In my last post, I talked about the movies that I like the most. But what are the most popular movies right now? I took a look at what movies have the longest waitlists right now to see. Surprisingly, it’s not all the absolute newest stuff!
And remember, since Mead copies go to Mead patrons first, even a long waitlist might not take quite as long as you think. Plus, you can always check the Lucky Day shelf in the library and see if a first-come, first-served copy is available!
At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield and Blake are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers, Blake’s own brother among them.
You are likely familiar with the phrase “the movie was good, but the book was better”. But is that always true? Many movies are based on books, and oftentimes readers prefer the book over the movie. Sometimes as readers we may even feel like a movie ruined the story we had read and loved. Nothing beats reading a well-written story, and reading can feel like an intimate experience for the reader. We allow the words on the pages to guide us into envisioning the settings and characters to the extent that our imaginations take us. Movies on the other hand, can really bring these stories to life in a way that we, as readers, may not have even been able to imagine. I love watching movies based on books I’ve read and comparing their portrayal to how I’d imagined the story. There are many movies based on children’s literature. Your family may enjoy reading a book together and then watching the movie version of the story with a movie night! Have fun sharing your opinions with each other on which one you liked better, or maybe you’ll decide they were both well done. Take a look below for some great books that also have movies based on their stories.
Twelve-year-old Heidi has a lot of questions about where she came from, but it hasn’t been easy finding the answers. She lives in an adjoined apartment with her mother who has an intellectual disability, and Bernadette – her unofficial guardian who has agoraphobia. She doesn’t know who her father is, or how she and her mother came to live in their apartment. Her mother doesn’t have the ability to give her the answers to her questions. Bernadette doesn’t know where Heidi and her mother came from, but cares for Heidi as if she were her own daughter. A box of old photos of her mother is eventually discovered that provides clues to a location she’d lived. A determined Heidi sets out on an emotional adventure to that location to find out who she is. This is a touching story, and the movie can be requested here.
…by the completely true and objective measure of me, a person who sometimes enjoys watching movies! More seriously, these really are my favorite movies ever – and I’ve noticed the theme seems to be that I like international/foreign films, that I enjoy comedy or dark comedy, and I don’t mind if a premise is a bit surreal (magical realism in film form, maybe?).
I hope you will give these movies a chance! I think they’re genuinely not just movies I enjoyed but movies that are very good and that more people should see.
I started off the introduction mentioning comedy, yet the first movie on my list is one set during the Holocaust? Yes, and not only that, it is also the greatest movie ever made about the Holocaust. It takes place in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, where childless couple Josef and Marie take in and hide a young Jewish man.
It is a comedy in two very particular senses: the darkest sense, that there is a terrifying absurdity to the Nazi occupation and bureaucracy that is made even worse by how deadly it is, and in the human sense, because the characters in this are beautifully realized and humor is a very human thing. It also has a truly remarkable ending that I could not have predicted in a million years.
My last blog post inspired me to write up a post about science books. I’ve tracked down a list of new or upcoming books on topics ranging from pandemics to mycology. I’ve included the publisher’s description of the book under each listing.
“Over the last 30 years of epidemics and pandemics, we learned nearly every lesson needed to stop this coronavirus outbreak in its tracks. We heeded almost none of them. The result is a pandemic on a scale never before seen in our lifetimes. In this captivating, authoritative, and eye-opening book, science journalist Debora MacKenzie lays out the full story of how and why it happened: the previous viruses that should have prepared us, the shocking public health failures that paved the way, the failure to contain the outbreak, and most importantly, what we must do to prevent future pandemics.
Debora MacKenzie has been reporting on emerging diseases for more than three decades, and she draws on that experience to explain how COVID-19 went from a potentially manageable outbreak to a global pandemic. Offering a compelling history of the most significant recent outbreaks, including SARS, MERS, H1N1, Zika, and Ebola, she gives a crash course in Epidemiology 101–how viruses spread and how pandemics end–and outlines the lessons we failed to learn from each past crisis. In vivid detail, she takes us through the arrival and spread of COVID-19, making clear the steps that governments knew they could have taken to prevent or at least prepare for this. Looking forward, MacKenzie makes a bold, optimistic argument: this pandemic might finally galvanize the world to take viruses seriously. Fighting this pandemic and preventing the next one will take political action of all kinds, globally, from governments, the scientific community, and individuals–but it is possible.”
