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Category: Books

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Rare Books: “A Child’s Garden of Verses”

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This is a guest post by digital library specialist Elizabeth Gettins. It coincides with the posting of additional illustrations from the Library’s 1895 edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses” on the Library’s Pinterest site. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) spent his childhood in the cold and damp of Edinburgh, Scotland, his dedicated …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Did Galileo Own the Library’s Copy of ‘The Starry Messenger’?

Posted by: Carla D. Hayden

Asking intriguing questions can be a great way to encourage research and creative thinking. The answer to this particular question was at first disappointing. Two experts, a historian and a rare book librarian, both said that although Galileo wrote “The Starry Messenger,” he did not himself own the copy of the book now in the …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Inquiring Minds: Author Takes a Deep Dive into the Library

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Barb Rosenstock writes children’s books about people who have changed history — Ben Franklin, Theodore Roosevelt, Joe DiMaggio and racing legend Louise Smith among them. “The Noisy Paint Box,” her story about the artist Kandinsky, was a 2015 Caldecott Honor Book. In 2013, she published “Thomas Jefferson Builds a Library” about Jefferson’s massive book collection, …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

My Job at the Library: Cataloging Children’s Literature

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This interview with Ann Sullivan was first published in the September–October issue of LCM, the Library of Congress magazine. The issue is available in its entirety online. After reading the interview, make sure to take the quiz that follows! How would you describe your work? I catalog children’s books at the Library of Congress. This …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Page from the Past: Over the Rainbow, Into the Library

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

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 …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

An 1848 Christmas Story: The Gift of Freedom

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

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 …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Letters About Literature: A Life-Changing Book

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

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 …