Three books with short story collections were featured in this episode of Read This Book! with Kaia Sievert and host Tim Johnson.

The books will be featured beginning March 1 at the University of Minnesota's Wilson Library. 

Find the reviewed books:

In the Country Stories by Mia Alvar

* From University of Minnesota Libraries

* From Hennepin County Library

* From Saint Paul Public Library

Fortune Smiles Stories by Adam Johnson

* From University of Minnesota Libraries

* From Hennepin County Library

* From Saint Paul Public Library

What is Not Yours is Not Yours: Stories by Helen Oyeyemi

*

Three books with short story collections were featured in this episode of Read This Book! with Kaia Sievert and host Tim Johnson. The books will be featured beginning March 1 at the University of Minnesota's Wilson Library.

Erika Lee — a University of Minnesota history professor and director of the University's Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) — talks about her latest project, the Immigration Syllabus, an online tool to help faculty, teachers, students, and the general public better understand the history of immigration in the United States.

The Immigration Syllabus initiative is a collaboration among several faculty members and others from across the country. The information can be useful when examining the current debate over immigration.

More about Erika Lee and the IHRC

Erika Lee is an award-winning American historian, Director of the Immigration History Research Center, and the Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair in Immigration History at the University of Minnesota. Her scholarly specialties include migration, race and ethnicity; Asian Americans; transnational U.S. history; and immigration law and public policy. Her new book, The Making of Asian America: A History was published by Simon & Schuster in 2015 to wide acclaim.

The Immigration History Research Center was founded in 1965 Founded in 1965 and aims to transform the way in which we understand immigration in the past and present. Along with its partner, the IHRC Archives (University Libraries), it is the oldest and largest interdisciplinary research center and archives devoted to preserving and understanding immigrant and refugee life in North America.

About the organizers of #ImmigrationSyllabus

Organizers of this syllabus include Erika Lee, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair in Immigration History at the University of Minnesota and Director of the Immigration History Research Center (IHRC); María Cristina García, Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies at Cornell University and President of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society (IEHS); Adam Goodman, Assistant Professor of History & Latin American and Latino Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago; Madeline Hsu, Professor of History, The University of Texas at Austin; Julian Lim, Assistant Professor of History, Arizona State University; Maddalena Marinari, Assistant Professor of History, Gustavus Adolphus University; and Evan Taparata, PhD Candidate in History, University of Minnesota.

* Go to #ImmigrationSyllabus

History Professor Erika Lee discusses her latest project, the Immigration Syllabus, an online tool to help faculty, teachers, students, and the general public understand the history of immigration in the United States. The initiative is a collaboration among several faculty members and others from across the country.

Veterinary Medical Librarian Andre Nault talks about raising puppies and about critical thinking — two widely different books — on this installment of "Read This Book!" from the University of Minnesota Libraries.

Nault is joined by host Tim Johnson, our rare books and Sherlock Holmes curator, who pinch hit for our regular host, Lisa Von Drasek. 

Find the reviewed books:

The Art of Raising a Puppy from the Monks of New Skete

* From University of Minnesota Libraries

* From Hennepin County Library

* From Saint Paul Public Library

Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard H. Thaler

* From University of Minnesota Libraries

* From Hennepin County Library

* From Saint Paul Public Library

About Tim Johnson and Andre Nault

Tim Johnson is Curator of Rare Books and the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Andre Nault is the Veterinary Medical Librarian at the University of Minnesota Libraries. 

About Read This Book!

Read This Book! is a video podcast produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries. It is available on YouTube and iTunes.

Veterinary Medical Librarian Andre Nault talks about raising puppies and about critical thinking — two widely different books — on this installment of "Read This Book!" from the University of Minnesota Libraries.

By Karen Obermeyer-Kolb

To start the new year, this month we are focusing on the Minnesota School of the Air programming. Our episode today is from Old Tales and New, one of the first and longest running programs of the Minnesota School of the Air.

Betty T. Girling wrote the stories as well as a few adaptations heard on this program for approximately 38 of the 41 years this program aired, 1938 until 1979. This particular episode was chosen for the podcast as it achieved a national award for Education by Radio and for its timeless lesson. You can listen to the episode in the browser here and read the script below.

