The story of New York’s red honey struck a chord with those already concerned about honey bee health. Bees have been hit hard by a host of challenges ranging from parasitic mites to neonicotenoid pesticides—but could red honey be another sign of bee decline? Could artificial flavors and chemicals in human foods be toxic to bees? Could we be at risk if we eat “local honey”?

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I signed the letter below. So did Jennifer. So did 267 other authors and illustrators, a number limited only by time constraints rather than by any shortage of opposition to the recent North Carolina law through which the state government went out of its way to discriminate against its citizens. School Library Journal has more […]

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I can't let the year end without a shout out to Sheila Turnage's Mo and Dale.  Her latest Mo and Dale Mystery is The Odds of Getting Even (Penguin, 2015).  The Mo and Dale Mystery series is my favorite middle grade series. Each new book is as good as the last.  Each is filled with insightful humor, Southern-style hospitality, and all the eccentricities of small town living. The characters in Sheila Turnage's fictional town of Tupelo Landing, NC, will leave you begging for another chance to visit.

In The Odds of Getting Even, Mo and Dale, a.k.a. The Desperado Detectives, have another case on their hands.  Dale's no-good dad is on the lam and the whole town is on edge.

As usual, the café run by Mo and her "family of choice," the Colonel and Miss Lana, takes current events in stride,

I turned back to the Azalea Women. "Welcome and thank you in advance for your generous tips."  Generous tips equals a flat-out lie, but like Miss Lana says, you don't stop pitching just because nobody's swinging.  I draped a paper napkin over my arm. "Today, our Get Out of Jail Free Delight feature Free-Range Eggs, Potatoes at Large, and Bacon a la Parole.  We also got the Colonel's famous Tofu Incognito--a vegan delight featuring tofu scrambled up to look like somebody else.  A Special runs six dollars and includes a basket of All Rise Biscuits.  May I take your order?"

"Get Out of Jail and coffee," they chorused.  "How's Dale holding up?"

Once again, Sheila Turnage has written a book that deals with a serious topic (a father who is frequently on the wrong side of the law) in a humorous way. As narrator, Mo LoBeau offers up witty, often hilarious dialogue and commentary. There is much homespun wisdom in the the little town of Tupelo Landing.  Here are just a few examples from The Odds of Getting Even:

Mo (on the perceived indignity of wearing hand-me-down clothes):

"Dale's a musician.  He enjoys vintage outfits," ... "Besides, Miss Lana says most everything in life worth having is handed down."

Dale (voicing his opinion to a news reporter):

Your articles make it seem that way.  But a lot of people thinking flat don't change round.

Mo (her take on beauty):

Attila's face would be pretty if she didn't live behind it.

Dale (on "getting even"):

The only even you ever get is inside yourself--when you don't need to get even anymore.

If you haven't read them yet, don't miss the first two Mo and Dale Mystery novels.

Book 1

Three Times Lucky - a link to my review of the audiobook read by Michal Friedman
[http://shelf-employed.blogspot.com/2013/08/three-times-lucky-audiobook-review.html]

Book 2
The Ghost of Tupelo Landing - a link to my review for AudioFile Magazine
[http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/88494/]

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Are Christians persecuted in America? For most of us this seems like a preposterous question; a question that could only be asked by someone ginning up anger with ulterior motives. No doubt some leaders do intentionally foster this persecution narrative for their own purposes, and it’s easy to dismiss the rhetoric as hyperbole or demagoguery, yet there are conservative Christians all across the country who genuinely believe they experience such persecution.

The post Persecuted Christians in America appeared first on OUPblog.

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I would never think of "North Carolina fiction" as a genre in children's literature, but I seem to have read quite a bit of it lately. I picked up Three Times Lucky  because my daughter is attending college in North Carolina.  I loved it!!  Later, I had the good fortune of reviewing The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing (also by Sheila Turnage) for AudioFile Magazine.  I can't say enough how quirky and wonderful and timeless these books are!

Another North Carolina book caught my eye last year (I love the cover art!) but I just got around to reading it.

The Sittin' Up by Sheila P. Moses (Putnam, 2014).

