MEMORIAL BRICK at the CHAPEL HILL PUBLIC LIBRARY, Chapel Hill, NC

In 2012, my daughter ‘s Jennifer and her family purchased a memorial brick in honor of my books in support of the new Chapel Hill Public Library. On my recent visit to North Carolina we visited the library, a beautiful spacious building, and paid a visit to the patio which is made of all the memorial bricks. (The letters on the bricks are still there but a bit weather worn.) 

Inside the library I left a copy of my new book SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL as a donation to the library collection to be considered for acquisition. We also stopped for a nice chat with the children’s librarians in the large children’s room. The library has 33 of my books in their collection! I was happy to see how busy the library was on the Sunday morning of our visit. As the librarian scrolled through the list of my books on the computer she commented how my book GIANT SHARK was one of the children’s favorites. I'm pleased to know that kids are still enjoying it nearly 25 years after it was first published!

Update January 2025: SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL is now on the shelf at the Chapel Hill Public library and ready to check out!

CHECK IT OUT! Read SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL at your Library

Little by little, my memoir,  SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL: Growing Up in the 1950s at North East Neighborhood House, Minneapolis, Minnesota is being added to library collections across the country. See list below. If any of these are libraries where you live, you can now check out my book now.  If your local library does not yet have the book, please put in a request for it. Thank you!

Libraries where you can find SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL

Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles, CA

Hennepin County Library, Minneapolis, MN

Plum Creek Library system, Worthington, MN

Duluth Public Library, Duluth, MN

Anoka County Library, Blaine, MN

University of Minnesota, Anderson Library, Minneapolis, MN

Grinnell College, Burling Library, Grinnell, IA

Drake Community Library, Grinnell, IA

West Des Moines Public Library, Des Moines, IA

Wisconsin Valley Library Service (WVLS), Wausau, WI

Milwaukee Public Library, Milwaukee, WI

Superior Public Library, Superior, WI

Legion Memorial Library, Mellen, WI

Rhinelander Public Library, Rhinelander, WI

Kenosha Public Library, Kenosha, WI

Wisconsin Historical Society Library, Madison, WI

Chicago Public Library, Chicago, IL

The Indianapolis Public Library, Indianapolis, IN

Humboldt County Library, Eureka, CA

Chapel Hill Public Library, Chapel Hill, NC

If your library is not on this list and has the book, please let me know and I will add it. I will continue to add libraries as they get and process my book.

Settlement House Girl is engaging, tracing Arnold’s growth from a young girl to an adult journeying into being a writer in her later life, but it’s also a valuable contribution to the social history of 20th-century America, offering urban history enthusiasts a wealth of information about the daily lives of families living in mid-century cities. The detailed accounts of Arnold's experiences provide a unique glimpse into the fabric of community life during this era, highlighting the interactions and shared experiences that defined the settlement house environment. BookLife (Publisher’s Weekly)

My visit to the Northeast branch of the Hennepin County Library in 1915.

ROSALYNN CARTER BUTTERFLY TRAIL

Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail at Lake Lure, NC

From roses to succulents, pollinator gardens to art installations, the Flowering Bridge at Luke Lure, in the mountains of western North Carolina, is a wonder of nature and testament to the volunteers who turned an abandoned bridge into a beautiful floral walkway.

The Lake Lure Flowering Bridge is a stop along the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail, which begins in Plains, Georgia, at the home of President and Mrs. Jimmy Carter. The mission of the trail is to promote the full life cycle of butterflies common in this area with a special emphasis on the monarch.

Monarch butterfly.

When Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter learned of the struggling Monarch Butterfly population and threatened migration from North America to Mexico, she called on her neighbor and friend Annette Wise for advice on planting the right native plants in her garden.  When friends and neighbors in Plains learned what she was doing, they wanted to provide habitat in their gardens to help pollinators. Eventually, a "trail" started of butterfly gardens one house at a time, one church at a time, one library, one state, and so on.

