Drumroll please...Children who registered for the Summer Reading Program here at McCormick read a grand total of 7505 books this summer! One eager reader read 218 books all by herself!
Congratulations everyone!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Important Digits!
I am constantly amazed that our library's customers consider their library card number important enough to memorize! That's 18 digits with the pin number. It's awe-inspiring to think that customers use this number enough to memorize it.
Friday, June 5, 2009
In Our Good Books
One of the greatest parts of being a librarian is the spontaneous conversations that erupt over the shared love of a good book. I sometimes have to stop and wonder at the fact that I get to work in a profession that allows me to share my love of reading with others...and make a living too! Yesterday at McCormick was one of those days. At one point, three of our staff were happily firing off titles that might interest one of our beloved regular customers. Choruses of "Oh have you tried..." filled the library. Today, my brain is still coming up with titles for him. (I'll have to save them for next time.) My extended family finds it hilarious that I sometimes have to stop and write down a title that has just popped into my head and would be perfect for one of our customers. Certain titles seem to unite people, suddenly the person in line behind you isn't a stranger because they also LOVE Daniel Silva. People chuckle as they hear someone's quick intake of breath and watch them snatch the new book by their favourite author off the shelf: we've all been there!
Rebecca
Rebecca
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
McCormick Book Club
The McCormick Book Club meets the last Tuesday of the month from 7-8pm in the Optimist Room. Everyone is welcome, so please join us!
Our selections for the rest of 2009 are:
June 30: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
July 28: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
August 25: The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
September 29: The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
October 27: Watermelon Syrup by Annie Jacobsen
November 24: The Birth House by Ami McKay
December 29: Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
Our selections for the rest of 2009 are:
June 30: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
July 28: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
August 25: The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
September 29: The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
October 27: Watermelon Syrup by Annie Jacobsen
November 24: The Birth House by Ami McKay
December 29: Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The journey of my lifetime (with a penguin by my side)
When I was expecting my daughter, Lily, I came across Sandra Boynton’s Your Personal Penguin, a board book for young children about a penguin who desperately wants to be a hippo’s “personal penguin”. In my hormonal state, it brought me to tears. Of course, I had to purchase it for my unborn child. I sat in her room and read that book to my belly over and over again, sniffling away.
After Lily was born, we read her that story every night at bedtime, propping her up on my lap to stare at the pictures. We discovered that it was actually a song and the publisher had posted the MP3 version on the website. We dutifully memorized the song and went around the house singing “I want to be your personal penguin from now on”. I sang it so many times trying to get my baby girl to sleep that when I looked in on her at night, the song immediately sprung into my head. She even appears in the WPL Reading 911 calendar with Patti Bambury from Grand River Hospital and her penguin book.
We have given this book as a gift to every baby born since I fell in love with it. Each time, the parents end up telling us that it quickly became a household favourite. There is just something magical about that song and the simple illustrations. It has become so well-known amongst our friends that when we recently gave it as a gift to some expectant parents, the dad-to-be exclaimed “Hurray! It’s Lily’s favourite book!”
Now, we listen to the song in the car on the way to the sitters while Lily claps along. And at bedtime, we sing it very fast because our 15 month old is flipping the pages so quickly we can hardly keep up. But we read that battered and well-loved story every day. Whether it’s a good day or a bad day, or the little girl on our lap is happy or sick with a cold.
When Lily is all grown up and has children of her own, I just know that I will pull that book off the shelf and shed a tear for all the happy memories created while reading it. I hope you sign it out of the library someday and read it to your little ones. Perhaps you will find it becomes a family jewel, just like it has at our house. You never know, the song just might get added to the soundtrack of your life.
Listen to Your Personal Penguin here
Check out WPL's Sandra Boynton books here
Rebecca Dechert Sage
Manager, McCormick Branch
After Lily was born, we read her that story every night at bedtime, propping her up on my lap to stare at the pictures. We discovered that it was actually a song and the publisher had posted the MP3 version on the website. We dutifully memorized the song and went around the house singing “I want to be your personal penguin from now on”. I sang it so many times trying to get my baby girl to sleep that when I looked in on her at night, the song immediately sprung into my head. She even appears in the WPL Reading 911 calendar with Patti Bambury from Grand River Hospital and her penguin book.
We have given this book as a gift to every baby born since I fell in love with it. Each time, the parents end up telling us that it quickly became a household favourite. There is just something magical about that song and the simple illustrations. It has become so well-known amongst our friends that when we recently gave it as a gift to some expectant parents, the dad-to-be exclaimed “Hurray! It’s Lily’s favourite book!”
