icy park

Here is one view of the ice storm we had in Lake View last week. This is looking toward our
beachside shelter house and across the corner from our city park. There are still a lot of tree limbs to be picked up including many that are still hanging from trees. Unfortunately other states south and east of Iowa are now suffering what we went through last week. There are some though who make the most of our icy lake- they are the ice fishermen. I am now seeing trucks and more ice huts out on the lake from my lakeside view. An ice fishing clinic was just recently held in town with this library being its starting point. We even have one book entitled Modern Methods of Ice Fishing available for anyone interested in just reading about it in the warmth of your home instead of experiencing it in the cold elements of an Iowa winter!!

Iowa books

The Iowa winter of 2009-2010 may well go down in the history books along with information found in the many books we have in the library about Iowa and its history. This display just shows a few of the selections we have available. Our county as well as a few others around us just experienced a record breaking ice storm that hit on Wed. the 20th and as of today, Mon. the 25th, is still affecting our rural residents who are still without any electrical power. In fact strong winds and snow flurries today has kept utility workers from continuting their efforts to work on downed electric poles, etc.

Because of having to endure the "hardship" of no electrical power for 2 1/2 days myself, I was motivated to read one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books- The Long Winter. Needless to say reading such a book which is based on real life experiences of people living before the invention of electricity helps one to be more appreciative of our modern facilities and especially our heavy equipment resources and the crew of people available to run the equipment.

I also want to draw attention to the book above in the middle of the middle shelf entitled Iowa's Road Guide to Haunted Locations by Chad Lewis and Terry Fisk. We, and two other county libraries were privileged to have the author, Chad Lewis, present a program about some of those "haunted Iowa locations". I would recommend this book especially to those of you who love to travel to unique locations.

black history

Since the 18th was a vacation for some in honor of Martin Luther King, here are a few recommended childrens' book. Music lovers like myself will enjoy the Caldecott winner, Duke Ellington by Andrea Davis Pinkney. Naturally, winning such an award means the pictures are absolutely GREAT!

I especially found the book The Real McCoy, The Life of an African-American Inventor by Wendy Towle most interesting as I had never heard of Elijah McCoy before. It is truly an informative and inspirational story of a man who contributed a lot to Americans as an engineer/inventor during a time in history when such an individual could easily have kept his talents hidden--The Civil War era! It was because of Elijah's racial background that our expression "the real McCoy" originated. Once Elijah's first invention (read the book to find out what it was) became popular, others tried to imitate it and couldn't - thus people would want to make sure they had acquired "the real McCoy" instead of someone's imitation. The illlustrations in this book are an additional plus.

The book Pappy's Handkerchief is another book I recommend. It,too, is an inspiring story of how one African-American family believed as Will rogers once said, "You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is." This family was among the many who found their way to the Oklahoma Territory in 1889, but because of their race had to endure more than the average homesteader to reach their dream.

hanging snowman

This snowman hangs safely in our children's area and won't be melting anytime soon --and neither will any outdoor snowmen for sometime!! I finally saw a 3 wheeler over the weekend from my lakeside view. He or she was pulling a child on a sled across the frozen lake amidst all the fog that was also "hanging" around most of the day. And speaking of things hanging around -- what about all the icicles!! At least more and more cement is showing on roads and sidewalks - at least for a couple more days. That may change again around mid-week.

drifting snow

These are pictures of the drifts in front of one of my "lakeside" windows. As you can tell my "lake view" is rather limited on this one side. Fortunately the windows to the west are clear so that I can continue to enjoy seeing the seasonal changes that Iowa's weather creates. Snowmobiles now travel by my home instead of speeding boats. Ice fishing huts occasionally appear and of course my winter birds gather to feed from my feeders. With the severe weather we have had the past few weeks I have only seen my downy woodpeckers on a regular basis. Then there are the squirrels and raccoons that appear every now and then. In fact, the two racoons woke me up way too early one morning as I heard them scractching in the ice near my door!! Haven't yet seen a truck drive by on the lake. That was a real surprise for me my first winter here in a lakeside home. (I grew up here but at that time I lived with my parents in town and not near the lake.) Stay warm whereever you are

wild "reindeer"

Since I am having trouble getting more winter pictures from my personal camera to this site today I'll post another of my library displays from December. One does have to be cautious here in Iowa when driving, especially at night in case a real wild deer or two dart across the road. This furry guy won't give you any problems and is an added attraction in the children's area.

