Welcome, or welcome back, to SJPL's Rec News, an occasional publication featuring recreational and recommended reading from our SJPL Librarians. Our last SJPL Rec News was way back in May to make way for Summer Learning and weekly booklist blogs to help fuel your reading. In case you missed any of these lists, you can find them all by clicking here to visit our Staff Picks' Blog profile, opens a new window, where you can catch up on all the great reads recommended over the Summer. Now that Summer Learning is winding down, Rec News will return with monthly posts.
For the children and young adults in our community, once we turn our calendars over to August it means pretty much one thing- Back to School. While we certainly have Back to School, opens a new window and Starting School, opens a new window picture book reads to share, this year is an Olympic year, so we've rounded up a great selection of fiction and nonfiction centering around sports and athletes.
SJPL's Book Olym-Picks:
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Sports Fiction (Grades ~3-7), opens a new window
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Teen/Young Adult Sports Fiction, opens a new window
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Athletes' Stories (Sports Nonfiction) (Adult Collection), opens a new window
The Olympics are an international sporting event held every four years and last for two and a half weeks. There are Winter Olympics and Summer Olympics; it's the Summer games this year, easy to remember as they typically coincide with Leap years, and US elections years. The Winter Olympics will next be held in 2026 in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
The modern Olympic Games were first held in 1896 in Athens, Greece. The Ancient Olympics, however, were held as far back as 775 BCE! These Ancient Olympics were also held every four years between city-states of ancient Greece in the city of Olympia. While these ancient games looked quite different to our modern games, even the modern Olympic Games have changed tremendously since their inception. Those first games in 1896 had only 42 different events, and the couple hundred competitors were all men. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics (held in 2021 due to the pandemic) had 339 events with over 11,000 competitors, and of course men and women now participate in the games. The events change year to year, with new events being added and others being benched, or retired from the games. For example, softball will not be part of the 2024 games, but some of the newest events added to are climbing, surfing, skateboarding, and breakdancing.
The 2024 Olympics are being held in Paris, France. They began on 24 July and will conclude on 11 August, 2024. While you're not watching your favorite sport, keep the Olympic spirit high by picking up some sport-themed reading at the library!
SJPL Picks: Quick Links
If this month's featured reads aren't quite what you're in the mood for, or you're looking to expand your browsing further, try checking out any and all of the lists from our librarians on our SJPL Picks team. All our lists will be labeled "SJPL Picks" or "SJPL Recommends".
SJPL 5forU
If you're looking for further recommendations and aren't in the mood to browse, let us do the browsing for you! San José Public Library's 5forU team offers personalized recommendations via email. You can fill out a profile for yourself, or you can also fill in the profile on someone else's behalf and we can find just the right titles - perfect for caregivers looking to recommend books to their children, for book clubs stumped on what to discuss next meeting, or if you're hoping to give the gift of literature. Just fill in the profile and we'll do the rest - and remember, the more information you give us in the profile, the better and more tailored your recommendations will be! Hearing exactly why you love or hate a book gives us more clues to find your new favorite- it just so happens to be what we love to talk about, too, so don't hold back. Requests will be answered within 5 business days. Ready to begin your 5forU journey?
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