Daniel Boone Regional Library

As a reader and a writer, I find a thoughtfully crafted message, handwritten in a card, more moving than a bouquet of flowers. My spouse of many years knows better than to let Hallmark do his writing for him. Are you struggling for the right words to write or say to your Valentine this year? How about a little inspiration from the library’s poetry collection?

“Blushing: Expressions of Love in Poems & Letters“ collected by Paul B. Janeczko
Classic poets and writers, from Shakespeare to Maya Angelou, write about love from all of its angles, from all-consuming new love to remembering love after its flame has ceased to burn. Take a tip from Rumi, who wrote, “In your light I learn how to love. / In your beauty, how to make poems.”

“Here Is My Heart” compiled by William Jay Smith
The illustrations in this slim little volume lend it a picture-book quality, but this isn’t verse just for kids. Most of the poems in this collection are short enough to be copied onto a card or paper heart, and their moods vary, from playful (Jack Pretlutsky declaring, “I love you more than applesauce”) to serious (Kenneth Koch writing, “As the adjective is lost in the sentence, / So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat — / You have enchanted me with a single kiss / Which can never be undone / Until the destruction of language”).

“Love Poetry Out Loud” edited by Robert Alden Rubin
A fantastic collection of words to woo by, including works by both famous and lesser-known poets. In “Resignation,” Nikki Giovanni describes the helpless wonder of being in love: “I love you / because the Earth turns round the sun / because the North wind blows north” and “because only my love for you / despite the charms of gravity / keeps me from falling off this Earth / into another dimension.” Swoon-worthy sentiments, no?

Find even more inspiration in our catalog list of romantic poetry. Happy Valentine’s Day!

One late summer day, when I was 19 and home from college, I picked up the first volume of Carl Sandburg’s sweeping biography of Abraham Lincoln. Day became evening, and, dismissing dinner, I continued to read into the night.  Upon discovering it was 2 a.m., I quickly realized that I had finished the first volume, and I then commenced reading the second into the morning hours. I finished all six in a matter of days. Sandburg’s lyrical rendering of Lincoln’s early days, the unvarnished Illinois countryside and the simpler political milieu of the time made for compelling reading.

I, among millions across the globe, remain fascinated by the man. Given the inspiring nature of Lincoln’s character and the continued appeal of the Civil War years, a raft of biographies have been published about Lincoln, his early life and his presidency. Sandburg’s was not the first–and surely not the last–biography published, but it has stood the test of time. DBRL has plenty of great Lincoln biographies in its collection.

Clearly, the most famous recent biography about the Lincoln years is “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Kearn’s biography, published in 2005, was eventually adapted into the extremely popular 2012 movie, “Lincoln.”  Focusing on some of the key members in his presidential cabinet, men who initially held Lincoln in low regard, the book continues to find wide readership.

Lincoln famously said, “Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.” Mario Cuomo suggests that perhaps we should apply these kinds of ideals to our current political environment. In his book “Why Lincoln Matters:  Today More than Ever,” published in 2004, Cuomo discusses how Lincoln’s political philosophy could be very useful in today’s world, and also examines how destructive much of our political discourse currently is to both the body-politic and the American citizenry.

There are also numerous shorter biographies of Lincoln in the canon, including Thomas Keneally’s “Abraham Lincoln.” Although a little over 170 pages long, this readable book contains a fairly precise character sketch of the man, from birth until death. As Keneally so aptly puts it near the end, through his assassination Lincoln had “become the bloodied nation incarnate.”

I would also recommend an even shorter history of the man (again titled “Abraham Lincoln”), written in 2009 by James M. Mcpherson. Only 65 pages long, this biography is but a thumbnail sketch, and also is appropriate for school-age readers. Speaking of Lincoln’s impact, Mcpherson states, “With the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln started the United States on the road to living up to its professed belief that all men are truly created equal.” In closing, Mcpherson writes: “More than any other American, Lincoln’s name has gone into history. He gave all Americans, indeed all people everywhere, reason to remember that he had lived.”

