A.K. Smiley Public Library Blog

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ASALH’s 2022 Black History Month theme, virtual events, and the Library’s newest offerings

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The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, founded in 1915, assigns a theme each February for the observance of Black History Month. In 2022 the theme on which the Association is focusing is Black Health and Wellness. The intention, as ASALH writes, is not to “limit the exploration of the Black experience, but to bring to the public’s attention important developments that merit emphasis.” We encourage you to visit the Association’s website and learn more about this year’s theme and previous ones. You may also wish to participate in its month-long 2022 Black History Month Virtual Festival.

Events and programming are also available at these sites, the Library of Congress at https://www.africanamericanhistorymonth.gov, and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) at https://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/blogs/news/pbs-showcases-rich-collection-of-stories-to-celebrate-black-history-month/.

In recognition of Black History Month 2022 here at Smiley Library, our staff has created an addendum, directly below, to our lists of 2020-21. Peruse our most recent acquisitions featuring Black history and cultural themes, and Black authors, with which to continue to remember, honor, celebrate, and inspire. These books are on display in the Library near the Circulation Desk. As always, ask a librarian for help finding anything.

New Books – Fiction

Harlem Shuffle / Whitehead, Colson
Skye Falling : a Novel  / McKenzie, Mia
Palmares / Jones, Gayl
Black Girls Must Die Exhausted : a Novel / Allen, Jayne
In Every Mirror She’s Black / Akinmade-Akerström, Lola
The Sweetness of Water / Harris, Nathan, Sgt.
The Year We Learned to Fly / Woodson, Jacqueline (Young Readers) – coming soon
Filthy Animals / Taylor, Brandon (Brandon L. G.)
While We Were Dating / Guillory, Jasmine

New Books – Nonfiction

Call Us What We Carry : Poems / Gorman, Amanda
The Disordered Cosmos : a Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred / Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda
The Essential June Jordan / Jordan, June
Letters to My White Male Friends / Ross, Dax-Devlon
Dear Black Girl : Letters from Your Sisters on Stepping into Your Power / Winfrey Harris, Tamara
Hip Hop (and Other Things) : a Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated / Serrano, Shea
Colorization : One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World / Haygood, Wil
The Black History Book / Blyden, Nemata Amelia
Such Color : New and Selected Poems / Smith, Tracy K.
The Matter of Black Lives : Writing from The New Yorker / Cobb, Jelani
Changes : an Oral History of Tupac Shakur / Pearce, Sheldon
King of the Blues : the Rise and Reign of B.B. King / De Visé, Daniel
Dear Senthuran : a Black Spirit Memoir / Emezi, Akwaeke
Toni Morrison’s Spiritual Vision : Faith, Folktales, and Feminism in her Life and Literature / Nittle, Nadra
Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat : Poems / Rae, Khalisa
Unprotected : a Memoir / Porter, Billy
On Juneteenth / Gordon-Reed, Annette
The 1619 Project : a New Origin Story / Hannah-Jones, Nikole
My Remarkable Journey : a Memoir / Johnson, Katherine G.

2020 – 2021

Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a son of formerly enslaved parents, embarked on the establishment of February as Black History Month. He was a teacher and school administrator who in 1912 became the second African American, after W.E.B. Du Bois, to earn a PhD from Harvard University. In February 1926 he launched the precursor of the celebration with “Negro History Week,” designated for the second week in February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Dr. Woodson also founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Each year the Association, which continues to support Dr. Woodson’s cause, assigns a theme to the celebration. The theme for 2021 is “The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity” — ideas to ponder as we read.

Please refer to previous blog post Celebrating Black Authors and Black Lives for additional titles. Take a look too at our extensive Catalog for older items on the subject, as well as those for children and young adults. Check them out through our Books to Go program or in person during our new public hours.

Also, don’t forget our eLibrary which includes, besides e-items for download, the new Black Life in America database. This primary source collection provides materials in which you may research the experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by the news media, from 1704 to today. It is an expansive window into centuries of African American history, culture, and daily life — as well as the ways the dominant culture has portrayed and perceived people of African descent.