Now, we listen to the song in the car on the way to the sitters while Lily claps along. And at bedtime, we sing it very fast because our 15 month old is flipping the pages so quickly we can hardly keep up. But we read that battered and well-loved story every day. Whether it’s a good day or a bad day, or the little girl on our lap is happy or sick with a cold.
When Lily is all grown up and has children of her own, I just know that I will pull that book off the shelf and shed a tear for all the happy memories created while reading it. I hope you sign it out of the library someday and read it to your little ones. Perhaps you will find it becomes a family jewel, just like it has at our house. You never know, the song just might get added to the soundtrack of your life.
Listen to Your Personal Penguin here
Check out WPL's Sandra Boynton books here
Rebecca Dechert Sage
Manager, McCormick Branch
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
McCormick Book Club - The Piano Man's Daughter (April 2009)
The McCormick Book Club meets in the Optimist Room at the McCormick Community Centre (across the hallway from the library) on the last Tuesday of every month.
The book being discussed on April 28th is The Piano Man's Daughter by Timothy Findley.
Below is a summary of the book, links to author information and more. Hope to see you at the meeting!
About the book:
Narrated by Charlie Kilworth, whose birth is an echo of his mother's own illegitimate beginnings, The Piano Man's Daughter is the lyrical, multilayered tale of Charlie's mother, Lily, his grandmother Ede, and their family. Lily is a woman pursued by her own demons, "making off with the matches just when the fires caught hold," "a beautiful, mad genius, first introduced to us singing in her mother's belly." It is also the tale of people who dream in songs, two Irish immigrant families facing a new and uncertain future in turn-of-the-century Toronto. Finally, it is a richly detailed tribute to a golden epoch in our history and of a generation striking the last, haunting chord of innocence.
Biography of Timothy Findley from Canadian Encyclopedia.
Interview with Timothy Finley from January Magazine.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
McCormick Book Club meeting - March 31
The McCormick Book Club meets on the last Tuesday of every month in the Optimist Room across the hall from the McCormick Library. Everyone is welcome to attend! The Book Club selection for March is Consolation by Michael Redhill.
“There is a vast part of this city with mouths buried in it . . . . Mouths capable of speaking to us. But we stop them up with concrete and build over them and whatever it is they wanted to say gets whispered down empty alleys and turns into wind. . . .” These are among the last words of Professor David Hollis before he throws himself off a ferry into the frigid waters of Lake Ontario. A renowned professor of “forensic geology,” David leaves in his wake both a historical mystery and an academic scandal. He postulated that on the site where a sports arena is about to be built lie the ruins of a Victorian boat containing an extraordinary treasure: a strongbox full of hundreds of never-seen photographs of early Toronto, a priceless record of a lost city. His colleagues, however, are convinced that he faked his research materials. Determined to vindicate him, his widow, Marianne, sets up camp in a hotel overlooking the construction site, watching and waiting for the boat to be unearthed. The only person to share her vigil is John Lewis, fiancé to her daughter, Bridget. An orphan who had come to love David as his own father, John finds himself caught in a struggle between mother and daughter–all the while keeping a dark secret from both women. Interwoven into the contemporary story is another narrative set in 1850s: the tale of Jem Hallam, a young apothecary struggling to make a living in the harsh new city so he can bring his wife and daughters from England. Crushed by ruthless competitors, he develops an unlikely friendship with two other down-on-their-luck Torontonians: Samuel Ennis, a brilliant but dissolute Irishman, and Claudia Rowe, a destitute widow. Together they establish a photography business and set out to create images of a fledgling city where wooden sidewalks are put together with penny nails, where Indians spear salmon at the river mouth and the occasional bear ambles down King Street, where department stores display international wares and fine mansions sit cheek-by-jowl with shantytowns. Consolationmoves back and forth between David Hollis’s legacy and Jem Hallam’s struggle to survive, ultimately revealing a mysterious connection between the two narratives. Exquisitely crafted and masterfully written, Michael Redhill’s superlative book reveals how history is often transformed into a species of fantasy, and how time alters the contours of even the things we hold most certain. As complex and layered as the city whose story it tells,Consolationevokes the mysteries of love and memory, and what suffering the absence of the beloved truly means.
Read the NY Times Book Review here.
Information about the author.
The Reader's Guide is available here.
Check out a WPL copy of the book here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
