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Boost Your Mental Health With Kris Hickey in OH
44 Plays18 days ago
Recent Reads:
- Maria: Liars by Sarah Manguso
- Kris: Sirens by Emilia Heart
Reccommendations:
- New: Witchcraft For Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
- Backlist: Terrace Story by Hilary Leitcter
- Local: There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqip
Book End: Boost Your Mental Health
- Something in the Woods Loves You by Jarod K. Anderson
- 10% Happier by Dan Harris
- The Book of Joy by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu
https://www.columbuslibrary.org/school-help/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'The Checkout Stack'
Meet Chris Hickey, Librarian
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Checkout Stack, where we talk books with a new librarian every episode. i am your host and the world's biggest library superfan, Maria Scogin, and I'm so excited to introduce our guest today, Chris Hickey from Columbus, Ohio.
00:00:34
Speaker
Chris, thank you for being here today. Can you please introduce yourself to our guests and tell us a little about you and your library? Okay, my name is, like you said, Chris Hickey. I work for Columbus Metropolitan Library, so it is... um i the city of Columbus, but also a number of suburbs.
00:00:53
Speaker
We have 21 locations and we're a very big system and um it's a great it's a great library. I'm super proud to work here.
Youth Services at Columbus Library
00:01:03
Speaker
Great. What is your role in the library?
00:01:05
Speaker
I'm the youth services manager at one of our branches called Whetstone. And so I'm in charge of anything for children and teens all the way from birth to gra high school graduation. So things like the school help center, our story times, um summer reading challenge, all those things. I'm in charge of that.
00:01:25
Speaker
Ooh, a good summer reading challenge definitely gives me a nostalgia. think when I was a kid, it was like Pizza Hut. And sometimes if you read enough books, you could get ah pass to our wave pool, which was like the really big, cool thing to get at the end of the summer.
00:01:40
Speaker
That would be a very cool thing. and but We do have something kind of like that where people get a discount to go to Zumbizi Bay, which is wave pool and water slides and all that good stuff.
00:01:52
Speaker
Fun. Great. Well, let's dive into
Book Discussion: 'Liars' and 'Sirens'
00:01:56
Speaker
books. ah I will kick us off with a recent read. I just finished the book Liars by Sarah Manguso.
00:02:05
Speaker
but This is a work of literary fiction, which is my favorite genre. And it is the story of an unhappy marriage from beginning to end. At the beginning of the book, I thought it was just about kind of the ways that patriarchy shows up in heterosexual relationships. And that made me pretty uncomfortable because the ways the main character kind of diminished herself and let her partner take the take the steering wheel when she didn't need to felt like too close to home for me in just like my history of dating but as the book progresses it becomes less about what I would consider like standard ways that that shows up and it goes more into what does it look like if you also have a narcissistic spouse who goes beyond just kind of
00:02:57
Speaker
the ways that they've been raised and expecting different things from a partnership towards like really manipulating you into not recognizing what the true story is anymore.
00:03:08
Speaker
So that kind of comes with all kinds of trigger warnings if you're not into that kind of story but I found it very compelling. It also explored a lot about the narratives we tell ourselves. One of the things the author would do is give the same life story, but in a different voice to herself. And it changed the way she was convincing herself something either was or wasn't normal.
00:03:30
Speaker
And I thought that was really interesting. So that was Liars by Sarah Manguso. That sounds really good. I did really like it. It was hard. But the other thing I really liked about it was I'm a big fan of a book where you just get to hate a character.
00:03:47
Speaker
Like there's no redeeming qualities and you just get to like put all of your rage into that character. And her husband as a character, there's just nothing redeeming about him. And so that can be kind of fun sometimes. Yeah.
00:04:03
Speaker
All right, Chris, what was your recent read? So I just finished a book and it comes out April 1st. So I had an advanced reader copy of Sirens by Amelia Hart. And Amelia Hart is a bestselling author of the book Wayward, which was very popular witch book.
00:04:19
Speaker
This one, the Sirens is about merpeople. So mermaids, essentially. So it's about two sisters. And there's a lot of mystery bit with their background and they can't get wet.