Streaming video service Kanopy, also located in our eLibrary, features films about racial and social injustice. Inspiring documentaries, like “The Talk: Race in America,” “P.S. I Can’t Breathe,” and many others, can help contribute to a more open dialogue about race relations in modern America.

And finally, for even more ways in which to learn about Black history, view the Heritage Room’s Black History Month webinar series. available for viewing at the AKSPL Special Collections YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx1V0OiVDDpGORavA_W6icQ,  or on Facebook under the Video tab.

The offerings include:

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Centennial Anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

The Tulsa race massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of White residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is alternatively known as the “Tulsa race riot” or the “Black Wall Street massacre.”

See also, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission website, https://www.tulsa2021.org/, and find our books on the subject here:

Juneteenth, on June 19

Juneteenth (a combination of June and nineteenth) is also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day. It is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States. Originating in Galveston, Texas, it is now celebrated annually throughout the United States, with increasing official recognition resulting in its declaration as a federal holiday on June 17, 2021. It is commemorated on the anniversary date of the June 19, 1865 announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger, proclaiming freedom from slavery in Texas.

For more information check out our Blog post, Juneteenth, the celebration of emancipation from slavery, now recognized as a federal holiday, and find our books on the subject here:

Visit the University of Redlands website to learn about its Inaugural Juneteenth Celebration, which took place virtually from June 15 through June 17, 2021.

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2020 – 2021

Autobiographies, Biographies, and Memoirs

Cookbooks

DVDs

DVD Documentaries

Fiction

Graphic Novels

History

Humor

Literature

Music

Poetry

Politics, Civil Rights, Law

Sciences, Philosophy, Journalism, Language, Mathematics, Technology, Performing Arts

Social Sciences

Sports

Native American heritage: new books, periodicals, online resources

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Celebrate Native American Heritage Month in November with some of the new Smiley Library titles listed below. As a reminder, we continue to offer Books to Go: select a title, place it on hold, and pick it up at an outdoor appointment.

Besides checking out our items, you may also want to explore online the Library of Congress “Living Nations, Living Words” project. It features a sampling of work by 47 Native Nations poets through an interactive ArcGIS Story Map and a newly developed Library of Congress audio collection.

Joy Harjo writes, “For my signature project as the 23rd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, I conceived the idea of mapping the U.S. with Native Nations poets and poems. I want this map to counter damaging false assumptions—that indigenous peoples of our country are often invisible or are not seen as human. You will not find us fairly represented, if at all, in the cultural storytelling of America, and nearly nonexistent in the American book of poetry.”

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In 1915, the annual Congress of the American Indian Association meeting in Lawrence, Kans., formally approved a plan concerning American Indian Day. It directed its president, Rev. Sherman Coolidge, an Arapahoe, to call upon the country to observe such a day. Coolidge issued a proclamation on Sept. 28, 1915, which declared the second Saturday of each May as an American Indian Day and contained the first formal appeal for recognition of Indians as citizens. The year before this proclamation was issued, Red Fox James, a Blackfoot Indian, rode horseback from state to state seeking approval for a day to honor Indians. On December 14, 1915, he presented the endorsements of 24 state governments at the White House. There is no record, however, of such a national day being proclaimed.

The first American Indian Day in a state was declared on the second Saturday in May 1916 by the governor of New York. Several states celebrate the fourth Friday in September. In Illinois, for example, legislators enacted such a day in 1919. Presently, several states have designated Columbus Day as Native American Day, but it continues to be a day we observe without any recognition as a national legal holiday. In 1990 President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution designating November 1990 “National American Indian Heritage Month.” Similar proclamations, under variants on the name (including “Native American Heritage Month” and “National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month”) have been issued each year since 1994. (source: NativeAmericanHeritageMonth.gov)

Smiley Library new fiction and non-fiction

Heritage Room items (available by appointment for use in the Heritage Room)

Young Readers’ Room

Young Adult (located in our Teen Underground area on the lower level)

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month, a reading list

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September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic American Heritage Month.

