"A Charlie Brown Christmas," the record album

One of the sad facts about the commercialization of the holiday season – for me, anyway — is that many Christmas carols I related to as a child have become so much sonic wallpaper.

On a positive note, though, my inner ear has anointed some tunes as “ex officio” holiday music – the entire Beatles album “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” for example, because my brother brought it home during holiday break from college the year it came out.  Similar status has been achieved by those wonderful jazz piano riffs by the Vince Guaraldi Trio – the ones that backed the Charlie Brown TV specials.

So I’m pleased that the soundtrack album to “A Charlie Brown Christmas” by the trio is among this year’s 10^th-anniversary additions to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Considering that the registry is chosen, each year, based on nominations, apparently Guaraldi and the Peanuts gang have leaked into other people’s collective subconscious as well.

This year’s list of 25 recordings deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant and therefore worthy of preservation range from the rare or singular to touchstones that form the soundtrack to people’s lives. Next year’s list is now being nominated – if you have suggestions, you can make them here.

You’ve got everything from the Thomas Edison company’s 1888 attempt to put a voice recording inside a doll (it didn’t work out very well — two other firms succeeded at this before the famous “Chatty Cathy” of the 1960s) and the Hawaiian slack-key guitar music of Gabby Pahinui (said to have influenced guitarists Ry Cooder, Leo Kottke and John Fahey) to the late Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love,” an anthem from the Disco era, and “Purple Rain” by Prince and the Revolution.

You’ve got interviews with U.S. citizens who were freed from slavery; a live performance by the Grateful Dead; Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors”; two signature tunes by the great Bo Diddley; and the New York Philharmonic conducting debut of one of the most famous classical-music conductors of the 20^th century, Leonard Bernstein.

The 2012 list:

1.    Edison Talking Doll cylinder (1888)

2.    “Come Down Ma Evenin’ Star,” Lillian Russell (1912)

3.    “Ten Cents a Dance,” Ruth Etting (1930)

4.    “Voices from the Days of Slavery,” Various speakers (1932-1941 interviews; 2002 compilation)

5.    “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart,” Patsy Montana (1935)

6.    “Fascinating Rhythm,” Sol Hoopii and his Novelty Five (1938)

7.    “Artistry in Rhythm,” Stan Kenton & and his Orchestra (1943)

8.    Debut performance with the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein (Nov. 14, 1943)

9.    International Sweethearts of Rhythm: Hottest Women’s Band of the 1940s (1944-1946)

10.                  “The Indians for Indians Hour” (March 25, 1947)

11.                  “Hula Medley,” Gabby Pahinui (1947)

12.                  “I Can Hear It Now,” Fred W. Friendly and Edward R. Murrow (1948)

13.                  “Let’s Go Out to the Programs,” The Dixie Hummingbirds (1953)

14.                  “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1954, 1958)

15.                  “Bo Diddley” and “I’m a Man,” Bo Diddley (1955)

16.                  “Green Onions,” Booker T. & the M.G.’s (1962)

17.                  “Forever Changes,” Love (1967)

18.                  “The Continental Harmony: Music of William Billings,” Gregg Smith Singers (1969)

19.                  “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” Vince Guaraldi Trio (1970)

20.                  “Coat of Many Colors,” Dolly Parton (1971)

21.                  “Mothership Connection,” Parliament (1975)

22.                  Barton Hall concert by the Grateful Dead (May 8, 1977)

23.                  “I Feel Love,” Donna Summer (1977)

24.                  “Rapper’s Delight,” Sugarhill Gang (1979)

25.                  “Purple Rain,” Prince and the Revolution (1984)

While others critique the nation’s schools’ effectiveness in teaching the three Rs—reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic—actor and activist Richard

Law Day was celebrated at the Library of Congress on May 1 with an address by Richard Dreyfuss in the Coolidge Auditorium. / Abby Brack Lewis

Dreyfuss is on a crusade to teach the fourth R—republican democracy. His cause célèbre is the restoration of civics education, to ensure that young people understand and perpetuate our unique form of government.

