This week, the Marcellus Library is spotlighting two new nonfiction books currently available.

Naturally Inclusive: Engaging Children of All Abilities Outdoors by Ruth Wilson, PhD.  Naturally Inclusive is an essential guide for designing nature-based play areas and programs that connect every child to nature.  The book reminds us that nature is both an ideal model of diversity and a catalyst for inclusion.  The physical, emotional, and/or social barriers that young children with special needs often face may prevent them from deeply engaging with the natural world.  These challenges, however, do not need to prevent them from enjoying the many benefits that nature has to offer.  Nature is a necessity. Research has demonstrated that we are happier, healthier, more socially engaged, and more creative when nature is part of our daily lives, and these benefits apply to people of all ages and abilities.  Dr. Ruth Wilson is an educational consultant and curriculum writer with special expertise in the area of early childhood environmental education and other initiatives connecting young children with nature. She draws on her knowledge of research and her decades of work with children in nature, weaving together advice, real-life examples, and testimonies from educators and families on the healing, nurturing power of nature in the lives of young children with diverse abilities.

The Power Five:  Essential Foods for Optimum Health by Michael Crupain, M.D., MP.H.  In this innovative cookbook, Dr. Michael Crupain, a physician and nutritionist, contends that we don't have to eat a restrictive diet to live better. healthier, and longer lives.  Dr. Crupain's book includes 75 recipes that put the focus on. the five food groups that will keep us living our best lives, warding off illness, and extending our lives without sacrificing flavor or our favorites. The foundations for his recipes then are these five key food groups-whole grains, seafood, nuts, seeds, and fruits and vegetables--and he proves that eating from the "power five" means that food doesn't need to taste bad and that we can still eat our pasta, breads, and dessert!

Upcoming Events:

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM.  Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Preschool Play Cafe, in lieu of Story Hour on Wednesday, November 22, December 27 and January 3 at 10:15 A.M. An unstructured social meetup with toys for ages 0-5 and coffee/tea for their parents & caregivers. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, December 27th, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, December 7, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others. *Please, bring a batch of cookies to exchange if attending the Dec. 7th meeting!

Stitch Together, Thursdays, November 16-December 21 at 6:00 PM. Join us to socialize while crocheting or knitting! No formal instruction is provided, but peer-to-peer support & troubleshooting is encouraged! 

Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are welcome (but parents are responsible for preventing choking risks for small children)! Donations of gently-used Legos are greatly appreciated!

Ewert Music Studio Recital, Saturday, December 2nd at 5:00 PM, during Christmas in the Village. Enjoy beautiful music played by the talented students of Roxane Ewert!

Holiday Card Craft & Face-Painting, Saturday, December 2nd 4-6:00 PM. During Christmas in the Village, stop in to create holiday cards that will bring cheer to residents of Blueberry Hill Assisted Living in Lawton. Erica Watts will be offering face-painting & we’ll have fresh popcorn while supplies last! 

This week the library is highlighting two new adult fiction books currently available.

Yellowface: A Novel by R.F. Kuang. June Hayward and Athena Liu, both authors, were supposed to be twin rising stars. Athena, however, is a literary darling and June Hayward a literal nobody. June thinks--who wants stories about basic white girls. When June witnesses Athena's death is a freak accident, she acts impulsively. She steals Athena's just completed masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War 1. Who cares if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work or if Athena lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? June figures that this piece of history deserves to be told no matter who tells the story, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's stolen success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she finds out exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. In a totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation along with the terrifying alienation of social media.

The Christmas Guest: A Novella by Peter Swanson. An American art student in London for her junior year, Ashley Smith was planning to spend Christmas alone. A last-minute invitation from Emma Chapman, a fellow student, brings Ashley to Starvewood Hall, a country residence of the Chapman family. The Cotswold manor house, lavishly decorated and crammed with guests for Christmas week, is a dream come true for Ashley who is mesmerized by the cozy, firelit house, the large family, and the charming village of Clevemoor and by Adam Chapman, Emma's aloof and handsome brother. Adam, however, is being investigated by the local police over the recent brutal slaying of a girl from the village, and there is a mysterious stranger who haunts the woodland path between Starvewood Hall and the local pub. Ashley begins to question what kind of story she actually inhabits. Is she in a grand romance or a gothic tale? Has she wandered into something far more sinister and terrifying than she'd ever imagined? Thirty years later the events of that horrific week are revisited, along with a diary from that time.  Many Christmas seasons later, what started in a small English village in 1989 reaches a ghostly conclusion in modern-day New York.

Upcoming events:

Yoga with Dave Sivley, October 9 - Nov 27, Mondays at 6:30 PM.  Bring your mat, water and a towel along with $5.00 per session payable to Dave.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM.  Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Preschool Play Cafe, in lieu of Story Hour on Wednesday, November 22, December 27 and January 3 at 10:15 A.M. An unstructured social meetup with toys for ages 0-5 and coffee/tea for their parents & caregivers. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, November 29th, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, December 7, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others. *Please, bring a batch of cookies to exchange if attending the Dec. 7th meeting!

Stitch Together, Thursdays, November 16-December 21 at 6:00 PM. Join us to socialize while crocheting or knitting! No formal instruction is provided, but peer-to-peer support & troubleshooting is encouraged! 

Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are welcome (but parents are responsible for preventing choking risks for small children)! Donations of gently-used Legos will be greatly appreciated!