00:04:35
Speaker
So they believe that they have some kind of condition where like if, if they, if their skin gets wet, it starts to like scale and get really itchy and flake off.
00:04:47
Speaker
And so they, they stay away from the water because of this. So But we what we find out is there's something very different about them and what will happen if they continue to get wet.
00:04:58
Speaker
And one of the sisters has gone missing. So, um but she's figured out something else about herself. So there is a mystery in this town where the older sister disappears too.
00:05:13
Speaker
And is she who she thinks she is? you'll You'll find out. But it's really good. She's great at describing a place. and describing the magical realism, which is just that it's not full fantasy, but it's set in our world, but it has magical elements.
00:05:30
Speaker
And it's, so it's somewhat believable and um it has two different time periods. So we are in the time period of the sisters, but then we're also, we go back in time to a prison boat that has taken, this taking women from Ireland to Australia.
00:05:48
Speaker
And what happens during this voyage with these two sisters who are from Ireland and have a similar situation with the two sisters in our time period.
00:06:01
Speaker
And I don't want to give any more away, but it is page turner. It's beautifully written and the visuals are beautiful. We've got this coastal area of Australia. There are these caves known as like the devil caves and And um things have happened there, which become part of the story.
00:06:20
Speaker
Interesting. So the second timeline, that's kind of going back to when we used to just ship off criminals to Australia and like leave them there.
00:06:33
Speaker
That's a fascinating part of the, that's interesting. Yes, that's real. That that happened. they would They would take women from these other countries. and And it could be something as simple as stealing bread.
00:06:46
Speaker
And they they put them on these prison ships. A lot of the times they didn't survive because it was such an intense voyage and they were not treated well and a lot of them died. and This one, there is a shipwreck, but what happens next is really interesting.
00:07:02
Speaker
Wow. Very interesting. That was Sirens by Amelia Hart. Next up, we are going to go into the recommendations portion of the show.
00:07:14
Speaker
and we're going to kick that off with a new book. So Chris, what are you bringing to the show for a new book today?
Exploring Grady Hendrix's Novel
00:07:20
Speaker
Okay, so this book that i I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. And I absolutely loved it. It is Grady Hendrix, who is a fantastic horror writer.
00:07:29
Speaker
And his new book is called Witchcraft, for wayward girls. So this is a book about a um home for unwed mothers. So this takes place in the early seventies when there were still a bunch of these around the country.
00:07:44
Speaker
So um this, this is St. Augustine, Florida. And our main character, she gets pregnant. She ends up there. Now the girls there, they, they have to give up their names and they can't talk about who they are outside of this time period. So like they are there,
00:08:02
Speaker
to go through their pregnancies, give birth, put them up for adoption, and then go back to their lives. So people, you know, think they're going away for the summer. Like she's going to drama camp, but she's off to have a baby.
00:08:16
Speaker
So what happens is these girls find a book of witchcraft. It's called Witchcraft for Groovy Girls. From a bookmobile. Very 70s. It's very 70s. And so then they decide to try out some of these spells.
00:08:32
Speaker
And they create some pretty intense chaos. And the horror in this book is twofold. So you have the scary witch stuff. And this is Grady Hendrix. So some of it is pretty dark. But then you also have the horror of how these girls were treated.
00:08:47
Speaker
So much was kept from them. Like they, they wanted to know, okay, what happens when the baby comes out? And they wouldn't tell them, they wouldn't prepare them for childbirth. And they treated them in the hospitals. They were treated terribly. They were you know treated like animals.
00:09:03
Speaker
And um so it's got, it's got two pieces of horror and Grady Hendrix spent a lot of time researching this. So he read memoirs of women who went through that kind of experience during that time period.
00:09:17
Speaker
He's really good at putting you in a time period. So it felt like the seventies, like the shows they were watching, the cover has a lava lamp on it. you could see it.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah. that' very groovy but yeah and yeah It's really good. And it has a satisfying ending. So there's just, there's more to the story than just that. So there, it kind of like what happens to them later, he will touch on that. So I felt like I felt satisfied with the ending.