“This country is a miracle and the whole world knows it, except Americans, because we don’t teach it,” said Dreyfuss, during his May 1 talk at the Library of Congress, hosted by the Law Library, to commemorate Law Day, a national day to celebrate the rule of law and its contributions to the freedoms that Americans enjoy.

The webcast can now be viewed at here.

Law Day was a fitting occasion for Dreyfuss to spread his gospel of good government and good citizenship. He has been traveling the nation for the past seven years advocating the teaching of civics and the restoration of civil debate in America. In 2010, he founded The Dreyfuss Initiative, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate the next generation about America’s system of government and how to participate in it.

Dreyfuss announced that the organization has its eye on the George Washington family property in West Virginia, on which it would like to build “the first institute for the study of Enlightenment values.” Those values, explained Dreyfuss, had a major impact on the Founding Fathers, who fought against the tyranny of a monarchy and created a republican democracy.

Says Dreyfuss, “We must teach our kids how to run our country with common sense and realism, before it’s time for them to run the country. If we don’t, someone else will run this nation and the experiment of government by, for, and of the people will have failed.”

The Library of Congress is doing its part in assisting educators in teaching American history using primary sources that are available on the Library’s website. Library of Congress resources that educators can use for civics education can be found here.

The concert will feature performances by major stars including Sheryl Crow, Michael Feinstein, Diana Krall, Mike Myers, Lyle Lovett, Rumer, Sheléa, Arturo Sandoval and Stevie Wonder.

In September, the Library announced that Bacharach and David would be the fourth recipients of the prize, which celebrates lifetime achievement in popular song. President Barack Obama presented the award to “the two kings of songwriting” at the White House during the performance.

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said of the legendary duo, “”The timeless hits by Burt Bacharach and Hal David have helped launch the careers of many of our nation’s most celebrated performers, and they continue to be played on iPods, radio, television, in movies, and performed in cabarets and on the Broadway stage. Their creative talents have inspired songwriters for more than five decades, and their legacy is much in the tradition of George and Ira Gershwin, for whom this award is named.”

Authors will include towering American novelist Philip Roth and Nobel Prize-winner Mario Vargas Llosa; the irrepressible T.C. Boyle (some of you know him as T. Coraghessan Boyle); Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists Geraldine Brooks,  Jeffrey Eugenides and Junot Diaz; poets Nikky Finney (winner of the 2011 National Book Award), Philip Levine (the U.S. Poet Laureate, 2011-2012) and Joy Harjo (also a musician, playwright and memoirist).; mystery writers Patricia Cornwell and Lisa Scottoline; graphic novelist Craig Thompson; and historians Robert Caro and Elizabeth Dowling Taylor.

There’s more! Authors, poets, or illustrators Natalie Babbitt, Bob Balaban, Stephen L. Carter, Sandra Cisneros, Michael Connelly, Thomas Friedman, Steve Inskeep, Walter Isaacson, Jewel, Mike Lupica, Lois Lowry, David Maraniss, Chris Matthews, Walter Dean Myers, Mary Pope Osborne, Chris Raschka, Marilynne Robinson, R.L. Stine, Colson Whitehead and Daniel Yergin are in the lineup.

Also, don’t miss … Katherine Applegate, Avi, Fergus Bordewich, Natalie Pope Boyce, Christopher Bram, Giannina Braschi, Peter Brown, Douglas Brinkley, Bryan Collier, James Dashner, Anna Dewdney, Michael Dirda, Maria Dueñas, Stephen Dunn, John A. Farrell, Sharon Flake, John Gaddis, Michael Grant, Linda Greenhouse, Jenny Hahn, Charlaine Harris, Paul Hendrickson, Ellen Hopkins, Nalo Hopkinson, Tony Horwitz, Eloise James, Tayari Jones, Laura Kasischke, Charles Kupchan, Hope Larson, David Levithan, Margot Livesey, Thomas Mallon, Leonard Marcus, Sonia Manzano, Steven Millhauser, Corey Olsen, Patricia Polacco, Laura Amy Schlitz, Francesca Serritella, Susan Richards Shreve, Anita Silvey, Sally Bedell Smith, Jerry Spinelli, Philip C. and Erin E. Stead, Margie Stiefvater, David Ezra Stein, David O. Stewart, Raina Telgemeier, Jeffrey Toobin, Justin Torres, Vernor Vinge, Siobhan Vivian, Eric Weiner and Jacqueline Woodson.

