Tuesday, December 23, 2008


Greatest Book Ever!

Your Jail Librarians made a spectacular find today. The library bin turned out to contain--hold onto your keyboard--The Mammoth Book of Maneaters. This book recounts true stories and cautionary tales about man-eating animals. 

Can you imagine the chills and thrills of sitting in a jail cell, perhaps leaning against a cold stone wall, reading over 250 stories about "creatures that prey on human flesh?" 

As you will see in the picture, the staff had to display Maneaters in a place of prominence. Prominence on a jail bookcart means proximity to James Patterson, Stuart Woods, Walter Mosley and Mario Puzo. Even a Sicilian can get on the wrong side of the snake family or get double-crossed by a crocodile.



(BTW, beloved Book Donaters, this is just the kind of book we like to find tucked in your paper bags. Any other author pictured here will help us out, as well. The goal is to give our readers hours of shivering pleasure.)

Thursday, December 11, 2008



Jail, not Yale!

Today, the library team had a request from a young man in an isolation cell. His voice, muffled by the heavy metal door, said he needed "intellectual stimulation." Our view through the narrow slit of a window confirmed that fact--there was nothing to look at or occupy his time.

Earlier in the week, a worker in one of the cell blocks shouted from a recreation yard, "Hey, Librarian. I loved those poetry books you gave me, especially the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson." We had overheard him quoting a Carl Sandburg poem from memory to a fellow inmate. How often do you hear "City of Wide Shoulders" recited on the street or in the classroom?

Another person has written a novel and wanted grammar, punctuation and spelling books to check his work. Other GED students request books that show their desire to excel to a higher level.

As our team proceeded down the long "Get Smart" hallways of the jail, we passed one of our favorite deputies who quipped, "This is Jail, not Yale."

We're not so sure about that!