Liberry

When we went to pick Echo up from the vet after our weekend in McMinnville, Julia got very excited as we drove by "our" library. I told her that we could go the next day (Tuesday). When we got to the library on Tuesday, though, we discovered that it didn't open until noon! Since we were there at 10:30am, I didn't think I wanted to wait around. Instead we took a little walk and played in the leaves and then left with promises to visit the library another time.

Movin' Along

Two of the books I had on hold arrived at my local library yesterday. So this morning I left Dave with Julia (both asleep), returned two of the books I had checked out the other day (I'm still working my way through the biographies) and picked up:

• Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds by Susan Gregory Thomas
• A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

This first was recommended to me by a good friend of mine (with a fairly similar parenting style) and the second I picked up because I loved the author's first book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

More Books ...

It was library time again here at the Bouldin House. I'm trying to be very responsible and not accrue any more fines. So Julia and I took our books back and checked out some more to keep us busy. And since it's cool now to post what you're reading ...

Julia:

• The Subway Mouse by Barbara Reid
• Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct by Mo Willems
• Flotsam by David Wiesner

Joanna:

• My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme
• The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones
• The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
• Tears of the Giraffe by Alexandar McCall Smith

Library Power

{For my birthday, Dave found a way around the library red tape and paid my embarrassingly large fine for me so I could take Julia to the library to check out some books.}

Outside the Fountain City Branch of Knox County Library

Carrying her books out to the car
(Everyone has to be responsible for her own library books.)

Thank you, Dolly Parton!

That's right! You read that correctly. The Bouldin House sends out thanks to Dolly Parton. She of country music singing fame started a program back in 1996 called "Imagination Library." Here in Knox County, the Imagination Library partners with the Knox County Public Library. We signed Julia up as soon as we got home from the hospital. That means that from now until she turns five years old, Julia receives a brand-new, age-appropriate book in the mail every month. FOR FREE!

Yesterday, Julia's first book, The Little Engine That Could, came in the mail. (This is the first book that every child signed up for the program receives.) While she wasn't all that interested in it right then, I'm sure she'll enjoy listening to us read it to her and then reading it herself.

The Imagination Library is available in 90 of 95 counties in Tennessee and has spread to other communities in thirty-six states as well as on up into our friendly neighbor to the North, Canada. Last year the program mailed out over 2 million books to over 200,000 children! That's a program that warms my book-loving heart! If it is not available in your community, there is a link on the website with information on how to get it started.

Temptation

I know I promised myself that I'd stop buying every cute outfit I saw for The Peanut. I mean, we'd like to have enough money left to dress her in clothes after her first year of life. But, this might be too cool to pass up.

Library Power

As a librarian, of course I have to mention this site. Awesome name, great cause ... it has it all! You may vaguely remember your grammar school days and an introduction to Mr. Melvil Dewey. He not only helped start the American Library Association and founded the world's first library school at Columbia University; he also liked to spell phonetically and was quite the perv. (I don't know why people always imagine librarians as bun-wearing, uptight shushers. I met the oddest people during my time at SLIS.) I'm not sure where he found the free time to develop his classification system. (In case you're interested, this blog deals with thorny classification questions as well as updates to the system. Yes, I am a nerd.)
Mr. Dewey has now (unknowingly) lent his name to this worthy cause: Dewey Donation System. The people from one of my favorite websites (Television Without Pity) have combined various individual fund-raising efforts into one main goal: helping Harrison County Library System in Mississippi to rebuild the collection after Hurricane Katrina. The site will eventually expand to help get needy libraries and donors in touch with each other. How is that not cool?
PS-Near the top of my all-time vacation wishlist is to visit New York and stay in the Library Hotel. Each of the ten floors highlights one of the ten categories in the Dewey Decimal System, and each room has art and books about a distinctive topic within the category. I haven't yet decided which room I would like to stay in, but I would guess that room 800.001 is the most popular. :)