Finally,  Fred Kaplan in his book “Lincoln, the Biography of a Writer,” published in 2008,  fleshes out Lincoln’s remarkable facility for writing. “For Lincoln, words mattered immensely. His increasing skill in their use during his lifetime, and his high valuation of their power, mark him as the one president who was both a national leader and a genius with language . . .” Kaplan argues that without these great writing skills, as well as the strength of his oratorical skills (for the speeches he worked from were tightly woven works of writing, whose transcripts stand alone in their power), Lincoln’s efficacy as public figure and politician would have been greatly diminished. Indeed, without inspired orations such as the Emancipation Proclamation, the long struggle that was the Civil War may not have ended as quickly, or perhaps not even ended at all.

Lonely? Feeling a bit adventurous? Then try a blind date with a book!

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, starting Monday, February 11, visit the second floor of the Columbia Public Library to choose your mystery book. Books of various genres will be wrapped in paper, and each will be labeled with a personal ad of sorts that hints at the topic or genre (“Book seeks science geek with sense of humor,” for example). A duplicate bar code on the outside of the wrapper will allow these to be checked out without removing that wrapper. So, grab your date, check it out, take it home and unwrap it. See if you hit it off. Who knows, maybe there’s a future for the two of you?

We can’t guarantee that you’ll love the book you choose, but we do promise that none of these dates will reach across the table, pluck a hair from your head and floss his teeth with it. If you don’t like the book, simply bring it back—no awkward questions asked (unlike on actual blind dates).

We invite all who take home one of these mystery books to let us know how the date went. Disaster? Love at first sight? We want the juicy details to share with our readers. Rate your date here at DBRL Next!

Black History Month is a time to celebrate the achievements of African-Americans and the important role they have played throughout American history. We celebrate Black History Month every February because it is the birth month of both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, two important figures in the abolitionist movement. This year’s theme highlights two important anniversaries in the history of African-Americans and the United States: the Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington. In honor of Black History Month, we are showcasing some library materials about the end of slavery and the civil rights movement.

Previously, we recommended some works of nonfiction; here are some fiction titles. Enjoy!

“Kindred” by Octavia Butler
Dana is a black woman living in California in the late ’70s. One day, as she is celebrating her birthday with her new husband, she is snatched from her life and transported to the antebellum South. There, she saves the life of Rufus, the son of a plantation owner. Dana is thrown into the past repeatedly – always when Rufus is in need of help – but the visits get longer and more dangerous, and she must pass as a slave in order to survive. “Kindred” is an engrossing, page-turning examination of the ways in which the past influences the future and how the country’s legacy of slavery continues to affect us even today.

“Some Sing, Some Cry” by Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza
“Some Sing, Some Cry” is a bittersweet story of seven generations of women in an African-American family and the men and music in their lives. From Ma Bette, a slave on a North Carolina rice plantation, to her descendant Tokyo Walker, the Mayfields and their descendants are blessed with a great gift for music. This gift helps them to resist and overcome oppression and express themselves despite the forces that try to silence them. Authors Ntozake Shange, a playwright, poet and novelist and her sister, Ifa Bayeza, a playwright, producer and conceptual theater artist, have created a glorious, moving work that readers who enjoy generational sagas like “The Sandcastle Girls” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns” are sure to enjoy.

“An Eighth of August” by Dawn Turner Trice
Since the late 1800s, the people of Halley’s Landing, Illinois have commemorated the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation with a grand festival. People come from all over to pay tribute to the legacy of the former slaves who founded their town. This year, however, the town is reeling from the death of El, an 11-year-old boy. The Eighth of August celebration brings together a diverse and engaging cast of characters, who must help each other to heal and forgive one another.

The 600s could be my favorite area of nonfiction. Traditional descriptions of the Dewey Decimal System identify the 600s as  ”applied sciences” or “medicine and technology.” Basically, this is where you find information on how people make use of science and nature. Books on gardening, parenting, exercise, health, car repair, business management, pets, cooking and more all make their home in the 600s. As a foodie, I love to browse the cookbooks and food memoirs, and here are a few gems I found in a recent stroll through the stacks.