Ewert Music Studio Recital, Saturday, December 2nd at 5:00 PM, during Christmas in the Village. Enjoy beautiful music played by the talented students of Roxane Ewert!

Holiday Card Craft, Saturday, December 2nd 4-6:00 PM. During Christmas in the Village, stop in to create holiday cards that will bring cheer to residents of Blueberry Hill Assisted Living in Lawton. 

A lead is the first paragraph of an article that gives an overview of the story and attracts the reader's attention. It should be simple, concise, and attention grabbing. It should answer as many of the five Ws and H (who, what, when, where, why, and how) as possible.  Above all, brevity is essential. So here goes! This week we will be featuring two fantastic new adult fiction books which are sure to attract our patrons!

The Burnout: A Novel by Sophie Kinsella. Sasha has had it with her life as it is. She can not bring herself to respond to another inane, "urgent" (but not really urgent) email or participate in the corporate employee joyfulness program. She has not seen her friends in months. Cooking dinner takes too much planning. Even sex seems like a lot of effort.  She has hit a wall. So, she decides to head to the seaside resort she loved as a child with plans to drink kale smoothies, try yoga, and find peace. However, Sasha has come to the beach in the off season, the resort is in dilapidated shambles, and alone time on the sand is not even possible. A grumpy guy named Finn who is just as stressed as Sasha is hanging out at the same beach. He is sitting on his favorite spot watching her. They can not even agree on the best way to alleviate their collective burnout. Sasha swims while Finn drinks whiskey and has pizza delivered to the beach. Then curious messages seemingly addressed to Sasha and Finn begin to appear in the sand and these two very different people are forced to converse about everything.  How did they get so world weary? Can either remember something they used to love? And there is one question they try and fail to ignore: what does the energy between them-flaring even in the face of their burnout and exhaustion signify?

Becoming the Boogeyman: A Novel by Richard Chizmar. This book is a sequel to Chizmar's Chasing the Boogeyman. In his first book, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls turn up in a small Maryland town in 1988. The police conclude that a serial killer is on the loose in the quiet suburb. The community becomes trapped in the depths of paranoia and suspicion. Recent college graduate Richard Chizmar returns to his hometown just as a curfew is announced. He is to be married and he is embarking on his writing career. He soon finds himself thrust into the real life horror story. He writes a personal account of the serial killer's reign of terror. The events that occur will continue to haunt him for years to come. In this sequel, we find that Chizmar is a successful true crime writer and filmmaker with his career revolving around the murders that shook his hometown decades earlier. Chizmar is horrified when the killings begin again years later.

Upcoming events:

Yoga with Dave Sivley, October 9 - Nov 27, Mondays at 6:30 PM.  Bring your mat, water and a towel along with $5.00 per session payable to Dave.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM.  Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, November 29th, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, December 7, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others.

Crochet Class, instructed by Korinne New. Bring 1 skein #4 medium weight yarn (lighter color is recommended for visibility), crochet hook size 5 or 5.5 mm, scissors. Thursdays, October 19th-November 9th at 6:00 PM.

Stitch Together, Thursdays, November 16-December 21 at 6:00 PM. Join us to socialize while crocheting or knitting! No formal instruction is provided, but peer-to-peer support & troubleshooting is encouraged! 

Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are welcome (but parents are responsible for preventing choking risks for small children)! Donations of gently-used Legos will be greatly appreciated!

This week, two new fiction books are in focus at the Marcellus Township Library.
A couple of authors have weighed in on why we read fiction. Michael Scott,
author of The Warlock, wrote “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For
knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces
the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." Quoting
David Foster Wallace, “good fiction's job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb
the comfortable.”

Sisters Under the Rising Sun: A Novel by Heather Morris. During World War II,
Norah Chambers, an English Musician, places Sally, her eight-year-old daughter
on a ship leaving Singapore in a desperate attempt to keep the child safe as the
island falls to the Japanese Army. In the meantime, Nesta James, an Australian
Nurse, has enlisted to tend to Allied troops. But as the Japanese Army overruns
the island, Nesta joins the terrified cargo of people, including heartbroken Norah,
crammed onto the Vyner Brooke, a merchant ship. Just two days later, the Vyner
Brooke is bombed from the air off the coast of Indonesia and sinks in a matter of
hours. Norah and Nesta survive twenty-four hours in the sea and reach the
beach of a remote island, only to be captured and held in one of the Japanese
POW camps notorious for being places of starvation, brutality, and disease. Even
in this place though, joy can be found in music. Norah's 'voice orchestra' has the
power to transport the internees out of the squalor and into the light. Together,
Norah and Nesta devote themselves to the women's survival while discovering
their own extraordinary reserves of courage, love, and strength. This is a story of
women in war: a novel of sisterhood, bravery, and friendship in the darkest of
circumstances. Heather Morris is the best selling author of The Tattooist of
Auschwitz, Cilka’s Journey, and Three Sisters.

The River We Remember: A Novel by William Kent Krueger. On Memorial Day
in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of Jimmy Quinn, a wealthy landowner, is found
floating in the Alabaster River. He was killed by a shotgun blast. Sheriff Brody
Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional
scars from his military service, will need to investigate Quinn's murder. Even
before the autopsy results are in, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer
has to be Noah Bluestone, a Native American World War II Veteran who has
recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations
mount and with the town teetering on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles
not only to find the truth about Quinn's murder but also to put his own demons
from the past to rest. Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through the
town are a war widow and her teenage son, the fearless publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy, and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom
struggle with their own tragic histories and harbor secrets that Quinn's death
threatens to expose. This book looks at the wounds left by wars we fight abroad
and at home and is a moving exploration of the ways in which we seek to heal.

