Teen Summer Reading Program
Leave a CommentSign Up for the Reading Challenge
Beanstack is easy to use and available both online and as a mobile app. Get started by visiting our Morgantown Public Library Beanstack website at mympls.beanstack.org to create your account. You can also register through the app (find out below under “Get the App”).
Beanstack Instructions: https://www.mympls.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Beanstack-Instructions.pdf
Attend an Event (Virtual and In-Person)
Registration is required for each event.
Summer Clean Out Book Box Club
All Month of June
Go home with a box of curated books, craft kits, and bookish surprises!
Register: https://forms.gle/p9FhPAbfvjt2q5JB6
Intro to Podcasts Series (Zoom)
June 9, 16, 23 at 4:30 PM
Join Dr. Nathan Wuertenberg to learn the building blocks of creating and publishing your very own podcast!
Register: https://forms.gle/GZwedL3fXRgfAWW66
Anime Club (Zoom)
June 15
We’ll talk about our favorite anime and manga summer episodes and will prepare a seashell painting craft for you to take home.
Register: https://forms.gle/6diuCvzQk6pgXaW19
Writing Club (Zoom)
June 28
Share your ideas for a story, what you’re currently writing, and gather feedback from other writers!
Register: https://forms.gle/JFrFnufhVRnZ4qTt5
Dystopian Book Club
Entire Month of July
Read Warcross by Marie Lu, receive weekly postcards with activities and projects, then join other teens for an online book discussion!
Register: https://forms.gle/G4LCbEqdcvByYkNAA
Creating Cryptids Series
July 10, 17, 24 | Outside the Aull Center
Cryptid lore with a historian, create your own cryptid tale in a workshop, and draw/paint your own cryptids. Masks and social distancing will be required.
- July 10th: Cryptid lore with historian Dr. Nathan Wuetenberg
- July 17: Create your own cryptid tale: A writing workshop with John Fox
- July 24: Draw/paint your own cryptid
Register: https://forms.gle/4DZv5EPu7mhRWzHr8
Anime Club – Pokemon Terrariums
July 20 | Outside the Aull Center
Meet with other anime fans in an outdoor gathering to chat about pokemon terrariums! Masks and social distancing will be required.
Register: https://forms.gle/6diuCvzQk6pgXaW19
Writing Club (Zoom)
July 26
Share your ideas for a story, what you’re currently writing, and gather feedback from other writers!
Register: https://forms.gle/JFrFnufhVRnZ4qTt5
Play the Bingo Reading Challenge
Turn in and complete the Bingo worksheet beginning August 1st to receive a part
icipation prize: a library banded water bottle and a custom sticker by Liz Pavlovic.
Any horizontal, vertical, or diagonal bingo orientation will be accepted.
Questions? Please direct all questions to Amanda at amanda.young@mympls.org
Adult Reading Challenge
Leave a CommentRegister for our 2021 Summer Adult Reading Challenge (June 14th – July 31st). Register at mympls.beanstack.com.
The Rules:
- This challenge is open to individuals ages 18 and up.
- Participants must be a Morgantown Public Library System cardholder.
- Book titles must be logged in on Beanstack. Choose from our suggested regional book lists or choose your own.
The Prizes
All participants that read and log 4 books and complete the road trip activity challenge on Beanstack will receive a library-branded water bottle and will be automatically put into a drawing for the $100 gift card grand prize to the Appalachian Gallery.
Sign Up for the Reading Challenge
Beanstack is easy to use and available both online and as a mobile app. Get started by visiting our Morgantown Public Library Beanstack website at mympls.beanstack.org to create your account. You can also register through the app (find out below under “Get the App”).
Note: An email address is required, if you do not have an email address you will need to create one first then come back to register for Beanstack.
Have your Library Card ready and choose how you would like to register (as an individual, registering a child, registering a family or group) and then complete all required fields (marked with *) on the online form. If you do not have a library card email us at askmympls@gmail.com with your full name, current mailing address, and phone number for a temporary library card.
Once registered, you can access your account online or in the app by signing in with your username and password.
Enjoy the fun of reading and unlock achievements!
Beanstack is a website and app that serves as an interactive home for reading challenges and events. It’s your one-stop-shop to not only register for challenges, but to also track your reading habits and unlock badges!
