Chance's Corner: Movie Time at the Library (January)

We've been showing movies here at the Franklin County Library off and on, but starting this year we're doing something a little different. We'll be showing a kid's feature film on the last Thursday of every month. We'll also be showing a feature film for adults on the last Friday of every month. The movies will start at 1:30 PM.

For the month of January, we watched Pete's Dragon and Sully. Pete's Dragon is a remake of the original 1977 Disney film, but it shares little to no resemblance to the musical classic. Instead, the new Pete's Dragon sets out on its own path, turning Pete into a feral boy and Elliot into a green fuzzball. It's a relatively simple film, and it's pretty cute, but it kind of feels like a rather safe film. Nothing new was brought to the table.

As for Sully, I was completely blown away. It very well could have been a generic, linear tale about an ensemble of characters who survived the "Miracle on the Hudson", but just as the title implies, this is all about the man himself, and Tom Hanks plays him subtly, yet powerfully. Structurally, this is an incredibly-tight, masterfully-told film. Assuming we already knew what happened, Sully picks up after the forced water landing. I love a film that cuts through the malarkey and gets right down to the meat of the story. The meat here is that while the public immediately labeled Sully a hero, it took the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) 15 months to believe it. In the second act, the events leading up to the forced water landing are shown via flashback, and there is a little ensemble action concerning a handful of passengers, but director Clint Eastwood doesn't let the film get bogged down in it.

We'd love to have you join us for our upcoming films in February! Keep checking our Facebook page to see what we'll be showing each month.

Julie's Journal : The Lost Girls by Heather Young

I’ve been in a little bit of a reading slump in this new year.  Nothing seems to have grabbed my attention and held it.  However, Friday, I was looking for something to read over the long weekend and I picked up The Lost Girls by Heather Young.  I was attracted by its menacing, dark blue cover, and the fact that it is a multi-generational story.  The Lost Girls is told from two points of view – that of Lucy and her great-niece Justine.  

Justine is a little lost herself.  She lives in San Diego with her two daughters and a boyfriend she picked up after her long-time partner, and father of her children, left without warning.  Her new boyfriend, Patrick, is a control freak and a master manipulator.  Justine, whose childhood was tumultuous, seems to feel that his manipulation is the price she must pay for finally being loved.  The night he stages a robbery to see if he can scare her into thinking something has happened to him scares her, but she probably would have continued justifying his behavior.  The next day, though, she finds out that Aunt Lucy has died and left Justine her house on a remote lake in Minnesota.  Justine packs up her daughters and drives cross country to the house, trying to leave no clues behind her as to where she has gone.  She arrives in the middle of a Minnesota winter and begins to try and rebuild her life. 

Lucy’s story was much more compelling.  Her baby sister, Emily disappeared on the last day of the summer of 1935.  Nothing has been seen of her since.  It is assumed that Emily tried to run away and perished in the deep woods around the lake.  However, Lucy begins her memoir by writing about the beginning of the summer.  From a well-to-do family, Lucy is eleven years old and feels like her older sister and friend, Lilith is slipping away from her.  She hopes that their annual summer at the lake will help them reconnect.  In truth she spends the summer watching as Lilith grows further and further away from her.  She begins to befriend her younger sister, the previously despised Emily, and makes friends with a boy from the lodge at the lake.   She continues describing the long summer, culminating in Emily’s disappearance. 

Ms. Young’s descriptions of the lake were lovely.  Justine and her daughters arrive in the dead of winter, just before Christmas, and the reader can feel the cold seeping through every crack in the dilapidated house.  The lake is frozen so hard that a car can be driven on it, something this Texas girl has a hard time imagining.  Lucy’s story takes place in the summer, and the cookouts, swimming parties, teenagers hanging out, and the heat come alive.  Ms. Young is very adept in setting the atmosphere of her novel and the summer of Lucy’s story contrasted with the winter of Justine’s is very effective.

Published in August of last year, The Lost Girls, is Ms. Young’s first novel.  I hope we see more from her soon.         

Poet's Perch : Then Laugh by Bertha Adams Backus

Then Laugh

Build for yourself a strong box,

Fashion each part with care;

When it's strong as your hand can make it,

Put all your troubles there;

Hide there all thought of your failures,

And each bitter cup that you quaff;

Lock all your heartaches within it,

Then sit on the lid and laugh.

Tell no one else its contents,

Never its secrets share;

When you've dropped in your care and worry

Keep them forever there;

Hide them from sight so completely

That the world will never dream half;

Fasten the strong box securely - 

Then sit on the lid and laugh.

