As the evenings lengthen through late spring into early summer, I’ve been reflecting on the magical, calming qualities of twilight and/or dusk. Technically, there are three stages of twilight that slowly yet surely submerge us into dusk, that final blanketing of the sun as it seeps below the horizon each and every evening before nightfall. It’s not just that this gradual slipping away of the sun has marked health benefits, signaling to our bodies that it’s time to rest, unwind and restore (which is one reason why the modern blue light of various screen technologies can be so harmful at night); there’s also just the delightful softening of light that is commonly referred to as “the golden hour,” when the sun’s piercing heat diffuses into a smearing of orange, yellow, pink, even lilac pastels, calling forth a warm, fuzzy glow that, for me at least, begins to blur and collapse boundaries between what is ordinary and extraordinary — begins to name what is ordinary and what is extraordinary as overlapping experiences, if not one and the same.
Sometimes it seems like I’m always chasing after this daily moment, which I will acknowledge is more than a bit silly since by definition and by experience this light shifting is just that: a shift, fleeting and transitional. Still, it would be nice in some small way to maybe catch or hold onto or re-create this mystical, blending light-level, to suspend myself in the extraordinary ordinary for a couple of moments longer. This brings me, slowly yet surely like the setting sun itself, to the subject of this blog, a simple yet transformative craft that takes some of the most ordinary objects around, such as waxed paper, adhesive tape and an iron, to create absolutely stunning luminaria or candle shades, which diffuse the soft flicker of flame into a table-top golden hour you can extend as long as your wick will burn.
Continue reading “DIY Luminaria / Candle Shades 🕯️”
I tend to be drawn to a lot of fantasy books, and I freely admit it! But this time, I’ve kept myself to contemporary realism. No spells or superpowers or talking animals, just real people in real situations. Okay, the virtual reality graphic novel might be skirting the line, but I still get points for trying.
Picture Books
“Big” written and illustrated by Vashti Harrison
This could easily be one of the most important books we read this year. The book opens with an adorable baby girl, who has a big laugh, a big heart and big dreams. She learns and grows, and adults exclaim over what a big girl she is. Being a big girl is an exciting aspiration when you’re little, but eventually it’s no longer a good thing. Soon it’s, “Aren’t you too big for that?” and suddenly you’re not fitting into costumes or swings or with the other kids. As the little girl is bombarded with cruel words, both unthinking and intentional, she withdraws until she finds the courage to love and accept herself. The author’s note shares her own experience of being “in the crosshairs of adultification bias and anti-fat bias” and offers hope and love to all other children that may be going through the same thing. Known as an illustrator, Harrison’s artwork is absolutely perfect, and the story itself is one that everyone needs to hear. Continue reading “Brianna’s Books: May Favorites 2023”
Deep in the back offices at DBRL, we’re working on something extra special. There’s always something exciting going on back here, but this project is near and dear to my heart: Books by Snail! I grew up in the tiny rural community of Hallsville, Missouri, so I know firsthand just how important it is to have access to books even if you don’t live near a library. During the school year, school libraries can be a lifeline, but what happens when summer rolls around? That’s where Books by Snail comes in! And best of all? It’s FREE!
Students entering kindergarten* through 12th grade who attend school (or are homeschooled) in one of the school districts below are eligible to participate:
Continue reading “Books by Snail Spotlight”
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, flowers and bees began their ancient, symbiotic relationship. Tens of millions of years later, we are still enjoying the fruits of their labor — quite literally! Did you know that one in every three bites of food we eat is made possible by bees, and about 75% of the world’s flowering plants are pollinated by our buzzing friends and other animals like bats?
Why not support the native bees in your neighborhood? Building an upcycled bee sanctuary may attract cavity-nesting bees, which usually lay their eggs in holes made in dead wood by beetles or hollow or pithy stems. In this adaptation, we’re using cut cardboard tubes and paper straws!
Continue reading “DIY Bee Sanctuary”
Spring is the air and so is the pollen! While I love seeing blooming trees outside, I don’t love all of the spores in my nose. When it comes to plants, I much prefer the indoor and less flowery potted varieties, which is why I decided to doodle some of my favorite succulent plants. Succulents usually have plump green leaves and they love high temps and low water levels. Because they don’t need a lot of water, they are pretty low-key to take care of and some of them don’t mind being in the dark as long as the temperature is just right (looking at you Dracaena angolensis aka starfish snake plant, which continues to thrive in my dark living room). Continue reading “Megan Doodles: Sweet Succulents”
I thought I’d highlight some nonfiction this time! Sometimes it can be hard to convince fiction lovers (like myself!) to read nonfiction, but often a good narrative nonfiction will do the trick. And because I can’t resist all the amazing fiction titles coming out this month, I picked two nonfiction and two fiction books.
Picture Books
“Contenders: Two Native Baseball Players, One World Series” written by Traci Sorell and illustrated by Arigon Starr
This book tells the story of two men who became the first Native professional baseball players to face each other in a World Series in 1911. Each of them left life on their respective reservations (Charles Bender in Minnesota and John Meyers in California) to play baseball. Each had to persevere through countless insults and slurs. The media was not kind to them, and neither were the fans. Frequently called “Chief” and portrayed as fierce rivals, the two men actually had great respect for each other and the barriers they were breaking together. Not only does this book highlight an exciting moment in history, it also brings attention to current attitudes toward Native players in sports. Author notes in the back give more info about their careers beyond the 1911 World Series. Continue reading “Brianna’s Books: April Favorites 2023”
I was nine years old when I came across an article about Nancy Yi Fan in a teen magazine. At the astonishing age of 13, Fan had accomplished a feat I could only dream of: her fantasy novel “Swordbird” was published by HarperCollins. For a kid who wanted nothing more than to see my name in print, reading about a young author who had actually made it was life-changing. Writing became my biggest passion, and I actually sent off queries to a few literary agents I found online. While I didn’t find the same luck Fan did, I received lovely emails from several kind agents who had taken the time to reply. They treated me with all the respect they would an aspiring adult author, and their encouragement has stuck with me.
