What's New

Two AmeriCorps members have joined the Redlands Adult Literacy leadership team. The California Library Literacy Services (CLLS) and Literacyworks, a nonprofit that supports literacy programs, recently collaborated with California Volunteers/AmeriCorps to build capacity in adult and family literacy programs throughout the state of California. Through the CLLS AmeriCorps Initiative, A.K. Smiley Public Library was awarded two part-time AmeriCorps members for one year to help enhance literacy programs in Redlands.

AmeriCorps is often referred to as the “Domestic Peace Corps” as its members are engaged in service to local communities. AmeriCorps members help communities prosper and bring Americans together by working with communities to ensure that people have access to the help they need.

The mission of AmeriCorps closely aligns with the Redlands Adult Literacy Program’s goal to provide one-on-one tutoring to adults who are working to improve their reading and writing skills in order to improve their and their family’s lives. The AmeriCorps members are working under the direction of Diane Shimota, Adult Literacy Coordinator, to provide additional tutoring, assist with tutor training, promote continuing education, and expand literacy outreach efforts within Redlands.

Ann Sandin is a literacy tutor who joined AmeriCorps because she wanted to apply her background as an educator in a new, more community-based manner. She began her AmeriCorps service at A.K. Smiley Public Library on November 1^st.  In addition to tutoring two adult learners, she provides drop-in tutoring on Saturday afternoons for adult learners who are waiting for tutors or who want a little extra help with computer basics. Her goals are to help expand literacy services throughout the Redlands community, make tutor training more interactive, and to deepen her own understanding of the literacy challenges facing so many adults.

AmeriCorps member Melany Chong has been active in the family literacy program at Smiley Library for over a year. The family literacy program is designed to involve parents enrolled in the adult literacy program with the opportunity to help enhance their children’s learning by providing educational experiences and books that encourage reading. The parents’ involvement with family literacy highlights the value of education in these families.

Melany is a college student who plans to become an elementary school educator with an emphasis in bilingual literacy. She provides creative input during the planning of monthly family literacy meetings and co-leads the meetings by reading books aloud, leading program activities, and patiently teaching crafts to children. Melany joined AmeriCorps because of her desire to gain real-world experience and be more involved in the Redlands community, where she grew up. She said, “I like to see how the children progress meeting after meeting and witness the growth of their enthusiasm for literacy.”

The Redlands Adult Literacy Program focuses on the goals of individual adult learners and their families.  Program speakers are available to meet with organizations that are interested in learning more about the Redlands Adult Literacy Program. Please call Diane Shimota, Adult Literacy Coordinator, at (909) 798-7565 ext. 4138 or email literacy@akspl.org if you are interested in learning more about the adult literacy speaker program.

The Redlands Adult Literacy program relies on its wonderful volunteer tutors to provide free instruction in reading and writing. Contact Diane Shimota if you are interested in attending the next volunteer tutor orientation scheduled for Tuesday, January 17, 2023, at 6:00 pm in the Library Assembly Room. If you know of someone who needs help in reading and writing, please encourage them to contact Diane Shimota at A. K. Smiley Public Library. All literacy services are free and confidential.

With the upcoming holiday looming in the background, we have some new non-fiction books in the Young Readers’ Room that you can check out to read when you have some free time! Please peruse the **NEW** non-fiction bookshelf to read each of these titles.

The first book you will enjoy reading is a fun book about gardening, “How to Say Hello to a Worm, a First Guide to Outside,” written by Kari Percival. Geared for readers and listeners, ages 2 and up, this beautifully illustrated book will help youngsters learn how to begin a garden. Taking much care, gentleness, and patience will guide young learners as they prepare for spring! A must-have for our curious, dirt-digging little ones!  You can find this title at call number J635 P412h.

The second suggestion is a Pete the Cat title, “Pete the Cat and the Sprinkle Stealer,” written by Kimberly and James Dean. This title is also a part of the “I Can Read Comics” series, Level 1. Written in graphic novel format, Secret Agent Meow is on the case of the missing ingredients for a baking contest. Will Secret Agent Meow solve the case before the contest is over? Will there be sprinkles in the contest? Please read this new Pete the Cat offering soon! You can find this title at J741.5 D345ps.

Most everyone has heard a Mother Goose tale in their lifetime, but have you read, “The Real Dada Mother Goose, A Treasury of Complete Nonsense,” an anthology put together by Jon Scieszka? This book will make a great family discussion time together as you discuss the absurdity of these rhymes! I’d like to hear about the rhymes you and your family come up with after reading these anagrams, simile excessiveness, Morse codes, and more! Find this title at J398.2 Sci27r.

