Celebrate your aunts and uncles on July 26

In this week’s library column, we celebrate aunts and uncles. There is, as you might have guessed an unofficial holiday for these much-loved relatives and every year it is celebrated on July 26th.

The word “aunt” actually derives from the French word for aunt (the female sibling of your parent), “tante”. The same is true for the word “uncle” which is “oncle” in French. But even the French words have earlier origins, themselves deriving from the Latin words “amita” and “avunculus”.

In addition to the similarities in our terms for our aunts and uncles, these relations are valued in many cultures. Here in the United States, we often see the important role they have in characters in popular shows and movies. In many Polynesian cultures, the terms aunt and uncle are used as a term of respect or endearment for anyone older than you are, a shared familial connection is not even required. While in other cultures, the siblings of your parents are essentially seen as additional parents and will help raise their nieces and nephews. That brings to mind the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child,” though I haven’t researched the origins of that saying to tell you if that’s what it stems from. Perhaps I need to write another column about various sayings, proverbs, and colloquialisms and their origins?

Until then, in case you’d like to celebrate these too, here are other holidays that celebrate more of our beloved relatives outside of our mothers and fathers: May 2nd is National Brothers and Sisters Day, July 24th is National Cousins Day, and August 11th is Son and Daughter Day.

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New Library Hours:

• Central/History Center
• Monday – Thursday, 9:00am – 8:00pm

• Friday, 9:00am – 6:00pm

• Saturday, 9:00am – 5:00pm

• Benton
• Monday – Thursday, 9:00am – 7:00pm

• Friday, 9:00am – 6:00pm

• Saturday, 10:00am – 2:00pm

• Haughton
• Monday – Friday, 9:00am – 6:00pm

• Saturday, 10:00am – 2:00pm

• Aulds/East 80/Plain Dealing/Tooke

• Monday – Friday, 9:00am – 6:00pm

Library Locations:

• Aulds Branch 318.742.2337
• Benton Branch 318.965.2751
• Central Library 318.746.1693
• East 80 Branch 318.949.2665
• Haughton Branch 318.949.0196
• History Center 318.746.7717
• Plain Dealing Branch 318.326.4233
• Tooke Branch 318.987.3915

New & Coming Soon:

• Cue the Sun: The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum (Non-Fiction; Book, eBook, eAudiobook)
• The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Osertag (YA Graphic Novel; Book, eBook)
• Four Eids and a Funeral by Faridah Abike-Iyimide and Adiba Jaigirdar (YA Fiction; Book)
• History of Britain & Ireland: The Definitive Visual Guide by DK Publishing (Non-Fiction; Book)
• The Icarus Changeling by Timothy Zahn (Fiction; Book)
• Kittentits: A Novel by Holly Wilson (Fiction; Book)
• Lovers and Liars: A Novel by Amanda Eyre Ward (Fiction; Book)
• The Midnight Feast: A Novel by Lucy Foley (Fiction; Book, Large Print, eBook, eAudiobook)
• The Myth of Making It: A Workplace Reckoning by Samantha Mukhopadhyay (Non-Fiction; Book)
• Not About a Boy by Myah Hollis (YA Fiction; Book)
• The Outsider Advantage: Because You Don’t Need to Fit in to Win by Ciera Rogers (Autobiography; Book)
• The Price She Pays: Confronting the Hidden Mental Health Crisis in Women’s Sports – From the Schoolyard to the Stadium by Katie Steele and Tiffany Brown; with Erin Strout (Non-Fiction; Book)
• The Summer Escape: A Novel by Jill Shalvis (Fiction; Book, Large Print, eBook)
• The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized Crime Boss by Margalit Fox (Biography; Book)
• This is Why You Dream: What Your Sleeping Brain Reveals About Your Waking Life by Rahul Jandial (Non-Fiction; Book)