Upcoming events:
Yoga with Dave Sivley, October 9 - Nov 27, Mondays at 6:30 PM. Bring your
mat, water and a towel along with $5.00 per session payable to Dave.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM. Stories, music, movement &
crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers.

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, November 29th, the last Wednesday of
each month at 6:00 PM. We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game
night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, November 2, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM. Join
others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from
others.

Crochet Class, instructed by Korinne New. Bring 1 skein #4 medium weight yarn
(lighter color is recommended for visibility), crochet hook size 5 or 5.5 mm,
scissors. Thursdays, October 19th-November 9th at 6:00 PM.

Stitch Together, Thursdays, November 16-December 21 at 6:00 PM. Join us to
socialize while crocheting or knitting! No formal instruction is provided, but peer-
to-peer support & troubleshooting is encouraged!

Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego &
Duplo collections! All ages are welcome (but parents are responsible for
preventing choking risks for small children)! Donations of gently-used Legos will
be greatly appreciated!

This week, two new non-fiction books are in focus:

Why We Need to Be Wild: One Woman's Quest for Ancient Human Answers to 21st Century Problems by Jessica Carew Kraft. An urban wife and mother of two, the author was firmly entrenched in the modern world, complete with a high-powered tech career. She had a sneaking suspicion though that her lifestyle was preventing her and her family from truly thriving. Determined to find a better way, Jessica left her job and embarked on a journey to learn about 'rewilding'' from people who reject the comforts and conveniences of civilization by using ancient tools and skills to survive. Along the way, she learned how to turn sticks into fire, stones into axes, and bones into tools for harvesting wild food. She also found an entire community walking the path back from our technology-focused, anxiety-ridden way of life to a simpler, more human experience.  Jessica's deep research and reporting along with her own personal journey in this book reveal the remarkable story of the potential benefits rewilding has for us and our planet and answers questions about what it truly means to be a human in today's world. This is a thought-provoking, unforgettable narrative that illuminates how we survived in the past, how we live now, and how each of us can choose to thrive in the years ahead.

The Mutt for Me: A Beautiful Transformation from Project Dog to Man's Best Friend by Don Hughes. The author volunteered at a local animal shelter but had never had a dog of his own, so he was not really prepared for what it would mean to adopt one of the most behaviorally challenging rescues in the shelter—a mutt called Barbie that everyone else had given up on. Barbie was fearful and unresponsive and was within 5 days of being put down when Don opted to open his home and his heart for the first time to a canine companion. His decision would change both of their lives forever. The book follows the many misadventures of Don and Barbie on their journey of growth and healing. The reader will see Barbie transform from the terrified, despondent recluse she was in the rescue to the lively and almost always well-behaved dog that she is today. Hughes is a first-time dog owner and in need of significant behavioral development himself, but he shows that with enough love, patience, and dedication, anyone can provide a home to a rescue animal. This book is a heartwarming story about how our pets have the capacity to transform and heal us as much as we can do this for them.

Upcoming events:

Yoga with Dave Sivley, October 9 - Nov 27, Mondays at 6:30 PM.  Bring your mat, water and a towel along with $5.00 per session payable to Dave.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM.  Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, October 25th, November 29th, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, November 2, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others.

Food Forests - Permaculture Design & Implementation.  Thursday, October 19th at 6 PM. Presented by farmer & chef, Austin Kane from Huss Project/CINO.

The Composition of Compost, Thursday, Oct 26th at 4 PM. Abby David from Huss Project/CINO will bring unique nature and gardening activities for students in 5-8 grades.  Snacks will be provided!

Crochet Class, instructed by Korinne New. Bring 1 skein #4 medium weight yarn (lighter color is recommended for visibility), crochet hook size 5 or 5.5 mm, scissors. Thursdays, October 19th-November 9th at 6:00 PM.

Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are welcome (but parents are responsible for preventing choking risks for small children)! Donations of gently-used Legos will be greatly appreciated! 

Halloween, October 31st! Enter the children's area from the ramp on Main St for a fun (NOT frightful) celebration with treats, popcorn & a coloring contest! Enter the main library from Burney St if you dare to attend our undead prom. Zombies, ghosts & more are back from beyond the grave to attend THE event of the season! Hours of Halloween at the library will match the village trick or treat hours! We are in need of volunteers & donations of individually wrapped candy & prizes!

This week, the library is featuring two non-fiction works. 

This Writer...by Dolph Simons. This book chronicles the humble beginning of the Simons newspaper legacy. It starts in 1887, when a Civil War widow, Jennie Bessie Simons, abandoned her Kansas claim and invested instead in a small newspaper for her 16-year-old son, Wilford Collins "Collie" Simons. As "this writer," W.C. Simons, his son Dolph Sr., and grandson Dolph Simons, Ir., each reported and editorialized views of some of the most important and historic events of his time. The small newspaper became The World Company, the Simons' information enterprise. Their journalistic work spanned the entire era of modern journalism from the frontier press to the Information Age. The book also chronicles the Simons' personal and professional stories that paralleled, intersected, and influenced the evolution of the newspaper industry in this country.