There will be even more authors.  To find out who they are, watch for updates on this blog – or go to the National Book Festival website at www.loc.gov/bookfest/ where you will find author updates, author bios, great photos, and soon, the festival poster by delightful artist Rafael López.

Festival-goers heading for the pavilions of the 2011 National Book Festival

The 12th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival will be on Saturday, Sept. 22 and Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012, between 9th and 14th streets on the National Mall.  The event, free and open to the public, will run from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and from noon to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, rain or shine.

Be there!

Terri Nunn performs at the ASCAP "We Write the Songs" concert. / Abby Brack

On Tuesday, the Library hosted the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation for its annual event “We Write the Songs,” a night of songwriters performing their own tunes and telling the stories behind their creations. And, some of the performers were a throwback to my fondest memories growing up in the 1980s.

While “Riding on a Metro” will always remain my favorite song by Berlin, singer Terri Nunn didn’t disappoint with the group’s other hit song, “Take My Breath Away” – perhaps even doing just that to the audience as she left the stage to sing among them. The song was a classic one for the decade, from the soundtrack of one of the ultimate 80s movies – “Top Gun.”

Ray Parker Jr. / Abby Brack

Speaking of 80s movies, Ray Parker Jr. didn’t disappoint singing his hit – the theme song to “Ghostbusters.” Who you gonna call?

Although popularized by Harry Belafonte, Irving Burgie’s “Day-O (Banana Boat Song)” was really given the star treatment in the 1988 film “Beetlejuice,” which is one of my all-time favorites as well. Burgie also performed “Jamaica Farewell.”

Others performing were Stephen Bishop, Melanie, Dan Foliart, Dino Fekaris, Chris Stapleton, Stephen Schwartz, Valerie Simpson (of Ashford & Simpson fame) and ASCAP president Paul Williams.

The Library is home to the ASCAP collection, which includes music manuscripts, printed music, lyrics (both published and unpublished), scrapbooks, correspondence and other personal, business, legal and financial documents, scrapbooks, and film, video and sound recordings.

Valerie Simpson / Abby Brack

Established in 1914, ASCAP is the first United States Performing Rights Organization (PRO), representing the world’s largest repertory of more than 8.5 million copyrighted musical works of every style and genre from more than 350,000 songwriter, composer and music-publisher members.

George Mendonsa (AFC/2001/001/42868), Photograph (PH01), Alfred Eisenstaedt photographer, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

It’s probably one of the most iconic photographs of our time – a nurse seen swept into the arms of a sailor as the two get lost in a kiss. Sigh. The photo was taken on Victory Over Japan Day (V-J Day) at the end of World War II. But the identity of the subjects remained a mystery until now. Over the years, many have claimed to be the two.

Authors George Galdorisi and Lawrence Verria say the famous couple is George Mendonsa and Greta Zimmer Friedman, both now 89 years old. They discuss their findings in their book, “The Kissing Sailor.” Galdorisi and Verria used forensic analysis and other methods to uncover the mystery.

The oral histories of both Mendonsa and Friedman are part of the collections of The Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress.

Washington, D.C.’s own ABC-7 interviewed Friedman, who is a Frederick, Md., resident, for a piece that aired on yesterday’s evening broadcast.

The Huffington Post also reported on the story earlier this month.

Walter Dean Myers interacts with kids at the Library

Take 550 grade- and middle-school kids; put ‘em in a room with an amazing author they know and love; add a barrage of questions about the creative process and a dash of humor.