It’s easy to keep your pulse on what’s popular here in the US. But have you ever wondered what the folks across the pond are reading? Here’s a peek at 4 of this week’s best selling books in Britain.
Beloved in Britain for his heartwarming illustrations, this collection of Mackesy’s ink drawings is full of hope and inspiration for an uncertain world.
The library is open again (with limited services, as you can see here); some people are comfortable coming in, while others still want to limit their time in public places. So I’ve put together a little list of some popular new books that are available either in print or as eBooks through Hoopla.
The advantage of Hoopla, of course, is that there’s no waitlist even on popular new titles like these (as long as you haven’t hit your borrowing limit for the month); on the other hand, some people think the feel of a physical book in your hand is worth waiting for.
Descriptions below are taken from either Hoopla or our catalog.
From bestselling and eight-time Christy Award-winning author Lynn Austin comes a remarkable novel of sisterhood and self-discovery set against the backdrop of WWII.
My social life has taken a pretty sharp decline since I’ve gone into quarantine. Being home more has given me a bit of a push to reevaluate my reading pile. I’ve sifted through the books that have piled up around my home to find some that I thought others might be interested in as well.
Carl Zimmer was one of the authors that I read for a few classes at university. He’s a writer that can take relatively dry science topics, like evolution, and make them engaging for every degree of reader. Near the end of my undergraduate education, I found an interest in virus-host coevolution and tried to find books on viruses. I stupidly didn’t take a microbiology class due to initially thinking microbes were boring. I need to note that this particular book has been in my pile for a few years, but it has taken on new relevance.
Sick of spaceships? Toured pseudo-medieval Europe too often? Try these 6 science fiction & fantasy stories from black authors. You’ll find yourself anywhere from a magical version of modern Nigeria to a post-apocalyptic Brazil. With expansive worlds and fresh perspectives, these books can freshen up any sci-fi or fantasy reader’s bookshelf.
If N.K. Jemisin’s deluge of accolades and unprecedented three consecutive Hugos aren’t enough to persuade you to pick up The Fifth Season, perhaps a violent world of regular nigh-apocalyptic cataclysms and a earth-shattering mage on a far-ranging quest of vengeance to save her kidnapped daughter will entice you.
Juneteenth, commemorated on June 19th, is the annual celebration of the emancipation of enslaved people. Established in Texas in 1865, Juneteenth celebrations often take the shape of backyard cookouts and community-wide activities. This year’s celebration, against the backdrop of massive world-wide demonstrations protesting disproportionate police brutality against black people, seems especially important to commemorate.
Since social distancing is still best practice this summer, that rules out fun cookouts with lots of communal food. So, in lieu of that, I decided to commemorate Juneteenth by educating myself about the history of racism in the United States, and by celebrating Black Excellence.
Smithsonian Magazine published an excellent article entitled 158 Resources to Understand Racism in America, available free online. The resources are linked throughout the article and provide deep contextualization on how slavery and subsequent systemic inequality are still impacting black people today. This will be an invaluable touchstone for anyone who wants to do the work of calling out their racist friends and relatives while working towards dismantling white supremacy.
Learn More About Juneteenth
I’m white, and I will admit I only learned about Juneteenth a few years ago. Thank goodness for the internet, which fills in gaps I didn’t know I had, without relying on the intellectual labor of oppressed populations. TheJuneteenth National Registry is a great place to start learning about the history of the holiday.
What is Juneteenth from Henry Louis Gates, Jr’s100 Amazing Facts About the Negro on PBS.org is another top-notch resource I have been referring to often. Reading this got me thinking “Why do we still have monuments to Confederate traitors like Robert E. Lee when we could erect statues to total badasses like Robert Smalls and Bessie Coleman instead?”