The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl.   In this delightful book, Renkl delivers a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her own backyard over the course of a year. Renkl has a unique way of tying what she sees in the backyard to everyday life experiences. She spies a crow on New Year's Day, and its resourcefulness and sense of community sets a theme for her year.  Lingering bluebirds in December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring, present a portrait of joy and grief—joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, the reader also glimpses the changing rhythms of human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once again. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. There are fifty-two original color artworks by the author's brother, Billy Renkl which enhance the reader's experience.

Upcoming events:

Yoga with Dave Sivley, October 9 - Nov 27, Mondays at 6:30 PM.  Bring your mat, water and a towel along with $5.00 per session payable to Dave.

Halloween, October 31st! Enter the children's area from the ramp on Main St for a fun (NOT frightful) celebration with treats, popcorn & a coloring contest! Enter the main library from Burney St if you dare to attend our undead prom. Zombies, ghosts & more are back from beyond the grave to attend THE event of the season! Hours of Halloween at the library will match the village trick or treat hours! We are in need of volunteers & donations of individually wrapped candy & prizes!

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM.  Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, November 29th, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, November 2, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others.

The Composition of Compost, Thursday, Oct 26th at 4 PM. Abby David from Huss Project/CINO will bring unique nature and gardening activities for students in 5-8 grades.  Snacks will be provided!

Crochet Class, instructed by Korinne New. Bring 1 skein #4 medium weight yarn (lighter color is recommended for visibility), crochet hook size 5 or 5.5 mm, scissors. Thursdays, October 19th-November 9th at 6:00 PM.

Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are welcome (but parents are responsible for preventing choking risks for small children)! Donations of gently-used Legos will be greatly appreciated! 

This week, we are introducing two non-fiction works, new to the library.

Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life by Gretchen Craft Rubin. Most of us have habits we would like to change, and there is no shortage of expert advice as to how to go about changing. In this book, Rubin identifies every approach to changing habits that actually works. Rubin presents a practical, concrete framework to allow readers to not only understand their habits, but to also change them for good. Rubin writes in a compelling voice, bases her book on rigorous research, injects easy humor, and includes vivid stories of lives transformed. Rubin examines the core principles of habit formation, and she answers some perplexing questions about habits such as: 1) Why do we find it tough to create a habit for something we love to do? 2) How can we keep healthy habits when we are surrounded by temptation? and, 3) Can we change another's habits? You will start working on your own habits- -even before you have finished this book!

Social Justice Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. Sowell, age 93, is an American economist, author and social commentator who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago where his professors included Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and other future Nobel laureates. With widely published commentary and books, and as a guest on TV and radio, he became a well-known voice in the American conservative movement as a prominent black conservative. The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons. But those who use the same words do not always present the same meanings. Clarifying those meanings is the first step toward finding out what we agree on and disagree on. From there, it is largely a question of what the facts are. Social Justice Fallacies reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed.

Upcoming events:

Yoga with Dave Sivley, October 9 - Nov 27, Mondays at 6:30 PM.  Bring your mat, water and a towel along with $5.00 per session payable to Dave.

Halloween, October 31st! Enter the children's area from the ramp on Main St for a fun (NOT frightful) celebration with treats, popcorn & a coloring contest! Enter the main library from Burney St if you dare to attend our undead prom. Zombies, ghosts & more are back from beyond the grave to attend THE event of the season! Hours of Halloween at the library will match the village trick or treat hours! We are in need of volunteers & donations of individually wrapped candy & prizes!

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM.  Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers.

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, October 25th and the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, November 2, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others

Busy Like a Bee- Intro to Beekeeping, Thursday, Oct 12th at 4 PM. Abby David from Huss Project/CINO will bring unique nature and gardening activities for students in 5-8 grades every other Thursday. Snacks will be provided! October 26th: The Composition of Compost. 

Food Forests - Permaculture Design & Implementation.  Thursday, October 19th at 6 PM. Presented by farmer & chef, Austin Kane from Huss Project/CINO.

Crochet Class, instructed by Korinne New. Bring 1 skein #4 medium weight yarn (lighter color is recommended for visibility), crochet hook size 5 or 5.5 mm, scissors. Thursdays, October 19th-November 9th at 6:00 PM.

Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are welcome (but parents are responsible for preventing choking risks for small children)! Donations of gently-used Legos will be greatly appreciated! 

Annular Solar Eclipse, Saturday, October 14th 10 AM - 2 PM. Join us for an eclipse craft & receive a free pair of eclipse-viewing glasses (while supplies last).  Peak viewing is expected at 1:03 PM.

This week, we’re focusing on two books about parenting available at the Marcellus Township Library, but does reading parenting books really help one become a better parent? The website the "TODAY Parenting Team" (community.today.com) offers this:  “Reading one [a parenting book] can show you care about raising your children and are willing to do whatever it takes to do it right. It can also give you a sense of being in control rather than the frazzled parent who doesn't know where to turn. You may also find advice about those difficult situations that tend to crop up once in a while during the course of parenting.”

Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors: Brain-, Body-, Sensory Strategies That Really Work by Robyn Gobbel. In her book, Robyn Gobbel, a parenting and neuroscience expert, reveals how all behavior, no matter how baffling, can be explained and remedied. Parents just need to look past the behavior and understand what is going on inside their children. Gobbel decodes the latest brain science into easy-to-understand principles and metaphors to help parents become experts in their children's behaviors.  She covers simple ways to help parents regulate and connect with their children using brain-, body-, and sensory-based strategies to overcome day-to-day challenges. The author also provides parents with the knowledge to understand and regulate their own brains so that they don't flip their lids when their children flip their lids! This book can be the lifeline for parenting or caring for any child with baffling behaviors and hidden challenges including kids who have experienced adversity or those with additional needs.

Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—and What We Can Do About It by Jennifer Breheny Wallace. This book has been described as the definitive work on the rise of the "toxic achievement culture" that is overtaking kids’ and parents’ lives because it provides a framework for fighting back. Students today face unprecedented pressure to succeed in the ever more competitive race to secure the best possible future. Their schedules are jam-packed, and they fill every waking hour with resume-padding activities, even sabotaging relationships with friends to get ahead.  Family budgets and schedules are stretched to the breaking point by tutoring fees and athletic schedules. Unfortunately, this drive to optimize performance has only led to skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, and even self-harm in our highest achieving schools. Parents, teachers, and community leaders are all trying to determine how we can teach students to strive towards excellence without crushing them in the process. Children are internalizing the message that they have no value beyond their accomplishments, and this message is being reinforced by the media and the greater culture at large. Through her own research and interviews with leading child psychologists, Wallace shows what kids need from the adults in the room is not more pressure, but to feel like they matter and have intrinsic self—worth not contingent on external achievements. When parents and educators adopt the language and values of "mattering,” they help children see themselves as valuable contributors to a larger community. Ironically, children who receive consistent feedback that they matter, no matter what, are more likely to have the resilience, self-confidence, and psychological security to thrive. The author packs this book with memorable stories and offers a powerful toolkit for positive and much needed change. She offers an urgent and humane view of the crisis plaguing today's teens and practical framework for how to help.

Upcoming events:

Yoga with Dave Sivley, October 9 - Nov 27, Mondays at 6:30 PM.  Bring your mat, water and a towel along with $5.00 per session payable to Dave.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM.  Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, presentations by Madalene Bigbear. Wednesdays at 6:00 PM on October 4-18th. 

Game Night AND Movies &  Popcorn, October 25th and the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, October 5, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others

Pickles - An Introduction to Fermented Foods & Beverages, Thursday, October 5th  at 6 PM. Farmer & chef, Austin Kane from Huss Project/CINO will be here every other Thursday to present on nature, gardening and cooking. October 19th: Food Forests - Permaculture Design & Implementation.

Busy Like a Bee- Intro to Beekeeping, Thursday, Oct 12th at 4 PM. Abby David from Huss Project/CINO will bring unique nature and gardening activities for students in 5-8 grades every other Thursday. Snacks will be provided! October 26th: The Composition of Compost. 

Crochet Class, instructed by Korinne New. Bring 1 skein #4 medium weight yarn (lighter color is recommended for visibility), crochet hook size 5 or 5.5 mm, scissors. Thursdays, October 19th-November 9th at 6:00 PM.

Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are welcome (but parents are responsible for preventing choking risks for small children)! Donations of gently-used Legos will be greatly appreciated! 

Blind Date with a Book.  During First Friday, October 6 from 5 PM to 7 PM.  We wrap books in paper, providing just a few clues as to what may be inside.  If the clues intrigue you, check out the mystery book for your blind date with a book. Don’t judge a book by its cover & expand your reading repertoire. 

Hatchery Tour Roadshow, During First Friday, October 6 from 5 PM to 7 PM, Wolf Lake Fish Hatchery will be bringing a LIVE Lake Sturgeon and more and will be set up outside of the library on the front lawn.

Annular Solar Eclipse, Saturday, October 14th 10 AM - 2 PM. Join us for an eclipse craft & receive a free pair of eclipse-viewing glasses (while supplies last).  Peak viewing is expected at 1:03 PM. 

The earliest known use of the word “hygge” dates back to the early 1800s, when it first appeared in Danish witing. It was derived from a Norwegian word meaning "well-being.”  Hygge is a term used to acknowledge a feeling or moment as cozy, charming or special. We can certainly get a feeling of hygge from reading books we love. Here are two books that evoke that feeling of cozy warmth and relaxation—hygge—in readers.  Both books are the first in series.

The Library at the Edge of the World: A Novel by Felicity Hayes-McCoy. This is the first book in the Finfarran Peninsula series--there are five books. Hanna Casey has issues. She had to abandon her sophisticated lifestyle after finding her English barrister husband in bed with another woman.  She has a tense relationship with her teenage daughter, Jazz, who is off traveling the world. To top it all off, Hanna has had to move back into her overbearing mother's retirement bungalow which is located in Lissbeg, the rural Irish town she left as a teen. All of this has made her a focus of local gossip. Hanna soon gets a job driving a mobile library van between villages off Ireland's West Coast.  She is trying to pick up the pieces of her life and regain her independence by restoring a derelict cottage left to her by her great-aunt. But when the threatened closure of the Lissbeg Library puts her personal plans in jeopardy, Hanna finds herself leading a battle to restore the heart and soul of the Finfarran Peninsula's fragmented community. She discovers that the neighbors she had always kept at a distance have come to mean more to her than she ever could have imagined.

The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe.  This is the first in the Beach House series—there are seven books. Carretta Rutledge believed that she had left her Southern roots and troubled family history far behind. But then, just as her life began spinning out of control, Cara’s mother makes an unusual request.  As a result, Cara heads back to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers. Cara begins to repair the family beach house and before long, the rhythms of the island open her heart in wonderful ways. She renews old acquaintances long thought lost. However, it is in reconnecting with her mother that she will learn life's most precious lessons: true love involves sacrifice, family is forever, and the mistakes of the past can be forgiven.