Although I’ve discovered new passions as I’ve grown up and haven’t penned a fictional story in quite some time, those early mornings spent typing away at the family computer before anyone else was awake remain a core memory from my childhood. I have yet to see my name in print, but my love for the English language and the written word has taken me to some pretty exciting places — including fulfilling another childhood dream of working here at DBRL!
If my days as a kid author taught me anything, it’s the power of having the adults in your life take you seriously. If you know and love a young writer, placing an inspiring book in their hands is a tangible way to demonstrate your belief in them. Below, you’ll find four of our best books for young writers, including practical advice from real authors to jump-start their creativity and take their writing to the next level.
Continue reading “Encouraging Young Writers”
Spring is here, a season of new beginnings, which means it’s a great time for kids and parents to start incorporating, or re-incorporating, habits into their lives that will nourish and uplift their bodies and minds. Making sure that you’re moving your body, eating a balanced diet of nutrient-rich foods and taking time for mindful breathing and relaxation are some important ways to help create and maintain a healthy lifestyle, and the library has many books that can help:
How do you like to move? Do you like stretching, team sports, swimming or skateboarding? Or maybe hikes, bike rides, dancing or martial arts? There are so 
many different ways to move your body in healthy ways. One of my favorite ways to move my body is through yoga, and there are many different poses and types of yoga to try. In “Yoga Frog,” by Nora Carpenter, Yoga Frog leads you through a series of yoga stretches, or asanas, from Mountain Pose (tadasana) to Resting Pose (savasana) to help you have a happy, hoppy day just like him! And author Mariam Gates has two books, “Good Morning Yoga” and “Yoga Friends” that use yoga poses to lead young readers through a story. Another wonderful story with movement is Eric Carle’s “From Head to Toe,” which invites kids to copy the antics of various animals as they wave, clap, wriggle, thump, kick and stomp. And the benefits of physical fitness are also covered in both Scot Richie’s “See How We Move!,” which follows the members of a swim team as they prepare for an upcoming meet, and Rosalyn Clark’s “Why We Exercise.” Continue reading “Cultivating Healthy Habits for Spring”
Back in the fall of 2011 when I was a first-year at a small liberal arts college in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, I read the following passage from author Frances Mayes‘s (of “Under the Tuscan Sun” fame) meditative instruction manual, memoir and field guide, “The Discovery of Poetry”:
When I went to college in Virginia, hundreds of miles north of my Georgia hometown, I was used to Deep South seasons, a subtle blend of spring into summer into fall. That first autumn startled me. The whole landscape along the James River transformed, especially the ginkgo trees, which turned gold and suddenly, all on the same day, rained their fan-shaped leaves in circles around their trunks. I observed this with no accurate words to describe my astonishment. When spring came, the enormous old weeping cherry outside my dorm bloomed as though it had invented the word. To stand under a blossoming cherry and look up through transparent petals at the sky! I was taking a poetry class. Leafing through the textbook, I came across A. E. Housman‘s poem:
LOVELIEST OF TREES
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
I read the poem out loud until I knew it by heart. I liked the soft-spoken sound of the words; their lightness seemed to suit the tree. I was struck by the knowledge that I had spent nineteen years without seeing a cherry tree in bloom. Poems can change an experience by imaginatively naming or extending a feeling or thought. “Loveliest of Trees” connected, giving me perceptions in addition to my own. A friend and I copied the poem and tacked it to the tree. Every day we saw people stop to read the poem and look up at the sky through the blossoms.
Continue reading “The Tradition of the Poetry Tree, or the Poet-Tree”
Can you imagine scraping pictures onto the walls of a fire-lit cave using a small, sharp stone? How about carving symbols into a beeswax-filled wooden tablet using a sharpened piece of metal or bone? No longer needing to fill a goose feather with ink to capture our thoughts on paper (although I think that sounds fun), we can use the coniferous wood and graphite of the standard yellow pencil.
For school-aged kids, pencils may seem kinda dull. What’s so special about something you use every day? I think pencils are magical, actually. Think about all the future writers, illustrators and animators journaling or doodling in notebooks or the margins of their homework; who nurture big dreams and later go on to create wonderful chapter books, graphic novels, television shows and movies. In celebration of pencils as vehicles of creativity, check out the books featured below!
“Malala’s Magic Pencil” by Malala Yousafzai, illustrated by Kerascoët
As a young child in Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai dreamed of having a magic pencil to create peace in the world and erase suffering. When she was only ten years old, she began speaking out for girls to have the same educational rights as boys. Living under Taliban rule posed threats, but Malala was not afraid. This reflective, auto-biographical picture book chronicles Malala’s journey to becoming an international activist for universal education, earning her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 (awarded when she was only seventeen!).
Continue reading “Celebrate National Pencil Day”
