"Convenience Store Woman" with Ashburn Library

by Ann Miller

Amanda Frazier recently submitted these wonderful photos from the Ashburn Library Book to Art Club in Virginia. Her club read “Convenience Store Woman” by Sayaka Murata and created miniature dioramas using Altoids tins.

Amanda says, “Everyone loved the book and our tiny pieces of art!”

Thank you, Amanda, for sharing these! We love them, too!

Book to Art Club of Ashburn Library

by Amanda Frazier

The Ashburn Library of Loudoun County Public Libraries excitedly joined Book to Art Club at the start of 2020, announced our reading selection, distributed copies, and then watched the whole world shut down. We’ve been waiting to restart the program, which I think is a wonderful concept, trying to figure out when people would want to start attending our programs in person again and so here we are two years later but we’re making it happen! We have a small but very interested group and have expanded the ”art” part to include crafts. For our second month we read Morgenstern’s Night Circus and made little charm bracelets inspired by the book – everyone loved it 😊 Looking forward to sharing more of our adventures in the future.

Ingenuity at Davis Academy

by Stacy Brown, Davis Academy

The Davis Academy book clubs are going strong this year. Readers have embraced literacy, art, graphic design, and coding within the book club. In December, fourth grade students read The Meaning of Maggie by Megan Jean Sovern and after a lively discussion, they made digital bento boxes filled with their own treasures that signify who they are as individuals: hobbies, acheivements, and values. Our fifth graders read both Out of My Mind and Out of My Heart by Sharon Draper during these winter months. After reading Out of My Mind, students designed a communication device for Melody, the main character who relies on a technological device to voice her thoughts. Students used paper and pencil sketches, the Makey Makey, and Scratch coding to complete their projects. With Out of My Heart, in which Melody goes to camp, book clubbers designed a wheel chair accessible ramp and tested out its usefulness by coding the robotic Spheros to go up and down the ramp. Next month, both book clubs will be reading Merci Suarez Changes Gears by Meg Medina. For more book club happenings, follow @21stStacy on Twitter with the #bookclub hashag.

Figure 1: Digital Bento Box

Figure 2: A lively discussion of The Meaning of Maggie among 4th graders

Figure 3: 5th Graders sketching communication devices for Melody, the main character in Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

Figure 4: 5th graders coding their communication devices with Scratch

Figure 5: 5th Graders coding Spheros to test out their ramp building skills

Figure 6: 5th Graders designing wheelchair accessible ramps for Out of My Heart's main character, Melody, as she ventures off to summer camp

Book to Art Bingo

by Ann Miller

2022 has arrived, and with it, I offer you the first (hopefully annual), Book to Art Bingo Challenge. Participation is completely optional, but I promise you it will be fun!

The rules are simple: complete a Bingo—down, across or diagonal, and submit your card to booktoartclub@gmail.com with Book to Art Bingo as the title. This challenge will run through December 31, 2022, and you will have until January 7, 2023 to submit your results.

Bingo winners will be entered into a drawing for a surprise, so please include your mailing address along with your submission. There will be a second drawing for those who complete the entire card!

I am thrilled to offer this, and I can’t wait to see what everybody has been up to!

Happy New Year!

Click on card to download.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Winter

by Ann Miller, Mead Public Library

There’s a chill in the air and snowflakes have been teasing the arrival of winter. With or without a white-covered ground, it is mid-December, and in Wisconsin, winter has started in spite of it’s calendar designation. Lights and baubles combined with greens decorate streetlights, porches, and picture windows, and holiday carols can be heard on the radio.

It’s early enough in the season to view the snow as lovely, rather than a four-letter word, so in keeping with the cozy, holiday spirit, I encourage you to fire up a pot of hot cocoa, garnish it with a peppermint stick, and settle in for a warm, winter read.

Here are few recommendations:

Book to Art Book Club Thomasville

by Samantha Hanchett, Thomas County Public Library

Some of our club (left to right: myself, Sandra P., Frances T., Tiffany L. & Jennifer V.

Rolling out of our third year joining the ranks of the Book to Art Club, I couldn’t be more thrilled with how our small group has grown and maintained. I first ran across this concept back in 2018 and I thought it was brilliant – a combination of two of my passions: art and literature. Working in a public library, I was a bit shocked that we didn’t already host a book club and I really wanted to start one, but the competition is fierce in Thomasville and I didn’t want to offer just another book club to our adult patrons. Then BAM! Book to Art Club – a book club with a twist. I decided to reach out to its brainchild and give it a chance. It hit the ground running right off that bat, but like most things, went through its peaks and valleys (not to mention a tumultuous time of not happening/trying it virtually during the 2020 months, you know the ones).