One hour later, open the doors and stand back as a large flock of reading would-be writers burst out upon the world!

Today, Walter Dean Myers, in dialogue with just such a crowd of engaged kids from several District of Columbia-area elementary and middle schools, talked about how he became the award-winning author of more than 100 books – indeed, about how he became the Library of Congress National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. In a talk at the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium, Myers told the entranced crowd that a story requires “an interesting character with an interesting problem.”

As he invited his audience to think of the times they’ve snapped out of a daydream to ask, “How did I get here,” he revealed elements of his own life that tabbed him as an interesting character who lived through a set of interesting problems.

First off, he was born Walter Milton Myers.  But he became Walter Dean Myers after being brought up by foster parents named Dean, in Harlem.

His foster father couldn’t read, but his foster mother liked romance magazines, and as he followed her finger following the text as she read aloud, he began to put the words on the page together with what she was saying.

He became an avid reader of everything from his neighbor’s discarded comic books to “Robin Hood,” in which he visualized himself as the outsize character “Little John.”

But Myers had a couple of interesting problems: he dropped out of school at 15, preferring basketball and baseball to school.  And he liked to read, but he lived in a neighborhood where that wasn’t considered cool – so he hid his library books in a big paper grocery sack to stay out of fights on the way home.

After a stint in the Army – and the death of his brother, who was also a soldier of the Vietnam War era – Myers began to write.  He wrote about what he knew – basketball, Harlem, Vietnam. Some of it wasn’t good, but he developed a discipline about it and got better and better. And he started to make a living at it.

Every day, Myers said, he’ll wake up between 4:30 and 5 a.m., make some coffee and “feed my wife’s little ugly cat.”  Then he’ll start writing – five pages a day, five days a week. “I write more than anybody in their right mind would publish, but I still love it,” he said.

“It’s a great life.”

Myers’ theme this year as National Ambassador is: “Reading is Not Optional.”  In remarks he made when he was named to the post earlier this year, he noted that his great life was made possible by being a good reader – and that the jobs of today require an ability to read.

His talk today memorialized the late Jonah Solkoff Eskin, an avid young reader whose family honors his memory by supporting an annual lecture at the Library by a major children’s author. His parents, Barney and Marcia, were there, along with his brother Lee, other family members and friends.

As the 550 kids burst out of the auditorium today – jazzed by Myers’ talk and eager to visit the Library’s Young Readers Center, participate in the D.C. Public Library’s summer reading program and a “Book That Shaped Me” essay contest the Library of Congress is locally sponsoring as part of the lead-up to its September National Book Festival – you could almost feel the heft of the books many of them will read, and write, in your empty hand.

Burt Bacharach / Abby Brack

Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The prize commemorates George and Ira Gershwin, the legendary American songwriting team whose extensive collection resides in the Library of Congress.

The all-star tribute concert featured performances by Sheryl Crow, Michael Feinstein, Diana Krall, Mike Myers, Lyle Lovett, Rumer, Sheléa, Arturo Sandoval and Stevie Wonder.

Dionne Warwick / Abby Brack

Dionne Warwick’s performance of “What the World Needs Now is Love” had the crowd singing along. In 1965, Bacharach and David wrote the song but shelved it as a flop. David was stuck on what should come after the line, “No, not just for some, but for everyone.” Then, one day, he thought of, “Lord, we don’t need another mountain,” and all at once knew how the lyric should be written. It had taken him two years to get it right. Bacharach immediately came back to the table with the backing music. Still, the duo was disenchanted and put the song away again. A day came when they were short of songs for a recording session. This one was pulled and the rest, as they say, is history.

Mike Myers / Abby Brack

Perhaps taking away best-dressed honors was actor Myers, who peeled off his suit to reveal a sparkly Elvis Presley-like jumpsuit. If you’re familiar with the comedian’s “Austin Powers” movies, you’ll recall that Bacharach had cameos in all three and much of his music was an inspiration for them.