00:09:45
Speaker
But the witchcraft is really interesting because there's a coven that's kind of they're like, there's dangerous hippies that live in the woods. Well, it was a coven and not like a, you know, a fun like cottagecore coven. They were they're like dark, dark magic.
00:10:00
Speaker
Interesting. It was very interesting. I was going to ask how much of it you felt like was based in like the real time period and what that experience might have been like for women going through young women going through like those groups. So that's interesting to know that he was doing the research and trying to give that a real portrayal with a horror twist.
00:10:20
Speaker
Yeah. Absolutely. And I don't know how he does it, but he writes women really well. It's frustrating when you have like men writing women, sometimes they don't get the voice right, but he does. I don't know how he does it.
00:10:32
Speaker
And he's done it in every book I've read of his where it feels like he's a woman writing this. Yeah, that's a great, that's a great sign of an author is when they can really embody a voice that is not true to maybe who they are.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah. And he talked about how he had members of his own family that went away. So there were there were those stories in his own family that he was able to mine some of that as well.
00:10:57
Speaker
Interesting. Well, listeners, that was Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix. Next up, we are going to talk about a backlist book. So this might be one you can actually pull off the shelves as opposed to having to wait ah for months and months for it to come in on your hold list.
00:11:16
Speaker
Chris, what is the backlist book you are bringing to the show today?
The Magic of 'Terrace Story'
00:11:20
Speaker
This is called Tara Story by Hilary Leichter. And she wrote the book Temporary. This is not a a long book. It's less than 200 pages.
00:11:30
Speaker
But this is a great book if you like Emily St. John Mandel. So Station Eleven, Sea of Tranquility. It's that magical realism, again, where it's set in our, but it's just like things are happening.
00:11:43
Speaker
And This book I had had on my shelf for a while. I checked it out a year ago and just kept renewing it and then checking it out again. and i I was having a book hangover from reading Onyx Storm. And my Rebecca Yaros and everything I was picking up, I just couldn't get into it. But then I grabbed, I did, I really got into this one.
00:12:03
Speaker
So it is a, it feels like four short stories that come together, but it is four different chapters, but it has that short story feel. It is about a woman named Annie and her husband, Edward, they live in a small apartment in New York City.
00:12:21
Speaker
And Annie has a coworker named Stephanie and they have her over for dinner and they're, you know, apologizing. Sorry, this place is so small. And Stephanie says, well, why don't we eat on the terrace?
00:12:34
Speaker
And she opens a closet door and there's this beautiful terrace. And so they go they go with it and they go out and they have this great time on the terrace. They have a daughter named Rose.
00:12:46
Speaker
And when Stephanie leaves, they close the closet door. It's a closet again. But every time Stephanie comes over, they have this terrace. So they start living this life on this terrace.
00:12:58
Speaker
So we another chapter is we get the back, kind of a backstory about Stephanie and what her abilities are and how that has impacted her life and what what she's gone through up to the point where she meets Annie.
00:13:12
Speaker
And it's interesting, like she, each chapter has a different kind of um architectural term. So the first one is terrace, but the second one is called folly, which I didn't know what this meant, but it's like a, an outbuilding that has no purpose other than to be ornamental, like a gazebo or you might see like those stone structures on estates.
00:13:36
Speaker
yeah And so it goes into that fortress is the next chapter. And then the last chapter, I'd never heard of this before either, but a cantilever, which is like an overhanging beam or something that kind of like, it's it's not like a partial Covering it's it's hard to explain. You'd have to like Google it and see it for what it is, but it really kind of ties all of these experiences. you kind of, you see what happens to Rose when she becomes an adult.
00:14:09
Speaker
And um how it all kind of ties in together with this terrace. And i I could not put it down. And the writing is beautiful. Yeah, it was pretty wild. It was pretty wild.
00:14:20
Speaker
Just so I'm understanding, the terrace, there's some magical element where sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not. It's only there when Stephanie is there. Interesting. And Stephanie, does Stephanie believe that? Or is it the people telling her and she's like, why would it only be here?
