The Sustainability Committee members will share the draft goals and strategies of the plan. Attendees will be invited to provide feedback and ask questions in this interactive session.

The Library Corporation is supporting the Town of Concord's climate action commitment by creating the library's first sustainability plan. The plan will align with the sustainability and resilience goals of the Town of Concord's Sustainable Concord Plan. As the stewards of the Concord Free Public Library, the end goal of this process will be to create a clear and actionable plan that will inform and engage the community in their response to climate change. [Read More]

[Register for the Event Zoom Link]

When I Died: Rx for Traumatic Brain Injury is the remarkable story of the author’s recovery of her identity after a traumatic medical event, and the struggle against all odds––brain loss, depression, family and doctor conflict, psychosis and more–– to regain her life. Carolyn Gold, a Harvard M.Ed, founded The Gold Group, a management-consulting firm she led for over twenty years, where she consulted with Fortune 500 companies. She is also a certified executive coach and has coached many executives. [Register for Zoom link]

Join us to discuss mindful ways to prevent parental burnout in an age of increasing anxiety. Be Well Be Here founder Lara Wilson will be in conversation with Kendra Wilde, founder of Wild Peace for Parents, to share insights into how we can mitigate stress, engage in self-care, and support our family's well-being. Learn practical tips and mindful micro-actions that can be incorporated into daily life, and experiment with a few simple mindful wellness practices. [Register for the Zoom link]

Join Be Well Be Here for a 30-minute morning meditation practice with the Concord Free Public Library, and start your day with a moment of ease. Discover mindful tools that center the body, settle the mind, and open the door to well-being. [Register for Zoom Link]

Make dinner, and join us for an evening of murder, mystery, and detection. "A Mugful of Murder" is set on the eve of a run-off election for Somerville's next mayor on a cold night in 1921. Michael Martini, the Democratic candidate, has gathered his friends, supporters, and perhaps a few enemies for a fundraising party when a blizzard sweeps down Prospect Hill and snows the whole group in... and they are not full of cheer after Mr. Martini takes a sip of hot chocolate and drops to the floor, dead. Oswald Oslo gathers railroad tycoons, Marshmallow Fluff entrepreneurs, journalists for the Prospect Phoenix and more for his very first investigation. Sponsored by the Friends of Concord Free Public Library. Register to receive the Zoom link and further instruction. Registration closes two days before the event.[Register]

Wednesday, March 17, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.

Love a good mystery? All are welcome to join the book group discussion via Zoom. March's title is The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. Print copies of the title are available at the Fowler Branch to pick up. An eBook or audiobook of the title can be requested via OverDrive. [Register for Discussion Zoom Link]

Because we cannot meet at Fowler Library in person in 2021, we will now watch - on your own schedule - selected movies on Kanopy, a free streaming service available to Library patrons. We will then gather on Zoom on scheduled evenings for a lively movie discussion. Below is the selected film for the February 26th Zoom discussion, which is available on Kanopy.

Back to Burgundy (2017)

Friday, February 26, 7:00 p.m. (Discussion date on Zoom)

Three adult siblings struggle to keep their late father’s winery intact. A gem from French director Cédric Klapisch (L’Auberge Espagnole).

To register for the discussion and receive a Zoom link, please send an email to randall.warniers@gmail.com.

New time! Mondays @ 10:00 a.m. on the Library's Facebook Page

Every Monday, thirteen year-old Concordian Jacob Edelman reads a special story from our staff-curated list of 101 Picture Books Concord Free Public Library Loves! Can't make the Facebook video premiere at 10? No problem! "Jacob Reads" storytimes will be archived in a playlist, linked above.

Baby Time for Ages 0-12 mos.

Hear stories, songs, and rhymes in this gentle half hour story time for our very youngest readers. [Register for the Zoom link]

Get a jumpstart on bedtime with stories, songs, and rhymes! [Register to receive the Zoom link]

Do you love writing? Games? If so, join us for a writing RPG, a game where you create your own characters, interact with other participants, and jump into different worlds, in order to write a collaborative story. This month's destination: Atlantis. Help create (and solve!) an underwater mystery! For tweens/teens ages 10-16. No writing experience required! For more information, contact Madeline at mklein@minlib.net. [Register for Zoom link]

Wellness coach Julie Manning will lead kids in a microwave cooking class and teach you to make a snickerdoodle cookies! The virtual cooking program will be held on Zoom. Ingredient list will be shared with all participants before the program. This cooking program happens on the last Tuesday of each month at 5 pm. [Register for the Zoom link]

Rockabye Beats is a fun, family group whose music is reminiscent of founder’s Marcos Valles’s Puerto Rico. Enjoy an interactive 30 minute concert that includes movement, dancing, counting, singing, a little bit of Spanish vocabulary. We'll also have an instrument show and tell with drums, guitar, rhythm instruments, and xylophone. Sponsored by The Friends of the Concord Free Public Library. [Register for the Zoom link]

Every other Wednesday 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.

