By Mickey Duvall

The Bastrop Public Library is pleased to announce receiving a Texas Book Festival

grant this year. The Texas Book Festival’s mission is to provide additional financial assistance to the state’s public libraries.

Since its inception, the Festival has awarded more than $2.5 million in grants to Texas public libraries with $100,000 given to 33 libraries throughout the state this year. Grants are awarded to implement or continue innovative literacy programs, support technology enhancements and to upgrade book collections.

The dates for this year’s Book Festival are Oct.16-17 at the State Capital grounds in Austin. Look on their website: www.texasbookfestival.org for program information.

The Book Festival has been very generous to the Bastrop Public Library with grant money being awarded for bilingual children’s materials, teen materials, nonfiction children’s materials and funds to cover additional Internet connections for the public computers in past years. This year’s grant will be used to enhance the Spanish language materials collection.

The library currently has a small selection of Spanish language materials for adults and children, both fiction and nonfiction. The demand for more books is great, but financial constraints have restricted the growth of this collection. With the awarding of this grant the library hopes to double the size of this collection. The funds will be used to purchase both adult and children’s materials.

The addition to the Spanish collection has already begun. A recently purchased title for young adults is:  “Antes de Ser Libres” by Julia Alvarez, a novel about Anita de la Torre, a 12-year-old girl living in the Dominican Republic in 1960. Most of her family has immigrated to the U.S., but those remaining are being terrorized by the secret police. It is the story of one young girl’s fight to be free.

“ El Codigo Da Vinci,” the Spanish translation of the “DaVince Code” by Dan Brown is a recent addition to the adult collection.  The title “ Maria Cultiva un Corazon Humilde” by Elizabeth George is a new volume in a Bible study series for women.  Several books by the acclaimed author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “ Cronica de una Muerta Anunciada”, “Doce Cuentos Peregrinos” and “ La Increible y Triste Historia de la Candida Erendira y de su Abuela Desalmada” are now available for loan from the library.

Books are being selected based on good reviews, recommendations from the Austin Public Library Spanish Books selector librarian, as well as our patron’s suggestions.  If you read books in Spanish, please feel free to make suggestions and we’ll try to purchase them.

Contact Sheilah Kosco at 303-0934 or skosco@bastroplibrary.org with your recommendations.