"Down Cut Shin Creek--The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky" is Very Short and Interesting!

Down Cut Shin Creek—The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky by Kathi Appelt and Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer is a very short book about a group of women during the Great Depression who delivered magazines, books and Sunday School papers on horseback to the poor people of Kentucky. I did not know of this and found it very interesting! It has pictures too which I enjoyed.
(Gerard’s review, 5 stars)

Karen read it too:
Down Cut Shin Creek—The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky by Kathi Appelt and Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer is an interesting book about The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky during the Great Depression. President Roosevelt created The Works Progress Administration (WPA) instituted the Pack Horse Library Project give create some work. Mostly women on horseback delivered donated books and magazines to people in Kentucky. Sometimes they would also go on foot. This is a very short but interesting book with pictures about a brief time of history that is little known. I’m glad I read it--it took less than an hour! (Karen's review, 4 stars)

Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. To find books on a specific topic, scroll to the bottom and click on the topic you want. Happy Reading!

Not Enough Time To Read All Our Books!

Our library now has only a 2-week loan period instead of 3 weeks which we do not like.  We both currently work full time so have to squeeze in reading time.  We often order books ahead from the library, some of which we have to wait for due to the popularity of the book.  Consequently, often several come ready at the same time.  Two weeks is just not enough time to get them all read. 

(I just noticed that I forgot to change the header picture for two weeks!)  I have been so busy with stuff and otherwise occupied that my blogging is suffering.  There is just not enough time to do everything I want to in a day so something has to give.  Unfortunately, it is our blogs.  Ah, I digress.

How long does your library loan books for?  How many books do you generally read in a week?  It usually takes me a whole week for one book now, maybe two if they are very good.


Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. Happy Reading!

"Dumping These Four"

Gerard orders books from the library all the time and waits for them to come in.  Often, he'll get a truckload all at once which is what happened last time.  When this happens, he doesn't stick with a book if he's not into it.  This morning he brought me these four and said, "I'm dumping these" and plopped them down for me to include in our "Dud" list (Click our Duds tab above for more we gave up on and why).  

Please keep in mind, just because the books didn't appeal to us, doesn't mean it's a bad book.  Everyone has different tastes so you may like some of these.  If you did, please leave your thoughts in a comment here.

Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. Happy Reading!

"The Lonely Book" Kate Bernheimer

The Lonely Book by Kate Bernheimer is a cute story for young children. It is about a little girl who goes to the library and becomes attached to one of the books. The book feels lonely when it gets older and fewer and fewer people bother to read it. We both thought it was cute, but Karen wasn't as impressed with it as Gerard. It may encourage kids to read though.

Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. Happy Reading!

We are donating 50 cents for each legitimate comment we receive on all our blogs during May to Joni and Friends for Camp Scholarships for families with special needs children.

Aww Mondays

Just thinking about reading all these books tires me out!

Gerard has a lot of books on order at the library, and it always seems that a ton comes in all at once.  This group some he didn't finish yet that he got before plus a new slew of 14 that filled a whole library shelf just for his!  

Do you order books from your library too?

Unfortunately, we just won't be able to read all these in three weeks and they are not renewable because others are waiting.  We went through them and decided to forego reading these at this time:  

The Speaker For The Dead by James Dashner is the sequel to Ender's Game which we both loved; however, I read a little of the introduction and it said that it was really written to stand alone and wasn't necessary to read the first book to enjoy which led me to believe that it really doesn't have that much to do with the first book.  Furthermore, there are a lot of unusual names in it which is a distraction to me so we decided not to read this one after all. 

Karen read the first 50 pages of Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman and just couldn't get interested in it.  We aren't listing it as a "dud" because it's not terrible.  It's about two different families and the wedding of their children. 

The Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen
The Man In The Rockefeller Suit--The astonishing rise and spectacular fall of a serial imposter by Mark Seal
Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan
The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson
Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen
Disturbance by Jan Rorke
From This Moment by Shania Twain

If you read and think we would like any of these on this list, please let us know in a comment and maybe we will reconsider. If you have a cute picture that makes you say "Aww," or to find more "Aww" pictures, check out the "Aww Mondays" linkup over at Comedy Plus.

Have you read this one? What did you think of it? You can help our charity of the month just by leaving a comment on any of our blogs! We will donate 50 cents per comment at the end of the month. The charity for this month is at the top of our blog.

I Don't Like These, I'm Going Back To The Library!

We always go the library on Saturday mornings.  Gerard usually has some books waiting for him to pick up that he ordered ahead.  We combine our stacks and then I get a picture of them to post for our header on here along with whatever pet comes around. 


This morning it was just Spunky Doodle who came.  Unfortunately, Gerard started reading Before I Fall and decided it was too much of a teen girl book that he didn't want to read anymore.  He also got Mr. Peanut which is about the Sam Shepherd case he said.  Once he found out other books he ordered arrived later in the day, he took these to back and got two others instead:  Zoo Story and A Dog's Purpose.


This made it necessary for me to retake the blog picture only Spunky Doodle just was too hot and not in the mood.  Manny came up though, but only wanted to do it if he could be on the ledge.  I said, okay and retook the picture.


This is another advantage of using your local library rather than buying books.  We love the library and are participating in the "Books Ahoy" contest.  They have drawings every week of the contest and we both won Indians ticket vouchers and two coupons for Chipotle.

How often do you go to the library?