Spider-Man Slings into Another Library Adventure

Marvel Comics recently celebrated an incredible milestone when it published its landmark 900th issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, which coincides with the 60th anniversary of the hero’s first appearance in the comics, and it’s one for the books!

In the extra-special story, “Better Late than Never!”, Peter Parker eagerly slings into New York Public Library (NYPL) to return a mountain of overdue books after he learns the library is waiving all late fees (which NYPL really did in 2021). But as Peter soon discovers, fine clemency can only go so far when your books get damaged in scuffles with supervillains like the Lizard and Carnage. And he later finds himself in perhaps one of his most harrowing adventures yet: storytime at the library!

Spider-Man at storytimeThose with keen spidey senses may know this isn’t the webslinger’s first library adventure. NYPL is a regular feature in the comics, including a 1988 story where Spider-Man must fight the library’s famous lions Patience and Fortitude after they come to life. And in a 1974 issue of Spidey Super Stories, Spider-Man teams up with the first Spider-Woman, Valerie the Librarian, who was notably Marvel’s first Black female hero. Spider-Man has even dropped into his own READ poster!

If you’re looking to discover a new comic book adventure, your local library is here to save the day. Many libraries carry a wide array of comics, graphic novels, and manga for readers of all ages. And during Library Card Sign-Up Month this September, now’s the perfect time to check out your library’s selection.

Want more library comics action? Celebrate National Comic Book Day on September 25, and follow the hashtag #CreatorsGetCarded on social media all month long as comics creators share their work and their love of libraries.

As Marvel Comics executive editor Nick Lowe writes in the story’s introduction, “Libraries (and librarians) RULE!” We couldn’t agree more.

Marcel on the Big Screen: A Conversation with Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer Camp

Marcel the one-inch-tall shell became an internet sensation in a 2010 stop-motion animated short by director Dean Fleischer Camp and writer/actress Jenny Slate. Sequels and picture books followed, and now Marcel (voiced by Slate) is hitting the big screen-and an American Library Association (ALA) READ poster-in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, a delightful film that follows Marcel and his grandmother Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini) and their pet lint, Alan. Once part of a sprawling community of shells, they now live alone as the sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy. When a documentary filmmaker (Fleischer Camp) discovers them, the short film he posts online brings Marcel millions of fans, as well as unprecedented dangers and a new hope of finding his long-lost family.

I Love Libraries spoke with Fleischer Camp and Slate recently about the film, its inspirations, their thoughts on libraries, and more.

What was the inspiration behind Marcel? Where did this distinct character and voice come from?

Jenny Slate: The voice was the first thing to arrive. I started doing it over a weekend, and we both thought it was funny. It was a voice I’d never done before, which is kind of astounding because I thought I had made every face and done every voice that I possibly could do. It just really did kind of pop up, and we both really liked how it sounded. It was kind of delightful. And then Dean had promised a friend that he would make a video for their stand-up show. He interviewed me, and we were having a conversation with the voice-it wasn’t even Marcel yet-answering questions about being small because the voice was saying that it was small.

After interviewing me as that voice for a little bit, Dean got some arts and crafts supplies-googly eyes, shells-and went to a toy store and bought a Polly Pocket and took the shoes off and made a bunch of different attempts at the character design. I remember I was out having lunch, and when I came back to the apartment there was this one little guy on the corner of the kitchen table. Dean was like, “This is him.” I really felt like, “Oh my God, it is him. He does look like that.” It was so exciting because I had never seen anyone that looks like Marcel. He’s really one of a kind, and he’s good looking in a way that really defines different standards of beauty. I love how he looks. I think he’s so beautiful.

Dean Fleischer Camp: He’s very ruggedly handsome.

Slate: He’s handsome for sure. And then Dean started to interview me again, and he just said, “What’s your name?” And for one reason or another, I just said, “My name is Marcel, and I’m partially shell, as you can see in my body.” And I was just describing what I saw and what I felt like.

The film is a perfect mixture of innocence and humor, but it’s also melancholic. It’s a family film, but it confronts existential topics like loss, loneliness, and death. Was it hard to find and maintain that balance; to make a film that wasn’t too heavy but also not fluffy and light?