• “Heart of the Artichoke and Other Kitchen Journeys” by David Tanis.
  “Time at the table is time well spent,” writes Tanis, chef at the critically-acclaimed restaurant Chez Panisse. Tanis does not give you thirty-minute meals or short cuts. Instead, he encourages you to enjoy the journey of cooking, of using seasonal and local ingredients and treating them with care. His techniques are simple, and his recipes are wrapped in eloquently written personal anecdotes. The first section of the book, in fact, deals entirely with his own intimate kitchen rituals, small bites or meals he makes for himself or how the act of peeling an apple can be like meditation. The meat of the book offers up menus to share with a family or gathering of friends. I personally cannot wait for spring to get here so I can try my hand at asparagus scrambled eggs and fennel soup.
• “Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer” by Novella Carpenter.
  With a name like Novella, you’re kind of destined to be a writer. And as the child of a couple of back-to-the-land hippies, growing vegetables and raising pigs in the abandoned lot next to your inner-city Oakland home might also seem the natural thing to do. Carpenter describes her adventures in ghetto farming in a rollicking, wry style, making this food memoir stand out from the pack of recent books about local food movement experiments.
• “The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food” by Judith Jones.
  If the name Judith Jones sounds familiar to you, chances are you’re a fan of Julia Child (or have at least read and/or watched “Julie and Julia,” the story of Julie Powell spending a year tackling every recipe in “The Art of French Cooking“). Jones is the editor who championed and published Child’s cookbook, and in this memoir, she details her life-long relationship with  cuisine and the major role she played in this country’s food revolution.

Found any treasures while browsing the bottom shelves? Let us know in the comments!

Black History Month is a time to celebrate the achievements of African-Americans and the important roles they have played throughout American history. We celebrate Black History Month every February because it is the birth month of both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, two important figures in the abolitionist movement.

Each year, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History chooses a theme for Black History Month. This year’s theme reflects two important anniversaries in the history of black Americans and of the United States: the Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington. On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which set the United States on the path to ending slavery and inspired many enslaved people to strike for their freedom. One hundred years later, in 1963, hundreds of thousands of Americans marched to the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech. The March on Washington was a vital step toward ending legal segregation in the United States.

In honor of Black History Month, we are showcasing some library materials about the end of slavery and the civil rights movement. In addition to the nonfiction titles listed below, check back next week for a selection of fictional works.

“A Slave No More” by David W. Blight

Wallace Turnage was a field hand on an Alabama plantation. John Washington was an urban slave in Virginia. Both men saw an opportunity to seize their freedom during the chaos of the Civil War, and, later, wrote down their extraordinary stories to share with their children. These two recently-discovered narratives, along with biographies of both men, are collected in this powerful book. Their stories reveal extraordinary courage and self-determination, helping modern readers understand the human face of slavery and the great lengths people went to for freedom.

“Forever Free” by Eric Foner

In “Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction,” historian Eric Foner re-examines many of the prevailing assumptions about a pivotal period in American history. He argues that Reconstruction represented the first effort to form a multi-racial society, which was aborted as a result of racist backlash. And, rather than concentrating on white sources as many historians have, Foner draws on a wide range of documents, including congressional documents, black newspapers, army reports and plantation records. The picture that emerges is not one of black people passively receiving freedom from the Union Army and the Federal Government, but of black people as active agents in ending slavery, winning the Civil War and creating the postwar society.

“Walk in My Shoes” by Andrew Young and Kabir Sehgal

Andrew Young is a politician, pastor and diplomat. He was a leader in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, a congressman, mayor of Atlanta, and ambassador to the United Nations. In “Walk in My Shoes,” Young shares his hard-earned wisdom on civil rights, race, faith, love and leadership with his godson, Kabir Sehgal. His voice is never pedantic, but witty, irreverent and challenging. We should all be so lucky as to have a mentor like Andrew Young, but, in the meantime, we can all learn a lot from this highly enjoyable book.

Image Credits (Clockwise from top left):

• Juneteenth day celebration in Texas. Date: 19 June 1900. Source: PICA 05476, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.
• Martin Luther King, Jr., half-length portrait, facing left, with left arm raised, at freedom rally, Washington Temple Church / World Telegram & Sun photo by O. Fernandez. Date: 1962. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c11157
• Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during the 1963 March on Washington. Photo by Warren K. Leffler.
• Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. U.S. Information Agency. Press and Publications Service. Date: 8/28/1963.
• Thomas Le Mere (1863). By Smithsonian Institution from United States (Abraham Lincoln  Uploaded by Meisam) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
• Portrait of Taylor, a black drummer boy, 78th Regiment, US Colored Infantry, during Civil War. http://images.google.com/hosted/life/1826fa62fa51dd54.html

In January 1853, Peter Nichols built the first home in what is known today as the town of Ashland in Boone County, Missouri. In celebration of the town’s 160th birthday, Marjory Johnson, Pat Nichols, Larry Rice and myself, all of the Southern Boone County Historical Society, presented images and stories of the town’s early years. Much of the information presented came from W.F. Switzler’s “History of Boone County, Missouri” (originally published in 1882). You can visit the Columbia Public Library’s reference collection on the second floor to browse this book and other county histories.