The premise for The Sittin' Up is an interesting one.  The year is 1940, and former slave, Mr. Bro. Wiley has died.  Stanbury "Bean" Jones is 12 years old, finally old enough to attend his first "sittin' up," an area tradition with similarities to an "Irish wake" or Judaism's "sitting shiva."  There is not a lot of action in The Sittin' Up - something I've seen it knocked for in other reviews.  I, however, loved the opportunity to take my time and get to know the rich personalities of the Low Meadows community, where they treat death with sorrow, remembrance, practicality, and humor.

Mr. Bro. Wiley lived with Bean and his parents, Stanbury and Magnolia Jones, and was revered by the everyone in the closely-knit African American community. Bean's father, a stutterer, is generally accepted as a leader of the community and is a foreman on the tobacco farm where many of the Low Country men work for the white, wealthy, Mr. Thomas. Bean's mother is Magnolia, a kind, commonsense woman with a baby on the way.

Other characters include Miss Florenza (the bootlegging sinner who dares wear red to a sittin' up) and Miss Lottie Pearl (Pole's busybody mother and Magnolia's best friend),

"Yes, Lord. Please help us," Miss Florenza said.  Miss Lottie Pearl rolled her eyes at Miss Florenza.  Poor Miss Florenza can't even talk to Jesus without Miss Lottie Pearl putting her two cents in.  

Bean's best friend is Pole (they go together like a bean to a pole), and there's the preacher (who is more concerned with fancy clothes, cars, and women, than his parishioners),

"I thought we were in a Depression," Pole whispered to me.
"We are." I whispered back.
"Look like to me Reverend Hornbuckle should have been thinking about how the folk at Sandy Branch Baptist Church are gonna eat come winter instead of buying a new car," Pole said.  Wasn't sure if the preacher heard my sassy friend, but she didn't seem to care.  She got a whole of Miss Lottie Pearl in her as sho' as Mr. Bro. Wiley was dead in the house.

There's also Uncle Goat the liar,

Ma swears Uncle Goat is the biggest liar in Northampton County.  Papa said that ain't so.  He said Uncle Goat is the biggest liar in the state of North Carolina. That's how he got the nickname Goat.  Ma says he eats the truth up faster than a goat eats grass.

Even Mule Bennett has a personality,

"I will never forget Mr. Bro. Wiley," I thought as we headed to town.  Mule Bennett must have felt the same way.  He was slowing down and barely lifted his head.  Papa kept saying, "Get-get, get up, mule, get up." But Mule Bennett took his own sweet time.

Mr. Bro. Wiley,the reader gets to know through the remembrances of the living.

Yes, this is a story about segregation and how a great catastrophe serves as a catalyst for change, but that is the backdrop for a story that is mostly about people - wonderfully flawed people - people who sometimes do the wrong thing, but choose the right one when it matters - people who know the value of dignity and community - people who find sorrow and joy and humor in the small occurrences of daily life  - people - just plain people - just like us.

I may have nothing in common with North Carolina sharecroppers of 1940, but these people "spoke" to me, nonetheless.  If you enjoy historical fiction with a character-driven plot, you'll love The Sittin' Up.

• You can listen to an audio excerpt of The Sittin' Up here.
• Read a short "interview" with Sheila Moses here.

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American Experience asked sociologist and Ku Klux Klan scholar David Cunningham to provide responses to the five questions he is most frequently asked about the Klan. The author of Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era KKK, Cunningham is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Brandeis University.

Before discussing the most pressing questions people tend to have about the KKK, let me add some background for basic context. The Ku Klux Klan was first formed in 1866, through the efforts of a small band of Confederate veterans in Tennessee. Quickly expanding from a localized membership, the KKK has become perhaps the most resonant representation of white supremacy and racial terror in the United States. Part of the KKK’s enduring draw is that it refers not to a single organization, but rather to a collection of groups bound by use of now-iconic racist symbols — white hoods, flowing sheets, fiery crosses — and a predilection for vigilante violence. The Klan’s following has tended to rise and fall in cycles often referred to as “waves.” The original KKK incarnation was largely halted following federal legislation targeting Klan-perpetrated violence in the early 1870s. The Klan’s second — and largest — wave peaked in the 1920s, with KKK membership numbering in the millions. Following the second-wave Klan’s dissolution in the early 1940s, self-identified KKK groups also built sizable followings during the 1960s, in reaction to the rising Civil Rights Movement. Various incarnations have continued to mobilize since — often through blended affiliations with neo-Nazi, neo-Confederate, and Christian Identity organizations — but in small numbers and without significant impact on mainstream politics.