Slate: I do think it was a challenge. That was one of the central challenges-not making it be a total bummer and not making it be something shallow that depended on Marcel and his cuteness as a gimmick. We wouldn’t want to do that either. It was the way that Marcel was created that he is linked to two live artists who have an instinct and have a personal inclination to create. We didn’t want to detach from the inclination to show a certain experience and certain combination of feelings that were in one way or another shared between both of us, even though we’re different people and have different experiences. It really is like constantly turning the hot and cold valve on a faucet; like really trying to keep the temperature right.

Fleischer Camp: We met when we were pretty young, and we first bonded over like work, whether it was comedy or movies or books. I think that we have a simpatico palate that we’re working with. We both love films and books where the antagonist is not a single evil person but is a truth of life or a sickness. There’s plenty of antagonism already in the world-you don’t need to make up a super villain. Studio Ghibli movies are incredible at that, and a lot of the books that we share a love for are like that as well.

Slate: We always liked [books and] storytelling that felt like the supplies were already there, you know? Good, beautiful descriptors and images that weren’t condescending but were satisfying and mature even though they were for young people. We tried hard in our picture books to honor Marcel by hiring a painter who made these beautiful oil paintings [for the illustrations].

How much of each of you is in Marcel and vice versa?

Fleischer Camp: I don’t want to speak for Jenny, but I suspect what we love about Marcel are the qualities that we like about each other.

Slate: I like to think of him as aspirational me; like how I would be if a lot of things weren’t imposed on me or if I weren’t convinced of some certain brutal beliefs. A lot of him feels like what is inside of me if I could be my most self-respecting self. But you know, I’m often not.

Fleischer Camp: I’m very inspired by his confidence. He is constantly confronted by these outsized obstacles, and he doesn’t see them as impossibilities. He doesn’t take it personally. He just knows that he has to overcome that new thing that just dropped in his path. And he’ll find a way, just like yesterday and just like tomorrow. We could all use a little bit of that.

Slate: Yeah, I like that. He doesn’t perform his identity. He doesn’t try too hard. He’s not manipulative. He really is how he is. And that makes me feel calm. I’m like, “Oh, people can be that way, where they’re just being themselves and not trying to have an experience that can be put on Instagram to tell people that they did something.” He really exists in a free way. He is free, and I like that.

One thing about the film that I loved was the miniature world that Marcel inhabits full of Rube Goldberg devices made from everyday household objects. How did you create this new world out of the familiar?

Fleischer Camp: You know, it was always something that I loved about his world. We both love books like Mary Norton’s The Borrowers and William Joyce’s George Shrinks, and those were sort of background inspirations. It was fun to think about how you would go about being a survivalist, because Marcel’s essentially stranded on a desert island. Except he’s not-he’s in a home, but that home was not made for him. It’s so much larger. So, it was fun to think of what he would use to get around or how he would climb on the walls.

We vetted the idea of him going to Hollywood or going to New York City or being lost in Paris, [but] those all felt so wrong. Because what’s lovely about Marcel is that he teaches us to look deep and not abroad and far. It felt like, “Oh, cool, keeping him in one location actually isn’t a huge constraint because he’s so little.” So, how does he get around? How does he do stuff? How does he get supplies? It was a fun challenge. And then there was the second step of that process which was making those things real. We worked with some incredible artists and craftspeople to construct those things. What’s beautiful about a project [like this] that has its heart in the right place is that all the people working on it were really trying to put their best ideas into it. I wish I could live there.

Marcel READ psoterSpeaking of that little world, Marcel is now featured on an ALA READ poster that finds him perched on a stack of books. Dean, you were involved with the creation of the poster: What was that process like?

Fleischer Camp: Jenny and I are fans of those posters, so it was an unbelievable dream that we got to make one for ourselves. It was such a nice opportunity to go back and look at all my favorite ones, like E.T. and…

Slate: David Bowie!

Fleischer Camp: Yeah, the David Bowie one is a favorite. I was flabbergasted and totally more than happy to do [the poster] myself. I have a bunch of the props and Marcel puppets left over from the production, so I took an afternoon and made a little set with books on the floor of my office in my apartment and asked a photographer friend of mine, Jeff Cohen, to shoot it.

Slate: It’s so nice. The colors are lovely.

Fleischer Camp: I also want to point out that in the poster [Marcel’s] sitting on my grandmother’s old copy of A Tale of Two Cities.

