Library News

Jacob Edwards Library

April 2025

Library Hours

Monday & Thursday 9 am - 8 pm

Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday 9 am - 5 pm

Saturday 9am - 1 pm

Curbside pickup is available during library hours!

Please note: The Library will be closed on Monday, April 21st in observance of Patriots' Day.

The Worcester Talking Book Library provides free services to Massachusetts residents of any age who are unable to read traditional print materials due to a visual or physical disability. They have access to more than 1.2 million volumes of material, including digital books, large type, described videos, braille, and 100 magazine titles in recorded and braille format.

Providing mail-order service by telephone as well as service on a walk-in basis, the Worcester Talking Book Library serves customers from 9 months to over 100 years old. The Worcester Talking Book Library is located at the Worcester Public Library, and is funded through an annual legislative appropriation administered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

Mass Center for the Book 2025 Reading Challenge

The Jacob Edwards Library is thrilled to be partnering with Mass Center for the Book to promote their 2025 Reading Challenge. Pick up cards and bookmarks at the Circulation Desk and participate by following the steps below.

Library staff will happily help you find a book that fits the monthly theme - also, see the display on the main floor for monthly suggestions. NovelList Plus is a great resource to utilize, as well (library card required). Happy reading!

How it works:

• Choose a book that fits the monthly challenge.
• After you read, fill out this form to tell them about the book. 
• Using the submission manager, you will be able to log in and access the entries you’ve logged throughout the year.
• Dedicated readers will be invited to a year-end celebration hosted by Mass Center for the Book.
• If you read a book in each of the 12 months, you will be entered in a drawing to win 1 of 2 totes filled with books. Additionally, they will be drawing two names on the last day of each month to win a free book!

hoopla Spotlight

Chess Club

Saturdays

9:30 - 11:00 am

Reading Room

Join instructor Ben Marinelli for this drop-in club. All skill levels welcome!

Mindfulness Meditation

Fridays, April 11, 18, and 25

2:00 - 3:00 pm

The Jacob Edwards Library is pleased to host Iris Vega, certified Mindfulness Meditation teacher and mentor, to present a series of sessions.

Inviting Mindfulness Meditation into your daily routine is an opportunity to cultivate awareness and presence.

You may bring your Yoga mat if you prefer doing the practice lying down.

Sponsored by Friends of Jacob Edwards Library.

The Art of Karen Reid

Artist Meet & Greet

Thursday, April 3rd

6:30 - 7:30 pm

The Library is pleased to present the work of Karen Reid!

"Art is the only way to run away without leaving home." - Twyla Tharpe

Karen has an extensive background in fine arts, with a substantial education from several prestigious institutions. She attended The Art Institute of Boston, The South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, MA, Fuller Museum in Brockton, MA, Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA, and earned her diploma in Fine Arts from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA. Her studies have encompassed various forms of fine art, including drawing, painting, ceramics, and monoprint.

Currently, Karen is focused on drawing and painting, utilizing mediums such as oil paint, watercolor, wax, and charcoal. She currently operates her studio in Oxford and shares her expertise by teaching painting and expressive art. She held the role of gallery director and co-founder at EKD Gallery in MA. and served for a decade as the gallery consultant and manager for Silver Circle Gallery in CT.



Her artistic journey includes numerous exhibitions across New England and recognition in Art New England, Page Magazine, Worcester Magazine and The Putnam Villager showcasing the breadth of her creative accomplishments and contributions to the arts community.

More of her work can be viewed at www.klreidart.com

"The work I create hovers between abstraction and reality, blending the boundaries of both worlds. Through gestural and vibrant compositions, I embark on colorful explorations of memory and place. It is

the energy encapsulated within a person, place, or thing that serves as my inspiration. I strive to capture this essence, allowing it to guide my creative process. The improvisational nature of my work becomes a dance between myself and the canvas, in which I intuitively respond to the painting's voice. It is through the playful manipulation of color, form, and line that the perspective and meaning of my work are transformed, fostering a sense of depth and mystery. This organic process of developing and harmonizing these elements fuels my imagination. As for my influences, they are as diverse as the artists who have come before me, including the likes of Hans Hoffman, Arthur Dove, Helen Frankenthaler, and Marc Chagall, among many others who shape my artistic path depending on the day."

Sponsored by Friends of Jacob Edwards Library.

In April, the group will discuss The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami.

From the publisher:



"We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears... and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life. Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world--a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he's been missing all along."

