CHECK IT OUT

A new feature on my blog starting today.  As a former librarian, okay, para-librarian, I'm still reading and sometimes I run across wonderful books that are not written by the hot authors of the day.  You know which ones I'm talking about..John Sandford, James Patterson, Danielle Steel (I really don't read any of hers).
I like bloody suspense once in a while but I also like historical fiction, non-fiction and just plain good literature, which, sadly, there is a lack of. 

One of the surprising historical fiction/christian books I recently finished taught me something I should have known about a long time ago. It's called Wonderland Creek by Lynn Austin. The story takes place in eastern Kentucky during the depression where a young librarian from Chicago travels with her aunt and uncle. She was corresponding with the Kentucky librarian and decided to deliver boxes of books that she collected for the library. Little did she know what she was getting into. Not only was she awakened to the poverty of the area but she was educated about the pack horse librarians. The story is about the pack horse librarians of eastern Kentucky. The pack horse librarian program was the brain child of the Roosevelt’s and the WPA program in 1935. It was a way to give women jobs as well as bring desperately-needed reading materials to the folks living in the hills with little or nothing. I've been in the library world for over 30 years and I never heard of the pack horse librarians. It was a terrific story and it led me to search for more information on the subject. I found another book entitled Down Cut Shin Creek by Kathi Appelt and Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer. It's a children's book but chocked full of wonderful photographs. Both are worth your time and are available from your local library.

And, one more

The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure.

I had no idea there was a Little House on the Prairie cult but this book proves it. How anyone could be obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder and her life was shocking to me but apparently there are thousands of Laura wanna-bees around the world. This author took her husband and went on vacation visiting every known place where Ma and Pa Ingalls and the family lived, and there were many. I am probably the only person in the world that never read a “Little House” book and after reading The Wilder Life I won't have to. I learned everything there is, and then some, about the Ingalls family, Laura and Almanzo and their daughter Rose. And, some very surprising revelations, I might add. Even if you're not a Little House fan, this book is well worth reading. It's funny and poignant and, again, there's a lot of late nineteenth century historical stuff that I always find fascinating.

I have no pictures to share today.  I'll have to get busy on that again.  Please leave a comment and tell me what you think about para-librarian book reviews.  Worth reading?