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“I always loved running… it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.” – Jesse Owens

There is a wealth of reasons why people enjoy running. Some run as a form of exercise; others to challenge and push their limits. Running can offer camaraderie or spur competitiveness, and at its best, impart a sense of great freedom. The following books feature runners, both from different backgrounds and circumstances. Although their paths to running started for diverse reasons, each found great purpose in this simple act.

Noé grew up in Yakima, Washington. By the time he was 17, he worked alongside his mother, an immigrant from Mexico, in a fruit packing plant where she had toiled for decades. Working conditions for the tired agricultural workers were tough with long hours and he grew quite resentful of the heavy toll it took on his mother and father, an orchard laborer. His parents both encouraged him to take a less arduous path for his future. To get a break from his troubles, Noé would run around his desert home, over the rivers and hills, and neighborhoods, thinking of what it meant to be the son of immigrants.

When he earned a full scholarship to Whitman College, he thought perhaps a better future was in sight. However, he had a hard time fitting in, internalizing the Latino stereotypes he heard around him. It is in college where he learns of the Peace and Dignity Journeys, a marathon created to unite and heal indigenous nations. “Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon through North America’s Stolen Land” by Noé Álvarez is a memoir of his four-month run from Canada to Guatemala, alongside Native Americans from different tribes. He describes the intense challenges of the run and the stories of his running mates, who were all confronting their own personal struggles. Noé shares how this experience helped him forge new relationships, with both the land and his heritage.

Meb Keflezighi is a name quite well known in the running world. He’s won numerous titles, won both the Boston and New York marathons and earned a silver medal in the 2004 Olympics. Born in Asmara, Eritrea, he fled war-torn Ethiopia as a ten year old, eventually ending up in San Diego. In his book “26 Marathons: What I Learned About Faith, Identity, Running, and Life” he covers these runs, ranging from 2002 to 2017, devoting a chapter to each. A recap of the races are provided in addition to valuable life lessons he took away from each one. Runners will definitely appreciate this book.

If you’re a long distance runner yourself and want some great tips, who better than Meb Keflezighi to be your personal trainer? In “Meb for Mortals: How to Run, Think, and Eat Like a Champion Marathoner,” you’ll get all the physical, mental and nutritional training you need, and just about anything else you can think of, from a world-class runner. There are great ideas here to incorporate into your own routine.

Generous donors and grantors have enabled the Redlands Adult Literacy Program to acquire a wide selection of literacy materials that are available for checkout by anyone in the community. These materials may be helpful to students who want to improve their reading and writing skills, and adults who want to improve their English literacy skills. You are invited to peruse the adult literacy collection at A. K. Smiley Public Library where you will find: fiction and nonfiction stories, biographies, abbreviated classics, graphic novels, audio books, and workbooks that enhance learning for those who are working to improve their literacy. Literacy books are written with themes that appeal to adult readers, but with grammar and vocabulary that make the books easy to understand.

The adult literacy collection includes contemporary stories that are available to everyone regardless of their reading level. The Gemma Open Door Series books are quick and easy to read. One of these books, The Cell Phone Lot by Greta Gorsuch, was chosen by the adult learner book club for their November selection. The book is a story about a young woman who lost her job and found herself unable to pay her bills. This resilient young woman found a way to generate income by working for a ride-sharing company. Through this new endeavor, she built relationships with people she met as they waited for riders at the cell phone lot.

In 2017, the Redlands Adult Literacy Program chose The Circuit : stories from the life of a migrant child as a community read book for the year, and invited author Francisco Jiménez, to visit Redlands and speak about his books and his life. To read more of his story, the literacy collection includes his entire series of books: Breaking Through which describes his middle school years, Reaching Out that details his college experience, and finally, Taking Hold which follows his journey to Columbia University where he completed his PhD. We invite you to read more of Dr. Jiménez’s books.

