World Wide Knit in Public Day – June 9, 2018

Tired of Knitting Alone?

Be Bold.  Be Brave.  Go Public!

Join your fellow knitters for one day of knitting in public.  Saturday, June 9, 2018 is World Wide Knit in Public Day.

The needle arts have long been a popular and one of the most popular of needle arts is knitting.   If you don’t knit you can read about knitting.  There are a surprising number of children’s books that feature the needle arts and knitting in particular.  McLure has many of these titles ready for you to check them out.  Check out the following titles at McLure Education Library.

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Tiny & Hercules

Five short stories about the lives of two unusual friends: Tiny, an elephant with a fear of ice skating and a newfound love of knitting, and Hercules, a mouse with a heart of gold and a desire to learn to paint.

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With a supply of yarn that never runs out, Annabelle knits for everyone and everything in town until an evil archduke decides he wants the yarn for himself.

A classical take on knitting – and its consequences.   The 1974 Caldecot winning children’s book Duffy and the Devil makes for a rollicking read.

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The spinning and knitting the devil agrees to do for her win Duffy the Squire’s name and a carefree life until it comes time for her to guess the devil‘s name.  Then there is the Devil to pay.

For a historical perspective on knitting take a look at this book.

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When his father leaves to fight in World War I, Mikey joins the Central Park Knitting Bee to help knit clothing for soldiers overseas.

For those interested in knitting something for themselves, McLure has a book help get you started.

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Provides step-by-step instructions covering the basic stitches, knitting tools, and finger-knitting, with directions for twelve easy projects.

Knitting in public is not for everyone or every time.  When you want to knit alone, this is the book for you.

Cover Image of Leave Me Alone!

Grandmother wants so badly to be left alone to finish the knitting for her grandchildren that she leaves her tiny home and her big family to journey to the moon and beyond to find peace and quiet to finish her knitting.

But if you are tired of knitting alone?  Then.  Be Bold.  Be Brave.   Go public.

Get those needles and that yarn and take your knitting out of the closet, your room, or your house.  Knit while you eat that Big Mac.  Knit while you sip your Starbucks.  Knit at your local bookstore while you listen to a recorded book.  Or best of all, read aloud to kids while they knit.

Fairy Tales from Cold Places

Russia and Slavic folktales are a hot basis for several YA fantasy series that have been making waves in the last few years.   Some of this interest has been driven by the popularity of the television series “American Gods” and the prominent place of Slavic folk religions, but, undoubtedly, some of it is driven by the classical appeal of the old fairy tales and folk tales about the Firebird and Baba Yaga.  Those long cold winter nights in the northern and central part of Europe has given rise to some beautiful tales that have been reworked into some fresh YA fantasies that are suspenseful, thrilling, and intriguing with unexpected plot twists and turns.   McLure Library has several of these series available for check out.

Vassa in the Night

Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter based in the very old, Baba Yaga tales from Central Europe and Russia, with a very new setting, Brooklyn, New York.  This novel comes complete with a witch named Babs Yaga.

Grisha Trilogy

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The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo took the YA fantasy world by storm a few years ago.  The novels, are set in a world that is reminiscent of Imperial Russia and filled with all the beauty and brutality of that history, and folk life, combined with the perils and power of the 20th Century Soviet Union with all of that destructive firepower.  McLure Library has all three of these novels available for check-out.

Crown’s GAme

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Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye, and its sequel Crown’s Fate, is a series set in Imperial Russia in the 19th Century when Russia was invaded by France and the Ottoman Empire .  The Tsar initiates the Crown’s Game.  This is a duel to see which of two teenage enchanters will become the Royal Enchanter to the Tsar.  These novels are filled with romance and danger based in the tales of Old Russia.

Girl At Midnight

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The Girl At Midnight trilogy is set in a dystopian world under New York City and involves the hunt for a powerful Firebird and the New York City subway system.  McLure Library has the first two of the three books in this trilogy for series for YA readers.

If you are interested in these titles and want help in getting them, just give us a call at McLure Library.  205-348-6055 and we will be happy to help.

Think Like a President and Get Out of Your Head

What could be better for summer reading than getting completely out of your head and reading something very different from your normal go-to recreational reading?  Take a chance and do what former president Obama did.  He read The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu and here is what he had to say about it in a New York Times article for the NY Times book review section.

” … there’s been the occasion where I just want to get out of my own head. [Laughter] Sometimes you read fiction just because you want to be someplace else.

What are some of those books?

It’s interesting, the stuff I read just to escape ends up being a mix of things — some science fiction. For a while, there was a three-volume science-fiction novel, the “Three-Body Problem” series —

Oh, Liu Cixin, who won the Hugo Award.

— which was just wildly imaginative, really interesting. It wasn’t so much sort of character studies as it was just this sweeping —

It’s really about the fate of the universe.

Exactly. The scope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade. [Laughter]

Excerpt from the New York Times, January 16, 2017.

If a recommendation from the ex-President isn’t enough, what about the current head of Facebook – Mark Zukerburg who also recommended this book for his book club.

The novels are set in post-war Communist China, the first, The Three-Body Problem tells the story of an alien civilization that learns of the existence of Earth.  Facing destruction, the aliens invade.   The ensuing war is detailed in The Dark Forest, and the trilogy ends with, the appropriately named, Death’s End, that explores the two societies’ attempts to co-exist.

If you would like to share some head time with something completely different, McLure Library has all three books in that series in the Education School Library collection.

Book 1                                                     Book 2                                            Book 3

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The call number for the first book is   PL 2947 .C59 S3613 2014

If you would like to read this novel call 348 – 6346 or 348-1508 and we will put it on hold for you.  Or you can come to McLure and see what other fantastic summer reading we have on our shelves.