“Why is it called YA anyway? And who decided what was YA and what wasn’t?”

Not too long ago, during an author panel on Young Adult literature at the most recent Teen Author Festival, YA author Scott Westerfeld asked, “Why is it called YA anyway? And who decided what was YA and what wasn’t?” The answer of course is: librarians. More specifically you can thank New York Public Library librarians. Not only did they pioneer library services to teens, an NYPL librarian popularized the term “young adult.” However, before we get to all that we have to start at the beginning and it all starts with a young, passionate, pioneering children’s librarian named Anne Carroll Moore.

In 1906,  Anne Carroll Moore became the Director of Work with Children for The New York Public Library. As she was busy revolutionizing services to children and children’s rooms all over the city, she knew that there had to be a way to keep children, who weren’t quite adults yet, coming to the public library and not let all her hard work for children be for naught. It’s for these reasons, in 1914 that she hired Mabel Williams, a young librarian from Somerville, Massachusetts. Mabel was working as a reference librarian and collaborating with local high schools and Anne wanted her to do the same thing, only on a much bigger scale, at NYPL. Mabel began working with schools and inviting classes into branches and finally in 1919 she was appointed to Supervisor of Work with Schools and her groundbreaking work with young people (aka teens) began. Her official title (“Supervisor of Work with Schools and Young People”) wouldn't happen until 1948.

Mabel had her work cut out for her. To say that not everyone at NYPL was enthusiastic to have adolescents in their library branches would be an understatement. Some librarians were resistant to change and the idea of noisy, chaotic young people in their libraries. Mabel, however, stood firm against the “old ladies,” (Campbell, 8) as she called the older library staff, and strove forward in her mission to serve the teens of New York City. She started by going out and recruiting other enthusiastic librarians, like herself,  who understood her vision: that it wasn’t just about easing the transition from the children’s room to the adult room but doing actual distinctive work with teens and giving them the same equal space and services that children were getting through the children’s rooms. Mabel and her hand-picked staff weren’t just innovating services to teens but revolutionizing what was considered “young people’s” literature as well.

Back in 1919, there wasn’t any literature being specifically written for teens. In order to create “browsing” collections for teens in the branches, Mabel and her staff would comb through books in the children’s and adults sections of the libraries for books they thought would interest teens and meet their reading needs for both schoolwork and free time. They would meet regularly and talk about what they were reading and bringing into the schools with them to booktalk as well as what their young patrons were reading. Eventually they would create lists and in 1929 the first annual “NYPL Books for Young People” list was published. Eventually it would be called “Books for the Teen Age.” Currently, it's the blog “Stuff for the Teen Age” and the recent list,  “Best Books for Teens.”  Created annually, the list was sent out all over the country to schools and libraries trying to decide what to buy for their own brand new browsing collections for teens. It was ostensibly the beginning of what is now YA literature. It’s interesting to note that Mabel wasn’t too bothered by censorship at the time, just particular about what she put in the collections, saying,“I didn’t screen out anything, but I didn’t put in certain things; I think I was more particular in the beginning; then, when I got to know the young people and some of the teachers, I limbered up a little. I was always trying to feel what teachers’ reactions to books were.”  (Campbell, 18)

One of those new, enthusiastic young librarians for young people was Margaret Scoggin. Margaret started as an outreach librarian but soon became the head of the new Nathan Straus branch, an innovative library just for teens that opened in 1941 and was located in the West 40s. Opened to help keep kids off the streets, Williams recalled “They had wonderful programs there… it got to be sort of a hangout, with those young people…” (Campbell, 21) One of Margaret’s keen interests was the selection of books for teens. She started a radio program of teen book reviews and from 1933 to 1946 she wrote a column for Library Journal called “Books for Older Boys and Girls.” In 1944, she changed the title to “Books for Young Adults” and thus began the phrase “young adult literature” (so thanks Margaret!). While YA literature wouldn’t really emerge as a genre until the 1970s, in 1953 Margaret would predict, “…authors are experimenting. Their task is to bring the ‘junior novel’ closer to the good adult novel in style, characterization and human understanding. More power to them.”  (Campbell, 22) One can only imagine how excited she’d be at the golden age of YA literature we are having now.

Another librarian we can thank is the charismatic and out spoken Baltimore librarian, Margaret A. Edwards. With her book, The Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts (1969) (Guess what is the fair garden and who are the swarm of beasts?”), Ms. Edwards advocated tirelessly for teens and YA librarians.  She believed that YA librarians were special people who needed to be specially trained and she believed that teens deserved a place at the library where their needs were met and they were treated with respect, “I get awfully tired of adults who treat young people as dirt (and) …complain about the lack of respect they receive from the young. Respect is a reciprocal action… you give it you get it.”  (Campbell, 41) She also advocated to publishers for YA literature that was more than “sugar puff” stories that were superficial, full of stock representations of adolescence, writing that was inconsistent or without real character development. She wanted books that helped teens become aware of themselves and address their questions about their roles and importance in relationships, society and the world (Campbell, 47). This passionate belief that a book for teens could be so much more led the Young Adult Library Association or YALSA  to establish the the Margaret A. Edwards Award in 1988, which honors an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature. Some past winners include: Judy Blume (1996), Walter Dean Myers (1994), Laurie Halse Anderson (2009) and Sharon Draper (2015).

Another YALSA award that changed the YA literature landscape forever is the Michael L. Printz Award. Established in 2000, it annually honors the best books written for teens, based entirely on their literary merit. Named for a school librarian from Kansas who was passionate about books and reading, it made publishers sit up and take notice and go actively looking for truly life changing  YA books and 15 years later we are getting books that perhaps even the infamously, finicky Margaret Edwards would approve of. The current 2015  winner is I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson. 

So let’s hear it for all those library pioneers who worked tirelessly for teens and helped in the creation of the YA literature genre. A genre that helps teens become who they are and who they are meant to be. 

So in answer to your question Scott: Librarians. Pioneering, innovative, passionate, headstrong, tenacious librarians. 

Further Resources

• Campbell, Patricia J. Two Pioneers of Young Adult Library Services. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 1998.
• Pinborough, Jan, and Debby Atwell. Miss Moore Thought Otherwise: How Anne Carroll Moore Created Libraries for Children. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. 
• Bernier, Anthony, Christine A. Jenkins, Jennifer Burek Pierce, and Mary K. Chelton. "200 Years of Young Adult Library Services History." EVOYA. Voice of Youth Advocates, 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2015. <http://www.voyamagazine.com/2010/03/30/chronology/>.

Erasure is a form of literature, often poetry, created by selectively erasing words from an existing text to produce a new work. There are many ways writers choose to erase; delete, redact, white out, cross out, draw over, illustrate… to name a few. The Library's collection is full of erasure literature—here are some to get you started…

Nets
Jen Bervin
Ugly Duckling Presse: Brooklyn, N.Y. 2004
An erasure of The Sonnets of William Shakespeare

A Humument
Tom Phillips
Thames and Hudson: London U.K. 1980
The classic erasure in word and image of the Victorian novel The Human Document by W.H. Mallock 

Of Lamb
Matthea  Harvey and Jean Ann Porter
McSweeney’s Books: San Francisco, CA. 2011 
An erasure in poems and paintings of A Portrait of Charles Lamb by David Cecil 

Sonne from Ort
Christian Hawkey and Uljana Wolf
Kookbooks: Berlin, Germany 2012  
A bilingual erasure of Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the German translation by Rainer Maria Rilke. 

Join  us on April 25 for the first ever NYC Erasure Festival—a collaboration between NYPL and Community of Literary Magazines and Presses.  We'll set the stage for you to create your own.  For inspiration an exhibit of erasure texts from the Library's collections will be on view and brief panel discussion on the art of erasure—then it'll be your turn.  We'll provide the texts and sharpies and we'll share the newly created masterpieces through social media. And of course, everyone attending can take home what they make! 

NYC Erasure Festival
Saturday, April 25
2-4:30 pm
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room

Don't miss Scott Campbell in the KidsLIVE! author series. He will read from his new book Hug Machine at the Bloomingdale Library on April 28.

When and where do you like to read?

I like to stroll to the local coffee shop first thing in the morning and relax with a coffee and read a bit of my book before starting any sort of work.  It’s a good way to relax my mind and level myself out, so that my brainstorming and doodling will be looser and more effective!  It works for me.

What was the last book you read?

I am almost done reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tart. I am very much enjoying it.  It does take me quite a while to read a book though.  

A lot of your artwork seems inspired by popular culture, including many book and comic characters.  How do you decide which subjects to include in your art?

I like to paint the things that have inspired me in some way in my life. Things from when I was young or things that inspire me today. Many of the pop culture inspired paintings I paint for gallery shows that have already chosen particular themes, such as art inspired by cult films or art inspired by Batman. But I usually don't sign up to do a show unless the subject matter really speaks to me.  I will be in an upcoming show inspired by the films of Guillermo del Toro this spring.  I love his films, so I’m excited to explore those worlds and create something new with it.

