Author: Maryland Humanities

Maryland History Day: Through the Lens of a Teacher (doing this for the first time!)

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At first my thoughts on History Day were twisting and completely overwhelming.  How was I to do History Day and stay on track with my curriculum?  In the end, the answer was simple . . . I wasn’t.  I did not keep up with the demands of the curriculum laid out by the district; what happened instead was a more authentic form of teaching and education. The key to overall success and enjoyment is to spend the time finding the right topics with your students.  The topics must be something they have interest in or else History Day could become painful for everyone!  Read, research, learn, and most importantly have fun (and read the rule book).

As a teacher, the thing I enjoy  most about History Day is that  it is for all students.  Each  student has the ability to  choose a topic related to the  theme, conduct research, and  create a final product. This  allows all students to go  through the critical process of  research and discovery.  This  past year a group of my  students were very successful  in the competition; four 6th   graders were awarded first place in both the Baltimore City district competition and the Maryland state competition for their documentary “Frances Perkins: The Mother of Social Security.”  Of course I do not know the formula for success (admittedly I was a bit surprised both times their names were called).  However, I believe these are the things our award-winning students did well:

– Great topic: They chose a subject matter that some/ most people were not aware of, and that taught students and judges something new.

– It was authentic: This project was completely student created, meaning it wasn’t perfect.  It had a great voice and a driving enthusiasm that came straight from the kids.

– Strong interview:  These specific students are very well spoken and practiced interviewing with several adults in their lives (both parents and teachers).

–Work as a team: This group did a great job of dividing the work load and working to one another’s strengths.

– Focused Thesis: Once they established their thesis they stayed on topic, relating everything back to what they were trying to prove.

–Told a story: Perhaps it was the Language Arts teacher in me, but I stressed telling a story to my students.  I asked them to entertain me with their topic and these students delivered (as it is hard to watch their documentary and not love a woman named Frances Perkins).

– Primary Sources:  I explained to my students that it wasn’t enough to use primary sources in their research; the viewer or judge of their final product needed to see the primary sources.  This group did an exceptional job of implementing primary sources into the story they told.

When reflecting on my first year participating in Maryland and National History Day, I think it’s best to discuss what my plans are for year two.  I have developed a 17-week schedule for both teachers and students.  This schedule is complete with hyperlinked activities and checkpoints for students to follow.  This will assist me with the implementation of History Day, and I already know what I will be using for grading.  I plan to have the in-school competition before the holiday break, allowing more time for the students going to the district competition to make modifications.

In support of the 2016 History Day theme:  I look forward to the Exploration of new topics with my students, and although we may Encounter struggles or difficulties, the Exchange of ideas will always be enjoyable!

If you are a new (or new-ish) teacher to History Day, sign up for the National History Day Google + Hangout for new (and newer) History Day teachers, Tuesday, September 22, 7:00 PM.

Route 1 Reads: Kindred by Octavia Butler

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When I first learned of the Route 1 Reads project, I was intrigued by this multi-state literary project. Various iterations of literary road maps popped up on the internet over the summer. My intrigue turned to delight over the Maryland selection for the project: Octavia Butler’s Kindred. Mention of a travel book brings to mind Jack Kerouac’s On the Road or Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. While those books inspire feelings of wanderlust as one travels across the country or around the world as a means to find oneself, the journey that Dana Franklin, Kindred’s protagonist, goes on is dictated by space and time.

Kindred tells the story of Dana Franklin, a young African-American woman living in California, who is unwittingly transported back in time to the Weylin plantation in antebellum Talbot County, Maryland. Over the course of multiple journeys, Dana meets her ancestors: Rufus, a white slave owner who she first encounters as a young man, and Alice Greenwood, a free black woman. Each journey back in time becomes longer and more dangerous for Dana as she now has to navigate and survive a world shaped by slavery.

“Slavery is a long slow process of dulling.”

