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Posts Tagged ‘Monica Brown’

In a delightful post at BookRiot.com, blogger David Attig offers some of his research on bookmobiles and libraries in out-of-the-way places.

In one example, he writes about “a delightful twist on the Pack Horse Library. Since 1990, teacher-turned-mobile-librarian Luis Soriano has brought books to thousands of children in rural Colombia, all from the back of a donkey. The biblioburro, as Soriano calls it, helps poor children have access to more books and thus a chance at a better education. ‘That’s how a community changes and the child becomes a good citizen and a useful person,’ Soriano told CNN. ‘Literature is how we connect them with the world.’ Soriano and his biblioburro are the subject of a children’s book by Monica Brown and John Parra, proceeds from the sale of which go to support Soriano’s work.”

“Derek Attig writes and teaches about book culture, technology, and history,” says BookRiot. “In addition to writing a book about bookmobiles in American life, he blogs at Bookmobility.org.”

Read the whole post at BookRiot, where you will find a Works Progress Administration bookmobile visiting Bayou De Large, Louisiana, pack horse librarians posing in Hindman, Kentucky, a booketeria in a Nashville supermarket, a vending machine library at a Bay Area school, a library at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, and more.

Photo: Luis Soriano

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Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, spends a lot of time in the library. Although she blogs about all manner of interesting things, I have especially liked her reports on children’s picture books, including the breathtaking array of illustrated Alice in Wonderland editions out there.

A recent post highlighted a fancifully illustrated biography of the late Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

Popova opines, “Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda was not only one of the greatest poets in human history, but also a man of extraordinary insight into the human spirit — take, for instance, his remarkable reflection on what a childhood encounter taught him about why we make art, quite possibly the most beautiful metaphor for the creative impulse ever committed to paper.

“As a lover both of Neruda’s enduring genius and of intelligent children’s books, … I was instantly smitten with Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People (public library |IndieBound) by Monica Brown, with absolutely stunning illustrations and hand-lettering by artist Julie Paschkis.

“The story begins with the poet’s birth in Chile in 1904 with the given name of Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto — to evade his father’s disapproval of his poetry, he came up with the pen name ‘Pablo Neruda’ at the age of sixteen when he first began publishing his work — and traces his evolution as a writer, his political awakening as an activist, his deep love of people and language and the luminosity of life.

“Embedded in the story is a sweet reminder of what books do for the soul and a heartening assurance that creative genius isn’t the product of conforming to common standards of excellence but of finding one’s element.”

More here.

Art: Julie Paschkis 

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