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Check It Out
Find a listing of the latest arrivals of books, audio and video items at the Wauwatosa Library, as well as information on upcoming events and staff suggestions for timely information you can use every day on the library’s blog.
August 2008 - Posts
By Wauwatosa Public Library
Tuesday, Aug 12 2008, 01:39 PM
 Although several owe their names to Roman gods and goddesses, only two months are named after human beings. The Roman Senate named August in honor of the first of the emperors, Caesar Augustus. Born Gaius Octavius, he was later adopted by Julius Caesar (after whom July is named), becoming Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. Caesar was still a family name and not yet the title it would become.
Octavian (as he’s usually called in English) ruled as emperor from 27 B.C. to 14 A.D. It was in 26 B.C. that the Senate awarded him the honorific title “Augustus” (meaning venerable, majestic, worthy of honor) and in 8 B.C. that the Senate changed the name of the month, then called Sextilis, to August (Augustus in its Latin form.) The original name meant “sixth” as the old Roman calendar started the year with March and by that reckoning, Sextilis was indeed the sixth month of the year.
To learn more about the calendar and months, try Mapping Time : the Calendar and Its History, by E.G. Richards (529 R39 in the adult library). For more on Caesar Augustus, the library has Augustus : the life of Rome’s First Emperor, by Anthony Everitt (937 Ev27 in the adult library) as well as numerous other sources. The emperor is also well represented in fiction, including most famously, Robert Graves’ novel, I, Claudius, which is nearly as much about Augustus and his wife, Livia, as about Claudius.
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By Wauwatosa Public Library
Tuesday, Aug 12 2008, 01:37 PM
You may know that you can find the agendas and minutes of the Wauwatosa Common Council, committees, boards and commissions on the city’s website at www.wauwatosa.net dating back to 2002. But, did you know that the library has video and dvd recordings of Common Council meetings that date back to1994?
To be precise, the library has:
- Common Council and Committee of the Whole meetings from1994 to date
- Traffic & Safety, Community Development, Legislation, Licensing & Communications and Budget & Finance committee meetings from 2002 to date
Common Council meetings are held the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month and the committee meetings on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month. Meetings are broadcast throughout the following day on Channel 25. Also, believe it or not, as of this month, you can view Wauwatosa Common Council meetings on Google Video and You Tube! Committee meetings should be available in the near future.
In addition, the library also has Wauwatosa School Board meetings on video and dvd dating back to 2004. School Board meetings are held the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month and broadcast on Channel 13 the following Tuesday at 4 and 8 p.m. and Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Now, you can also view the meetings on the Wauwatosa School District website at www.wauwatosa.k12.wi.us.
Recordings of these meetings can be checked out for a period of a week with a library card at the Information Desk. For fun, you may also want to check out a recording of Wauwatosa’s 4th of July parade. The library has videos and dvds of the parades going back to 2001.
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By Wauwatosa Public Library
Tuesday, Aug 12 2008, 01:32 PM
Books
Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It by Elizabeth Royte
Host by Stephenie Meyer
 Lost in Uttar Pradesh: New and Selected Stories by Evan S. Connell
Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life by Carl Zimmer
Musician's Handbook: a Practical Guide to Understanding the Music Business by Bobby Borg
Nothing to Lose by Lee Child
One Man's America: the Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation by George Will
Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn't-and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger by Daniel Gardner
 Spice Bible: Essential Information and More than 250 Recipes Using Spices,
Spice Mixes, and Spice Pastes by Jane Lawson
Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso
Audiobooks on CD
Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot diaz
 Sail by James Patterson
Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House: Humor, Blunders, and Other Oddities from the Presidential Campaign Trail by Charles Osgood
Last Kiss by Luanne Rice
Turnaround Kid: What I Learned Rescuing America's Most Troubled Companies by Steve Miller
DVDs
Band's Visit (Bikur ha-Tizmoret)
Earth: the Biography
 Mad Men. Season One
Robbie Coltrane: Incredible Britain
21
Music on CD
 Daniel Variations/Steve Reich
Lay It Down/Al Green
Loverly/Casandra Wilson
Same Old Man/John Hiatt
Two Men With the Blues/Willie Nelson and Winton Marsalis
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By Wauwatosa Public Library
Tuesday, Aug 12 2008, 01:31 PM
 Playfully punching holes in a stack of papers, Eric Carle thought, “This could have been done by a bookworm.” His editor thought that a caterpillar would make a better story and the award-winning book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, was born.
Carle’s six books about bugs are deceptively simple. On one level, these books are cute stories that teach a life lesson. On a literal level, children learn a science lesson about insects or spiders. On the metaphorical level, the titles reveal the essence of the bug’s existence. A caterpillar’s sole goal in life is to eat as much as possible for the next stage of its life. It is reported that some adult fireflies do not even eat, but that their single purpose is to reproduce; thus, The Very Lonely Firefly's search for a mate is vital to its species’ survival. Likewise, The Very Quiet Cricket has to be able to communicate by rubbing his wings together if he is to advance his gene pool.
Eric Carle’s books are not only informative and colorful, but they also bridge the gap between book and toy. The holes and gradually increasing page sizes of The Very Hungry Caterpillar encourage children to touch and poke. The Grouchy Ladybug uses the increasingly larger pages to teach the concept of size. The Very Clumsy Click Beetle and The Very Quiet Cricket contain computer sound chips that produce the sound of the insect; similarly, The Very Lonely Firefly has battery-powered twinkling lights on the last page. Adults could easily miss the raised spider webs, spider’s legs and fly’s wings in The Very Busy Spider, but curious children, who want to touch and feel everything they see, will follow the web, as it grows larger on every other page.
Don’t miss out on these and many more buggy books and activities. “Catch the Reading Bug” summer programs continue at the Wauwatosa Public Library throughout the month of August. The deadline for completing all the reading record cards is Friday, August 29, 2008.
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