'American West'

11/1/2021

Get out your bags and boxes! The Friends of the Campbell Library Book Sale is November 5 and 6! More information

The Taking of Jemima Boone by Matthew Pearl

Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, and the Kidnap That Shaped America // Explores the little-known true story of the kidnapping of thirteen-year-old Jemima Boone, Daniel Boone's daughter, by a Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party and the ensuing battle with reverberations that nobody could predict.

976.902 PEARL

Days Like Smoke by Nick Davis

A Minnesota boyhood // Here is the story of Jon Hassler's early years. His poignant remembrance of family and friends, of youthful calamities and triumphs, show what shaped him and opened his path to become one of Minnesota's best-loved and iconic writers. Memoirs are written from the vantage point of age. Here, his close examination of memory--what endures and why--unfold the pivotal moments of his growing up in the small towns of Staples and Plainview, MN. Family, friends, new neighborhoods and old, questions of faith and doubt--all had deep meaning, he comes to see.

813.54 HASSLER

Voices from the Pandemic by Eli Saslow

Americans Tell Their Stories of Crisis, Courage and Resilience // The Covid-19 pandemic was a world-shattering event, affecting everyone in the nation. From its first ominous stirrings, renowned journalist Eli Saslow began interviewing a cross-section of Americans, capturing their experiences in real time: An exhausted and anguished EMT risking his life in New York City; a grocery store owner feeding his neighborhood for free in locked-down New Orleans; an overwhelmed coroner in Georgia; a Maryland restaurateur forced to close his family business after forty-six years; an Arizona teacher wrestling with her fears and her obligations to her students; rural citizens adamant that the whole thing is a hoax, and retail workers attacked for asking people to wear masks; patients struggling to breathe and doctors desperately trying to save them.

614.5 SASLOW

Once Upon a Time in Queens  by Nick Davis

An oral history of the 1986 Mets // A full-color celebration of the New York Mets' iconic World Series championship, with oral history-style text throughout and remembrances from key players and fans. October 2021 will mark the 35th anniversary of the 86 Mets' World Series win. This is a tie-in book to the ESPN multi-part "30 for 30" documentary series. Unique photographs of the team and the era are also included. A foreword by Kimmel, discussing what the Mets and their triumph means to him, round out this fantastic package.

796.357 DAVIS

If you need help accessing any of these titles or using front door pickup, email or call us and we will be happy to assist you!

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Are you singing the right lyrics to the songs you learned as a kid? I love to hear children sing. If the words aren’t quite the ones I remember, that doesn’t matter. They sing with their hearts and I can hum along, but do I remember the lyrics?

For the life of me, I cannot remember the lyrics to Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I obviously made up some words as a kid and that is how I remember it. Though sometimes, my curiosity (or the funny looks of my grandchildren) will cause me to find the original lyrics to some of my favorites.

The Library can come to the rescue for lots of those songs especially in the Easy section. We can find Home On the Range edited by Barbie H. Schwaeber. It is based on a poem written by a Kansas homesteader, Dr. Brewster M. Higley. Others have tried to take credit for it and have tried to change the words. Ranchers, farmers and cowboys adopted the song as an unofficial anthem for the American West. Kansas adopted it as their state song. But how did it get to be so well known?

The story behind a song can be a lot of fun. Another book by the same title, Home On the Range: John A. Lomax and His Cowboy Songs by Deborah Hopkinson tells how as a young man, John went out with an old-fashioned recording device in the early 1900s to capture songs that were sung by cowboys. Then he wrote them down for us. He went out again later in life and captured more songs. Many of his recordings of singing cowboys are stored at the Library of Congress. I bet those cowboys would be surprised to know their voices live on in such a prestigious place!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game by Jack Norworth is another unofficial anthem. Baseball games would not be the same without this song even though we only sing one of the three verses. How many of us know the words to the other two?

To help us remember songs from our youth, the Library has a wonderful selection of DVDs called Sentimental Sing-Alongs. Their topics range from patriotic to romance and from locations all over the country.

We do grow up and discover new songs and with them singers who become favorites. Some write their own music and others have lyricists that create the words for them. There are those who redo an old classic with their own personality by changing up the music, but the lyrics live on.

Lyrics catch attention so they’re often used as titles like in these books owned by the library:

• True Colors (Cyndy Lauper) by Kristin Hannah
• Message in a Bottle (Sting) by Nicholas Sparks
• Devil in a Blue Dress (Shorty Long and Mickey Stevenson) by Walter Mosley
• Night Shift (Walter Orange-Commodores) by Steven King

6/28/2021

Shift gears and join our Community Reading Challenge! Read anything--the newspaper, an e-book, instructions to your child's playset--and then stop in and fill out a gear to add to our reading machine.

Don't Call it a Cult by Sarah Berman

The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM // In 1934, aided by a California eugenics law, the socialite Maryon Cooper Hewitt had her "promiscuous" daughter declared feebleminded and sterilized without her knowledge. When a sensational court case ensued, the American public was captivated. So were eugenicists, who saw an opportunity to restrict reproductive rights in America for decades to come. 364.153 BERMAN

Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard

Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest // Simard brings to light the fascinating and vital truths; that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complex, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own. 333.75 SIMARD

Spark by Claudia Kalb

How Genius Ignites, From Child Prodigies to Late Bloomers // What propels some individuals to reach extraordinary creative heights in the earliest years of life while others discover their passions decades later? Are prodigies imbued with innate talent? Claudia Kalb explores these questions to discover what makes a prodigy and what drives a late bloomer. 153.35 KALB

Murder at the Mission by Samantha Bell

A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West // In 1836, two missionaries and their wives were among the first Americans to cross the Rockies by covered wagon on what would become the Oregon Trail. Both men failed as missionaries, but, by inventing a story, they helped to fuel a massive Westward migration that would eventually devastate those that they had originally set out to save. 979.5 HARDEN

If you need help accessing any of these titles or using front door pickup, email or call us and we will be happy to assist you!

View Book Notes PDF archive