Octavia Butler, who died in 2006, was an acclaimed science-fiction writer whose works often featured women of color as the protagonist and touched on themes of race, class, and gender and being an outsider; something that Butler felt in her everyday life. “I’m black, I’m solitary, I’ve always been an outsider.” Kindred, a novel that is part-science fiction and part-slave narrative, doesn’t quite fit in, but that is its greatest strength. When I first read Kindred a few years ago, I was beginning graduate school where I was the only person of color in my cohort. My feelings of isolation and being an outsider were at an all-time high. Like Dana, I had to learn to navigate the world of academia, which while not necessarily unwelcoming, was unchartered territory. Like Dana, I surveyed my landscape and made adjustments as I went along, eager to reach the finish line with my sanity intact.

Upon finishing, I shared the book with my mother, who in turn shared it with her mother. My mother and my grandmother are the last people you would catch reading a science-fiction novel; however this is a story of survival and courage that can resonate across generations. My grandmother from rural Virginia worked as a housekeeper in the homes of middle-class white families in the early 20th century; my mother raised two children as a single parent. Kindred is a powerful story that is accessible for all readers as it is a human story and as the title suggests, we are all kin.

A New Year for Maryland History Day

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Welcome back to another school year, and another year of Maryland History Day! This is a busy time of year, but it is a great time to get your students off to a wonderful start with Maryland History Day.

All over Maryland, curricula are changing to reflect a greater emphasis on document analysis and project-based learning. Studies have proven that students who participate in research projects like Maryland History Day gain a variety of skills, become better writers, are better prepared for higher education and careers, and perform at a higher level on standardized tests. This last is particularly true of the PARCC assessments, which require students to analyze non-fiction texts.  Maryland History Day is a great way to teach the skills that students need, and it is important to get a strong start.

Many teachers worry that Maryland History Day is “something extra,” but really, it can be worked into your existing curriculum with a bit of planning. Some teachers already do research projects that, with a little tweaking, could become History Day projects. I used to start at the beginning of the year, and block out one day every two weeks as a History Day work day. As often as possible, I booked the library, so that my wonderful media specialist could teach skills like bibliography writing. Studies have proven that students who participate in research projects like Maryland History Day gain a variety of skills, become better writers, are better prepared for higher education and careers, and perform at a higher level on standardized tests. This last is particularly true of the PARCC assessments, which require students to analyze non-fiction texts.  Maryland History Day is a great way to teach the skills that students need, and it is important to get a strong start.

By starting early, I could break up the project and teach students skills one at a time. We chose topics in September, researched and wrote bibliographies in October, wrote theses and organized our notes in November, and started building the projects in December. By then I was starting to plan a late January school contest, and to think about the county contest in late February or early March.

If you have never done History Day before, or are just looking for new ideas, the Maryland Humanities Council has new tools for you to use to help plan your year. You can request a flash drive from your county coordinator that contains lesson plans to take you through the History Day year, as well as work sheets and primary sources. It also contains this year’s rulebook, theme book, and sample timelines to help you plan. You can also find much of this information on our website. Check out our suggested History Day timeline, created by Courtney Hobson.

Teacher Teaching Classroom with Kids and Parents
Grace Leatherman spreading the word about History Day

As the school year begins, many teachers are planning their own continuing education. If you are interested in being a History Day teacher, or are one, consider taking the  Document Analysis through Project-Based Learning online course, offered by the Maryland Humanities Council and Maryland Public Television’s Thinkport, with support from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program. This eight-week, three CPD credit course will allow you and a cohort of teachers to learn about Maryland History Day, and research projects in general. You will create your own History Day project, as well as materials for your classroom. This is a fast, fun way to get the credits you need, and will give you a confident start to the Maryland History Day year.

As you and your students get started with Maryland History Day, the Maryland Humanities Council is always here to help. As Maryland History Day Outreach Coordinator, my job is to provide support to teachers and students as they proceed through the History Day Process. Judy Dobbs and Courtney Hobson are always available to answer questions, and they produce the wonderful Maryland History Day Contest that many of your students will attend. Please let us know what we can do to make your year successful! Our contact information is included below.