You’ve done illustrations for a number of books, what led to the decision to write your own children’s book?

I have always wanted to write and create my own books. I went to art school to create picture books, so it has been in my game plan forever. I made video games and comic books for many years leading up to the picture books, so that was good training I feel.  Simplifying ideas for picture books is a very enjoyable thing for me.   

Is there a real life Hug Machine that inspired the book?

Well, I would say that the Hug Machine is a combination of me and many of the kids that I know. Me -- in the sense that I love hugging people and the children in the sense that children love doing things and having adults watch them do those things.  "Hey, mom!  Watch me knock these blocks down!" "Hey, Dad! Watch me jump over this puddle!"  Things that they feel they are very good at.  I love when kids do this. 

What authors and/or illustrators inspired your art style the most growing up?

I was very into cartoons and comic books. I loved to draw super heroes and battle scenes. Richard Scarry and Arnold Lobel, Shel Silverstein and Maurice Sendak, these were all influences on what I create now. I love worlds with lots of things going on in each illustration. Things for kids to discover on their own.  It was Lane Smith and Jon Sciezka that truly inspired me to become a children's book creator though.

If you could hug any author or artist, who would it be and why?

Ed Emberley. He seems like the most lovable dude. I love how he gets kids to participate and create their own worlds.  He is a big influence on me as well. 

Is your approach to writing different or similar to the approach you take to illustrate? Is one more or less difficult than the other for you?

They go hand in hand actually. I make lists and write words alongside my doodles. The way I brainstorm is very freeform and loose. Sometimes I write dialog between characters and then draw one of them. Sometimes I draw some characters and then write a bit of dialog between them. I list out concepts and draw some of them and sometimes drawings inspire lists on directions for that idea to expand and grow. Does that make sense?  

What's your favorite aspect of living in New York City? Has it inspired your art or writing in any way? 

New York City is a wonderful place. I love the old buildings and parks and the smell of the air. I love the hustle and bustle of people doing things.  I love how active it is and I love the history here. I also love discovering new things, so while New York provides me with plenty of things to discover I long for new places to explore. So I won’t be here forever most likely. 

If you were a children’s book character, which one would you be?

Well, Hug Machine is probably the closest to me that there is. I hug like that and I talk like that. And I sometimes wear suspenders like that. But my head is not as big as the Hug Machine's head. 

Which author or artist do you admire that you wish more people knew about?

I used to say Jon Klassen, but now I don't think that one counts! My friend Graham Annable co-directed the stop motion film Boxtrolls.  He is the most amazing, funny dude ever. His stuff is so charming and funny while at the same time very melancholy and dark.  It’s a very unique combination. I hope he makes more books and shorts! His channel on YouTube is Grickle Channel.

Carmen does not know English, but all of her classmates do. Carmen feels sad and alone because she does not understand the kids, and they do not understand her. Some of them make fun of her accent. She points out that they also have an accent.

Carmen teaches her little sister Lupita English, and she teaches the kids at school Español, solamente un poquito. Su maestra, Sra. Csoki, enseña Inglés. Carmen aprende los palabras en Inglés: bathroom (el baño), yellow (amarillo), please (por favor), y good morning (buenos días). Carmen es muy feliz para las linguas Español y Inglés. 

Carmen Learns English by Judy Cox, 2010

We have ESOL classes at the Grand Concourse Library, and I am glad that so many Bronxites are devoted to learning English in order to make their lives easier. 60% of Bronx residents are Hispanic, and my Spanish has definitely improved over the last seven years.

• Judy Cox's web site
• English as a Second Language books
• Mango Languages database

This week—April 21, to be exact—marks the 179^th anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto.  During this fight, a motley band of soldiers, settlers, and patriots defeated the army of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, ruler of Mexico, thereby securing Texas independence. 

As any grade school student in the Lone Star State will proudly tell you, the leader of the Texan forces was Samuel “Sam” Houston (1793 – 1836).  While a biographical treatment of Houston lies beyond the scope of this writing, it is worth noting that he holds a distinct place in American political history, being the only person to have served as the governor of two states (Tennessee and Texas), a U.S. senator, a U.S. congressman, and the president of a foreign nation—in this case, the Republic of Texas. 

Now, at this point you are probably thinking to yourself that the foregoing bit of trivia will suitably regale the guests at your next dinner party.  And, likely, it will.  However, should it fail to do so, you can always further mention that Houston’s name, in the guise of his name-sake city,  was one of the first words communicated from the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969: “Houston, Tranquility Base here.  The Eagle has landed.”  At this juncture, your guests may still be unimpressed, but imagine how Houston himself would have reacted if he had foreknown this event.  Without a doubt, this latter historical footnote would have boggled his nineteenth-century, earthbound mind. 

Continuing with the minutiae theme, Sam Houston occupies a place in the annals of Texas literature, as well.  How so, you ask?  The first English-language novel set in present-day Texas was Anthony Ganilh’s Mexico Versus Texas, a Descriptive Novel, Most of the Characters of Which Consist of Living Persons.  By a Texian.  This book, initially published in 1838, was reissued in 1842 under a new title, Ambrosio de Letinez, or the First Texian Novel.   Textually, both editions are quite similar. 

Over the course of nearly 400 pages, Ganilh utilizes the events of the Texas Revolution as a backdrop for a rather florid romantic plot and a somewhat heavy-handed critique of Spanish-Mexican society.  While hardly a classic—Tolstoy, it is not—the book is noteworthy not only because of its early use of a Texas-based story but also because of its dedication.  Yes, you guessed correctly: Ganilh dedicated his novel to “His Excellency, Samuel Houston, President of the Republic of Texas.” 

Copies of both versions of Ganilh’s work are part of The New York Public Library’s overall collection of materials related to the history of Texas, covering the earliest European exploration of the region,  colonization and eventual statehood, and the present day.  One notable subset of these Texana holdings would include items printed in the short-lived Republic of Texas (1836–1845) such as General Regulations for the Government of the Army of the Republic of Texas  (1839) and Journal of the proceedings of the General Council of the Republic of Texas (1839). 

Also, the collections contain indigenously printed materials from the pre-revolutionary era: for example, Translation of the Laws, Orders, and Contracts, on Colonization, from January, 1821, Up to This Time, in Virtue of Which Col. Stephen F. Austin, Has Introduced and Settled Foreign Emigrants in Texas (1829), printed by Godwin B. Cotten, the second person to establish a permanent printing press in what is today the state of Texas.  (One final bit of trivia: the first printing in Texas was issued from a transient press that was set up on Galveston Island in 1817 by Samuel Bangs, an itinerant printer and publisher.)

Of course, the above-mentioned items form only a slight fraction of NYPL’s overall Texana collection, which numbers in the tens of thousands of books, manuscripts, photographs, prints, maps, and other materials.  Indeed, the study of Texas history is an undertaking as expansive as the state itself.  So this week, kick off your boots, enjoy some barbecue or Tex-Mex, and consider visiting The New York Public Library to read a book or two about America’s 28^th state.  No doubt , Mr. Houston—soldier, statesman, source of trivia—would heartily approve.

Rapunzel is a german fairy tale about a beautiful young maiden who has been impriosoned in a tower by an evil witch.  Here are several retellings of the fairy tale that appeal to modern day teens.

Toweringby Alex Flynn "A contemporary retelling of Rapunzel told from the alternating perspectives of three teens whose fates unknowingly bind them together to destroy a greater evil"

Cress by Marissa Meyer "Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they're plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and prevent her army from invading Earth. Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl trapped on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company."

In the film Tangled  "When the kingdom's most wanted—and most charming—bandit Flynn Rider hides in a mysterious tower, the last thing he expects to find is Rapunzel, a spirited teen with an unlikely superpower—70 feet of magical golden hair! Together, the unlikely duo set off on a fantastic journey filled with surprising heroes, laughter and suspense"

Rapunzelby Barbara Rogasky "Retells the tale of the beautiful girl imprisoned in a lonely tower by a witch."

The Fairest of Them All by Carolyn Turgeon "Can Rapunzel trade the shadows of the forest for the king's castle and be the innocent beauty her beloved prince remembers?"

Rapunzel The One With All the Hairby Wendy Mass "Rapunzel and Prince Benjamin are both trapped, one in a tower by an evil witch, the other by his royal duties, but when their paths cross, aided by friends and a little luck, conditions change for them both."

Rapunzel by John Cech "A retelling of a folktale in which a beautiful girl with long golden hair is kept imprisoned in a lonely tower by a witch. Includes a note on the origins of the story."

Golden: A Retelling of "Rapunzel" by Cameron Dokey "Before Rapunzel's birth, her mother made a dangerous deal with the sorceress Melisande: If she could not love newborn Rapunzel just as she appeared, she would surrender the child to Melisande. When Rapunzel was born completely bald and without hope of ever growing hair, her horrified mother sent her away with the sorceress to an uncertain future. After sixteen years of raising Rapunzel as her own child, Melisande reveals that she has another daughter, Rue, who was cursed by a wizard years ago and needs Rapunzel's help. Rue and Rapunzel have precisely "two nights and the day that falls between" to break the enchantment. But bitterness and envy come between the girls, and if they fail to work together, Rue will remain cursed...forever."