Betty's Bounce

Thursday, April 17th

6:30 - 7:30 pm

The Jacob Edwards Library is pleased to welcome Betty's Bounce back for a concert!

Betty's Bounce is a trio of two guitars and acoustic bass that performs American Jazz and music in the spirit of guitarist Django Reinhardt, which originated in France in the 1930s. Reinhardt teamed with violinist Stéphane Grappelli to co-found the Quintette du Hot Club de France whose music from the 1930's and 40's epitomized the genre. Group members are: Audie Bridges, guitar, Curtis Doo, guitar and Zach Bridges, double bass.

Sponsored by the Southbridge Cultural Council. The Southbridge Cultural Council is a local agency funded by Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

Tripas: Poems

Brandon Som

Finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry Awards. Winner of the 2024

Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

"With 'Tripas,' Brandon Som follows up his award-winning debut with a book of poems built out of a multicultural, multigenerational childhood home, in which he celebrates his Chicana grandmother, who worked nights on the assembly line at Motorola, and his Chinese American father and grandparents, who ran the family corner store. Enacting a cómo se dice poetics, a dialogic poem-making that inventively listens to heritage languages and transcribes family memory, Som participates in a practice of mem(oir), placing each poem's ear toward a confluence of history, labor, and languages, while also enacting a kind of 'telephone' between cultures. Invested in the circuitry and circuitous routes of migration and labor, Som's lyricism weaves together the narratives of his transnational communities, bringing to light what is overshadowed in the reckless transit of global capitalism and imagining a world otherwise--one attuned to the echo in the hecho, the oracle in the órale." - From publisher

Tuesday Morning Fun

9:30-10:00 am for our littles from

birth to age 2.5 years

April 1, 8, 15



Sponsored by the Olive I. and Anthony A. Borgatti Jr. Donor Advised Fund at the Greater Worcester Community Foundation

A 30 minute creative movement group for ages birth through 2.5 with a grown-up. Group is focused on adult and baby spending quality time together, fostering attachment, and baby interacting with others their age. Get groovy to upbeat music with props, instruments, and a story.

Katelyn graduated from Antioch University, New England, where she earned a Master of Arts degree in Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling. She studied psychomotor development of children, along with focuses on the intellectual/developmental disability and autistic communities, and older adults. Katelyn has been providing dance experiences to Massachusetts and Northeastern Connecticut for 15 years as well as working in various day habilitation and residential programs. She also earned a Bachelor of Arts in Dance with a minor in Disability Studies from Springfield College where she focused her studies on choreography, modern dance and improvisation, and pedagogy. Katelyn teaches dance classes to all ages at several studios.

Celebrate National Poetry Month

Poetry Creation Station

Sat April 5, 2025 at 10:30 am

School Vacation Week Fun!

Weds April 23, 2025 at 1:00 pm



School Vacation Week Fun!

Thursday April 24, 2025 at 1:00 pm



Monday April 28, 2025 at 6:30 pm

Join us as we welcome Emily Farrell Executive Director of Literacy Volunteers as our guest reader for this special Storytime.

El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day), commonly known as Día, is a celebration every day of children, families, and reading that culminates yearly on April 30.

Día is a nationally recognized initiative that emphasizes the importance of literacy for all children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds. It is a daily commitment to linking children and their families to diverse books, languages, and cultures. The common goals of all Día programming are to:

• Celebrate children and connect them to the world of learning through books, stories and libraries.
• Nurture cognitive and literacy development in ways that honor and embrace a child’s home language and culture.
• Introduce families to community resources that provide opportunities for learning through multiple literacies.
• Recognize and respect culture, heritage and language as powerful tools for strengthening families and communities.



Board of Trustees Meeting

The next meeting of the Board of Trustees is on April 22nd at 12 pm.

Details will be available on the Town of Southbridge website, under Public Meetings Calendar, for all public meetings.

All meetings are open to the public.

The next meeting of the Friends is on April 7th at 2 pm.

Join us for the book sale - starts on Thursday, April 3rd at noon until Saturday, April 5th at 11 am! Tons of titles - Lots of bargains!

The mission of the Friends of the Jacob Edwards Library is to be the advocacy and fundraising arm of the Library. We raise money for items such as library programs, books, subscriptions, museum pass memberships, and other materials, as needed. 

New members are always welcome! Our membership dues go directly toward supporting the Jacob Edwards Library.

See you at the library!

Jacob Edwards Library

508.764.5426

jelibrary@cwmars.org