Upcoming events:

Yoga with Dave Sivley, October 9 - Nov 27, Mondays at 6:30 PM.  Bring your mat, water and a towel along with $5.00 per session payable to Dave.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM.  Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, presentations by Madalene Bigbear. Wednesdays at 6:00 PM on September 27, October 4, and October 11. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, September 27 and the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, October 5, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others

Pickles - An Introduction to Fermented Foods & Beverages, Thursday, October 5th  at 6 PM. Farmer & chef, Austin Kane from Huss Project/CINO will be here every other Thursday to present on nature, gardening and cooking. October 19th: Food Forests - Permaculture Design & Implementation.

Gardening - How to Get Started Thursday, Sept 28 at 4 PM. Abby David from Huss Project/CINO will bring unique nature and gardening activities for students in 5-8 grades every other Thursday. Snacks will be provided! October 12th: Busy Like A Bee - An Intro to Beekeeping. October 26th: The Composition of Compost. 

Crochet Class, instructed by Korinne New. Bring 1 skein #4 medium weight yarn (lighter color is recommended for visibility), crochet hook size 5 or 5.5 mm, scissors. Thursdays, October 19th-November 9th at 6:00 PM.

Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are welcome (but parents are responsible for preventing choking risks for small children)! Donations of gently-used Legos will be greatly appreciated! 

Blind Date with a Book.  Friday, October 6, 2023 5 PM to 7 PM.  We wrap books in paper, providing just a few clues as to what may be inside.  If the clues intrigue you, check out the mystery book for your blind date with a book. Don’t judge a book by its cover & expand your reading repertoire. 

Annular Solar Eclipse, Saturday, October 14th 10 AM - 2 PM. Join us for an eclipse craft & receive a free pair of eclipse-viewing glasses (while supplies last).  Peak viewing is expected at 1:03 PM. 

The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine by Christopher Miller. Miller, a correspondent for the Financial Times, is the foremost journalist covering Ukraine and was on the ground when the first Russian missiles struck and troops stormed over the border. The seeds of Russia's war against Ukraine and the West were sown though more than a decade earlier. This book is the definitive, inside story of Ukraine's long fight for freedom as told through Miller's personal experiences, vivid front-line dispatches and illuminating interviews with unforgettable characters. Readers are taken on a riveting journey through the key locales and pivotal events in the country's modern history.  Miller captures Ukraine is all of its glory—vast, defiant, resilient, and full of wonder—with his candor, wit, and sensitivity. His breathtaking narrative is poignant and inspiring.  This is the story of an American who fell in love with a foreign place and its people and witnessed them do extraordinary things to escape the long shadow of their former imperial ruler and preserve their independence.

Vanishing Sands: Losing Beaches to Mining by Orrin H. Pilkey, Norma J. Longo, William J. Neal, Nelson G. Rangel-Buitrago. Keith C. Pilkey & Hannah L. Hayes. The authors of Vanishing Sands track the devastating impact of legal and illegal sand mining over the past twenty years, ranging from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean to South America and the eastern United States. The world's sandy beaches and dunes have never been more crucial to protecting coastal environments particularly in a time of accelerating sea level rise and increasingly intensifying storms. Unfortunately though, in order to meet the demands of large-scale construction projects, sand mining is stripping beaches and dunes, destroying environments, and exploiting labor in the process. This book details how sand mining has reached crisis levels: beach, dune, and river ecosystems are in danger of being lost forever, while organized crime groups use deadly force to protect their illegal mining operations. Calling for immediate and widespread resistance to sand mining, the authors demonstrate that its cessation is paramount for saving not only beaches, dunes, and associated environments but also lives and tourism economies everywhere.

Upcoming events:

Support Group for Parents of Challenging Kids.  Wednesdays at 9:00 AM. If you are feeling overwhelmed, join others to gain valuable support, coping strategies, and information about community resources.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM starting September 13th! Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, presentations by Madalene Bigbear. Wednesdays at 6:00 PM on September 27, October 4, and October 11. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, September 27 and the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, October 5, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others

Cooking with Wild Edibles - Recipes & Techniques for Foraged Plants, Thursday, Sept 21 at 6 PM. Farmer & chef, Austin Kane from Huss Project/CINO will be here every other Thursday to present on nature, gardening and cooking. October 5th: Pickles - An Introduction to Fermented Foods & Beverages. October 19th: Food Forests - Permaculture Design & Implementation.

Gardening - How to Get Started Thursday, Sept 28 at 4 PM. Abby David from Huss Project/CINO will bring unique nature and gardening activities for students in 5-8 grades every other Thursday. Snacks will be provided! October 12th: Busy Like A Bee - An Intro to Beekeeping. October 26th: The Composition of Compost. 

Crochet Class, instructed by Korinne New. Bring 1 skein #4 medium weight yarn (lighter color is recommended for visibility), crochet hook size 5 or 5.5 mm, scissors. Thursdays, October 19th-November 9th at 6:00 PM.

Stitch Together, Thursdays 6-7 PM, November 16-December 21 (No meeting Nov 23rd). Join us to socialize while crocheting or knitting! No formal instruction is provided, but peer-to-peer support & troubleshooting is encouraged!

Lego at the Library, Fridays 3:00-4:30 PM. Build & create with our Lego & Duplo collections! All ages are welcome (but parents are responsible for preventing choking risks for small children)! Donations of gently-used Legos will be greatly appreciated!  

