Library Happenings

Henning School

Our featured book this week is “We Made It Through the Winter” by Walter O’Meara.  

The back of the book jacket reads I am thankful that all my memories of Cloquet are as it was before the pine was gone….For that was a good time, a good place, for a boy to grow up in-for an old man to remember. These words summarize Walter O’Meara’s affectionate and sharply etched reminiscence of his life as a young boy in the northern Minnesota sawmill town of Cloquet at the turn of the twentieth century.  Season by season, O’Meara evokes the sights and sounds of family life and work in an era when the crisp days of autumn meant “digging.” and when it was up to the boy in the family to stack firewood for the kitchen range and dig enough potatoes “to last until the return of spring.”  

The author’s words recreate the bone-chilling cold of a Minnesota winter when a boy snared rabbits to help supply the family table, when y”your ears could freeze to a dead, marble-like whiteness after only a few minutes of exposure,” and when a boy’s father was gone “up in the woods” to work in one of the forty odd logging camps near Cloquet. The arrival of spring marked by his father’s return from the camps while summer meant bare feet, the noisy frontier exuberance of the Fourth of July and summer visitors-gypsies, traveling circuses, and chimney sweeps.  Written by a Minnesota native son, We Made It Through the Winter is a book for all seasons and all readers.  A distinguished author of history and fiction, Walter O’Meara recreates times that were at once romantic and real.

This is a wonderful book.  When reading this book, you can feel the power of the author’s memories.  It is beautifully written.  We hope you will be able to find your way up to the library to check this book or one of our other special Minnesota author/illustrator books out.

The State of Minnesota from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the Minnesota Historical Society has awarded the Henning Public School Library a grant in the amount of $9,325. This grant will provide over 449 books to the Henning Public School Library.

This  grant helps provide a quality learning experience for our local Minnesotans by providing exemplary library bound (as much as possible) books that feature depictions of various aspects of the State of Minnesota.  Students will develop knowledge, skills, and understanding about many areas of Minnesota by reading about Minnesota, its geography, heritage, culture, people, landforms, arts, sports, and more.  Books will be purchased for all ages of people who frequent the library. This grant will help represent diverse ethnicities and people as we are purchasing books that feature a wide variety of people who have contributed to Minnesota. 

In addition, because Minnesota history is a vital component of our middle school curriculum, we want a strong selection of books that depict Minnesota history, industries, contemporary Minnesotans, immigration, the contributions of indigenous people, Minnesota authors/illustrators, and state bird/fish/foods, etc