Library News & Events2018-09-27T15:54:30-05:00

Summer Writing Contests at the Library

The library is hosting writing contests this summer to go along with our summer reading theme “Find Your Voice.”  Read over the guidelines and submit starting June 1st.

Children

Age Groups:

 5-7 (250 Words)

 8-10 (500 Words)

11-14 (1000 Words)

Keep your creative juices flowing this summer by participating in our writing contest! The writing theme is “summer” and contest entries can embody this theme in any way the author chooses. Entries must be submitted via email to alice@fondulaclibrary.org. Winners will be chosen in each age group.  Please make sure submissions meet the requirements for that age range.  The deadline is 7-21-23.

Prizes will be awarded in each age group.

Submission Guidelines:

  • In the email, please use “Find Your Voice Writing Contest” in the subject line.
  • Attach submission as a document
  • Include name, age, and phone number of participant
  • Include a note indicating permission (or not) to share your writing.
  • Only original writings will be accepted.
  • Make sure to include the theme of “summer” in some way in your writing.
  • Write “The End” at the completion of your entry.
  • One entry per person.

Teens and Adults

Enter the library’s Flash Fiction Writing Contest for adults and teens! Our wonderful panel of judges will select two winning adult authors and two winning teen authors. All manuscripts must be 1000 words (or less) and a work of original fiction that uses the theme of “Find Your Voice,” which can be interpreted in any way the author chooses. All entries must be submitted to Jeremy at jeremy@fondulaclibrary.org by August 24, 2023. See below for specific guidelines.

Prizes (for each age category):

First Place: $50 Gift Card & Swag Bag
Second Place: Swag Bag

The four winning entrants will have their stories published on the library’s website and/or social media.

Submission Guidelines:

  • In the email, please write in the subject area: “FIND YOUR VOICE WRITING CONTEST.”
  • Attach your manuscript to the email in a .doc or .docx file.
  • Manuscript should be typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins and in 12 pt. Times New Roman font.
  • Include your name and phone number in the message section, indicate teen or adult, and if you give permission to post your short story with your name (or if you want to be anonymous) if you win.
  • Only original materials may be entered.
  • Entries must be in good taste and refrain from profanity.
  • On the last page of your story, below the ending write: “THE END”
  • Limited to one entry per person.
  • Winners must be able to pick up prizes at Fondulac District Library.
  • Submission deadline is August 24, 2023.

June 1st, 2023|

Join the FDL Team!

The library is hiring! We’re seeking a full-time Communications Specialist to join our team and spread the word on all of the great things the library has to offer. Please visit fondulaclibrary.org/about-us/jobs for more information, including job descriptions and qualifications.

May 30th, 2023|

FDL Reads: The Fourth Wing

The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Reviewed by: Katie Grant, Circulation Assistant

Genre: Fantasy

Suggested Age: Adults

What is This Book About?  After studying to become a scribe in Navarre for most of her life, twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail suddenly finds herself in an impossible situation on behalf of her mother, the commanding general of Navarre. Although she has a medical condition that causes her to have brittle bones, she must enter the riders’ quadrant and compete against the most elite candidates from all over the land to earn a chance to match with a dragon. At Basgiath War College anything goes, including sabotage, betrayal, and even murder. Only the toughest, and most cunning, will make it out of first year. Violet must find the strength within herself to survive.

My Review: This book was such a fun read, and a wild ride from start to finish! There is mystery, suspense, and a whole lot of romance! I’m not normally a big fan of fantasy but Rebecca Yarros has written some other great novels in the past so I gave it a shot. It fully exceeded all my expectations. Violet begins her journey at the Basgiath war college facing major disadvantages, having never trained for the rider’s quadrant like most other candidates. In order to survive, she has to rely on the what she’s learned from her many years studying for the scribe’s quadrant. Unfortunately, she soon learns that not everything that’s been recorded in the history books seems to be true. Just when it seems Violet’s situation couldn’t get any worse, she meets Xaden, the son of Navarre’s most infamous traitor. Tension and danger build when Violet realizes Xaden will be her wingleader, who is responsible for training her on how to survive her first year at Basgiath.

Three Words that Describe this Book:  captivating, suspenseful, entertaining

Give This A Try if You LikeA Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas, the Divergent series by Veronica Roth, and the Zodiac Academy series by Caroline Peckman and Susanne Valenti

Rating: 5/5

Find it at the library!

 

FDL Reads

 

May 25th, 2023|

Secrets and Gossip-May Book Giveaway

Secrets and Gossip – May Giveaway

Want to know a secret? The juicier, the better! These novels explore secret worlds, haunting disappearances, celebrity gossip, and family intrigue. Want to find out more?  Dive in!

The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry

Expected Publication Date: May 2, 2023

When a woman discovers a rare book that has connections to her past, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed.

In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone—a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own.

But the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, and she carries that guilt into adulthood as a private burden she feels she deserves.

Twenty years later, Hazel is in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore to a career at Sotheby’s. With a charming boyfriend and her elegantly timeworn Bloomsbury flat, Hazel’s future seems determined. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars. Hazel never told a soul about the imaginary world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years?

As Hazel embarks on a feverish quest, revisiting long-dormant relationships and bravely opening wounds from her past, her career and future hang in the balance. An astonishing twist ultimately reveals the truth in this transporting and refreshingly original novel about the bond between sisters, the complications of conflicted love, and the enduring magic of storytelling.