Judy D. Dobbs
Program Officer
Chautauqua & Maryland History Day
(410) 685-4185
jdobbs@mdhc.org

Courtney Hobson
Program Assistant
Chautauqua & Maryland History Day
(410) 685-3715
chobson@mdhc.org

Grace Leatherman
Maryland History Day Outreach Coordinator
(410) 685-3715
gleatherman@mdhc.org

What Has 8 Heads and 16 Arms at the Library?

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From the beginning, Joe Rantz—the apparent hero of this year’s One Maryland One Book—is dogged by bad luck.  One Maryland One Book is the program of the Maryland Humanities Council in which people all across the state read the same book at the same time.  Joe’s earliest memory is of watching his mother cough blood into a handkerchief.  By the time he is 15, she has died, the Depression has struck, and his father has remarried a woman who doesn’t like Joe.  Returning home from school one day, he finds the car out in front of the house, packed as if for a trip.  His father explains that the family is heading west to look for work and, at his wife’s insistence, they are leaving Joe behind.

But despite this abandonment, despite the fact Joe must now feed and clothe himself at the height of the Depression, within four years he will save up enough money to enter the University of Washington and, eventually, join its fabled rowing team.  Daniel James Brown’s “The Boys in the Boat” is the immensely stirring, immensely satisfying story of this crew of boys from the wrong side of the tracks who, in 1936, in Joseph Goebbels’ swastika-bedecked Berlin, surprised the world in general and Adolf Hitler in particular by taking gold in the Olympics.

From the team’s giant oarsman, Stub McMillin, whose height will make him ineligible for the armed forces in World War II, to the diminutive coxswain, Bobby Moch, who will discover shortly before travelling to Berlin that he is actually Jewish, “The Boys in the Boat” is chock-a-block with appealing characters.  But in truth, the real hero of the story may well be the sport, the art, of rowing itself.

To be a successful eight-man crew, as Brown points out, “Sixteen arms must begin to pull, sixteen knees must begin to fold and unfold, eight bodies must begin to slide forward and backward, eight backs must bend and straighten all at once.  Each minute action—each subtle turning of wrists—must be mirrored exactly by each oarsman, from one end of the boat to the other.”  To succeed, in other words, these eight young men, in some ways more than in any other sport, must work as a team if they are to produce the physical poetry that is a racing shell skimming over the water.  In an evocation of the era’s music, the boys call the rhythmic grace they achieve when, finally, they manage to row in perfect unison like this … “swing.”  Brown writes, “the boys, their oars, and the Husky Clipper looked like a single thing, gracefully and powerfully coiling and uncoiling itself, propelling itself forward over the surface of the water.”

In the 1930s, at the height of the Depression, rather like Jesse Owens and Joe Louis, these eight young men gave the nation something to cheer about.  And now, in 2015, they’re giving the people of Maryland something to cheer about as well.  On Monday, September 21, at 6:30 p.m., in the Easton library, and again on Wednesday, September 23, at 3:00 p.m., in the St. Michaels branch, I will be hosting a discussion of this year’s One Maryland One Book.  Won’t you join me?

Bill Peak writes a monthly article for The Star-Democrat about working at the Talbot County Free Library.  This essay was originally published in The Star-Democrat on August 2, 2015.

Provoking Thought with the National Park Service

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Today marks the 99th anniversary of the National Park Service(NPS). Prior to the establishment of the agency in 1916, national parks and national monuments, such as Yellowstone, were individually managed. After a publicity campaign pushing for the establishment of one governing agency, President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act to create an agency whose goal is “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” It is that latter point that the National Park Service appears to be focusing on in their #FindYourPark campaign to help celebrate their upcoming centennial. It appears that I found my park in Towson, Maryland.

