May Day, Mother's Day, and lots of play!

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is.
And when you've got it, you want-oh,
you don't quite know what it is you do want,
but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!

~ Mark Twain

May Author Events and Readings

Thursday, May 2, 7:00 pm

Capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places and revealing a national network of chosen family fighting for a better world, Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States is a treasure trove of uplifting stories and a much-needed source of hope and inspiration in these divided times. Samantha Allen is a GLAAD Award-winning journalist. She is a senior reporter for The Daily Beast covering LGBT issues and a former Sex + Life reporter for Fusion.

Sunday, May 5, 3:00 pm.

Bookmark Winner Announcement Party, featuring Story Time with Toni Yuly - for All Ages!
Join us as we celebrate the final day of Children's Book Week. We will announce the winners of the bookmark contest, and enjoy storytime with award winning author, Toni Yuly as she reads from her new book The Whole Wide World and Me.

Wednesday, May 8, 6:30 pm.

Join us when British writer and radio producer Tim Dee comes to talk about his book Landfill: Notes on Gull Watching and Trash Picking in the Anthropocene. This is the compelling story of how in the Anthropocene we have learned about the natural world, named and catalogued it, and then colonized it, planted it, or filled it with our junk. While most other birds have gone in the opposite direction, hiding away from us, some vanishing forever, gulls continue to tell us how the wild can share our world. Without nostalgia or eulogy, Landfill kicks beneath the littered surface of the things to discover stranger truths. This event is co-sponsored by the Kitsap Audubon Society.

Thursday May 16, 7:00 pm

Have you wondered why gold is so expensive or why so little plastic packaging is recycled? Please join us when we host Julie L.F. Goldstein for her new book Material Value, More Sustainable, Less Wasteful Manufacturing of Everything from Cell Phones to Cleaning Products. Examining environmental sustainability through a lens of materials extraction, processing, use, and disposal, Material Value lends a unique perspective on this popular topic. This compelling event will be co-hosted with Sustainable Bainbridge .

Thursday May 30, 6:30 pm

As the charming trend of "putting a word on it" continues to grow in popularity, this step-by-step approach in The Painted Word: Mixed Media Lettering Techniques explores more than 48 techniques for enhancing your art. Talented mixed media artist and professional calligrapher Caitlin Dundon offers expert tips to make your learning easier, including quick fixes for correcting typos. Learn ways to work with your own choice of inspirational words and quotations using collage, rubber stamping, embossing, typewritten fonts, calligraphy, gel plate printing, and others.

May we recommend...

From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home, by Tembi Locke

This poignant memoir may have been birthed from grief, but the heartbreaking bits are intricately balanced by the beautiful telling of a Sicilian love story. Tembi Locke, an African American actress, meets Saro, a Sicilian chef, while studying abroad in Italy. His family does not approve of the marriage. Regardless, they forge a new life together in the U.S., but their union ends prematurely when Saro is diagnosed with cancer. It is not until his death that Tembi manages to ease her way into being accepted by his Sicilian town and family. This book is an honest exploration of finding one's way again after a painful loss-through food made "from scratch." ~ Rebecca