 

Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch

Expected Publication Date: July 11, 2023

As character actress Edie O’Dare finishes the final year of her contract with FWM Studios, the clock is ticking for her to find a new gig after an undistinguished stint in the pictures. She’s long supplemented her income moonlighting for Hollywood’s reigning gossip columnist, providing her with the salacious details of every party and premiere. When an up-and-coming starlet hands her a letter alleging an assault from an A-list actor at a party with Edie and the rest of the industry’s biggest names in attendance, Edie helps get the story into print and sets off a chain of events that will alter the trajectories of everyone involved.

Now on a new side of the entertainment business, Edie’s second act career grants her more control on the page than she ever commanded in front of the camera. But Edie quickly learns that publishing the secrets of those former colleagues she considers friends has repercussions. And when she finds herself in the middle of the trial of the decade, Edie is forced to make an impossible choice with the potential to ruin more than one life.

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

Expected Publication Date: August 1, 2023

Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake–a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led–her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.

But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets. Matilde has tried for decades to cover the extent of her husband’s infidelity, but she must now confront the true state of her marriage. Pastora is typically the most reserved sister, but Flor’s wake motivates this driven woman to solve her sibling’s problems. Camila is the youngest sibling, and often the forgotten one, but she’s decided she no longer wants to be taken for granted.

Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo’s inimitable and incandescent voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces–one family’s journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.

What We Kept to Ourselves by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

Expected Publication Date: October 10, 2023

1999: The Kim family is struggling to move on with their lives after their mother, Sunny, vanished a year ago. Sixty-one-year-old John Kim feels more isolated from his grown children, Anastasia and Ronald, than ever before. But one evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John discovers the body of a dead stranger in the backyard. The tragedy seems random until it’s revealed that the dead man was carrying a letter to Sunny, sparking a desperate investigation into the stranger’s history and possible connections to Sunny—only to discover that someone has been watching them.

1977: Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her work-obsessed husband. America is not turning out the way she had dreamed it to be, and the loneliness and isolation is broken only by a fateful encounter at a bus stop. The unexpected connection spans the decades and echoes into the family’s lives in the present as they uncover devastating secrets that put not only everything they thought they knew about their mother at risk, but their very lives as well.

Both a riveting page-turner and moving family story, What We Kept to Ourselves masterfully explores the consequences of secrets between parents and children, husbands and wives, the search for home when all seems lost, and what it means to dream in America.

 

Annotations from the publishers

 

Post by Melissa Friedlund, Reference Specialist

 

Giveaway

Enter your name here for a chance to win ARCs of the books mentioned in this post. One entry per person. Drawing to be held approximately 7 days after this post.

ARCs are “advanced reading copies.” These are free copies of a new books given by a publisher to librarians and other reviewers before the book is printed for mass distribution.

#FDL is a weekly update on all things Fondulac District Library and East Peoria.

May 25th, 2023|

Book Recommendations for AAPI Month

May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.   During this month we celebrate the contributions that Asian and Pacific Islanders have made to our history and culture.

Check out one of these books or place a hold today!

This is Paradise: stories by Kristiana Kahakauwila

Intimacies by Katie M. Kitamura

The Incendiaries by R. O. Kwon

A Place For Us: A novel by Fatima Farheen Mirza

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

The Sympathizer  by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Music of the Ghosts by Vaddey Ratner

Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig

The Bad Muslim Discount: a novel by Syed Masood

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

The Farm : A novel by Joanne Ramos

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan

That Kind of Mother by Rumaan Alam

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

Blackmail and Bibingka by Mia P. Manansala

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev

Run Me To Earth by Paul Yoon

Monstress by Marjorie Liu

Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad

The God of Small Things by Roy Arundhati

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

–Post by Susie Rivera, Reference Specialist

#FDL is an update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.

May 20th, 2023|

FDL Reads: Dark Places

 

Dark Places by Gillian FlynnDark Places: A Novel See more

Reviewed by Julie Nutt, Reference Assistant

Genre: Suspense, Thriller (domestic thriller)

Suggested age: Adult

What is this book about? Libby Day is the sole survivor after the brutal murder of her mother and sisters, supposedly committed by her older brother, Ben. Ben is found guilty of the crimes based on Libby’s testimony that she witnessed the attack first-hand. Libby’s existence has been consumed by the publicity surrounding the murders, never fully developing a life or personality of her own beyond the headlines. When Libby is tracked down by a true-crime enthusiast interested in her story and the belief that Ben is innocent, it is just the beginning of Libby’s journey to find the truth.

My review: “I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.” – Libby Day. Flynn’s novel cuts deep into raw emotions and pivotal events that led up to the night of the family’s shocking deaths. Her biting prose provides an intense view of the characters’ struggles: Mom Patty’s anguish; Ben’s pain and desperation as a teen trying to fit in; Libby’s battle with her own memories. Not a single gritty, dirty detail is spared in painting the stark backdrop of rural Kansas, during the 1980’s farm recession.

Based on reading both Sharp Objects and Dark Places, Gillian Flynn is a master of ending with completely unexpected twists. In a 2019 article by ScreenRant, Flynn’s ending to the book/movie Gone Girl was “one of the best plot twists of the 2010’s.” In a 2019 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Flynn said, “I’ve always loved those ending of unease.” Just like Libby Day, you’ll think you’ve got the mystery figured out. But the truth? You’ll never see it coming.

Three words that describe this book: heavy, harsh, deep

Give this a try if you like: Dark, familial TV dramas and films like the HBO series Sharp Objects (based on the novel by Gillian Flynn), or Big Little Lies (based on the novel by Liane Moriarty); novel The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (also a film); Paradise Lost (documentary on the West Memphis Three, teens convicted of murder based on “Satanic Panic” of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s)

Rating: 5/5

Find it at the library!

Available on Axis 360 and Libby apps!

FDL Reads

 

May 18th, 2023|
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