Hampton National Historic Site is an 18th–  Century  estate that was owned by the Ridgely  family from 1745  to 1749, including Charles  Ridgely, the 15th Governor  of Maryland.  Decreased greatly in acreage over the  years, the  site will still provide you with much to see:  the  Georgian-style mansion with many of the  original  furnishings, terraced gardens, and slave quarters amongst other buildings. Standard house tours of the property tell the story of the many generations of Ridgelys who called Hampton their home. But I encourage you to take one of their special tours led by Park Ranger Anokwale Anansesemfo.

Park Ranger Giving Tour
Park Ranger Anokwale in period attire

“On the Hampton Plantation”  and  “Servitude In  Black and  White” are  two special tours in  which  you can  explore the  property, from the  perspective  of the many European    indentured  servants and  enslaved  Africans and African-  Americans  who lived and  worked at Hampton  and  helped the Ridgelys acquire    their wealth.  From the first few  minutes of the 90-minute tour, Anokwale’s passion for African-American history is very evident, as well as her penchant for story-telling , which is personified by her chosen name (Anokwale means “truth” in Akan, a Ghanaian language; Anansesemfo means “storyteller”).

During the course of the tour, I learned about Nancy Davis, an enslaved woman who was freed in 1858 but returned to work for Ridgelys until her death in 1908. Davis, who raised three to four generations of Ridgelys, is one of only two servants known to be buried in the Ridgely family cemetery. The intriguing story of Lucy Jackson,  a house servant who fled to freedom around 1862,  is also shared: in 1866, Lucy obtained a lawyer to sue John Ridgely on her behalf to obtain an extensive list of items that she left  behind at Hampton. Some of the items listed included twenty-one dresses,  six pairs of lace gloves, and furs and muffs.

Nancy Davis with Eliza Ridgely
Nancy Davis with Eliza Ridgely III

It is clear that these stories are intended to change one’s perception of slavery and the lives of the enslaved. Near the conclusion of the tour, Anokwale quoted Frederick Douglass: “Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!” This resounded with me and my training as a public historian. One of the six principles of interpretation laid out by Freeman Tilden, one of the fathers of the NPS, states that “The chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation.” I do not believe Douglass or Tilden was encouraging physically aggressive forms of agitation or provocation, but more intellectual. Telling Nancy’s or Lucy’s story does not take away from the Ridgelys’ story – it just adds many more layers to it. Entities that engage in public history, like the National Park Service, are at their best when they seek to weave together stories that reflect the tapestry of American history.

The next “On the Hampton Plantation” tour will be held on Sunday, September 6, from 2-3:30pm at Hampton National Historic Site in Towson, Maryland

East Coast Centers for the Book Announce “Route 1 Reads”

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In just over a month, summer will draw to a close. How do we make the most of August before the vacation days and evening sunlight run out?

We need a road trip.

After all, literary road trips have been a buzz this summer. Did you catch our Facebook post about Atlas Obscura’s literary road trip map? Or maybe you’ve seen the trailer for the “The End of the Tour,” which chronicles David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest book tour through his interviews with JHU-educated journalist David Lipsky.

The Maryland Center for the Book at the Maryland Humanities Council is excited to announce a different kind of road trip: Route 1 Reads.

Route 1 Reads is a joint reading promotion project stretching all the way form the Florida Keys to the tip of Maine. State Centers for the Book are combining forces to create a new twist on the summer reading list: a travel oriented booklist that highlights each individual state while celebrating the East Coast as a whole. The Route 1 Reads  list includes regional cookbooks, travel memoirs, location-based novels, time-travel, and more.

Whether you take Route 1 to PA or to DC (whose Route 1 Reads choice, by the way, is The Big Blowout by Baltimore Sun alumni George Pelecanos), you’ll see a spectacular blend of rich history and the wonder of nature. You might cross the Susquehanna over the Conowingo Dam, stop to explore the Patapsco Valley, or visit Mary Pickersgill and H.L. Mencken at the Loudon Park National Cemetery.

