Library Publicity August News 
Aug 7 | human metabolism By Jeanette Stottrup Every once in a while a book serendipitously connects with a person and provides timely information. Such was my experience a few weeks ago when a co-worker told me about a book that had been recommended to her, but after she looked at it, she decided that she would not have time to read it. She was going to send it back to the Glencoe Public Library. She said it talked about human metabolism and sounded very interesting. I have been interested in health issues for some time and a better understanding of human metabolism would be worthwhile to me if it were written for the average layperson. In a quick Amazon.com search on human metabolism I could not identify too many books for laypeople on the subject. Most were over $100.00, a sure indication that they were intended for professional reading. A quick search under metabolism in our catalog revealed that ten out of twenty five newer titles were checked out indicating an interest in the subject. I thanked my friend and decided to do a quick review. After reading a chapter, I decided this would be an important book for me to read cover to cover. I rarely read an entire book: “so many books - so little time”, so the “cover to cover” hope is still up in the air. The title of this wonderful, yet disturbing, book is Mastering Leptin: The Key to Energetic Vitality, Youthful Hormonal Balance, Optimum Body Weight, and Disease Prevention by Byron Richards and Mary Guignon Richards. This book gives the average layperson good information about nutrition and metabolism, with guidelines to inform anyone interested in actively being involved in their health, people the authors call “Health Asset Managers”. The disturbing part to me is the relatively small number of “Health Asset Managers” that the authors’ believe are among us. The book is based on a recent discovery in 1994 by Jeffrey M. Friedman and colleagues at the Rockefeller University through the study of genetically obese mice. Leptin is the protein hormone found in white adipose tissue (fat) and is responsible for regulating appetite and metabolism. If this hormone and the brain don’t communicate correctly, the body thinks it is starving and will do anything to survive. Dieters hit plateaus as the body, in some form of a paranoid response, slows its metabolism to conserve energy. This miscommunication occurs, as I understand it, as a resistance to the steady bombardment of the hormone signal. The brain, as commander of the body, turns a deaf ear to the signal and, believing it hasn’t heard it, tells the body to find more energy. In the U.S. today the answer is the pop or candy machine down the hall, the fast food establishment around the corner, or super grocery store down the street. This signal to find more energy is “hardwired” into our brain, but in the past, it took time and effort to find the next meal. This gap in time between meals gave this hormone time to ebb and flow. The continuous stress of modern life along with a readily available food supply aggravates this leptin resistance and along with insulin and adrenaline resistance causes more miscommunication which causes weight problems and metabolic disease. The authors of Mastering Leptin suggest five ways to help regulate the hormonal signals that need to cycle at proper times in a well balanced normal metabolism. Never eat after dinner (about three hours before bedtime) and allow 11 to 12 hours till breakfast. Eat three meals a day spaced 5 to 6 hours apart (no snacking). Eat slowly and always finish a meal slightly less than full. Eat a breakfast containing protein. Reduce the amount of carbohydrates eaten. Working toward these goals of better metabolism should reward us with more energy, better weight control and metabolic health. None of these rules are new. We have heard them all before. By also adding exercise to tone and firm our muscles, our hardwired brain will think its back in the good old days and be able to hear appropriate hormone calls for energy. This book continues to explain how our metabolism works, making the rest of the story a fascinating one. If we understood more about our metabolism we would make better decisions as a “Health Asset Manager”. |
Aug 14 | Top | New Books for the Younger Patrons By Jan Pease The “Guess how many M&Ms are in the cookie jar” contest attracted 215 responses. There were actually 1,476 M&Ms in the jar. Alex Jackson was delighted to learn that his guess of 1,424 was the closest guess without going over. The final challenge of the summer is to guess how many peppermints are in the cookie jar. Here is a clue: The jar holds two bags of peppermints. Remember that summer reading records can be turned in through August 30th. Thanks to the generosity of the Litchfield Early Childhood Coalition, there are plenty of books and prizes to choose from. August gives readers a few more weeks to squeeze in on last book, and fortunately, five very different novels for older readers have arrived at the library. Melody Carlson has written more than two hundred books for teens, women, and children. Her “Diary of a Teenage Girl” series continues with “A Not So Simple Life” which stars Maya, the cousin of Kim Peterson from the Kim books. I know this book will appeal to fans of the series. Maya’s story is so compelling that new readers may be drawn into Melody Carlson’s world. Bruce Coville writes about other kinds of worlds, full of magic, unicorns, and fantastic things. He also is a prolific writer of short stories. His new collection, “Oddest of All” includes six previously published, but re-edited stories as well as three that have never been published, including a lyrical unicorn story, ‘The Boy with Silver Eyes.” David Almond has written a rather odd book, “My Dad’s a Birdman.” This is the story of Lizzie, whose dad is planning to fly like a bird. The book feels like it might have been written by Roald Dahl, right down to the quirky illustrations by Polly Dunbar. Garth Nix is an Australian writer who is very popular in Minnesota. Readers have been waiting and waiting for him to finish the sixth book in the “Keys to the Kingdom” series. “Superior Saturday” has finally arrived. Be sure to read the books in order, beginning with “Mister Monday,” while you wait for the final book, “Lord Sunday!” Donna Jo Napoli writes novels with a touch of the fantastic about them. She has written many novels based on fairy tales and fables. Her new book, “Mogo, The Third Warthog,” made me wonder. I couldn’t imagine why Donna Napoli wrote a story set in the African Savanna. Mogo is inspired by the story of the Three Little Pigs, and provides an adventurous look at the life of a warthog. Fans who loved the Lion King when they were younger may especially enjoy this story. See you at the library! |
