March 2013

Love a little local reading? 

Check out the Minnesota Book Awards, celebrating 25 years of honoring the state's rich and vibrant literary tradition.  The awards will be presented at the 25th Annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala on April 13, 2013.  Emceed by Lorna Landvik, it's an evening of champagne, celebrities and books galore.

If you have already put away your fancy dress or tuxedo for the season, you can still catch up on the awards by checking out the list of finalists in the following eight categories, selected by 24 judges from around the state – writers, teachers, librarians,...

Every week, librarian Judy Woodward compiles the most interesting reference questions and sends them to the Roseville Review.  Here's this week's stormy inquiry!

Q. Recently, they’ve started naming winter storms. Or at least I think that’s what they’re doing. In March we had a storm called Ukko. What kind of name is that?

A. Actually, Ukko is a pretty good name for a storm. In Finnish mythology, Ukko is the god of sky and thunder. Not that you’re likely to run into any flesh-and-blood Ukkos any time soon. According to government statistics, only about two babies in a million are given that moniker.

Incidentally, it’s not...