Recently in Hyde Library Category

The new Ann Bausum book, Marching to the Mountaintop, is now on display. She will visit MUS and speak in chapel on Feb. 17, so read it and learn about a difficult period in Memphis history.

Update: The Read for Fun Book Club will meet on Friday Feb. 3 instead of Jan. 27 to talk about A Game of Thrones. Let me know what kind of pizza you prefer!

The US Read for Fun group will meet September 23 in the Loeb Room for lunch.  One book has been nominated so far:  I Am Number Four.  There are also several new series out and doubtless some other nominations will come forth. 

The LS Guys Read group will meet on September 28 during LS lunch, and there will be an interesting discussion about all the series that have added titles over the summer.  Check the new library newsletter for updates on when some other books are appearing.

Mrs. Crosby and Mr. Reese have big plans for their groups this year, too. Check with them to find out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday, January 7, Frank Beddor came to MUS to speak, meet with students, and sign copies of his books.  He gave a rousing performance in chapel and got several students up on stage to read for movie parts.  I must admit that when I arranged for Mr. Beddor to visit, I had no idea that he is a world champion freestyle skier, an actor, a stuntman, and the producer of a major comedy hit movie.  I just thought his Looking Glass Wars series was creative, well-written, and intelligent, and our book clubs had enjoyed reading his trilogy.  Well, it was even more entertaining and enlightening than I had imagined to hear him talk about developing the idea for his books, spending five years writing the first one, and finding a variety of ways to tell the story, including the novel, the movie (which is awaiting production), an interactive computer game, a card game, and now a Broadway musical that's in development.  Mr. Beddor spent hours talking with students, faculty, and library staff.  He discussed one student's writing project with him and the requirements of fantasy writing:  how you have to come up with a workable means to help the reader suspend his disbelief.  He said he spent about two years creating the backstory and the invented world for his vision of Wonderland and pointed out that J.R.R. Tolkien had hundreds of boxes of supporting materials for his Lord of the Rings books.  He encouraged the boys to explore different ways to tell their own stories through art, music, theater, and writing.   Beddor was impressed with the personalities and ideas of the MUS students and said, "I like this school--I want to stay here!"

 

 

One of the biggest influences in my intellectual life, growing up, was access to the bookshelves in my house.  My parents were college teachers, and as I lounged in my parents’ den, I would see the books, pick them up, and read them.  My mother’s collection of novels such as Native Son and The Sound and the Fury, plays by Henrik Ibsen, and theological books by C. S. Lewis beckoned me to pick them up, open them, and explore them.  When I needed something to read after about the 7th grade, all I had to do was browse my parents’ shelves. 

 

I also was lucky enough to live across the street from my parents’ college and have access to the children’s reading room, set up for teachers in training, and filled with books for all ages.  My friend Debra and I spent one summer, when we were 9 or 10, riding our bikes to that library every day and reading right there in that room—no need to check anything out!  We had a good public library in town and we used it too, but the college library was right there and the reading room was a little hideaway we had all to ourselves.

 

When I try to imagine a world without physical books, where everything is digital and electronic, I always wonder how our kids would be exposed to the stories?  Would they choose to pick up an e-reader and scroll up and down on a tiny screen, or would they just default to the video game and television set sitting right in front of them?  How would they be aware that the books exist?  I know they say that a person’s educational success can be predicted by the number of books in their parents’ house,* so what would happen to the kids’ intellects if there were no physical books to look at?  That’s one of many reasons I think the physical book will never go away, although e-books are fine for some purposes.

 

Wal-Mart is said to have a display system called “Actionality” where likely impulse purchases are put right out in front of the consumers in order to attract their attention and sell more items, whether they were intending to get those things or not.  Books need to be out in front of kids, where they can see them, pick them up, and flip through them.  Else they will probably never know that a lot of these books ever existed.

 

 

*“Home library size has a very substantial effect on educational attainment, even adjusting for parents’ education, father’s occupational status and other family background characteristics,” reports [a] study in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. “Growing up in a home with 500 books would propel a child 3.2 years further in education, on average, than would growing up in a similar home with few or no books."