Deception is the theme of many thrillers and mysteries. Deception is an act or statement which misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true.  Sometimes, what we see often is only a fractional part of what really is. The books that we are highlighting this week both involve deception- things were not what they appeared to be.  

None of This is True: A Novel by Lisa Jewell. Alix Summers, a popular podcaster, is celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at a local pub when she meets an unassuming woman named Josie Fair. Josie, as it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. Just a few days later, Alix bumps into Josie again outside of the school that Alix’s children attend. Josie has been listening to Alix's pod casts and wants to be a subject for her series. Alix learns that Josie has led a strange and complicated life. Alix finds Josie to be unsettling, however, she can't resist the opportunity to continue work with Josie on the true crime podcast. Soon, Alix learns that Josie is hiding some very dark secrets. But, it is too late because Josie has already insinuated herself into Alix's life and home. Then, abruptly, Josie disappears. Alix's unsettled feeling about Josie changes to terror as she discovers that Josie has left a terrifying legacy in her wake. Alix is now the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family's lives under mortal threat. Who is Josie Fair and what on earth has she done?

The Last Thing He Told Me: A Novel by Laura Dave. Owen Michaels has disappeared. Before he left, he smuggled a note to his beloved wife of only one year, Hannah. The note has only two words: "Protect Her." Hannah, confused and afraid, knows exactly who Owen's note refers to—Owen’s sixteen year old daughter, Bailey.  Bailey lost her mother as a young child but she wants nothing to do with Hannah, her new step-mother. Hannah's desperate attempts to contact Owen go unanswered.  Then, the FBI arrests her missing husband's boss. A U.S. marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unexpectedly. Hannah quickly realizes that her husband was not who he said he was, and that Bailey may hold the key to figuring out Owen's true identity and why he disappeared. The two work together to discover the truth. As they start putting the pieces of Owen's past together, they soon realize that they are also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated.

Upcoming events:

Support Group for Parents of Challenging Kids.  Wednesdays at 9:00 AM. If you are feeling overwhelmed, join others to gain valuable support, coping strategies, and information about community resources.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM starting September 13th! Stories, music, movement & crafts for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Nutrition and Medical Classes by Dr. Larry Jackson, MD, and Debbie Jackson, MS, RD. Third Wednesday of the Month at 6 PM. Next class will be on September 20th at 6 PM:  How to Lower Cholesterol Through Diet. 

Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, presentations by Madalene Bigbear. Wednesdays at 6:00 PM on September 27, October 4, and October 11. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, October 5, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others

Cooking with Wild Edibles - Recipes & Techniques for Foraged Plants, Thursday, Sept 21 at 6 PM. Farmer & chef, Austin Kane from Huss Project/CINO will be here every other Thursday to present on nature, gardening and cooking. October 5th: Pickles - An Introduction to Fermented Foods & Beverages. October 19th: Food Forests - Permaculture Design & Implementation.

What Kind of Tree is That? Basic Tree, Vine & Shrub Identification in MI Thursday, Sept 14 at 4 PM. Abby David from Huss Project/CINO will bring unique nature and gardening activities for students in 5-8 grades every other Thursday. Snacks will be provided! September 28th: Gardening - How to Get Started. October 12th: Busy Like A Bee - An Intro to Beekeeping. October 26th: The Composition of Compost. 

Crochet Class, instructed by Korinne New. Bring 1 skein #4 medium weight yarn (lighter color is recommended for visibility), crochet hook size 5 or 5.5 mm, scissors. Thursdays, October 19th-November 9th at 6:00 PM.

Tech Time @ the Library, September 16th from 10 AM to 1 PM.  Are you struggling with your phone? Do you have trouble navigating the internet?  Do you need help with mel.org, the Libby App or the Marcellus Library Catalog?  Drop in the library to ask Justin your I.T. related questions and learn to navigate your device or our computers!

This week, we're focusing on two adult fiction books currently available in the library. 

Things I Wish I Told My Mother: A Novel by Susan Patterson and Susan Dilalio with James Patterson. Every mother and every daughter has her own distinctive voice, inimitable style, and secrets. In this book, a mother and daughter on vacation in Paris unpack a lifetime of secrets and hopes. Laurie, the daughter, is an artist and a collector of experiences. She travels the world with a worn beige duffle bag.  “Dr. Liz," Laurie's mother, is an elegant perfectionist who travels the world with a matched set of suitcases.  When Laurie surprises her mother with a dream vacation, it brings an unexpected sparkle to her eyes. But every mother and every daughter has her own distinctive voice, inimitable style, and secrets. In this book, Laurie and Liz, on vacation in Paris, unpack a lifetime of secrets and hopes with a giant Pattersonian twist at the end!

The Last Garden in England by Julie Kelly. This is a poignant and unforgettable tale of five women living across three different times whose lives are all connected by one very special garden. Emma Lovett has dedicated her career to breathing new life into long-neglected gardens. She is given the opportunity of a lifetime restoring the gardens of the famed Highbury House estate, designed in 1907, by her hero Venetia Smith. As Emma delves deeper into the garden's past, she begins to uncover secrets that have long been hidden. In 1907, Venetia Smith, a talented artist with a growing reputation for her ambitious work, has carved out a niche for herself as a garden designer to industrialists, solicitors, and bankers who want to show off their wealth with sumptuous country houses. When Venetia is hired to design the Highbury House gardens, she is determined to make them a triumph, but the gardens and the people she meets-will change her life forever. In 1944, Beth Pradley, a land girl, arrives at a farm on the outskirts of the village of Highbury. Her one desire is to find a place she can call home. On the other hand, Cook Stella Adderton is desperate to leave Highbury House to pursue her own dreams.  Widow Diana Symonds, the mistress of Highbury House, is trying to cling to her pre-war life now that her home has been requisitioned and transformed into a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers. When the war threatens Highbury House's treasured gardens, these three very different women—Beth, Stella, and Diana—are drawn together by a secret that will last for decades. In her book, Julie Kelly explores the unexpected connections that cross time and the special places that bring people together forever.