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of Hispanic Americans who have positively influenced and enriched our nation and society.

Each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, by celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

The observation started in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period starting on September 15 and ending on October 15. It was enacted into law on August 17, 1988, on the approval of Public Law 100-402.

The day of September 15 is significant because it is the anniversary of independence for Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September 18, respectively. Also, Columbus Day or Día de la Raza, which is October 12, falls within this 30-day period.

For more information, visit HispanicHeritageMonth.gov, enjoy our display inside the Library, and check out some of our books listed below, such as the newly released My Broken Language by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and co-writer of In the Heights, Quiara Alegría Hudes. Hudes tells her lyrical story of coming of age against the backdrop of an ailing Philadelphia barrio, with her sprawling Puerto Rican family as a collective muse.

In addition, you may search our catalog for our large collection of Spanish language materials, or contact the Heritage Room to view local Hispanic heritage items, such as these photos featured in our previous blog post, Honoring the Hispanic Heritage of Redlands.

 

Biography

¡Hola papi! : how to come out in a Walmart parking lot and other life lessons / Brammer, John Paul, 2021

The crusades of Cesar Chavez : a biography / Pawel, Miriam, 2014

The universal tone : bringing my story to light / Santana, Carlos, 2014

Clemente : the true legacy of an undying hero / Clemente (Family), 2013

My beloved world / Sotomayor, Sonia, 2013

Beyond rain of gold / Villaseñor, Victor, 2011

And a voice to sing with : a memoir / Baez, Joan, 2009

Roberto Clemente : the great one / Markensen, Bruce, 1998

Dreaming with his eyes open : a life of Diego Rivera / Marnham, Patrick, 1998

 

Arts and Recreation

Trejo : my life of crime, redemption, and Hollywood / Trejo, Danny, 2021

In the Heights : finding home / Miranda, Lin-Manuel, 2021

Joan Baez : the last leaf / Thomson, Elizabeth, 2020

Writing the future : Basquiat and the hip-hop generation / Munsell, Liz, 2020

Spirit run : a 6,000-mile marathon through North America’s stolen land / Álvarez, Noé, 2020

Goya : a portrait of the artist / Tomlinson, Janis A., 2020

Frida in America : the creative awakening of a great artist / Stahr, Celia, 2020

They bled blue : the 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers : Fernandomania, strike-season mayhem, and the weirdest championship baseball had ever seen / Turbow, Jason, 2019

Frida Kahlo at home / Barbezat, Suzanne, 2016

Frida Kahlo’s garden / Zavala, Adriana, 2015

Goya : his life and works in 500 images : an illustrated account of the artist, his life and context, with a gallery of 300 paintings and drawings / Hodge, Susie, 2015

Salvador Dalí / Shanes, Eric, 2014

Why soccer matters / Pelé, 2014

True love / Lopez, Jennifer, 2014

Rita Moreno : a memoir / Moreno, Rita, 2013

I’m not gonna lie : and other lies you tell when you turn 50 / Lopez, George, 2013

Salvador Dali : 1904-1989 / Wolf, Norbert, 2008

Diego Rivera : his art and his passions / Souter, Gerry, 2007

American dream : ten years of prints, books & drawings = diez años de grabados, libros y dibujos / Rodríguez, Artemio, 2006

Pablo Picasso : a modern master / Leslie, Richard, 2006

The Baroque world of Fernando Botero / Sillevis, John, 2006

The diary of Frida Kahlo : an intimate self-portrait / Kahlo, Frida, 2005

Chicano visions : American painters on the verge / Marin, Cheech, 2002

Mexican muralists : Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros / Rochfort, Desmond, 1998

Picasso / Lévy, Lorraine, 1991

Art in Latin America : the modern era, 1820-1980 / Ades, Dawn, 1989

Diego Rivera : a retrospective / Rivera, Diego, 1986

Texas-Mexican cancionero : folksongs of the lower border / Paredes, Americo, 1976

 

