The challenge:  

April is National Poetry Month and I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that at FRVPLD, we have a few poetry lovers on staff. This served as inspiration for our newest reading challenge in Beanstack. Just like our other Beanstack challenges, readers will select badges of their choice to finish. This time, however, 5 badges out of 13 will need to be completed to finish the challenge. Each badge is based on a theme or a style of poetry and offer multiple options for poems. Those poems are directly linked from inside the badge for the ultimate ease of access.  

With this reading challenge, we also want you to flex your poetic muscles. One of the badge options is to share a favorite poem with us and another is to share one you composed yourself. We can’t wait to see what you share with us, whether by your own hand or someone else’s.  

Registration and prize info: 

The challenge runs from April 1-April 30 and is available through the Beanstack app (App Store or Google Play) or website. You can also register in person at the library. Once you log in, you’ll be able to join the new challenge. Click on any badge for reading recommendations. Once you’ve read a poem in any given badge, enter the title in the text box and move on to the next badge!  

All who sign up for the challenge will receive a poetry bookmark. Adults and Teens who complete the challenge will receive a National Poetry Month journal to continue your journey with poetry. 

Sign-up and finisher prizes can be picked up from either the Dundee Library or the Randall Oaks Library. All prizes are while supplies last. Prizes will be available beginning the week of April 4. 

If you’re looking for additional collections to continue the month-long celebration beyond the poems featured in the Beanstack challenge, here are some additional recommendations for you to check out from our collection.

I began painting with watercolors around 2010 and enjoyed playing with how the colors mixed and blended on paper. In the beginning my art was more illustrative, but I like to explore different techniques and have expanded into more technical and realistic paintings. I attended a few classes at Positive Strokes Art School in Palatine in 2012 but am otherwise self-taught. After having my daughter in 2015 I took a long break from art, then rediscovered my passion for painting when creating a custom mural in my foyer in 2020. I realized how much I was missing the freedom and creativity that art brings, and that everything in my life becomes better when I have a consistent art practice. Art is a safe space for me, where there are no mistakes.

I began sketching with ink, painting more murals, and doing creative projects with my daughter. In the depths of the pandemic my daughter and I visited the library and I picked up the book Botanical Art Techniques from the new book section. I was immediately captivated, and the book provided tutorials and examples of art techniques that I had never seen before. In a time of such uncertainty and high anxiety it was especially comforting to dive back into painting. I’ve recently been focusing on technical painting techniques and building my skills with watercolors and composition.

Dana moved from Essexville, Michigan to the Chicago area in 2003 to study interior design at the Illinois Institute of Art and now works as a designer specializing in commercial and healthcare interiors. She finds inspiration in nature, her garden, her pets, and family. She lives in East Dundee with her husband, daughter, two dogs, two cats, and three fish.  In her free time, you can find her kayaking, hiking, and biking in the Chicago area. 

Dana Maynard-Tatge

Danadesign15@gmail.com

P 847.890.9194

danamtatge.squarespace.com

Special Note: Dana was the winner of the Fox River Valley Public Library’s Celebrate Diversity Art Contest. You can view her entry, “Patterns of the Land” at the top of the Dundee Library staircase.

Women's History Month is celebrated annually in March, with International Women's Day falling on Tuesday, March 8 this year. As Kirstin's blog here details, we are doing another Beanstack Reading Challenge to celebrate this month. Take a look at her post for information about how to sign up, prizes, and more. I'm here to share our recommended reads for the challenge. To honor women's progress through history, we divided our badges into various time periods to choose from and the titles in each badge reflect the women of that era. As always, you are more than welcome to complete the challenge reading a book that is not on our recommended reads list as long as it meets the badge criteria!

Medieval period (5th-15th Centuries)

18th Century

19th Century

Early 20th Century

World War II

1950s

1970s

1980s

1990s

Women Throughout History

Happy Galentine's Day! For those not aware, Galentine's Day entered our pop culture from the TV show Parks and Recreation (season 2, episode 16). It's celebrated on February 13, the day before the well-known holiday that focuses on romantic love, and serves as a counterpoint, shifting the focus to female friendship. In the years since its TV debut, it has become an extremely popular day for "ladies celebrating ladies", in the immortal words of Leslie Knope. 

In honor of this fake holiday that took on a real world life of its own, I've gathered together some books about female friendship. Friendship can be beautiful and empowering, but it is imperfect, and sometimes even toxic. In that vein, some of the relationships featured in these books may make you yearn for a friendship as strong as that between the characters, while a few may make you glad you don't have women like them in your life. 

This Galentine's Day, take a moment to celebrate all your poetic, noble land mermaids.

