Mercer County Library Blog

As school and public libraries continue to be targeted with challenges to their collections, I really enjoyed watching this documentary about the librarians around the country who are striving to protect the rights of readers. The Librarians has been screened at more than 50 domestic and international film festivals since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, and has earned 22 awards as of this writing. It is being broadcast until May 9 by PBS Independent Lens. I had the pleasure of meeting one of the librarians who is featured in the film. Martha Hickson, now retired, was an award-winning school librarian at North Hunterdon (NJ) High School when a parent began organizing to try to remove books such as Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison from shelves--without following collection development procedures. Hickson’s resistance to removing these titles led to her receiving online threats and in-person harassment. Other librarians in Texas, Florida, and Louisiana endured the same. While depic...

In the past year, I have fallen in love with graphic novels. Though I’ve read a handful of them before, it wasn’t until recently that I began to open myself up to everything that the medium can be. Adult, young adult, or juvenile. Sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, drama, horror, or any other genre. Fiction or nonfiction. Stand-alone or multi-book series. Comic books, newspaper strips, manga, or webcomics. Traditionally or independently published. It can be easy to pigeonhole the medium to the same few categories you are used to when you encountering them, but if you do so, you’re missing the forest for the trees! What makes a graphic novel so special? Why not read a written novel or watch an animated movie instead? Well, that is because by doing so not only would you miss out on so many stories and authors that specialize in this medium, but you could never witness the beauty that can only be found here. A book and a movie cannot be written in the same way. Prose written to reflect a cinemat...

Eid Mubarak! On Saturday, March 14 th , we celebrated Eid al-Fitr at the Hightstown Branch with crafts, decorations, and snacks. This was our third year doing the program and the most successful one yet. It’s always wonderful to see everything come together after working so hard to create a program that will be enjoyable for both people who are familiar with the holiday, and those who are not. Growing up in New Jersey with no close relatives and few families that my parents knew well, Eid was always hit or miss. We would go to prayer in the morning, my sister and I would put mehndi (henna art) on each other, and we would eat seviyan (a pudding made with thin pasta). The rest of the day was not spent doing much. Occasionally, we would be invited to lunch or dinner at someone’s house, which for kids was more boring than being home and watching TV. We did not really decorate the house, except for putting up Christmas lights outside when Ramadan started. However, my parents would sometime...

When I was a freshman in high school, one of my friends created a manga club and asked all of her friends if they would consider going to it. I had never read manga before, but decided to give it a shot because my friend was so enthusiastic about it. Some recommendations she gave me remain some of my favorites to this day. (In case you were wondering, she suggested Death Note , Yu-Gi-Oh , and Fairy Tail . All still great choices to read.) I didn’t have much time for extracurricular reading while in college, but now that I’ve been working at MCLS, I’ve had time to pick up manga again, and some of the series that have come out are amazing! I have probably over a dozen series I’d love to recommend; here are some that are available at the Mercer County Library System: Firstly, I’d like to suggest Jujutsu Kaisen (JJK). It’s a blend of urban fantasy, supernatural horror, and action-adventure. We follow Japanese high school student Yuji Itadori as he is dragged into jujutsu society, a hidd...

July is Graphic Novels in Libraries Month. To celebrate this occasion, we’re going to look at anime – which has many connections and crossovers into graphic novels. Stop by your local Mercer County Library System branch to see our great selection of anime and graphic novel materials, or check them out at mcl.org! The first anime I ever saw was Neon Genesis Evangelion . It was on a VHS tape from Blockbuster Video. I remember being captivated by the detailed visuals and the story of a boy my age that operated a giant robot and lived with a cool lady and a penguin. The fact that Evangelion was able to shift from dark and moody to absurd and light hearted isn’t lost on me – or any other anime fan. It’s a genre that is as varied as any other storytelling medium. There were a lot of ways to watch anime, but I personally liked getting up early and catching an episode of Dragon Ball Z before I went to school. It was a show about a group of friends who fought aliens and went on adventures. ...

Are you prepared? Are you prepared to celebrate the King of the Monsters? Well, you better get prepared because November 3 rd is Godzilla’s 70 th anniversary! For those who don’t know, Godzilla is a kaiju (giant monster) that debuted in the 1954 film classic, Godzilla (called Gojira in its home country of Japan). Godzilla would go on to star in thirty-eight films and become a bona fide pop culture icon, featured in comic books, advertisements, toys, cartoons, video games, web series, and more. Just this year, Big G starred in a movie with longtime frenemy King Kong, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire . But how did this symbol of kaiju excellence become such a huge part of the culture? As I mentioned, Godzilla debuted in 1954 post-war Japan as an ancient reptile mutated by a hydrogen bomb test, causing him to rise from his ocean slumber and attack Japan. Do not commit that origin story to memory, because it will change several times throughout the King of the Monsters’ history. H...

July was Graphic Novels in Libraries Month! Despite the old stigma of graphic novels being ‘just comic books for kids,’ graphic novels hold much literary value, which is why the library celebrates them during July. Graphic novels are a great way to bridge the gap between upper Juvenile and Young Adult, make reading more accessible for bilingual students, and bring in new readers who might find larger chapter books daunting. Graphic novels also help young readers explore and foster artistic expression through the many different styles that each illustrator and author bring to their stories. A multitude of informational and emotional resonance can be expressed in just one panel! In recent years, graphic novels have become so beloved in libraries that the American Library Association put together the Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable, which is an affiliated organization that promotes, advocates, and even provides grants for graphic novel collections in libraries (how cool is that?)! I...

I first watched Venom (2018) at the end of 2019—pretty late to the game—mostly because the trailers made the movie come off as nothing more than your run-of-the-mill superhero movie. Tom Hardy was eventually the turning point for me as his acting is fun to watch and his portrayal of Bane, another comic villain in Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies , gave me hope. Suffice to say, I was extremely surprised with how much I liked the movie. My initial review on Letterboxd was: ★★★★★ Not the movie I expected, but definitely the movie that I needed. I loved it so much! "We are Venom" !!!!!!!! I'm so excited Yes, not very elegant or anything particularly insightful from Post-Movie-Me, but can’t you just feel my excitement (or at least see that I wrote I was excited)? This is why I am thrilled for Friday, October 1st, when Venom: Let There Be Carnage hits the theaters. We get more of Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and we get to finally see Woody Harrelson as serial killer Cletus ...