Oakland Library Column: Nebraska Golden Sower Nominees

July 10, 2015 Leave a comment


By Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Anyone who knows a child enrolled in school should really be familiar with the Nebraska Golden Sower Award. Sponsored by the Nebraska Library Commission, this award is presented annually in three children’s categories: Primary (first awarded in 1983), Intermediate (1981) and Young Adult (1993). When winners are announced this May 2016 it will be the 35th year of the NGSA! Even more exciting is the fact that the children get to vote! Voting is open to all eligible Golden Sower readers in the state through public and school libraries.

   Current nominees are already flying off the library shelves this summer! So some students have been getting a head start and will be ready to vote at the April 15th deadline. I would like to introduce a few of the nominees each month in this column, beginning with:

“Simpson’s sheep won’t go to sleep” by Bruce Arant. I can hardly wait for storytime to start up again so that we can read this one aloud! Those sheep know all the possible excuses to stay awake and farmer Simpson will figure out just how to “tuck-in” those sheep for a good night’s sleep.

“Rump, the true story of Rumpel stiltskin” by Liesl Shurtliff. This captivating fantasy has action, emotional depth, and lots of humor. An entertaining take on a classic tale, this one has been popular with our 5th and 6th graders this summer.

The “Testing” by Joelle Charbonneau. Fans of young-adult dystopian novels will fall right into this story. The first in a trilogy, it is told in first person, from the view of Cia, a young teen who is specially selected to join in the Testing. The Testing is about educating and selecting future world leaders. Of course, things may not be as they seem. This story offers action, romance and intrigue in a page-turning format.

Encourage a young person you know to read. There is no better way than to be a reader yourself! Read to them, with them and discuss what you read! Reading should be fun at any age!! Visit your library and check out a Golden Sower Nominee today!

 

 

 

Filed under Community Tagged with , ,

Oakland Public Library Meeting Notice

July 9, 2015 Leave a comment


Notice is hereby given that a regular meeting of the Oakland Public
Library Board will be held at the Oakland Public Library, 110 East 3rd
Street, Monday July 13 @ 5:00 p.m. An agenda of the subjects to be
considered, kept continually current, is available for public inspection
at the Oakland Public Library.
Said meeting is open to the public.

Filed under News Tagged with ,

Oakland Library Hosting Kids Movie Night

July 6, 2015 Leave a comment


The Library will be hosting Kids Movie Night every Wednesday night in July from 6 to 8 pm! This Wednesday night we will be showing the adorable little brown bear who has been the star of over 20 books by Michael Bond…can you guess the name of the movie? Bring your pillows and blankets and snuggle in for an enjoyable evening @ the library!

Filed under Community Tagged with , ,

Rosa’s Book Review: The Wright Brothers

July 1, 2015 Leave a comment


By Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director

David McCullough has been widely acclaimed as a “master of the art of narrative history”. He is twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, twice winner of the National Book Award, and has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.
McCullough’s most recent book, “The Wright Brothers” tells the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.

On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot.

Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did? Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. The house they lived in had no electricity or indoor plumbing, but there were books aplenty, supplied mainly by their preacher father, and they never stopped reading.

When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education, little money and no contacts in high places, never stopped them in their mission to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off in one of their contrivances, they risked being killed.

In this thrilling book, master historian David McCullough draws on the immense riches of the Wright Papers, including private diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence to tell the human side of the Wright Brothers’ story, including the little-known contributions of their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Filed under Opinion Tagged with , ,

Book Review: All the Light We Cannot See

June 17, 2015 Leave a comment


By Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director

Anthony Doerr’s winner of the 2015 Pulitzer for Fiction, “All the light we cannot see”, deftly weaves the story of Marie-Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig during World War II. Marie-Laure, valiant and inquisitive, lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, tow-headed German orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s collide.

I know, I know….there are so many stories set during WW2. However, the stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors make “All the light we cannot see” one that deserves to be read. Much more than a war story, Doerr’s novel illuminates the miraculous impact that seminal events have on the rest of our lives.

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Filed under Opinion Tagged with , ,

The Girl on the Train Book Review

June 11, 2015 Leave a comment


By Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director

Paula Hawkins’ debut novel “The Girl on the Train” is a suspenseful thriller filled with a complex plot, shocking twists at every turn, and an ending that will both stun and leave you wanting more.

Published in January of 2015, “Girl on a Train” has been touted as the next “Gone Girl” (a novel by Gillian Flynn/movie starring Ben Affleck). I myself see no real similarity between the two, other than the fact that they are both exciting page-turners and refreshingly different.

