What’s Happening @ the Library - December 2007

What are you Giving?

This holiday season, take a day of your vacation and make the world a better place. Our second annual Teen Read-a-Thon will take place on Thursday, December 27 from 10 AM to 5 PM at both library branches.

During this time, teens will silently read to raise money (through pledges and donations) for the Central Asia Institute, a group that builds schools, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It’s a fabulous chance to promote peace through education this holiday season. For more information, contact the Teen Librarian.

Come to the library and make a difference in the world.

Good Books - December 2007

A Princess Story

There have been a lot of really terrific books written lately about princesses - not modern day fairy-tales like Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries, but novels written about historical and mythological princesses.

Our favorite of the bunch is Hush: An Irish Princess’ Tale by Donna Jo Napoli. It tells the story of Melkorka, a princess who is kidnapped by Vikings in the 10th century. In order to survive, she becomes silent. We promise - you’ve never read anything like this before!

Other notable princess books:

* The Lacemaker and the Princess (Marie Antoinette)

* Beware, Princess Elizabeth (Elizabeth I of England)

* Patience, Princess Catherine (Catherine of Aragon)

* Nobody’s Princess (Helen of Troy)

* Nightsong (Eurydice)

* The Moon Riders (Amazonian royals)

* Troy and Ithaka (Trojan royals) by Adele Geras

Good Music - December 2007

Holiday Music

There is a section of our Music collection that sits, dusty and forlorn, for eleven months out of the year. Then, for one month…it vanishes!

Of course, I am talking about our Holiday music collection, located behind our non-fiction DVDs and videos.

With so many artists putting out holiday collections - including the omnipresent, Colbert-defeating Barry Manilow, who knows where to begin? For me, it’s not really the holiday season without the right tunes playing - and that means one thing: A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

Want the same musical feel without the holiday vibe? Check out Linus and Lucy, in our Jazz section. (In case you were wondering, that’s the name of the song we all associate with Peanuts!)

Good Movies - December 2007

The Golden Compass

Hot on the heels of the Chronicles of Narnia movie, which was hot on the heels of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, comes The Golden Compass, based on the first book of the His Dark Materials series by British fantasy writer Philip Pullman.

 While this might seem like just another CGI popcorn flick for the holiday movie season, this particular YA-novel adaptation is pretty controversial. Why? Well, poke around on the Internet, and you can figure it out.

Other beloved books morphing into movies recently (and soon)…

* The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black

* The Seeker: The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

* Beowulf  (check out the graphic novel by Gareth Hinds)

* Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

* I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

* The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

* Atonementby Ian McEwan (for older teens - it’s not an easy read)

* No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (again - for older teens)