Do you have any fond memories of libraries from childhood that you can share?

Slate: In the town where I grew up, Milton, Massachusetts, the library always looked like a little castle to me. It was down the street from our house; not super close, but not far at all. I remember thinking of it as a grand place. I think a lot of people feel this way, but I like the way the library smelled. It was such a good smell to me-the books and the dust and the high ceilings and the air. That combination was unmistakable every time.

The library had two little carousels with VHS tapes on them, and that’s where we would get our videos. I remember you couldn’t get a library card until you could write your name, so when I could write my name, I got a library card and rented Brigadoon. I think [it’s] one of the reasons why my comedy is what it is; why I’ve always wanted to get on stage and be a comedian. I think of myself as an entertainer in the way that Gene Kelly is an entertainer. It was all that old-fashioned stuff, and it made a big impression on me. The way I do my comedy, which is definitely modern, is really influenced by all of that early entertainment.

I felt so cared for [at our library] because there was a children’s section. I knew it really well and knew the librarians. I loved the peaceful atmosphere. I liked being trusted with the books. Like, you are just allowed to take them out and you promise to take good care of them and bring them back. I love that whole thing.

 

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On opens in select theaters June 24 and nationwide on July 15. I Love Libraries has tickets to special sneak preview screenings on Wednesday, June 22, in select cities across the US. Seating is limited and based on a first-come, first-served basis. Seating is not guaranteed.

And don’t forget to get your own ALA READ poster featuring Marcel!

See Marcel the Shell with Shoes On … For Free!

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On was a YouTube sensation-and now you can catch him on the big screen!

Marcel the adorable one-inch-tall shell is coming to movie theaters nationwide in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, a hilarious and heartwarming film from director Dean Fleischer-Camp and voice star Jenny Slate. The film opens in select theaters June 24 and nationwide on July 15, and I Love Libraries has tickets to special sneak preview screenings on Wednesday, June 22, in select cities across the US!

Get your tickets before they disappear!

Seating is limited and based on a first come, first serve basis. Seating is not guaranteed. 

A Registry of Historic Tunes

What do Alicia Keys, Ricky Martin, Journey, Linda Ronstadt, A Tribe Called Quest, Bonnie Raitt, Wu-Tang Clan, Queen, and Buena Vista Social Club all have in common, besides comprising an awesome hypothetical mixtape perfect for summertime listening? Each of these artists has work that was inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress on April 13.

The Library of Congress adds to the registry audio treasures worthy of preservation based on their cultural, historical, or aesthetic importance to the nation’s recorded sound heritage. The 25 works in the 2022 class span multiple music genres, from hip-hop, jazz, and country to rock, R&B, and Latin, and also include radio broadcasts and interviews of note.

“The National Recording Registry reflects the diverse music and voices that have shaped our nation’s history and culture through recorded sound,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in an April 13 statement. “The national library is proud to help preserve these recordings, and we welcome the public’s input. We received about 1,000 public nominations this year for recordings to add to the registry.”

In addition to the musical selections, speeches by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, WNYC’s radio broadcasts on 9/11, and an episode of the podcast WTF with Marc Maron featuring an interview with comedian Robin Williams were inducted into the registry.

The newly added recordings bring the total number of titles on the registry to 600, representing a small portion of the national library’s vast recorded sound collection of nearly 4 million items.

Here’s the full list of 2022 inductees, in chronological order:

  • “Harlem Strut” by James P. Johnson (single, 1921)
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt: Complete Presidential Speeches, 1933-1945
  • “Walking the Floor Over You” by Ernest Tubb (single, 1941)
  • “On a Note of Triumph,” May 8, 1945 (radio broadcast)
  • “Jesus Gave Me Water” by The Soul Stirrers (single, 1950)
  • Ellington at Newport by Duke Ellington (album, 1956)
  • We Insist!  Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite by Max Roach (album, 1960)
  • “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole (single, 1961)
  • Tonight’s the Night by The Shirelles (album, 1961)
  •  “Moon River” by Andy Williams (single, 1962)
  •  In C by Terry Riley (album, 1968)
  •  “It’s a Small World” by The Disneyland Boys Choir, (single, 1964)
  •  “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” by The Four Tops (single, 1966)
  •  Hank Aaron’s 715th Career Home Run (radio broadcast, April 8, 1974)
  •  “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen (single, 1975)
  •  “Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey (single, 1981)
  •  Canciones de Mi Padre by Linda Ronstadt (album, 1987)
  •  Nick of Time by Bonnie Raitt (album, 1989)
  •  The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest (album, 1991)
  •  Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) by Wu-Tang Clan (album, 1993)
  •  Buena Vista Social Club by Buena Vista Social Club (album, 1997)
  •  “Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin (single, 1999)
  •  Songs in A Minor by Alicia Keys (album, 2001)

