Library

When Life feels out of control or unpredictable, rereading favorite books is a source of comfort to me. It feels like old friends settling in for a nice, long visit. Afterward, I feel recharged and better able to face the unpredictability of the real world.

Recently, I discovered that retellings offer similar comfort. With retellings, though, it’s not an old friend settling in, but a friend-in-common with a new perspective on all the old friends’ stories. It’s the comfort of knowing how the story will go with the added excitement of being “in” on an inside joke. I delight in a clever retelling!

My most recent foray into retellings was “A Study in Scarlet Women” by Sherry Thomas (the first in a series). I listened to it via Overdrive. In Thomas’s story, Sherlock Holmes is the pseudonym of Charlotte Holmes, the exceedingly clever, but recently disgraced, youngest daughter of the Holmes household. Both Sherlock and Watson are recast as women in this series. Together they must navigate the strict expectations of women in society and find ways to hide their gender as they solve mysteries and earn a living.

If you want to try retellings, in particular fairytale retellings, you’re in luck! It’s a popular subgenre and several Library staff members love to recommend these.

Our favorites include:

“The Bear and the Nightingale” by Katherine Arden

“Red Riding Hood” by Sarah Blakely-Cartwright

“Wicked Fox” by Kat Cho

“Aru Shah and the end of time” by Roshani Chokshi

“A House of Salt and Sorrows” by Erin A. Craig

“Orphan’s Wish” by Melanie Dickerson

“Warrior Maiden” by Melanie Dickerson

“The Sleeper and the Spindle” by Neil Gaiman

“The Wife Upstairs” by Rachel Hawkins

“Unmarriageable” by Soniah Kamal

“A Curse So Dark and Lonely” by Brigid Kemmerer

“Hood” by Jenny Elder Moke

“Sherwood” by Meagan Spooner

We do a lot of research during family conversations at my house. Having correct information on a subject helps ensure we all start from the same place of knowledge and understanding.

The internet can be a treacherous place because there’s an avalanche of information ready to come crashing down after a single search. We all know that not all of the information in that avalanche is true.

Spotting the lies can be incredibly difficult. Here are the tricks my family and I use at home to make sure we’re getting the truth:

• Make sure the sites you’re getting information from are legitimate and not trying to spoof another source. Look at the site address for indicators like “.co” after “.com” or weird dashes like “fox-news.”

• Read the full article, not just the headlines. Headlines are meant to grab your attention, not give you the full story.

• Make sure you’re not on a satirical news site like “The Onion.” The site’s “About Us” page should help there.

• Pay attention to who is quoted and whether both sides of an issue are covered or were asked for comment.

• Be suspicious of excess grammar or spelling errors and a lot of CAPS or exclamation marks. Journalists and news sources have standards for what they publish.

• Make sure the information you find isn’t an older story recycled out of context to seem more outrageous.

• Check to see who else is covering the information. If you can’t find it on another reputable site, it may not be true.

• If you’re still unsure, your library staff would love to help you determine whether information you’ve found is true or not. All you have to do is call or come in.

With all the talk about constitutional amendments in the news, the library purchased pocket editions of the Constitution from the Government Printing Office. They’re free at our checkout desk.

Happy New Year! 

When compared to other years, our numbers for 2020 are down significantly. I’m not particularly concerned by this downturn – 2020 doesn’t really compare to any other years, after all – but I am anxious to see our statistics climb back up.  

In 2020, we checked out almost 28,000 items (down about 20,000 from 2019) to our 12,000 patrons. If we translate that into money saved (from not having to buy the items checked out), we saved our patrons almost $409,000 in 2020! Our top patron saved almost $8,000 by using the Library. 

These numbers don’t include the 25,000 ebooks/downloadable items our patrons checked out, so in truth, we have saved everyone a lot more money than that. 

In terms of what people are checking out from our physical collection, here’s the breakdown:

Picture books:

• Cat secrets by Jef Czekaj
• Little Taco Truck by Tanya Valentine
• Alphabreaths: the ABCs of mindful breathing by Christopher Willard

J nonfiction (for kids in elementary school – ish):

• The ultimate book of sharks: your guide to these fierce and fantastic fish by Brian Skerry
• Dinosaur: dinosaurs and other amazing prehistoric creatures as you’ve never seen them before by John Woodward
• The dinosaur book by John Woodward

J fiction (for kids in elementary school – ish):

• Klawde: evil alien warlord cat by John Bemelmans Marciano
• Movie madness (part of the Three Horses series) by Cari Meister
• The sky unicorn by Paula Harrison

Middle Grade fiction (for kids in middle school – ish):

• Diary of a wimpy kid: the getaway by Jeff Kinney
• Pegasus: Olympus at war by Kate O’Hearn
• Into the wild by Erin Hunter

Young Adult fiction (for teens in high school – ish):

• One of us is lying by Karen M. McManus
• To all the boys I’ve loved before by Jenny Han
• Percy Jackson & the Olympians: the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Adult nonfiction: 

• Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage Murders and the birth of the FBI by David Grann
• If you tell: a true story of murder, family secrets, and the unbreakable bond of sisterhood by Gregg Olsen
• The Pioneer Woman cooks: the new frontier: 112 fantastic favorites for everyday eating by Ree Drummond

Adult fiction:

• One good deed by David Baldacci
• Long range by C. J. Box
• Bloody genius by John Sanford

Audiobooks (all ages):

• Long range: a Joe Pickett novel by C. J. Box
• Moral compass by Danielle Steel
• The night fire by Michael Connelly

Movies, Documentaries, and TV Series (all ages):

• Jumanji – Welcome to the jungle
• Abominable
• Knives out

Comic books & Graphic novels (all ages):

• Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas by Dav Pilkey
• My hero Academia Vol. 1 by Khei Horikoshi
• Immortal Hulk 1 by Al Ewing

Here’s hoping 2021 offers some relief from the struggles and devastation wrought by 2020. I am cautiously optimistic about this new year. 

For the first time last month, our physical and digital checkout statistics were less than 200 items apart. It looks like October will have similar numbers to report. In normal times, our physical checkouts are about double what our digital checkouts are, but COVID-times are strange times. In fact, all of the statistics we normally use to tell the Library’s story – door counts, checkouts, program attendance, etc. – will have a big asterix next to them this year due to the pandemic. 

The good news is, we’re finding new ways to serve our community. Digital library cards are super popular, especially among students (thanks, Pryor Public Schools for spreading the word!). They give patrons access to all of our online resources without having to come into the building. Our curbside delivery service wasn’t widely used this summer, but I anticipate it becoming more popular as the days grow colder. 

Our goal is to keep library services going as safely as possible as we wait out the pandemic. A positive case among the staff would likely mean the Library closes for at least two weeks while we all quarantine. Because of that, COVID-19 is still part of our daily work-life and service considerations here. Staff are wearing masks and we’re strongly encouraging everyone who comes to the Library to do the same. We even have masks available for free at any of our desks.

It’s still not safe to hang out inside a public building for very long, so we’re keeping seating to a minimum, limiting the amount of time anyone can use computers, and encouraging everyone to keep visits short. We absolutely love being the community’s living room and a place where everyone is welcome and allowed to be in the building without having to buy something or do something. We cannot wait until we can be that again!