Season's Readings: Week Three

The Birmingham Public Library hopes our patrons have found time to read or listen to some of the books and music albums recommended by our patrons and staff this month. We certainly welcome your comments and feedback!

As we enter the third week of December, the BPL is delighted to share more favorites submitted by patrons and staff. Miss Pettigrew Lives for Day, by British authoress Winifred Watson, is a fun, quick read that you will want to follow with a viewing of the movie adaptation starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. 

If you're looking for a gift for a young adult, please check out the books recommended by the BPL staff members Chelsea Rodriguez and Diana Prince. Chelsea enjoyed reading You Go First by Newbery medalist Erin Entrada Kelly, an inspiring book for elementary-school students. In anticipation of Kwanzaa, Diana suggests checking out Angela Shelf Medearis' Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story.

There is still time to send in your own book (and music) recommendations for publications on the BPL website and social media pages. We look forward to receiving them!

Please consider contributing to the BPL this December. Your gift allows us to provide the community with informative programs, enlightening activities, and books that empower. Thank you, and happy holidays!

MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY
Winifred Watson

This book is like a cat with nine lives. It was first published in 1938, republished by Persephone Books in 2000, and made into a major motion picture in 2008. Miss Guinevere Pettigrew's life-changing surprises are filled with humor that surprise the reader as well. A happy, light-hearted novel to be enjoyed by the young, the old, and those in between.

Hebe Randolph Smythe

Birmingham Public Library Patron

YOU GO FIRST
Erin Entrada Kelly

I read You Go First by Erin Entrada Kelly this year. It was so lovely. A really great elementary school chapter book. It's so hard to be a kid sometimes and to navigate conflict with friends and family for the first time. I was inconsolable. Parker came downstairs so we could go to lunch, and I couldn't stop crying!

Chelsea Rodriguez

Central Library, Youth Department

SEVEN SPOOLS OF THREAD: A KWANZAA STORY
Angela Shelf Medearis

I love the story of the Seven Spools of Thread because it is one of unity and honor. For years, the brothers were admonished by their father to stop fighting among one another. But it wasn't until after the father's death that they learned to get along. 

The father left instructions with the chief if the village that they boys must first learn how to turn the seven spools of thread that he left into gold before receiving their inheritance. 

Prior to brainstorming on ways to turn the thread into gold, the boys vowed to get along. They then came up with a wonderful idea to use all the different colors of thread together to make the most beautiful cloth in all the land, and they became very prosperous. The father's mission of unity and peace was accomplished, and the boys continued in peace in honor of their father.

Wonderful story!

Diana Prince

Five Points West Regional Branch Library

By Margaret Splane | Library Assistant Ⅲ, Development Office