What You Can Do
- Register as an Individual, Family, Group, or Class
- Perfect for parents and teachers
- Track Your Reading
- Keep a Reading Log
- Set/Record Session Timers
- Keeps track of what you’ve read and how long you’ve read
- Complete Reading Challenges
- Choose from Youth or Adult Reading Challenges created by the Library
- Write Book Reviews
- Now available on desktop and mobile
- Earn Badges, Incentives, and Prizes
- Digital badges and achievements as well as prizes from your Library
- View Highlights
- Features your badges, stats, and streaks based on your reading habits
- Manage a Family Member’s Reading Log & Achievements
- (If registered as a Family) Easily switch views between member profiles without having to change log-ins
Get the App
Find the free app in your Apple App or Google Play store under the name “Beanstack Tracker” and select “Get” or “Install.”
Once downloaded, open the app and follow the simple step-by-step prompts to create an account for yourself, your child, or your family/group. If you’ve already created your account through the website, you can skip this step and just sign in to your existing account with your registered username and password.
Registering on the Website vs. Through the App: Since the app does not use our direct website link, the first prompt in creating your account is selecting “Find Your School or Library” and entering “Morgantown” in the search option. Otherwise the process is the same as registering on the website. All fields are required except for phone number.
Troubleshooting
If at any time you need help with Beanstack, please visit their Helpdesk and type in your question.
For questions related to the 15-Day Reading Challenge, please reach out to Crystal at askmympls.org@gmail.com.
Recommended Titles to Commemorate Juneteenth
Leave a CommentCrystal, reference supervisor at the Morgantown Public Library downtown branch, compiled these recommended titles to commemorate Juneteenth.
On Juneteenth/ Annette Gordon-Reed
326.8 GOR
Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing
episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a
historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its
origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have
endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and
beyond.
The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States / Ira Berlin
326.8 Ber
In The Long Emancipation, Ira Berlin draws upon decades of study to offer a
framework for understanding slavery’s demise in the United States. Freedom
was not achieved in a moment, and emancipation was not an occasion but a
near-century-long process–a shifting but persistent struggle that involved
thousands of men and women.
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 / edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
973.0496 Fou
Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume “community” history of African
Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have
assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year
period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods
through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal
vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various
perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold
stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. While themes
of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the
book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds,
reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the
idea that Africans in America are a monolith–instead it unlocks the
startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within
the community of Blackness.
A Black Women’s History of the United States: Revisioning American history / Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
305.488 BER
A Black Women’s History of the United States is a critical survey of black
women’s complicated legacy in America, as it takes into account their
exploitation and victimization as well as their undeniable and substantial
contributions to the country since its inception
She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman / Erica Armstrong Dunbar.
YA B Tubman
She Came to Slay reveals the many complexities and varied accomplishments of
one of our nation’s true heroes and offers an accessible and modern
interpretation of Tubman’s life that is both informative and engaging.
The Fire This Time/ James Baldwin
305.896 Bal
At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing
examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal
and provocative document from the iconic author. It consists of two “letters,” written
on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort
Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by
The New York Times Book Review as “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition,
testament, and chronicle…all presented in searing, brilliant prose,” The Fire Next Time
stands as a classic of literature.
Juneteenth / Ralph Ellison; ed. by John F. Callahan
F Ell
The story of a black man who passes for white and becomes a race-baiting U.S.
senator. When he is shot on the Senate floor, the first visitor in hospital is a
black musician-turned-preacher who raised him. As the two men talk, their
respective stories come out.
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man / Emmanuel Acho
305.8 Ach
In Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, Acho takes on all the
questions, large and small, insensitive and taboo, many white Americans are
afraid to ask–yet which all Americans need the answers to, now more than
ever. With the same open-hearted generosity that has made his video series a
phenomenon, Acho explains the vital core of such fraught concepts as white
privilege, cultural appropriation, and “reverse racism.” In his own words, he
provides a space of compassion and understanding in a discussion that can lack
both. Heasks only for the reader’s curiosity–but along the way, he will
galvanize all of us to join the antiracist fight.
Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul?: Essays / Jesse McCarthy
814 McC
Jesse McCarthy’s bracing essays investigate with virtuosic intensity the art,
music, literature, and political stances that have defined the twenty-first
century. Even as our world has suffered through successful upheavals,
McCarthy contends,”something was happening in the world of culture: a
surging and unprecedented visibility at every level of black art making.” Who
Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? Reckons with this resurgence, arguing for the
central role of art and intellectual culture in an age of widening inequality and
moral crisis. McCarthy reinvigorates the essay form as a space not only for
argument but for experimental writing that mixes and chops the old ways into
new ones.