Rapunzel  by Rachel Isadora "Recasts in an African setting the familiar fairy tale in which a beautiful girl with extraordinarily long hair is imprisoned in a lonely tower by a witch.'

Campanula: A Zombified Retelling of Rapunzel by Mishael Austin Witty "Cami and Mac have been in love with each other practically all their lives, but there’s a problem. Cami’s life is in danger because of a desperate deal her father, Zed the Zombie Killer, made with the local witch, Gert, before Cami was born. Gert kidnaps Cami as soon as the girl starts menstruating and locks her inside the little used, much haunted tower of the old Waverly Hills Sanitorium. Cami will be the mother of many more zombie children for Gert unless Mac can find her and save her from the zombies and the witch’s clutches…with a little help from some heavenly friends. Zombies, angels, and everlasting love await you within the pages of Campanula."

After the wildly successful 2013 edition of Across A Crowded Room, we are about to launch a second edition that is more exciting than ever before.

If you are a musical theater...

•  ...composer longing for lyrics, 
• ...lyricist looking for a composer,
• ...bookwriter browsing for scores,
• ...singer searching for new songs

(or any combination of the above) then this is the event for you! Last year teams of complete strangers teamed up to write mini-musical theater scenes that they presented for Lisa Lambert, Thomas Meehan, and Joshua Schmidt.  

This year, we will offer a full summer seminar on musical theater writing with seminars by masters of the art including:

Lynn Ahrens on Lyrics: Saturday, June 13 from 10 am - 12 Noon

Lisa Kron on Bookwriting: Saturday, June 27 from 10 am - 12 Noon

Jason Robert Brown on Composition: Saturday, July 11 from 10 am - 12 Noon

Participants will write a 20 minute musical that will be presented in the Bruno Walter auditorium at Lincoln Center on August 29 (yes, you can have a show presented at Lincoln Center!) 

We will begin with a mixer on May 16 from 10 am - 12 noon that will help you find the collaborators you need.  

SIGN UP HERE TO PARTICIPATE

Please note that participants will be expected to attend all five events. You may also want to link to a sample of your work (on YouTube, Google Drive, SoundCloud, whatever) in the comments section below so that potential collaborators can be on the look out for you.

For inspiration, here are three of the songs performed at the 2013 event:

Should've Known Better (Music: Rachel Evans / Lyrics: David Brush / Vocals: Erin Martinez) Girls My Age (Music By Jonathon Lynch, Lyrics by Nathan Brisby, Vocals by Stephanie Eve Parker)

The Game Must Change (Music and Vocals By Sidsel Ben Semmane)

World Book Day is celebrated annually on April 23 to promote reading, publishing and copyright. The date was chosen to commemorate the death date of both Shakespeare and Cervantes. This year to celebrate we asked the staff to think about their favorite stories about people who have come to live in the United States from another country. Here are their recommendations:

I know that I'm in the minority, but I happen to think that Gary Shteyngart's The Russian Debutante's Handbook is his best work. That's not to say that it's a perfect book—plotwise, you can feel the wheels starting to come off the bus towards the end. But even if his subsequent novels were more tightly controlled and technically “better,” they never approached the exuberant and frenetic propulsion that he managed to maintain in relating the sad-sack tale of Vladimir Grushkin, the son of Russian immigrants who is forced to skedaddle off to Prava (Prague) where he becomes involved in a Ponzi scheme bilking American expatriates. This book has layer upon layer of the many manifestations of the immigrant experience—until it becomes apparent that everyone is an immigrant to some degree, and no one is really an immigrant at all. —Wayne Roylance, Selection Team

I love The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, it's easily one of my favorite books! I love the way it blends Dominican history, teenage angst, science fiction, and hip hop culture. I also really enjoyed Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. Set in New York City and told through the eyes of a Dutch expat in the months following 9/11, this book is centered on a group of cricket enthusiasts from every corner of the globe. Most notable among these enthusiasts is Chuck Ramkissoon, a crooked but upbeat Trinidadian clawing at the American Dream. —Nancy Aravecz, Mid-Manhattan

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi is a thrill ride of a coming-of-age novel, a cultural blender of traditional South Asian values meeting counter-cultural London punk, seeking salvation in self-proclaimed self-help gurus. This novel touches on issues of family, race, and sexuality on the culturally electrified fence of 1970s London. —Sherri Machlin, Mulberry Street

The Arrival by Shaun Tanis an amazing wordless book about the immigrant experience. It is hypnotic and communicates its story of a family immigrating to a new country entirely in beautiful, surreal pictures. —Judd Karlman, City Island

97 Orchard is great. It's all about five different immigrant families who lived in the same tenement building over different eras (German, Russian, Italian, German Jewish, Irish) and discusses the food culture that they bring with them. It really illustrates how one of the first ways an immigrant community makes an impact in a foreign city is by the introductions of new cuisines—something that remains true. —Carmen Nigro, Milstein Division

I have enjoyed several titles on this topic including: Shanghai Girlsby Lisa See tells the story of 1930s Chinese brides who come to Los Angeles with their Californian suitors after their father sells them away. Dreams of Joy continues the story. The Sandcastle Girlsby Chris Bohjalian is, in part, the story of a New Yorker who rediscovers her Armenian past. Mexican High by Liza Monroy is a YA novel about a Mexican-American girl who goes to live in Mexico City with her diplomat mother. Also, Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario is a good non-fiction pick. It's the story of a Honduran boy looking for his mother, eleven years after she is forced to leave her family to find work in the United States. —Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market

The darker side of Jewish immigrant life is a large part of the writings of celebrated author Isaac Bashevis Singer. I particularly enjoy his short stories in The Collected Stories and his novel Enemies: A Love Storyabout a Holocaust survivor coming to grips with his survival and new life in New York City. —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

Roy Choi not only serves up some mean dishes in L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food, but shows his storytelling chops. With a pinch of humility and a dash of pride, the K-Town chef homie writes about immigrant dreams, family, tradition and the nostalgic taste of home. —Miriam Tuliao, Selection Team

My favorite immigrant story isThe Assistant, by Bernard Malamud, which examines the complexities of interfaith romance when an immigrant Deli owner hires a non-Jew who then falls in love with his daughter. For an immigrant story that also doubles as a good beach read, there's the recent Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street, that centers around Malka, who comes to America with her Jewish family, but is abandoned after she is accidentally crippled by the driver of an Italian Ices cart on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She gets taken in by that family, learns the ice cream business and becomes a wealthy businesswoman… until her past starts catching up with her. —Ronni Krasnow, Morningside Heights

During last year's New Dorp's Grupo de lectura y discusión (our Spanish book discussion club) we read the book Girl in Translation / El Silencio de las Palabras by Jean Kwok. It tells the story of Kim, and immigrant girl from Hong Kong who comes to America with her mother after her father dies. They live in Brooklyn squalor, and she has to live a double life: great student during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. —Adriana Blancarte-Hayward, Outreach Services

My recommendation is How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. Chronicles the life of one affluent Dominican family who escaped the Trujillo regime and migrated to the Bronx. It shows the conflict between parents and daughters. The four daughters experienced social, economic and cultural differences as they adapted to American society while their parents had a more difficult time letting go of their traditions and values. —Jean Harripersaud, Bronx Library Center

I would like to include The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. The tale follows Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager and Bangalore driver, through the poverty and corruption of modern India's caste society. Through this dark and comedic novel Balram describes his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks epitomizes the contradictions and complications of Indian society. —Sandra Farag, Mid-Manhattan

I enjoyed Crescent by Diana Au-Jaber and her memoir The Language of Baklava.  Crescent is fiction but both books show in sensuous language that the tastes, aromas and textures of foods can connect you to a lost place and time and relieve or even cause homesickness for people and places you once knew and loved. Maura Muller, Volunteers Office

Lost in Translation. A Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman describes the immigrant experience from the perspective of a teenage, intellectually precocious and verbally gifted girl suddenly disconnected from her native culture(s) (Jewish/Polish in post-war Poland) and transplanted first to Canada, and then to the US. Even though the title signals sadness about what's lost in such an experience, the book describes the gradual (albeit reluctant) growing into the new language and culture - where the author eventually excels academically and becomes a published author and a New York Times editor. For this Polish-born reader the book had an eerily familiar feeling - of the "found myself in this book" kind. Kasia Kawolska, Strategy Office

Young Adult

The All-of-Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor is a semi-autobiographical story of five young sisters in a Jewish immigrant family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (and later in the Bronx) in the early 1900s. Sweet and full of historical details, including a great scene set at the Seward Park Library! The Seward Park Library also features in The Same Sun Hereabout a young, immigrant Indian girl who corresponds with a boy living in Kentucky. —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez is a Young Adult novel about a young girl's journey from Cuba to America as part of Operation Pedro Pan. Lucía Álvarez leaves everything she knows and finds herself living in the middle of Nebraska with a strange couple, left to contemplate the meaning of family and home. —Alexandria Abenshon, Countee Cullen

I'm going with In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Lord. This is Shirley Temple Wong's story of a family emigrating from China in the wake of World War II. This book is heartwarming and heartbreaking in turns as she struggles to assimilate in her school. She comes to idolize Jackie Robinson for his perseverance while she works to fit in her new location. It's the perfect read for a child who feels outcast, whether they are immigrants or not. —Joshua Soule, Spuyten Duyvil

The Antarctic land and ocean ice sheets are melting and California is experiencing its deepest drought in history. These are just some of the troubling changes we see in our climate lately. Thankfully, world governments and world citizens are taking halting but positive steps to correct the longstanding policies that led to this era of climate change. It seems like a good time to write about fostering our connection with the natural world, and one wonderful way to do this is through the arts. So to celebrate Earth Week, here is a short list of some of my favorite nature music.