00:14:38
Speaker
No, she knows what she's doing. Okay. She's like making it. She's able, she has this ability where she can create space. Oh, wow.
00:14:48
Speaker
Wow. That is a superhero quality. Next time someone asks me what kind of superhero power I'd want, that is one I would never have considered, but it's super fascinating.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yes. So they kind of go with it. And just so Annie and Edward just like pretend it's always there. So they never speak of, oh gosh, this only happens when you come over. No, they just keep having her over so we can, they can have this terrace.
00:15:15
Speaker
Weird. Until something happens on one day and it's, fascinating. That sounds fascinating. All right. That was Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter.
00:15:28
Speaker
Next up, we are going to talk about a local author.
Basketball and Memoir: 'There's Always This Year'
00:15:32
Speaker
So Chris, you're in Columbus, Ohio. How close is your author and what is the book that you're bringing?
00:15:39
Speaker
He, uh, so Hanif Adurakib lives here in Columbus. He is a, um, a loved member of the community. He's a poet. He's an author. And his latest book is called There's Always This Year.
00:15:52
Speaker
It was on the long list for the National Book Award. he He's usually a perennial on the National Book Award long and short list. He's a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient. And this book is a basketball book, but it's not just a basketball book. So I wasn't sure that I was going to get into this book because I don't know that I really want to read a sports book, but it's so much more than that.
00:16:15
Speaker
So um you may have heard of someone named LeBron James. have. He's from Ohio. Yep. One of the few that I know of the sports world. It talks about basketball. in Hanif played basketball in high school.
00:16:30
Speaker
And he talks about basketball in the context of local heroes and also a bit of the history of like Columbus through his eyes. And also he reflects on time where he was unhoused.
00:16:45
Speaker
And what those experiences were like. He's a gorgeous writer. So he he deserves all the accolades he has. And he talks about this time when LeBron James was still in high school playing for St. Vincent, St. Mary up in Akron.
00:17:01
Speaker
And he came down the school. St. Vincent, St. Mary played Brookhaven High School, which is a high school that's now closed. During that game, like all of these like white people from the suburbs came because everyone had heard of this phenom kid and like came to this high school to watch him play.
00:17:19
Speaker
And like, what a big deal that was. But he talks about local heroes in his neighborhood and when they would play basketball and what happened to them and their experiences.
00:17:31
Speaker
But the Times where he talks about being unhoused was very interesting where he, he slept in a, like a storage unit for a while. And the kindness that one of the workers showed him, they kind of knew he was in there, but they didn't, they didn't stop him.
00:17:50
Speaker
And they just kind of like, when they were checking things, they just kind of passed his by and allowed him to stay there. And the, The contents are really interesting there. It's like it starts with a pregame, a first quarter.
00:18:03
Speaker
And one of the sections is called on father, sons and ghosts, holy or otherwise. Second quarter, flawed and mortal gods. Third quarter, the mercy of exits, the magic of fruitless pleading.
00:18:16
Speaker
And fourth quarter, the city as its false self. And then a brief postgame. Oh, that's interesting. That's the second book with like a very interesting format or flow of the chapters.
00:18:33
Speaker
Yes. And it's not, if you're not a, like a sports person, which I'm not a big sports person. i found this book riveting and I listened to it on audio and he reads it himself, which I always find a rich experience when someone is reading their own memoir.
00:18:50
Speaker
at Eve Columbus, people will recognize the streets and the neighborhoods and And it's just fascinating. He's a really cool guy. Yeah, that sounds really cool. And I can imagine from like a memoir's perspective, I think if it was just nonfiction about basketball, it would be harder to say you don't have to care about basketball. But a memoir, like I'm sure there's so much more you can learn about Hanif and his experience than just like the basketball parts. So that sounds really interesting.
00:19:20
Speaker
And it's not just like if you think about that basketball game where LeBron James was playing. I mean, it it had such an impact on the people who were... i have a coworker who was in high school at that time.
00:19:31
Speaker
And, you know, it was it was a really interesting conversation about what that was like. He's kicking himself for not going to that game. But yeah, how that impacted Columbus when he came was fascinating.
