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Library Lines May 27,
2020
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Curbside Pickup Coming Soon
Although we can't give you a definitive date yet, we WILL be offering curbside pickup soon.
Watch this space for more details.
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Everything You Always
Wanted to Know About OverDrive and the Libby App
But Were Afraid to Ask
For your almost-summer-reading pleasure, the folks at OverDrive present, "Ten Villain Origin Stories For the Bad Guy in All of Us." In honor of the pending publication of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (previewed in our May 20 newsletter), they offer a look at many fictional characters with the same dastardly blood running through their veins as Panem President Cornelius Snow.
If you're new to borrowing e-books and digital audio books from the Library's OverDrive collection, start
here
at the "Help" pages. For assistance, email Reference Librarian Libby Fox
and she'll get back to you and try to help.
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Hooray! Hooray! It's Finally May!
Here's Miss Amanda's collection of weekly online activities for your kids to have fun with until the Library reopens.
Wednesdays at 1:00 p.m. -- Story time on
Facebook
! This week, May 27
,
join
Miss Amanda for a Facebook Live story time. We'll read Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens and sing some garden-themed songs. Want a sneak peek about our summer reading programs? Be sure to watch for details!
Tech with Tiny Tots on Thursdays
-- Tiny Tots Support Group is back, starting May 28 at noon! If you have babies and/or toddlers at home, this program is for you. Join every Thursday through June 18 for stories, songs, and more. Share experiences and support each other. All participants will be muted during the story time. Hungry, tired, and fussy kids are all welcome. Register here.
Friday Fun with Miss Lori's Puzzle/Chall
enges -- Join Miss Lori this week, starting May 29, for Fun Fridays by solving this Crack the Code ladybug puzzle. Print out the puzzle, solve it, and post a picture of it in the comments section of our Facebook page. You can also email Miss Lori who will share it for you.
Miss Amanda's Monday Musings -- On June 1, get out your magnifying glasses, binoculars, and butterfly nets for a bug hunt through your books. Look around the house in books, magazines, and newspapers to find the following friends: ladybug, butterfly, bee, grasshopper, and spider. Post a "shelfie" picture of the stack of books where you found your pictures on the Library's Facebook page or email the photo to Miss Amanda.
Tuesday Lego Challenges --
This week, starting June 2,
make a bug hotel out of Legos and/or Duplos. What kinds of things would you include? Tell us in the comments of the Library's
Facebook post and share pictures of your completed creations. Photos can also be emailed to
Miss Amanda.
Be sure to look for another newsletter, coming out on
Wed., June 3,
for next week's fun programs with Miss Amanda!
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Is your child struggling? Maybe distance-learning isn't going well or they're just having a hard time. Effective Effort Consulting has some advice for you in this
video. While their other services may have a fee, you can check out their recommended book
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind by Daniel Siegel for FREE with your library card on
OverDrive or place a hold on the
print copy for when the Library re-opens.
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Teen Reads, Tips & To-Dos
Each week, we'll share new and notable books, tips on topics and resources relating to you, or themed craft and activity ideas to help you get through this tough time.
This Week's Genre Spotlight: Realistic Fiction
NEW TITLES
From the author of The Poet X comes an evocative verse novel that follows the experiences of two grieving sisters who navigate the loss of their father and the impact of his death on their relationship. Grades 8-12.
Pacton
When Kit is told she can't play the role of a knight--only the wench, or waitress--at the cheesy medieval restaurant where she works, she fights back hoping to change the rules and keep her job. Grades 8-12.
A teen with bipolar II signs her father up to perform his legendary but infamously failed illusion on live television in the hope of making enough money to pay for desperately needed medication. Grades 9-12.
Star athelete and prom king Ezra Faulkner's life is irreparably transformed by a tragic accident and the arrival
of
eccentric new girl
Cassidy Thorpe. Grades 9-12.
When her father divorces her beloved stepmother and leaves her without her stepsister, Tess, Harper decides to join a volunteer organization to build houses for tornado victims, where she struggles to figure out her role and meets Teddy who inspires her to love and trust once again. Grades 9-12.
Devastated when her parents are killed in a car accident, 16-year old Jackie moves from New York City to Colorado to live with her mother's best friend, who has 12 children, including two boys who start to show an interest in Jackie that goes beyond brotherly.
Grades 8-12.
To-Dos
Clay Pot Decorating Ideas
For more arts and craft ideas and tutorials, try
Creativebug, a new online service free with the use of a Middleborough Library card.
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"Your Two Cents Worth" -- Quick Tips to Help Manage Your Account
Do you have a favorite actor/actress/director whose entire body of work you now have time to watch? Did you know you can search the SAILS catalog with any name and pull up a list of items that they've been featured in? A search for "Tom Hanks," for example, brings up every film he's acted in, directed, produced, or provided voice-overs for, as well as every book about him and even the one book he's written. (Didn't know he was an author? Check out his 2017 debut, Uncommon Type, here.)
If you want to limit your search to his movies, make sure you choose "video" in the drop-down box next to the little house icon near the top of the page. (The default is "everything.")
An important reminder -- place your search terms in quotation marks to improve the accuracy of the results. For example, you're not looking for everything in the entire catalog with both the words "Harrison" and "Ford" (like a book about cars written by an author whose last name is Harrison) but just everything with the two words, "Harrison Ford," together.
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"Silly Shots" Photo Contest
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Fans of "Star Wars: the Mandalorian" will understand the appeal of this mask.