The American Experience documentary Klansville, U.S.A. focuses on the civil rights-era KKK and tells the story of Bob Jones, the most successful Klan organizer since World War II. Beginning in 1963, Jones took over the North Carolina leadership of the South’s preeminent KKK organization, the United Klans of America, and by 1965 his “Carolina Klan” boasted more than 10,000 members across the state, more than the rest of the South combined. Jones’ story illuminates our understanding of the KKK’s long history generally, and in particular provides a lens to consider the questions that follow.

How big a threat is the KKK in the United States today?

In an important sense, this may be the key question about the KKK and whether we should still worry, or care, about the Klan today. Likely for that reason, literally every discussion I’ve had about the Klan — whether in classrooms, community events, radio interviews, or cocktail parties — comes around to some version of this concern. I typically respond, in short, that a greater number of KKK organizations exist today than at any other point in the group’s long history, but that nearly all of these groups are small, marginal, and lacking in meaningful political or social influence.

I might add two caveats to that reassuring portrait, however. The first is that marginal, isolated extremist cells themselves can become breeding grounds for unpredictable violence. At the peak of his 1960s influence, Bob Jones would often tell reporters that, if they were truly concerned about violence perpetrated by Klan members, their greatest fear should be that he would disband the KKK, leaving individual members to commit mayhem free from the structure imposed by the group. As Jones’ followers committed hundreds of terrorist acts authorized by KKK leadership, his claim was of course disingenuous, but it also contained a grain of truth: Jones and his fellow leaders did dissuade members — many of whom combined rabid racism with unstable aggression — from engaging in violence not approved by the KKK hierarchy. In the absence of a broader organization with much to lose from a crack-down by authorities, racist violence can be much more difficult to prevent or police.

The second caveat stems from KKK’s history of emerging and receding in pronounced “waves.” Between the group’s periods of peak influence — say, during the 1880s, or in the 1940s, or the 1980s — the Klan’s fortunes have always appeared moribund. But in each case, some “reborn” version of the KKK has managed to rebound and survive. So, while today the KKK appears an anachronism and, perhaps, less of a threat than other brands of racist hate, we still should vigilantly oppose racist entrepreneurs who seek to exploit the historical cachet of the KKK to organize new campaigns advancing white supremacist ends. To me, this is one primary lesson from the KKK’s past, and a compelling reason not to forget or dismiss the enduring relevance of that history.

Has the KKK had any lasting political impact?

By most straightforward measures, the KKK appears a failed social movement. Despite the Klan’s political inroads during the 1920s, when millions of its members succeeded in electing hundreds of KKK-backed candidates to local, state, and even federal office, the group proved unable to preserve its influence at the ballot box beyond that decade. Later KKK waves have never been able to deliver on promises to rebuild this influential Klan voting bloc. Bob Jones’ Carolina Klan came the closest to winning such influence, with mainstream candidates currying favor (sometimes publicly, and more often covertly at Klan rallies and other events) with Jones and other leaders in 1964 and 1968. But that effort appeared short-lived, with both Jones and the Carolina Klan all but disappearing by the early 1970s.

More generally, the KKK’s commitment to white supremacy, most clearly realized through Jim Crow-style segregation that endured for decades in the South, has by any formal measure receded as a real possibility in the United States. However, in less overt ways, the KKK’s impact can still be felt. Recent studies that I’ve undertaken with fellow sociologists Rory McVeigh and Justin Farrell have demonstrated how counties in which the KKK was active during the 1960s differ from those in which the Klan never gained a foothold in two important ways.