The ethereal and mystical sounds of the Incredible String Band are at the forefront of my nature-oriented inspirations. With lyrics both adult and childlike, the nature imagery in songs like “Ducks on a Pond” creates the setting for their lovely acoustic wanderings. 

Another recording that I enjoy is the famous Seeger family's Animal Folk Songs for Children, but despite the title, I am proof that adults can thoroughly enjoy this cd! Ruth Crawford Seeger was Pete Seeger's stepmother and an acclaimed musician and composer in her own right. This CD is a wonderful compilation of Ruth's arrangements of traditional folk songs.

What nature music list would be complete without the songs of the man himself, Pete Seeger, the legendary folksinger, social justice activist and founder of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater? Here is “To My Old Brown Earth.”

As a very young child in the early 1970s, I was entranced by an album that consisted mostly of wolf calls. My brother and I loved to take this record out of the library. And behold, it is still in the library’s collection as a reference item! The Language and Music of the Wolves.

Of course there are many wonderful “warning” or “lament” songs, about what humans are doing to the environment. Besides several famous and obvious choices, other notable environmental laments include Captain Beefheart’s “Smithsonian Institute Blues,” and the Beach Boys’ “Don’t Go Near the Water” from their “Surf's Up” album.

There are of course, many other pieces of creativity which I couldn’t include for this brief listing.  So on a poetic end note, while you are birdwatching outside on your Earth Day hike, remember, Wallace Stevens reminds us that there are “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”

Happy Earth Day!

We are excited to announce that the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture will receive the National Medal for Museum and Library Service at a celebration in Washington, D.C., in May! The Schomburg Center is among ten recipients of the National Medal, the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries, in recognition of service to the community and for making a difference in the lives of individuals, families, and communities. 

We’ve asked Tarik Bell,  Schomburg Junior Scholars Instructor and the Dean of Democracy Prep Harlem High School,  to travel with Schomburg Director Khalil Gibran Muhammad to the nation’s capital to accept the award on behalf of our institution. As a former Junior Scholar, Bell honed his passion for community activism through the program, and continues to help raise the social, emotional and academic awareness of our urban youth today. 

The National Medal recipients exemplify the nation’s great diversity of libraries and museums and hail from ten states. Winning institutions receive $5,000, national recognition, and a visit from StoryCorps, a nonprofit that will capture stories from our community and preserve them at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

“The Schomburg Center is honored to be the recipient of this year's National Medal for Museum and Library Service,” says Muhammad. “Since 1925, the Schomburg Center has been home to many of the world's greatest writers, historians, and artists—from James Baldwin to Maya Angelou to Harry Belafonte, and thousands in between. As we celebrate our 90th year and in recognition of the National Medal, we are strengthening our foundation so as to be an indispensable resource for the next generation of storytellers, history-makers, and world-changers.”

We are grateful for your support and are very much looking forward to sharing this honor with you. 

First, a word on the pronunciation. Vladimir rhymes with “redeemer” and Nabokov is stressed on the second syllable and “bok” rhymes with “oak.”  I know that pointing that out makes me seem like a bit of a prig and possibly a bore at parties (and I don’t totally disagree with either description), but since my wife is Russian, I have to pronounce it correctly.  You don’t, but it will stand you in good stead if you find yourself at a party filled with prigs and bores.

My love of Nabokov begins and ends with his use of the English language.  Reading him opened my eyes to how beautiful and wondrous this language could be.  For many years I thought that it was ironic that it took someone who wasn’t a native speaker to teach me how special English could be.  That was up until I discovered that, as a child, Nabokov began learning English from the very beginning.  In fact, he said that he was a “bilingual baby.”  In an interview with Life, Nabokov was asked which of the languages he spoke was the most beautiful.  He answered “My head says English, my heart, Russian, my ear, French.”

If you haven’t read Nabokov—or if you’ve only read his most famous novel, Lolita—and you love to read books with exquisite language, here are three to consider:

Speak, Memory
Technically, this is supposed to be a memoir of Nabokov’s early life, but since the facts presented are highly questionable (perhaps speculative would be a more polite adjective to use here), it is better to call it a gilded evocation of his childhood.

Pale Fire
I am always hard-pressed to pick which of Nabokov’s novels I like best: Lolita or Pale Fire.  I think that I love the language of Lolita more, but I find the brilliance of the concept and execution of Pale Fire to be breath-taking.  The novel is composed of a poem (divided into four cantos) by John Shade and commentary and notes by a colleague of his named Charles Kinbote.  The “plot” is very convoluted, but what makes the book great is the character of Kinbote—perhaps the greatest unreliable narrator ever created.

Despair
Perhaps Nabokov’s most plot-driven book, Despair tells the story of Hermann Karlovich who, after meeting a man he believes to be his doppelgänger,  devises a plan to commit  the “perfect murder” where he himself will be the “victim.”  Needless to say, despite his careful planning, things don’t turn out quite the way he expects them to.

Oh, and one other thing about Nabokov—April 22nd is his birthday. Happy Birthday, Vla-DEEM-er!

*The title of this post is what is engraved on Nabokov's headstone.

Jorie Graham comes to Books at Noon next Wednesday, April 29 to discuss her latest work, From the New World: Poems 1976-2014. We asked her six questions about what she likes to read.

When and where do you like to read?

Books: when I am alone, or feel myself to be alone in a public place. I love to read myself to sleep. I also have come to almost love the way in which we now are interrupted throughout the day by essays and poems and chapters that seep in through the Internet. Though that kind of reading has nothing to do with how one uses one's inwardness in bending over to read a book.

What were your favorite books as a child?

As a child it wasTinTin,Babar, Madeline , Hans Christian Anderson and Grimms. I grew up primarily French-speaking (in the Lycée system) so everything was in the French translation. As an older child, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma. I loved holding the little Gallimard books. I also read a lot of poetry—as the French system requires it K-12—all the medieval poets, Rennaissance poets, symbolists, surrealists and so on. Obviously I loved Rimbaud , Apollinaire , Supervielle, Baudelaire—but I also adored Du Bellay and Ronsard. We had to recite 100 lines of verse every morning before the first class—so we committed a lot of Racine and Corneille and Moliere to memory. We also read philosophy—starting at age 10. The French system (which is mirrored in many school systems worldwide) is a bit intense about a “classical education.” In spite of how much the French feel it has deteriorated, it is still pretty much the same. You need to have three or four languages when you graduate. Or, in some of the best public schools, “four living and one dead.”

What books had the greatest impact on you?

After Shakespeare, Dante and Homer, The Brothers Karamazov . When I learned to read in English, Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse , Between the Acts,) Proust, Beckett. Then Faulkner, Melville, Hawthorne, and Henry James. Eudora Welty, and Flannery O Connor. I am not mentioning the poets—as that list is too long. Though the discovery of Yeats, Eliot and of Hopkins were life-altering.

Would you like to name a few writers out there you think deserve greater readership?

The poetry of Denis Johnson and the first book of poems by Linda Gregg—Too Bright To See. I do not understand why people find our modernists “too difficult”—let alone the ways in which someone like Dickens is no longer read by young readers. So, to people growing up in the US School system—I would have to say “literature” deserves greater readership. Whole plays. Whole novels. Collected Poems. A great poet I think everyone should read? Zbigniew Herbert (translated by the Carpenters)—such as in a short selected Report from the Besieged City. Also certain less read novels of John Coetzee’s (Age of Iron, and The Life and Times of Michael K). Graham Greene's The End of The Affair. Machado de Assis, Camilo Jose Cela (Mrs Caldwell Speaks To Her Son), Juan Rulfo (Pedro Paramo)…

What was the last book you recommended?

Ben Lerner—Angle of Yaw and 10:04 ( a novel). Keston Sutherland's The Odes to TL61P. Alice Oswald's Dart. Allen Grossman, The Ether Dome and Other Poems and How To Do Things With Tears.

The Unwinding, George Packer. Hyperobjects, Timothy Morton. Dark Ecology also by Morton. Anything by Michael Pollan, Rebecca Solnit , Jonathan Schell. This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein, Storms of my Grandchildren by Jim Hansen, The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert… even if these books are already surpassed by current science, they are wake-up calls. Six Degrees by Mark Lynas is from 2008 so one needs to adjust for that, but it is simple, loud and clear.