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For the final Wednesday in May, our Silly Shots photo contest theme is
Mask Fashion. Dread 'em or not, we're all starting to get used to this new fact of life. So, starting
Wed., May 27
, head to our Facebook page and p
ost a pic of you or your family wearing a favorite mask, or
just a pic of your mask, if you'd rather
. You'll have seven days to post your pic, and every submission will be entered in a drawing to win a $10 Amazon gift card, to be awarded once we re-open.
One entry per person per week, please. Keep your eye out for
snaps from our staff, too.
Thanks to the more than 60 of you who've participated so far these past two months in our Silly Shots contest by sharing your pictures on our Facebook page. Watch next week for some fun stats about the contest, and see if you can guess which two themes drew the most entries. We'll also share the names of each weekly winner in the Amazon gift card drawings.
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This Week's Marvelous "Museum Pass" -- Heritage Museums & Gardens
If you've never had the chance to visit Heritage Museums & Gardens in May to see see their glorious display of rhododendrons in full bloom, you're in for a virtual treat.
Located in Sandwich, Heritage boasts thousands of rhododendrons in more than 175 varieties of pink, purple and white blooms. Lucky you! They're re-opening this coming Saturday, just at the peak of the season. If you can't make it to the Cape, click
here for a virtual tour of the stunning gardens and their Virtual Rhododendron Festival.
You also can l
earn about the history of rhododendron hybridizer Charles Dexter and his work on the property in this video. You might even pick up a few tips about caring for your own rhodies at home.
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Book Blurbs" --
What We've
Been
Reading While Home
For book lovers, having extra time to get lost in a book is one silver lining from spending so much time at home. Every few weeks, we'll bring you a brief Book Blurb from the staff to fill you in on what we've been reading.
Library Technician Kaye Duquette
--
French Exit, by Patrick deWitt (2018)
This slim little novel is billed as a "tragedy of manners," an apt description for a tragicomic story about a wealthy, self-absorbed widow and her stunted adult son who flee to Paris after losing status among New York City high society (you know, as one does). deWitt is a deft writer: the characters feel lightly sketched but have definitive quirks, temperaments, and self-inflicted predicaments that will both irritate you and evoke your sympathy, often on the same page. If you ever wished you could hobnob with the elites, you might rethink that after reading this one. And if you are elite, hope you've got a good sense of humor!
Check out either the e-book or audio book edition here.
Reference/Adult Services Librarian Libby Fox --
The Chain, by Adrian McKinty (2019)
The plot is simple: you get a phone call informing you that your child has been kidnapped. To get him/her back, just do everything the voice tells you to do including kidnapping another child, paying ransom, and keeping the police and the media out of it. If you don't follow the rules exactly, they'll kill you and your child. If you involve the police, they'll kill you and your child. You're just one link in a chain that's lengthened for many years and you can't be the one to break it or you'll never see your child alive again.
It's a sick premise, and I wasn't familiar with the work of this Edgar Award-winning crime novelist from Northern Ireland. But the soothing tones of narrator January LaVoy drew me right into the story and once captured, I couldn't stop listening.
Author Tana French says "McKinty is one of the most striking and most memorable crime voices to emerge on the scene in years. His plots tempt you to read at top speed, but don't give in: this writing--sharply observant, intelligent and shot through with black humor--should be savored."
Check out either the e-book or audio book edition
here
.
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Book News From Around the Country: Mask Fashion
Since the theme of our our photo contest this week is Mask Fashion, and it looks like we're all going to be wearing them for the near future,
we thought you might like to see some options from the world of books. In a very thoughtful Bookriot piece
*
, covering many angles of mask-wearing, Kelly Johnson writes, "... if we have to do this, one of the ways we can ease the discomfort of it is by at least donning something we enjoy over our chins, mouths, and noses."
She's gathered together a number of book- and comics-themed masks for book lovers. To read the full article and see some of the options, c
lick
here.
*
Bookriot.com, May 4, 2020
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Boredom Busters
We're constantly hearing about new ways in which companies are reinventing the way they do business or creating new and surprising avenues to reach out to customers.
Last week, AirBNB released 10 downloadable backdrops to use when making Zoom video calls from home. When you're tired of looking for that missing puzzle piece or rearranging the furniture AGAIN, take a minute to scroll through the options they offer here. You'll find everything
from a
treehouse in Norway and a glass pod perched on a Peruvian mountaintop to a vintage home in the Hollywood Hills and a seaside solarium in Havana. Download your own
little piece of virtual paradise.
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Musical Moment
of
the Week
Here's another incredible online musical collaboration, created in spite of the
limitations of social distancing.
Boston-based musician Chris Georgenes compiled video and audio tracks from 17 singers and instrumentalists around the world for this virtual performance of the 1970 hit
"Ooh Child," by the Five Stairsteps.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the incredible creativity, skill, and technology that made this possible. Just click here.
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COVID-19 Critical Content
We know you've got lots of sites where you can go to get information on the Coronavirus pandemic, so each week, we'll provide links to a few trusted and respected sources.
For the most up-to-date information about cases of COVID-19, visit these two sites:
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Lost Your Card?
If you've lost your card or just can't find it right now, and want to tap into all of the great online library resources,
SAILS has got you covered. You can register online for a temporary card that will work for two months. Click
here
to register for a temporary card. Once we open, you'll have to come visit to get a permanent card, but this will allow you to access all we have to offer in the meantime.
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Middleborough Public Library
102 North Main St., Middleborough, MA 02346
508-946-2470
Currently -- Closed until further notice, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When we re-open:
Monday--Thursday: 10:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Saturday: 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Sundays: noon - 4:00 p.m.
Closed on Fridays
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