00:19:46
Speaker
That was There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib. Yes. Next up, we are going to go into our bookend.
Books on Mental Health
00:19:57
Speaker
So for this segment of the show, guest gets to pick any topic that they want and pull three titles on it.
00:20:03
Speaker
So Chris, what are you bringing as the topic today? So I am bringing the topic, boost your mental health. I think this is just a topic all over the place that is important and an important dialogue.
00:20:18
Speaker
And there's so much great stuff out there. And over, you know, the past number of years, these are books that I have found really meaningful and had a deep impact on me.
00:20:29
Speaker
So the first one is called 10% Happier. um How I tamed the voice in my head, reduced stress without losing my edge and found self-help that actually works. A true story.
00:20:40
Speaker
And this is by Dan Harris, who used to work for ABC News. He had a panic attack. while on Good Morning America, you can Google it and you can you can see it. At the time that that happened, he was also working on ABC News Now with Peter Jennings.
00:20:57
Speaker
And Peter Jennings was somewhat of a mentor and a tormentor for Dan. And he put him on the religion beat, which Dan Harris thought was nuts.
00:21:08
Speaker
But Peter Jennings at the time thought, you know what, religion is becoming... a stronger theme in this country. And I think it's only going to get stronger. So I think we need to start covering it.
00:21:20
Speaker
So Dan, who was not a religious person, went on this beat and talked to all kinds of people in all kinds of religions and just did a series of stories on it. And it led him to Buddhism, which he then adopted for himself.
00:21:35
Speaker
And so this book is about his experience taking that on and trying meditation and how that worked for him. because he was in desperate need of something different.
00:21:47
Speaker
And it's his his experience of of adopting this, but also like experiencing other religions without judgment and meeting lots of interesting people.
00:22:00
Speaker
And he has a podcast called 10% Happier, where he it's a mental health podcast, but it also sometimes has that kind of Buddhist influence. Yes, I have listened to his podcast before and enjoyed it.
00:22:14
Speaker
And I think he has said, you know, why 10%? And he's like, well, it's not a scientific measurement. But when people ask me why I meditate, I say it's because it makes me about 10% happier.
00:22:28
Speaker
So that's where the 10% comes from. So it's worth it's worth doing it for that. Mm-hmm. That was 10% Happier by Dan Harris.
00:22:40
Speaker
What is the second boost your mental health pick today? Okay, so this one, I listened to it on audio when it came out, and I just started listening to it again. it is called The Book of Joy, Lasting Happiness in a Changing World.
00:22:54
Speaker
And it's by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams. So Desmond Tutu, who has since passed, he and the Dalai Lama were friends.
00:23:07
Speaker
And this book is the experience of a week where bishop two two Archbishop Tutu visits the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, And spends a week with him.
00:23:18
Speaker
And they have discussions on all kinds of topics. The it's really sweet chapter is called Lunch. The Meeting of Two Mischievous People is wonderful.
00:23:32
Speaker
Because they're both very playful and um silly with each other, even though they're, you know, famous holy men. But they talk about the pillars of joy. They talk about the barriers of joy, the obstacles to joy. And it just kind of is the dialogue as they talk about different different topics.
00:23:55
Speaker
One of the first chapters, he says, why are you not morose? And this was a question from Archbishop Tutu to the Dalai Lama is, you know, you're a man who's in exile.
00:24:05
Speaker
Why are you happy? Like, why are you not sad? And the Dalai Lama really kind of speaks speaks to that. And it's fascinating to think about at the time that he went into exile, he was a teenager.
00:24:20
Speaker
So he is this teenager who is negotiating on behalf of the Tibetan people with the Chinese government at such a young age. And that is just, that is wild to comprehend.
00:24:33
Speaker
I guess I didn't realize that about the Dalai Lama. Yes, I didn't either until I read this book. The back has all kinds of meditation in it. So there's those different kinds of practices. There's joy practices, developing mental, mental immunity.
00:24:49
Speaker
And um it's really, it's, it's, it's very cool. This was the last time they were together before the archbishop, bishops passing. So it was a time of great joy for them to be able to be together and spend this time together.