Episode 6: Never Too Old for Storytime or a Good Lesson

You are listening to U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial podcast and this is episode 6 - Never Too Old for Storytime or a Good Lesson

Hello! Karen here at the University of Minnesota Archives and for this episode we are going to imagine ourselves children again...in the classroom...seated around the radio...maybe on a brightly colored rug… all ready for Old Tales and New.

We are introduced to the story of “The Dragon with the Sweet Tooth” with dramatic music and a narrator who tells us about the village of Pebble with villagers whose only fear is of a dragon who they had never seen. The dragon lives in the dark forest on top of the rocky hill overlooking the village. He is adored by all the forest animals who live around him and he loves to eat.  One day he smells something wonderful and is determined to seek it out despite warnings from his friends to never go to the village. He feels the villagers can’t be dangerous or mean to him since they don’t even know him.

The narrator introduces himself as Mr. Fudge, the owner of the only candy shop in Pebble. The dragon makes his way down to the village and into the shop where the children run away screaming and we find out it was peppermint that he had smelled. He produces a pink smoke while he eats the peppermint and the shop owner is delighted by the dragon’s enjoyment of his candy.

The dragon loves the peppermint and the candy shop so much he stays. Mr. Fudge teaches him how to make all the various candies and names him Dunwoody, after the brand of peppermint flavoring. However, the villagers remain scared of the dragon, avoiding the shop completely, and Mr. Fudge tries to convince them not to be.

“I’d go to them and explain that Dunwoody was a kindly, gentle dragon, a great help to me and wanted only to be liked and eat peppermint sticks. Nobody believed me. They said, “all dragons were alike and all of them were terrible[...]”

In the end, it is Dunwoody’s kindness and hard work that gets all the customers back and convinces them that dragons are not all terrible.

“You see they’d come to know him so they couldn’t be afraid of my friend, the gentle dragon, the dragon with the sweet tooth.”

“The Dragon with the Sweet Tooth” was just one of the many stories written by Betty Girling for the program Old Tales and New. It was one of the most popular shows in the Minnesota School of the Air programming.* We could dedicate many episodes to Girling and her achievements over the course of her 34-year career as director of the Minnesota School of the Air, but instead, I will recommend a search on our website for the Betty T. Girling Papers.

Betty T. Girling, 1947. Photograph Collection, University Archives. Available at http://purl.umn.edu/81619.

This program as you may have guessed, was geared towards elementary school-aged children, but storytime had a much bigger message and lesson for everyone. When first broadcast in 1962,

To start the new year, this month we are focusing on the Minnesota School of the Air programming. Our episode today — from from Old Tales and New — achieved a national award for Education by Radio and for its timeless lesson. Betty T. Girling wrote the stories as well as a few adaptations heard on this program for approximately 38 of the 41 years this program aired, 1938 until 1979. This particular episode

In this installment of "Read This Book!", children's librarian Lisa Von Drasek highlights the winners of the 2016 Marion Vannett Ridgway Book Awards. The Ridgway Award is a memorial award given to an author or illustrator in recognition of an outstanding debut in the world of children's picture books.

Books discussed: 

* Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews

* Voice of Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford and Illustrated by Ekua Holmes

* Smick! by Doreen Cronin and Juana Medina.

About Lisa Von Drasek and Tim Johnson

Lisa Von Drasek is the Curator of the Children’s Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Tim Johnson is Curator of Special Collections and Rare Books and the E. W. McDiarmid Curator of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. 

About Read This Book!

Read This Book! is a video podcast produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries. It is available on YouTube and iTunes.

In this installment of "Read This Book!", children's librarian Lisa Von Drasek highlights the winners of the 2016 Marion Vannett Ridgway Book Awards, given to an author or illustrator in recognition of an outstanding debut in the world of children's picture books. Books discussed are: "Trombone Shorty" by Troy Andrews, "Voice of Freedom" by Carole Boston Weatherford and Illustrated by Ekua Holmes, and "Smick!" by Doreen Cronin and Juana Medina.