Now that you know about the program, we know you’re excited to see what book is representing our state. Well, wait no longer!

Maryland’s Route 1 Reads pick is Kindred by Octavia Butler.

Kindred is the story of Dana, a modern black woman, who is snatched abruptly from her California home and transported to pre-Civil War Maryland. Against her will, Dana travels back and forth between her home and the plantation. Each trip is more strenuous and unpredictable, propelling Dana into an unfamiliar world.

Travel with us through the thrilling, thought-provoking world of Kindred or take a literary trip with another East Coast Center for the Book! By participating in Route 1 Reads, you’ll travel without a single footstep, get recommendations, and see what Centers for the Book offer across 15 states! Follow Maryland Center for the Book on Facebook  and stay tuned for the full Route 1 Reads booklist.

Public Libraries, the New Commons

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For many years I felt disconnected from my local community. Living in Baltimore and commuting four hours a day to and from work in Washington, DC made it hard to commit to regular projects and to engage with people and organizations in Baltimore. I needed a weekend activity to help me feel a sense of place and started volunteering at the local public library, something I continue to do even though I no longer work in DC.

A Project for Public Spaces blog post says “…when everything works together, libraries become places that anchor community life and bring people together.” I can see this happening on any Saturday morning during my volunteer shift and also when I go to the library, just to be there.

Volunteers and Participants OutsideThere are kids at the Reading Club table handing out brochures and awards to encourage reading among their peers. A notice reminds patrons of the Book Club meeting in September to discuss The Boys in the Boat, this year’s One Maryland One Book selection. Another invites teens to a writers’ workshop and to come and play with others during Intermediate Chess. An exhibit about local history is co-sponsored with the Baltimore County Historical Society. The members of a neighborhood association are in the Meeting Room debating proposed zoning regulations with local officials.

In the Children’s Room a dad and his child are lying on the floor, their heads on a pillow and their minds in Curious George’s adventures, in Spanish. A group chats by the New Fiction shelves about last week’s visit by a local author; browsing the travel section, two women who had never met before find they will both be in Nepal at the same time.

There are adults and kids sitting by themselves completely immersed in a story, a manual, a job application. All around there are people helping other people learn: French, algebra, a poem by Maya Angelou, and the life of a Jamestown settler. A new immigrant family requests a library card and can’t wait to bring their relatives when they come for a visit. Across the street, a local farmer sells fresh produce to library patrons and passersby.

There is as much activity happening outside the library walls as people connect to the library’s services online – from borrowing e-books, to learning a language, using the research databases and accessing tax forms, voter registration links, information for veterans and so much more.

Books on Shelf at LibraryOn the surface, the only thing that public library users have in common is that they live within the same radius. But when they enter its domain, they meet as mystery book lovers, job seekers, chess aficionados, teachers, gardeners, beginning readers, wheel-chair users, dog owners, and jazz fans. They come to learn, to laugh, to grow, to plan and make decisions, to play and to debate, to imagine and to understand.

As Diantha Dow Schull writes, “The more that libraries offer access to information, whether remotely or on-site, the more people seem to desire programs that bring them together in physical spaces, offering opportunities to discuss issues and share experiences in real time.”

This is why libraries today are described as the new public commons. They work as anchors of civic life that can help revitalize neighborhoods and strengthen people’s pride in the place where they live.

That is certainly how I feel when I am in the library.

 

 

Silvia Blitzer Golombek is a nonprofit consultant and serves as Secretary and Grant Committee Chair on the Board of the Maryland Humanities Council. Golombek has worked on issues related to youth participation, civic engagement, and community development, leading professional development, strategic planning and knowledge management initiatives at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the International Youth Foundation, and Youth Service America. She also founded Kids in Action, a civic engagement program that engages elementary school age children as decision-makers and problem-solvers in their community. Golombek received her Ph.D. in sociology from the Johns Hopkins University, where she was an adjunct faculty member at the School of Professional Studies in Business and Education. Her blog can be found at CONNECTIONS: A blog about people, places, and social change.


