Somerville Public Library Blog

One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference (by Katie Smith Milway, illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes) tells the story of Kojo, a boy in Ghana, West Africa. Kojo’s mother supports the family by gathering firewood to sell, but their life is hard. Luckily, the village they live in has a great idea - each family saves a small amount of money which they club together and loan to one another in turn. One family buy a load of fruit which they sell for a profit. They pay the borrowed portion back to the next family, who buy a used sewing machine and make clothes to sell. Kojo’s mother buys a cart to carry more firewood to the market, and has a little money left over which Kojo uses to buy a hen. The hen lays eggs, some of which the family eat, and some of which Kojo sells. At first, he can only sell three eggs each week, but he saves the money, and after a few months is able to pay back his part of the loan. After a few more months he has enough to buy a second hen. Then Kojo and his mother have more eggs to eat and to sell, so he’s able to save more quickly and to buy more hens. Kojo’s flock grows, and after a while he saves enough to pay the fees so he can go to school. Eventually he wins a scholarship to an agricultural college where he studies poultry farming, borrows enough money from a bank to build a farm, and stocks it with 900 chickens. By now Kojo is able to hire people to work on his farm, and the wages he pays them support 120 people!

Over time, Kojo’s poultry farm becomes the largest in West Africa and in the process helps to lift many families out of poverty. These families support more businesses when the use their wages to buy things they need. The taxes Kojo pays to the Ghanian government help to build roads and health clinics. As for Kojo, he never forgets how one small loan, a microloan, gave him the chance he needed to improve his life and the lives of others in his community. He gives the same chance to other people who come to him with ideas for starting their own businesses, and so the cycle continues.

Sound improbable? As a matter of fact, One Hen is based on the true story of Kwabena Darko (pictured at right), who now sits on the board of directors of Opportunity International, a global organization that offers microloans to people all over the world. If you’d like to learn more about organizations that offer microloans, read some of the inspiring stories that these loans make possible, and perhaps make a donation, visit www.onehen.org.

Join us tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Central Library for a remarkable performance by Alan Kitty as the legendary Mark Twain.

2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Mark Twain’s death. But all around the US, people are already beginning to report sightings - some claiming to have had actual contact with the spirit of the great humorist himself. This is not a séance. And it is unlike any staged Mark Twain performance anywhere in the world. Alan Kitty is emerging as one of the premiere Mark Twain interpreters of our times - because his Mark Twain tells stories that may have happened as recently as last week; that might have been ripped from today’s headlines, and that are relevant in any century.

Mark Twain’s Last Stand is a show for adult audiences that has been presented in 12 states. It is a thought-provoking piece intended as an entertainment for people who like to think. Laughter is encouraged, but not required. DISCLAIMER: Anyone who is satisfied with the status-quo will not have a good time unless their medication has been properly adjusted.

This performance is free and all are welcome to attend. Don’t miss it!

As you may already know, Somerville Reads - our first One City, One Book program - took place this past spring and was a huge success. People were invited to read Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and to participate in a variety of related activities (discussions, lectures, film screenings, and more) in venues around the City. You can read all about it here.

We’re now beginning to plan Somerville Reads 2011. The first step is choosing the book we’ll all read, and we’d like your input. You can make suggestions via this online poll, or in the comments section below. All suggestions will be considered - fiction, nonfiction, children’s or young adult literature - the possibilities are endless. Here are some of the ideas people have come up with so far. Tell us what you think!

The 39 Steps by John Buchan

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Jaws by Peter Benchley

Somerville had quite the weekend. Saturday afternoon we had three inches of rain in less than an hour. Power  is still out in parts of town, and the police have had to relocate to the station in Teele Square at 1154 Broadway. Even if you can read this (meaning you’re either in a place with power or a working smartphone), the flash food may have affected you. If  you have a home basement, workplace or a car to clean out, here are some flood cleanup manuals that might help:

Flood cleanup instructions from Mass.gov. (includes links to information on disposal of items such as damaged computers, and on managing pathogen risk from sewage backup).

Post-power outage food safety issues.

EPA guide to making sure indoor air is healthy.

Drying out your car and getting rid of the mildew smell.

Post-flood home cleanup.

Planning a summer vacation? The Library has books that can advise you on destinations near and far, familiar and exotic.

