Everyone enjoys a good mystery now and then (or if you’re like my Dad, that’s all he reads). With this in mind, here are five excellent mysteries by Scandinavian authors that you can find on the shelves at Whitefish Bay Public Library. Enjoy!

While I wear many hats in my role as Head of Youth Services at the Whitefish Bay Public Library, my favorite hat to wear is my programming hat, and I’m lucky to have staff members who feel the same way. (Thanks Valerie, Anders, and Blake!) And, of course, we hope that you love programming too! Between storytimes and our special programs, last year we offered more than 250 programs for babies all the way up to teenagers. It’s a lot of work, but we love the challenge of creating programming that excites and inspires our patrons.

Our Youth Services team keeps busy with story-times in the library, but nothing substitutes for reading at home, regardless of your child's age. Research (e.g. the2012 Compendium on Early Literature by Scholastic) shows that book-reading provides a special context in order to cultivate language development, beginning at infancy. Books are special because they contain stories and facts outside of the here-and-now. Moreover, people tend to use especially complex language when they are discussing a book-- even a picture book. So hit the books with your kid! Go for quantity and quality!

This is a good opportunity to highlight some great books written by black authors. I think it’s important to read books by diverse authors and Black History Month is a great reminder that we should incorporate authors of color into our reading all year long. Here are some of my picks.