As described in my first post, there are several Newberys for which I have searched in vain for decades in libraries across America. Just hours (literally) before I moved away from Washington, D.C. about a year ago, I learned that the Library of Congress has a copy of every book with a copyright and a 'reading room' wherein patrons with a library card (easily obtained by anyone who appears in person with a valid form of ID) may read any one of those copyrighted books for as long as the library is open. My last act in the nation's capital before loading up my car and driving 600 miles south was obtaining that library card. It has remained unused for nine months . . . until today!
Six hundred miles is nothing, really. I drove back this weekend to visit friends and, while they were all at work today, went to the library to spend the afternoon accessing its vast catacombs of old Newbery awesomeness! Unaware of 'reading room' protocol, I talked to the first librarian I saw about my endeavor. She responded that most books were actually kept in off-site locations and had to be requested online up to three days in advance. Of course! There was no way they could keep 50 million volumes in this little teeny building! All dreams of spending the afternoon on a comfy couch in the reading room devouring old Newbery after old Newbery were dashed. I had been foiled again!
She said there might be hope, though, and sent me to a more expert librarian. The next one was an angel. She talked me slowly through the steps to creating my own password and then revealed the "Electronic Copy" link. This, of course, is only available for books when their copyright has expired (really, really old books). Luckily, really, really old books were exactly what I wanted. I didn't have to request a book and wait for three days (when I would already be back in GA); I could read it on a computer instantaneously!
My first Library of Congress book (since it was the first title that came to mind while talking to the angel librarian): The Big Tree of Bunlahy: Stories of My Own Countryside by Padraic Colum (1933 honor)
Story-telling! The novel is told by a boy who lives near a large oak tree in a half-village (there are only houses on one side of the street) named Bunlahy. We never learn in the text who this boy is nor what he does, but we hear all the stories he hears from various travelers under the Big Tree of Bunlahy. Some are folksy and some are fantasy-y and some are fairy tale-y and some are interesting and some are not. But what this novel really made me think of was the ART of story-telling. It's certainly not a lost art, though I've never sat under a tree in a village and listened to a stranger tell one. My mom is an avid story-teller and I think I inherited a few of the genes. I tried telling one of my favorites (the story of my first kiss!) just yesterday, in fact, but my listener spent the entirety of it checking emails on his phone. :(
And then I discovered (on wikipedia) that the author of the book - Mr. Colum - is the boy recounting the tales and they are actual stories he heard growing up in a village called Bunlahy in Ireland! I felt a little more connected after that. There is one I liked about the Luchra and the Luchrapauns (or, as we call them today, Leprechauns), but it was a story of lost love and it left me feeling a little unsettled. "Nannie's Shoes" was my favorite.
Recommendation? Only if you're really into Irish history. Or story-telling.