Bertha Adams Backus

Chance's Corner: Ding Dong! The Wicked 2016 is Dead!

No year has ever looked better than 2017. It's a year full of hope. It's the light at the end of a very long tunnel called 2016. Sure, it's only a number, but 2016 was such a downright malicious year.

2016 started off with a real bang for me. I found myself being rushed to the ER with a case of kidney stones within the first three weeks of January (and five days before my birthday). Then in March, I had to have oral surgery, which left me with a big black eye. During two months of recovery, I could only eat soup and soft foods, and I couldn't even brush my teeth. Ick!

2016 also seemed to hold a personal grudge against celebrities. It claimed the lives of music legends Prince, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Merle Haggard, Leonard Cohen, Bobby Vee and George Michael, while also targeting big screen legends such as Alan Rickman, Patty Duke, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Gene Wilder. If that wasn't enough, 2016 also took away our TV mom, Florence Henderson, our TV dad, Alan Thicke, our TV grandmother, Doris Roberts, and real-life mother/daughter duo Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. Yes, time marches on, and our idols must get older, but so many were lost that still had so much life to give. Many were just in their 60s and 70s, while up-and-coming stars, Christina Grimmie and Anton Yelchin, were just in their 20s.

The evil of 2016 was felt by many, and as a result, a slew of memes (humorous images) flourished. Here are a few examples:

So, here's to a new year, and hopefully 2017 won't deal any major blows to our health and hearts. 

Tom's Two Cents : A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Once in a while a rare book comes along that has the gentility of another time, another place. "A Gentleman in Moscow" is that kind of book, although one would not necessarily expect such from its premise: a Russian aristocrat is detained by a Bolshevik Tribunal in the 1920s in Moscow and sentenced to life imprisonment in an empty service room in the elegant Metropol Hotel instead of hard labor in Siberia.  Why?  Because he supposedly wrote a poem in 1905 that favored the seeds of the Russian Revolution, which took place in 1917.  Thus, those who came into power were lenient, though not totally forgiving.

Count Alexander Rostov (remember the Rostovs in "War and Peace"?  Of course you do!), the aristocrat in question, is a gentleman to the very core.  The one percent of the aristocracy that ruled Russia under the Czars taught him everything he needed to know in 19th century Russian society, but nothing that worked in a 20th century Russian police state, masquerading as a state ruled by "the will of the people."  How will he survive?  In fact, how can he?  The fact that he not only does, escaping at one very low point a suicide attempt, but triumphs, over an almost impossible situation, is the substance of this very unusual novel.

I say "unusual" when I could just as well say "unique."  This novel, be it mainstream, has no profanity, no explicit sex, no violence, well, none of the usual things that seem to carry most audiences forward today.  It is not exactly a sentimental story--given the background of its time and place it could not be--but a story told nonetheless in both a sentimental--and at times quite humorous--manner.  Perhaps it is a reminder that certain things, like courtesy, manners and the refined pursuit of cultural goals, never quite leave a civilization, even though they may be shoved to the back burner.  If you can do without a compelling story line or in-depth characters, moving toward a smashing climax (there is a surprise ending), this book could well be for you!

Most Read Titles of 2016 and a Book Challenge

I (Julie) am a bit of a statistics nerd and I've been running reports this morning to find out what titles were read the most in 2016.  I ran a general report, but then I decided to break it down into different areas.  So without further ado, here are our most read titles of 2016.

Adult Fiction:

          The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

          The Bitter Season by Tami Hoag

          Off the Grid by C.J. Box

Children:

          Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

          Tyrannosaurus Rex: Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals by Helen Frost

          There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly by Simms Taback

 PreTeen:

          Diary of Wimpy Kid Series by Jeff Kinney

          Mermaid Tales Series by Debbie Dadley

          Big Nate Series by Lincoln Peirce

Teen:

          Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

          The Siren by Kiera Cass

          Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan

                                     Classics:

          A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

          Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

          The Sojourner by Marjorie Rawlings

Biography:

          American Sniper by Chris Kyle

          Troublemaker by Leah Remini

          Once Upon a Time by Randy Taraborrelli

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Lisa decided to create a Book Challenge for our library.  It's just for fun - the only prizes are bragging rights.  She's calling it 17 books in 2017.  The categories are below or you can stop by the library and pick up a form with blanks for you to fill in with titles you read.  We'd love to see your recommendations for the different categories.

Happy Reading!