The travel guide section breaks down like this:

914s: Europe

915s: Asia (including the Middle East)

916s: Africa

917s: North America (including the Caribbean)

917.3: the United States
917.4: New England
917.44: Boston
917.449: the Cape and Islands

918s: South America

919s: The South Pacific (including Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand) and Antarctica

You’ll find tried and true titles by companies like Fodor’s and Frommer’s, plus lots of Lonely Planet Guides, Rough Guides, Eyewitness Guides, Let’s Go Guides, and more. There’s something here for every kind of traveler.

Walt Disney World with Kids?
Romantic Days and Nights in Montréal?
Malaysia: a Kick Start for Business Travelers?

We’ve got them all. Whether you’re traveling to the Yucatán or Yellowstone, the White Mountains or the Black Forest, the SPL can get you the right guide for your trip. Let us help you get where you want to go!

The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo was born 103 years ago today in Mexico City. She’s probably best known to Americans from the Salma Hayek movie Frida, but you owe it yourself to learn more about this remarkable woman and artist. The Christian Science Monitor has a short written piece on her and a video tribute to her work here.

Her painting was heavily influenced by the Surrealist movement and by Mexican indigenous culture. Over a third of her 143 paintings are self-portraits. She once said, “I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best.”  She began painting when she was eighteen, after a traffic accident that left her in a body cast for three months.  A  recurring theme of her work is emotional and physical pain.

If you would like to know more about her life and work, you could start with the appropriately titled Frida Kahlo: Her Life and Work, in our oversized books section. If you want something a little more portable, check out the DVD Latin American Women Artists from our AV collection. Our copy of the movie Frida is the worse for wear, but we can request it for you from another MInuteman library.

We also have other books on Frida Kahlo that aren’t so back-breakingly large: Frida Kahlo: The Paintings with commentary by noted Kahlo scholar Hayden Herrera provides a thorough introduction to her work; The World of Frida Kahlo: The Blue House, takes you into her home and haunts; and you can get a more glimpse of her life in I Will Never Forget You, a collection of her letters to her friend and lover, the photographer Nickolas Muray.

Take a look in the network catalog or come to the library: we’ll help you find what you’re looking for, whether it’s about Frida Kahlo or not.

July 8, 1932: Here’s some perspective for all the pundits bemoaning recent poor stock performance: on this date the Dow closed at 41.

July 10, 1866: Edson P. Clark patents the indelible pencil, which he soon regrets inventing when his five-year-old gets hold of it and tackles the walls of the parlor.

July 12, 1982: In an announcement that completely relieves all anxiety about the U.S.-Soviet arms race, the Post Office assures U.S. citizens that they will continue to receive mail after a nuclear war.

July 18, 1975: The jury in Boston Bruins player David Forbes’ trial for aggravated assault can’t reach a verdict, probably because most of them don’t understand what’s wrong with a hockey player being violent.

July 22, 1975: Apparently desperate for something to do that’s completely unrelated to Watergate or Vietnam, the House of Representatives restores U.S. citizenship to Robert E. Lee.

Can you believe it’s already Summer Reading Club time again? This year’s theme is Go Green, and the Library has lots of green fun planned at all three locations!

A few highlights include:

* stories, music, magic, comedy, and balloon animals with Jungle Jim at the West Branch on Wednesday, June 30th at 11:00 a.m.

* a six-week garden club that will introduce you to the natural world right here in Somerville with Groundwork Somerville at the Central Library on Tuesdays at 11:00 a.m., starting on July 6th

* a musical show that’s all about reducing, reusing, and recycling with Jay Mankita and the Lean Green Cleanup Machine at the East Branch on Thursday, July 8th at 2:00 p.m.

* Rosalita’s Puppets in “The Enchanted Forest” at the Central Library on Saturday, July 17th at 11:00 a.m.

There are lots of other great programs too - be sure to check our calendar of events for full details!

“Gogreen at your library,” the statewide summer reading adventure, is sponsored by the Massachusetts Regional Library System, the Boston Bruins, the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, and the Friends of the Somerville Public Library.

If you listened to (or read) the news at all this week, you probably learned that the Chinese government announced it would let its currency appreciate in value.  What does that mean? Well, it depends on whom you ask. This is something Washington has wanted for some time, and yet the news seemed to worry U.S. retailers. On the other hand, India seems to like it.  And here’s the Globe’s take. The conflicting reactions to this one bit of news reveal just how tricky and complicated a subject economics is.  If you’d like to get a handle on this baffling topic, SPL can help. We’ve got a few books that can get you up to speed on the basics, such as Adler Moshe’s Economics for the Rest of Us and Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics. Or if you want to go straight to questions such as why the value of the yuan matters, try The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Global Economics.