Join resident poet and Children's Library Assistant Cary Stough for a writing-themed mid-day break. Collaborative poems, hilarious and engaging PowerPoint presentations, and more! No writing experience required. Open to individuals in grades 3-8, or older or younger, based on request. [Register for February 24 Session Zoom Link]

Join Branch Librarian Dorrie for stories, songs, and rhymes. Please register to receive the Zoom link. For ages 5 and under. The same link will work weekly. [Register for Zoom link]

Join Royce and Cary for a monthly puppet show via Zoom! We will have songs, stories...as well as general puppet-y silliness. Stay tuned for puppet take-and-make crafts. [Register today and receive the Zoom link for all subsequent programs]

Let's make Mod Podge Bowls together! Pick up a free craft kit at curbside pickup, and join us on Zoom. We will do the craft together and enjoy a story. New kits available at the start of each week while supplies last. [Register for Zoom link]

Join friends, impostors, and the like over Zoom, and play the very popular, freely downloadable game Among Us. [Register to receive the Zoom link]

Today, we celebrate the birthday of Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar. Born on February 21, 1816, in Concord, MA, Hoar was the second child and oldest son of Samuel Hoar and Sarah Sherman. He was one of six children, including Elizabeth Sherman Hoar, who would be engaged to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s older brother Charles, and George Frisbie Hoar, who joined Ebenezer in Congress and would later be elected Senator for Massachusetts.

Known familiarly as “Rockwood,” E. R. Hoar was notoriously quick witted, having learned to read by age four, and he entered Harvard at fifteen He graduated from Harvard College in 1835, began the study of law in his father's office, and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1839. On November 20, 1840, E.R. Hoar married Caroline Downes Brooks, daughter of lawyer Nathan Brooks and his first wife Caroline Downes Brooks. In 1845, Hoar built an impressive Greek Revival house on Main Street in Concord (now #194), near his parents' home. E.R. and Caroline Hoar had seven children. E.R. Hoar was a Whig, a Free Soiler, and a Republican. He entered politics in 1840 as a delegate to the Whig Young Men's Convention for Middlesex County and a supporter of Whig candidate William Henry Harrison.

E.R. Hoar was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas from 1849 to 1855, a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1859 to 1869, United States Attorney General in the cabinet of Ulysses S. Grant from 1869 to 1870, and a representative in the United States Congress from 1873 to 1875.

He was also a proponent of abolition. In 1859, when US Marshals attempted to arrest F.B. Sanborn for his involvement in John Brown's raid on the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, E.R. Hoar issued the writ of habeas corpus that prevented them from doing so.

A capable Attorney General, Hoar was nominated by Grant to the Supreme Court. He was passed over, however, largely because of his insistence on filling public positions on the basis of competence and merit rather than patronage. He was the first Attorney General to lead the newly formed Department of Justice in 1870. In 1871, Hoar agreed to serve on a joint commission to frame a treaty to settle the Alabama claims against Great Britain for damage done during the Civil War by Confederate warships built in Liverpool. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish negotiated the Treaty of Washington.

E.R. Hoar was a member of both the Saturday Club (other members of which included Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Henry James, Sr., Hawthorne, and C.E. Norton) and its offshoot, the Adirondack Club. He would eventually donate the painting The Philosophers’ Camp in the Adirondacks by William James Stillman to the Concord Free Public Library's growing art collection.

Hoar was an overseer and a member of the corporation of Harvard College, a member of the Social Circle in Concord and of Concord's School Committee, president of the Concord Free Public Library Corporation (1873-1894), and was active in the American Unitarian Association. He was a member of the Committee on General Invitations for the 1875 celebration in Concord of the centennial of the Concord Fight. He sponsored the bill to have decommissioned cannons from the Civil War sent to Concord that allowed Daniel Chester French’s famous Minute Man statue to be cast in bronze. An illuminated version of the bill is part of the Concord Free Public Library’s art collection and was donated by Hoar, as was Edward Emerson Simmons’ Criticism and David Scott’s portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His own image was immortalized by Daniel Chester French in 1886 and was presented to the Library by his sons following his death.

E.R. and Caroline Hoar celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1890. Caroline Hoar died on June 23, 1892, and her husband passed away on January 31, 1895.

For more information on Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, please see our collections here and here.