2015 One Maryland One Book Author Daniel James Brown Tours Maryland

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Daniel James Brown’s book, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, has been on the New York Times bestsellers list for 62 weeks – that’s every week since its paperback publication. How can one book appeal to so many people? Connecting communities through reading the same book is the very essence of the Maryland Humanities Council’s One Maryland One Book program. Every year, we look for a book that will fit a theme while attracting all kinds of Maryland readers. The 2015 One Maryland One Book theme is sports and the drama of human competition. However, The Boys in the Boat is much more than a “sports story”; it’s a masterful blend of history, biography, and inspiration.

Daniel James Brown tells the story of Joe Rantz and the 1936 Olympic Rowing Team; nine men whose comradery and tireless effort earned them the title of Olympic champions, defeating the world’s elite teams in front of Hitler himself.  Mr. Brown draws on the boys’ diaries, photos, and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream. The Boys in the Boat truly is a portrait of an era and a celebration of a team whose names we may never have known, but whose story will continue to inspire us long after we turn the final page.

The Maryland Humanities Council will welcome 2015 One Maryland One Book author Daniel James Brown to town from September 27–30 for a six-stop statewide tour to speak about his New York Times bestselling book.

Mr. Brown will speak, answer questions, and sign copies of his book at tour stops in Frederick, Talbot, Harford, and Anne Arundel counties and Baltimore City.

2015 One Maryland One Book Author Tour Schedule

Baltimore Book Festival
Sunday, September 27
2:30 p.m.
Baltimore’s Inner Harbor
This event will be held in the Book Festival’s Literary Salon. Mr. Brown will be introduced by the program’s honorary chair, author Laura Lippman.
Information: 410-685-0095

Frederick Community College
Monday, September 28
11:00 a.m.
Jack B. Kussmaul Theater
7932 Opossumtown Pike
Information: 301-846-2400
Co-Host: Frederick County Public Libraries | Local Partner: Frederick Community College

Chesapeake College
Monday, September 28
7:00 p.m.
Routes 50 & 213
Information: 410-479-1343 ext.1 | Day of Event: 410-827-5860
Co-Host: Caroline County Public Library | Local Partners: Dorchester, Talbot, and Queen Anne’s County Public Libraries and Chesapeake College

Abingdon Library
Tuesday, September 29
7:00 p.m.
2510 Tollgate Road
Information: 410-638-3990
Co-Host: Harford County Public Library | Local Partners: Harford Community College and the County Department of Community Services Senior Division

Glen Burnie High School
Wednesday, September 30
11:00 a.m.
7550 Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard
Information: 443-770-5190
Co-Host: Anne Arundel County Public Schools | Local Partners: Anne Arundel County Public Library and Anne Arundel Community College

Jernigan Institute at the National Federation of the Blind
Wednesday, September 30
7:00 p.m.
200 E. Wells Street
Information: 410-230-2444
Co-Hosts: Maryland State Library for the Blind & Physically Handicapped, Baltimore Rowing Club, and the National Federation of the Blind

Summer Reading: Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan Novels

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When I learned that Laura Lippman was going to serve as the honorary chair for the Maryland Humanities Council’s One Maryland One Book program this year, I got the final push I needed to start her popular Tess Monaghan series as my summer reading.

For years, I had been hearing from fellow discerning readers that this series would appeal to me on several levels. One: it features a female journalist-turned-private investigator, and I always prefer a female protagonist, especially one in a stereotypically male role. Two: the series serves as a sort of love letter to Baltimore, which I’ve called home for close to a decade now. And three: it’s filled with well-plotted twists and turns, as any good crime novels worth their salt should be.

It turns out my fellow readers were right – I love this series. I started on Baltimore Blues, the first book in the series, on a Saturday. By the following Friday I was frantically refreshing my library’s e-book site to see if it was my turn to read the third book in the series. A month later, I’ve already read the first seven Tess Monaghan books. Patience is not a virtue for me when it comes to reading.

