Birmingham Public Library Blog

It was announced on June 24 that Neil Gaiman 's teen novel, The Graveyard Book , won the Carnegie Medal for 2010. Gaiman is the first author to ever win a Carnegie and a Newbery Medal for the same book. Carnegie Medal winners receive a golden medal and £500 worth of books to donate to a public or school library. The Carnegie Medal is one of UK's most prestigious awards for children's and teen literature. Gaiman considers it a great honor because the Carnegie Medal was the first literary prize he remembers being aware of as a child: "When I was seven I got the Narnia books for my birthday. I had read a couple before, but I got the box set, and I got to The Last Battle and it said winner of the Carnegie Medal. I thought wow. It was a couple of years later that I bought A Wrinkle in Time and became aware of the Newbery. They are the first literary awards of any kind I was ever aware of and I've got both of them—it's amazing." The Graveyard Book is about a...

The World Without Us asks the daunting question, “What would happen to the Earth if people vanished?” Not what would happen if we ruined the environment so completely we all went with it or if we blew ourselves up in an all-out nuclear war. Just that: disappeared. To get a rough idea of what it’d be like, Alan Weisman visited places that have become devoid of people (the no-man’s land between North and South Korea) and places that have never had people to begin with (the Bialowieza Puszcza, Europe’s only remaining old-growth forest) as well as Chambura Gorge and Gombe Stream, two islands of untouched land in North Africa that are “all that remain of the forest that birthed” the human race. What’s even more intriguing are the chapters (the meat of the book) where the author interviews experts on what might and will happen to specific places after we’re whisked away. Manhattan, for instance. I’ve walked all over it but never realized that 40 streams run under it. Never realized it becau...

The Birmingham Public Library (BPL) hosts the opening night gala for Heads Up Alabama! Psychology Promotes Healthy Living on July 22 in the Central Library Atrium from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Through the medium of public art, Heads Up Alabama! explores the critical role that emotion and behavior play in an individual’s overall health and wellness. Twenty professional artists, whose designs were selected through a juried competition, were commissioned to create art from a basic fiberglass head that is approximately three feet tall. The heads will be mounted on 40-inch pedestals placed throughout the library. Tickets are available for $25 to the general public through the www.alapsych.org , under Calendar of Events. Food, drink, and entertainment included. Proceeds benefit the Alabama Psychological Association Foundation . The exhibit will be on display in the library July 23 - August 10 free of charge. In a collaborative public health education campaign to bring attention to the importanc...

Photo courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Join us as Dr. Richard Megraw, University of Alabama American Studies professor, gives us an overview of Negro League baseball and its relationship to black community formation and civil rights struggle. Wednesday, June 30, noon. Feed your body and mind at BPL's Brown Bag Lunch programs . You bring the lunch and we'll bring the drinks. Wednesdays at noon in the Arrington Auditorium located on the 4th floor of the Linn-Henley Research Library, 2100 Park Place.

Do magazines seem to magically pile up on your coffee table? The environmental impact of this pile may surprise you: The production of Discover Magazine alone releases the equivalent of “ 170 tons of CO2 ” into the atmosphere. U.S. magazine publishing results in more than 35 million trees being cut down each year. Even those magazines that dedicate themselves to nature preservation, like National Geographic, make little use of recycled paper. 60-70%, of the magazines on newsstands in the U.S. doesn’t actually get read by anyone and become waste. Want a more eco-friendly option? Visit Birmingham Public Library (BPL) and get green. The library subscribes to a multitude of print magazines , but unlike the typical magazine, periodicals at BPL are repeatedly reused. This reuse significantly lessens the environmental impact per read. BPL also offers electronic versions of magazines which are even more environmentally friendly. Our electronic resources consist of books, journals, newspape...

Neil Gaiman 's adult fiction is a little too whimsical for my taste, but since I expect a picture book to contain its fair share of whimsy, his newest juvenile fiction gets a thumbs up from me. Instructions: Everything You'll Need To Know on Your Journey is about a bipedal cat who must follow a set of instructions if he is to exit back through the wooden gate where his journey began. Beyond the wall the garden looks tranquil at first glance. Cinderella 's pumpkin carriage is parked behind some trees. The Three Little Pigs are having a picnic. The Frog Prince rests on the lawn. But here's the question: do these old friends from fairy tale lore serve to calm with their familiarity or warn against the perils to come? When the cat is instructed not to touch a metal imp doorknocker because it will bite, the journey takes a deliciously dark turn. Within the wood glowing eyes peer from gnarled trees, an old woman waits to barter, strawberries grow in December's frost, a...

The Committee To Develop Birmingham's scheduled June 16 town hall meeting at the Five Points West Regional Library has been cancelled.

The video above shows our summer reading sign-up event for all three summer reading programs (children, teens, and adults) at the Linn Park fountain. Please do as the Chick-Fil-A cow suggests during the video. I know summer does not officially begin until June 21, but there is no need to wait. Visit the closest Birmingham Public Library location and dive into summer reading today!