SOL#52 Stories: 25/52 Library Services During a Pandemic

I'm attempting to write 52 stories from my life during the year 2020. At least one story a week, in no particular order, to remember and document some of the memories and moments of my life.
 
I'm not sure how we could have survived the last few months without our stash of picture books. I had a box of picture books ready to return to the library in my trunk when I made my mad dash to the library on the last open day, but I forgot to return them. Thank goodness! They have been reread over and over again. We even had a few winter/holiday books that had arrived on my holds shelf after Christmas. I tend to renew books if we (Jack and Robby and I) are enjoying them. So that's how our pandemic bins of books included several holiday titles too. A winter book is good reading all year round!

Here are two bins (52 books) ready to return  to the library:

Our libraries aren't open to the public yet, but we can return books during a few hours each day. The current situation requires the borrower to insert the books into the outside book drop. The books are quarantined for a minimum of three days before being checked in. And when a library reaches their capacity to store the returns, the book drop is closed for the day. I'm sure whoever is behind me won't be happy to see that I'm returning two full bins of books. 

I've become quite attached to some of these books, so I decided to showcase a few favorites.

It Began With a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way by Kyo Maclear
*Dictionary for a Better World: Poems, Quotes, and Anecdotes from A to Z by Charles Waters and Irene Latham
*The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse by Charlie Macksey
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, this book was the book to break my pandemic book reading slump.
*Titles in blue indicate books I loved so much that I had to purchase them for my own bookshelves.

Sometimes Rain by Meg Fleming 
One Fox: A Counting Book Thriller by Kate Read - one of Jack's favorites 
Most Marshmallows by Rowboat Watkins 
Me and the Seasons by Liesbet Slegers - Robby's favorite 
 and . . .   
Jack's most recent favorite (not in the bin b/c books aren't due until the end of the month) Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreno Played the Piano for President Lincoln by Margarita Engle and Rafael Lopez

What I've Read:
The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona Valpy
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
*Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
 *Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen
*Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi 
*Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane
(* indicates books that I highly recommend)

Books I'm Currently Reading:
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown
Indistractable by Eyal Nir
In the Country of Women by Susan Straight 

Library Books I Want to Read before Returning Them:
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
Hill Women by Cassie Chambers 
(Hey, they're not due until July 31!) 

And one final exciting thing to add to this bookish pandemic post! Our library is offering Curbside to Go pickups. "At the moment, you can only pick up holds that were ready for pickup when we closed. You will get an email notification when your holds are available." When our library closed, Anne Bogel's new book, Don't Overthink It was a hold on my account listed as "in transit." My account now shows the title as "ready." We'll see if it's available when I stop by the library to return books today or if I have to wait for the email notification. I'm trying hard not to overthink it!

I had more adult books checked out than I usually do because I was trying to decide which books to propose for the upcoming year at our book club retreat (scheduled for mid-March, but cancelled). We went ahead and proposed our titles via a Google doc and chose our books for 2020-21. 

I'm happy that I wrote this post because it collects some of the titles I read during this unique time. Share some of your library pandemic stories or book recommendations with me in the comments.