Snowy Family

Here is another "snowy display" at the library. Certainly is a lot of real snow in our part of the world!

One of my favorite children's authors wrote the book entitled A Promise is a Promise. The author is a well known storyteller named Robert Munsch who is most famous for his book

Love You Forever. Michael Kusugak has co-authored the book in the picture above. He remembered his own childhood in the Arctic and made up a story about his own encounter with the imaginary Qallupilluq, an Alaskan legend used to tell to children in hopes of keeping them safely off of the cracked areas in frozen lakes in the Arctic. To quote from the book itself "A Qallupilluq is an imaginary Inuit creature, somewhat like a troll, that lives in Hudson Bay. It wears a woman's parka made of loon feathers and reportedly grabs children when they come too near cracks in the ice." Kusugak and Munsch teamed together to write A Promise Is a Promise.

The VHS shelves show the attractive new colors to our recently renovated chldrens' area of the library. Our mostly animated movies are kept here and we have close to 1,500 total dvds and vhs material availabe. Not bad for a small town of 1300!!

"Angelic" Christmas

With Christmas over I need to get some more of my book displays posted. This "angelic bear" came in handy for these two different displays: one of many of the adult small books written by such very prolific writers as Mary Higgins Clark, Debbie Macomber and Richard Evans to name just a few. Our monthly book club decided to each choose one of these books to report on at their December meeting.

The other display shows some of the non-secular childrens' books that pertain to the true meaning of Christmas. A special book I purchased while on vacation is one by my favorite poet, Helen Steiner Rice. It is a small book with poems and short stories on how to keep Christmas every day of the year. That is my wish to all this new year.

New globe/new ocean

This is the new globe we recently purchased with memorial money and guess why we decided we needed one? Do you know we now have 5 main oceans on Earth? Some of our local students were doing their homework in the library and were asked to list all five of the world oceans. Now most of you will readily name off the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic Ocean and don't forget the Indian Ocean but do you know what the 5th one is? If you say the Antarctica you're close but not correct. We now have the Southern Ocean which is in the southern hemisphere. This new globe actually shows that ocean as well as showing pictures of Columbus's 3 sailing ships to America and other historical ships. This globe is a wonderful addition to the library and worth looking at when visiting as there are other unique features to be found on it.

May everyone traveling this winter have a safe trip.

new window display

This is the new window display in the Lake View Public Library called "A Cup of Christmas Tea". With all the wintry weather we have been having so far in the midwest any kind of hot cup of liquid will taste pretty good. The two books in the display are "A Memory of Christmas Tea" and "A Cup of Christmas Tea," both by Tom Hegg. They are wonderful books written in poetic prose.

heaven vs. vampires

Having read the 4 books in the Twilight series and understanding the "attraction" this series has on females in particular I was interested in hearing different comments on just why individuals did like the series. Mostly the responses were related to the unique love between Edward a very nice vampire and Bella, a human, and the friendship between Bella and Jacob, a werewolf, but one comment really caused me to look into books about heaven. The comment was that this particular individual liked the idea of being able to "live forever".

Well, if you are a true believer in Heaven as a real place as I believe (if you're not you may want to do your own research) then you know that there is a much better future or place to "live forever" than the kind of life the Twilight books would have you live. Since I work with young girls at a Wednesday night Missionette group, I and a fellow teacher have found the two books below very useful in explaining life in Heaven . The book Someday Heaven by Larry Libby is a simple, pictoral book for very young children and the book by Randy Alcorn , Heaven for Kids uses a question and answer format that is not just for kids. I and several adult friends of mine have read this book and find it very enlightening and informative. It truly makes you look forward to the better place God has prepared for His believers. Especially in light of all the turmoil and disturbing issues of the world today.

There are many other good books on this subject including books by people who have actually had glimpses of heaven due to major accidents or illnesses. A fairly new one is by Don Piper entitled 90 Minutes in Heaven. I can remember a moment in my early childhood where I had the horrible thought that when I would die that it would mean I would never, never, ever be alive again!! Never seemed unbearable to accept. How glad I am to now know there is an awesome future ahead of me to look forward to. Just read Randy Alcorn's book and see if you don't agree with me.