April 17th has several national topic celebrations and awarenesses. Let’s start with a holiday that falls on the third Wednesday of April. This year would be April 17, National Banana Day.
I have a very interesting book on Bananas, “The Banana, Its History, Cultivation, and Place Among Staple Foods” by Philip Keep Reynolds, 1927. Everything you could possibly question about bananas is in this book. We harvest bananas very similarly to what we did one hundred years ago. My grandmother told me a story how when a young child in the Appalachians, she was at a revival, near where her uncle had a small shop. He had a huge bunch of bananas and broke one off for her. She loved it and ate another, then another. After six or seven bananas, she got sick, and could no longer, for the rest of her life, eat a banana.
The next event on April 17 is World Hemophilia Day. This is for recognition and better understanding of blood disorders. My uncle had issues with Hemophilia.
I have a blood book, “Little Corpuscle, A Story about Blood” by Barbara Kidder, 1969. This is an old children’s book that explains what blood does, how it moves through the body, and foods that help keep blood healthy. I was drawn to the illustrations.
April 17 is also National Haiku Day. I have three books from my Peter Pauper Press collection. “Japanese Haiku” 1955, “The Four Seasons, Japanese Haiku Second Series” 1958, and “Cherry Blossoms, Japanese Haiku Series III” 1960. Each book has about 200 Haikus. When you sit and read just haikus, it is easier to get into the rhythm ot the poetry.
“Library bookworm
seeking curious volumes
to calm my psyche“
“Darkness falls outside
lone library reading light
illuminates joy”
“Surrounded by books
I breath and and feel and read them
It’s heaven on earth“
Librarytomes 