Musings

Life-Size Clue Returns!

One murder… 6 suspects. Find out who’s responsible for murdering Mr. Boddy of Tudor Mansion in his own home. Was it Plum with the wrench in the library? Or Green with the candlestick in the study? We need your help to solve the mystery and make it out alive! We will study the crime scene on Friday, June 16th @ 1 pm at the Dillsboro Library. Anyone ages 8-17 is welcome to attend! Registration is required. Please call 812-954-4151 to register. FREE pizza and drinks will be provided. We’ll see you there!

History in Your Own Backyard in Aurora

History in Your Own Backyard, a project created by Cincinnati native Satolli Glassmeyer to document and showcase historic locations across the Midwest, recently made a stop in Aurora to show off all our historic treasures in Aurora! The Aurora Public Library District is a proud sponsor of this installment of the History in Your Own Backyard video series.

Watch Aurora’s video below to learn about 17 different things you may have never known about Aurora.

Have any questions or would like to suggest another idea for HIYOB’s project? You can email Satolli at info@historyinyourownbackyard.com or call 812-623-5727.

Witchy October Craft!

Teens and adults are welcome to join us for a spooky craft party hosted by Jessica!

We will be recycling used books to create decorative spellbooks that would be a great addition to any creepy haunt. Snacks and refreshments will be provided for all souls who register. Only 12 openings at each building.

Top 10 Challenged Books of 2021

“Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to read and spotlighting current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. For 40 years, the annual event has brought together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular. The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted for removal or restriction in libraries and schools. By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.” -American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom (ALA OIF)

The ALA OIF has been collecting data on book bans and challenges since 1990. Every year they compile a list of the top 10 most challenged books of the year. These lists are created from information from media stories and voluntary reports from communities across the United States. Here are the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2021.

#10 Beyond Magenta: Transgender and Nonbinary Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin

Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to be sexually explicit.
 
“Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender identity. Portraits, family photographs, and candid images grace the pages, augmenting the emotional and physical journey each youth has taken.” -Candlewick Press
This book is available in the Libby app!

#9 This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson

Banned, challenged, relocated, and restricted for providing sexual education and LGBTQIA+ content.
 
“Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Queer. Intersex. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who’s ever dared to wonder. This book is for YOU.” – SourceBooks
This book is available on the Libby app!

#8 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Banned and challenged because it depicts child sexual abuse and was considered sexually explicit.
 
“NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtly and grace.” – Penguin Random House
This book is available at Aurora Branch and on the Libby app!

#7 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Banned and challenged because it was considered sexually explicit and degrading to women.
 
“The New York Times bestselling novel that inspired the hit film! It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he’s figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. Make mediocre films with the one person who is even sort of his friend, Earl.” – Abrams Books
This book is available at the Aurora and Dillsboro Branches and on the Libby app!

#6 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Banned and challenged for profanity, sexual references, and use of a derogatory term.
 
“Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.” -Little Brown and Company
This book is available at the Aurora Branch and the Libby app!
 

#5 The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Banned and challenged for profanity, violence, and it was thought to promote an antipolice message and indoctrination of a social agenda.
 
“Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.” -HarperCollins Publishers
This book is available at the Aurora and Dillsboro Branches and on the Libby app!

#4 Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez

Banned, challenged, and restricted for depictions of abuse and because it was considered to be sexually explicit.
 
“‘This is East Texas, and there’s lines. Lines you cross, lines you don’t cross. That clear?’ New London, TX. 1937. Naomi Vargas is Mexican American. Wash Fuller is Black. These teens know the town’s divisive racism better than anyone. But sometimes the attraction between two people is so powerful it breaks through even the most entrenched color lines. And the consequences can be explosive.” -Holiday House
This book is available at the Aurora and Dillsboro Branches and on the Libby app!

#3 All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, profanity, and because it was considered to be sexually explicit.
 
“In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.” -MacMillan Publishers
This book is available on the Libby app!

#2 Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to be sexually explicit.
 
“In this funny, biting, touching, and ultimately inspiring novel, bestselling author Jonathan Evison takes the reader into the heart and mind of a young man determined to achieve the American dream of happiness and prosperity–who just so happens to find himself along the way.” -Workman Publishing
This book is not available at the Aurora Public Library District, but we would be happy to put in a Interlibrary Loan request for you!

#1 Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

Banned, challenged, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to have sexually explicit images.
 
“Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, and bonding with friends over gay fanfiction.” -Oni Press
This book is not available at the Aurora Public Library District, but we would be happy to put in a Interlibrary Loan request for you!

Want more banned books? You can find the top 10 lists from previous years here. The top 100 banned and challenged books from 2010-2019 can be found here.

Finding Things at Your Library

Have you been intimidated by finding things at your library? Do you want to know more about what services your library can offer you? Come to our Library Scavenger Hunt to become more familiar with where you might find things at your library. You will be able to work as a group to find your way through the library and you will leave an Expert Library Patron!

Winning patrons will receive awesome library swag!

Monday, Sept. 12 APL 2 pm
Thursday, Sept. 15 DPL 4 pm

Library Card Sign-Up Month

Find your Voice at the Library by securing your Library card in September! September marks the annual Library Card Sign-up Month and Aurora Public Library District is celebrating by helping our patrons to win musical prizes. If you renew & update your card, show your card, or sign up to get a new card, you will get a ticket to enter to win one of four great prizes:

  • 2 tickets to Roots and Books concert in Lawrenceburg
  • 4 tickets to Disney’s Descendants Musical at the Taft
  • 2 tickets to the Music for Charity event in Aurora
  • Beats headphones

You can enter once a day each time you flash your APLD card for entire month of September! New card members will also get a swag bag while supplies last! Drawing for prizes will take place at the end of the month.