00:25:06
Speaker
And just an insane amount of, coordinating and logistics to even pull this off. And so um Douglas Abrams writes a bit of this book and kind of like guides their discussion.
00:25:20
Speaker
Interesting. And he jokes about it because Douglas Abrams is Jewish. And so he says like a Buddhist, a Christian and a Jew walk into a bar. That's kind of how he starts it.
00:25:32
Speaker
They're very like, they're very funny about it. So there's lots of funny moments in there because both of these men are very funny. And um the audio book, they don't read it, but there are voice actors who sound like them.
00:25:45
Speaker
you kind of feel like you're hearing, you're hearing their voice, even though it isn't exactly them. Well, that's interesting. thing And it's, it's different voice actors for the different, for the Dalai Lama and for Desmond Tutu.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yes. They're, they're voice actors for the two of them. And then Douglas Abrams also reads his parts. Okay. Yeah, I was going to ask, is there, obviously they're they're of different faiths, so do you feel like you need to, you would benefit more coming from a certain faith background to this book, or is it for everyone?
00:26:16
Speaker
I think this book is for everyone. Definitely for everybody, because they don't, I mean, they more
00:26:23
Speaker
They're not saying this is this is how Christians feel about it. Well, I mean, a little bit of that, but it's they explain things. So if you don't have a background in either, um you don't have either background, they will explain things to you.
00:26:38
Speaker
And it is very kind. There's so much empathy between the two of them that they there's no judge they aren't judging each other their religious beliefs.
00:26:50
Speaker
So it's ah it's a very interesting and open dialogue between them. Beautiful. I just was reading An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. Have you read that one?
00:27:02
Speaker
No, An Altar in the World? An Altar in the World, a Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor. And- and It's kind of about how she brings spirituality into her day-to-day life. And one of the stories she told was about going to a faith seminar and Archbishop Desmond Tutu walking in in flip-flops in a Hawaiian t-shirt and how much joy he brought to the conversation. so I just thought that was interesting. i i would Because i I don't know if I had known much about Archbishop Desmond Tutu before Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
All right. That was The Book of Joy by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. That leaves us with one more book on the book end. So, Chris, what is our third pick to boost our mental health?
00:27:50
Speaker
Okay. This one is called Something in the Woods Loves You by Jared K. Anderson. And this is another um Columbus author. So this is a memoir. It's essays. It's It's about nature, mental health.
00:28:03
Speaker
So he went through a very dark time where he quit his job and spent all of his time focusing on his mental health because he wasn't going to make it otherwise. um And so was like, oh, I need to go for walks. but Going for walks is good for me.
00:28:18
Speaker
And so he started doing that and then started observing elements of nature, flora and fauna and started writing essays on various things like white-tailed deer,
00:28:31
Speaker
field mice, squirrels, different kinds of trees. And through that, he weaves his mental health journey, his when he starts going to therapy, the medications he tries.
00:28:44
Speaker
And they're just like deep, deep thinking about mental health. And i i think this book is good for people because they will feel less alone.
00:28:55
Speaker
And I love to walk in nature and reading him talking about I was like, oh it's not just me. I'm not the only weirdo out there who just like gets joy from deer and trees.
00:29:08
Speaker
um not Yeah, I know. It's great. I mean, you yeah live in an area where you probably see so many beautiful things. He talks about the local parks where he walks. So people in this area in central Ohio will know these places.
00:29:24
Speaker
And he asked questions like, why did we stop climbing trees? Like why? And what's stopping him from doing it now? There was a tree in his yard as a boy and they called it Jared's tree because he was always up there. And he's like, what, what made me stop?
00:29:39
Speaker
um there The chapter on field mice is really interesting. And when I went to an author visit with him at a local bookstore, and he kind of talks about toxic masculinity in that chapter because his dad would say, oh, we've caught we've captured this field mouse. You should stomp it, which sounds pretty awful. But he did it, he's like...
00:30:04
Speaker
what does that say about me as a man and what are different ways to be a man? And, you know, he's like, I'm a sensitive person, but I am also a person who is stomped on a field mouse. You know, what does that say about me?