The last two suggestions are new series additions to our collection from WorldBook: “Facing Life’s Challenges” and “Building Blocks of Computer Science.” Each set comes with eight titles.

“Facing Life’s Challenges” contains “Facing: Bigotry; Bullying; Death; Discrimination; Divorce; Peer Pressure; Serious Illness; and Uncertainty.” Each of these challenging subjects are met with an easy-to-read font and text, photographs, and a “Goal and Tools” section in the back so kids and their families can continue the conversation if needed. Each of these titles is found under their corresponding Dewey Decimal subject call number. Please ask a staff member for assistance if you’d like to read this series.

The “Building Blocks of Computer Science” set consists of: “Algorithms; Coding Languages; Debugging; Hardware; The Internet; Logic in Coding; Order in Coding; and Organizing Data.” Written in graphic novel form, these titles simplify the computer science topic for kids. These books offer a glossary and online links at the back of each title.

We look forward to seeing you browse the shelves and find the perfect book(s) for your youngster, or even yourself!

Thanksgiving has finished for another year, and we at Smiley Library hope it was a happy one. Now, the December holiday preparations and festivities are in full swing. For some speedy dinnertime suggestions to keep everyone’s mood merry and bright, why not check out the following cookbook selections.

“Food52 Simply Genius” by Kristen Miglore contains her latest collection of tasty and approachable recipes for time-strapped home cooks. Turn frozen potato gnocchi into either an easy Asian-inspired sheet-pan dinner with chili crisp and baby bok choy or a skillet pepperoni pizza with kalamata olives and melted mozzarella. Most recipes include a “Great With” pairing suggestion such as ultra-smashed cheeseburgers with a salty coke. Finally, all vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free dessert recipes are each grouped together as a category within the recipe index.

In this next time-saving cookbook, a little prep once a week, can quickly help you put together four complete home-cooked dinners. “Prep and Rally” by Dini Klein, offers 10 weeks of menus, each with a ready-made grocery list. You can take a picture of it with your cell phone before leaving for the store. Not sure what to do with any leftovers? Not to worry, as a whole chapter of creative meal suggestions and recipes is provided. Now you can make the most of what’s on hand and cut down on food waste. Breakfast, brunch, and sweet treats round out this family-friendly book.

For those of us who have dietary challenges, turn to Danielle Walker’s “Healthy in a Hurry” for fast and friendly mealtime inspiration. Danielle’s recipes are free of grains, dairy, and legumes, as well as, processed sugar, additives and seed oils. A sneak peek of what you’ll find includes kid-friendly creamy bacon cheeseburger soup, teriyaki salmon packets, spicy Cajun chicken pasta, and brats with warm potato salad and kraut. Dessert lovers might enjoy banana-chocolate mug cake, salted chocolate cuties, and refreshing pineapple whip.

Casseroles, skillets, Instant Pots, soup pots, and sheet pans are featured equipment in Melissa Clark’s new cookbook, “Dinner in One.” Melissa’s one pot or pan recipes are streamlined so that there is less mess, less work, and more flavor. Meatball sub sandwiches on garlic bread come together using a sheet pan, and take advantage of store-bought marinara sauce. Turkey and bean tamale pie could be made using any variety of ground meat and is ready in about an hour. Green shakshuka with avocado, chili, and feta is one of the fifty or so meatless recipes. With fewer dishes to wash and a speedy cleanup, you’ll have more time for holiday shopping, decorating, and wrapping presents.

“…Thanksgiving is also a reminder of the painful history created by the arrival of European colonizers. For many Native American people, colonization resulted in displacement from their homes, war, disease, and death. Thanksgiving is a day to remember this history and honor the first people of the nation.”

This sobering message comes to us from a child’s book, The First Thanksgiving: Separating Fact from Fiction, by Peter Mavrikis. New to Smiley Public Library’s Young Readers’ Room collection, it is a non-fiction account in the Fact vs. Fiction in U.S. History series. Though the Pilgrims and indigenous people of the Wampanoag Nation met peacefully at the ‘Thanksgiving’ of 1621, the circumstances surrounding their meeting and the subsequent depictions in American culture are often romanticized. This book is designed for children at sixth-grade level; however, it is full of well-sourced information that we adults may also need to learn, or re-learn.

Native Americans are not the only indigenous peoples who have been displaced by U.S. settler colonization. The American Indigenous community also includes (Hawaiian Kingdom) Kānaka Maoli and Alaskan Native people, in addition to the homelands of 574 federally recognized American Indian tribal nations, and hundreds more state-recognized tribal nations, and others.

