SJCPL Blog

Today is the annual swim of ponies from Assateague to Chincoteague islands off the coast of Virginia! Every summer on the last Wednesday in July, the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company rides over to neighboring Assateague Island, a beautiful national wildlife refuge. Local firefighters on horseback round up the herd and shepherd the ponies through the narrowest part of Assateague Channel at low tide to carnival grounds on Chincoteauge. To keep their permit with the nature preserve, the herd is not to exceed 150 to prevent overgrazing, so most of the foals are separated and auctioned off to spectators. The money supports the fire department. The rest of the herd is later returned to Assateague at the end of the festival.

Click here for a video from a recent pony-penning day.

The most famous story about these ponies is Misty of Chincoteague, written by Marguerite Henry in 1947. It tells the story of two children who adopt a filly at pony-penning day named Misty. This wonderful story earned a Newbery Honor that year and is still a great read.

If you would like more information, come to your favorite SJCPL location for some great resources about this annual festival!

We’re heading down to the wire for SJCPL’s Summer Reading Program. It’s been great so far! We still have lots of wonderful new books to discover and enjoy–by reading or listening  (iPod or audiobook). Our comfy chairs, air conditioning and computers (laptops at the branches) are pretty inviting too!

As an added incentive for children, we will be raffling off a bicycle to celebrate summer reading. Children who have logged 40 books in our children’s summer reading program will be entered automatically in our cool bike raffle. The bicycle has been visiting our different branches–today it is traveling to LaSalle Branch. While at Western Branch, staff dressed it up with words. Our “BookBike” is a reminder that words and wheels are natural summer pals. Gather up the family and visit your favorite location. Help SJCPL end the summer with a blast of reading to show how much our community families love to read.

Fiction
Dead Line by Stella Rimington
The Grave Gourmet by Alexander Campion
Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden
The Nobodies Album: A Novel by Carolyn Parkhurst
Seeds of Summer by Deborah Vogts

Nonfiction
Comfort Knitting & Crochet: Afghan: More Than 50 Beautiful, Affordable Designs Featuring Berroco’s Comfort Yarn by Norah Gaughan
If You’re Not First, You’re Last: Sales Strategies to Dominate Your Market and Beat Your Competition by Grant Cardone
iPad for Dummies by Edward C. Baig
The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called Dreamworks by Nicole Laporte
Sugar Animals by Frances McNaughton

DVDs
Clash of the Titans
Music, Music Everywhere!
Repo Men
Sesame Street: 20 Years—and Still Counting!
Timer

CDs
Attitude Adjuster 2—Pastor Troy
Christian Radio #1 Hits—Various Artists
Flesh Tone—Kelis
The Ghost Who Walks—Karen Elson
Punk Goes Classic Rock—Various Artists

Children’s
Brown Rabbit in the City by Natalie Russell (Ages 2–5)
Dinosaurs?! by Lila Prap (Ages 3–8)
Movie for Dogs by Lois Duncan (Ages 8–12)
Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs (Ages 8–12)
Storm Warning by Linda Sue Park (Ages 9–12)

Audiobooks
It All Began in Monte Carlo by Elizabeth Adler
Jack Benny: The Gang’s All Here by Jack Benny et al.
My Name Is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira
The Necromancer by Michael Scott
Thursdays at Eight by Debbie Macomber

You’re never too old to try something new! Whether you want to be a a renaissance festival performer, a expert golfer, or work for world peace, Ferguson’s Career Guidance Center can help anyone research an exciting new career! It offers multiple articles on a variety of jobs, including information like salaries, training, and daily responsibilities. Just use your SJCPL card to log in! Check out what some of SJCPL’s staff members want to be when they grow up…

Our next book review comes to us from one of the Francis Branch’s favorite regular patrons, Trenton.  Trent is an avid book lover and never misses his chance to participate in our library programs and is currently taking part in this year’s Make a Splash Summer Reading Program.

Your name: Trenton Simpson

Age: 9

I like: Legos, video games, art

The Book: Masterpiece by Elise Broach

This book was about: A beetle and a boy and the artist Albrecht Durer’s drawings

The best part was: Marvin’s drawings of the view outside James’ window

I laughed when: Marvin got inside a Cheerio and rolled under a table

I was worried when: James’ hand got crushed by a taxi trunk door

I was surprised when: Penny was the thief of Durer’s drawing

This book taught me: about the artist Albrecht Durer

Other kids reading this book should watch for: information about famous art heists like the Mona Lisa

Three words that best describe this book are: fantastic, mysterious, entertaining

You should read this book because: it’s a good mystery about art

Thank you so much for sharing this book with us, Trent!