Celebrate Black voices and honor the Black experience – past, present, and future – by participating in our Black History Month Reading Challenge. We’ve curated a fantastic list of titles and hope you will enjoy discovering someone new or revisiting an old favorite. So choose your favorite category, pick a title, and lose yourself in the journey. One book is all it takes to complete the challenge. Sign-up and finisher prizes (tote bag! book!) add to the fun and commemorate your experience.

Sign Up

The Black History Month Reading Challenge will be available through the Beanstack app (App Store or Google Play) or website. Once you log in, you’ll be able to join the new challenge. Click on any badge for reading recommendations or choose a book on your own. Once you’ve finished reading your book, simply enter the title into the relevant badge and you’re a winner! You can also register in person at the library.

Prizes

All who sign up for the challenge will receive a commemorative Black History Month Reading Challenge tote bag, perfect for bringing your books with you wherever you go.

Adults and Teens who complete the challenge will receive a copy of James Baldwin’s classic novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain.

Pre-Readers and Youth who complete the challenge will also receive a book, which they can choose themselves from our specially-curated Black History Month selection of titles.

Sign-up and finisher prizes can be picked up from either the Dundee Library or the Randall Oaks Library. All prizes are while supplies last.

Top 5 Latin Albums

Of the new Latin albums to come out in 2021 the two genres I kept replaying where Pop and Latin urbano. My 2021 consisted of these 5 albums on repeat.

 Tommy Torres El playlist de Anoche: An album that perfectly captures that summer night feeling, highly recommend you take a drive with this album playing. 

 Karol G KG0516: For when you need music after your heartbreak Karol G perfectly has you singing and dancing to get over those feelings. 

 J Balvin Jose: The ever anticipated album from J Balvin. Need I say more. Been waiting for an album after Colores and he does not dissapoint. F40 (remix) is a must listen to in the Jose (Deluxe) edition.

Rauw Alejandro Vice Versa: Had enough hit songs that I had to overlook the ones that did not hit the mark.

Dalex Unisex: Cannot get enough of Latin music but with the dance style you would find at a club.

Top 5 Latin Songs

It was hard to pick singles of 2021, since my favorite artists and newly found artists kept releasing incredible material, but the 5 singles that I couldn’t stop playing consisted of the following.

En Mi Cuarto by Jhay Cortez & Skrillex

Lo Siento BB:/ by Bad Bunny

Sal y Perrea by Daddy Yankee, J Balvin & Sech

Paris by Ingratax

Sejodioto by Karol G

Books are my escape, my education, my therapy, my way to see the world through the eyes of people who are different than me.  I don't generally have an agenda when I read, I just want a really good story or to learn about a topic that I'm interested in.  When I find a book I really like, I will work my way through everything that author has written.  I’m a little nerdy that way.  As I look back at my Reading History for the year, I see that I have repeated this pattern several times.  Here’s a list of my favorite books and newly discovered authors from 2021. May you find at least one you like.

Tracy Clark is a Chicago-based author, which is always a bonus for me. Her homicide detective turned Private Investigator, Cass Raines, is a great character and Tracy's books include a full cast of interesting folks. 

Broken Places:  Former cop Cass Raines has found the world of private investigation a less stressful way to eke out a living in the Windy City. When Father Ray Heaton asks Cass to look into a recent spate of vandalism at his church, she agrees. But only hours later she discovers his body in the church confessional, a dead gangbanger sprawled out nearby. It's dismissed as a late-night random theft, but Cass's instincts tell her that's not the motive at a cash-strapped parish like Saint Brendan's. And she intends to see justice done.

Borrowed Time:  At Cass's go-to diner, ... new delivery guy Jung Byson wants to enlist her expertise. Jung's friend, Tim Ayers, scion of a wealthy Chicago family, has been found dead, floating in Lake Michigan near his luxury boat. And Jung is convinced there's a murderer on the loose... Cass reluctantly begins digging only to discover that Jung neglected to mention one crucial fact: Tim Ayers was terminally ill. Given the large quantities of alcohol and drugs found in his body, Ayers' death appears to be either an accident or suicide. Yet as much as Cass would like to dismiss Jung's suspicions, there are too many unanswered questions and unexplained coincidences. Why would anyone kill a dying man? Working her connections on both sides of the law, Cass tries to point the police in the right direction. But violence is escalating around her, and Cass's persistence has already attracted unwanted attention, uncovering sinister secrets that Cass may end up taking to her grave"--Dust jacket flap.
 

What You Don’t See:  Vonda Allen's glossy vanity magazine has taken the Windy City by storm, and she's well on her way to building a one-woman media empire. As Vonda's bodyguard, off-duty cop Ben Mickerson knows he could use some back-up--and no one fits the bill better than his ex-partner on the police force, Cass Raines. When Vonda refuses to say why someone might be after her, and two of her staff turn up dead, Ben and Cass must battle an unknown assailant bent on getting to the great lady herself, before someone else dies. Things take an ugly turn at a book signing when a mysterious fan shows up with flowers and slashes Ben with a knife. While her ex-partner's life hangs in the balance, Cass is left to find out what secrets Vonda is keeping, who might want her dead, and how she can bring Ben's attacker to justice.

