March 8th today in the library. There are several famous events on this date: International Women’s Day, and National Proofreading Day. The first event is personal because of my five grandchildren-all girls (and Happy Birthday to the the middle one).
For International Women’s day, I have three interesting books:
“Girls Can Be Anything” by Norma Klein, 1973. This heroine in this kids book breaks the stereotypes of “can’t be a pilot-be a stewardess; can’t be a doctor-be a nurse; can’t be a woman president…not yet, but there have been are important women leaders already: Mrs Ghandi in India, and Mrs Meir in Israel.” So girls can do it.
“Stirring Stories for Girls” from 1930’s. Great adventures that I have read to my girls. There is a wonderful cover-art picture of a girl chased up a tree by a rhinoceros.
“Heads and Tales” by Malvina Hoffman, 1936. This is her story of learning to sculpt from Rodin, and then later being commissioned by Marshall Field to travel around the world for two years, taking pictures and making sculptures/busts from as many cultures and races as she could find. Her works were then put on display in the Hall of the Races of Mankind at the Field Museum.
It was quite an adventure for anyone, let alone a women in the 1930s. Some of her works are still on display, as shown by this picture my oldest granddaughter took at the Field Museum. I made her read the book first, then search for statues at the museum.
The second event is National Proofreading Day. My nieces put to me the challenge of what to say about this day. I have several books from the College of Journalism at NIU, and one from my mom’s classroom:
“Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary-second edition” is a nine and one-half pound book from my mom’s classroom. I presented it to her on her birthday in front of her class years ago. I will now have to give it to my daughter, another teacher that I am quite proud of (oops, I just spoiled that surprise).
“Grammar for Journalists” by E.L. Callihan, and “Stylebook and Libel Manual” by The Associated Press. They were both textbooks, and have been continued resources for me. I still look up things like where put punctuation when using parenthesis (I use too many). My daughter reminds me that there should only be one space now after a sentence, and that these books can be outdated.
I tell all of my girls that “the world is yours, just educate yourselves.” They will be OK. They also have no problem educating me.
Librarytomes 