What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez project - inspired by Picasso's depictions of grief and emotion

Severance by Ling Ma - inspired by Dave Pollot's transformed thrift store paintings and various photographers who inspired Ling Ma's NY Ghost blog

In the end, here we are. Half of our members have been with us from the beginning, half are new to the club and we get a random one trying out here and there, but the whole journey has been so fun! Choosing books for the year (my club likes that I choose and take them out of their comfort zones) and seeing them create something uniquely their own from the project I present to accompany the discussion each month always blows my mind. My group is all across the board, some who think themselves artistically-challenged (totally misguided) are so talented and creating a work of art really helps us look at the novel we just read in a fresh way. One of our members even used one of her works in the State Fair art competition this year and was awarded first prize!

Sin Eater by Megan Campisi - inspired by Beth Lipman's Magical Thinking still life sculptures

All-in-all, Book to Art is a fantastic way to forge a connection and open discussion through literature, which is a main goal of the public library and myself. Books are a powerful tool to open the mind and expand our ways of thinking, breaking down walls and opening doors to exploring topics that are ‘touchy’ in a place we feel safe and forging relationships between those you wouldn’t think possible. Combined with visual art, this pathway to higher-level of consciousness is taken even further. As James Baldwin said, “The artist is present to correct the delusions to which we fall prey in our attempts to avoid this knowledge [of our inescapable, universal and extreme states of being]”.

Book Meets Song, and They Live Harmonically Ever After

I recently wrote another blog entry for my library to tie in with our Mead Bookish Bingo Challenge. The challenge was to read a book with a connection to a song written in the year 2000. Now this included books that referenced a song from the year 2000, as well as, songs written in the year 2000 with literary connections. You can read the entire article here.

This limitation of the year 2000 was difficult, but possible, and it got me thinking about other literary-music partnerships. During my research I discovered that Artists for Literacy began a fundraising campaign in the year 2000 to recruit literary-influenced songs by top artists to inspire new readers and support free tutoring programs.

I love this idea. And I love the thought that music could be part of the Book to Art Club. Music is, after all, an art form, and admittedly, it is one that I haven’t utilized beyond creating atmospheric playlists for some of my book discussions. I am including some titles below that are married to music. This is only a small sampling of books connected to song.

I would love to hear about other music and book connections that you’ve had—even better if it relates to a Book to Art Club experience.

Get Cozy with a Cozy

Winter seems to be staying here in the Midwest. Paired with quarantine orders, this is the perfect time for sipping tea, snuggling under warm blankets, and getting cozy with a “cozy” mystery as you wait for your next Book to Art Club session. A few thrilling possibilities are:

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Stay cozy and warm!



Fostering Inclusiveness with Diverse Stories

by Ann Miller

As we plan our future book discussions, we face the exciting challenge of creating a balance between favorite, familiar books, authors and genres, and expanding our selection to embrace new, thought-provoking, potentially life-changing reads. We know that one reader may connect with a tome and its characters through shared life experiences, while another reader will experience an eye-opening moment of enlightenment. This is why diverse reading selections create a more inclusive book club.

These are a few stories that I’ve recently read and found inspiring mixed in with a few favorites. You’ll find even more on the Book to Art Club Title page. I hope you will check them out!

Virtually Maker Faire

by Ann Miller

Make: magazine created the Maker Faire as a way to gather creative people to showcase what they are making and for people to share ideas with each other. There are Maker Faires now occurring annually all over the world in celebration of arts, crafts, science, technology, engineering and innovation. With the pandemic COVID-19 looming over the world, many Maker Faires were forced to cancel, so Make: created the Virtually Maker Faire this year. I was honored to be selected to run a very special Book to Art Club session for all ages to discuss J. K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”.

The entire event came together in only a few weeks, so there wasn’t a lot of time to promote it, but I was pleased with the turnout that we had. Our group was small, but we had a wide range of ages and decent discussion of the reading. I’d like to especially thank my fellow Book to Art Club facilitators who attended. I know that you were invited very last minute, and I sincerely appreciate your support.

Social Distancing with a Book Club

by Ann Miller

“Social Distancing” is an ubiquitous term these days with the spread of COVID-19, coronavirus, because it affects all of us. In simple terms, it means that we should avoid physical contact and close proximity to each other.

Book clubs are gatherings of readers sharing in discussion, and in the case of the Book to Art Club, sharing art supplies. Due to the spread of coronavirus in my area, my library has canceled all programs that meet person-to-person for the foreseeable future. You may be finding yourself in a similar situation.

The simplest solution, of course, is to cancel or postpone your book discussions. Although this is disappointing to do, it helps protect you and your club members from getting sick, and that is extremely important. Another option is to meet via video chat, like Skype, Zoom, Facebook Messenger, or Microsoft Teams, just to name a few, or through a conference telephone call.

