This Winter marks the fourth annual Rogue Reads, a time when JCLS encourages our community to read and discuss a selection of books focused on common themes. Each year, library staff chooses four books: a picture book, a children’s book, a book for teens, and a book for adults. This year, we have added a Spanish title for adults. Our selections explore community, connection, creativity, and finding delight in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. JCLS library branches will host events from now through February for all ages to engage with those themes through art, writing, food, and conversations. The season culminates with an in-person author talk by Ross Gay, author of our adult English selection, The Book of Delights.
Families can read Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood, a gorgeous picture book by F. Isabel Campoy. It is based on a true story of a neighborhood in San Diego, CA, that was transformed by grassroots, collaborative, public art projects into a colorful and vibrant place to live. This book is also available in Spanish.
We’ve chosen a graphic novel for Elementary and Middle School-aged readers to enjoy. New Zealand author and artist K. O’Neill’s Tea Dragon Society is a quiet adventure in which Greta, a young blacksmith’s apprentice, learns the art of caring for tea dragons and becomes close friends with the family she learns from. The art is charming, and the story is delightful. This sweet book is a favorite for a reason.
This year’s selection for teens is Rayne and Delilah’s Midnite Matinee, by Jeff Zentner. This novel centers on two teen best friends who host a local cable TV show about campy old horror movies. In their senior year of high school, the friends are faced with big decisions about their futures and the changes that come with growing up. Funny and heartbreaking, this is a great read for teens (or anyone) with big dreams and an uncertain path.
Our Spanish title for adults is Los Abrazos Lentos by Elísabet Benavent, an internationally bestselling author of 22 novels. This book is a collection of short essays, poems, and reflections. The title translates to Slow Hugs, which Benavent elaborates on by saying, “Words are a lifeline for me; a way of living, a handful of slow hugs.”
In our title for adults in English, The Book of Delights, poet and essayist Ross Gay kept a journal of delightful things for a year and found that his resolve to notice something wonderful each day developed his ability to find good in the world around him. In addition to his visit to the Medford Library on February 20th, JCLS has a season of delightful programs planned to celebrate our Rogue Reads selections.
For example, libraries all around the county will host events that provide space and materials for adults to Create Your Own Book of Delights. At these programs, we invite you to design and decorate a journal so you can begin keeping a record of the daily delights you encounter. Ross Gay’s essays on delights range far and wide. Sometimes the delights were tiny, sometimes they were huge and obvious, and sometimes it was hard to find them. But building the habit of noticing them and using them to create something changed him for the better. Delights, like hope, carry us through hard times and make good times even better.
Whether you can make it to a library branch for the journal decorating event or not, we encourage you to give it a try. Decorate a journal at home or find one you like the way it is and use it to write your own Book of Delights. Try to notice each day when you find yourself experiencing joy, wonder, or delight, and write that down. Ross Gay wrote short essays, but you should do whatever feels best for you. Essays, poems, bullet points, song lyrics…any and all writing counts. Add some drawings, too, if you like, or turn it into a scrapbook with photos, leaves, receipts, or whatever else you can think of. Delight, after all, knows no bounds. Then maybe, if you’re feeling brave, share some of your delights with someone else.
Several libraries are hosting discussions of The Book of Delights in January and February. We’d be thrilled to hear how your practice of delight is going. After all, a big part of why we do Rogue Reads is to connect and grow as a community by exploring ideas together. We hope you’ll pick up the books, share them with your friends and family, come to library programs, and (most of all) keep talking and thinking and creating together.