Fry bread is food. It is warm and delicious, piled high on a plate. Fry bread is time. It brings families together for meals and new memories. Fry bread is nation. It might look or taste different, but it is still shared by many, from coast to coast and beyond. Fry bread is us. It is a celebration of old and new, traditional and modern, similarity and difference.
The Cherokee community is grateful for blessings and challenges that each season brings. This is modern Native American life as told by an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
The word otsaliheliga (oh-jah-LEE-hay-lee-gah) is used by members of the Cherokee Nation to express gratitude. Beginning in the fall with the new year and ending in summer, follow a full Cherokee year of celebrations and experiences. Written by a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, this look at one group of Native Americans is appended with a glossary and the complete Cherokee syllabary, originally created by Sequoyah.
In this simple rhyming story from the author of Held in Love, a child says thank you for the gifts nature provides, from hazelnuts in the hedge to apples from the tree, eggs from the hens to milk from the cow. Eventually, the family has enough ingredients to make something special … a delicious apple cake!
Celebrate everyday blessings, practice thankfulness, and observe the wonderful acts of service that keep us going each and every day. Eileen Spinelli, bestselling and award-winning children’s author, charms with rhymes and whimsy in Thankful, perfect for any young reader and their family.
The Community Library will hold its inaugural book club, “Together We Read!” on December 8, 2022. I am thrilled to host our first gathering! We will discuss one of my favorite recent works of fiction, Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus.
Don’t be fooled by its hot pink cover, Lessons in Chemistry is no weightless romance novel. Garmus throws a huge pile of infuriating literary stones at her protagonist, Elizabeth Zott. It’s not easy to fluster a brilliant scientist like Zott, however. She’s determined to deflect those stones, or at least heal from their impact well enough to break through the barriers they raise between her and her lifelong dream—a Ph.D. in Chemistry.
Lessons in Chemistry takes place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when American society largely disapproved of women like Elizabeth Zott. The few that managed to navigate the minefields of unreliable birth control and open gender discrimination in higher education found themselves swimming upstream in pretty hostile, white male dominated waters.
Without other options, she accepts a job as a cooking show host. And being Elizabeth Zott, she does what any good chemist would do: She turns citric acid, sucrose, and H20 into lemonade.
Determined not to let dim minds stand in her way, the indefatigable Zott fights her way into the rarified inner sanctum of academia, only to lose her job as a Teacher’s Assistant (her only source of income as a graduate student) over a “scandal.” Without other options, she accepts a job as a cooking show host. And being Elizabeth Zott, she does what any good chemist would do: She turns citric acid, sucrose, and H20 into lemonade.
The timing of this first-time author’s new blockbuster might explain, at least in part, its instant appeal. The loss of Roe vs. Wade erased a fundamental right that, for fifty years, gave women more power to compete with men in the workplace. Along with Griswold vs. Connecticut, which established a right to birth control, Roe advanced female equality in the pursuit of education and career opportunities by granting unintentionally pregnant women the freedom to control when, and whether, to bear children.
The attribute that takes Lessons in Chemistry to the next level, however, is Garmus’ incredible talent for character development. From the brilliant, quirky, indefatigable, lovably unintentional feminist to her supporting cast—including an equally brilliant young daughter and a loyal mutt with an enviable I.Q and a voice of his own. Not surprisingly, a movie is already in the making!
Please be forewarned that Garmus’ novel contains both heartbreaking and brutal scenes, but only those necessary to further the storyline and properly address serious issues that still threaten women today. Much like Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, the book does not sugarcoat the awful tolerance of crime against women and victimization in in patriarchal culture, but somehow, the story remains funny, lovely, and hopeful. Once you begin to read Lessons in Chemistry, you will not want to stop. When you do come to the end, you will want to talk about it!
Sign up for the inaugural “Together We Read!” book club here.
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The Community Library’s Together We Read book club is hosted the third Tuesday of every other month and led by a diverse range of library staff. Books cover all genres from new fiction to classics to nonfiction, young adult, graphic novels, and everything in between. Join us for one discussion or many!
February’s pick is the 2023 Winter Read, Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine. This discussion of the entire collection of short stories will be led by the Library’s Teen Advisory Group (TAG) Interns. Registration is recommended to join us.
The Library has multiple copies of Sabrina & Corina circulating in our collection: as a paperback, Overdrive ebook, Overdrive eaudiobook, and on Nooks available for checkout. The book is also available in Spanish. Please come in or talk to our librarians about reserving a copy.