 WNYC broadcasts for the day of 9/11 (radio broadcast, September 11, 2001)

 WTF with Marc Maron with guest Robin Williams (podcast, April 26, 2010)

You can listen to many of the recordings on your favorite streaming service. Also, the Digital Media Association, a member of the National Recording Preservation Board, has compiled a list of some streaming services with National Recording Registry playlists. Enjoy!

To learn more about preservation efforts-including how to get started on your own projects-check out some of the resources available from the American Library Association’s CORE: Leadership, Infrastructure, Future.

Photo: From the album The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest

May the Fourth Be with Your Library

It’s May 4-a day when the world turns its gaze to a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away and celebrates Star Wars. When Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was released in 1977, director George Lucas couldn’t have conceived that his film would become a cultural and economic behemoth, spawning a multitude of sequels and spinoff films, TV shows, books, and toys, and influencing generations of movie fans, science lovers, and learners.

One of I Love Libraries favorite Star Wars-related places is Rancho Obi-Wan, a nonprofit museum in Petaluma, California that houses the world’s largest Star Wars memorabilia collection, as certified by Guinness World Records in 2014. Museum founder Steve Sansweet has amassed more than 500,000 Star Wars items since the museum’s founding in 1998, everything from rare toys to life-size replicas of Star Wars characters. The collection is outstanding. Listen to I Love Libraries editor Phil Morehart discuss the collection with Sansweet here.

For more Star Wars audio delights, we recommend this fascinating look at the sound artists at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California, who use Soundminer to access and build an ever-expanding library of nearly a million sounds from the Star Wars universe.

Not surprisingly, libraries and librarians across the US have become enthusiastic supporters of Star Wars Day. Celebrations are being held in person and virtually, everywhere from California to Florida. We’re particularly impressed with the efforts of St. Tammany Parish Library in Covington, Louisiana. For readers looking to dive into the world of Star Wars novelizations and serials and how they fit into the series’ canon, the library has created an webpage outlining the works and lineage. We’ve been engrossed all day.

And, of course, there’s the American Library Association’s famous READ posters and T-shirts featuring The Child aka Grogu from Star Wars: The Mandalorian. We can’t think of a better way to show your love for both Star Wars and libraries.

May the Fourth be with you!

A Home Run Collection

Spring is here (finally). Temperatures are rising; the sun is setting later in the evening; flowers are blooming; and a new season of America’s national pastime has started. That’s right: It’s time for some baseball.

We’re getting into the spirit with the digital collection at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, which is a baseball and history lover’s dream. It contains more than 10,000 pieces of baseball-related ephemera, from game-used uniforms and equipment to archival photos, videos, and more. It even has fascinating baseball-adjacent paraphernalia, including vintage baseball cards and costumes worn by actors in baseball-themed movies like The Bad News Bears, A League of Their Own, The Natural, and 24.

Here are some of our favorites from the collection.

  • Shoes worn by pitcher Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians when he struck out 18 batters in a nine-inning game on October 2, 1938-a modern record that remained unsurpassed for more than 30 years.
  • Babe Ruth’s final homerun baseball. Playing for the Boston Braves, Ruth hit this ball out of Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on May 25, 1935, for the 714th and final round-tripper of his major league career.
  • An All-American Girls Professional Baseball League ball signed by members of the 1946 Muskegon Lassies team.
  • The trademark glasses worn by broadcaster Harry Caray while working for the Chicago Cubs.
  • The shirt worn by Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox when he recorded his 3,000th career hit in a game against the New York Yankees at Fenway Park on September 12, 1979.
  • The cap worn by pitcher Jim “Catfish” Hunter of the Oakland A’s when he threw a perfect game against the Minnesota Twins on May 8, 1968.
  • A reproduction Brooklyn Dodgers jersey worn by actor Chadwick Boseman while portraying Jackie Robinson in the movie 42.