Stamped from the Beginning / Ibram X. Kendi
305.8 Ken
In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the
entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the
course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American
intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas
Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary
activist Angela Davis.As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance
or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched
discriminatory policies and the nation’s racial inequities.In shedding light on
this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose
racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope.
Recommended Titles
Leave a CommentRecommended Titles Compiled by Crystal, Reference Supervisor
How Much of These Hills is Gold / C Pam Zhang (F ZHA)
Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future.
Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop / Roselle Lim (F LIM)
Ever since she can remember, Vanessa has been able to see people’s fortunes at the bottoms of their teacups. To avoid blurting out fortunes, she converts to coffee, but somehow the fortunes escape and find a way to complicate her life and the lives of those around her. To add to this plight, her romantic life is so nonexistent that her parents enlist the services of a matchmaking expert from Shanghai. After her matchmaking appointment, Vanessa sees death for the first time. She decides that she can’t truly live until she can find a way to get rid of her uncanny abilities. When her eccentric aunt Evelyn shows up with a tempting offer to whisk her away, Vanessa says au revoir to California and bonjour to Paris. There, Vanessa learns more about herself and the root of her gifts, and realizes one thing to be true: Knowing one’s destiny isn’t a curse, but being unable to change it is.
A Little Life : A Novel / Hanya Yanagihara (F YAN)
When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they’re broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.
The Committed / Viet Than Nguyen (F NGU New Books)
The astonishing sequel to The Sympathizer, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, The Committed follows the “man of two minds” as he comes to Paris as a refugee. There he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese “aunt,” he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise-but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen. Both a literary thriller and brilliant novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen’s position in the firmament of American letters.
The Kiss Quotient / Helen Hoang (F HOA)
A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there’s not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick. Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases–a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn’t help that Stella has Asperger’s and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice–with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can’t afford to turn down Stella’s offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan–from foreplay to more-than-missionary position… Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he’s making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic.
The Henna Artist / Alka Joshi (F JOS)
Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist–and confidante–to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own … Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow–a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened.
Pachinko / Min Jin Lee (F LEE)
PACHINKO follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.
My Year Abroad / Chang-rae Lee (F LEE New Books)
Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.
Whereabouts / by Jhumpa Lahiri (F LAH New Books)
Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. The woman at the center wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. The city she calls home, an engaging backdrop to her days, acts as a confidant: the sidewalks around her house, parks, bridges, piazzas, streets, stores, coffee bars. We follow her to the pool she frequents and to the train station that sometimes leads her to her mother, mired in a desperate solitude after her father’s untimely death. In addition to colleagues at work, where she never quite feels at ease, she has girl friends, guy friends, and “him,” a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. But in the arc of a year, as one season gives way to the next, transformation awaits. One day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun’s vital heat, her perspective will change.
They Called Us Enemy / George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott (B Takei)
A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon — and America itself — in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love. George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father’s — and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future. In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten “relocation centers,” hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard. They Called Us Enemy is Takei’s firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother’s hard choices, his father’s faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future. What is American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins co-writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.
Everyday is a Gift: A Memoir / Senator Tammy Duckwort (B Duckworth)
The Iraq war veteran traces her impoverished childhood, her decision to join the Army, the months spent recovering from the RPG attack that shot down her helicopter and nearly took her life, and her subsequent mission of serving as an elected official.
Crystal is the reference supervisor at the Morgantown Public Library downtown branch.
Recommended Titles
Leave a CommentRecommended Titles Compiled by Crystal
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed / Lori Gottlieb (B Gottlieb)
With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times / Pema Chödrön (294.344 CHO)
Describes a traditional Buddhist approach to suffering and how embracing the painful situation and using communication, negative habits, and painful emotions leads to emotional growth and happiness.
Be Calm: Proven Techniques to Stop Anxiety Now / Jill P. Weber, PhD (152.46 WEB)
This book is both a handy resource for stress management and a close look into the causes of anxiety. Evidence-based strategies show you how to control a variety of symptoms in lots of different circumstances.
