Singing with young children is a fun activity that can be enjoyed by almost anyone, and entertainment value aside, studies show it can have a very positive effect on your young child’s development.  Songs provide parents and caregivers with a very special way of “talking” to young children, and aid in language acquisition and the development of good social and verbal communication skills.

Try singing traditional songs like “I’m a Little Teapot” or “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” a nursery rhyme such as “Hickory Dickory Dock,” or just make up a song using things that interest your child.  Keep in mind, having a great singing voice is NOT a requirement.  If you’re off pitch, chances are, the audience won’t even notice!

Check out your local library’s collection of nursery rhyme books and children’s compact discs to help get you started!              

Here are just a few ideas:

The Neighborhood Mother Goose by Nina Crews

Hush, Little Baby by Brian Pinkney

The Wheels on the School Bus by Mary-Alice Moore

Raffi in Concert with the Rise and Shine Band

The Ladybug Music series by Patricia Maertens

Tags: Children's books, Pre-K, music

Had Daniel Schumacher (1729-1787) been an ordinary man, we probably would never have heard of him.  His bad habits of drinking, swearing, lying, and dancing, amongst others, were not uncommon among the men of his day.  But he was a man of the cloth, or better put:  One day he hoodwinked Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg, founder of the Lutheran church in America, with credentials from the Lutheran pastor of New York city and from the ministerium of Lutheran pastors in Hamburg, Germany.  Their contents indicated he had studied theology in a German university and was now ready to be ordained.  Mühlenberg assigned him “ad interim” to a new Lutheran congregation in Reading, Pennsylvania, and to two neighboring congregations in Alsace and Schwarzwald.  Correspondence traveled slowly, and by the time letters had crossed and re-crossed the Atlantic concerning his status, it mattered little that his credentials were false, and that he harbored many bad habits unbecoming to a Lutheran minister.  In the interim Schumacher had worked his way into the ministry.

The story, of course, might have been different had there been enough ordained preachers willing to circuit ride and preach to the Lutheran settlers on the Frontier, but Daniel was intelligent, talented, and strongly felt his calling as he bravely ministered to those on the edges of civilization.  His congregations loved him not only for his bravery, but also for his humanity.  They could relate to him, and knew he would understand their foibles and weaknesses.  When Mühlenberg sought to dismiss him, Schumacher broke away, built his own church, and took most of the congregation with him.  He preached to those who lived among the Blue Mountains in northern Berks and present-day Lehigh Counties, and served approximately 20 congregations in his lifetime.

An artist and poet, Daniel Schumacher is one of the few ministers who is also known for his Fraktur—calligraphy and decorative elements such as birds and flowers used by the Pennsylvania Germans to create baptismal certificates, book plates, school rewards, writing samples, etc.  Schumacher kept very detailed records of all baptisms, and when he hand drew and colored the Taufscheins (baptismal certificates). The baptismal certificate for John Martin Baly,¹ ca. 1755 (Image 1) is but one example of the approximately 1,700 baptisms he performed. 

Daniel also made other types of Fraktur such as confirmation and marriage certificates, bookplates, and poems.  His poems are varied in theme and content.  In August of 1769 a comet appeared in the skies of Pennsylvania, frightening many as a sign of coming destruction. Daniel agreed and created A Call to Judgment (Image 2) to ask sinners not to take chances, and to repent.  Could God also be benevolent?  Yes, indeed, and in his New Year’s greetings of 1782 (Image 3) Schumacher embodies a Pennsylvania German tradition of wishing God's blessings on friends and family during the Christmas season.

Rejoice my heart for a New Year begins.   Sing unto God a joyous hymn for all that which has been good.  Give thanks unto Him for all His blessings that you’ve received in the year just past.  Ask of Him His blessings in the New for all your needs.  For great is His renown, great are His wonders, with which He has dearly preserved you up to now.  Harken to this in all your ways my soul that God might further bless and keep you.  In all that you do, in all things along your way, step by step, will He crown you a thousand times over.  This I take to heart in this New Year, that now within our world another blessing be made to all of Christendom.  That I might do my duty, not tire, nor lessen in my resolve.

To my esteemed Jacob Grimm, my friend, and benefactor:

I wish that heaven may preserve his house, and all within—his wife, children, and kin—their good fortune be under God’s protection.  May their bread basket n’er be empty, with blessings to overflowing, and may the light of their oil lamp never dim.  May it not be for naught, like Peter when he fished so long ago.  No!  May God’s benevolence and goodwill be ever with you. By day and by night be true unto God only.  Peace, joy, health, and happiness be on all your paths.  May God be in your house and upon you so that you may remain happy for the whole year.  May you accept with joy what God has in store for you.  Finally, when you must take leave of the world, may God delight in lifting you up to heaven. 

