Thursday, February 28, 2019

Black History Month Reading List



February has gotten away from us, but we still want to post a reading list for Black History Month.  Since it will not be possible to read all of these in what remains of this month, we remind you that the contributions of Black people (African-Americans and Blacks from all over the world) to science, culture, history and math can be celebrated year-round, not just confined to a celebration month.
We’ve had a Black Fiction brochure for several years now, but we’ve stopped updating it because it has become impossible to fit all the authors in a brochure format…and that’s just the fiction writers!  With the conversion to our new catalog system, we are working on a way to do author lists within the catalog.  Currently we can only list by book title, which is how our Black History Reading List is laid out.   

Fiction is definitely included in our Black History Month Reading List because stories can capture truth, but non-fiction and biography are also important.  We’ve put together our reading list from several sources.  We started with several internet lists and added some titles of our own.   These lists contain fiction and non-fiction, scholarly and easy reads, and books for all ages.  Some of the books on these lists didn’t make ours because they are not in our collection; if you see something you’d like to read or that you think we should have, let us know!   

We hope you will find at least one book from our list that makes its way to your list.    

CLICK HERE to check out our recommendations.   

Some of the lists we consulted are linked below.  Happy reading!








Monday, February 4, 2019

February Task







This year the Adult Reading Challenge is Bama: fact & fiction. While reading for the challenge we will be celebrating our state and learning about people, places and matters that make Alabama famous and notorious.

One of Alabama’s nicknames is Heart of Dixie and since this is the month to celebrate love we wanted to point out some of the things Alabama has in connection to the heart.
Did you know the first American physician to perform a successful surgical repair on a wounded heart was from the state of Alabama? Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill Jr. was from Montgomery and in 1902 he successfully operated on the heart of Henry Myrick. For more information about this visit http://alabama200.org/discover/alabama-legacy-moments/ .

Another tie to the heart for Alabama is the fact that heart disease is the single leading cause of death in the state. Data from 2013 showed that the national rate of death was 18.98%, while in Alabama the rate was 25.78%. For more information on this disease try this link https://www.alabamapublichealth.gov/cardio/index.html.


The saying “I heart you/dogs/cupcakes/etc. means you love or really like something.  Here at DPL we heart all things bookish and reading. For this month’s task read a book about something you heart.

Happy Reading!