First, counties in which the Klan was present during the civil rights era continue to exhibit higher rates of violent crime. This difference endures even 40 years after the movement itself disappeared, and certainly isn’t explained by the fact that former Klansmen themselves commit more crimes. Instead, the Klan’s impact operates more broadly, through the corrosive effect that organized vigilantism has on the overall community. By flouting law and order, a culture of vigilantism calls into question the legitimacy of established authorities and weakens bonds that normally serve to maintain respect and order among community members. Once fractured, such bonds are difficult to repair, which explains why even today we see elevated rates of violent crime in former KKK strongholds.

Second, past Klan presence also helps to explain the most significant shift in regional voting patterns since 1950: the South’s pronounced move toward the Republican Party. While support for Republican candidates has grown region-wide since the 1960s, we find that such shifts have been significantly more pronounced in areas in which the KKK was active. The Klan helped to produce this effect by encouraging voters to move away from Democratic candidates who were increasingly supporting civil rights reforms, and also by pushing racial conflicts to the fore and more clearly aligning those issues with party platforms. As a result, by the 1990s, racially-conservative attitudes among southerners strongly correlates with Republican support, but only in areas where the KKK had been active.

Is the KKK a movement mostly in the rural South?

While many of the Klan’s most infamous acts of deadly violence — including the 1964 Freedom Summer killings, the 1965 murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, and the 1981 lynching of Michael Donald that led to the 1987 lawsuit that ultimately put the United Klans of America out of business for good — occurred in the Deep South, during the 1920s the KKK was truly a national movement, with urban centers like Detroit, Portland, Denver, and Indianapolis boasting tens of thousands of members and significant political influence.

Even in the 1960s, when the KKK’s public persona seemed synonymous with Mississippi and Alabama, more dues-paying Klan members resided in North Carolina than the rest of the South combined. KKK leaders found the Tar Heel State fertile recruiting ground, despite — or perhaps because of — the state’s progressive image, which enabled the Klan to claim that they were the only group that would defend white North Carolinians against rising civil rights pressures. While this message resonated in rural areas across the state’s eastern coastal plain, the KKK built a significant following in cities like Greensboro and Raleigh as well.

Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports active KKK groups in 41 states, though nearly all of those groups remain marginal with tiny memberships. So, while the KKK originated after the Civil War as a distinctly southern effort to preserve the antebellum racial order, its presence has extended well beyond that region throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

Why do KKK members wear white hoods and burn crosses?

Some of the most recognizable Klan symbols date back to the group’s origins following the Civil War. The KKK’s white hoods and robes evolved from early efforts to pose as ghosts or “spectral” figures, drawing on then-resonant symbols in folklore to play “pranks” against African-Americans and others. Such tricks quickly took on more politically sinister overtones, as sheeted Klansmen would commonly terrorize their targets, using hoods and masks to disguise their identities when carrying out acts of violence under the cover of darkness.

Fiery crosses, perhaps the Klan’s most resonant symbol, have a more surprising history. No documented cross burnings occurred during the first Klan wave in the 19th century. However, D.W. Griffith’s epic 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, which adapted Thomas F. Dixon, Jr.’s novels The Clansman and The Leopard’s Spots to portray the KKK as heroic defenders of the Old South and white womanhood generally, drew on material from The Clansman to depict a cross-burning scene. The symbol was quickly appropriated by opportunistic KKK leaders to help spur the group’s subsequent “rebirth.”

Through the 1960s, Klan leaders regularly depicted the cross as embodying the KKK’s Christian roots — a means to spread the light of Jesus into the countryside. A bestselling 45rpm record put out by United Klans of America included the Carolina Klan’s Bob Jones reciting how the fiery cross served as a “symbol of sacrifice and service, and a sign of the Christian Religion sanctified and made holy nearly 19 centuries ago, by the suffering and blood of 50 million martyrs who died in the most holy faith.” He emphasized cross burnings as “driv[ing] away darkness and gloom… by the fire of the Cross we mean to purify and cleanse our virtues by the fire on His Sword.” Such grandiose rhetoric, of course, could not dispel the reality that the KKK frequently deployed burning crosses as a means of terror and intimidation, and also as a spectacle to draw supporters and curious onlookers to their nightly rallies, which always climaxed with the ritualized burning of a cross that often extended 60 or 70 feet into the sky.