Aug 21 | Top | China By Jeanette Stottrup An inexpensive way of being a world traveler is to experience a country through books and film. Here in the hinterland many of us will never travel extensively outside the US. As the world has seemingly gotten smaller with jet travel, free trade, telecommunications and other technology it would seem prudent to find those reading experiences that brought the reality of these far off place into our experience. Two countries having one third of the world's population that will be important to learn about are China and India. The Olympic Games have focused our attention on China, a country well worthy of our study. A good armchair introduction is "China: People Place Culture History" published by DK Publishing. This title is listed as a first choice on Amazon.com and is in the Dassel Library collection. If you like your armchair travel experience to include a visual panorama, this book has both beautiful photography and educational text. The book gives an overview of people, place, culture and history and is written from the Western perspective. A section titled "A Day in the Life" is a collection of daily life stories of ordinary people from many different areas of this vast country. Internal politics aside, this title is a good beginning point. To understand more of the political side of China an ambitions reader could tackle "Mao: the unknown story" covering the years 1893-1976. Mao's leadership, characterized by his drive for absolute power but lack of political vision, has had a profound influence on present day China. Publishers Weekly calls this title a flawed biography and one reviewer describes this book "Mao" as factually and intellectually unreliable. It does however hold first place on Amazon.com on books about Mao. Litchfield, Ortonville and Willmar libraries have this title in their collections. Another view of Mao's life is "Mao Zedong" by Jonathan D. Spence, in the Willmar collection. Mao was a flawed leader, as author Spence describes him, who may ultimately have been responsible for the deaths of perhaps 60 million people. A good title in understanding the importance of this year's Olympics, in the eyes of the Chinese people, is "Olympic dreams: China and sports, 1895-2008". At the turn of the twentieth century the Chinese people became obsessed with Western sports. As the author relates, the sport of ping-pong played a unique role in US and Chinese relations. The author's insights into the patterns and processes of China's policymaking will help readers understand China's interactions with the rest of the world. With a population of 1.3 billion and its higher standard of living, China has become a major player not only in sports, as they hope to prove in this years Olympics, but also in economic and political arenas as well. China's history has been marked with internal turmoil and strife along with unbelievable hardship for its people. The people of China want to be recognized as a nation that can do great things and their confidence that they can is growing. |
Aug 28 | Top | Trains, trains, trains! By Jeanette Stottrup Trains, trains, trains! Everyone loves trains. And it seems almost everyone is taking a train trip! Whatever the reason, if it’s the rising gas prices or just nostalgia, trains are seeing an upswing in popularity. Not only do I work at the library, I am still a chaperone for our county exchange group. I’ve been involved with this since 1996, when we hosted kids from Ford County, Kansas. We’ve wanted to do a train trip for several years, but it wasn't until this year that it worked out. Our 4-H Exchange group took a train trip to Montana in July. The kids were a little skeptical, especially when they found out how long it would take. But by the time we returned, they were won over. They loved the leisurely pace, and thoroughly enjoyed the quality time they spent with the rest of their group. We had been warned that Montana could be boring, but as one of our kids said (the farmer of the bunch) “As long as we see cows and grain bins, and a few tractors, what else could you want?” He was right, and it never got boring at all! Unfortunately we had to get off at the stop before Glacier, but we saw the train depot and lodge at Glacier and all the people getting off and on. We followed the train route almost the entire trip to Glacier, so we almost did it the entire way. The whole trip was wonderful. Our host families were great. We spent 2 days and nights camping in Glacier. We hiked Logan’s Pass to the Continental Divide. The scenery was breathtaking and the kids had a blast sliding down the glaciers on garbage bags-you’d think they’d never gone sledding before! The next day we went whitewater rafting, and had beautiful weather (and we were all very brave). We hated having to leave the mountains after all the fun we’d had. But the rest of the week was filled-we went into Great Falls and visited the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and the surrounding area. One night we went to a Cubs farm team baseball game in Great Falls. We all learned a lot of local history, and visited their irrigation dams. We learned a lot about their way of farming and how different it was from what we do here in Minnesota. The best part of our exchange trips is feeling that we actually know the people and area when we leave. And we can’t wait to see our new friends the next summer and show them our favorite spots. If you can’t take an actual train trip, or visit Montana and Glacier Park, the library has many resources to do some armchair traveling. We have train travel videos, books and videos on Glacier, and many books on Montana, both fiction and nonfiction in the Litchfield library. The fiction authors are especially good at adding local color when writing about an area, and we have a great selection on this area. The Montevideo library has a great book about the great lodges of the West. Madison has a juvenile book “Glacier National Park”. Willmar has “Smithsonian Guides to Natural America” which showcases the northern Rockies. We also have several books on model trains, collecting and building. So come into the library and take a trip on the train! |
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