Reluctant readers may enjoy reading graphic novels. These are illustrated stories with contemporary messages that are made all the more powerful because of the art associated with the story. Take a trip with Alpha as he searches for family members in Alpha Abidjan to Paris by Bessora Barroux. Simple drawings in the book enhance the story and add visual details to the author’s journey. Congressman John Lewis’s March series documents the civil rights movement from his point of view with color illustrations that bring the story alive on the pages.

Donations from The Redlands Community Foundation have enhanced the literacy program’s audio collection. Audio book packs include a book and a recorded version of the book. These book packs allow new readers to listen to the book as they read along with the audio version. By hearing words read aloud by a good reader, a reader builds fluency, word recognition, and pronunciation skills. This collection includes popular books like I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.

The literacy collection includes workbooks to help reinforce vocabulary, grammar, or writing skills. Many of these workbooks are in a series that allow the reader to decide which workbook best serves their goals. Writing, grammar, comprehension, and vocabulary workbooks are available at a range of levels from very basic through advanced. Language Builder workbooks begin with a short grammar pre-test and lead the reader directly to pages that explain concepts that are new or forgotten.

The pandemic has not slowed down adult literacy activities. If you are interested in becoming a tutor or if you would like help in reading and writing, please call Diane Shimota, adult literacy coordinator, at 909.798.7565, ext. 4138, or email her at literacy@akspl.org. The literacy program is free to all participants. If you have any questions about the adult literacy collection, please call or email the adult literacy coordinator.

“Someone struggled for your right to vote. Use it.” -Susan B. Anthony

The word ‘suffrage,’ which simply means ‘the right to vote,’ doesn’t sound like it fits its definition, does it? The term sounds like it could refer to a state of suffering. But such a thought is far from its meaning. Suffrage, the right for each citizen to have a voice in its government, is the backbone of the freedoms of American democracy. Each American has an inalienable right to vote and be heard, right? No suffering involved. Hmm, well, not exactly.

Groups of American citizens have historically struggled for decades upon decades in order to secure their right to vote, and some conflicts are ongoing to this day. These battles are addressed in some of the newly acquired books by Smiley Library which explore the experiences of a couple of these groups.

“On account of race : the Supreme Court, white supremacy, and the ravaging of African American voting rights” is constitutional law historian Lawrence Goldstone’s treatise of the disturbing history of suffrage for African Americans. Though ratified in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment, which explicitly states that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” was not fully realized for 95 more years — until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In that near-century of time African American citizens were continually and blatantly denied access to voting often under the guise of “states’ rights,” such as by use of literacy tests or poll taxes, and as Goldstone defines, were often aided by the decisions of the Supreme Court. Out of this grew Jim Crow laws of racial segregation which sought to further African American disenfranchisement and remove the group’s political and economic gains which had been advanced during the Reconstruction period. Though the Voting Rights Act of 1965 seemed to have remedied the ails of the previous century, Goldstone is disturbed by the 2013 decision by the Supreme Court in Shelby County, Alabama vs. Holder which has allowed states to put voter restrictions back into law. The suffering for suffrage, it seems, often comes from progress taking one step forward and two steps back. The right to make your voice heard may be inalienable, but it is also fragile.

While African Americans endured challenges in the 19th and early 20th century, the cause of women’s suffrage was running in tandem. When African Americans were given the right to vote with the Fifteenth Amendment, African American women were not included. One half of the American population — women — were denied this privilege of the citizenry. Author Ellen Carol DuBois begins her account in “Suffrage : women’s long battle for the vote” of the Women’s Suffrage Movement by outlining its beginnings in the temperance and abolitionist causes women embraced in the 1840s. However, the mutual goal of suffrage for African Americans and for women fell away as the Jim Crow era took hold, and the mainstream women’s movement left African American women behind.