Has the KKK always functioned as a violent terrorist group?

The KKK’s emphasis on violence and intimidation as a means to defend its white supremacist ends has been the primary constant across its various “waves.” Given the group’s brutal history, validating Klan apologists who minimize the group’s terroristic legacy makes little sense. However, during the periods of peak KKK successes in both the 1920s and 1960s, when Klan organizations were often significant presences in many communities, their appeal was predicated on connecting the KKK to varied aspects of members’ and supporters’ lives.

Such efforts meant that, in the 1920s, alongside the KKK’s political campaigns, members also marched in parades with Klan floats, pursued civic campaigns to support temperance, public education, and child welfare, and hosted a range of social events alongside women’s and youth Klan auxiliary groups. Similarly, during the civil rights era, many were drawn to the KKK’s militance, but also to leaders’ promises to offer members “racially pure” weekend fish frys, turkey shoots, dances, and life insurance plans. In this sense, the Klan served as an “authentically white” social and civic outlet, seeking to insulate members from a changing broader world.

The Klan’s undoing in both of these eras related in part to Klan leaders’ inability to maintain the delicate balancing act between such civic and social initiatives and the group’s association with violence and racial terror. Indeed, in the absence of the latter, the Klan’s emphasis on secrecy and ritual would have lost much of its nefarious mystique, but KKK-style lawlessness frequently went hand-in-hand with corruption among its own leaders. More importantly, Klan violence also often resulted in a backlash against the group, both from authorities and among the broader public.

This article first appeared on PBS American Experience.

Heading image: Altar with K eagle in black robe at a meeting of nearly 30,000 Ku Klux Klan members from Chicago and northern Illinois. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post The Ku Klux Klan in history and today appeared first on OUPblog.

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In the 1960s, the South, was rife with racial tension. The Supreme Court had just declared, in its landmark case Brown vs. Board of Education, that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, and the country was in the midst of a growing Civil Rights Movement. In response to these events, Ku Klux Klan activity boomed, reaching an intensity not seen since the 20s, when they boasted over four million members. Surprisingly, North Carolina, which had been one of the more progressive Southern states, had the largest and most active Klan membership — greater than the rest of the South combined — earning it the nickname “Klansville, USA”. This slideshow features images from the time of the Civil Rights-era Klan.

• 

  A rally against school integration, 1959

  In the wake of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, and in the midst of the growing Civil Rights Movement, Ku Klux Klan activity boomed, reaching an intensity not seen since the 1920s. (Image credit: United States Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons)

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  United Klans of America Charter and Business Card

  The UKA adopted the trappings of a bureaucratic organization. North Carolina Klan leader Bob Jones distributed business cards that announced him as Grand Dragon. (Image courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration)

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  Crowd at 1963 March on Washington

  “We have the same right as the Negro to demonstrate,” Bob Jones told reporters, responding in part to the previous week’s March on Washington, which had attracted an estimated quarter-million Civil Rights supporters to the nation’s capital. (Image credit: National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons)

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  United Klans of America Flyer

  The UKA printed up to two thousand of these flyers to advertise each rally. Members passed them out to likely candidates at service stations, cafes, and other meeting spaces. (Image courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration)

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  UKA Membership Cards

  UKA members stapling their membership cards to a cross burned at a rally in September 1969. With Bob Jones in prison on contempt of Congress charges, the group never recovered. (Image courtesy of Don Sturkey)

Be sure to check out the American Experience documentary Klansville U.S.A. airing Tuesday, 13 January on PBS.

Heading image: The Ku Klux Klan on parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, 1928. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post The Civil Rights era and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan appeared first on OUPblog.