Published July 23, 2010. View the complete list from The New York Times.

Hardcover Fiction:

1. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, by Stieg Larsson. (Knopf, $27.95.) The third volume of a trilogy about a Swedish hacker and a journalist.

2. FLY AWAY HOME, by Jennifer Weiner. (Atria, $26.99.) A senator’s extramarital affair affects his wife and daughters.

3. THE SEARCH, by Nora Roberts. (Putnam, $26.95.) The only survivor of a serial killer has found peace in the Pacific Northwest, but her life is shaken by the appearance of a new man and a copycat murderer.

4. THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, $24.95.) A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s ­Mississippi.

5. PRIVATE, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) The head of an investigation company pursues the murderer of his best friend’s wife.

Hardcover Nonfiction:

1. THE OBAMA DIARIES, by Laura Ingraham. (Threshold Editions, $25.) A satirical fictional journal with commentary, by the conservative political commentator.

2. SH*T MY DAD SAYS, by Justin Halpern. (It Books/HarperCollins, $15.99.) A coming-of-age memoir organized around the musings, purveyed on Twitter, of the author’s father.

3. MEDIUM RAW, by Anthony Bourdain. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $26.99.) Bourdain looks critically at changes in the food and restaurant cultures since the publication of his Kitchen Confidential 10 years ago

4. THE BIG SHORT, by Michael Lewis. (Norton, $27.95.) The people who saw the real estate crash coming and made billions from their foresight.merican soldiers in a lethal corner of Afghanistan.

5. WAR, by Sebastian Junger. (Twelve, $26.99.) The intense lives of American soldiers in a lethal corner of Afghanistan, by the author of The Perfect Storm.

Children’s Chapter Books:

1. LINGER, by Maggie Stiefvater. (Scholastic Press/Scholastic, $17.99.) The wereteens of “Shiver” face a new test of love and loyalty. (Ages 12 and up)

2. THE RED PYRAMID, by Rick Riordan. (Disney-Hyperion, $17.99.) Ancient gods (this time from Egypt) and a mortal family meet in a new adventure. (Ages 10 and up)

3. CATCHING FIRE, by Suzanne Collins. (Scholastic, $17.99.) The protagonist of The Hunger Games returns. (Ages 12 and up)

4. TALES FROM A NOT-SO-POPULAR PARTY GIRL, by Rachel Renée Russell. (Aladdin, $12.99.) The further reflections of Nikki Maxwell on the social agonies of middle school; a Dork Diaries book. (Ages 9 to 13)

5. THEODORE BOONE: KID LAWYER, by John Grisham. (Dutton, $16.99.) He’’s only 13, but he knows what to do when he encounters a murder case. (Ages 8 to 12)

This posting is another in an occasional series about the interesting questions that we in “the History Room” help patrons answer.

Recently, we had a day filled with patrons asking “typical” questions. If any of their situations sound familiar, please stop by and ask us for help so we can assist you too!

• Three local teenagers, 2 in middle school and 1 in high school, wanted to work on genealogy. The older teen, a regular patron, had encouraged the other two to come in and find out more about their own families. Both of the junior high students had grandparents and great-grandparents who lived in South Bend, so they were able to use our Obituary Index to the South Bend Tribune to locate and read their relatives’ obituaries. They also used our database Ancestry Library Edition, which can only be used in an SJCPL location, to find out more about their ancestors’ lives.

• A South Bend native, now living on the West Coast, wanted to find a former high school classmate. Unfortunately, he had last seen her 20 years ago, and he thought she had remarried since then but he wasn’t sure of her current last name. We tried searching some websites (Switchboard.com, ZabaSearch.com, Zoominfo.com, even Facebook.com) for a current listing for her, using her maiden name and first married name, but couldn’t track her down. We looked at the current city directory and telephone book, but struck out. We also tried Ancestry’s “U.S. Phone and Address Directories” and “U.S. Public Records Index” databases, but again had no luck. I recommended that the man visit the St. Joseph County Archives to check for a marriage record for his friend; if he had been able to find one, he could have come back and searched the same resources using her current married name.