The Hilarious World of Depression / John Moe (616.8527 MOE)
Inspired by the immediate success of his podcast, Moe has written a remarkable investigation of the disease, part memoir of his own journey, part treasure trove of laugh-out-loud stories and insights drawn from years of interviews with some of the most brilliant minds facing similar challenges. Throughout the course of this powerful narrative, depression’s universal themes come to light, among them, struggles with identity, lack of understanding of the symptoms, the challenges of work-life, self-medicating, the fallout of the disease in the lives of our loved ones, the tragedy of suicide, and the hereditary aspects of the disease.
Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression-and the Unexpected Solutions / Johann Hari (616.8527 HARI)
Across the world, Hari found social scientists who were uncovering evidence that depression and anxiety are not caused by a chemical imbalance in our brains. In fact, they [believe they] are largely caused by key problems with the way we live today. Hari’s journey took him from a … series of experiments in Baltimore, to an Amish community in Indiana, to an uprising in Berlin. Once he had uncovered [what he argues are] nine real causes of depression and anxiety, they led him to scientists who are discovering seven very different solutions.
An Unquiet Mind / Kay Redfield Jamison (B Jamison)
From a leading international authority on manic-depressive illness–and one of only a handful of women who are full professors of medicine–comes a remarkable personal testimony: the revelation of her own struggle since childhood with manic-depression, and how it has shaped her life.
Broken (in the Best Possible Way) / Jenny Lawson, full grown mammal (B Lawson)
Jenny brings readers along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way.With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever, Jenny humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we’re not alone and making us laugh while doing it. From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to Shark Tank to the reason why Jenny can never go back to the post office, Broken leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way.
Crystal is the reference supervisor at the Morgantown Public Library downtown branch.
Women’s History Month Recommended Reads
Leave a CommentReference Supervisor at the Downtown Branch, Crystal, put together a Women’s History Month recommended reads list. All the books mentioned can be found on display on the 2nd floor!
Recommended Reads: https://www.mympls.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/CrystalRecommendedReads.pdf
Downtown Branch is CLOSED today
Leave a CommentUpdate #5 (Jan 4)
The downtown branch is now open for business with running water!
The pump has been successfully installed this past week. Although there will still be general construction and clean up, nothing should get in the way of general library operations. The lower level bathrooms will be closed until floor repairs are complete.
Thank you to everyone for their patience and understanding. We are thrilled to welcome you all back!
Update #4 (Dec 26)
The Morgantown downtown branch will remain closed through this coming week. After days of extensive investigations and resourceful engineering, we have discovered an aging infrastructure with loose pipes and drainage issues.
The good news is a solution is currently underway: The underground pipes have been sealed and in the next week, we will install a pump lift station in the library basement to aid in proper water drainage. We will update you with a definitive opening date as soon as we learn more.
This is also a reminder that all other Morgantown Public Library branches are still open during regular business hours and our digital library is accessible 24/7 to any cardholder (https://www.mympls.org/download-it/). Access ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, movies, comics, music, tutorials, research tools, and much more with a click of a button.
We apologize for any inconvenience. Feel free to message us here or email us at askmympls@gmail.com should you require further assistance.
Update #3 (Dec 23)
The Morgantown downtown branch remains closed for the remainder of the week. Currently, the water has been turned off in the building and the Morgantown Utility Board has been hard at work finding a solution. Engineers and workers have dug large hole in front of the library to gain access to the city’s underground pipes but the source of the problem is still yet to be determined. Be sure to check here for updates as well as a potential reopening date.
This is also a reminder that all other Morgantown Public Library locations will be closed for the holiday on the 24th and the 25th. However, our digital library is accessible 24/7 to any cardholder (https://www.mympls.org/download-it/). Access ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, movies, comics, music, tutorials, research tools, and much more with a click of a button.
We apologize for any inconvenience. Feel free to message us here or email us at askmympls@gmail.com should you require further assistance.
Update #2 (Dec 22)
The Morgantown downtown branch will be closed for the remainder of the week. Currently, the water has been turned off in the building and the Morgantown Utility Board has been hard at work finding a solution. There is not an abundance of information at this time. However, we are working to resume our curbside pickup service so you don’t have to miss a beat. Be sure to check here for updates as well as a potential reopening date.
This is also a reminder that all other Morgantown Public Library branches are still open during regular business hours and our digital library is accessible 24/7 to any cardholder (https://www.mympls.org/download-it/). Access ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, movies, comics, music, tutorials, research tools, and much more with a click of a button.