To learn more about the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum and Library, visit American Libraries for explorations of its archival and research work and holdings.

Photo: At Yankee Stadium during the 1955 World Series, Brooklyn batter Roy Campanella and New York catcher Yogi Berra both start toward first base: Campy attempting to beat out his grounder and Yogi preparing to back up the play. Courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Show the World Your Love for LeVar

LeVar Burton is a national treasure. The actor, director, and author has engaged and entertained audiences for decades in movies like The Hunter and Ali and on television in Roots and Star Trek: The Next Generation. And as the longtime host and executive producer of PBS’s Reading Rainbow, he taught a generation of kids the power of literacy and education. He’s also an outspoken advocate for the freedom to read.

Show the world your love for both LeVar Burton and reading with the new shirt from our friends at Out of Print, featuring the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2002 READ poster of Burton holding a copy of Helen Ward’s magical children’s book, The Tin Forest. It’s available in both unisex and women’s sizes. Each purchase supports ALA and our work keeping libraries strong across the country.

A Conversation with Jeopardy! Champ Amy Schneider

Amy Schneider is an American software engineer and recent Jeopardy! champion. Following an impressive 40-game winning streak (which ended January 26 when Schneider narrowly lost to Rhone Talsma, a librarian from Chicago Ridge [Ill.] Public Library), she became the most successful woman ever to compete on the show. She is also the first openly transgender contestant to qualify for Jeopardy!’s Tournament of Champions.

In the leadup to Schneider’s talk on March 25 at the Public Library Association’s 2022 Conference, Schneider spoke with I Love Libraries about her experiences on Jeopardy!, the importance of trans representation, and the role of libraries in her life.

Congratulations on your success on Jeopardy! Did you ever imagine you would have such a historic run on the show when you stepped onto its stage that first time?

Not at all. I thought I could win three or four games, at most, if things went well. I knew I was pretty good at it, and I definitely had the confidence that I was capable of winning some. But yeah, nothing, nothing like this.

Have you been a Jeopardy! fan your entire life?

I have, yes. I grew up with it. My parents watched it, and I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t around.

When did you first decide that you wanted to be on the show? Was it a lifelong dream of yours?

Yeah, more or less. I’ve been auditioning [for it] since maybe 2007 or 2008, somewhere in there. It’s been a long time.

What’s the difference between watching the show at home and being there as a contestant? What was going through your mind during your run?

The first difference I would say is that it goes by so fast when you’re out there; like you just blink and it’s over. Beyond that, I was really trying to think as little as possible really; to not think about where I was and just focus on the questions and try to eliminate distractions in my mind. Especially that first time, there was a lot of anxiety that I was trying to ignore.

How did you prepare for the show? Did you turn to your local library, or any library, for help at all?

You know, I tell people that Jeopardy! is something that you can’t study for, because it is just too broad and covers too much. But I think, in that sense, certainly all of my library usage over the years has [helped with] that. Apart from just being generally interested in reading and learning, I went through [footage of] old Jeopardy! games to look for patterns in what they asked and for things I was consistently missing.

Did the library play an important role in your life growing up?

Yeah, it did. I told the anecdote on the show about when I was a little kid my parents instituted a rule that I could only borrow from the library as many books as I could carry home by myself. It was definitely a thing as a family. We were always going to the library. We didn’t have much money at all, especially when I was very young, so buying books wasn’t really an option for us. But library trips were always there.

You’ve had a long career as a software engineer. How did how did that inform your Jeopardy! appearance both as you prepared for it and during the tapings?

The thing about engineering that drew me to it was the creative aspect of it. As I got into it, I realized that it’s really an act of translation. You’re trying to explain things to a computer, which is very dumb, and that forces you to examine all the unstated things that go into the requirements that are obvious; [things that] don’t need to be spelled out to a human being but have to be spelled out to a computer. I think that practice of trying to break down things down into their simplest parts and really understand them has been a good mental habit to develop.

You’re the first trans person to qualify for Jeopardy!’s Tournament of Champions, and you’ve spoken at length about how meaningful that’s been in terms of trans representation. How important was it for you, the trans community, and the world at large to be successful on the show?

