This post is republished from the September–October issue of LCM, the Library of Congress magazine. Read the issue in its entirety online. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” ranks as one of the greatest American books for children, and its evocative original artwork today is both cherished and exceedingly rare. The phenomenally successful book, written by …
This is a guest blog post by Malavika Kannan, a senior from Seminole High School in Sanford, Florida. She is a national winner of the 2017–18 Letters About Literature contest, a reading and writing competition for students in grades four through 12 that involves reading a work and writing to its author (living or dead). …
This is a guest post by Lavonda Kay Broadnax, digital reference specialist in the Library’s Research and Reference Services Division. December is a month of holidays and festivities that bring families and friends together to celebrate their good fortune and look forward to the year ahead. For the enslaved couple William and Ellen Craft, the …
This is a guest blog post by Maya Mau, a 10th-grade student at West Windsor–Plainsboro High School North in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey. She is a national winner of the 2017–18 Letters About Literature contest, a reading and writing competition for students in grades four through 12 that involves reading a work and writing to …
This is a guest post by Ena Selimovic, a winner of this year’s National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest, which recognizes outstanding book collecting by college and university students. The Library co-sponsors the contest with the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America, the Fellowship of American Bibliographic Societies and the Grolier Club. Selimovic is working on a …
Crowds of book lovers happily took time out last Saturday from the holiday weekend to celebrate books at the Library of Congress’ 18th National Book Festival. Held in the Washington, D.C., Convention Center, the festival featured more than 100 authors of books of all kinds – presidential histories, memoirs, graphic novels, spy thrillers, illustrated children’s …
James McGrath Morris first came to the Library of Congress as a researcher in 1974. As a concerned citizen, he wanted to inform himself about a matter that was then in the news. President Richard Nixon had recently appointed Sen. William B. Saxbe of Ohio as attorney general to replace Elliot Richardson, who had resigned …
Legendary singer-songwriter Dolly Parton visited the Library on Feb. 28 to donate a book: the 100 millionth given away by her organization Imagination Library. For more than 20 years, Parton and Imagination Library have given books to children around the world. Along the way, she earned the nickname “book lady” from kids who received her …
A new book from Library of Congress historian John Y. Cole, “America’s Greatest Library: An Illustrated History of the Library of Congress,” tells the story of the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and how it came to be the world’s largest library. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden calls the Library “a place where you can …