Somerville Public Library Blog

Hey everyone!  It’s not too late to learn something new before the end of the year!

Tomorrow (December 30th) at 11:00 a.m., you’re invited to the East Branch Library (115 Broadway) for a presentation about the rainforest by The Creature Teachers.  8-10 rainforest animals - including a scarlet macaw, a toucan, a kinkajou, a red-eyed tree frog (like the little fellow at left), a giant toad, a boa constrictor, a tarantula, and a coatimundi - will be the teaching tools in this overview of rainforests.  Topics discussed will include the layers that make up rainforests, their locations around the world, and the dangers that threaten these fragile ecosystems.

The Creature Teachers is a family owned business specializing in environmental and animal education.  Their goal is to fascinate audiences with the wonders and diversity of the animals whose planet we share.

This free program is sponsored by the Friends of the Library.  We hope you can join us!

A: a mermahuataur

Makes perfect sense when you think about it, doesn’t it?
If you’d like to see a bigger, easier to read, interactive version of this handy diagram, click here.
If you’d like to read about imaginary beasts, try one of these books:

The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges with Margarita Guerrero

Fairies and Magical Creatures by Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda

Questionable Creatures: a Bestiary by Pauline Baynes

Mythical Birds & Beasts from Many Lands by retold by Margaret Mayo

Monsters and Water Beasts: Creatures of Fact or Fiction? by Karen Miller

Mythological Creatures: a Classical Bestiary: Tales of Strange Beings, Fabulous Creatures, Fearsome Beasts, & Hideous Monsters from Ancient Greek Mythology by Lynn Curlee

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander (actually by J. K. Rowling)

Finally, if you’d like a peek at some of the bizarre creatures that scientists and artists imagine present-day animals might evolve into someday, check out one of these:

The Future is Wild by Dougal Dixon and John Adams

The Future is Wild, a DVD set of the 3-part Discovery Channel special

After Man: a Zoology of the Future by Dougal Dixon

G. K. Chesterton is one of my favorite authors, although I’m not greatly interested in either of the things for which he’s best known: his Father Brown mysteries and his writings on Catholicism.  What I like are the bits and pieces found in his short story collections (The Club of Queer Trades, Tales of the Long Bow, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, etc.) and his occasional novel (The Man Who Was Thursday.)  Chesterton is full of odd and appealing ideas, and his writing is flat out beautiful.  I especially admire his talent for depicting places - he not only makes ordinary places seem marvelous, but he also makes you feel as if you are in them, experiencing them as he describes them.

The whole heavens were full of the hues of evening, though still as luminous as noon; as if in a land of endless sunset. It settled down in a shower of gold amid the twinkling leaves of the thin trees of the gardens, most of which had low fences and hedges, and lay almost as open to the yellow sky as the fields beyond. The air was so still that occasional voices, talking or laughing on distant lawns, could be heard like clear bells. One voice, more recurrent that the rest, seemed to be whistling and singing the old sailors’ song of “Spanish Ladies”; it drew nearer and nearer; and when she turned into the last garden gate at the corner, the singer was the first figure she encountered. He stood in a garden red with very gorgeous ranks of standard roses, and against a background of the golden sky and a white cottage with touches of rather fanciful colour; the sort of cottage that is not built for cottagers. (The Garden of Smoke)

Chesterton is equally adept at bringing people to life, sometimes through physical descriptions, and sometimes by means of other outstanding characteristics they possess.

For some months, indeed for some years, people had detected something curious in the judge’s conduct. He seemed to have lost interest in the law, in which he had been beyond expression brilliant and terrible as a K.C., and to be occupied in giving personal and moral advice to the people concerned. He talked more like a priest or a doctor, and a very outspoken one at that. The first thrill was probably given when he said to a man who had attempted a crime of passion: `I sentence you to three years’ imprisonment, under the firm, and solemn, and God-given conviction, that what you require is three months at the seaside.’ He accused criminals from the bench, not so much of their obvious legal crimes, but of things that had never been heard of in a court of justice, monstrous egoism, lack of humour, and morbidity deliberately encouraged. Things came to a head in that celebrated diamond case in which the Prime Minister himself, that brilliant patrician, had to come forward, gracefully and reluctantly, to give evidence against his valet. After the detailed life of the household had been thoroughly exhibited, the judge requested the Premier again to step forward, which he did with quiet dignity. The judge then said, in a sudden, grating voice: `Get a new soul. That thing’s not fit for a dog. Get a new soul.’ (The Club of Queer Trades)

If you’ve never read any Chesterton before, I hope that I’ve piqued your interest and that you’ll give him a try. He’s simply too good to be left on the shelf.