Herewith I commend myself unto your favor and love.  My heart wishes that you remain my friend.  This I wish to all of them, that is to the esteemed church elder Jacob Grimm, and to his family for the New Year 1782.

Their pastor

Daniel Schumacher

Weisenberg Township [Lehigh County, PA]

m.p.p. (by my own hand).

[Transcription/Translation 2012 : Del-Louise Moyer]

________________________________________________________________

¹The Free Library of Philadelphia is home to more than 1,000 Pennsylvania German Fraktur – making this one of the largest public collections of Fraktur in existence.  The images that accompany this blog post are part of the FLP collection, available online at http://libwww.freelibrary.org/fraktur/.

Tags: Pennsylvania German Collection, Rare Book Department, digital collections, genealogy

Let's say there's a hot new bestseller tearing up the New York Times list.  It's everywhere, in the libraries, the books stores, at fancy displays by the grocery store checkout line, everyone, it seems, on every train, every subway, every airplane, and in every doctor's waiting room is reading it. Naturally, your curiosity is piqued and you want to read it for yourself to see what all fuss is about.  So, you head on over to www.freelibrary.org, click the pink download media button on our homepage. You're brimming with hopes of quickly and easily checking out and downloading the ebook or audiobook version in your pajamas.  However, you are saddened to discover that there's a waiting list!  Why, you wonder, must I wait to checkout a digital item? 

The answer is simple: ebooks work just like print books.  The library buys a certain number of them based on their popularity and what our budget will allow (donate here, if you are so moved) and we can loan each copy to one person at a time.  The only exceptions are ebooks from our Freading ebook service which works a bit differently.  Learn more about Freading here.   

OK. So that seems reasonable enough, but let's say you're in your P.J.s looking for that special ebook and it seems that the library doesn't have it all?  "How could that be?" you wonder, "Do those librarians live under rocks?  In caves?" 

Of course not, in fact, only a few of us still live under rocks or in caves, and while the reasons we might not have your ebook or audiobook are complicated it boils down to this: the digital book industry is in transition and book publishers have not yet decided how to handle digital library lending.  In fact, a number of big publishers won't sell their ebooks to libraries at all!  Learn more about that here and here.  When it comes to audiobooks, publishers are generally more comfortable with library lending, but most only offer their titles to us in WMA format rather than in the more universally acceptable MP3 format. This means that most of our audiobooks will work if you download them to a PC, but for those of us who prefer to use our Macs or mobile devices like tablets, phones, Kindles, Nooks, or any other gadgets that play MP3s but is not WMA compatible, the selection is more limited. Learn more about audiobooks here. 

So, in the meantime, please know that we're advocating for your right to enjoy library material in any format you choose and we ask that you do the same for us.  Take action here. 

Mirabel Horton didn’t want the latest gadget or expensive toy for her 4^th birthday. Instead, she wanted to give to others.

A frequent customer at the Parkway Central Children’s Department, Mirabel loves the Library. Her parents, Alicia and Todd, have been teaching their daughter about sharing and giving, and when Mirabel got the chance to give back, she did. On her birthday, she didn’t ask for gifts from friends and family. Instead, Mirabel suggested that her loved ones give a little something to the Free Library.

In total, she collected $200 for the Children’s Department! With a little birthday card, Mirabel presented the money to the Free Library President and Director, Siobhan A. Reardon. We are honored by her selfless donation and proud to have such a thoughtful young donor. Thank you, Mirabel!

We love year-end "Best of" lists here in Libraryland! There's so much good stuff published each year that we ache to share the books we love with everyone we can get our hands on.

Sometimes we just want to force you all to curl up in a comfy chair with a cup of hot cocoa and a fantastic book and not re-emerge until you're done. Since some people might get mad if we did that (and we don't have an endless supply of hot cocoa), we use Best Of lists to try to get you to love what we love.

As a librarian in Philbrick Hall at the Parkway Central Library, I'm so fortunate that I get to see all the new and cool books, both fiction and non-fiction, that come though our doors. I've sifted through the 267 books that I've read this year (so far) to come up with my 20 favorites to share with you!

This month I'm counting down my personal favorites that were published in 2012 over at the Philbrick Hall Facebook Page. Each day I'm posting a new book, ranging in topic from memoir to history to romance to science fiction to essays, and I'll unveil my absolute favorite of them all on New Year's Eve.

All the books are available right here at the Free Library either as a real book, an e-book, or both. Come like Philbrick Hall and see what I've been reading!

Tags: reading