The Mead Public Library Book to Art Club will be meeting in April and May via Skype, and to keep the making element, I have asked my members to register so that I know how many project making kits to prepare. In April we will be discussing Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger, and I will fill sealable bags with an assortment of fun paper scraps, wire pieces, leftover art supplies, steampunk-inspired cutouts and 3D printed objects, such as gears and clocks. May’s discussion will be Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend, and I will, again, provide take-and-make bags with a few items, like drink umbrellas, cat cutouts, and any of our craft leftovers that I think would be fun to include.

I’ve included links on the book titles, in case you would like to see how I am coordinating this. I would like to emphasize that there is absolutely no shame in simply canceling your book discussion. Safety is the number one priority. I just wanted to provide an alternative option so that things don’t seem so bleak.

More Good Things from Thomas County!

The Thomas County Public Library’s Book to Art Club is continuing strong in the new year with good reads, great discussions and fabulous projects.

We have started our 2020 season with a few new and old members and it is off to a great start so far!  Our last read was Goodbye, Vitamin which lead to an interesting discussion on where love goes when a relationship is over and our views on life in general. —Samantha Hanchett

Check out Thomas County Public Library’s Pinterest page for inspiration to pair with these titles. Thank you, Samantha, for sharing with us!

Watercolour constellations for All the Ugly & Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

Watercolour constellations for All the Ugly & Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

Collages to challenge the mind/Alzheimer's thoughts for Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong

Collages to challenge the mind/Alzheimer's thoughts for Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong

Good Things Are Happening at Thomas County Public Library!

Samantha Hanchett from Thomas County Public Library recently submitted these wonderful projects from her library’s club. What a fun variety of projects to engage her members with! I’m looking forward to seeing what they make in 2020.

The Power by Naomi Alderman (Street flyers for feminine power)

The Power by Naomi Alderman (Street flyers for feminine power)

The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey (Zombie paper dolls)

The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey (Zombie paper dolls)

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro (Sticker-by-Numbers: Famous Art)

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro (Sticker-by-Numbers: Famous Art)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Book page poetry)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Book page poetry)

The Great Big Romance Read

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September marked the second year of The Great Big Romance Read created by The Ripped Bodice Bookstore, an all-romance bookstore located in Culver City, CA. It is The Great Big Romance Read’s goal to “connect romance readers all over the world and celebrate a shared love of romance by reading the same book during the month of September.”

Another book club that I facilitate, Romance on the Rocks, participated this year, and I am sharing this event because the chosen title, “The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics” by Olivia Waite is more than a historical romance read. It is also a book that inspires women to pursue science careers, a beautifully and sensitively written lesbian romance, and a story that ignites creative visions of stars and botanicals, telescopes and embroidery. In other words, this book is perfect for the Book to Art Club, too!

“The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics” by Olivia Waite has been added to our title list. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did!

National Book Lover's Day

In honor of National Book Lover’s Day, I thought it would be fitting to feature a title for future Book to Art Club discussions, a novel that is written about and for book lovers. One of my absolute favorite Book to Art Club reads so far has been “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern. It isn’t new, of course, but it is worth reading, and even reading, again, in my humble opinion.

Even more exciting is that Erin Morgenstern has a new title coming out soon, “The Starless Sea”. I am elated to be reading this book with my club in Sheboygan at the start of the new year, and the story’s concept seems to hold limitless possibilities for art-making. Below is the description from the author’s website.

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Far beneath the surface of the earth, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories. The entryways that lead to this sanctuary are often hidden, sometimes on forest floors, sometimes in private homes, sometimes in plain sight. But those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is searching for his door, though he does not know it. He follows a silent siren song, an inexplicable knowledge that he is meant for another place. When he discovers a mysterious book in the stacks of his campus library he begins to read, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, lost cities, and nameless acolytes. Suddenly a turn of the page brings Zachary to a story from his own childhood impossibly written in this book that is older than he is.

A bee, a key, and a sword emblazoned on the book lead Zachary to two people who will change the course of his life: Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired painter, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances. These strangers guide Zachary through masquerade party dances and whispered back room stories to the headquarters of a secret society where doorknobs hang from ribbons, and finally through a door conjured from paint to the place he has always yearned for. Amid twisting tunnels filled with books, gilded ballrooms, and wine-dark shores Zachary falls into an intoxicating world soaked in romance and mystery. But a battle is raging over the fate of this place and though there are those who would willingly sacrifice everything to protect it, there are just as many intent on its destruction. As Zachary, Mirabel, and Dorian venture deeper into the space and its histories and myths, searching for answers and each other, a timeless love story unspools, casting a spell of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a Starless Sea.

For further inspiration, I have added “The Starless Sea” to our menu of titles. Bon appétit!

The Big Read Results are Coming In!

We are so excited to have you participating in the very first Book to Art Club Big Read, “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle! Here are some images that we have received so far, and we will continue adding as we receive.

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Mead Public Library

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Milwaukee Public Library

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