We apologize for any inconvenience. Feel free to message us here or email us at askmympls@gmail.com should you require further assistance.
Original Announcement (Dec 21)
Out of an abundance of caution, the Morgantown Public Library, downtown branch, will be CLOSED today due to water damage. Our books and materials have not been affected. We are still assessing the situation and will notify you as soon as we learn more about the source of the problem as well as a potential reopening date. Should this issue continue in the following days, we will look into offering curbside pickup so you can keep reading.
This is also a reminder that our digital library is accessible 24/7 to any of our cardholders (https://www.mympls.org/download-it/). Access ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, movies, comics, music, tutorials, research tools, and much more with a click of a button.
We apologize for any inconvenience. Feel free to message us here or email us at askmympls@gmail.com should you require further assistance.
A New Book Trail!
Leave a CommentAnother book trail is up for you! Join us at Mulkeen Landscaping located off of Gladesville Road. Read through an entire story as you shop for the perfect tree. This month’s book is “The Biggest Christmas Tree Ever” by Steven Kroll. Conditions permitting, the book trail should be up until December 25th!
Send us photos of your family at the book trail!
Mulkeen Tree Farm: 743 Sleepy Hollow Road, Independence, WV 26374
Directions:
–Follow Rt. 119 south out of Morgantown to Gladesville Rd.
–Turn LEFT on the Gladesville Rd. and go 2 miles.
–Turn RIGHT at the sign for Mulkeen Landscaping and Tree Service on Arden Peters Road.
–Go one mile on this gravel road and turn RIGHT at the MULKEEN sign.
Thank you to Mulkeen Landscaping for having us and Direct Results – Morgantown for supporting this project!
*Pictured here is a family from our October WVU Museum Book Trail*
December Dial-a-Story
Leave a CommentDecember Dial-a-Stories are up! Call 304-826-BOOK (2665)!
If you haven’t heard, we now have an always available phone number where you can listen to stories, jokes, and poems. No internet required — just a phone! What you’ll hear is recorded by our librarians.
Our menu of choices is varied so we’ve written them out below. At the end of each selection, you will automatically be redirected to the main menu, but if you don’t want to wait until the end, you can hit # to go to the main menu. Your December Story Selection (available till December 31st):
Dial 1: Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker (Children’s story read by Sarah Palfrey)
Dial 2: The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kladstrup (Children’s story read by Colleen)
Dial 3: Moose’s Loose Tooth by Jacqueline A. Clarke (Children’s story read by Michelle)
Dial 4: Happy Llamakkah! by Laura Gehl (Children’s story read by Lynda)
Dial 5: Mr. Willoby’s Christmas Tree by Robert Barry (Story for all ages read by Sarah Palfrey)
Dial 6: Walter the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray (Children’s story read by Charlotte)
Dial 7: Winter Solstice/Yule Poem: The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper (Poem for all ages read by Lynda)
Dial 8: Joke Line (All Ages | Read by Sarah Palfrey)
Dial 9: Language Line: La Ratita Presumida by Fernan Caballero (Children’s story read in Spanish by guest, Maria Paulina Medina)
Dial 10: Chapter of the Month: My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannet (Children/Young Adult story read by Collen)
Fact Checking Fiction: Military-Themed Recommendations by Nathan
Leave a CommentAgain and again throughout history, veterans have turned to art as a means of coming to terms with their military experiences. Some have painted, others have written songs, and still more have made movies. Perhaps more than any other medium, however, literature has allowed veterans to grapple with their time in service and communicate to a civilian public. Many veterans in particular have written books describing their experience of war. The books in this list are not that sort of books. In fact, many readers aren’t aware of a military connection to them at all. Nonetheless, these six classic novels would not be what they are without their authors’ experiences while in the military.
- Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Morgantown Public Library, Consortium, WV Deli)
Twain’s classic 1889 novel has inspired dozens of parodies and homages over the century plus that it has been in publication from a Whoopi Goldberg film to a two-part episode of MacGyver. What many may not know, however, is that the work is in large part a satire of what Twain believed to be an important motivating factor behind the outbreak of the American Civil War. Twain served for a grand total of two weeks at the beginning of that war. His Missouri state guard unit was resoundingly defeated by Union General Nathaniel Lyon at the end of that period and offered Twain and his compatriots clemency if they agreed to fight no longer. Twain accepted the offer and later came to despise what he perceived as an inflated sense of chivalry that pushed him to serve in the first place. He lampoons that chivalry brilliantly in Connecticut Yankee.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (Morgantown Public Library, Consortium, WV Deli)
J.R.R. Tolkien was twenty-two when war broke out between Britain and Germany in 1914. Despite considerable social pressure Tolkien chose not to enlist along with many young Britons of the time, seeking instead to complete his university education before any potential military service. After his graduation in 1915 Tolkien was commissioned a lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers, where he found himself charged with leading former miners, millers, and weavers into the 1916 Battle of the Somme. The titular hobbit of his classic novel, Bilbo Baggins, experiences a character arc that largely matches Tolkien’s own as he struggled to become the leader his men needed to survive. Like Bilbo, Tolkien was an unassuming homebody whom fate pushed into a position of leadership against his will. Like Tolkien, Bilbo eventually meets the challenge head on and becomes someone his compatriots can rely on when battle is joined.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (Morgantown Public Library, Consortium, WV Deli)
Scott Fitzgerald didn’t see much of World War I, but what he saw was enough. Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton to join the US Army in 1917, serving the entirety of his time at Fort Leavenworth under the command of future President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He later penned a piece titled “I Didn’t Get Over” expressing his regret for not serving in combat, but while he may never have seen combat he did observe the experiences of combat veterans after their return to the United States. Those observations later made their way into Gatsby, where the titular character and the narrator originally bond over having served in the same unit in France. Just last year, literary scholar T.S. Licari argued that Gatsby and Nick’s shared service is part of a larger subplot exploring the suppression of wartime experiences in a 1920s American society that preferred to bury unpleasant memories under the gilded glamour of alcohol and wealth.
- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (Morgantown Public Library, Consortium, WV Deli)
J.D. Salinger began his career as an author in the midst of the Second World War. In 1942, Salinger had a short story titled “Slight Rebellion Off Madison” accepted by The New Yorker. Though it never made it to publication, the story followed a character named Holden Caulfield as he struggled with pre-war jitters prior to his military service. That character would later evolve into the one we know today from Catcher in the Rye as a result of Salinger’s service in the European theater from D-Day to Germany’s surrender. In fact, according to biographers David Shields and Shane Salerno, Salinger was carrying early drafts of the first six chapters of Catcher in his jacket when he landed on Utah Beach. By the time his service ended Salinger’s tale had become much darker, devoid of the heroic, noble ideals that characterized his first literary ventures in 1942. As Shields and Salerno put it, Catcher in the Rye is best read as a “disguised war novel” masquerading as a coming-of-age story.
- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (Morgantown Public Library, Consortium, WV Deli)
Kurt Vonnegust’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran who is abducted by aliens and spends much of his life traveling through space and time. The story is equal parts science fiction, surrealism, and comedy, and its roots in Vonnegut’s real-life experiences as a prisoner of war in Dresden during the Allied bombing of the city in February 1945 are easy to overlook. The reality, however, is that the flashier plot points of Pilgrim living in an alien zoo for humans revolve around a core of his memories from his military service. The disjointed narrative of Pilgrim’s escapades mirrors the very real impact of trauma on the human brain. The same trauma that left those who lived through the bombings struggling to put their lives into some semblance of sense and order literally left Pilgrim unstuck from time, bouncing from era to era and place to place the same way that a traumatized mind runs from one thought to the next.
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies (Morgantown Public Library, Consortium, WV Deli)
During World War II, author William Golding served in the British Royal Navy in command of a destroyer and later of a landing craft during the landing at Normandy. His experiences in the war had a profound impact on his perception of what human beings were capable, particularly in reference to what he believed was their natural impulse toward violence and savagery. Lord of the Flies is an expression of Golding’s conclusions regarding human nature, with the efforts of his characters to maintain a semblance of social order on their desert isle quickly falling apart and turning to violence. Some have even suggested that the primary leaders on the island, Ralph and Jack, represent the opposing sides of the Second World War, with the order-minded Ralph standing in for the Allies and the charismatic Jack for the Axis Powers.
Nathan is a staff researcher at the Aull Center for Local History, a division of the Morgantown Public Library System. He received his doctorate in history from The George Washington University and is a co-host with Mike of Aull About History, a local history podcast produced in partnership with The Dominion Post.