Sponsored by Oni Lion Forge Publishing Group.
Join Greta and Minette once more for the heartwarming conclusion of Katie O’Neill’s award-winning Tea Dragon series! Over a year since being entrusted with Ginseng’s care, Greta still can’t chase away the cloud of mourning that hangs over the timid Tea Dragon. Meanwhile, Minette receives a surprise package from the monastery where she was once training to be a prophetess. Told with the same care and charm as the previous installments of the Tea Dragon series, The Tea Dragon Tapestry welcomes old friends and new into a heartfelt story of purpose, love, and growth.
Welcome to Check Your Shelf. My library is still open, and we’re still plugging along, offering public hours 12 hours a week and curbside services an additional 12 hours each week without too many issues (knock on wood). I wish the same could be said for all libraries, but I know that’s not the case, so please accept some virtual hugs if you’d like them.
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
- The New York City child care plan includes using libraries.
- Canadian libraries respond to the Globe and Mail essay attacking public libraries.
- The Douglas County sheriff who told the Douglas County (NV) Public Library that he wouldn’t respond to 911 calls from them because they issued a statement in support of Black Lives Matter, has backtracked from his initial statement.
- How Massachusetts libraries are coping as they slowly reopen.
Cool Library Updates
- Nashville Public Library previews its new women’s suffrage room.
Worth Reading
- Curbside services is not the answer: re-imagining public library youth services during the pandemic.
- Re-closing libraries after they’ve reopened.
- How public libraries play a vital role in restoring the economy.
- As schools, libraries, and businesses pivot, the new pandemic era buzzword is “hybrid.”
Book Adaptations in the News
- What we know so far about Reese Witherspoon’s Where the Crawdads Sing adaptation.
- Jasmine Guillory spills some film adaptation news on Today with Hoda and Jenna!
- Jordan Peele and Issa Rae have teamed up to adapt Leyna Krow’s short story “Sinkhole,” about a woman who moves into a new house with her family that happens to have a mysterious sinkhole in the backyard.
- The R.L. Stine adaptation train rolls on…this time, it’s his Babysitter series that’s getting the series treatment.
- Shania Twain (yes, THAT Shania Twain) is adapting Debbie Macomber’s Heart of Texas books.
- Trailer for Season 2 of His Dark Materials.
Books & Authors in the News
- Oprah picks Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson as her next book club pick.
Numbers & Trends
- The postmaster general has announced plans to slow mail delivery, and Raven Book Store ran some numbers about how the potential loss of the USPS would be extremely detrimental to bookstores and libraries.
- Not surprisingly, Amazon online sales did extremely well in the second quarter of 2020.
Award News
- The Hugo Award winners have been announced, but unfortunately, that news has been overshadowed by George R.R. Martin’s widely-criticized performance as host. (TW for racism & transphobia) The CoNZealand chairs issued this apology after the ceremony.
- Little Fires Everywhere and Watchmen have both been nominated for “Outstanding Limited Series” Emmys!
- Voting is open for the Not the Booker Awards.
- The brand new Gotham Book Prize will award $50,000 to a fiction or nonfiction book published in 2020 and set in New York City.
Pop Cultured
- Disney is bringing the live-action version of Mulan to Disney+ rather than theaters, but will still charge subscribers extra to watch it.
- There’s a trailer for Ryan Murphy’s latest show, Ratched, which stars Sarah Paulson as Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
- The New York Times spotlights black book clubs.
On the Riot
- The most popular under-the-radar books in libraries: Quarantine 2020 edition.
- Why the library is still the only place this reader feels safe, even in a pandemic.
- Which librarian from pop culture are you?
- Bookish stamps to support the USPS.
- Multiple ways to organize rainbow bookshelves.
Take a breath and take care of yourselves, folks. I’ll see you next week. (I still have not moved from my new couch.)
—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.