We're Sweet on Our Library Volunteers

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the February 8, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Note: This column was written before the 2nd Annual Volunteer Appreciation Tea. The event was postponed until Valentine's Day, February 14, 2013. All sweets and appreciation will be the same as 'advertised.'

On Friday, February 8 we are celebrating our volunteers at the Morrill Memorial Library. We’ve invited them to the 2nd Annual Volunteer Appreciation Tea where they will spend time with us between 10 am and 2 pm in the library’s Simoni Room.

Our first annual tea was such a success in 2012. It was also oh, so delicious. Library staff and trustees baked a plethora of sweets. There was a catch to the task, however. The recipe had to be from a cookbook available on our library shelves or through the Minuteman Library Network. Each dessert was featured with the name of the cookbook, the recipe and the baker. Library staff was on hand throughout the day to greet and thank our volunteers personally.

Last year’s desserts included everything from cheesecake to macarons. (Yes, that’s macarons which are different from the traditional macaroons.)

Memoirs of Inspiration

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the February 1, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

I am a reader of memoirs. Many times I read them to see the world through another lens. Sometimes I read them to experience a life I’ve never lived. Most of them I find compelling and intriguing.

I’m certainly not the only one reading memoirs. The memoir genre has been increasing in popularity in the past twenty years. “Angela’s Ashes” (Frank McCourt 1996), “Under the Tuscan Sun” (Frances Mayes 1996), “A Walk in the Woods” (Bill Bryson, 1998), “Eat, Pray, Love” (Elizabeth Gilbert 2006) and “Three Cups of Tea” (Greg Mortenson 2006) are just a few of the blockbuster memoirs that still sell in hardcover and paperback and are checked out from libraries across the country.

This week four memoirs appeared on the nonfiction hardcover bestseller lists in the New York Times – “My Beloved World” by Sonia Sotomayor, “No Easy Day” by Mark Owen, “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed and “My Share of the Task” by Stanley McChrystal. In addition, “Proof of Heaven”, a memoir about a neurosurgeon’s near-death experience, tops the paperback non-fiction list this week. There are still hundreds of requests in the Minuteman Library System for the hardcover edition of “Proof of Heaven” and it was published months ago.

56 Years and Still Growing Up

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the January 25, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

In 1964, a young Canadian director created a documentary for the British Broadcasting Corporation. Director Paul Almond assembled fourteen seven-year olds from differing socio-economic backgrounds from across England and created a forty-minute television program that aired on British television in 1964. In Seven Up!, Almond examined the lives and personalities of fourteen children, ten boys and four girls. The narrator states: “Why do we bring these children together? Because we want to get a glimpse of England in the year 2000.” The mission, it seemed, was to prove the Jesuit adage “Give me a child when he is seven and I will give you the man.”

It was the beginning of a fascinating sociological study that has now spanned nearly half a century. Seven Up! was followed in 1971 by 7 Plus 7. Subsequent episodes, filmed every seven years, were titled 21, 28, 35, 42, 49 and 56 Up.

The Reading Challenge

Read Marg Corjay's column in the January 18, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Marg is an Outreach and Circulation Assistant at the Morrill Memorial Library and a voracious reader.

Do you feel like a kid in a candy store when you come into your town library, everything looks so tempting, you want to sample it all, and you can’t decide which one to choose?  If you love to read as much as I do, it is not unusual for me to read two or three books a week, I find that my favorite authors cannot keep up with my cravings for new material.  Now imagine you work there, surrounded everyday by all this unexplored reading material!!!!  Every time new books come in, I want to take them all home that night to read. My love of reading goes back almost fifty years to elementary school and the summer reading club at my local library. It was for third- through sixth-graders, you would try to read as many as you could in the eight weeks of July and August from a selection that was chosen by the librarians. You could take out two at a time, and after you read it, the children’s librarian would ask you questions about it.  I would go almost every day, take out my two books, return, report, and take out two more, and by the end of summer, I would have read at least seventy-five books.

Les Misérables

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the January 11, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Victor Hugo was born in 1802 of a French military officer and a royalist mother. In his younger years, perhaps due to his privileged birth and upbringing, Hugo was not a denigrator of the French throne and the Church. Hugo’s early literary fame actually came from his poetry and other dramatic works. He wrote his first full-length novel, Notre-Dame de Paris, or the Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1831, over thirty years before his second most-famous novel, Les Misérables.

Leaving Your Mark in the Children's Room

Read Kelly Unsworth's column in the January 14, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Kelly is a children's librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library.

A number of years ago, I designed a program in the library known as the Jr. Friends of the Library. The idea was to give students in grades 6 and older a chance to volunteer in the children’s department on a weekly basis, doing simple tasks that would match their interests and skills. At the time, I had no concept of how quickly the program would take off, or what a large impact it would have; on the children’s room, on the participants of the program, or on the library staff.

Raise a Glass, and then What?

