A little Disney animation should be good for what ails you. So join Donald Duck, Goofy, and the real Walt Disney on a journey to Latin America with their new amigos, Joe Carioca and Panchito. This is family friendly entertainment complete with music, dance, wisecracking characters, and Disney charm.
These classic Disney flicks were made in the 1940s, right smack in the middle of World War II. No doubt this entertainment was created to lift the morale of a dispirited nation — and couldn’t we use a little of that now?
Remember that you can schedule material for pick-up even while the Andersen Library building is closed.
Classic Caballero’s Collection: Saludos Amigos; The Three Caballeros by Walt Disney Browsing DVD Feature Film, 2nd Floor Cla
I like this book because Irving writes candidly about her relationship with race from childhood to the present and isn’t preachy about it. A significant portion of the book is stories from her early non-relationship with race to a longer period of racial ignorance, paired with her “woke” understanding of the systemic and pervasive racism that has been inherent in her life. For a long time, she doesn’t see herself as white living in White Land, she sees herself as “normal.” She doesn’t see people of color, but when she eventually does she still doesn’t SEE them. There’s a disconnect.
A major turning point in the book is when she attends a Racial and Cultural Identity class. This leads to many changes in her life, including a “robin hood syndrome” phase, which she must overcome. Her self-understanding and improvement is the narrative thread that holds this book together. She shows us how white is a race and that becoming less racist and more antiracist was possible for her. We can follow that path too. I believe the Warhawk community will benefit from this book by thinking about whiteness, the role that racism and antiracism have played in their lives, and then doing something about it. You do not have to be white to learn from this book.
Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race
by Debby Irving
Main Collection, 3rd Floor E185.615 .I778 2014
Warhawk Recommender: Ellen Latorraca, Education Librarian
Ms. Rawlings, teacher with white skin in predominantly white private school, to Jordan, middle schooler with brown skin: “But Jordan, being different is a blessing. It’s what makes you special.” Jordan, to Ms. Rawlings: “Would you teach at a school in MY neighborhood? You know, so YOU could be special?” Ms. Rawlings: (no response) Craft weaves in many examples of how our middle school selves are so apt to judge based on an imagined group characteristic at the expense of knowing the person. Jordan, his new classmates, and some of his teachers learn that is that there is wisdom in recognizing this behavior in both ourselves as well as in others, but more importantly, there is courage in calling it out for what it is. I would love to read this graphic novel with elementary and middle school readers and hear their take!
New Kid by Jerry Craft (Author), Jim Callahan (Graphic novel colorist) Curriculum Collection, Fiction, 2nd Floor (F Cra) F Cra
Fifty years ago, the campus lost an iconic symbol of the University when someone set fire to the Old Main building. Community members and students witnessed the devastation as the building went up in flames on February 8, 1970. The Archives and Area Research Center has collections, newspaper clippings, and photographs that document the disastrous event. However, new materials often are unearthed as students, staff, and community members find forgotten memories in their homes.
Recently, a 1971 graduate of UW-W came across a collection of slides he took the night of the fire and they day after that document the ferocity of the flames and the destruction to the building. They offer a new view of an old event that will be interesting to researchers.
Located in the Archives and Area Research Center
, 1st Floor
This newest volume of the “Reference Shelf” series looks at propaganda and misinformation (just like the title says) in discrete segments. Each chapter is written by different experts, from the first chapter “A short guide to the history of ‘fake news’ and disinformation” by Julie Posetti and Alice Matthews of the International Center for Journalists to the final chapter “Fact checkers say these are the best fact-checks they did during this decade” by Cristina Tardaguila of The Poynter Institute. According to the publisher, H W Wilson, this book covers “Social media posts inciting sectarian violence, government-manipulated misinformation campaigns, for-profit fake news headlines, and well-meaning but gullible individuals promoting conspiracies…this volume explores the pollution of our information environment and what we can do about it.” If you are curious about the validity of the news that comes across your social media feeds and other news outlets, this book would be a great place to start.”