00:30:17
Speaker
And he kind of takes a deep dive into what, you know, what it means to be masculine and what can be toxic and what can make someone better. And, um,
00:30:29
Speaker
It's just fascinating. And it's the kind of book that you don't have to read all at once. You can read like an essay here. So I read it over a year and would just like pick it up and read a couple of essays and then put it away for a little bit and come back and read a few more essays.
00:30:45
Speaker
The cover has a blue heron on it. I asked him, you know, what was his favorite? And he said, you know, blue heron is definitely his favorite of the creatures that he writes about. Hmm.
00:30:56
Speaker
But it is it is a gorgeous, he's a beautiful writer. He's also a poet. So his his writing is very, um if you're a literary reader, you you would like it because the language is very beautiful.
00:31:10
Speaker
Yeah, I like, I mean, I always love exploring the connection of nature to mental health. Like you said, I live in a very rural area. So that's like a big thing for me and getting to experience nature just out my door. have have this thing, every time I see a moose, which I'm lucky enough to see a moose, like probably five to 10 times a year, call it my magic moose day. Nothing can go wrong magic moose day because there was a moose in it.
00:31:37
Speaker
So I i love it. That's very cool. Yeah. Yes. I've only seen them at the zoo. I mean, they're pretty cool there too, but to see one in the wild, I think would be incredible. and I was in the, I went to Gatlinburg um a handful of years ago and saw a bear in the wild. And that was awesome to see a black bear just doing their black bear stuff.
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah. Eating berries, stomping around. Yeah. It was pretty cool. All right. Well, that was Something in the Woods Loves You by Jared K. Anderson.
00:32:12
Speaker
And that wraps up all of our book segments for the show.
Reading Buddies Program
00:32:16
Speaker
So, Chris, I always like to leave some time at the end of the episode for you to plug anything that might be going on at your library. do you have anything you want to plug for Columbus, Ohio?
00:32:26
Speaker
Absolutely. So a program that we do in all of our locations that we're very proud of is a program called Reading Buddies. So this is a place where children, kindergarten through third grade, can practice their reading because we know practice is going to be the thing that makes them the stronger reader.
00:32:43
Speaker
So we pair them up with a kind, encouraging adult. It could be a staff member. We have wonderful volunteers that come in and give their time. And so the child will read like a decodable book, ah phonics book, and then they will pick a choice book. So it's a book and it can be a book way out of their range, but they liked the look of it. They thought it was interesting. And then the volunteer will read some of that to them.
00:33:10
Speaker
And so it it it's a skill building, but it's also fostering a love of reading because you found this book and and it interests you. So now we're going to read it together. and we find that children, because parents can get so frustrated because maybe the kid won't want to read with them.
00:33:27
Speaker
And that's actually very common. My own kids were the same way. the Children will often do better with a stranger for whatever reason. they They will do the reading with a stranger where with the parent, they might push back and and fight a little bit.
00:33:42
Speaker
That's so interesting. I guess there's you don't bring any of the pressure, the baggage about what it means to read to a stranger that you might have with your parents. So that makes sense. Right. how many many there're If they're, you know, we just are encouraging them.
00:33:56
Speaker
Yeah. How many volunteers do you have in that program? So we do it three times a week and we have six, let's see, 12, have about 15 different volunteers that cover the three days and then a handful of staff that help with that too.
00:34:14
Speaker
Very cool. And if people wanted to find information about when that is, ah where should they go? They could go to columbuslibrary.org. And if you go to the children's programming page, you will find um the days and times of Reading Buddies at any of our locations.
00:34:32
Speaker
And I'll try to include a link to that in the show notes. So if you want to just click right over, go to the show notes. Alrighty. Well, this has been a wonderful episode.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:34:42
Speaker
if you enjoyed listening, please consider giving us a five-star review on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts.
00:34:49
Speaker
And more importantly, send this episode to a friend who you think might also like listening to it. If you are a librarian and you're interested in being on the show, please reach out to me at thecheckoutstack at gmail.com.
00:35:03
Speaker
Everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. Now go forth and use your public library.