Nancy Ling is an Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. She is also an author and a poet and loves working with children and teens and teaching poetry. Read her column in the December 28 issue of the Norwood Transcript & Record.

It’s that time of year again. You’ve found yourself smack dab in the middle of the holidays. In the midst of all the hustle and bustle, there is a chance that you might be called upon to give a toast, especially if you are hosting a party. Perhaps this year you’ll blow the socks off of Great Uncle Lou when you raise your glass and offer a toast with great poise and finesse. In the words of de Cervantes, “Preparation is half the victory.”

When Bad Things Happen

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the December 21, 2012 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

As a librarian, I have taken an unofficial oath. That oath is based on the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights. I promise to respect all freedoms of speech, expression, and access to information. As a public librarian, I vow to provide materials and information that present all points of view and I must be careful not appear political or to espouse doctrinal disapproval. As a library director I must challenge censorship “in the fulfillment of responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.”

Literacy at the Library

Read Bonnie Wyler's column in the December 14, 2012 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Bonnie is a Literacy/Outreach Librarian at the library.

Literacy has come a long way since the early 1900’s. The definition of literacy has been expanding because the world is constantly changing. A hundred years ago, being literate meant being able to sign one’s name. In the 1940’s, that definition had changed to being able to read at a 4th grade level. By the 1960’s, literacy was defined as having reading competency at an 8th grade level. In 1992, it was defined as “the ability to use printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.” Today, being literate requires one to have new proficiencies in the use of technology and in thinking critically to solve problems.

A Massachusetts Tragedy: Phoebe Prince

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the December 7, 2012 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

It was nearly three years ago when fifteen-year old Phoebe Prince took her life in her home in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

I first read about this sad story when Kevin Cullin, a Boston Globe columnist, brought it to light in a column published in the Globe on January 24, 2010. “The Untouchable Mean Girls” moved me so much that I wrote to Mr. Cullin praising him for his courage. It’s not always easy to be brave, to champion the underdog or to upset the status quo.

A Visit from Saint Nicholas

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the November 30, 2012 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

One December in the late 50s my mother sat me down with piles of construction paper, scissors and stacks of old Christmas cards. She gave up these treasures from our family and friends so that I could create my own illustrated versions of The Night Before Christmas. The holiday cards, artfully trimmed with pinking shears, created delightful scenes - flocked reindeer and glittered snow-covered landscapes. Embossed and colorful santas rested next to crayoned fireplaces and doorways of my creation. I was occupied for days and hours and it seems my mother knew exactly what she was doing.

Reading

Read Brian Samek's column in the November 23, 2012 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Remember your high school foreign language class with its endless grammar exercises? In a study in 1998, Spanish professor Jeffrey Stokes and his colleagues tried to determine which factors best predicted a student’s ability to correctly use the Spanish subjunctive, a notoriously difficult form for Americans. They found a long list of things that were not significant predictors: time spent in the Spanish classroom, time spent on the subjunctive, and time spent in Spanish-speaking countries. The only factor that predicted competence in the subjunctive was the amount of free reading in Spanish done by the student.

Chicks with Sticks

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the November 16, 2012 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

My mother began to teach me to sew about the same time I learned to type – at age eight. I learned on a Singer Featherweight 221with its wonderful gold on black paint and fold-up extension platform. I still own that machine, made sometime in the early 1950s, and cherish to this day. It weighs a mere 11 pounds and fits into a wonderfully compact case with compartments for all the necessities.

I began my lesson in sewing on tiny clothes for my cherished Barbie doll. For Christmas and birthdays my mother would create the more elaborate wardrobe items like wedding dresses and swimsuits. I made simple sheaths and capes that closed with tiny snaps and buttons. In junior high and high school I sewed my complete wardrobe each year on that Singer Featherweight.

Food, Comforting Food

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the November 9, 2012 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Last week when Hurricane Sandy pounded Norwood and the rest of the Eastern seaboard, I spent the day at home cooking comfort food. I was tempting fate but I also knew that I had a gas range and oven to fall back on. In any event, I started preparing early in the day: a braid of bread, macaroni and cheese, and a potato-leek soup.

Dogs That Know ... A Lot More Than Mine

April Cushing is the Adult Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin November 2, 2012.

While browsing through my bookshelves recently I came across “Dogs That Know When Their Masters are Coming Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals” by Rupert Sheldrake. Seriously? It sounds like a canine version of “Ripley’s Believe it or Not.” I was, I admit, more than a little skeptical.

I love all my kids, of course, but if I relied on them for daily demonstrations of devotion I might be barking up the wrong tree. That’s where Duffy, my true and constant companion for the past 13 years, comes in. I own an embarrassingly large assortment of Dandie Dinmont Terrier collectibles: artwork, figurines, kitchenware, coasters, jewelry, pottery, return address labels. Can you say “obsessive?” Duffy, for his part, showers me with love--and way too much saliva. I’m pretty sure I’ll be more devastated when Duffy enters doggie heaven than when certain blood relations go to the great beyond.