Or perhaps you’re interested in the mess we’re in now and how we got into it. You couldn’t do better than to start with my one of my favorite journalists, New Yorker staff writer Michael Lewis. whose book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, is one of the best books out there on the housing and credit bubble of the past decade.  For a more extensive look at our entire economic system and its fundamental ills (of which the housing bubble was just the latest symptom), check out Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth by former Harvard Business School professor David Korten.

If you’re interested in an old-school fiscal conservative take on the economic collapse, try Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse by libertarian scholar Thomas E. Woods.  On the opposite end of the political spectrum, we have Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover, by Katrina Vanden Heuvel and the editors of The Nation.

If you’re a public radio listener, check out this past Tuesday’s On Point. Tom Ashbrook sat down with financial historian Niall Ferguson to talk about the global economy and America’s place in it. The challenges of some spirited and opinionated callers made this an hour of radio well worth listening to. Public radio also has a great primer on the origins of the current economic crisis: an episode of This American Life called The Giant Pool of Money. This episode of TAL was so successful that the team behind was asked to do a regular podcast on the economy called Planet Money, a roundup of the latest economics news, including fascinating and often overlooked stories. You can find their blog and links to the podcast here.

Teddy Bear

A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat
Which is not to be wondered at;
He gets what exercise he can
By falling off the ottoman,
But generally seems to lack
The energy to clamber back.

Now tubbiness is just the thing
Which gets a fellow wondering;
And Teddy worried lots about
The fact that he was rather stout.
He thought: “If only I were thin!
But how does anyone begin?”
He thought: “It really isn’t fair
To grudge me exercise and air.”

For many weeks he pressed in vain
His nose against the window-pane,
And envied those who walked about
Reducing their unwanted stout.
None of the people he could see
“Is quite” (he said) “as fat as me!”
Then, with a still more moving sigh,
“I mean” (he said) “as fat as I!”

Now Teddy, as was only right,
Slept in the ottoman at night,
And with him crowded in as well
More animals than I can tell;
Not only these, but books and things,
Such as a kind relation brings –
Old tales of “Once upon a time,”
And history retold in rhyme.

One night it happened that he took
A peep at an old picture-book,
Wherein he came across by chance
The picture of a King of France
(A stoutish man) and, down below,
These words: “King Louis So and So,
Nicknamed ‘The Handsome!’ “  There he sat,
And (think of it!) the man was fat!

Our bear rejoiced like anything
To read about this famous King,
Nicknamed “The Handsome.” There he sat
And certainly the man was fat.
Nicknamed “The Handsome.” Not a doubt
The man was definitely stout.
Why then, a bear (for all his tub)
Might yet be named “The Handsome Cub!”

“Might yet be named.”  Or did he mean
That years ago he “might have been”?
For now he felt a slight misgiving:
“Is Louis So and So still living?
Fashions in beauty have a way
Of altering from day to day.
Is ‘ Handsome Louis’ with us yet?
Unfortunately I forget.”

Next morning (nose to window pane)
The doubt occurred to him again.
One question hammered in his head:
“Is he alive or is he dead?”
Thus, nose to pane, he pondered; but
The lattice window, loosely shut,
Swung open.  With one startled “Oh!”
Our Teddy disappeared below.

There happened to be passing by
A plump man with a twinkling eye,
Who, seeing Teddy in the street,
Raised him politely to his feet,
And murmured kindly in his ear
Soft words of comfort and of cheer:
“Well, well!”  “Allow me!”  “Not at all.”
“Tut-tut!  A very nasty fall.”

Our Teddy answered not a word;
It’s doubtful if he even heard.
Our bear could only look and look:
The stout man in the picture-book!
That “handsome” King — could this be he,
This man of adiposity?
“Impossible,” he thought.  “But still,
No harm in asking.  Yes I will!”

“Are you,” he said, “by any chance
His Majesty the King of France?”
The other answered, “I am that,”
Bowed stiffly, and removed his hat;
Then said, “Excuse me,” with an air,
“But is it Mr. Edward Bear?”
And Teddy, bending very low,
Replied politely, “Even so!”

They stood beneath the window there,
The King and Mr. Edward Bear,
And, handsome, if a trifle fat,
Talked carelessly of this and that . . .
Then said His Majesty, “Well, well,
I must get on,” and rang the bell.
“Your bear, I think,” he smiled.  “Good-day!”
And turned, and went upon his way.

A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat,
Which is not to be wondered at.
But do you think it worries him
To know that he is far from slim?
No, just the other way about –
He’s proud of being short and stout.

- A. A. Milne