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hai·ku noun \ˈhī-(ˌ)kü\ plural  haiku Definition of HAIKU (from Merriam Webster) : an unrhymed verse form of Japanese origin having three lines containing usually five, seven, and five syllables respectively; also   : a poem in this form usually having a seasonal reference  — compare tanka I am not the best at haiku, but I do...
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Hey there . . . our trip to North Carolina was great.  We actually got to go after gem stones where “the real” John Victor goes for them.  It’s at Doc’s Rocks in Boone, NC.  Wow! Got several amethysts the size of large grapes and plums! Also netted some garnets and other gems.  So, we were interviewed by Joan Able, host of Healing Miracles, on Direct TV.  Don did two half-hour interviews, and I did one.  So, the three shows are scheduled to be aired on three consecutive Thursdays:  May 16, 23, and 30, on Direct TV at 12 Midnight.  The Healing Miracles shows are also broadcast on the internet, on Wednesdays at 8 pm and Thursdays at 7 am (EST).  To find the schedules for the internet (I’m not sure whether it’s the Wednesday before or after the TV broadcast) at:  www.TKMI.org.

I was thrilled when she decided to start with a focus on my Johnny Vic books!  After all, it’s a miracle that I was able to write and publish them — hahaha.  And, of course, I’ve written them as testiments to the legacy of our founding fathers and America’s Christian heritage.  Not familiar with Johnny Vic?  Check out my website at:  www.annrichduncan.com.

And, of course, the whole reason we were invited to the show?  It was to focus on the House of Angels, our outdoor sanctuary for prayer and healing.  You can see pictures of this beautiful place if you go to my website and hit the “about Don” button.

Oh!!!!  I shouldn’t forget my novel! The SEED, featuring a grown up John Victor.

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I received the Hooked on Phonics yesterday. I was so excited and I just wanted to thank First Book. These kits will be well-used by the children in my hometown. Most of them could not afford such a kit, and I know it will make a significant difference in their lives. There is no library here, or any other such place.

Dover Summer Read’s office will be a place where the kids will be able to read books, use a computer, and work on these exercises.

Thank you again from the children of Dover, NC and Dover Summer Read.

Cynthia Baker
Founder and President
Dover Summer Read

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Colleen Ludington is a children’s book author, mother of two and community volunteer, and has helped distribute 144,000 new books to children from low-income neighborhood in Charlotte. N.C. over the last five years.

“It’s not just awesome,” she said. “It’s really rewarding.”

Under Ludington’s leadership, First Book’s local Advisory Board in Charlotte has had significant fund-raising success. They throw an annual gala, which raises more money each year. These events require a fair amount of effort and know-how, and the local group meets costs by courting corporate sponsors and underwriters like Time Warner, Cisco, IBM and KPMG. “It can’t be done without that,” said Ludington. “There are certain minimums that it’s going to cost. But we’ve had a lot of success.”

(The board’s 2011 spring gala is May 20. If you’re in the Charlotte area, check it out.)

Ludington has been active in community service most of her life, and she found First Book when she and her family moved to Charlotte. She said that she liked First Book’s mission, it’s specific focus on solving one large problem, and the “economics” of it – the average cost of $2.50 per new book. “To be able to do so much for so little money,” she said. “For most people to give ten dollars … it’s not a hardship.”

She was also moved by the plight of children she saw in low-income schools. One teacher told her that some children resorted to reading the labels on soup cans to complete their required homework of 20 minutes of nightly reading.

“When you stop and consider … there are many, many children in our community who don’t have a single book to snuggle up with at night,” she said. “Until something changes, I don’t see how these kids even have a chance.”

First Book Wants You! Help us get books to kids who need them in your community. To learn more about volunteering, visit us online.

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I've started getting a number of phot-blogs fed into my Google Reader. This one's from here.

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This is from a few years ago. Hmmm... hope I haven't repeated any maps yet... will have to take stock.

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I've lived in Greensboro, North Carolina for almost 30 years and believe it to be one of the finest and prettiest places I have ever been in the U.S. Greensboro still has many of the charms of a gracious southern city and it much honors its past on a regular basis.

The city's bicentennial celebration has just begun and there are countless meaningful and fun activities planned for the upcoming year. The Battle of Guilford Courthouse was a famous revolutionary battle that is celebrated through re-enactments on a routine basis. Religious tolerance dates to large settlements of Quakers and Moravians in the 1700s and the founding of the only Quaker college in the southeast when Guilford College was founded in 1837.