Native author Adrienne Keene reminds us in her recent work, Notable Native People: 50 Indigenous Leaders, Dreamers, and Changemakers from Past and Present, that indigenous peoples are not just part of the historic past, that they are not extinct. They live among us and beside us — their indigenous cultures, thriving, their original languages, alive and well. Keene believes that there is power in sharing stories of Native Americans as a foray into recognizing their centuries-long burden of invisibility and erasure. Our commitment to ‘see’ them will help us admit that we need to interrupt our status quo and take action. Keene does so in an easy-to-read format in which she thoughtfully curates a selection of one-page biographies of 50 indigenous Americans whose accomplishments are sure to impress the reader and, hopefully, inspire us to support the needs of those on whose land we live.

If you enjoy these short bios, you are sure to want to linger over new autobiography Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk, by newcomer Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe, of the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribe in the Pacific Northwest. Author, poet, and artist, she guides us through a beautifully-written and enthralling personal memoir in which she attempts to find her indigenous identity, her voice, and the elusive concept of permanence. She writes,

“I realized I wasn’t sure what permanence looked like, because we weren’t meant to survive. My family, my tribe, my ancestors, we were something temporary to the settlers. Something that would eventually go away. Whether by disease or alcohol or poverty, our genocide was inevitable to them. I looked at the smoke pluming from the metal chimneys of the small reservation houses along the highway. But here we were, existing in our impermanent homes.”

LaPointe’s search for this innate, inherited need for a permanent home, urges her to explore the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage, identifying their traumas and her own. She is able to ultimately recognize the through-line of resilience in her Coast Salish ancestors and herself. Her tribe’s healers wear red paint in religious dance ceremonies, and in her exploration of such traditions, combined with her affinity for punk music and poetry, LaPointe finds her own healing and purpose.

For more suggestions for reading and getting to know indigenous peoples, visit our post on Native American Heritage Month on Smiley Blog, https://blog.akspl.org/. You’ll find several new fiction books listed by Native authors, and new non-fiction, like the 2022 update to the classic on Indigenous languages of California, Flutes of Fire. New chapters highlight the exciting efforts of current language activists, and include contemporary writing in several of the languages.

Also listed in the post are older books concerning Native Americans, some set in Southern California, such as a treatise by local historians James Sandos and Larry Burgess on the historical inaccuracies of the novel, Willie Boy & the Last Western Manhunt. You also will be introduced to a new book in the Heritage Room, As they were led : Quakerly steps and missteps toward Native justice, 1795-1940, by Catlin, Martha Claire, which includes in its discussion the Smiley brothers and other Quakers, who, over one hundred years ago, worked toward finding justice for Native Americans.

Science is one of the topics that is ever evolving and infinitely interesting. It also can be a bit intimidating at times. So, what do you do if you want to learn more about science but don’t want to spend your time reading through a 700-page treatise on different moss? (I really do like moss; I just don’t know what a treatise is.) Try some of these more accessible science books. They are written in easily understandable terms while remaining extremely fascinating.

“The Chemistry Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained” walks through the history of chemistry and how we find ourselves in the scientific world we inhabit today. Interestingly, the book is organized not by subject but by time, starting off around 7,000 BCE and the brewing of fermented beverages. By organizing the book by time, the author is able to show how each new discovery is built off of what came before and adds insights into how those discoveries came to be. Walking through the discoveries of soap making, the nuclear age, and all the way until the vaccine for COVID-19, “The Chemistry Book” shows some of the missteps and some of the triumphs of chemistry.

Another book that uses a timeline with great success is “Weather: An Illustrated History” by Andrew Revkin with Lisa Mechaley. Beginning with the creation of the earth and the development of the atmosphere, Revkin and Mechaley show how our world’s weather came in to being and how our own development evolved with it. It, unfortunately, also shows how we have come to influence it. How a snowstorm helped to convince New York City leaders to build the subway system and just how far back scientists knew that the burning of coal changed the climate (they, at first, thought it was a benefit). “Weather” is an intelligent look at how much as a species weather has defined our world and how we as a species have defined the weather.

If ‘identifying’ is something that has piqued your interest, there are two new DK Smithsonian books. “Gemstones” by Cally Hall is an identification book that covers precious metals, gems, and different cut and uncut stones. Hall walks their reader through the different physical properties of stones as well as defining optical properties and facets. They even show where stones are found geographically. If you find fossils interesting, then check out “Fossils” by David J Ward. Cataloging over 500 different fossils, Ward’s book adds annotations such as epoch, region, and likelihood of each fossil. Both books are filled with highly detailed photos to aid in your exploration of the natural world.

Happy Sciencing! (Seriously, what is a treatise?)