Reading at Risk

NPR reported today that the Nation Endowment for the Arts had released an analysis of reading patterns in the United States. While I find the decline in voluntary reading distressing, I was troubled by the statements that

1. "Less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier. Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of non-readers doubled over a 20-year period, from nine percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004."

2. "On average, Americans ages 15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on reading."

" Because these people then read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they do more poorly in school, in the job market and in civic life."

The analysis To Read or Not to Read, examined all kinds of reading including online. The data was collected from more than 40 sources including academic, corporate and federal studies.
The entire report can be downloaded from the above link.

Stay tuned. I'm sure we will be reading?? more about this issue.

Thanksgiving

I came across some interesting statistics about Thanksgiving while browsing the Librarians' Internet Index this week. The US Census Bureau publishes "Facts for Features," a collection of statistics intended to commemorate anniversaries or observances.

Here is a sample:

272 million - The preliminary estimate of turkeys raised in the United States in 2007. That’s up 4 percent from 2006. The turkeys produced in 2005 together weighed 7.2 billion pounds and were valued at $3.2 billion.Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service <http://www.nass.usda.gov/

Find out which state grows the most sweet potatoes, and a lot more about Thanksgiving at Facts for Features.

Are you interested in holiday cooking as our ancestors did it? At Thanksgiving Recipes From America's Past (Pilgrim Hall Museum (Plymouth, Massachusetts) you will find "recipes for mince pie (1832), chestnut stuffing (1891), roast turkey with truffle gravy (1905), and a variety of pies and other holiday dishes. Recipes are accompanied by vintage illustrations."

Turkey for the Holidays , the University of Illinois Extension, is more information than I could imaging "including information on turkey cooking techniques, selection, carving, side dishes, nutrition, food safety, and using leftovers. Also features interesting trivia and facts about turkey and Thanksgiving, ideas for family activities and craft projects, and related links. "

You might want to check out the library cookbook section. We just might have that recipe you are looking for!

Or try some children's craft ideas at Best-Ever Thanksgiving.

National Book Awards

The winners of the National Book Awards were announced yesterday. Click on the link for information about all of the finalists. Stop in the library to pick up a copy of a winner or finalist.

Fiction winner Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson, "covers the Vietnam War and the U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia — and the life of a CIA agent whose career grows with the war."

"Based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA itself, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans," Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA" by Tim Weiner won for non-fiction.





The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie received the Young People's Literature award. "Based on the author’s own experiences, this heartbreaking yet funny story chronicles the adolescence of one contemporary Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he seems destined to live."

Time and Materials by Robert Hass is the poetry winner

Other finalists included:

FICTION
Mischa Berlinski, Fieldwork

Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance

Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End

Jim Shepard, Like You’d Understand, Anyway

NONFICTION
Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I’m Dying

Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution

Arnold Rampersad, Ralph Ellison: A Biography

POETRY
Linda Gregerson, Magnetic North

David Kirby, The House on Boulevard St.

Stanley Plumly, Old Heart

Ellen Bryant Voigt, Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE
Kathleen Duey, Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic, Book One
M. Sindy Felin, Touching Snow

Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Sara Zarr, Story of a Girl