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| Food Supply Anxiety Brings Back Victory Gardens For many people practicing social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the supermarket is the one place where it's practically impossible to avoid crowds. Though the circumstances are different, citizens across the country are responding to the novel coronavirus outbreak by reviving a trend from the First and Second World Wars. As The New York Times reports, victory gardens are making a comeback. Victory gardens started in 1917 as a way to supplement the commercial farming disrupted by World War I. The U.S. government formed the National War Garden Commission weeks before joining the war. Over the next couple of years, pamphlets were distributed to citizens showing them which seeds to plant and how to protect them from pests and diseases. One booklet read "The War Garden of 1918 must become the Victory Garden of 1919." Thanks to the effort, 3 million new gardens were cultivated in America in 1917 and 5.2 million appeared in 1918. The initiative resurfaced during World War II, and again, it was a huge success. At its peak, home and community gardens were producing nearly 40 percent of all fresh vegetables in the country. For more than 70 years, victory gardens only existed as a footnote in history books, but now, they're seeing a resurgence.. Get planting and check out these titles |
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| Books on the Air An overview of talked-about books and authors. This weekly update, published every Friday, provides descriptions of recent TV and radio appearances by authors and their recently released books. See the hot titles from the media this week. |
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| In Memoriam-Tomie DePaola The beloved children's author and illustrator Tomie dePaola, whose imaginative and warm-hearted work crossed generations and continents, died Monday at age 85. DePaola's work stretched over many realms of his imagination, from a magical faux-folk tale centered on a kindly and crafty Calabrian grandmother-Strega Nona, which won the Caldecott Honor Award in 1976-to retelling the inspiring Comanche story of The Legend of the Bluebonnet. In 2000, he won a Newbery Honor for his book 26 Fairmount Avenue, which was one of his more autobiographical projects that recounted his early childhood. Born in Meriden, Conn., on Sept. 15, 1934, dePaola earned a BFA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn before earning higher degrees from the California College of Arts in Oakland and Lone Mountain College in San Francisco. Along with his work as an author and illustrator, dePaola taught art and theater at various colleges in California, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. For many years, he made his home in New London, N.H. Check out some of his books here. |
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| Library Reads April 2020 Library Reads harnesses the value of “library staff picks” into a single nation-wide discovery tool, a monthly list of ten newly released must reads. Check out the top ten books -with the addition of Hall of Fame authors-published this month that librarians across the country love. |
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| The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
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