Runner:  Chicago in the dead of winter. Fifteen-year-old Ramona Titus has run away from her foster home. Her biological mother, Leesa Evans, is a recovering addict who admits she failed Ramona often in the past. But now she is clean-- and determined to make up for her mistakes... if Cass can only help her find her daughter. Ramona's foster mother, Deloris Poole, is also desperate to bring the girl home. Ramona came to Deloris six months ago, angry and distrustful, but was slowly opening up. It seems Ramona doesn't want to be found... and Cass soon begins to understand why. Ramona is holding secrets dark enough to kill for, and anyone who helps her may be fair game.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a new favorite.  She writes weird, wonderful, dark novels steeped in Mexican folklore and Lovecraftian horror.

Mexican Gothic:  After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. Noemí is an unlikely rescuer: She's a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she's also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family's youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family's past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family's once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

Velvet was the Night:  1970s, Mexico City. Maite is a secretary who lives for one thing: the latest issue of Secret Romance. While student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite escapes into stories of passion and danger. Her next-door neighbor, Leonora, a beautiful art student, seems to live a life of intrigue and romance that Maite envies. When Leonora disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman. Meanwhile, Elvis is an eccentric criminal who longs to escape his own life: He loathes violence and loves old movies and rock 'n' roll. But as Elvis searches for the missing woman, he watches Maite from a distance. Now as Maite and Elvis come closer to discovering the truth behind Leonora's disappearance, they can no longer escape the danger that threatens to consume their lives.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by Victoria Schwab:  A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget. France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole:  Rear Window meets Get Out in this gripping thriller from a critically acclaimed and New York Times Notable author, in which the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning... Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she's known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community's past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block—her neighbor Theo. But Sydney and Theo's deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised. When does coincidence become conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other—or themselves—long enough to find out before they too disappear?

Gregg Hurwitz created my favorite male character ever in Evan Smoak.  I wait impatiently for the next installments of the Orphan X series to release.

Orphan X:  Using his skills as an elite former agent and assassin to advocate anonymously for desperate people, Evan Smoak finds himself pursued by someone with comparable training who would exploit his life of service to find and eliminate him.

The Nowhere Man:  Spoken about only in whispers, it is said that when the Nowhere Man is reached by the truly desperate, he can and will do anything to save them. Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He's also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets--i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X. Evan broke with the program, using everything he learned to disappear. Now, however, someone is on his tail. Someone with similar skills and training. Someone who knows Orphan X. Someone who is getting closer and closer. And will exploit Evan's weakness--his work as The Nowhere Man--to find him and eliminate him.

Hellbent:  Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as an off-the-books government assassin: Orphan X. After he broke with the Orphan Program, Evan disappeared and reinvented himself as the Nowhere Man, a man spoken about only in whispers and dedicated to helping the truly desperate. But this time, the voice on the other end of the line is Jack Johns, the man who raised and trained him, the only father Evan has ever known. Secret government forces are busy trying to scrub the remaining assets and traces of the Orphan Program, and they have finally tracked down Jack. With little time remaining, Jack gives Evan his last assignment: find and protect his last protégé and recruit for the program. But Evan isn’t the only one after this last Orphan―the new head of the Orphan Program, Van Sciver, is mustering all the assets at his disposal to take out both Evan (Orphan X) and the target he is trying to protect.

Out of the Dark:  Evan's past is catching up to him. Someone at the very highest level of government has been trying to eliminate every trace of the Orphan Program by killing the remaining Orphans and their trainers. After Evan's mentor and the only father he ever knew was killed, it was time to strike back. His target is the man who started the Program: the President of the United States. But President Bennett knows that Orphan X is after him and, using weapons of his own, he's decided to counterattack.

Into the Fire:  Evan Smoak, The Nowhere Man, a figure shrouded in mystery, known for helping the truly desperate. If anyone is truly desperate, it's Max Merriweather. Max is at the end of his rope. His cousin has been brutally murdered, leaving Max an envelope that contains nothing but a mysterious key. However, someone really wants that key, badly enough that Max--and anyone he turns to--is in deadly danger. What seems like a simple job for The Nowhere Man turns out to be anything but. Behind every threat he takes out, a deadlier one emerges and Evan Smoak must put himself in greater danger than ever before.