Hawkins’ novel tells the story of Rachel Watson, who has spent the last few years stumbling through life in a booze-filled depression ever since her husband left her for another woman. Now she spends her days riding the commuter train to and from London, even though she was fired from her job months ago, so that no one will know was a mess her life has become. The train stops for a few minutes every day near her old neighborhood, where she begins spying on an unknown couple, (think Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”) until the one day she sees something that changes everything. Of course with her unreliable history, no one believes her story and she is compelled to solve the mystery on her own.

“The Girl on the Train” will change how you see other people’s lives….the real and the imaginary.

Paula Hawkins’ debut novel “The Girl on the Train” is a suspenseful thriller filled with a complex plot, shocking twists at every turn, and an ending that will both stun and leave you wanting more.

Published in January of 2015, “Girl on a Train” has been touted as the next “Gone Girl” (a novel by Gillian Flynn/movie starring Ben Affleck). I myself see no real similarity between the two, other than the fact that they are both exciting page-turners and refreshingly different.

Hawkins’ novel tells the story of Rachel Watson, who has spent the last few years stumbling through life in a booze-filled depression ever since her husband left her for another woman. Now she spends her days riding the commuter train to and from London, even though she was fired from her job months ago, so that no one will know was a mess her life has become. The train stops for a few minutes every day near her old neighborhood, where she begins spying on an unknown couple, (think Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”) until the one day she sees something that changes everything. Of course with her unreliable history, no one believes her story and she is compelled to solve the mystery on her own.

“The Girl on the Train” will change how you see other people’s lives….the real and the imaginary.

 

Filed under Opinion Tagged with , ,

Oakland Public Library Board Meeting Notice

June 4, 2015 Leave a comment


Notice is hereby given that a regular meeting of the Oakland Public
Library Board will be held at the Oakland Public Library, 110 East 3rd
Street, Monday June 8 @ 5:00 p.m.  An agenda of the subjects to be
considered, kept continually current, is available for public inspection
at the Oakland Public Library.
Said meeting is open to the public.

Rosa D. Schmidt

Oakland Public Library
110 East 3rd Street
Oakland NE 68045

402-685-5113

Filed under News Tagged with , ,

Book Review: Still Alice

June 2, 2015 Leave a comment


By Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director

Yesterday I watched the movie “Still Alice” starring Julianne Moore. Moore plays Alice Howlan; Harvard professor, gifted researcher and lecturer, wife, and mother of three grown children. At only fifty years of age, Alice has begun to forget words and become disoriented. She has, what is fast-becoming as frightening a diagnosis as any Cancer… Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease.

This movie is based on the book, “Still Alice”, by Lisa Genova. Genova gives us a hauntingly accurate portrayal of a young woman’s slow but inevitable loss of memory and connection with reality. Told from Alice’s perspective, her story is at once heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying. Connection with the characters; Alice, her husband John and their three children, is much greater when reading this book than the visual interpretation of the movie allows. I personally felt more inspiration from the characters while reading the book than I did viewing the movie.

“Still Alice” was published in January of 2009, the movie was released in January of 2015. The Oakland Public Library has both the book and the DVD available for check out.

“Still Alice” is both a moving novel and an important story to tell. Interest in this story is timely as the month of June is Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month. 47 million people are living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. @ https://www.facebook.com/actionalz and https://mybrain.alz.org you can learn more about this disease and ways that you can raise awareness.

1619420_919639781429989_5778473258282124284_n

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under Opinion Tagged with , ,

Summer Reading Program at Oakland Public Library

May 28, 2015 Leave a comment


What can a person of any age accomplish in 20 minutes a day? Most importantly…Keep those Reading Skills Up! All summer the Oakland Public Library will be providing incentives to our readers who participate in our Summer Reading Program! Visit the library for your reading log today!

Filed under News Tagged with , ,

Lang Donates Books of Local History to Oakland Public Library

May 13, 2015 Leave a comment


Russel Lang of rural Craig visited the Oakland Public Library donating two volumes of books to Oakland Library Director for patrons to enjoy. The books were compiled by Alex Meyer of the Scribner area, covering historical events, families, businesses, etc. of the Uehling, Hooper, Scribner and surrounding areas. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Russel Lang of rural Craig visited the Oakland Public Library donating two volumes of books to Oakland Library Director for patrons to enjoy. The books were compiled by Alex Meyer of the Scribner area, covering historical events, families, businesses, etc. of the Uehling, Hooper, Scribner and surrounding area. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Filed under News Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →