A Very Concrete Example of a Library

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Over the years, I have found myself in a number of interesting libraries and literary settings, but today I wanted to share one that is truly unique. The entire room…in fact the entire mansion is constructed of poured concrete. This unusual library is just one of the rooms in Fonthill Castle, the Victorian home of the eclectic and eccentric Henry Chapman Mercer in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

An “archaeologist, anthropologist, ceramicist, scholar and antiquarian,” Mercer had the home built between 1908-1912. It has over forty rooms, extensive grounds, a multitude of fireplaces, and a plethora of windows (including a little one I spotted embedded in a chimney!). The mansion’s exterior and frame was crafted exclusively from poured concrete. Much of the interior is concrete as well, including shelves, desks, chairs, even dressers!

The library was one of the larger rooms we viewed during the educational tour. It was two levels with vast windows and a massive fireplace. You might notice the abundance of tiles. One of Mercer’s passions was ceramics and tile, and he hand-crafted almost every tile you see in his home. Also, if you’re wondering how to get to the second level of the library, shhhhhh there is a secret staircase behind the fireplace.

Mercer was a true scholar. He loved the discovery and acquisition of knowledge. So books weren’t confined exclusively to his private library. He had multiple studies throughout the mansion (he actually followed the path of the sun through his home, capitalizing on the reading and writing light it allowed him). Each study held collections of books and artifacts from his extensive world travels.

The home tour was fascinating, but we were wholly unprepared for Mercer’s other building, a six-story castle (also made of reinforced concrete) that now serves as the Mercer Museum. If a photo is worth a thousand words, I leave you with this, and urge you to see the museum for yourself!

In addition to Fonthill Castle and Mercer Museum, I can also highly recommend Doylestown as a charming and laid back travel destination. There are plenty of shops, eateries, ice cream stands, and parks. It’s extremely walkable, and don’t miss the independently-owned Doylestown Bookshop. It’s fabulous!

Only YOU!

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There’s lots of dancing, singing, chatting, and partying out there in the world, but what happens if you just want to be a little quiet and alone time? What if what you really need is a calm nest and a good book? And who is that in our library tree? Could it be…the author of today’s book? YES!

We read Only, written and illustrated by Airlie Anderson (Hachette Book Group, 2024). The tree is lively with Singy, Squawky, Tappy, Flappy, Chippy, and Flippy, who are full of songs, games, and cheer. But it’s all too much for Only, who flies away to build a quiet nest, close the door, and read. While the other birds can’t figure out why Only wants to be quiet and alone, Squawky stops by for a visit. As it turns out, hanging out and doing things doesn’t always have to be loud. And, equally importantly, being alone doesn’t necessarily mean being lonely!

We were so excited to have Airlie Anderson come to our library to share Only! Definitely  Check out my interview with her at the end of the post!

You’ll need:

  • 1 oatmeal container
  • Construction paper
  • 1 pipe cleaners
  • Scissors, glue, and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating

This project is a fairly simple oatmeal container bird, but as a nod to one of Only’s favorite quiet time activities, we added a little book! Did you notice the cover? That’s right! It’s one of Airle’s other books, Neither!

We added one more touch to the project. In the book, Only and Squawky listen to music together wearing headphones. We loved Airlie’s illustration so much, as well as the concept of sharing an experience quietly together, that we added foam headphones kids could wear too!

To make these, you’ll need some self adhesive foam and two pipe cleaners. Lay two sheets of foam on top of one another, then cut a pair of circles and two strips (for a total of 4 circles and 2 strips). Peel the backing off one set and lay everything sticky side up. Place the strip on top of the two circles, then lay the two pipe cleaners along the length of the strip like so:

Peel the backing off the remaining pieces, then place them sticky side down on the first set. Bend the pipe cleaners to fit around your head, and you’re done. Enjoy your time with your new friend!

I can’t recommend Airlie enough for a library visit. She is funny, engaging, wonderful with the kids, and jumps right into the craft project. In fact, this is the second time she’s come to a Cotsen story time and we hope to have her back for many more!

Hi Airlie! Welcome back to Pop Goes the Page! How are you doing?

I’m having a happy day, thank you! Glad to be back at Pop Goes the Page.

How did the concept of this book come to be?

The concept of Only came to me during quarantine, during which I discovered that I am not as much of an introvert as I once thought. Not only do I enjoy alone time, I also like being around crowds, in public. I wanted to make a book about experiencing both of those dynamics, and how different characters enjoy various levels of that.

In addition to Only, there are also birds named Singy, Squawky, Tappy, Flappy, Chippy, and Flippy. Which one is most like you?

I love this question! I hadn’t thought of that before. But now that you mention it, I’m most like Squawky. Squawky is the bird who ventures into the quiet nest because they don’t feel like playing bird ball at that moment.

Only the bird has a pretty amazing “quiet nest” stocked with toys and activities. What would your personal quiet nest include?

