What's New

Everyone, well, just about everyone, is quite able to log on to the internet these days. Kids and Teens seem to know exactly what they’re searching for, even helping out us ‘older’ folks every so often! There are so many options out on the world wide web, that I’m happy to share with you a few of our databases. In this week’s article I will highlight an array of databases focusing on the youth. This list is compiled in alphabetical order.

You can find all of these databases on our library’s website: www.akspl.org/elibrary/

Please be sure to have your library card number handy (or memorized!) and also your PIN number, which is the last four digits of the phone number you referenced when applying for your library card. If you have trouble, be sure to check with a Circulation staff member to verify we have your correct information. If you do not have a library card, and you’d like to access our online databases, please apply for an e-card, online on our website! (www.akspl.org). We want you to succeed and enjoy your local library and all we have to offer.

Once you log in, scroll down the page and explore all of these free, vetted websites that we, as the library, deem educational and, even fun!

Most of our elementary schools in Redlands Unified School District utilize the Accelerated Reader Bookfinder portal for students to test their reading comprehension. We offer the link so kids or parents can access the database to verify the book is in the AR system, at the right reading level for their child. No library card is required to access this database.

The next database will bring a form of entertainment aspect to your kids. BookFlix requires a library card to log on. BookFlix is aimed at children in grades PK- third that shows Westin Woods videos of stories they know and love. Weston Woods has been creating videos of stories for decades. They create the video exactly how the story reads…they are excellent! Please check out this database and search for your favorite story to watch!

Our next database to highlight is Flipster, an on-line magazine database. I am very excited to share that the Youth Department has added seven additional titles to our collection. Beginning May 1, you will be able to also read: Bazoof!, Blaze, Brainspace, Eco Kids Planet, How it Works, and Krash. These seven new titles join the other nine we have to offer. You will need your library card to log on to this database. Let us know which magazine is your favorite one to scroll through!

The next database is geared towards high-school students. Gale in Context: High School is a cross-curricular content that follows a national as well as a state curriculum and standards that is designed to help high-schoolers succeed in their educational journey. This database does require a library card to log on.

Lote4Kids is the newest database we offer for kids. It is a world language database that translates many languages into stories for the kids to listen to. Whether you speak another language or are maybe learning a new language, this database will help you to hear the language and how to pronounce words correctly. What is your favorite story to listen to in a world language?

These are just glances into the wonderful databases at your fingertips. Please log on today to our website mentioned above, and explore these resources we provide for you. Of course, if you have any questions, be sure to give the Youth Services Department a call at (909) 798-7674, or email us at: yrr@akspl.org.

Spring is officially here and with it, comes the urge to take stock of what remains in our freezers and pantries. This is especially true if you have watched videos on social media and been influenced to clean and organize your kitchen. To help you thin out your supplies and make room on shelves, Smiley Library has an abundance of cookbooks to nourish you and help you achieve those kitchen Spring cleaning goals.

During the early days of the pandemic, we were all encouraged to stay home as much as possible. While at home, Noah Galuten and his wife, Iliza Schlesinger, started a live-stream cooking show. It was their way of reaching out and showing support while teaching viewers how to quickly create simple, comforting food. The “Don’t Panic Pantry” cookbook includes all the recipes from their cooking show of the same name. Most of Noah’s dishes are vegetarian such as Mozzarella Marinara, Green Rice and Black Beans, Fresno Chile and White Cheddar Cornbread, and Cold Sesame Soba.

Green Apple Pie Smoothie, Pear and Vanilla Spritzer, Summer Garden Juice, Berry-Oat Smoothie, and Orange Creamsicle are a few of the refreshing beverages on offer in “The Complete Guide to Healthy Drinks” by America’s Test Kitchen. Drinking homemade juices, smoothies, and infused waters is a delicious way to increase your fruit and vegetable intake while also using up your extra frozen and fresh produce.

The second selection from America’s Test Kitchen is “The Complete Modern Pantry.” Here, you will find over 350 creative ideas using ingredients that are ready and waiting in your kitchen cupboards. Wake up your taste buds with a crispy bowl of Maple-Pecan Skillet Granola. Bottom of the Box Pasta is a fun dish using a mix of leftover dry pasta shapes that are cooked and smothered in melted butter and cheese. When you have a craving for something sweet, whip up a batch of 3-ingredient Dipping Hot Chocolate. This yummy dip is perfect for dried fruits, pretzel rods, cookies, and spooning over ice cream.

Christopher Kimball and his team at Milk Street have put together a practical and appealing collection of recipes in their latest book “Cook What You Have.” Most of us probably have canned tomatoes, a bag of rice, frozen vegetables, and a box or two of dry pasta on hand. These common ingredients and others are the basis for over 200 creative and delicious meals. An overlooked bag of frozen shrimp can be turned into Curried Fried Rice with Shrimp and Pineapple or Tuscan-Style Shrimp with White Beans. There are over 30 recipes that call for canned tomatoes like Pinto Beans with Bacon and Chipotle, Pasta al Pomodoro, Tomato and Sausage Ragu over Polenta, plus Chicken and Tortilla Soup.

As I’m writing this from the Library, I am so thankful to be able to look out the window at the green space of Smiley Park around us. Not all of us are so lucky as to be able to experience an expanse of living and breathing grasses, plants, and trees at our places of work, or even at our homes. Though the Park is not as huge as, say, a national park, it does its job and provides a healing respite for us, even those of us just looking out the window at it.

In the spirit of this respite, ahead of Earth Day on April 22nd, I’m featuring Smiley Library’s newest books on our national parks. Our 63 parks are treasures which a lot of us may not make the time to visit, but which really should be experienced—they hold such grand magnificence! The more we get to feel mountains of earth beneath our feet and the warm sun and whirling wind on our skin, the more we get to breathe in deeply the fresh aromas of nature and listen for the trickling, falling, gushing of water, and to get to spy—just the vast, open space! — and the variety of creatures who live within the ecosystem of a national park, the more we will fall in love with the natural world which supports us, and the more we’ll be inspired to care for it. It’s ultimately our home, after all. And it’s what Earth Day is all about.

I’m really looking forward to Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship That Saved Yosemite, by bestselling author Dean King (Skeletons on the Zahara), now available at the Library. Naturalist John Muir, known as the founder of the Sierra Club, was an author and environmental philosopher, and an early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States. King’s account describes how Muir evolves from “self-styled hobo” to fervent advocate with the help of his longtime editor and friend, Robert Underwood Johnson, magazine editor and pragmatic 19th century influencer. In a visit to Yosemite in 1889, they were horrified to witness great destruction to the land from damming, logging, grazing, mining, and tourism. The ying-yang balance of their personalities became the catalyst that saved the landscape of Yosemite, made it a national park, and heralded in the U.S. environmental movement.

Fast-forward half a century to the setting of journalist Nate Schweber’s This America of Ours: Bernard and Avis DeVoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild. Engaging from the very first page, it reads as a novel in which the DeVotos are superheroes in the making. Yes, superheroes were still needed to defend our open public lands from greed and corruption. Prolific writer Bernard and his wife and editor, Avis, took on the fight and ultimately were censored and blacklisted in the 1950s, but came back with a grassroots coalition to help save our national parks.

Others resources for park visitors include:

Yosemite, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, by Michael Grosberg;

Fodor’s Utah: [with Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Capitol Reef & Canyonlands National Parks], by Shelley Arenas;

Fodor’s the Complete Guide to the National Parks of the West, by Shelley Arenas;

Fodor’s the Complete Guide to the National Parks of the USA, by Karen Anderson;

National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the United States, by National Geographic Society (U.S.).

You may also want to look for Ken Burns’ spectacular documentary on the national parks on PBS, or on a streaming platform, or his book in our catalog, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea: An Illustrated History, by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns.

And don’t forget; Smiley Library patrons can now use their library cards to gain free parking while visiting over 200 California state parks. California State Library Parks Passes circulate for two weeks and are non-renewable.

As a reminder, the Library holds a lot more items on natural sites to explore, whether it’s national parks, state parks, wilderness areas, hiking trails, particular flora and fauna, etc. For example, with our recent wet weather and the super blooms it is bringing, you may want to know more about wildflowers and where to find them; hopefully some are growing within these parks. Look for Yosemite Wildflowers: A Field Guide to the Wildflowers of Yosemite National Park, by Barry Breckling.

You may want to carry with you, as a nod to April being National Poetry Month, American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide, with which to serenade your companion among the wildflowers. A delightful compilation of diverse representation and works edited by Susan Barba, the offerings of writers who wax poetic on these elusive creations of beauty, are organized among a field guide and feature charming watercolors by Leanne Shapton.