What do you plan to read next?

William Golding's The Inheritors, Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding The End Of The World.

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T.C. Boyle has written over a dozen novels and several collections of short fiction. Recently, he was awarded the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement for writers of the West. On April 1, we welcomed Boyle to Books at Noon to discuss his latest novel The Harder They Come. This week for the New York Public Library Podcast, we present the author speaking on finding stories, discovering creative writing, and observing themes emerge in his body of work. 

At Books at Noon, Jessica Strand asked Boyle if it was true that he finds the narratives for his fiction in newspapers. Boyle does, he said, but he also finds them just by living his life:

“My wife and I are among the last people on earth who actually read a newspaper. This is our ritual in the morning. I don't know about you, but I love to be depressed to start the day off, so I read the newspaper. I feel the world is shit and that there's no hope. Then I take a nap and go to work. I mean, I don't always get ideas from newspapers. I get ideas from what you might tell me, what anybody might tell me. A friend of mine had his car stolen last year. I live in Santa Barbara. And it was a wonderful story. His girlfriend’s dog was in the car when it was stolen, and she was upset. So I wrote I story about that. All my friends, my true friends, and I see at least two of them in the crowd here today, know that anything they reveal to me, especially intimate details, will be used by me.”

Of course, this was not always the case. As a young man, the author actually didn't consider writing to be his career path:

“I've been teaching at USC, and I started the writing program there. My students have an astonishing pool of talent, and they're far more sophisticated than I was at their age. They've been taking creative writing since kindergarten. When I grew up, in Peeksill, up the river here, we didn't have creative writing. I had no conception of it. I went to Potsdam, SUNY Potsdam, to be a musician. I played saxophone. I could play it upside-down, backwards. I could sight read anything but nonetheless, I flunked my audition. Meanwhile, I was in a liberal arts college. I declared a history major. Second year, I took a course in the American short story and discovered Flannery O’Connor, and I said, ‘Alright, I'm a double major: history and English.’ In my third year, I blundered into a creative writing classroom and found voila! I've discovered my métier.”

Since then, Boyle's become one of America's most prolific writers. Even with the volume of prose he produces, however, he says that he does note a relationship between his texts:

“You don't know what your themes are when you begin to write. They discover you over the years. I can see how all the books are aligned and what the themes are. For instance, in this one, I’m obsessed with nature and our place in nature as an animals species on this earth and how that’s different from our spiritual being or intellectual being. This is what I'm writing about over and over about obsessively in many different ways.”

You can subscribe to the New York Public Library Podcast to hear more conversations with wonderful artists, writers, and intellectuals. Join the conversation today!

On April 23, be sure to doff your cap to passersby and wish them a happy World Book Day. This literary holiday commemorates the deaths of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra—with some calendrical caveats that I won’t go into here. Since I’ve already written a bit about Mr. Shakespeare, I will turn to Cervantes and a tale of hidden identity and authorial feuding that I will call the Case of the False Quixote.

I recently came across a curious item from the Library’s General Research Division: a third volume of Don Quixote. Cervantistas among you know that this novel, the full title of which is El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, consists of two parts only. What’s more, the author listed is not Cervantes, but “the Licentiate Alonzo Fernandez de Avellaneda.” So what exactly is going on here?

Don Quixote was first printed in Madrid in 1605. It was an immediate success—the first edition quickly sold out, and new ones were printed both in Spain and throughout Europe. I can’t neglect mentioning that the Rare Book Division holds one of these scarce early printings, in a contemporary and typically Spanish binding of limp vellum, labelled by hand on its spine.

When Cervantes wrote the 1605 Don Quixote, it was not at all clear that it would be the first of a two-volume set. At the end of the frame story—a pseudo-historical, metafictional narrative of how this “true” tale came to light—a scholar has uncovered documents concerning Quixote’s continued adventures and hopes to eventually publish them. However, Cervantes’s final words are forse altro cantera con miglior plettro, or, “perhaps someone else will sing with a better plectrum [pick for a musical instrument].” This could be interpreted as an invitation for another author to continue Quixote’s story.

Nine years later, someone did: Segundo Tomo del Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha was released in 1614, authored by an Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda—a nom de plume whose identity remains a mystery to this day. Given the ambiguity of the novel’s conclusion, the passage of several years with no sequel, and the lucrative endeavor that a second Quixote book was sure to be, it’s understandable that another writer would throw his hat into the ring. However, the book’s unauthorized nature and its preface’s personal attacks on Cervantes earned the ire of Don Quixote’s creator and eventually the disparaging label of “the False Quixote.”

Now, you might be asking yourself, Isn’t it a bad idea to insult someone known for his wit and dexterity with a pen? And the answer to your question is a resounding yes.

Unbeknownst to Avellaneda, Cervantes was writing his own Quixote continuation, which he finished the following year. His Part II contains several references to Avellaneda, none of them kind. Wasting no time, Cervantes opens the preface with these words: “[G]entle...reader, how eagerly must thou be looking forward to this preface, expecting to find there retaliation, scolding, and abuse against the author of the second Don Quixote.” With some rhetorical apophasis, Cervantes vents his anger in the guise of taking the high road. “Thou wouldst have me call him ass, fool, and malapert,” he says, “but I have no such intention; let his offence be his punishment, with his bread let him eat it, and there’s an end of it.”

But that was not the end of it. Cervantes did not stop with extra-textual criticism, but wove his irritation into the fabric of the novel itself. I’ll leave a thorough cataloging of each reference to the pros, but my favorite comes from Chapter 70. In this scene, the character Altisidora recounts her journey to the gates of hell, where she observed a group of devils playing tennis, but with books instead of balls. One book in particular caught her attention:

To one of them, a brand-new, well-bound one, they gave such a stroke that they knocked the guts out of it and scattered the leaves about. “Look what book that is,” said one devil to another, and the other replied, “It is ‘Second Part of the History of Don Quixote of La Mancha,’ not by Cid Hamet [the metafictional historian of Don Quixote], the original author, but by an Aragonese who by his own account is of Tordesillas.” “Out of this with it,” said the first, “and into the depths of hell with it out of my sight.” “Is it so bad?” said the other. “So bad is it,” said the first, “that if I had set myself deliberately to make a worse, I could not have done it.”

So that, very briefly, is Cervantes’s opinion of Avellaneda: he had written a book so terrible that the devil himself could do no worse.

Cervantes learned from his 1605 mistake and closed out his Part II with no room for further sequels. Not only does he kill Quixote, he has a notary arrive to corroborate it. As a notary myself, I’m happy my office had the power to ward off any future False Quixotes. The notary “b[ore] witness that Alonso Quixano the Good, commonly called Don Quixote of La Mancha, had passed away from this present life, and died naturally; and said he desired this testimony in order to remove the possibility of any other author save Cid Hamet Benengeli bringing him to life again falsely and making interminable stories out of his achievements.” “Cid Hamet” ends the novel with an invective pointed directly at Avellaneda:

For me alone was Don Quixote born, and I for him; it was his to act, mine to write; we two together make but one, notwithstanding and in spite of that pretended Tordesillesque writer [Avellaneda] who has ventured or would venture with his great, coarse, ill-trimmed ostrich quill to write the achievements of my valiant knight;—no burden for his shoulders, nor subject for his frozen wit: whom, if perchance thou shouldst come to know him, thou shalt warn to leave at rest where they lie the weary mouldering bones of Don Quixote.”

With those words, Cervantes definitively closed the book on the life of Don Quixote.

Which brings us to the image that started this post. Not surprisingly, the demand for Avellaneda’s novel has not held up well over time, though Nabokov, of all people, found it to have some merit, suggesting it was “kinder” and “more humane” than Cervantes’s version, which he deemed brutal and cruel. Cervantes’s two parts were frequently reprinted and were first translated into English in 1612 and 1620, respectively. Avellaneda’s text, on the other hand, was not translated until much later, in 1705, so it received the misleading descriptor “Third Volume.”

The New York Public Library has a robust collection of Cervantes material. Most of the historic texts are described in this article for the Library’s Bulletin, but we continue acquiring new items each year—our online catalog has over 1,000 entries attributed to Cervantes, including e-book versions of Don Quixote and a new edition published just this year. As a globally-recognized literary masterpiece, Don Quixote has inspired many printers and illustrators to craft their own versions. The Nonesuch Press’s 1930 edition is illustrated by artist E. McKnight Kauffer, who also designed iconic book jackets for James Joyce’s Ulysses, Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, to name a few. The Ashendene Press printed its edition in 1927 and 1928. As befits a novel with a 400 year literary history, the book’s design was an homage to printers past—specifically, William Morris and his Kelmscott Press, who in turn referenced the work of Erhard Ratdolt and other 15th century incunabular printers.

Narrowing down the best edition of Don Quixote is as futile as tilting at windmills, so explore our many titles to find your favorite. And if it turns out to be Avellaneda’s version, don’t be shy—he could use another knight-errant in his corner.