DuBois does contextualize the exclusion of these women, as well as other issues of importance to the Movement at the time, such as advocacy for trade unions, birth control, and other social justice reforms. As the Movement continued into the 20th century these were abandoned as well. Women suffragists came to the realization that the vote would not be given to women until a constitutional amendment was put into place. It was Quaker reformer Alice Paul who began the process in 1912. DuBois chronicles the Movement’s history up to the establishment of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, and briefly addresses what came next. She quotes suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt’s comment on achievement of the Amendment, that is was just “the first lap of this struggle for women’s emancipation.”

These are just two of several new books on the subject of suffrage available in the Library. Other titles include “The woman’s hour : the great fight to win the vote” by Elaine F. Weiss, “Free thinker : sex, suffrage, and the extraordinary life of Helen Hamilton Gardener” by Kimberly A. Hamlin, “No place for a woman : the struggle for suffrage in the wild West” by Chris Enss, and “Thank you for voting : the maddening, enlightening, inspiring truth about voting in America” by Erin Geiger Smith. For more on voter suppression, you might consider “Uncounted : the crisis of voter suppression in the United States” by Gilda R. Daniels.

If you prefer a more visually tactile experience of history, you may enjoy “Exploring women’s suffrage through 50 historic treasures” by Jessica D. Jenkins. You may also visit our Heritage Room by appointment and find many suffrage-related artifacts, such as the campaign literature entitled “Form addressed to mothers, fathers and all good citizens urging an affirmative vote for the Suffrage Amendment : October 10, 1911“, published by the Redlands Political Equality League. Or visit the Heritage Room’s online exhibit at www.akspl.org, “The Woman’s Vote: A Century of Suffrage.”

The Library also offers books on the subject for children and young adults. Lawrence Goldstone offers a companion to “On account of race” for young adults with “Stolen justice : the struggle for African American voting rights.” Others for children include “How women won the vote : Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and their big idea” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, and “Women win the vote! : 19 for the 19th amendment” by Nancy B. Kennedy.

For more information on how to check out these titles using our Books to Go program or to find our in-person hours, please visit our website, www.akspl.org, or call 909-798-7565.

“You want happy endings, read cookbooks.”  Dean Young

Carne asada tacos, carnitas burritos, Baja fish tacos, killer quesadillas, and mushroom asada bowls are a sampling of the 75 recipes contained in “Trejos Tacos” by actor and L.A. restaurateur Danny Trejo. For something sweet, Danny offers both regular and vegan donuts in flavors like Margarita, cinnamon sugar, vegan berry and vegan coco loco. This book will make you instantly hungry for Mexican food!

Food allergies and dietary preferences are sweetly accommodated in Angela Garbacz’s book, “Perfectly Golden.” Now everyone can safely devour warm sticky pecan buns, pumpkin loaf cake, graham cracker cream pie, orange blossom cake with lemon buttercream frosting, rich chocolate ganache tart, and soft molasses cookies that are rolled in sugar before baking for a sweet crispy coating.

Simple, flavorful and wholesome fare is what you’ll discover in “Amish Family Recipes” by Lovina Eicher. Hearty and filling meals abound with chicken pot pie, Swiss steak, cabbage rolls and zucchini pizza casserole. The Amish are known for their baked goods and desserts. Save room for a warm slice of peach bread, frosted banana cake bars, sour cream apple pie, and cool, creamy chocolate pudding.

“Everyone Can Bake” by Dominique Ansel teaches home bakers his foundation recipes and techniques for consistently better baking results. You might start with strawberry banana bread or lemon pound cake. Soon, you may be inspired to bake a show-stopping raspberry cream puff cake or hazelnut chocolate cherry cake filled with chocolate mousse and coated with a smooth dark chocolate glaze.

Some more new cookbooks to whet your appetite include: “The Feast of Fiction Kitchen: Recipes Inspired by TV, Movies, Games & Books,” “Clean & Simple Diabetes Cookbook: Flavorful, Fuss-Free Recipes for Everyday Meal Planning,” “Welcome to Buttermilk Kitchen,” and “That Cheese Plate Will Change Your Life.”

For more information on how to check out these titles using our Books To Go program, please visit our website, www.akspl.org, or call 909-798-7565.