75 cents
Breaking news at Daily-Chronicle.com
Serving DeKalb County since 1879 Brendan Fritz
GIRLS BASKETBALL • SPORTS, B1 DeKalb’s Brittney Patrick
Monday, January 6, 2014
ELKS LODGE CONTEST • LOCAL , A3
Sycamore children show off free-throw talent
Barbs struggle with field goals in loss to Boylan
Dangerous County library directors share top reads from 2013 weather settles in
Extreme cold prompts Monday cancellations throughout county By DEBBIE BEHRENDS dbehrends@shawmedia.com The coldest weather in years will continue early this week, according to the Weather Channel. West-northwest winds are predicted at more than 20 to 30 mph, causing wind chills approaching 50 below zero. On Tuesday, winds are predicted to shift to west-southwest, and temperatures are expected to rise at least to the single digits. Temperatures in the 20s are expected by the end of the week. With the extreme cold weather in the forecast, superintendents in the DeKalb, Sycamore and Genoa-Kingston school districts have canceled classes on Monday. Although it was to be the first day back to school after the holiday break, Sycamore superintendent Kathy Countryman said it looks like the forecast is holding with be-
Note to readers regarding weather, newspaper delivery Delivery of Monday’s and Tuesday’s Daily Chronicle could be affected by the weather. Lows could approach -20 early Monday morning, with a wind chill of -45. We will do our best to deliver newspapers on time, but the safety of our carriers will be our top priority. We urge residents also to be safe and to go outside only as necessary. We apologize for any inconvenience. low-zero temperatures and wind chills around 40 below zero. “We spoke earlier [Sunday] afternoon and decided to make that call to give parents
See CANCELLATIONS, page A5
Photos by Monica Maschak – mmaschak@shawmedia.com
Lori Jones checks out books Thursday at the DeKalb Public Library. BELOW: Assistant circulation clerk Jim Webster checks in books. By DEBBIE BEHRENDS
TOP 4 BOOKS IN DeKALB LIBRARY
dbehrends@shawmedia.com
n “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn n “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James n “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins n “Inferno: A Novel” by Dan Brown
AP photo
A woman checks her cellphone Sunday as she waits at the check-in line in Terminal 3 at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Illinois residents are digging out of more snow and preparing for bitterly cold temperatures. Sunday night temperatures were predicted to drop drastically, to about 20 degrees below zero.
‘Polar Vortex’ hits Midwestern states By KERRY LESTER and TAMMY WEBBER The Associated Press CHICAGO – Icy, snow-covered roads and high winds made travel treacherous Sunday from the Dakotas and Michigan to Missouri as much of the nation braced for the next winter wallop: a dangerous cold that could break records. A whirlpool of frigid, dense air known as a “polar vortex” was expected to suppress temperatures in more than half of the continental U.S. starting into Monday and Tuesday, with wind chill warnings stretching from Montana to Alabama. It was 5 degrees at kickoff
Sunday afternoon inside soldout Lambeau Field for a playoff game between the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers, one of the coldest ever played. “We suited up, we brought all the snowboarding gear we use ... and added to it,” said 49ers fan Jeff Giardinelli of Fresno, Calif. “Without the wind, which isn’t here yet, we’re good. When it gets windy, we’ll be ready for it.” The forecast is extreme: 25 below zero in Fargo, N.D., minus 31 in International Falls, Minn., and minus 15 in Indianapolis and Chicago. Wind chills – what it feels like outside when high winds are
2013’S NATIONAL BESTSELLERS Fiction: n “Americanah” by Chimamanda Mgozi Adichie n “The Flamethrowers” by Rachel Kushner n “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt n “Life After Life” by Kate Atkinson n “Tenth of December” a story collection by George Saunders. Nonfiction: n “After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response and the Work Ahead” by Alan S. Blinder n “Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House” by Peter Baker n “Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital” by Sheri Fink n “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914” by Christopher Clark n “Wave” by Sonali Deraniuagala.
When the weather outside is frightful, that’s a good time to dive into a good book. And local libraries have no shortage of good reads. Librarians in Sycamore and DeKalb shared which books were the most circulated in 2013. Sycamore library director Sarah Tobias said the most popular nonfiction reads were diet and cookbooks. The top five were: “The Paleo Diet Cookbook: More Than 150 Recipes for Breakfasts, Lunches, Dinners, Snacks and Beverages” by Loren Cordain; “Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust” by Ina Garten; “Practical Paleo: A Customized Approach to Health and a Whole-Foods Lifestyle” by Diane Sanfilippo; “A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II” by Adam Makos; and “Obamacare Survival Guide” by Nicholas Tate. In DeKalb, library communications manager Edith Craig said finding the top nonfiction circulators was not so easy. “Magazines, graphic novels and other miscellaneous books are catalogued under nonfiction, so the stats are skewed,” Craig said. Based on reports, she said two books by Bill O’Reilly, “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy,” were heavily cir-
culated. She said HGTV magazine and a graphic novel, “Naruto,” were the top checked out magazine and graphic novel of the year. As for the most popular fiction, Tobias said it’s no surprise that books turned into movies were heavily read, including the “Hunger Games” series. “We get a large surge of people wanting to read or reread a book before they see the movie,” Tobias said. She said the “diehards” returned to read “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire” before the latter hit the big screen. “When ‘Mockingjay’ comes out [the third book in the ‘Hunger Games’ series], as I’m sure it will, we’ll see a resurgence of all three being checked out,” Tobias said. Far from being a current book, she noted that “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald circulated 36 times in 2013 because of the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The top five, according to Tobias, were: “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn, “Whiskey Beach” by Nora Roberts, “12th of Never” by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, “Inferno: A Novel” by Dan Brown and “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James. The top four choices in DeKalb, according to Craig, were similar. Also in the top spot was “Gone Girl,” followed by “Fifty Shades of Grey,””The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins and “Inferno: A Novel.”
VOICE YOUR OPINION Do you read books? Vote online at DailyChronicle.com.
See MIDWEST, page A5
Inside today’s Daily Chronicle Lottery Local news Obituaries
A2 A2-3 A4
National and world news Opinions Sports
Weather A4, 5 A9 B1-3
Advice Comics Classified
B4 B5 B9-10
High:
-15
Low:
-19