All quotations from Don Quixote are from John Ormsby’s 1885 English translation. Image Credits: New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox, Tilden Foundations.

African animals grace the pages of this thoughtfully illustrated book.

Water holes sate the thirst of animals of different colors and species. Impalas leap and dance through the grass. Meerkats keep an eye on the landscape. Snakes slink through the trees. Symbiotic oxpeckers clean other animals in order to snatch a meal. Giraffes contort themselves into position at the drinking place. Moving stripes on zebras confuse predators. Wildebeest travel and drink, eat and stampede. Vultures find any fallen animals that they can to munch on. Rhinos are vegetarians, and they cannot see well.

Dear Wandering Wildebeest by Irene Latham, 2014

I like the nonfiction text that accompanies each poem. Also, the fact that each double-page spread has a different base color is visually striking.

• Irene Latham's web site
• Books about African animals

This is a guest post by Joanne Dillon, interviewer for Visible Lives: Oral Histories of the Disability Experience at Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library.

Meet Our “Visible Lives” Volunteers

The New York Public Library’s Visible Lives: Oral Histories of the Disability Experienceproject at Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library has a great group of volunteers, over 55 strong. What motivates these dedicated people? What advice do they have to offer those thinking about volunteering with the project? To find out, we spoke with three volunteer interviewers.

Joel Fram, a freelance writer, was one of the earliest volunteers for Visible Lives, which kicked off in October 2014. Since then, he’s conducted nine conversations with individuals whose disabilities included blindness and deafness. Joel learned about the project on the NYPL website and signed up. “I thought this would be a good way to use my skills,” he said.  Joel offers this advice for those who may be hesitant about interviewing: “There’s nothing to fear.  Just treat the occasion less like a formal interview—and more like a conversation.” Joel does suggest being prepared with some questions in case a conversation should stall.  “And don’t be shy about asking a storyteller to elaborate on a point,” he advises. “If your curiosity has been piqued by something a storyteller says, chances are those listening online will want to know more details, too.”

Like Joel, Monica Diaz volunteered with the Visible Lives project at its outset. Initially, Monica was nervous about her role as an interviewer. “I didn’t want to ask inappropriate questions,” she explains. A sociologist, Monica called on her professional training to help her overcome her anxiety. “I do some research ahead of each interview, so I know a bit about what the storyteller has been facing,” she explains. The Chicago native offers this suggestion for fellow interviewers: let the conversation evolve. What would she do if a storyteller was giving only one word answers? “Pause the recorder and let the person know details are important. Remind the individual they are helping document part of history.” With six interviews completed so far, Monica believes that the experience has expanded her own perceptions. “There are so many ways people experience the world,” she says. “This is helping me become a more tolerant person.”

Lynne Luxton believes everyone has a story to tell. Lynne had previously volunteered with a support group for the blind, but conducting oral history interviews was a new experience. Lynne, who has completed seven interviews to date, believes the interviewer plays the role of facilitator. Three elements help shape Lynne’s conversations. She gives her storytellers ample time to prepare, sending questions in advance of the interview. She asks about common experiences, such as traveling or family life. And she’s always prepared to listen. “Just let the storyteller talk,” she advises. Her thoughtful approach has resulted in some very interesting experiences. One very organized storyteller came prepared with detailed notes typed in Braille, and another, who talked about advocacy efforts, and recited original poems to open and close the interview. “Give a storyteller the opportunity to be heard,” says Lynne. “You’ll be amazed at what you learn.”

Interested in sharing your story, collecting stories, or both? Please contact Alexandra Kelly at AlexandraKelly@nypl.org or 212-621-0552. There are two upcoming on April 30 and May 2. More information about orientation.

We’ve all heard the proverb “April showers bring May flowers,” but what’s more interesting is this month’s significance in literature. While Shakespeare aligned April with youth and vitality, Eliot called it “the cruelest month.” Melville compared April to a red-cheeked dancing girl, and Millay even titled one collection Second April. Here are a few of our favorite April quotes in literature.

detail of April. Image ID: 1547079

The April winds are magical,
And thrill our tuneful frames;
The garden-walks are passional
To bachelors and dames.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, “April” in The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.
—T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
—Robert Frost, “Two Tramps in Mud Time” in A Further Range

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
—William Shakespeare, Sonnet XCVIII of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants.
—Herman Melville, Moby Dick

April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Song of a Second April” in Second April

But it is a sort of April-weather life that we lead in this world. A little sunshine is generally the prelude to a storm.
—William Cowper, Letters of William Cowper: Chosen and Edited with a Memoir and a Few Notes

I was excited about this panel discussion since I have been a synagogue librarian. We had this session in the newly renamed Celeste Auditorium in the South Court of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The event was hosted by Betsy Bird, Youth Materials Specialist, and it featured Marjorie Ingall from Tablet Magazine, Joanna Sussman from Kar-Ben Publishing, and Barbara Krasner from the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee.

Bird asked the panelists what Jewish children's literature is. She wondered if it contains Jewish characters only or if it needs to have Judaism as its focus.

Sussman needs the books to have Judaism as the focus for her publishing company. She mentioned The Shabbat Princess as an example of a book that they have published.

Krasner also requires that book award books have Jewish content. However, Jewish characters do not need to be protagonists in the books. Unfortunately, the book award committee is deluged with many books that have Judaism as only a peripheral concept. 

Ingall is a book critic, and she has looser standards than the other two. She is more interested in the quality of the books. Any slight mention of Judaism is enough for her to include books in her reading list. She tends to shy away from Holocaust books because the subject has been novelized many times over the years.

Sussman receives so many manuscripts at her company, and they only publish twenty books per year. She looks for contemporary Jewish books for kids. The book, No Baths at Camp, is about a Jewish summer camp. This is a way to teach kids about Judaism; Jews want more Jewish kids in the world.

Ingall mentioned the  2013 Pew Study: A Portrait of Jewish Americans. Remembering the Holocaust was mentioned as a priority for older Jews, but young kids simply know the Holocaust as history. Judaism is about more than simply death camps.

Bird wanted to know how young is too young for Holocaust literature. An easy book has come out that has a tree in front of Anne Frank's house.

Krasner mentioned that some picture books about the Holocaust that she is familiar with are for older readers, including some that could be used with high schoolers. It is important to have discussion amongst the kids, teachers and parents about such a sensitive topic.

Ingall said that kids today do not know any Holocaust survivors.

Sussman's parents are Holocaust survivors, so she is committed to providing good Holocaust literature for people.

Ingall opined that most Holocaust books do not work for her based solely on lack of a strong narrative. She wants to see terrific books. Some books are hard for kids to read. Some of the nonfiction books are good as educational tools. It is important to distinguish those books from ones that you can expect kids to read on their own.

Krasner mentioned that some books are didactic, and some are just meant to be shared with family.

Bird guessed that if one went to Times Square and asked average people what their favorite Jewish books were, people would respond with Number the Stars and All of a Kind Family books. 

Ingall stated that All of a Kind Family was the Jewish equivalent of the Little House on the Prairie books. 

Sussman grew up in Minnesota, which is where the Little House books were set.

Bird wanted the panelists to talk about publishing today and in the past. There is more variety today than in the past, but we need more diverse books in terms of religion. She asked if the panelists saw any trends: good, bad or indifferent.

Sussman told us that it is Kar-Ben Publishing's 40^th anniversary. The book world has changed much since the advent of e-book publishing. Children's books are a way to get people into the Jewish community. Some books about Jewish holidays have a paragraph in them to educate parents and readers to children about Judaism. She does not assume that the readers of their books are familiar with Judaism.

Krasner has seen an increase in the number of books about Ebola recently.

Ingall has noticed a broader expression of art in picture books. She is interested in how art has evolved in books.

Sussman mentioned that publishers used to use only American artists in their books. However, the digital world has expanded options. She can find international artists now for books. This is a huge change in children's literature.

Ingall has seen more immigrant stories recently. Some people think that Jewish people are white and not ethnically diverse.

Bird asked if Orthodox stories can be written incorrectly. She has seen some that seem doubtful.

Ingall's problem with early Jewish graphic novels is that they contain static art. She believes that books should have beta readers. One Orthodox Jewish book had so many errors in it that she could not finish it. She attended Orthodox Jewish day school through eighth grade, so the problems with the book were overwhelming to her.

Bird asked where the panelists want Jewish kid lit going in the future.

Krasner wants good writing that takes the reader to another place. She likes to cry because she wants to be emotionally invested in the books. She teaches creative writing. She likes books to be accurate. Authors should do their homework and fact-check their material. Experts can also help by reviewing their manuscripts.

Ingall likes history, but she wishes that people would explore other aspects of Jewish history.

Bird opened up the floor to audience questions.

Someone asked if there were many easy books or chapter books that are Jewish literature. 

Sussman noted that there is a dearth of early books for Jewish kids. 

Ingall loves Judy Blume because the art is so seamless that you almost do not notice it as you are reading. 