Prodigal Son: The highest power in the country has made Evan Smoak a tempting offer--in exchange for an unofficial pardon, he must stop his clandestine activities as The Nowhere Man. Now Evan has to do the one thing he's least equipped to do--live a normal life. But then he gets a call for help from the one person he never expected. A woman claiming to have given him up for adoption, a woman he never knew--his mother. Her unlikely request: help Andrew Duran--a man whose life has gone off the rails, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, bringing him to the deadly attention of very powerful figures. Now a brutal brother & sister assassination team are after him and with no one to turn to, and no safe place to hide, Evan is Duran's only option. But when the hidden cabal catches on to what Evan is doing, everything he's fought for is on the line--including his own life.

Dark Horse – coming February 2022!

Chanel Cleeton wrote a marvelous historical fiction series that follows the Perez family and starts with the Cuban Revolution.

Next Year in Havana:  After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity—and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution... Havana, 1958 . The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest—until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary... Miami, 2017 . Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa's last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth. Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba's tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she'll need the lessons of her grandmother's past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.

When We Left Cuba:  In 1960s Florida, a young Cuban exile will risk her life—and heart—to take back her country in this exhilarating historical novel from the author of Next Year in Havana , a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick. Beautiful. Daring. Deadly. The Cuban Revolution took everything from sugar heiress Beatriz Perez—her family, her people, her country. Recruited by the CIA to infiltrate Fidel Castro's inner circle and pulled into the dangerous world of espionage, Beatriz is consumed by her quest for revenge and her desire to reclaim the life she lost. As the Cold War swells like a hurricane over the shores of the Florida Strait, Beatriz is caught between the clash of Cuban American politics and the perils of a forbidden affair with a powerful man driven by ambitions of his own. When the ever-changing tides of history threaten everything she has fought for, she must make a choice between her past and future—but the wrong move could cost Beatriz everything—not just the island she loves, but also the man who has stolen her heart...

The Last Train to Key West:  In 1935 Key West-native Helen Berner yearns to escape. After the Cuban Revolution of 1933 leaves Mirta Perez's family in a precarious position, she agrees to an arranged marriage with a notorious American. Following her wedding in Havana, Mirta arrives in the Keys on her honeymoon. Elizabeth Preston's trip to Key West is a chance to save her once-wealthy family from their troubles after the Wall Street crash. Over the course of the holiday weekend, the women's paths cross unexpectedly, and the danger swirling around them is matched only by the terrifying force of the deadly storm threatening the Keys"

The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba:  A feud rages in Gilded Age New York City between newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. When Grace Harrington lands a job at Hearst's newspaper in 1896, it's a story emerging from Cuba that changes her life. Unjustly imprisoned in a notorious Havana women's jail, eighteen-year-old Evangelina Cisneros dreams of a Cuba free from Spanish oppression. When Hearst learns of her plight and splashes her image on the front page of his paper, proclaiming her, "The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba," she becomes a rallying cry for American intervention in the battle for Cuban independence. With the help of Marina Perez, a courier secretly working for the Cuban revolutionaries in Havana, Grace and Hearst's staff attempt to free Evangelina. But when Cuban civilians are forced into reconcentration camps and the explosion of the USS Maine propels the United States and Spain toward war, the three women must risk everything in their fight for freedom"

Jenny Lawson aka the Bloggess, has been around for several years, but I just discovered her this fall when I listened to the audiobook version of her newest title.  I have to say I think I found my new best friend! I laughed, I cried, I almost crashed my car.

Broken (in the best possible way):  As Jenny Lawson's hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken (in the best possible way), she explores her experimental treatment of transcranial magnetic stimulation with brutal honesty. But also with brutal humor: 'People do different things to distract themselves during each treatment. I embroider. It feels fitting. I'm being magnetically stabbed in the head thousands of times as I'm stabbing the embroidery myself. I don't embroider the same patterns my grandmother did. I embroider girls with octopus faces, David Bowie, a flowery bouquet with FUCK YES written in the middle. They let you do anything as long as it's "positive."' Jenny discusses the frustration of dealing with her insurance company in 'An Open Letter to My Insurance Company,' which should be an anthem for anyone who has ever had to call their insurance company to try and get a claim covered. On the lighter side, she tackles such timelessly debated questions as 'How do dogs know they have penises?' We see how her vacuum cleaner almost set her house on fire, how she was attacked by three bears, business ideas she wants to pitch to Shark Tank, and why she can never go back to the post office. Of course, Jenny's long-suffering husband Victor--the Ricky to Jenny's Lucille Ball--is present throughout.

Let’s Pretend this Never Happened:  Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor.

Furiously Happy: a funny book about horrible things:  In Furiously Happy, a humor memoir tinged with just enough tragedy and pathos to make it worthwhile, Jenny Lawson examines her own experience with severe depression and a host of other conditions and explains how it has led her to live life to the fullest.  "I've often thought that people with severe depression have developed such a well for experiencing extreme emotion that they might be able to experience extreme joy in a way that 'normal people' also might never understand. And that's what Furiously Happy is all about."