The more butterfly gardens that exist, the greater the population of Monarch Butterflies, which have been so threatened for the past several decades primarily due to the removal of milkweed plants from farms and properties.  Monarch butterflies need milkweed on which to lay their eggs. Otherwise, the cycle of life for butterflies ends.  All pollinators benefit from native nectar and host plants. Find out more about the relationship between monarchs and milkweed at my earlier post on this blog.

On an informational board at the beginning of the bridge is a panel describing common butterflies of the area.

I visited the Flowering Bridge and learned about the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail on a trip to North Carolina in August. I was pleased to see information about the Painted Lady Butterfly, the subject of my book BUTTERFLIES IN ROOM 6.  It was a rainy day and I didn’t see any butterflies, but I am sure that when the sun comes out, the garden will be full of them, feeding on nectar produced by the abundance of flowers.

You can read more about my visit to the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge at my travel blog The Intrepid Tourist.

All Text and Photos copyright Caroline Arnold

PTEROSAURS: Rulers of the Skies in the Dinosaur Age

One hundred million years ago, the skies were filled with enormous flying reptiles. With wing spans up to nearly forty feet, pterosaurs were the dominant life form on earth. Long extinct, we know about pterosaurs from their fossil bones.

On a recent visit to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina, my family bought me a wonderful souvenir--a plush Pterodactyl to go with my book Pterosaurs: Rulers of the Skies in the Dinosaur Age.  Pterodactyls were just one of many species of pterosaurs. The stuffed toy Pterodactyl will be perfect to share with children at my author visits to schools and libraries as I talk about about pterosaurs and other giant reptiles of the past. 

You can find Pterosaurs: Rulers of the Dinosaur Age on Amazon. It may also be available at your library. 

For reviews of the book and more information, go to my website.

School Visits in Winston-Salem, NC

Bookmarks, Winston-Salem, NC

Last Wednesday I had two very successful school visits in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, sponsored by Bookmarks, a local nonprofit literary organization.

With library Alexandra Randall at St. Leo's

The first visit was at St. Leo’s Catholic School where I spoke to first, second and third graders in the school library. Librarian Alexandra Randall did a great job getting everything ready, setting up the SmartBoard for my powerpoint slides and finding two of my older books in the library collection. I was pleased with the enthusiasm of the students and the good questions at the end. My favorite question was: What kind of bird are you? This is was after I had talked about birds and  measured the students’ wingspans. Most of them were red-tailed hawks. I have the wingspan of an osprey.

With the upper school librarian and principal Andrew Lester-Niles at the Downtown School

The second visit was at the Downtown School, a magnet school in the heart of the downtown where I spoke to a very lively group of kindergarten and first graders. We went on a lion hunt, sang Wiggle and Waggle and did a number of other activities. I thank principal Andrew Lester-Niles for arranging the visit.

With Bookmarks volunteer Kathy Pounds

At both schools I was assisted by Bookmarks volunteer, Kathy Pounds, who brought copies of my books for signing and took photographs. At the end of my visit she took me to the Bookmarks store in its brand new location where I had the chance to meet other volunteers and learn more about the organization, which sponsors a variety of literary events in the community.

Truth is Stranger than Fiction: Talk to UNC Library Graduate Students at the SILS Library, Chapel Hill, NC

SILS Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking to the graduate students and faculty at the School of Information and Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill about the process I go through when writing and illustrating one of my nonfiction books. We met in the SILS Library, which has a large collection of children’s books, and I was pleased to see a display of more than a dozen of my books on top of one of the bookcases. The books are used for research but are also available for checkout by anyone on campus. We gathered around a large table in the corner of the library and a screen was set up for my slides. Library Head Rebecca Vargha gave a very nice introduction for my talk and at the end we had a lively discussion and questions. I thank Rebecca for inviting me and graduate student Alena Principato for helping to make arrangements, for promoting my talk on campus and taking pictures. I enjoyed my visit very much! I am always glad to meet librarians. They are the people who put books like mine in the hands of children.