Spanish Language Materials –

Trejo : mi vida de crimen, redención y Hollywood /  Trejo, Danny, 2021

 

Literature and Poetry

My broken language : a memoir / Hudes, Quiara Alegría, 2021

A farewell to Gabo and Mercedes : a son’s memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha / García, Rodrigo, 2021

Between two fires : intimate writings on life, love, food & flavor / Esquivel, Laura, 2000

Postcolonial love poem / Diaz, Natalie, 2020

Every day we get more illegal / Herrera, Juan Felipe, 2020

Thrown in the throat / Garcia, Benjamin, 2020

Native country of the heart : a memoir / Moraga, Cherríe, 2019

Lima : limón / Scenters-Zapico, Natalie, 2019

Black dove : essays on mama, mi’jo, and me / Castillo, Ana, 2016

A thousand forests in one acorn : an anthology of Spanish-language fiction / Miles, Valerie, 2014

Cubanisimo! : the Vintage Book of contemporary Cuban literature / García, Cristina, 2003

 

Fiction

Chola salvation / Gonzalez, Estella, 2021

Las biuty queens / Ojeda, Iván Monalisa, 2021

The five wounds : a novel / Quade, Kirstin Valdez, 2021

The rock eaters : stories / Peynado, Brenda, 2021

Gordo : stories / Cortez, Jaime, 2021

The president and the frog / De Robertis, Carolina, 2021

Songs for the flames : stories / Vásquez, Juan Gabriel, 2021

 

Science Fiction

(Star Wars) Last shot / Older, Daniel José, 2018

Infomocracy / Older, Malka, 2016

 

History

Horizontal vertigo : a city called Mexico / Villoro, Juan, 2021

Virtual tour of Redlands historical sites now available!

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Redlands Unified goes virtual for Smiley Heritage Tour

Source: Redlands Community News

A.K. Smiley Public Library, pictured here in 1901, is one of the landmarks featured on the Smiley Heritage Tour

The Redlands Unified School district has been sending fourth-grade students on the Smiley Heritage Tour since the early 1980s. Due to COVID-19, last year was the first time students could not participate.

This year, the district decided to go virtual to keep the history alive.

“A whole grade level lost the experience last year,” said Jamie Cortz, director of instructional technology and accountability. “It was a big deal to the district, and when this school year began, all field trips were canceled again. So, we decided to make the tour virtual so students still had the opportunity to have this experience even though they can’t go in person.”

The tour is hosted by A.K. Smiley Public Library Heritage Tours. It features 17 historical stops around the city, such as the Library, Mill Creek Zanja, Burrage Mansion, and Kimberly Crest. Cortz said the district and library representatives Serena Davis and Tish Sandos spent six months collaborating to gather information, video, and photos for the virtual experience. It went live on the website in May, 2021.

“We made trips to locations and recorded drone footage,” said Cortz. “We reached out to people in the community to get voice audio and recreated the entire tour virtually. We even added ArcGIS elements and incorporated fun educational materials like an escape room game where students had to answer questions about the tour to ‘get off the bus.’ Our mindset this year was we didn’t want COVID to take away the tradition from kids, so we used an innovated approach to overcome it.”

Project leads Olivia Davison and Jennifer Hunt wanted to make the virtual tour as robust as the in-person one.

“It’s a half-day tour when kids go in-person,” said Davison. “We wanted all of the 17 stops on the virtual tour. However, on the normal tour, kids only get off the bus at six locations. A lot of it is driven. But we still wanted to incorporate all the locations and not take away anything. At the beginning of the virtual tour, students have a numbered map that shows all of the locations with facts about each.

“For the six stops, it is interactive with an introduction and welcome videos from library docents, photos, drone footage, and ArcGIS story maps. We went to each stop and took 365-degree images of every room the students would see if they were off the bus. We added click points to take them to new rooms and give information about each. Not only can they see outside but inside of the buildings as well. We also got students to narrate some of the information.”

Davison said the virtual tour was made as inclusive as possible.

