It’s hard to believe that 1970 is already half a century in the past! So I thought, for this Throwback Thursday, I would share with you the winners of the Pulitzer Prizes in poetry and fiction from fifty years ago. While we don’t have the individual book that won in poetry (Untitled Subjects), many of the poems from this book are contained in the author’s selected poems, which I have linked below.
I spend too much time talking about movies and games, so this month I am doing something different. I go through bouts where I get absorbed into comic series. This month I thought I would share some of my favorites. The items in this blog post will take you to the first volume of the series in Mead’s collection.
The Black Monday Murders is a blend of noir mystery and occult horror. The gist of the series’ story is that bankers are being murdered in horrific, cult-like ways. As Detective Dumas follows the clues, he discovers that there is a world of magic schools hidden behind international banking. The premise tickles my fancy, but what has stuck with me is the use of color and shadow. The art is surreal at times, but somehow the color and shadow ground it. I feel like this one, in particular, is the hidden-ish gem of this blog post, but I have to do my due diligence to mention this series is on hiatus. The artist and co-creator, Tomm Coker, had to step away due to some health concerns, so this series currently stops after volume two.
Continue reading “I Have Issues”Jean-Michel Basquiat’s trajectory in the art world was meteoric – but so was his fall. In just a few years, he went from a teenager spray painting graffiti to world famous artist. He died when he was only 27 years old. His legacy was, until recently, overshadowed by Andy Warhol (his mentor) & Pablo Picasso, but the world is re-discovering Basquiat and on the heels of that rediscovery, a flurry of new works have been published. Here are 5 we recommend.
Create warm memories with the kids in your life while baking a delicious treat together! Baking is a fun and relaxing activity that also provides kids with experiences in measuring, reading/following directions, and developing fine motor skills. Kids will also have opportunities to express their creativity. The following baking books from our collection are great options for kids of all ages. In addition to delicious recipes, they include information on kitchen safety and hygiene, guides to cooking equipment, and cooking skill levels are listed on each recipe. Be sure to read through the entire recipe and organize your supplies and ingredients before getting started. Have fun and enjoy your delicious creation!
This is a really well-illustrated book with photos paired with each step of the recipes. It also includes an illustrated baking vocabulary section and photos to inspire different ways to decorate your baked creations. There are also sidebar tips with the recipes. One of the tips makes the connection between baking and chemistry, and others include creative ways to alter the recipes. Included in this book are recipes for cookies, muffins, cakes, pies, toaster-oven tarts, garlic bread sticks, and brownie pizza.
This baking book includes loads of information and pictures for over 100 recipes. The very detailed instructions make these recipes easy to follow. There are a variety of sweet and savory recipes for a variety of skill levels. There are many recipes for cookies, cakes, muffins, and bars. There are also recipes for empanadas, pizza rolls, Brazilian cheese bread, and soft pretzels.
The beginning of this book provides information on basic ingredients, how to measure accurately, nutrition info, baker’s lingo, and a guide to equivalent measurements. There are recipes for a variety of cookies, bars, brownies, cakes, pies, muffins, and pizzas. There is a statement from Good Housekeeping that gives a “Triple Test Promise”, which means each recipe in this book has been tested at least three times and is determined to be delicious, family-friendly, healthful, and easy to make.
There is something for everyone in this book that is loaded with 150 recipes for cakes, muffins, pies, tarts, cookies, and breads. There are even some delicious no-bake recipes. A photo guide for baking equipment, and step-by-step instructions with photos for baking techniques are also included in this baking book that is designed for a variety of skill levels.
Continue reading “Bakers Gonna Bake”This winter, local artist Erica Jane Huntzinger is going to be the Maker-in-Residence at Mead Public Library! That means lots of art events in January and February. In addition, she’ll be creating a mixed-media wall mural for our makerspace – and you can watch that mural being created every Wednesday from 4-7! You can find more information about all the Maker-in-Residence events here.
So for this blog post, I thought I would ask Erica for some book recommendations in the arts! Below, you’ll find a variety of books that have influenced how she thinks about art, creation and creativity.
This book is the true account of five female artists – Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler.
“Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of twentieth-century abstract painting–not as muses but as artists. From their cold-water lofts, where they worked, drank, fought, and loved, these pioneers burst open the door to the art world for themselves and countless others to come.” (from the dust jacket)
Continue reading “Book Recommendations From Our Winter 2020 Maker-in-Residence!”An era has come to an end. Goodbye, 2010s. Hello, 2020. I figured for this month’s blog post that I’d look back and share some of my favorite games of the decade.