But for all its religious tolerance, Greensboro was always a social product of its time and segregation was the law of the land for generations until 1960 when the actions of four brave African-American college students from NC Agricultural and Technical College sat down at the Woolworth's counter in downtown Greensboro and created an act of civil disobedience that literally changed the course of history. How that action changed the city of Greensboro and also set off a chain of similar actions that resulted in the repeal of the Jim Crow laws throughout the south is one of our city's finest moments.

In Freedom on the Menu, Carole Boston Weatherford tells this story from the perspective of a young girl and her family who were allowed to shop at Woolworth's but never allowed service at the lunch counter. Jerome Laggarigue's dark, impressionistic paintings are both emotionally evocative and suggest the time capsule nature of those historic days.

The author has posted a lesson plan on her website for grades 3-5 that will help educators and students explore the history of the Jim Crow laws and the social calls to action of leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King that emboldened those four young men to sit at the lunch counter and ask for a seat at the table of social justice.

Not only is this an important chapter of Greensboro, North Carolina, but it is an important chapter in the history of our country. Although it has taken another 48 years for the United States to evolve to a place where an African-American has a real shot at being elected President, it is a long awaited and important indication that our citizens truly believe in our U.S. Declaration of Indpendence from the British written in 1776 which states: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...

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Isn't that the saying for the month of March? Seems like it should be, up here. It's been snowing on and off all day. But yesterday all the high school kids were out in shorts, running for the track team. "Spring" is a relative term, I guess.

I've been away in lovely North Carolina. We visited friends and basically enjoyed ourselves for a full week. And before that, had my mother-in-law up for a visit. Lesson learned: give yourself a day or two between having guests visit you and leaving to go be a guest yourself. All those little things like laundry and packing and eating up all the perishable food can be a real pain when you're trying to entertain. (Even though my mother-in-law is about as easy-going as anyone I've ever met...she was a good sport about all of it.)

We visited the Davidson, NC library. Very cute. Little. Beautifully windowed, light and airy. Nestled in the middle of the town green, right across from a hipster coffee shop and a soda fountain that is vintage 1950's Americana, it's now a branch of the Charlotte and Mecklenburg County system. Very cool. Everyone in Davidson was watching the NCAA Tournament, it seems. That or waiting for the Easter bunny.

On an unrelated note--I saw that there's a company doing a road show for their downloadable audiobooks. It sounds like they're basically tricking out a big truck and driving around to cities, to help make sure people know how to use the online resources the libraries have purchased for their communities. This is a great idea! The library gets some free publicity about how up-to-date they are, users gain a better understanding of the new technology, and staff can basically enjoy the circus (or so it sounds...). Someone in one of those cities, you'll have to let us know how it goes! (OR someone get the scoop at PLA.)

Speaking of PLA...did anyone see John Wood? Was he as awesome as I would expect?

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Author: Dayle Ann Dodds (on JOMB)
Illustrator: Abby Carter (on JOMB)
Published: 2007 Candlewick Press (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0763624683 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Cheerfully wobbly illustrations combine with rhyme, repetition and a cast of colourful characters to make this sneaky introduction to fractions a read-aloud hit.

Other books mentioned:

• Minnie’s Diner: A Multiplying Menu
• Sleeping Dragons All Around

Poetry Fridays are brought to us by Kelly Herold of Big A, Little A.

Tags:Abby Carter, childrens book, Dayle Ann Dodds, Full House An Invitation to Fractions, Mathematics, Podcast, Poetry Friday, reviewAbby Carter, childrens book, Dayle Ann Dodds, Full House An Invitation to Fractions, Mathematics, Podcast, Poetry Friday, review

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Author: David Schwartz & Yael Schy
Illustrator: Dwight Kuhn
Published: 2007 Tricycle Press (on JOMB)
ISBN: 1582462070 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Ten pleasantly familiar animals perch boldly exposed — yet cleverly concealed — in full page photographs tossing tantalizing clues to their whereabouts through an assortment of snappy, lyrical, comical and informative poems in this 2007 Cybils Non-Fiction Picture Book Award Finalist.

Click here for the Tricycle Press Reading Guide.

Pop over to Cybils Central to get the scoop on all the 2007 Cybils finalists and, while you’re there, check out the full list of non-fiction picture book nominees.