The bicentennial of the birth year of America’s first great horror writer is coming to an end.  Since he was born here, the anniversary has been the cause of some reflection in the Boston area.  The writer’s relationship with his birthplace was not a cordial one: he considered the city provincial and scorned its writers as “the word-compounders and quibble concoctors of Frogpondium.” He also heartily disliked the work of the New England Transcendentalists. But this year Boston decided to bury the hatchet with its errant son: in April city officials re-named the corner of Boylston and Charles Streets Poe Square. An exhibit on Poe opens this Friday at the BPL and runs through March 31 of next year, and Boston College professor Paul Lewis talks here about Poe’s literary relationship to the city.

You probably read Poe in school, but if you’re interested in re-visiting his works, you might consider SPL’s copy of The Collected Tales and Poems which has all the standards such as “The Gold Bug,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Our copy of the Comedies and Satires is a great introduction to the lighter side of Poe (And don’t be deterred if these books are checked out. We have many more Poe anthologies). We also have a great collection of his stories and poems paired with photographic interpretations of his work. And if you’re more the recorded books type, we have some of his works on CD and audio cassette (remember those?).  If you feel like giving your French or Spanish a workout, check out Histoires extraordinaires or  Clásicos de terror.

Are you in the mood for movies? Here’s a short list of film adaptations of Poe’s works–even if SPL doesn’t have them we can get them for you through Minuteman or Inter-Library Loan. And here’s my favorite bit of Poe on video–The Simpsons rendition of “The Raven.”

A little over a week ago, my colleague Ellen wrote a post recommending Dorling Kindersley Visual Guides. And rightly so: they’re lavishly beautiful books. But if you read them you can see the text is a little–how shall I put this?–top-heavy with facts and a little lacking in personality. Contrast Dorling Kindersely’s Animal with Thomas Morton’s 1632 work The New English Canaan, a description of the flora and fauna (and natives and colonists) of New England in the first third of the seventeenth century.*

Now if you want straightforward information about, say,  animal anatomy, habitat and reproduction, DK is the way to go.  But only Morton will tell you that the “Beare is a tyrant at a Lobster,” or that the “Beaver…a beast ordained, for land and water both…sitts with his tayle hanging in the water, which else would over heate and rot off.” And just in case any of his readers back in England had thoughts of coming to Massachusetts to go on safari, he’s quick to spare them a long journey and inevitable disappointment: “Lyons there are none in New England. It is contrary to the Nature of the beast to frequent places accustomed to snow.”

I’ve perused DK’s Animal several times, and while I don’t doubt the information is accurate, how useful is it? For example, I’ve never found anything relevant to my medical needs. But The New English Canaan tell us that “Racowne oyle” can alleviate sciatic nerve pain, and if you’re ever bitten by a rattlesnake, drinking a saucer of “Salat oyle” (salad dressing) should fix you right up. I’ve never had sciatic nerve pain or been bitten by a rattlesnake (not yet anyway) but now I’m prepared.

Let’s compare DK’s Animal and Morton’s New English Canaan when it comes to coverage of a specific animal. DK is quite accurate when it comes to the basic facts about squirrels:

Length: 9-11 inches

Tall: 6-10 inches

Social Status: individual

Excerpt from written description: “It may emerge from its grass- and bark-lined twig nest in winter to forage.”

It tells you what squirrels are in and of themselves, but not how they relate to others. How do they fit into the bigger picture? Morton doesn’t hesitate to tell us: “hee haunts our howses, and will rob us of our Corne, but the Catt many times, payes him the price of his presumption.” In other words, squirrels are trespassers and thieves, but if you’ve got a cat you’ll be okay. Do the editors of DK Animal give us such practical information about squirrel depredations? No. It’s Morton who’s got our backs.