Here are a few fun facts about Ashland’s history.

Businesses

Farmer’s Corner was the first business established in Ashland. Owned by D.M. and A.M. Burnam, this general mercantile was located on the southeast corner of Broadway and Main. The most well known store on the north side of Main was called The Trade Center, started by Lawrence Bass, Joseph Waters Johnston, a Mr. Brooks and a Mr. Harris in 1881. The Trade Center sold everything a rural family would need to take care of farm and home, and its great success was due in part to its location–less than one block south of the stockyards where farmers brought their livestock for sale.

Churches

The Methodist Episcopal Church was Ashland’s first established church and was built  in 1854 on the south side of Broadway. The Ashland Baptist Church was established in 1879 with its house of worship being constructed in 1880. The Christian Church was started in 1881 and built its first building in 1882, just west of the Ashland Mill Company. The mill pond was used for baptisms in the early days of the church. Ashland’s first black church appears on a 1922 Sanborn Insurance Map, but the exact year of its establishment is unknown.

Social Life

Churches and service clubs, along with their auxiliaries, provided this rural community’s social opportunities. Service clubs included the Masons who formed in 1858 and built the Ashland Lodge No. 156, Patrons of Husbandry (formed in 1873) and the Ashland Order United Workmen (1880). The Ashland Debating Society formed in 1875 and would orate on the streets of town. Hot topics included the US Centennial Celebration, politics and the importance of church. July fourth was a very big day in Ashland when political candidates did their stumping. This continued well into the 1950s.

Further Reading

For more Boone County history, see the list in our online catalog of resources for historians and genealogists.

Images courtesy of Larry Rice and the Southern Boone County Historical Society.

February is a happening month at the library for music lovers. We have the usual Story Times, with songs for the youngest listeners/singers. And at the Columbia Public Library, there’s the usual first Sunday Tunes at Two. In addition to these, we have a plethora of concerts and music-related programs:

• Listen to Free Music Online
  Wednesday, February 6, 6:30 p.m., Columbia Public Library. Registration required. (Call 573-443-3161.)
• African-American Music and Musicians Thursday, February 7, 6:30 p.m., Callaway County Public Library in Fulton. No registration required for this discussion.
• Words From the Drum With Kunama Mtendaji
  There are four choices for attending this all-ages program. Kunama Mtendaji will perform three times on Monday, February 18 – once in Fulton (10 a.m.) and twice in Columbia (2 p.m. or 6:30 p.m.) and Tuesday, February 19 in Ashland (3:30 p.m.) No registration required.
• Bob Bovee and Gail Heil Concert
  Thursday, February 21, 7 p.m., Columbia Public Library. Adults and teens.  No registration required.
• Old-Time Fiddlers in Missouri
  Monday, February 25, 7 p.m., Columbia Public Library. No registration required for this combination book discussion/fiddle session.

While you’re at the library for a program, make sure to take the time to look through the extensive CD collections available at all branches. We own over 17,000 titles, so you’re likely to find something to suit your taste. Regulars might notice that music CD browsing has become easier with the completion of the relabeling and reorganization project. (You’ll find CDs by the Beatles under “B” in Pop Rock instead of at call number 782.42.) We also own many concert DVDs, running the gamut from Yo Gabba Gabba to Soul Train to Weird Al Yankovic to Wagner. If you need earbuds or headphones to facilitate your listening experience, we sell them at our check-out desks.

For those who are interested in making music, we have instructional DVDs and books. Struggling with hammered dulcimer? Help is here. Aspiring female R&B singer? We have a book for you.  Been meaning to figure out that harmonica your grandfather gave you for Christmas?  You don’t have to wait; you can “Play Harmonica Today!”