Tags:camouflage, childrens book, cybils, David Schwartz, Dwight Kuhn, non fiction, Podcast, review, Where in the Wild?: Camouflaged Creatures Concealed ... and Revealedcamouflage, childrens book, cybils, David Schwartz, Dwight Kuhn, non fiction, Podcast, review, Where in the Wild?: Camouflaged Creatures Concealed ... and Revealed

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Author: Mary Ann Hoberman (on JOMB)
Illustrator: Laura Huliska-Beith (on JOMB)
Published: 2002 Little, Brown and Co. (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0316363286 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Twenty-eight pages of mystery, mischief and marvelously meandering rhyme take us on a distraction-packed cat-finding mission that introduces youngsters to the numbers 1 to 28 and — perhaps, more importantly — introduces adults to the delightful art of dawdling.

Tags:childrens book, Laura Huliska Beith, Mary Ann Hoberman, Podcast, review, The Looking Bookchildrens book, Laura Huliska Beith, Mary Ann Hoberman, Podcast, review, The Looking Book

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Author: Colin Thompson
Illustrator: Colin Thompson
Published: Random House UK (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0091768179 Amazon.ca Amazon.com

Spellbindingly surreal illustrations contrast with matter-of-fact narrative to relay this thought provoking story of perspective, choice and inter-generational connection: “All you have to do is keep your dreams”.

Other books mentioned:

• Fly, Eagle, Fly
• I Can Hear the Sun
• Tudley Didn’t Know
• Gifts

More books about flying:

• Isla
• Camilla’s New Hairdo
• Cat & Canary

Tags:childrens book, Colin Thompson, Falling Angels, family, flying, grandparents, Podcast, reviewchildrens book, Colin Thompson, Falling Angels, family, flying, grandparents, Podcast, review

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Author: Alison Paul
Illustrator: Alison Paul
Published: Houghton Mifflin (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0618663800 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Captivating collage and haunting yet hip verse demonstrate the fear and folly of fleeting first impressions.

Tags:Alison Paul, childrens book, Podcast, review, The CrowAlison Paul, childrens book, Podcast, review, The Crow

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Author: Meredith Hooper
Illustrator: Allan Curless and Mark Burgess
Published: Frances Lincoln (on JOMB)
ISBN: 1845076885 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Painstakingly reproduced masterpieces and perfectly rambunctious dogs bring to life this playful tale of a pack of pickled pooches who slip from their painted homes to bring mischief and mayhem to the National Gallery of London.

More Art on JOMB:

• Victor and Christabel
• I Want A Dog

Tags:Allan Curless, art, childrens book, dogs, Francois HubertDrouais, Georges Pierre Seurat, Jan van Eyck, London, Meredith Hooper, National Gallery, Podcast, review, Thomas GainsboroughAllan Curless, art, childrens book, dogs, Francois HubertDrouais, Georges Pierre Seurat, Jan van Eyck, London, Meredith Hooper, National Gallery, Podcast, review, Thomas Gainsborough

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Author: Kate Banks Illustrator: Boris Kulikov Published: 2006 Farrar, Straus & Giroux ISBN: 0374399492 Chapters.ca Amazon.com Language leaps to life in this engaging story of competition, character and cultivating a thirst for words. Other books mentioned: Cherries and Cherry Pits Tags:boris kulikov, childrens book, kate banks, maxs words, Podcast, reviewboris kulikov, childrens book, kate banks, maxs words, Podcast, review

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Author: Wallace Edwards
Illustrator: Wallace Edwards
Published: 2004 Kids Can Press
ISBN: 1553374622 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Ever wonder what pops into puzzled little minds when you throw them a new expression? This clever book, cluttered with texture, humour and eccentricity, may have your answer.

You can find a thorough and informative analysis of this book here.

Mark will be covering the International Reading Association’s 52nd Annual Conference “Literacy without boundaries”, May 13-17, 2007 in Toronto. If you’ll be there and are interested being included in the JOMB coverage of the event, please contact us at [email protected] to set up an interview.

Tags:childrens book, idioms, Monkey Business, Podcast, Wallace Edwardschildrens book, idioms, Monkey Business, Podcast, Wallace Edwards

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