And while Morton’s not afraid to be blunt about the squirrel crime problem, he’s not into species profiling. He’s quick to add that some squirrels are okay: “[the] little flying Squirill, with batlike wings, which hee spreads when hee jumps from Tree to Tree…does no harme.”

I don’t mean this post to be utterly dismissive of Dorling Kindersley Visual Guides. They’re great books. But when it comes to a choice between a tome consisting of some facts interspersed with pretty pictures, and a guide book with a kindly narrator who anticipates my medical needs, gets me up to speed on squirrel delinquency, and tells me where not to expect lions, I know what I’ll pick.

*In the second volume of Tracts and Other Papers Relating Principally to the Origin and Settlement of the Colonies in North America. (Call No. LOCAL HISTORY NE 973.2 TR)

I leave you with a bear clearly waiting for an opportunity to tyrannize a crustacean:

Today marks the sixty-eighth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry into World War II. It shocked the nation–and the world (even Japanese diplomats were surprised by the attack). And by pushing us into the Second World War, it spelled the end of an America that thought it could stay untouched by the rest of the world.

If you’re interested in learning more about this momentous event and its aftermath, we have numerous books on the subject, from the classic At Dawn We Slept to the much more recent Pearl Harbor Betrayed.   One of the more fascination explorations of the events of December 7 is Pearl Harbor Ghosts, an examination of the attack’s impact on Hawaii, which went from being a sleepy tropical archipelago to a military-industrial boomtown. And if you want to do some armchair traveling, visit the website of the USS Arizona Memorial. Here is footage from the attack that was broadcast to stunned audiences in the following days.

If you want to observe the anniversary in a less studious way, we’ve got the 2001 Jerry Bruckheimer film Pearl Harbor at both the main library and the East Branch.

Have you looked at any of DK Publishing’s Definitive Visual Guides? They’re a series of well-organized, easy-to-use books that are both absorbing and beautiful. It’s awfully hard to choose a favorite, but if you backed me into a corner I might have to go with Animal.

Two large introductory sections are filled with information on evolution, classification, anatomy, life cycles, and habitats, but the biggest section of the book is devoted to descriptions of animals. Creatures are grouped into phyla and classes, and classes are further subdivided into orders, families, genera, and species. There are sections on endangered animals at the end of each class division, and the book concludes with an excellent glossary and a comprehensive index.

However, the images are what really make this book special. Each animal is depicted in a stunning, detailed photograph. Some of the more spectacular, box-office species (grizzly bear, great white shark, bald eagle) are given two-page spreads that usually feature one very large photo and several smaller ones that might illustrate, for example, a behavior, or perhaps variations in the appearance of individuals. Along with text descriptions of the animals, each entry has a map showing the location of the species, symbols for the habitats where they live, and a chart illustrating a few basic facts such as size, average lifespan, status of the population, etc.

Most of the titles in the Definitive Visual Guide series deal with scientific subjects (Earth, Universe, Human) but DK has now begun to branch out into other areas too. I recently received History as a gift and have barely dipped into it, but I can already tell that I’m going to like it – a lot. You might feel the same – why not check one out and see what you think?

December 3, 1586: According to some sources, Sir Thomas Harriot introduces the potato to England on this date–because if there’s one thing Northern Europe doesn’t have enough of, it’s root vegetables.

December 11, 1919: Deciding that monuments to tapeworms or mosquitoes would just be kind of gross, the citizens of Enterprise, Alabama dedicate a monument to the boll weevil.

December 16, 1773: The Boston Tea Party.  Disgruntled colonists dump 340 crates of tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxes. Only 50 or so people show up, but some of the louder, more obnoxious town criers exaggerate attendance figures.

December 17, 1875: Violent bread riots in Montreal. When you want croissants, baguettes are as good a reason to smash windows as any.

December 26, 1854: History records that paper made from wood pulp was first publicly exhibited in Buffalo on this date–which tells you more about entertainment options in Buffalo than it does about paper manufacturing.