Thursday, April 26, 2018

Happy Birthday John James Audubon!

John James Audubon was born today in 1785 in what is now Haiti.  A lifelong aficionado of birds, Audubon is best known for his seminal watercolor collection Birds of America.  Published between 1827 and 1838 it consists of 435 life sized prints of the birds native to this country.  Each print was made from a hand engraved plate.  Many libraries, including ours, have facsimiles of this work, renamed American Birds, but much of the detail is lost by reducing the size of the images for the sake of affordability (and storage). Fortunately, the Audubon Society, which was named in his honor and is the preeminent conservation and educational organization on birds, has the entire collection in digital format for our viewing.

For more information visit The National Audubon Society and marvel at the glorious work of a passionate man, whose name is now synonymous with birds.  If you would like to learn more about Audubon we also have two biographies on him, as well as numerous birding guides that bear his name.  

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Happy Birthday Beverly Cleary!

Today is Beverly Cleary's 102nd birthday!!! In addition to all of the wonderful children's books she has written she also wrote a two part autobiography that is fantastic. The first part is A Girl from Yamhill and the second is My Own Two Feet. If you enjoyed her books you owe it to yourself to read these.

What was your favorite Cleary book? Ramona the Brave? Runaway Ralph? Henry and Ribsy? Ellen Tebbits? Mine was Ramona Quimby, Age 8. My all time favorite teacher, Mrs. Primoli, read this to us in first grade and I could not wait to be able to read it for myself. 

Monday, April 9, 2018

Reading is Fundamental

Enjoy this article from CNN on the benefits of reading out loud to children, both for them and for you! Reading is Fundamental 
What are your favorite books to read aloud? What did you love hearing as a child?  Right now I love reading The Snowy Day and Big Dog, Little Dog to my kids.  My first grade teacher read us Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary and I couldn't wait until I could read that book and all the other Ramona books for myself.  To this day I count it as one of my favorite books. 

Semester Wrap Up

Hello everyone! With only two weeks left in the semester we thought we would share some reminders for you.  Our regular hours will last thro...