WV Fifth Grader Donates $10,000 Prize to School Library

Darius Atefat-Peckham, a Letters About Literature winner at the national level, is featured in an article in School Library Journal.

WV Fifth Grader Donates $10,000 Prize to School Library

Letters About Literature is a national reading and writing promotion program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, presented in partnership with Target Stores and supported locally by the West Virginia Center for the Book. This project is supported, in part, by the U.S. Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in West Virginia by the State Librarian and by the West Virginia Humanities Council.

Library Update now on YouTube

The West Virginia Library Commission is committed to promoting, assisting, and supporting high quality library services and information resources to all West Virginia residents. This includes getting relevant information out to library directors, their staff, and patrons through various formats. Currently the Library Commission uses its website, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, e-bulletins and now YouTube to disseminate information. 

WVLC plans on bringing you current programs, topics, and trends. This broad spectrum includes partnerships, training, programming, and service. We want this program to be a useful, entertaining resource for you. If you ever have any questions or comments regarding topics on this show, please do not hesitate to call us at 1-800-642-9021. 

This program is not intended to act as a calendar of events, but as a vehicle of ideology and practical tips. Specific event information can always be found on our website www.librarycommission.wv.gov and at your local libraries.

The video in this post is the first segment of the first episode. Check it out, then view parts 2 and 3. Make sure you subscribe to the West Virginia Library Commission YouTube channel so you don't miss the newest episodes!

 

Capitol Read

May's Capitol Read is The Miner's Daughter by Gretchen Moran Laskas

Perhaps there is always a mark, when another person touches you, an invisible thread connecting you to them.

Backbreaking work, threadbare clothes, and black coal dust choking the air — this is what a miner's daughter knows. Willa Lowell fears that this dust marks her to be nothing else, that she will never win against the constant struggle to survive. Even the fierce flame of her family's love — her one bright spot against the darkness — has begun to dim.

Willa yearns for a better life — enough food to eat, clothes that fit, and a home free of black grit. She also yearns for a special love, the love of a boy who makes her laugh and shares the poetry she carries in her heart.

When a much brighter future is suddenly promised to her family, Willa knows it is a miracle . . . until she discovers that every promise has a price. But she also discovers that the real change has burned inside her all along — if only she is strong enough to mine it.

Writing in a style that is as breathtaking and lyrical as it is powerful, Gretchen Moran Laskas draws from her family's past to bring to life the story of a girl struggling against seemingly insurmountable odds. The Miner's Daughter will touch readers' hearts and stay with them long after they've read the last word.

Library Commission closed May 8

Next Tuesday, May 8, the Library Commission will be closed.  The agency will resume normal hours on Wednesday, May 9.  

Please remember to vote!

Staff Pick of the Week

We're wrapping up April and National Poetry Month. So we're leaving you with a final favorite volume of verse.

This week's pick is The Kingdom of Ordinary Time by Marie Howe

Prayer

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important
calls for my attention--the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage

I need to buy for the trip.
Even now I can hardly sit here

among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside
already screeching and banging.

The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.
Why do I flee from you?

My days and nights pour through me like complaints
and become a story I forgot to tell.

Help me. Evan as I write these words I am planning
to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.

This title, and others like it, can be found in the West Virginia Library Commission Reference Library.

Staff Pick of the Week

April is National Poetry Month. So we're scouring the WVLC shelves for our favorite volumes of verse.

This week's pick of Refusing Heaven: poems by Jack Gilbert. Gilbert was born in Pittsburgh and is the author of The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992, Monolithos, and Views of Jeopardy.

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.

It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to an end of his triumph.

This title, and others like it, can be found in the West Virginia Library Commission Reference Library.