An art professor commented that if literature is too severe, kids tune it out. Judaism is different from other religions in that it teaches argumentation and thinking. She pleads for books that tell kids what Judaism is all about.

Upcoming Children's Literary Salon
Children's Book Week: Past, Present and Future
Sunday, April 26, 2015 @ 2 pm
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Celeste Auditorium

• Association of Jewish Libraries
• Marjorie Ingall's web site
• National Jewish Book Award
• Books about Judaism

Were you ever in the middle of reading a book and thought to yourself, “I really hope this is fiction!” Well, that was my reaction after reading the first three pages of “In the Field,” a short story excerpt from The Things They Carriedby Tim O'Brien. It was part of the compilation, Standing Down: From Warrior to Civilian—which I was reading for a Veterans Book Discussion Group at the Bronx Library Center. This work was published by the Great Books Foundation as an initiative to develop reading and discussion programs for veterans, as well as their families, friends, service providers, and caregivers.

The Bronx Library Center as well as several other branches in the New York Public Library system are hosting these discussions courtesy of the New York Council for the Humanities.

Veterans, their family members and interested individuals are invited to participate. Veterans who participate in the series will receive a free copy of the book. If you are interested in joining us, please call 718-579-4253 or visit the Bronx Library Center to register. We'll be meeting on the following Wednesdays at 10:30 am April 29, May 13, May 27 and June 27, 2015.

As a civilian, I have to say reading this text has given me greater insight into the intricacies of war and deeper appreciation of the sacrifices made by our service members. Hearing from veteran participants really enriches and enlightens the discussion bringing an added depth that only actual experience can bring.

Standing Down: From Warrior to Civilian is comprised of the forty-four selections listed below:

Iliad (selection) - Homer
The Melian Dialogue - Thucydides
Henry VI, Part I (selection) - William Shakespeare
Letters - New York Legislature / George Washington
On Discipline In Democratic Armies - Alexis de Toqueville
The Gettysburg Address - Abraham Lincoln
The Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Whitman on Caregiving - Walt Whitman
War and Peace (selection) - Leo Tolstoy
The Moral Equivalent of War - Williams James
Why War? - Sigmund Freud
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death - William Butler Yeats
The Veteran - Stephen Crane
Italian Ordeal Surprises Congress - Anne O’Hare McCormick
Poems - Wilfred Owen
To a Conscript of 1940 - Herbert Read
Soldier’s Home - Ernest Hemingway
Reporting the War in Tunisia - Ernie Pyle
Guests of the Nation - Frank O’Connor
A Negro Looks at This War - J. Saunders Redding
These Terrible Records of War - James Agee
Tarawa: The Story of a Battle (selection) - Robert Sherrod
The Price We Pay In Italy - Eric Sevareid
Revisiting My Memoir - Edward W. Wood Jr.
Village - Estela Portillo Tremblay
It Is Dangerous to Read Newspapers - Margaret Atwood
A Rumor of War (selection) - Philip Caputo
What It Is Like to Go to War (selection) - Karl Marlantes
In Pharaoh’s Army (selection) - Tobias Wolff
The Things They Carried (selection) - Tim O’Brien
Facing It - Yusef Komunyakaa
A Piece of My Heart (selection) - Anne Simon Auger as told to Keith Walker
A Journey Taken with My Son - Myrna Bein
Reclamation - John Berens
The Good Soldiers (selection) - David Finkel
The Boy Without a Flag - Abraham Rodriguez Jr.
Perimeter Watch - Brian Turner
Dust to Dust (selection) - Benjamin Busch
Medevac Missions - Ed Hrivnak
You Know When the Men Are Gone (selection) - Siobhan Fallon
Veterans - Brian Humphreys
The Hardest Letter to Write - Parker Gyokeres
Shallow Hands - Michael Poggi
To the Fallen - John McCary

To find out which other libraries are offering this program, please visit the Outreach Services page.

When I began working in the Map Division of the New York Public Library in 1978, the influence of the 1977 television miniseries Roots had taken hold. Author Alex Haley traced his family history back to Africa, and inspired many of us to do likewise. While the Milstein librarians know genealogy as a longstanding interest among their users, I learned from Map Division old-timers that the spillover to our division at that time was noticeable. These users wanted help from map librarians to find the villages, towns, and cities, and even farms, streets, and houses, that their ancestors hailed from or where they resettled.

Another notable wave of interest in maps for genealogy ensued when ship passenger lists became available on the Internet. As these lists often include the last place of residence of the immigrant, the curious researcher wants to see where these places appear on old maps. They may want to determine, from maps and map-related resources, the hierarchy of administrative divisions within which the places were and are located so that they can search out more family records. Or they may simply want to feel the connection that a map from the ancestor’s time provides.

As an Armenian-American keenly aware of the devotion to lost homeland of my ethnic compatriots, I’ve always been on the lookout for Armenians among the researchers from many large ethnic groups who have found their way to Room 117 at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street in NYC, now known as the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division. As Armenians all over the world remember their forebears at this time, as we commemorate on April 24 the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide, one way to honor those who were not able to find refuge is to learn all we can about them and celebrate our link to them. The New York Public Library has many resources to help us find out about what our ancestors’ lives were like in good times as well as bad, and about that special generation that connects us with them, those who were able to make the trip to safety and pass on a heritage to their descendants.

The librarians of the Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy are especially adept at helping library users search for documents such as ship passenger lists, naturalization papers, census records, city directories and more, made available via such collections of databases as Ancestry Library Edition.

A couple of specialized resources of note in that division are Armenian immigrants: Boston 1891-1901, New York 1880-1897, compiled by Linda L. Avakian, which indexes names from the passenger lists, and Genealogy for Armenians, by Nephi K. and LaPreal J. Kezerian. Among the helpful features and tips of the latter publication are lists of surviving church records that have been microfilmed, and examples of variations in handwritten Armenian alphabet script.

Once a researcher has a place name to search, whether from personal knowledge of family history or from documents, the librarians in the Map Division can help in the discovery of a map showing the location of that place. Even if we know the location of the place, sometimes we simply want to see it on a map published at the time our ancestors were living there, on a map that our relatives themselves might have seen. Because of the foresight of the Astors and Lenoxes, whose collections formed the early core of The New York Public Library’s holdings, because of the generosity of donors through the years, and because of the collection development work of NYPL’s librarians, the Map Division is blessed with rich 19^th and early 20^th century cartographic resources, as well as more recent materials, that can reveal the locations of towns and villages in many homelands. Using a combination of gazetteers, indexes, atlases, and maps of varying amounts of detail, we can do our best to zoom in on these places.

The modern republic of Armenia encompasses what was historically the eastern part of Armenia, in the southern Caucasus, between the Black and Caspian Seas.

This 1721 map fromJohn Senex's New General Atlas shows Armenia with its western territory, in the highlands east of the Anatolian peninsula.

Its boundaries were somewhat amorphous, as it was in a crossroads of cultures and, through much of its history, under the power of various empires. But this is basically the historic homeland where there was a concentration of Armenian population. (There were also many Armenians living in the western parts of Asia Minor, on the Anatolian Peninsula, and there was an area called Lesser Armenia or Cilicia, toward the Mediterranean Sea, where Armenians had also settled during earlier centuries.)

Those who emigrated from the western, Ottoman-controlled part of Armenia in the decades just prior to World War I, and those who survived the genocide and deportations during and just after the war—when Western Armenia was basically depopulated of Armenians—made up the first and second waves of Armenian immigration to the United States. So for the descendants of these people, who might be trying to locate places that existed in Western Armenia around the last decade of the 19^th century and the first two decades of the 20^th century, here are some resources that might help.

Robert H. Hewsen’s monumental Armenia: A Historical Atlas, with cartography by Christopher C. Salvatico, is a relatively recent publication (2001), but is valuable for finding places of the past because of the scholarly research behind it, the good indexing, and the clarity and variety of scales of its maps. The index includes cross references between variant forms of place names, and then directs the reader to maps and map locations showing places in context. The atlas contains smaller-scale maps of historic Armenia in different periods of time, intermediate-scale maps of the pre-World War I Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and larger-scale maps (more zoomed in) for the areas around the cities with large Armenian populations, which must have served as market towns as well as religious and cultural centers for many surrounding towns and villages. The larger-scale maps have the space to show the smaller villages by name, though granted, cover a smaller amount of territory. For example, Map 164 is "Armenia on the Eve of the First World War, 1878-1914” at the scale of approximately 1:3,500,000 (about 55 miles to the inch); Map 186 is "The Vilayet of Mamuretülaziz ...” (the province containing Harput, or Kharpert to Armenians) at the scale of approximately 1:1,500,000 (about 24 miles to the inch); and Map 170 "Kharpert and its ‘Golden Plain’” at the scale of approximately 1:255,000 (about 4 miles to the inch). The atlas even includes some city and town plans, presumably in cases where source material was available.