• Two local television news crews came in to film yearbook photos from our collection of high school yearbooks. Sadly, they needed a photograph of a teenager who had been killed. Happily, though, local TV and newspaper reporters use our room for more positive reasons too. They often capture film of an article from our extensive newspaper clipping files or our large collection of microfilmed local newspapers, because doing so is the easiest way to provide a visual to accompany a story about the past.

• A South Bend resident came in to look up her ancestors in our online databases. She wanted to know more about ancestors who had been enslaved, but feared she would find little about them. I was happy to reassure her that it is possible to find out about ancestors held as slaves. Once her family research has taken her back to just after the Civil War, she can refer to the “Freedman’s Bank” database on HeritageQuest Online. (By the way, HeritageQuest can be used on a home computer by anyone with a valid SJCPL card.) The Freedman’s Bank, which gave newly freed slaves access to financial resources they needed to purchase homes and business equipment, can often provide the link between freedmen and their former “owners.” The names of these “owners” in turn can be used to find out more about enslaved ancestors’ lives before emancipation.

Got any interesting history or genealogy questions yourself? Come by and give us a chance to help you!

Is it Sunday yet?

If you’re a fan of AMC’s Emmy-winning drama Mad Men, you don’t need a reason to watch the show’s Season 4 premiere this Sunday. (It’s been circled on my calendar for months!)

Set in the ’60s, Mad Men follows advertising executive Donald Draper (Jon Hamm) as he balances his job, his family and his private life, all of which are, in some ways, tightly wound together and, in other ways, distinctly separated. The drama follows Draper, as well as his family and co-workers, using the 1960s backdrop to tie in social and political issues that are relevant to the times. This show is  sophisticated in its storytelling and each hour unfolds like a small movie.

The acting (from a mostly unknown cast), cinematography (you can just stare at this series) and especially the writing carry the series to exceptional heights.

Mad Men is one of the best character studies anyone has put on television in some time.

So, if you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend it!

Mad Men’s fourth season premieres Sunday, July 25, at 10:00 p.m. ET/9:00 p.m. C on AMC.

Thought I’d make sure everyone was aware of the Teen craft this afternoon.

Fish Sand Art Magnets!

2nd Floor of the Main Library.

I first moved to South Bend in 1986 from a small town in the middle of Wisconsin. Being raised on the Green Bay Packers and their rich history and tradition made it easy to latch onto Notre Dame football. One of the all-time Packer greats after all was Notre Dame legend and Heisman trophy winner Paul Hornung. There are actually many more connections between the two places than that; one of the Four Horsemen, Jim Crowley, was from Green Bay and ended up coaching Vince Lombardi at Fordham; the Pack’s founder, player, and first coach, Curly Lambeau, played for Knute Rockne in 1918; before Dan Devine brought a championship to Notre Dame he cut his teeth coaching in Green Bay; Hugh Devore coached both places; and the recently passed Tom Pagna played for the Pack before becoming a prominent assistant for Ara Parseghian. Making the connection even more personal, we bought our house from a former Notre Dame assistant coach. We even had a package delivered to the house from Ara Parseghian.

Also making it easy to get swept up in the Irish at the time was the fact that Notre Dame football was on the upswing. Lou Holtz was just getting warmed up, the following year Tim Brown became the seventh Notre Dame player to win the Heisman, and the year after that they won the National Championship. As an 11 year old boy coming from the middle of nowhere it was a tremendously exciting and new experience to be around. All of these memories and emotions from that time were running through my head the past week as Tim Brown was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame downtown. I remember going to my first game at the stadium, it was much smaller then but seemed much louder than now, I remember forgetting to bring gloves when selling programs one sub-zero gameday and not being able to unclench my hand from holding the programs out, and I remember being able to faintly hear the band all the way in my back yard.

If you’re looking to jog some memories, or maybe expand your knowledge and appreciation of Notre Dame football history, Local & Family History Services is the place to visit. We have various years of the annual media guide, numerous books covering every aspect and period of Notre Dame football, from books about particular coaches, seasons, and games, to books about the gameday experience, which includes the memorably corny puns made at the stadium warning of the dangers of drunk driving. We also have all of the local papers on microfilm if you would like to look up game recaps written at the time. Only 46 days until the first kickoff, I’m ready for some new memories, hopefully this season will bring pleasant ones.