Propaganda & Misinformation
by Grey House Publishing
Main Collection, 3rd Floor P96.P722 U55 2020
In 2010, when A Visit from the Goon Squad was published, it was not on my radar. The book came to my attention when I read in Entertainment Weekly that this book was selected as the number one book of the decade, I had just finished reading Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, another book I reviewed for the blog. Nickel Boys was listed as number 10 on the Top 10 List of the Decade. I was so enamored by the 10th book on the list so why not read the 1st book on the list. I immediately asked my sister to send me the book as my 2019 holiday present. Much has happened since receiving the book and me reading it, but boy what a read!
When Entertainment Weekly staffers had to
compose their lists, by a wide margin, the book most often and most
passionately cited was A Visit from the
Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, the 2010 masterwork
that won the Pulitzer Prize. One staffer captured the book as “Philandering fathers, washed-up rock
stars, bipolar celebrity profilers, slumming rich kids, and kleptomaniacs:
There’s a sliding scale of human frailties in A View from the Goon Squad (one
character is actually being paid to whitewash a murderous dictator’s
reputation, but who’s keeping score?). Jennifer Egan’s 2010 masterwork — it won
both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award — remains
a sui generis achievement, even almost a decade after its
release; if her playfully postmodern catalog of delinquents, kooks, and
schemers seemed at first merely eccentric for its own sake, the telling of it
proved otherwise: a book as rich and resonant as any linear classic in the
canon”
The reason I liked this review above all others was that it touted the book as a liner classic to the canon. The book that I always viewed as the most linear classic to the canon is Catcher in the Rye which I have reread every five years since 1980 and have given a copy to every niece and nephew as they headed off to college. Now, I have to start giving A Visit from the Goon Squad to their children.
Often, I am asked had I not been a school teacher and now a Chancellor, what would I have wanted to be? I quickly say a musicologist or a movie critic. Music and movies have been an entwined part of my life, second and third to books. This book carried me back to my days of attending concerts, discovering new bands at the Beat in Columbia, South Carolina; the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; the Brewery in Raleigh, North Carolina; First Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota and most famously, visits to Max’s Kansas City, CBGB’s, and the Mudd Club in New York City. This book took me back to those endless scenes of new band discovery and enjoying the explosive music scene of the Husker Du, the Replacements, the Pixies, REM and a host of others. As the book stated, “It’s 2:00 am, regular people go to bed and drunk crazy, fxxxed up people stay out. And this is when the rock and roll piped shame of all is unraveled.”
I think about the past lives and the connecting threads of the folks I have interacted with and how those connections might have lasting effects on a series of others. And if I could capture these interaction and connections, you would be visiting my own personal goon squad. Therefore, I see this book as a treatise to the lives of many who wonder about their past lives, their reinventions, and their experiences and how such confluences manifest into a whole. The book is a series of small vignettes of connected lives presented in non-chronological bits and pieces. It is told through the lens of characters such as one that was “So unaware as of yet that she will reach middle age and eventually die (possibly alone) because she has not yet disappointed herself, merely startled herself and the world with her premature accomplishments.”
Another critic captured the buzzy feeling I got from reading this book. “A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers” (Knopf Doubleday Publishing).
I end this review with a final quote
from the book, “I want to know every bad thing you ever
done even if it was dangerous and embarrassing.” Imagine if your child or one of our college
students asked us this question. How
would you answer? Read this book for no
other reason than to unpack this question.
The Library Resources integration in Canvas syncs with our LibGuides system to automatically load the appropriate library research guide into your Canvas course. We use the course name and number to determine if a particular course guide or a subject guide is the best fit for your course. Please contact your liaison librarian if you want an individual course page or you have additional questions. You can see our full list of guides at: http://libguides.uww.edu.
From the Dashboard, select the course to which you will add the Library Resources integration.