An emotional Bacharach said, “This is the whole conglomeration of my work that I’ve done. So it’s the best of all awards possible. I mean that with all my heart.”

Something about his fan mail disturbs Walter Dean Myers.

Walter Dean Myers visits with students at 13th Avenue School in Newark, N.J., as part of the My Very Own Library literacy initiative, supported by the Foundation for Newark’s Future, the city of Newark and Ms. Anne Feely.

Myers, the author of critically acclaimed books for young people such as “Monster,” “Fallen Angel” and “Lockdown,” appreciates the gesture.

But in too many of the letters, evidence of a serious decline in the reading and writing skills among the youth of America is painfully obvious.

“It used to be that when you got fan mail, you could look at the letter and guess the age – oh, this is from a second grader, this is from a third grader,” Myers says. “Today, it could be from a high school kid, the writing is so bad and the spelling is so bad. There is a noticeable difference.”

Myers now has a new platform from which to address the issue, one he believes is critical – in January, he was inaugurated as the national ambassador for young people’s literature in a ceremony at the Library of Congress.

Myers returns to the Library on Friday, May 11 at 11 a.m. for a Children’s Book Week program in the Coolidge Auditorium, where he will read from his work and discuss the importance of literacy for young people.

The event, supported by the Jonah S. Eskin Memorial Fund, is free and open to the public. No tickets are required.

Myers used to get about two invitations a week from schools, libraries and other groups for appearances at literary events – a number that has increased to about six since he became ambassador.

Such programs, he says, can be “a bit frustrating”: Those who attend generally need no convincing of the importance of reading, and Myers especially wants to reach the audience most in need of help.

“Most of the programs are for people who read well,” he says. “I thought [as ambassador] I would emphasize people who read badly.”

With that in mind, Myers selected “reading is not optional” as the theme of his two-year ambassadorship – a theme that makes clear his belief in the necessity of reading to a prosperous life.

That, the 75-year-old Myers says, wasn’t as true when he was a kid.

Then, 15 families lived in his building in Harlem. One of the men worked for the postal service, and all the others worked in factory or service jobs.

“They didn’t have to read and write,” Myers says. “If you didn’t have the ability to read in those days, you could still make a living, you could still feed your family. Today, you can’t do that.”

As ambassador, Myers hopes to convince the young people most at risk of that.

“I’m more open to poorer schools,” he says. “I’m more open to kids who are further behind.”

His schedule illustrates his approach: Myers, naturally, includes visits to book festivals and libraries but also, for example, a visit to a juvenile detention center in Delaware, a Skype session with students at a school for children with learning disabilities in New Jersey and a visit to a detention center in Tennessee.

“Some of these kids are so far behind,” Myers says. “It’s very, very sad. What are they going to do? …  “Are they going to be unemployed or underemployed all their lives because they don’t have the education to take meaningful jobs and they don’t have the education to change jobs?”

Part of the problem, he says, is people are reluctant to address the issue directly.

“We need to change the environment in an important way, and we need to have people with the guts to speak about it,” Myers says. “Right now as a society, we’re loath to speak about it because we don’t want to be viewed as blaming the poor. We don’t want to be viewed as being racist.

“The way to go is to confront the problem and change the atmosphere – begin to tell children and their families and communities that reading is not something that is going to be a pleasant adjunct to their lives, but it is going to be something that is fundamental to their existence.”

Myers learned that himself the hard way.

He was born in Martinsburg, W.Va., during the Great Depression. His mother died when he was very young. His father gave him to a Harlem couple, Herbert and Florence Dean, to raise.

Herbert Dean – who, Myers discovered only after his death, was illiterate – worked his entire adult life as a janitor. Florence Dean cleaned houses and worked in a button factory.

When Myers was 13, his uncle was murdered, his stepfather went into depression, and his stepmother became a “full-fledged alcoholic.”

