Mercer County Library Blog

If you know me well, I can be summed up as a “cat person.” Pet cats have been a part of my life since the beginning, starting with the fluffy, grey cat my parents adopted before I was born. In reality, this cat never liked me, but it was the start of a lifelong love of cats. Over the years, I’ve had a total of seven cats, as you can see in the following photos. I have bonded with these animals in several different ways, so they have always been considered family. I often feel like these cats, whom I loved with my whole heart, have turned me into the person I am today. According to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, children raised with pets can show the following benefits: Positive feelings can help a child’s self-esteem and self-confidence; Positive feelings help develop trusting relationships with others; These relationships can also help in developing non-verbal communication, compassion, & empathy. ( "Pets and Children", 2019) While t...

Until recently I ran a non-fiction book group at the library. Each month we would read a biography, memoir, or other genre of non-fiction literature and meet to discuss it. To keep things exciting, we read a lot of larger-than-life stories, like Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History by Tom O’Neill; Devil in the White City by Erik Larson; and The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester. Books with stories that can be - and have been - adapted for television or film. Books that conjure the age-old expression “truth is stranger than fiction.” But what about when the truth is not stranger than fiction? What about when the truth is just what it is, something we experience daily without giving it a second thought? Is that really so bad? After our book club stopped meeting, I found myself with some extra time to read. No longer burdened with the pressure of choosing how my fellow book club...

“Incredible India” is the phrase we often use while describing my motherland. India is a land of varied festivals, which include food and culture. Holi is one of the traditional Hindu holidays celebrated all over India, usually in March (depending on the calendar). Holi, popularly known as “the festival of colors” or “the spring festival”, is the time of year when the farmers harvest their crops. The onset of this colorful celebration ushers in the start of the festive mood. Numerous legends and stories are associated with Holi, which make it more vivid and exuberant. The popular legend goes that Holi is celebrated in memory of the divine love of devotee Radha for Lord Krishna (the worshipped God). The day of Holi is full of fun activities of togetherness among everyone. When I think of Holi, the first image which flashes in front of my eyes is the riot of color. As a child, my first chore on that day was to sprinkle colors on my grandparents’ feet and seek their blessings. Along wit...

 Dear Tech Guru, I am addicted to playing Wordle, Heardle, Nerdle, and so many of these other daily -rdle guessing games. Is there an easy way to access them without having to search for them every day on my smartphone's browser? Signed: I Don’t Use a Set Starting Word Hi Starting Word, I, too, am addicted to some of these games and can happily report an easy way to access them every day on both iOS and Android devices. For both operating systems, you have the option to save websites to the home screen. It's like bookmarking the page so you can quickly return to that website. This creates an icon on your device's home screen that you can tap on, like an app. You then can group all your games into a folder so you can easily find and access them each day. I do this on my phone in a group/folder called -dles. For iOS devices : To save a website to your home screen, click on the share icon, a square with an arrow pointing out of the top. Scroll down until you see Add to ...

Now that spring is fast approaching and gardeners are planning their gardens, here are some books on vegetable gardening from the Mercer County Library System collection to help you get growing! General guides: These include several books for people with space to cultivate an in-ground garden, for people with outdoor space like a deck or patio, and finally for people who have no access to outdoor space or who simply want to grow food indoors. The following books assume nothing and walk the novice gardener through every step of the process, but are also detailed enough to be of use to the more experienced gardener. Grow Great Vegetables in New Jersey by Marie Iannotti is a well-illustrated, month-by-month, guide to growing vegetables in New Jersey. It begins with a general section on preparing and planting the garden. This is followed by a guide on what needs to be done in the garden throughout the year with sections on planning, preparing an...

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari If you’re a horror fan and like mainstream horror franchises such as Scream , you may not be aware that some of the greatest horror scares may be found in the oddest, most obscure little corners of the genre. You may want to branch out and find some hidden gems in places you haven’t explored before. March 15 th , 2022 is the 100th anniversary of the premiere of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu . One of my most vivid childhood horror memories was seeing Max Schrek’s Count Orlock on late night TV. It scared me but also fascinated me because the atmosphere seemed so odd and unreal. That got me thinking about how horror movies and books outside the mainstream can make such a lasting impression. Some of the scariest horror movies that I saw when I was young were the silent horror films. Just because they were so odd and out-of-the ordinary, they had that extra scare factor. Do you wonder how and why those weird silent horror films ...

March 11 th is beloved children’s author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats’ birthday. This year, 2022, also marks the 60 th anniversary of his Caldecott Medal-winning book The Snowy Day ! Many articles and books have been written about this interesting author/illustrator. Here are just a few highlights that any fan should know. Ezra Jack Keats was born in 1916 as Jacob (Jack) Ezra Katz in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish, Jewish immigrant parents. The Katz family had little money. The dad worked in a coffee shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  Jack liked to draw from the time he was a boy. His father was concerned that this skill would not help Jack find employment that would pay the bills. Jack kept drawing; he was so good that he won a scholarship to go to art school. Tragically, his father passed away the day before his high school graduation and he had to decline the scholarship and work instead. All along, Jack was using his art skills. Even when he enlisted in the army...