From the course Home, select Settings
Select Navigation from the tabs across the top
Scroll down the page until you see Library Resources in the list of options. If you are adding it for the first time, it will be under “Drag items here to hide them from students.”
Select Library Resources and drag the rectangle up to the top portion of the page. Make sure Library Resources is somewhere in the top list so that it will show in the course navigation.
Make sure to select SAVE at the bottom of the page after you have moved Library Resources to the top list.
Library Resources will now appear in your course navigation and in the student view navigation. Student view:
The software used for the Ask a Librarian 24/7/365 live chat and email research help is changing on Friday, May 29th. This affects the chat and email links on the Get Help page. We hope for a smooth transition from one vendor’s software to another vendor’s software, but it’s always possible there will be some technical difficulties or unexpected downtime. We’re also just getting to know the new software. Please bear with us!
If you submit a question and do not receive a response (for emails, you should expect a response within 24 hours Monday-Friday), please send an email to our campus email account at refdesk@uww.edu so that we do not miss your question!
John Hildebrand is an award wining writer who earned his M.F.A at the University of Alaska. Specializing in nonfiction, American Literature and short stories, Hildebrand has made moves in creating a profile dedicated to writing, nature and the histories of rural America — a background that suits him perfectly for this re-discovery of his native state, Wisconsin.
In his recent book, Long Way Round: Through the Heartland by River, Hildebrand takes us with him on his journey through Wisconsin by water and by history. His journey goes through rivers and sacred lands, through the importance of food and through connecting with people while gaining a deeper appreciation for water. Here are a few samples:
“I have taken myself on the Round River with the same
purpose behind those meandering drives, to remember where I live. Almost
everyday supplied a good reason or two—people, the towns, the land itself—but
it was a river that tied those reasons together like a bow.”
“They were different rivers, eight in all, but after a
while they blurred into one continuous stream… a great river that flows
forwards and backwards… and carried me… as it steadily brought me home.”
To learn more about John Hildebrand, check out his bio page from where he works in the English department at our sister UW institution, UW-Eau Claire.
This review is written by LaDae’meona McDowell, reference student worker at Andersen Library.
Long Way Round: Through the Heartland by River by John Hildebrand New Arrivals Island, 2nd Floor F586.2 H55 2019
Since the semester is winding down — and everyone is remote anyway, this week’s selection is an ebook. All the books in ProQuest Ebook Central have unlimited simultaneous users, so there are no waits or holds and you can read the book right away.
The fifty “things” highlighted in this work range from everyday objects (a coin, an oil lamp) to ships and cities, books and religious artifacts. Covering the Fourth to Tenth Centuries A.D., the cultural icons function as windows into their eras and geographies (Europe, north Africa, and western Asia). Since we’re a little constrained in the travel department right now, this is a good way to travel both through time and across borders to learn more about life just before and during the Middle Ages.
Every chapter and accompanying color plates offers a glimpse into the rich past of its object. What do we learn for instance, from the Circus Races Mosaic from the Villa del Casale in Sicily (c. 300-350 AD)? For starters, professional sports look a bit tame compared to the flamboyant nature of chariot races that originated in Rome. The single-person chariots were pulled by four horses around hairpin turns on oval tracks inside a circus (stadium). The stadiums were jammed with more than 100,000 spectators and the race owners were akin to today’s WWE promoters, taking their shows on the road, stirring up the rabid fans, and raking in the profits. Fans were viciously loyal, staging battles in the streets after races. Charioteers were the celebs of their day. And even the wealthy must have found entertainment in the races, judging by the huge and intricate mosaic commissioned by the owners of Villa del Casale. Perhaps they had sky boxes away from the great unwashed in the bleachers?
Enjoy a little armchair travel and soak up some long-forgotten culture by exploring the fifty “things.”
Fifty Early Medieval Things: Materials of Culture in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages By Deborah Deliyannis, Hendrik Dey, and Paolo Squatriti 2019 Ebook Central Ebooks