Myers attended Stuyvesant High School – a school for smart kids – but couldn’t stay out of trouble. He suffered a speech impediment. He got into fights, skipped classes and, at 17, dropped out of school and joined the Army.

All along, he read – even though he couldn’t relate to classical literature. “Nothing in my life was in any of those books,” he says.

At 20, he read a short story in a literary quarterly by James Baldwin, who was raised about a half-mile from where Myers lived in Harlem.

The story was “Sonny’s Blues,” and it was set in Harlem – a revelation to Myers.

“I was just amazed that anybody was writing about Harlem,” he says.

Eventually, Myers began to write – first short fiction about sports and later about the most difficult period of his life, his teens.

“I never thought I’d make a living at writing, but it made me feel good about myself since I hadn’t finished high school,” he says.

Now, 58 years after he dropped out of high school, Myers is the acclaimed author of more than 100 books – stories for young people that explore serious and often bleak subjects.

“Fallen Angels” tells of a Harlem teenager who volunteers to serve in Vietnam after his dreams of attending college fail. “Dope Sick” chronicles the experiences of a 17-year-old with a drug habit. “Monster,” for which Myers won the Michael L. Printz Award in 2000, follows a 16-year-old in Harlem who is charged with murder.

“I want kids to say, my neighborhood is not that bad if Walter Dean Myers can write about it,” Myers says. “Let me read what he has to say.”

Myers first began visiting prisons many years ago – he wanted to understand the path from innocent third grader to criminal.

Those inmates, he figured, were too old to help. Maybe, though, he could use the insights gained during his youth to help a younger generation in juvenile detention centers.

“When I tell people that I was given away when I was 3 to some family friends, they recognize this,” Myers says. “They want to know how I felt at that time because they want to compare it to how they feel.”

That, he says, helps inspire what he writes – and what he chooses to do as the ambassador for young peoples literature.

“What I want to do for the two years that I’m the ambassador, I want to be useful,” he says. “How I can be useful is to take all the research on literacy and writing and make it into a public discussion. I want to change the discussion from the idea of reading as a pleasant and wonderful thing you can add to your life to reading as something that you absolutely have to have in your life.

“Reading is not optional.”

More information about the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature is available here.

“On one level, the collection is a valuable inventory of gardens at a time when landscape design rose with the nation’s wealth and cultural aspirations but then disappeared during the Great Depression,” wrote Post reporter Adrian Higgins. “For Johnston admirers, the images represent a true artist at work, one who would manipulate her pictures at every stage in pursuit of the perfect evocation of a given garden.”

In addition, the Library has continued to make strides in identifying images of the Civil War soldiers in its Liljenquist collection. Ramona Martinez of National Public Radio did a little investigating of her own in trying to find out about a Union soldier. Her discoveries sounded pretty convincing, until she hit a snag …

While maybe not known for photographs, Lee Strasberg certainly helped put people in pictures. The renowned acting instructor – father of the Method style – helped kick-start the careers of James Dean, Al Pacino and Marilyn Monroe, among others. The Library recently acquired his personal papers thank to a generous donation from his widow, Anna, and son, Adam. Picking up the announcement was Variety, Associated Press, The Examiner, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

Recently the Library marked Preservation Week with a series of events on how to care for and preserve precious mementos, including photographs and paper documents. In fact, the Library works hard to make sure its own collections are preserved and accessible for generations to come. Its Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation is a hub of such activity. The Washington Post ran an article on the work it’s doing to safeguard our “obsolete technology” and pop culture.

“Maybe preservation is overrated, really, if what we’re preserving is the rise and fall of Susan Lucci’s hair, the never-ending ‘American Pie’ franchise, the extemporaneous Twitter feed,” wrote reporter Monica Hesse. “But then, our recent past it not any trashier than the pop culture of more distant pasts; the difference is that much of that trash ended up in the garbage. There is meaning in the gleaming blond of Ricky Schroder’s hair; we’re just not far enough away to understand it yet, and by the time we are, the tape will have disintegrated.”