March Reading Recommendations |
If there is a book you would like to recommend, email us at nclibraryfriends@gmail.com.
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Jo Viola
Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II by Robert Matzen and Luca Dotti Audrey Hepburn remains a beloved Hollywood actress, twenty-five years after her passing. Her stardom has been chronicled in several biographies, but none (up until now) has covered her life-forming experiences during the five years of Nazi occupation in her home country, the Netherlands. Hepburn’s war experience included her participation in the Dutch Resistance, working as a doctor’s assistant, and surviving the Dutch famine of 1944-45. She also had to contend with her parent’s pro-Nazi involvement for the first two years of the occupation. Matzen and Dotti (her son) do a masterful job, researching classified Dutch archives, wartime diaries, and personal reminiscences, to expose Hepburn’s untold, wartime story. Eileen Burk Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford Many may know Jamie Ford for his bestselling, debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, set in Seattle, following WW II. In Love and Other Consolation Prizes, Ford goes back in time to the turn of the century. Inspired by a true story of an infant boy raffled off at the 1909 Seattle World Fair, he draws on history to weave fact with fiction. Set in Seattle in the post-Victorian era of vice and suffrage, it is a time when everything and everyone is for sale. This is a tale of innocence, friendship, and devotion, where a brothel becomes a home, and friends become a family. |
It Takes a Village
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The term Book-Mobil has taken on a new face in New Castle with our library Book Bike. Introduced last May at A Day in Old New Castle, Sara Thomas, Youth Services Librarian, pedaled the library’s new acquisition to the Court House, bringing the library out to the public. Book Bikes are popular in large cities, seen on Social Media, and touted at library conferences. Nicole Ballance, Principal Library Assistant, loved the idea and asked: why not us? She applied for and received a grant from the Delaware Library Association. She then sought and received additional funds from New Castle Library Friends. Staff person, Patty O’Brien, donated the bike, and a friend of Nicole’s, Rich Worth, built the apparatus under Nicole’s direction and with her assistance.
County Executive Matt Meyer rode the Book Bike in the Separation Day parade. Starting in June, Sara Thomas took the Book Bike to Battery Park every Wednesday this summer for Story Time in the Park. For those sessions the Bike was stocked with books for youth, birth to 12 years old. In July, Nicole started riding the Book Bike on Fridays to the Senior Center to bring books to our adult patrons. The Book Bike has also been available at some of the Wednesday evening concerts in the park, thanks to other staff volunteers, including Patty O’Brien. On all of these occasions, books were available for checkout with one’s library card or id. Thank you, Nicole for taking the initiative and all the others involved in making this vision a reality. Yes, it takes a village to serve a village. |