♥ Celebrate Earth Day in Redlands on the morning of Saturday, April 22, by participating in your choice of a variety (dozens!) of hands-on events around town sponsored by ANCA (Accelerate Neighborhood Climate Action) and many other Redlands environmental organizations. Refer to www.redlandsearthday.org/ for more information, and to register.

♥ Donate books in front of Smiley Library on Earth Day, and at Redlands Community Center, from 9 a.m. – 11 a.m. “The 3 R’s: Recyle & Reuse *Books* to Reduce the Carbon Fooprint!”

♥ Learn why so many have been observing Earth Day since 1970; take a look at “A Brief History of Earth Day,” a short, enlightening PowerPoint presentation by ANCA member Andy Green, as well as our reading list post of books on environment-related topics.

Enjoy your time exploring our Great Outdoors!

What would you do if you were given the chance to leave your current world and walk into a new one? That is the question faced by the protagonists of this week’s What’s New reads. All three find themselves in a new world and must figure out how to move forward.

A young girl finds friendship through her isolation in Mizuki Tsujimura’s latest work, Lonely Castle in the Mirror. Kokoro avoids school by hiding away in her bedroom, avoiding the bullies that torment her, further isolating herself from the world. One day, the mirror in her bedroom begins to shine and Kokoro is transported to a mysterious mansion. There she meets six other teenagers and a wolf mask-wearing host who explains the rules. There is a room hidden away in the mansion and whoever finds it can have any wish that they want granted. But the mansion is not without its dangers, as severe punishments lay in store for those who break the rules. As the teenagers spend time together, and secrets are revealed, Kokoro finds that she truly is not as alone as she always thought.

Absurdness abounds in The Tatami Galaxy by Tomihiko Morimi. After committing another prank on an overbearing club president, an unnamed college junior laments his life, feeling as though if he could do things over, his life would be so much better. He would avoid his friend and tormentor, Ozu, and finally get the girl, (or any girl really). After a chance meeting with a god, our narrator gets that opportunity. The narrator is sent back to being a freshman and is given multiple chances for a fresh start. Now having the absolute freedom to choose a new path, our narrator sets out to explore all of them. Through situations involving love dolls, giant swarms of moths, and cute bear keychains, Morimi ties all the paths together and shows that even with infinite choices, and a push in the right direction, our choices are ours to own.

New technology results in a mystery in Josh Riedel’s first work, Please Report Your Bug Here. Ethan spends his days filtering out inappropriate content in a new dating app called DateDate. Working in the new startup for his friend turned boss named the Founder, recently single Ethan has little time to engage in the outside world. Ethan looks for a connection in the app, but problems occur when the app sends him to another world. Armed with this new discovery, Ethan tries to warn the Founder, but with his eyes on being acquired by a corporation, Ethan’s warning goes unheeded. Isolated in his quest, Ethan must figure out how the app is sending its users to the otherworld and how much the Founder and the Corporation really know about what’s going on.

Transport yourself with these new otherworldly reads.

A.K. Smiley Public Library has a few new and interesting book selections about some mostly obscure women in American history. Since March is Women’s History Month, what better time could there be to check them out?

“Brave Hearted:  The Women of the American West 1836-1880,” was written by historian Katie Hickman. Using letters, diaries, and journals, she shares the experiences of women who played a part in settling the western frontier. Some of the accounts include the first white woman to cross the Rocky Mountains on her missionary journey, slaves in search of freedom, displaced Native American women, a survivor of the Donner party, a battlefield heroine, Olive Oatman, who was held captive by the Mohave, and wives who endured grueling cross-country journeys.

Another fascinating narrative highlighting the resilience and fortitude of women in the early colonization of the American South, is Joan DeJean’s “Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast.” La Mutine set sail from France in 1719 with a hold full of women prisoners, many falsely accused of crimes, that were being exiled to colonial Louisiana. More than half of these women did not survive the journey, but many of them prospered. They married and raised families, owned properties and businesses, and some of them even became quite wealthy. DeJean follows their lives through various records for their marriages, births, deaths, and financial successes.

“Revolutionary Women: 50 Women of Color Who Reinvented the Rules,” by Ann Shen, contains short biographies of exceptional women of color and their accomplishments in various fields, some of them well-known and others that certainly deserve recognition. The format of the book is categorized into areas of art, equity, excellence, exploration, expression, identity, and knowledge. Brief chronologies, quotations, and the author’s art help to highlight the women and their accomplishments.

Look for these books and others on our Women’s History book display located near the Reference Desk.