As a freshman in college, I had been reading about this new game that people were amazed by. You could build anything you could imagine they said! There was just one catch. Everything was made of cubes. I decided I would look into this Minecraft. It was the first game I ever bought that was in an incomplete state. When I bought it, there was only the one mode that would later be called Creative Mode. I didn’t play it too much in that state. Eventually, I would play the new Hardcore Mode, usually dying from falling into lava, and then for a bit on private servers.
Continue reading “Looking Back at the 2010s”It’s the new year, and so we’re looking at the novel… The New Year! Before reading this, I hadn’t read anything by Pearl S. Buck before. In fact, I knew very little about her. She was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (in 1938)! She had also won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for her novel The Good Earth, which we also have at the library. The New Year is one of her later novels; she died in 1973.
I decided that I specifically would not look up any information about this book before reading it – the copy I got from the Cedarburg Public Library is old enough that it’s been rebound, so there’s not even a blurb on the back. It’s so rare today to go into a book completely blind that I thought I would grab the chance. I’m glad I did – the book gets off to quite a start. If you also want to go in blind, request it now instead of clicking the “read more” button!
Continue reading “Throwback Thursday: The New Year (1968)”When the weather outside is cold and dreary, and the fun holiday events are over, kids may begin feeling a bit bored. Why not create a masterpiece or build something out of supplies you likely already have? Winter is a great time to try a new hobby or to expand on your skills. We have a wide variety of children’s books full of ideas and how-tos that are sure to pique the interest of kids fighting the inevitable boredom that comes from being cooped up inside on these cold days. I recommend the following books to keep kids busy and entertained.
This book has step-by-step instructions for 36 different squishy, slime, and putty creations. Not only are they fun to make, but playing with them helps to relieve excess energy and stress. You will likely already have most of the supplies needed for making these. Colorful photos and illustrations add to the appeal of creating projects such as: burger and fries squishies, narwhal squishies, fluffy unicorn milkshake slime, fried egg slime, farting putty, snowman putty, and so many more! These projects are recommended for ages 7+.
There is bound to be something appealing for any Disney fan in this book that includes more than 100 Disney crafts, activities, and games from classic and modern characters. Create an Aladdin shoebox theater, Inside Out memory spheres, Baymax origami, Ursula bath bombs, princess selfie props, Miguel’s guitar…and the list goes on. There are also several Disney games with detailed instructions on how to play. There are lots of options to keep you busy! The difficulty levels of these projects vary, but there are projects suitable for all ages.
You get to be a maker with the projects in this book. Most of the materials required are commonly found at home. Scientific facts and prompts are also included to get you thinking about what is happening in each project. You can rescue a dinosaur from ice, create a rainforest in a bottle, prepare a skee-ball challenge, design a Rube Goldberg machine, build a truss bridge, and do so many more fun activities that will keep you thinking. This book is recommended for ages 8+.
Continue reading “Make Something!”The colder and snowier it gets, the cozier a book, a blanket, and a mug of cocoa look. Can’t decide what to read while you hunker down? Here are nine ideas to get you started on your Winter Break reading lists.
One of the biggest advantages of reading older books is being able to avoid waitlists; like most people, I don’t really like waiting for things. But sometimes, when I read an older book, I start thinking the opposite: why did I wait so long to read this? So I decided to collect some of the older books that I waited too long to read – and encourage everyone else to read them too.
I could not tell you why I hadn’t read this book before, but I can tell you that it is a classic for a reason – the story itself is still relevant today, but its depth makes it timeless as well. A police shooting involving an unarmed black man and the ensuing reaction in the larger community? Conflicts between political organizations arguing about whether class or race is a more important way to define (and divide) people? If you read a one-page summary of the plot of this book, you might believe it had been written in the past few years.
But even those events in the book are only parts of the greater whole: an examination on the role and construction of a person’s identity and sense of self. And did I mention that the prose is so beautiful that I found myself reading it out loud in my head, paragraph by paragraph? If you haven’t read it (or disliked it because you were forced to read it for school), give it a shot. It is one of the greatest American novels of all time.
Continue reading “Why Did I Wait So Long?”
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