Celebrate Black Excellence
There are tons of fabulous resources online that list ways to celebrate Black Excellence, such as THIS LIST I found on the Texas Tech University webpage. Also, launching on June 19th is the Juneteenth Book Festival which “seeks to use this day of jubilation to boost and celebrate Black American stories and the people behind them”. Subscribe to the YouTube channel to watch at your convenience.
Speaking more locally, Mead has access to myriad resources both online and off to help celebrate and elevate Black Excellence. Kanopy offered a list of Black Lives Matter videos that I wrote about in my last blog post. In addition to that, Kanopy has assembled a list of films highlighting pioneering black filmmakers. This list includes Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, which is regarded as the daddy of blaxploitation films. It’s worth a watch as a cultural time capsule as well as a fascinating example of independent film making. If camp and violence are not your style, and you haven’t already seen it, please take advantage of Kanopy’s inclusion of Moonlight, which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2017. This is easily one of the most beautiful and moving films I have ever seen in my life and I can’t say enough about it.
Not in the mood to watch a movie? Hop on to Overdrive, click “Subjects” and select “African American Fiction”. This will lead to a list that can be narrowed down by genre. I love mysteries so I added Walter Mosley’s Trouble is What I Do to my list of holds. Mosley is best known for his Easy Rawlins series, which starts withDevil in a Blue Dress, but the newer Leonid McGill series is fantastic, too. You’ll love these books if you enjoy hard-boiled detective fiction. No matter which is your preferred genre, the list of African-American-penned literature on Overdrive is worth exploring.
Do you still own a CD player? Mead has a huge selection of music on CD for home use. Pick up Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning albumDAMN and see what all the fuss is about. Fear of a Black Planetby Public Enemy came out 30 years ago but remains as vital and relevant as ever. If you’re not familiar with this devastating and, frankly, polarizing album, there is no time like the present to take a listen. More recently, Run the Jewels is the direct descendant of Public Enemy’s socially conscious and politically charged catalog. I loveRun the Jewels 2, and 3, but honestly there isn’t a dud in their repertoire. If swear words offend you, oops oh well. Hip hop music is arguably one of the most authentic expressions of the black experience and deserves respect and understanding as an art form. Did I mention Kendrick Lamar won a freakin’ PULITZER PRIZE???
Want to go to church without leaving the house? Get a copy of Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace IMMEDIATELY. It was filmed over two days at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles in January 1972, but was only released on DVD for the first time last year. Aretha is backed by Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir to devastating effect. If you can watch the title track and not tear up a little bit I assert you are an inhuman robot not in possession of a soul.
Obviously, I am not an authority on the above art forms and only really scratched the barest surface. My appreciation for authors, musicians, and film makers of color only grows because I intentionally seek out diverse media-makers. Black Excellence is not hard to find once one starts looking for it, and I can only hope my post encourages fearless exploration outside white comfort zones.
I would love to hear from you. Which books, music, and movies by black makers are you excited about? Do you need help using Overdrive, Kanopy, or any other Mead virtual resource? Drop us a line: publicservices@meadpl.org. I’m wishing everyone a happy Juneteenth and a fruitful journey toward anti-racist allyship and true racial equity.
School is out and summer vacation is upon us! This is a great time for kids to read for pleasure and also to keep up with the reading skills they worked hard to develop during the school year. If you have a new reader transitioning into reading chapter books, I have some early chapter book series suggestions for you. Early chapter books are written for readers that are still building up their reading stamina, and include stories with illustrations and short chapters. Click on the links below if you are interested in reading more about the individual books in these series and would like to reserve a copy from our catalog.
This series is written like a diary with chapters for each daily entry. The short text and colorful illustrations will appeal to beginning readers. A young owl named Eva records her daily experiences in her diary. Readers will enjoy following Eva’s life as she learns valuable lessons in these easy-to-ready books with high-interest stories.
The Bad Guys want to do good things in this funny series that flips the script on these normally bad characters. With short text and fun illustrations, even reluctant readers will enjoy the hilarious situations these bad guys get into as they set out on their missions to be heroes.
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