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwind exploration of storytelling, lies, and life. Like the cherished rebozo, or shawl, that has been passed down through generations of Reyes women, Caramelo is alive with the vibrations of history, family, and love. “

Diwali (India)
Prince of Fire: The Story of Diwali by Jatinder Verma
“Action-packed from start to finish, this dramatic new chapter book version of Indias great epic, The Ramayana, will have boys and girls alike on the edge of their seats. Full-color illustrations throughout vividly bring the story of Diwali to life, while courageous heroes and dastardly villains make Prince of Fire the perfect choice for any child with a love of adventure.”


Episode 408: Irish novels

Hello! Thank you for joining us on Reading With Libraries! We’re so glad you could be here to enjoy our book group podcast.

Check out our full shownotes page here. We have links to all the books we discussed, to the beverages we enjoyed, and to the other resources you can use to find material about this genre!

Become a full book group member on Patreon! Click here to be part of the “inner circle” of this book group, and get access to behind-the-scenes info and photos. Support levels start at $1/month – and you get a postcard from Official Office Dog Lady Grey! More swag is available at higher levels of support; check it all out today.

We love doing this, but podcasts aren’t free to create; so thank you so much to our book group members who have joined us. We love having you as part of the team.

Check out this episode!

Episode 407: Engineering

Welcome back to the show. We are so glad you are here, joining us for the book group discussion!

You can find our show notes page here, where you can find background info on more resources for this genre, links to the books we shared, and of course links to the beverages we enjoyed! (Note: this week the beverages require some engineering skills!! Have fun with them.)

Who is joining us this week? Our Guest Host is Jason Menth, the STEM Integrationist & CLR Coach from Talahi Community School. (Spoiler note: subscribe to Linking Our Libraries next season, so you can hear more about Jason’s work in the library!)

We spend a lot of time in this podcast talking about fiction genres, and there are fiction books talking about Engineering. But of course we like nonfiction books, we know your patrons are interested in them, and we’ve talked about several different genres. So we’re happy to look at this genre, that is just filled with books!

Become a full book group member on Patreon! Click here to be part of the “inner circle” of this book group, and get access to behind-the-scenes info and photos. Support levels start at $1/month – and you get a postcard from Official Office Dog Lady Grey! More swag is available at higher levels of support; check it all out today.

We love doing this, but podcasts aren’t free to create; so thank you so much to our book group members who have joined us. We love having you as part of the team.

Check out this episode!

Join CMLE at CSB for an Author Event Oct. 24th

CMLE Member Event logo

If you’d like to meet us at this event, please RSVP below!

On Thursday, Oct. 24th Shena McAuliffe will give a public reading at Upper Gorecki at the College of St. Ben’s at 7pm. CMLE members, we can meet and attend this event together!

From the St. Ben’s website: Shena McAuliffe grew up in Wisconsin and Colorado. Her novel The Good Echo won the Big Moose Prize and was published by Black Lawrence Press in 2018. Her stories and essays have been published in Conjunctions, Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, True Story, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

Book Bouquet: Fictional Aunts

Each week we assemble a collection – a bouquet, if you will – of books you can read for yourself, or use to build into a display in your library. As always, the books we link to have info from Amazon.com. If you click a link and then buy anything at all from Amazon, we get a small percent of their profits from your sale. Yay!!! Thanks!!! We really appreciate the assistance! 💕😊

This week we are sharing books that include aunts in the story.

How Tia Lola Came to (Visit) Stay by Julia Alvarez
“Moving to Vermont after his parents split, Miguel has plenty to worry about! Tía Lola, his quirky, carismática, and maybe magical aunt makes his life even more unpredictable when she arrives from the Dominican Republic to help out his Mami. Like her stories for adults, Julia Alvarez’s first middle-grade book sparkles with magic as it illuminates a child’s experiences living in two cultures.”

Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson
“When the kindly old aunts decide that they need help caring for creatures who live on their hidden island, they know that adults can’t be trusted. What they need are a few special children who can keep a secret-a secret as big as a magical island. And what better way to get children who can keep really big secrets, than to kidnap them! Don’t miss this wildly inventive and funny read from master storyteller Eva Ibbotson.”

Secrets of the Lighthouse by Santa Montefiore
“Ellen Trawton is running away from it all—quite literally. She is due to get married to a man she doesn’t love, her job is dragging her down, and her interfering mother is getting on her nerves. So she escapes to the one place she know her mother won’t follow her—to her aunt’s house in rural Ireland. Once there, she uncovers a dark family secret—and a future she never knew she might have.”

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
“Gabi Hernandez chronicles her last year in high school in her diary: college applications, Cindy’s pregnancy, Sebastian’s coming out, the cute boys, her father’s meth habit, and the food she craves. And best of all, the poetry that helps forge her identity.”

The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell
“Meet the Bird family. They live in a honey-colored house in a picture-perfect Cotswolds village, with rambling, unkempt gardens stretching beyond. Pragmatic Meg, dreamy Beth, and tow-headed twins Rory and Rhys all attend the village school and eat home-cooked meals together every night. Their father is a sweet gangly man named Colin, who still looks like a teenager with floppy hair and owlish, round-framed glasses. Their mother is a beautiful hippy named Lorelei, who exists entirely in the moment. And she makes every moment sparkle in her children’s lives. Then one Easter weekend, tragedy comes to call. The event is so devastating that, almost imperceptibly, it begins to tear the family apart. Years pass as the children become adults, find new relationships, and develop their own separate lives. Soon it seems as though they’ve never been a family at all. But then something happens that calls them back to the house they grew up in — and to what really happened that Easter weekend so many years ago.”

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
“Flora Poste, a recently orphaned socialite, moves in with her country relatives, the gloomy Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm, and becomes enmeshed in a web of violent emotions, despair, and scheming, until Flora manages to set things right.”