“For our English as a Second Language (ESL) students, they can have all of the text on the screen read to them by a digital translator,” she said. “They are able to choose the language they want which was something they couldn’t do on the in-person tour.”

Unlike the in-person tour, the virtual tour is available for students to take on their own time, as many times as they want.

“We made the map easy to follow so students could drive along with their parents if they wanted,” said Davison. “We actually got quite a few emails from parents saying they did visit the locations in-person.”

If possible, the district is hoping to resume the in-person tour next year. But have no plans to take the virtual tour down.

“We see this as more of a community resource now,” said Cortz. “Kids can look at it prior to the field trip and get excited, but also families can share this with kids of all ages. Even adults are interested.

“We have talked about sharing this with our new teachers when they are hired so they can virtually tour the city and know a little bit about the community.”

As of June 2, 2021, the virtual tour has hosted almost 7,000 visitors.

To take the virtual tour, visit https://sites.google.com/redland…/smiley-heritage-tours/home

For more information, or to volunteer with Smiley Heritage Tours, contact smileyheritagetours@akspl.org.

Teens, don’t read this… especially if you don’t want to win a prize by reading books!

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Teens, in the following article I will attempt to read your mind multiple times. Please proceed with caution if you wish to keep your thoughts private.

The Dig Deeper Summer Reading Program at A.K. Smiley Public Library is in full swing. If you are thinking, “Eh…that’s kid stuff,” please, teens, think again. Here’s how the Summer Reading Program works for teens: for every 50 pages you read between now and August 3rd, you earn a ticket. Each earned ticket offers you a chance to win one of twelve cool prizes.

My telepathic powers tell me you are skeptical about these alleged “cool” prizes. Would a voucher for Open Door Escape Games for you and your friends excite you? How about a gift card to A Shop Called Quest comic bookstore? Would you enjoy a close-up look at the disturbing micro-organisms that surround you with your very own cell phone microscope? Does your mouth water at the mention of a refreshing pint of gelato from Happy Camper Creamery? Are you craving the special variety of brain freeze only a scoop of Salted Caramel from À La Minute can deliver? Is your stomach pitifully lacking a breakfast burrito from Burger Town U.S.A. right at this very moment?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then join the Dig Deeper Summer Reading Program immediately. All of these prizes and more are on the line exclusively for teens. To get started, simply visit the Young Readers’ Room at A.K. Smiley Public Library, pick up a Teen Reading Log, grab some books, and let your eyeballs do the rest. You could also download the reading log from the Teens’ page of our website (www.akspl.org/teens) or even just record the titles and pages you read on a regular old scrap of paper or the back of your hand…we’re not picky!

My sixth sense indicates you are slowly coming around to this whole Summer Reading Program idea, but you still don’t know what to read. Teens, we’ve got you covered! From anime to career idea guides, the Teen Underground, located in the basement level of the Library, has something for you.

Want a page-turner that involves a mysterious bequest, a love triangle, an inscrutable riddle, and attempted murder? Try “The Inheritance Games” by Jennifer Barnes. How about a twist on a classic in the form of the new Jane Austen-esque murder-mystery, “Pride and Premeditation” by Tirzah Price? Are you more of a modern fairy-tale fan? “Tokyo Ever After” by Emiko Jean may be up your alley. Or maybe you’d like to take a stab at horror with the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” series by Scott Cawthorn? No? You want to laugh? I thought so (still mind-reading). Try “This Will Be Funny Someday” by Katie Henry, a coming-of-age story about a model high school student turned stand-up comic. 

Teens, I don’t need a Magic 8-Ball to tell you that letting your eyeballs loose on some good books this summer may result in a win-win for you; not only will you be transported/enlightened/made brilliant by the pages you consume, but you may also end up with a mouth full of smoothie from Badger Bowls (yet another one of our cool prizes). Of course the rewards of reading transcend a paleta from Nicho’s Ice Cream or a street taco from Taco Shack (cool prizes numeros once y doce), but I predict you are open to a chance at having it all. You have two weeks left, teens…read with us! And I promise I will now stop reading your minds.