Bleak Books with Olivia: Verity by Colleen Hoover

Have you ever read a book all the way through just to close it for the last time and say “wow, that was bleak”? Well, I’m here to make the case for those dark, dreary, haunting, and disturbing reads that keep you up at night long after you put them down. Welcome to Bleak Books with Olivia, your resident creepy book lover at the Aurora Public Library District.

I believe I am well overdue to hop on the Hoover Train. Her books have been flying off the shelves at our branches, and film rights have even been purchased already for some of her novels. Verity came to me in a peculiar way: I was in a long-distance book club with friends and we had already read It Ends With Us, another one of Hoover’s standalones. Although I wasn’t a massive fan of that book, my book club convinced me to give Colleen another try with Verity, and boy, I did not know what I was getting myself into.

Amazon.in: Buy Verity: The thriller that will capture your heart and blow your mind Book Online at Low Prices in India | Verity: The thriller that will capture your heart and blow

Verity introduces us to Lowen Ashleigh, a down-on-her luck author barely scraping by in New York City. She is about to be evicted when a wonderful opportunity caused by tragic events presents itself: fellow author Verity Crawford, who has experienced a James Patterson-level of success, was in a car accident and is catatonic, but her bestselling series remains unfinished. Jeremy, Verity’s husband, meets Lowen and asks her to take on the reins and ghostwrite for her to make the fans satisfied. Lowen hesitantly agrees, doubting her abilities, but is still whisked away to the Crawford estate, where she is meant to go through Verity’s notes and finish her series. She moves in with the family, including the couple’s son, Crew, and finds herself falling for Jeremy, the kindhearted pseudo-widow.

But, just up the stairs, Verity lies unconscious, but alive. Lowen can’t seem to shake the feeling that Verity is more aware and awake than first understood. This, paired with a frightening and disturbing manuscript found by Lowen that is seemingly written by Verity before her accident, slowly convinces Lowen that all is not as it seems.

This novel was stunningly unhinged. It was everything that modern Gothic fiction should be: terrifying, shocking, and a little absurd at times. Sure, there were some parts in this novel that made me roll my eyes at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, but for the rest of the novel, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. The end was breathtaking, to say the very least. I would recommend this book just based on pure shock value. Stick with horror, Colleen!

Thank you for joining me on this dissection of one of my favorite Bleak Books. I hope to see you again sometime soon! Please take a look in the Adult and Teen Fiction section at the Aurora and Dillsboro Public Libraries for my favorite Bleak Books, or check out our e-books on Libby. If you are looking for this specific title, you can use our catalog to locate it or ask a librarian for help! If you meet me in the library and have any Bleak Books suggestions, please let me know! I’m always looking for a new book to disrupt my life for a couple of weeks.

Scratch to Win

 

Are you in grade seven through twelve?

Come to the library everyday for a chance to win!

Get your coin ready, scratch to Win offers instant fun. Ask for a Scratch  ticket at the desk, if you get a “W”, you win a prize! You get to chose from a variety of prizes like sunglasses, temporary tattoos or candy. If you get an “L” you are entered into a second chance drawing for another great prize. June’s second chance prize is a 25 dollar gift card for Door Dash. A winner will be drawn on June 30th. July’s second chance is 25 dollars for Amazon and we’ll draw for that winner on July 27th! Stopping by the library is always a win!

 

While you’re at the library check out the selection of graphic novels, LGBTQ fiction, fantasy fiction and our newest collection of non-fiction that is just for you.

 

5 Things You *Probably* Didn’t Know About Jo Nesbø

 

1. He’s the most successful Norwegian author of all time.

As of March 2014, Nesbø has sold more than 3 million copies of his novels in Norway, and his work had been translated into more than 50 languages. As of 2021, he has sold around 50 million copies worldwide.

2. He wrote a children’s book series.

Nesbø published his first children’s book Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder in 2007. The series is set in Oslo, Norway, and follows the story of Doctor Proctor, a crazy professor waiting for his big break, his next-door neighbor Lisa and her peculiar friend Nilly, a short redheaded boy. Nesbø published the 5th book in the series in 2016. You can download the first three books in the series from the Libby app!

3. He almost played professional soccer directly out of high school.

As a high schooler, Nesbø’s greatest passion was playing soccer. He made his first appearance for Molde, a Premier League team in Norway, at the age of seventeen, and had plans to go on and play professionally in England for the Tottenham Hotspurs after graduation. Unfortunately, a knee injury stopped those plans. Instead, he went into the military and served for three years.

4. He graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration.

After his military service, Nesbø enrolled in the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration to study economics and financial analysis. After graduation, he became a stockbroker at a brokerage firm in Norway. Soon, he got tired of his day job and began writing songs in his free time.

5. He’s the main vocalist and songwriter for a Norwegian rock band.

Local History Library Grand Reopening!

The Aurora Public Library District has big plans in store for the Local History Library! We know you miss the Depot, but the building needs to remain closed for the next three months to put our plans into action. So don’t worry, because we’ll be back before you know it!

Some projects we have planned for the Local History Library include reorganization of reference items for easier patron access, added shelving for reference items, added tables and chairs for programs and meetings, a fresh coat of paint, and an overall rearrangement of shelves, desks, and tables to make the most of the space. Our main goal is to increase the usability of the building and make the space more user friendly and versatile for you, our patrons! So stay tuned, because in August the Local History Library is reopening for all your research, local history, and genealogy needs. If you need assistance before then, please feel free to reach out to us by phone (812-926-0646) or in person at the Aurora or Dillsboro Libraries.

The Local History Library will be re-opening on Tuesdays and Thursdays  and the third Saturday of the month beginning in August. Be sure to check out our events page or our Facebook and Instagram pages in the upcoming months for programs scheduled at the Local History Library once the building reopens. We can’t wait to see you again!