SCPL news & updates
May 2021
Upcoming Events
See what's happening this month.
Resource Spotlight

Explore newspaper articles from all over the world. Find births, deaths, news and more!
*Library card required
Check Out the Internet
Borrow a portable wifi hotspot and connect to the Internet anytime, anywhere. Call or stop by any SCPL location for more information.
Enter to Win!
This past year has been a challenge for many so let's have some fun! Each month SCPL will feature a new puzzle challenge. For this month's challenge, download or pick up a puzzle sheet at any branch and solve as many of the puzzles as you can. Return your sheet by email or drop it off at any SCPL location. Each person who solves the puzzle correctly will be entered into a drawing for a $10 local gift card.
Download your puzzle challenge here.
Memorial and Honor Donations
Selections From the New Shelf
Staff Selections
Hideaway
The Vineyard at Painted Moon
Programs and Events
Take and Make Craft Kits For Kids
Stop in any SCPL location the week of May 3rd through May 8th to pick up your May the 4th Be With You craft. Choose between a Death Star or Yoda night light. While supplies last.
Dial-A-Story
1000 Books Before Kindergarten
Do you have a baby, toddler or preschooler? If so, join SCPL's 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program to help your child be ready for kindergarten. This program promotes reading to newborns, infants, and toddlers and encourages parent and child bonding through reading. The goal of the program is to establish strong early literacy skills that will allow children to gain the confidence to become strong readers. Contact our Children's Department or Click here for more information.
Mother's Day Herb Garden
Rockport Book Club
The Book Club at Rockport meets the first Friday of every month at 1:00 PM. You can join virtually or at the Main Library in Rockport. For more information please contact Erin by calling 812-649-4866.
May 7th at 1:00 PM at Rockport in the Large Meeting Room
Discussing The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd.

In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything.

Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary. Ana's pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to Rome's occupation of Israel, partially led by her brother, Judas. She is sustained by her fearless aunt Yaltha, who harbors a compelling secret. When Ana commits a brazen act that puts her in peril, she flees to Alexandria, where startling revelations and greater dangers unfold, and she finds refuge in unexpected surroundings. Ana determines her fate during a stunning convergence of events considered among the most impactful in human history.

Grounded in meticulous research and written with a reverential approach to Jesus's life that focuses on his humanity, The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one woman's bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place and culture devised to silence her. It is a triumph of storytelling both timely and timeless, from a masterful writer at the height of her powers.

-Excerpt from Amazon.
June 4th at 1:00 PM at Rockport in the Large Meeting Room
Discussing The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline.

Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.

During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.

Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.

In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.

-Excerpt from Amazon.
Richland Book Club
June 7th at 1:30 PM at Richland Methodist Church (across the street from the Library)

Discussing Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine: A Novel by Gail Honeyman.

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. 

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes.

-Excerpt from Amazon.
Adult Crafternoon

In person classes begin this month! Register by calling 812-649-4866.
Crochet Club

In person classes begin this month! Contact Shannon for more information 812-359-4030
SCPL Virtual Recipe Swap

We are trying to bring you new and interesting programming during these difficult times. One way we are doing this is through our SCPL Virtual Recipe Swap page on Facebook. Click here to request to join. This group allows members to share tips, tricks, and recipes with each other. Join today!