Each novel I’ve read features complex cases that tackle universal themes like greed, love, and power. However, Lippman’s complicated yet lovable protagonist Tess Monaghan is definitely the series highlight. Far from two-dimensional, Tess is a stubborn know-it-all, but also loyal and compassionate.

And most importantly—to me, anyway— she’s funny.

“For the first time in more than two years, she had a full-time job and a full-time boyfriend. Her life might not have the party-all-the-time euphoria of a beer commercial, but it was definitely edging into International Coffee territory.” (Charm City, Tess Monaghan Novel Book 2)

In my favorite book in the series so far, Butchers Hill, Tess investigates a decades-old murder that delves into the thorny issues of race relations and class warfare, difficult topics for a popular series to tackle well, but ones that are impossible to ignore when your books are set in Baltimore. The investigation in Butchers Hill takes privileged Tess into a part of Baltimore with which she thinks she has no connection, working with an African-American client with whom she thinks she has nothing in common, and upends her expectations, as well as the reader’s.

Oddly enough, I may be alone in my admiration of this particular novel in the series. Lippman said in the afterword to Butchers Hill, reissued this June after the original 1998 release: “I don’t know what to make of the fact that my most commercially successful books have nothing to do with race. I hope it’s a meaningless coincidence.”

While the spot-on social commentary and appealing main character keep me reading, I would be lying if I didn’t say that part of the allure of the series is playing “spot-the-places-I’ve-been” in Baltimore (and throughout Maryland) while I’m reading. We all like to see ourselves in literature, right? And it’s not often I read a series that takes place in Baltimore, especially one that ventures beyond the Inner Harbor. Lippman’s Tess Monaghan represents that delicate balance between attachment and exasperation in her relationship with Baltimore and its residents; only a true Baltimorean like Lippman could express this unique dichotomy.

“She preferred the view to the east, the smokestacks and the neon red Domino sugar sign, turning her back to downtown and the city’s celebrated waterfront. Tess had little use for that part of Baltimore, which had been reinvented as a tourist haven. To her way of thinking it wasn’t much different from the old strip bars, which let people in for free, then jacked up the prices for everything else.” (Baltimore Blues, Tess Monaghan Novel Book 1)

Substance, humor, and hometown pride: what more could you want out of your summer reading? Join me in taking on the challenge of reading all 12 Tess Monaghan novels by summer’s end – it’s the kind of challenge the competitive Tess Monaghan wouldn’t be able to resist.

And once you’re done reading, come see Laura Lippman introduce the 2015 One Maryland One Book Author Daniel James Brown at the Baltimore Book Festival on Sunday, September 27! More details will be shared here on Wednesday— stay tuned!

Hometown Teams Exhibit Opens in Galesville

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The Maryland Humanities Council together with the Galesville Community Center and Anne Arundel County Cultural Resources Division of the Office of Planning and Zoning are pleased to announce the opening of Hometown Teams in Galesville, MD this Saturday.

Galesville FB Ad

Galesville celebrates its sporting history with a companion exhibit exploring the historic Hot Sox sandlot baseball team, which this year celebrates its 100th Anniversary of its formation in 1915. The exhibit features memories and memorabilia from former Hot Sox players, fans, and family members, and the Hot Sox Documentary Story Quilt (pictured above).

Hot Sox Field at WIlson Park

Hometown Teams Opening Day
Galesville Community Center
Saturday, July 25 at 11:00 a.m.
During the opening day festivities, the new “Field Guide to Galesville” will be unveiled, and the Annapolis Drum and Bugle Corps will perform before an honorary ribbon cutting marking the opening of the exhibition. Mr. Dwayne Renal Sims, Founder and CEO of the Negro League Legends Hall of Fame, will offer remarks about the importance of baseball in small communities. The Galesville Community Center is located at 916 West Benning Road, in Galesville, Maryland.