Sponsored by Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs by Jennifer Finney Boylan, published by Celadon Books April 2020
From bestselling author of She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders and human rights activist Jennifer Finney Boylan comes Good Boy, a memoir of the transformative power of loving dogs. In her New York Times opinion column, she wrote about her relationship with her beloved dog Indigo, and the tearjerking piece went viral. Good Boy uses that column as a springboard to show how a young boy became a middle-aged woman–accompanied at seven crucial moments of growth and transformation by seven memorable dogs.
Welcome to Check Your Shelf! This is your guide to help librarians like you up your game when it comes to doing your job (& rocking it).
My cats pushed my head off of my pillow while I was sleeping, and now I feel like a robot because I can only turn my head by turning my entire body. On that note, on to library things!
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
- The Florida Citizens Alliance urges the state Attorney General to prosecute schools that provide reading material to its students that the organization deems “inappropriate.” WOW. That is…a terrifying proposition.
- Then Missouri said “Hold my beer!” A similar bill was filed in Missouri that will penalize public libraries if minors are allowed to access “age-inappropriate sexual material.” Titles would be judged “age-inappropriate” by a five person parental library review board.
- And in more gatekeeping news, Goodnight Moon didn’t make the New York Public Library’s 10 most-checked out books of all time list because influential children’s librarian Anne Carroll Moore hated the book, even though Moore had retired from the library in 1941 and the book wasn’t even published until 1947. The library didn’t even purchase a copy until 1972!
- Gregory Priore, a former archivist at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, and John Schulman, owner of Caliban Book Shop, have pleaded guilty to stealing $8 million worth of rare items from the Carnegie Library.
- Rapper Noname designated January 11th as National Library Card Registration Day.
Cool Library Updates
- San Mateo County (CA) libraries allow patrons to check out bikes with their library card.
- The Donald Dungan Library in Costa Mesa (CA) takes a bilingual approach to community services.
Worth Reading
- Making room for inclusive storytimes.
- Libraries as social centers.
Book Adaptations in the News
- Melissa McCarthy is starring with Nicole Kidman in Hulu’s adaptation of Nine Perfect Strangers.
- HBO Max is adapting The Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper, with Cary Joji Fukunaga on board.
- Oooh, this sounds cool…CBS is creating a crime drama series called Clarice that follows FBI agent Clarice Starling after the events of Silence of the Lambs.
- SyFy is planning a new Peter Pan series called The League of Pan.
Books & Authors in the News
- Jason Reynolds has been named the next National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.
- Don Winslow and Stephen King have jointly promised to donate $200,000 to a children’s hospital if the White House will hold a press conference. (The last White House press conference was over 300 days ago.)
- Stephen King made the news in a less awesome way when he tweeted his response to the Oscar nominations, saying “I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.” He later backtracked his statement after facing lots of online criticism.
- Candice Carty-Williams (author of 2019’s acclaimed novel Queenie) is the new weekly books columnist at The Guardian.
Numbers & Trends
- OverDrive saw a 20% increase in digital circulation in 2019 – that’s over 326 million digital titles checked out last year worldwide!
Award News
- The Oscar nominations are out.
- Publisher’s Weekly and BookBrunch have launched a new award, the Selfies, for self-published authors in the U.S. The shortlist will be announced on May 29th, and the winner will be announced at ALA Annual on June 27th.
- NAACP Image Award nominations are out, as well as nominees for the Philip K. Dick Award.
- John le Carre wins a $100,000 prize for his “contribution to democracy.”
Pop Cultured
- The CW has renewed a bunch of shows, including Riverdale, Nancy Drew, and The Flash.
- ABC and Mel Brooks are teaming up for Young Frankenstein: Live! this fall.
- The BBC, Warner Brothers, and the UK’s Natural History Museum are partnering on an hour-long documentary that will explore the connections between the creatures in Fantastic Beasts and real animals that have existed.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
- These second grade students have become published authors through a national student publishing program!
- How Tolkien and Lord of the Rings changed publishing forever.
- If any of us need any more convincing, here’s a Washington Post article about why you should read.
- A roundup of scathing book reviews from 2019.
On the Riot
- How libraries help people in cold weather.
- 13 must-listen librarian podcasts.
- Authors support Australia fire services with the fundraising hashtag #AuthorsForFireys.
- How to do nothing, or, the case for rereading books.
- How Nancy Drew helped this writer reject toxic masculinity.
- Why buying used books is a great thing.
- Why this writer won’t attempt to read 100 books in 2020.
- Revamping your book club in 2020.
- 20 things overheard in bookstores.
See you on Tuesday! Hopefully I’ll have regained the use of my neck by that point.
–Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.