I definitely know in my own life how important representation is. When I was a kid, I didn’t even know of the concept of trans people. When I started to become aware of their existence, they were always painted as jokes or criminals or weirdos or these sorts of things and not as normal people. That kept me from understanding myself and my identity for decades. I think about how meaningful it would have been to me as a child and as a young adult to see a trans woman on a show that I watched all the time and to see them just hanging out and being who they are and not being weird basically. I’ve been surprised by how many people who have reached out to me to talk about how much it’s meant to them—and in particular to their families, to the parents, and grandparents—in helping them understand each other in a way that they hadn’t before.

You’ll be speaking at the upcoming Public Library Association conference. What do you hope that librarians can learn from your experiences?

The message I hope to spread is what reading and learning can give you. Jeopardy is just one thing that could come out of it. It’s fun in itself and enjoyable in itself. Forming networks of association by reading widely and then seeing the connections between things that you might not have seen before–between history and science, or art and philosophy or all these other things– helps you understand all of them better and helps you have a more full understanding of the world and where you live in it.

Photo via Jeopardy Productions, Inc.

This Is Librarians on Jeopardy!

The internet and game show lovers are abuzz over librarian Rhone Talsma’s victory over trivia ace Amy Schneider on Jeopardy! on Wednesday night.

Talsma, a multimedia librarian at Chicago Ridge (Il.) Library, beat the long-running champ when she failed to come up with the correct response to the clue, “The only nation in the world whose name in English ends in an H, it’s also one of the 10 most populous.” (The answer is: “What is Bangladesh?”). The error left Schneider in second place and ended her 40-game winning streak.

Talsma netted more than $29,000 with his win. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, he said that librarianship gave him an upper hand on his Jeopardy! debut: “It is literally in my job description to find answers to any question directed to me at the reference desk. Sitting at the desk for eight hours a day, I’m almost guaranteed to learn something new thanks to a question from one of our patrons.”

In good company

Did you know that Talsma is one in a long list of librarians who have appeared on the show? Emma Boettcher, a librarian at the University of Chicago, famously ended James Holzhauer’s 32-game winning streak in 2019. And there are many more!

Eleven librarians who have appeared on Jeopardy! spoke with American Libraries in 2017 about their experiences on the show, from tryouts and prepping to game day and beyond. It’s a fascinating read.

Julie Hornick, an instructional services librarian at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, appeared on the show in 2014. She told American Libraries of her preparation process: “I was a school librarian at the time. Before I went out to California for the taping, I told my students, “Come up to me any time of day with any kind of question.” If a student could ask a question that I couldn’t answer, I would give them a Dum Dum sucker. I don’t know if they enjoyed trying to stump me or they just wanted the sucker.”

And Jennifer Hills, a reference librarian at Twin Falls (Idaho) Public Libraries who appeared on the show in 2011, said that her appearance follows her around in everyday life: “I happened to be in the grocery store one night, and there was a gal on one of those scooter carts, and I’d go down an aisle, and she’d come down the same aisle. I was kind of getting creeped out. Finally, we came out in the produce section, and she said, “Were you the girl that was on Jeopardy!?”

Sadly, Talsma’s stint on Jeopardy! was short-lived-the librarian was defeated on Thursday’s show-but his legacy lives on. Who knows, sometime in the future Jeopardy!may even feature the clue: “Who was the Chicago Ridge librarian that set the internet on fire with an unlikely upset victory in 2022?”

Photo via Jeopardy Productions, Inc.

This Is the Way to Check Out Books

Picture being 5 years old and getting your first library card. Now imagine that card – a key that unlocks the secrets of the entire galaxy – had an image of the universe’s cutest Jedi Master. That’s right – your first library card featured none other than Grogu, aka Baby Yoda, aka The Child.

For a young boy in Tyler, Texas, this was no fantasy. As the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported, 5-year-old Ace Smith and 4-year-old Tripp Bowie were the first patrons at the Longview Public Library – and the nation – to get the out-of-this-word limited edition library cards.

The Child debuted as a READ® poster star in December 2020, and now the breakout star of The Mandalorian is pocket sized. When Ace and Tripp reach for their library cards, they’ll be greeted by the adorable green guy and the phrase READ: This is the Way.

Now Star Wars fans might see these cards touching down at their local libraries. The American Library Association is making them available to libraries throughout the country.

Want Grogu on your local library’s cards? Tell you librarian to request more information.