Another modern resource, held offsite by the library’s General Research Division, provides both a detailed index and simple illustrative maps. That is the French publication, Les Arméniens dans l’Empire Ottoman à la Veille du Genocide, by Raymond H. Kévorkian and Paul B. Paboudjian. It is based on a census of Armenians carried out by the Armenian Church before World War I. Though the French language may affect the romanization and therefore spelling of some place names, non-readers of French still have much to gain. The strengths of this book are its comprehensiveness and its index, getting down to the smallest villages, and its supplementary information about places, including population figures and religious institutions, along with old photos. It also shows the administrative divisions within which villages, towns and cities were located—cazas, sanjaks, and vilayets. It includes basic outline maps, with no latitude and longitude for precise location—only boundaries, coastline, and relative positions of towns for geographical reference.

As for the contemporary maps, contemporary, that is, with the last of our ancestors to inhabit the homeland, there are three that I would like to tell you about.

First is a British map. H.F.B. Lynch was a traveler who wrote about his sojourn through Armenia, and along with F. Oswald and W. Shawe, mapped Armenia for his 1901 book,Armenia, Travels and Studies. Map of Armenia and adjacent countries may be found folded into the book, or flattened as it is in our library. (You can see the fold marks and some deterioration, but now the map has been encapsulated in polyester film for protection.) The map scale is 1:1,000,000, or about 16 miles to the inch. We welcome any interested individuals to come into the library in order to see the whole map and to read the place names, as we do not have a digital version yet. Interspersed through Lynch’s text are page-sized plans of such cities as Trebizond (now Trabzon) and Van. One may view these in the online version of Lynch’s text at the HathiTrust site.

Second is a French map.

Here is the title sheet of a 1:1,000,000-scale map of Asiatic Turkey, Carte de la Turquie d’Asie, in a set of 8 sheets, published by the French Service Géographique de l'Armée in 1897. At the bottom of the title sheet is a wonderful multi-lingual glossary, translating geographic terms from romanized Turkish, Arabic, and Persian into French. It shows, for example, that the Turkish “dagh” means montagne (in French) or mountain, while the Arabic for mountain is “djebel.” And “denix” is Turkish for mer (in French) or sea, while in Persian it’s “daria.”

This is NYPL’s homemade index map to the set. (NYPL holds this map set, though the images here of the published maps come from copies at the American Geographical Society Library.) Sheet 4 actually covers much of Western Armenia, from Van in the east to Harput/Kharpert in the west.

Here is a detail of the area just east of Harput, spelled here Kharpout.

Third is a German map. This is the map index to Karte von Kleinasien, a set of maps of Asia Minor at scale 1:400,000 (about 6 miles to the inch) produced by Richard Kiepert between approximately 1902 and 1916.

Here is a detail from the sheet that covers Harput, but here it’s spelled Charput, on the eastern edge of this sheet. (This detail comes from the sheet that is shown in full at the beginning of this blog posting.) A notable feature of this set of maps is track lines, which mark the routes of travelers who wrote about their travels in the area, and presumably provided source material to the map maker. Abbreviations indicate the names of the explorers. Here in the southeast corner of the map, along one track is the label “Ainsw.” When you look at the key in the lower right margin of the sheet, you see that “Ainsw” represents Ainsworth. Search this name in NYPL’s Classic Catalog along with title word “Armenia,” and you’ll find William Ainsworth’s 1842 Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, and Armenia. At the library, one thing leads to another if you pursue a curiosity about the region of your ancestors. This set of maps by Richard Kiepert has been digitized by the library and is available in the Digital Collections, where, when all goes well, you can zoom in to read the place names.

Searching for the name of a tiny place on a map with hundreds of place names can be a tedious task. While the maps just described don’t have their own indexes to lead readers to the places they show, they do have indications of latitude and longitude, in effect, x- and y-coordinates that designate locations. Latitude measures distance in degrees, minutes and seconds north or south of the equator; longitude measures degrees, minutes and seconds east or west of a defined prime meridian. So any gazetteer that lists place names alphabetically (or allows you to search by place name) and provides latitude and longitude coordinates (for example, 38° 42' 14" N, 039° 15' 02" E , for Harput) to describe the locations of the names in its database can serve as an index to these maps.

The GEOnet Names Server is a database of place names with latitude and longitude coordinates maintained by the U.S. military based on forms of names approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names. Its predecessor print source is the series of Board on Geographic Names gazetteers. Their downside for our purposes is their orientation towards current accepted forms of names, with limited cross-references from other forms. Also, GEOnet is not particularly browse-friendly, though you can truncate using a “starts with” search, or do a spatial search by creating a bounding box with geographic coordinates. You may find that scanning possible spellings on a page in the printed gazetteers works better for you. (Request volume 46, 1960, or volumes 214-215, 1984, for Turkey.)

Another online source that can be used as a gazetteer is the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names. Its focus is place names that are related to works of art, architecture, and material culture. Though it is not comprehensive, it does offer alternate forms of names that you might not find elsewhere, it includes historical places, and it does include latitude and longitude coordinates.

GeoNames is yet another online database to search for geographic names and their locations. It indexes alternate forms of names, provides geographic coordinates, and connects the user with modern satellite imagery of the locations. Users “may manually edit … and add new names using a user friendly wiki interface,” so it should be possible to add alternate forms of names to the database.

Before concluding with some information about non-map resources on the nature of these places our ancestors left, and what their life was like there, I’d like to introduce briefly two other types of map resources in the library.

First are the classics in the history of cartography, whether original materials or facsimiles, that bring depth to our collections by showing how people of past times viewed the world and made innovations in sharing those views.

How Armenia is portrayed in the classics, and in other less-well-known early cartographic works, has been captured in a beautifully illustrated volume called Historic Maps of Armenia: The Cartographic Heritage by Rouben Galichian.

Secondly, a discussion of the Map Division’s holdings is not complete without mention of the fire insurance and real estate maps and atlases that are a particular strength of our collections. Published from the mid-19th century onward, these provide a wealth of local information about cities, counties, streets, buildings, and sometimes landowners, especially for the growing, post-Civil War, immigrant-enriched United States. Hunting for evidence of Armenians on the landscape of these maps, one can find the first Armenian church in this country on this 1898 map of Worcester, Massachusetts (left of center in this detail).

We welcome you to come search for more evidence in the Map Division. With addresses of your immigrant ancestors that you might have, or might find in documents online or on envelopes in the attic, come locate them on our old real estate maps to learn what you can about their neighborhoods. We even have a similar resource for Istanbul that might benefit those whose relatives lived in or passed through what was then Constantinople.

To find more materials in the library on the topics just discussed, try doing SUBJECT searches in NYPL’s Classic Catalog with established subject headings such as these:

Armenia -- Maps
Turkey -- Maps
Armenia (Republic) -- Maps
Armenia -- Historical geography -- Maps
Armenia -- Gazetteers
Armenia -- Geography
Armenians -- Genealogy
Armenian Americans -- Genealogy

(Note that “subject” searches with established headings are more precise than “keyword” searches, though “keyword” searches will often reveal some helpful discoveries. Also please note that not all of the Map Division’s holdings are listed in the online Classic Catalog; many older maps are listed only in the Dictionary catalog of the Map Division.)

What about materials that convey the nature and rhythm and spirit of our ancestors’ lives and how they related to their surroundings?

For those who can read French, the title mentioned earlier, Les Arméniens dans l’Empire Ottoman à la Veille du Genocide, will give a sense of the communities and environment. For more in-depth historical and social information about each province or city-centered region of Armenian communities, Richard G. Hovannisian has been editing a series of volumes published by UCLA, Historic Armenian cities and provinces, many of which are held by NYPL. Each volume covers a particular area, with articles on a variety of themes by scholars who specialize in those topics. For an anthropological approach, you might want to read Armenian Village Life Before 1914, by Susie Hoogasian Villa and Mary Kilbourne Matossian. A relatively new and growing website, Houshamadyan: a project to reconstruct Ottoman Armenian town and village life, brings together many primary, multi-lingual, and multi-media resources (photos, music, scanned publications) to share information about the fabric of everyday life. It provides geographic as well as thematic access to its virtual library of Armenian local history, and includes maps showing administrative units and major towns.

Particularly meaningful to me are some of the personal narratives that have been published over the years; they can go a long way toward recreating a lost way of life. Two that I’d like to mention have helped me to see that world of the past as if through my father’s eyes, because they were written from the point of view of young boys: Scenes From an Armenian Childhood, by Vahan Totovents, and Some of Us Survived: The Story of an Armenian Boy, by Kerop Bedoukian.

Here are some suggested subject headings if you’d like to search for more titles in this vein in NYPL’s online catalog:

Armenians -- Turkey
Armenia -- Social life and customs
Armenia -- Description and travel
Armenian massacres, 1894-1896 -- Personal narratives
Armenian massacres, 1915-1923 -- Personal narratives
Armenia -- Emigration and immigration
Armenian Americans -- Biography
Armenians -- United States -- Biography

If you would like to share a favorite title or resource that has helped you have a better sense of your ancestors’ lives and where they came from, please write about it in comments here. If you’d like assistance locating the places associated with your family, certainly come into the Map Division, or contact us via email.