Friends of the Jones Library System News

We do too! That's why we sponsor a Children's Music Series every March at the Jones. Come on down! (Click on image to enlarge.)

Scared of your attic? Have a ladder? Here you go! Two birds, one stone. You're welcome.

That bastion of our sacred language. Now the highly esteemed book includes such apt terms as mansplaining , hangry , and snowflake . What hasn't quite made the list? Poonami, poomageddon, and apoocalypse, all terms to describe "an explosion of infant feces of epic proportions." Maybe next year...

with 10,000 books . Swoon.

The map below is a "painstaking and admittedly quixotic effort" to show the United States through the lens of road-tripping literature . "You can ruminate about what those differences say about American travel, American writing, American history..."

A new exhibit at Harvard's Houghton Library focuses on maps of fictional worlds. The collection includes the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, L. Frank Baum, and Ursula K. Le Guin. There are over 60 maps on display through April 14, 2018. Go visit! But before you head east, check out one of the library's Boston Museum of Fine Arts passes. Friends, you could get some serious museum visiting in.

Mo Willems visited a local elementary school in South Hadley recently. Part of his mission is to inspire young readers in struggling schools. "Wiggling, dancing and shouting as he read aloud two illustrated stories, Willems brought to life the books that the students read as part of the school's curriculum. After the presentation, he gifted each of the 139 second-graders one of his books, and donated 60 picture books by various authors to the school library."

Yesterday Judy Blume turned 80 years old.  Here are 15 wonderfully wise quotes from the author herself.

A recent Wall Street Journal headline read:  China Confirms Detention of Hong Kong Bookseller Snatched From Train . A Swedish citizen traveling with Swedish diplomats was taken off a train by plainclothes policemen in northeastern China. He's "one of a number of Hong Kong-based booksellers who starting in 2015 vanished and reappeared in Chinese custody. The booksellers' publications dealt with the kind of political gossip banned across the border in mainland China, often involving salacious material on Chinese leaders."

The Amherst Regional High School librarian, Leslie Lomasson, was recently awarded the Massachusetts School Library Association the 2018 Peggy Hallisey Lifetime Achievement Award.  This award honors the lifetime achievements of its recipients and celebrates Ms. Lomasson's exemplary commitment to students, 21st century learning, and the advancement of school libraries. She will be honored on Sunday, March 25, at the MSLA Awards Banquet in Worcester. But in the meantime, if you happen to be in the high school, swing by and give her a high five. Because that's pretty awesome. Amherst librarians rock.

How one library dealt with a rare and deadly book ... of wallpaper samples. Not kidding.

Here's a funny article about the 10 most expensive typos in history . How about the new biblical commandment? Thou shalt commit adultery.

Although she's no longer with us, that doesn't mean she can't still teach us. Author Karen Joy Fowler gives us a list of 10 things Le Guin taught her  that she can also teach us . Perhaps not least of which is that "immortality has never worked out well for anyone. Avoid it at all costs." And that, in your writing, you should add as many dragons as you like. Read more here .

Here's a fun little time-waster. Slowly scroll through these photos of famous authors, trying to guess who they are before their name pops up on the screen. Then you'll see what they look like now.

The Baby-Sitters Club has been around since the mid-80's. That means the kids who read Ann M. Martin's series when it was first published are now raising children of their own. And maybe they're putting into practice these 10 Feminist Lessons We Learned From the Baby-Sitters Club .

Though you may have read books about him and seen movies about him, here are 10 fun facts that you maybe didn't know about him. Not least of which is that originally? Paddington  wasn't  even from "darkest Peru."

(Waaaay better than the British.) Click here  to learn more.

This Is What a Librarian Looks Like .

Until the Jones gets its own library kitty , the Friends will just have to content ourselves with Bookstore Cats , a book about the lives of the felines who inhabit bookstores around the country. Fortunately for us, Bookstore Cats   is  available in our CW/MARS system. Even if cats aren't.

Hey, it makes sense to them .

The French are ahead of us in so many ways. Mostly we're thinking of the whole cheese for dessert idea. But now? Now they've got  short story dispensers at the airport . And 150 other places around the country. One of these babies is coming to San Francisco this fall but until then, we'll have to just be envious of our friends on the other side of the Atlantic.

HOW CAN YOU FIND THE BOOK YOU WANT?? This article on the backwards book trend has the Friends scratching our collective book-loving heads.