My quiet nest would look a lot like Only’s quiet nest, except that I don’t know how to knit! But I enjoy drawing balls of yarn. So definitely stacks of books (I’m currently reading one of Carrie Fisher’s memoirs), art supplies, headphones, and journals. I would add a yoga mat and one of those electric pots for making hot water for tea.

What are you working on now?

Right now I’m “filling the well” of creativity, so for me that means reading lots of different kinds of books, for grown-ups and kids. I’ve been watching movies from the early Hollywood era — I feel quite drawn to them for some mysterious reason. Sometimes story ideas come from unexpected places, so I follow my bliss when it comes to that. Have you seen His Girl Friday? Amazing. The picture book that I have on deck is still developing, and it involves rodents. I am super excited about it!

Visiting Percy Jackson…in Texas

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Today, I am delighted to introduce guest blogger Dr. Miranda Sachs! Miranda studied History at Princeton University, and graduated in 2011. She worked extensively at our library, both in special collections and with me in community outreach. Miranda earned her PhD at Yale, and is now an assistant professor of European History at Texas State University.

That’s where she met Percy Jackson.

Or more accurately, that’s where she visited the Rick Riordan archive in Texas State’s Wittliff Collections. The collections “collect, preserve and present the cultural heritage of Texas, the Southwest & Mexico through works of the region’s storytellers—writers, photographers, musicians, filmmakers and other artists,” and Riordan’s papers and ephemera are part of the Southwestern Writers Collections (along Sandra Cisneros, Sam Shepard, Naomi Shihab Nye, Cormac McCarthy, and J. Frank Dobie to name a few).

Miranda found some incredibly cool stuff, and I will now turn the post over to her very capable hands. Take it away, Miranda!

Many, many years ago I was an undergraduate at Princeton and I had the privilege of working for Dr. Dana. It was the best job ever. I did things like glue lizards onto visors for a Holes watch party or tell jokes using a shark puppet. Dr. Dana introduced me to Percy Jackson and I loved the books. I even got to dress as a Greek lady for Princyclopedia, an event that Dr. Dana used to organize.

Miranda, on right, being fabulous. Department of Special Collections, Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University Library.

Since my time at Princeton, I’ve become a professor of French history. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that Texas State, the university where I teach, has the personal collection of Rick Riordan, the author of the Percy Jackson books. I reached out to my old friend Dr. Dana and she sent me on a quest to check out what Rick Riordan sent to the Witliff Collections.

Because of the new Lightning Thief mini-series, the library has some of the highlights from Riordan’s collection on display. As soon as I walked in the door, I saw a shirt for Camp Half-Blood. The display case had a replica of Riptide used for the film and some neat photos of Riordan speaking to kids. It also had hand-written copies of stories Riordan wrote as a kid! The room where I got to look at the documents had art on display from the covers of some of the books.

The archivist let me look at some of Rick Riordan’s childhood stories. It turns out that Riordan was writing fantasy and mythology even back then. One story was about a god named Jzais living in a world called Tharcas. He wrote some of these stories by hand and others with a typewriter (yup, he was a kid before the computer.)

All the stories were on the original pieces of paper on which he’d written or typed. It was fun to look at stories he wrote in junior high school (back in 1978) and see comments from his teachers. One story called “The Ring of Fire” received 100/100!

Rick Riordan was a teacher before he was a writer. One of the boxes in the collection includes a photo album with pictures from the final class of students he taught in 2004. Six years later, he went back to visit the school and those kids were seniors. Many of them wrote letters sharing how much he had meant to them as a teacher. They still remembered the story of Gilgamesh because he had told it to them with funny voices. Multiple kids recalled that they had carried out a mock trial using Hammurabi’s Code in his class. It seems that Riordan was a creative teacher who got kids excited about the ancient world even before he published the Percy Jackson books.

My favorite thing to look at was fan letters from kids. Some of the kids were harsh critics. A 7th grader named Caitlyn complained that the books droned on, and it took too long to get to the exciting parts. A boy named Sean was confused why Percy was dry when he came out of the water given that his father was the sea god. Others asked great questions. They wanted to know his favorite character and his favorite band. A girl named Lauren asked “ARE YOU A HALF BLOOD?” Another girl was curious if he would consider casting Arnold Schwarzenegger as Zeus in the film adaptation. (Sorry.)

Mostly, the kids wanted to express how much they loved the books. By the time Sea of Monsters came out, Riordan was getting multiple letters each day. It was super cool to see evidence of how much those books meant to kids. It was also cool to think that Riordan chose to save the kids’ letters. He decided they needed to be preserved in the archive alongside his fancy prizes and the early drafts of his books.

Before I left, I asked to hold Riptide. It was surprisingly heavy. I guess I’m not a demigod…

Photo by Katie Salzmann

We would like to thank Texas State University for so generously sharing their collections, and to Miranda for being awesome (as always!). Miranda is also an author! She published a book all about kids in nineteenth-century Paris called An Age to Work: Working-Class Childhood in Third Republic Paris.

Collections images courtesy of Miranda Sachs