Upcoming events:

Support Group for Parents of Challenging Kids.  Wednesdays at 9:00 AM. If you are feeling overwhelmed, join others to gain valuable support, coping strategies, and information about community resources.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM starting September 13th! Stories, music & movement for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Nutrition and Medical Classes by Dr. Larry Jackson, MD, and Debbie Jackson, MS, RD. Third Wednesday of the Month at 6 PM. Next class will be on September 20th at 6 PM:  How to Lower Cholesterol Through Diet. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, September 7, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others

Herbs & Edible Flowers - Cultivation & Uses, Thursday, Sept 7 at 6 PM. Farmer & chef, Austin Kane from Huss Project/CINO will be here every other Thursday through October 26th to present on nature, gardening and cooking. 

What Kind of Tree is That? Basic Tree, Vine & Shrub Identification in MI Thursday, Sept 14 at 4 PM. Abby David from Huss Project/CINO will bring unique nature and gardening activities for students in 5-8 grades every other Thursday through November 2nd. Snacks will be provided! 

Home Arts Club First Friday Bake Off, September 1 from 5-7 PM. This year’s bake-off features the best cookies in town! To enter, bring a minimum of 60 small cookies to the library with a list of ingredients by 2 PM on September 1st. To sample & judge, join us between 5-7 PM during First Friday at the library to purchase tasting tickets & cast your vote!

Tech Time @ the Library, September 2nd, 9th, and 16th from 10 AM to 1 PM.  Are you struggling with your phone? Do you have trouble navigating the internet?  Do you need help with mel.org, the Libby App or the Marcellus Library Catalog?  Drop in the library to ask Justin your I.T. related questions and learn to navigate your device or our computers!

This week we will be highlighting two new nonfiction books.  

Woke, Inc.:  Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam by Vivek Ramaswamy.  Vivek Ramaswamy grew up as a child of immigrants in a small Ohio town.  Later, he founded multibillion-dollar enterprises, led a biotech company as CEO, became a hedge fund partner in his 20s, and trained as a scientist at Harvard and a lawyer at Yale.  He is now a GOP presidential candidate for 2024. In this book, he takes us behind the scenes into corporate boardrooms and five-star conferences, and into Ivy League classrooms and secretive nonprofits to reveal what he calls the defining scam of our century. “Stakeholder capitalism” makes wonderful promises of a better, more diverse, environmentally friendly world.  However, in reality, Ramaswamy purports that this ideology, championed by America’s business and political leaders, divides us as a people.  It has mixed morality with consumerism, and allows America’s elites to prey on our innermost insecurities about who we really are. The author argues that this mentality sells us cheap social causes and skin-deep identities to satisfy our hunger for a cause and our search for meaning at a time when Americans often lack both. The book rips open the curtain on the new corporatist agenda; but, it also offers a better way forward. Woke, Inc. begins as a critique of stakeholder capitalism and ends with an exploration of what it means to be an American in 2021 - a journey that begins with cynicism and ends with hope.

The In-Between by Hadley Vlahos.  Vlahos is an RN who has focused her practice on palliative care and hospice work, and for her, it has become a calling.  In this book, she recounts the most impactful experiences she’s had with the people she’s worked with. She describes a young woman who laments that she spent too much of her short life worrying about what others thought of her and an older man who sees visions of his late daughter. Talking about death and dying is often considered taboo in polite company. Vlahos set out to show the reader that end-of-life care can teach us just as much about how to live as it does about how we die.

Upcoming events:

Biggest Book Sale of the Year, runs through August 26th! Name your price - you choose how much to donate to the library during our biggest book sale of the year! 

Support Group for Parents of Challenging Kids.  Wednesdays at 9:00 AM. If you are feeling overwhelmed, join others to gain valuable support, coping strategies, and information about community resources.

August Crafternoons, Wednesdays, drop in from 12 NOON-2 PM to make crafty creations! All ages are encouraged to attend. A different project will be featured each Wednesday.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM starting September 13th! Stories, music & movement for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Nutrition and Medical Classes by Dr. Larry Jackson, MD, and Debbie Jackson, MS, RD. Third Wednesday of the Month at 6 PM. Next class will be on September 20th at 6 PM:  How to Lower Cholesterol Through Diet. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, September 7, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others

Growing Edible Flowers & Herbs, Thursday, Sept 14 at 6 PM. Farmer & chef, Austin Kane from Huss Project/CINO will be here every other Thursday through October 26th to present on nature, gardening and cooking. 

Nature and Gardening Series for Middle School! Thursday, Sept 21 at 4 PM. Abby David from Huss Project/CINO will bring unique nature and gardening activities for students in 5-8 grades every other Thursday through November 2nd. Snacks will be provided! 

Home Arts Club First Friday Bake Off, September 1 from 5-7 PM. This year’s bake-off features the best cookies in town! To enter, bring a minimum of 60 small cookies to the library with a list of ingredients by 2 PM on September 1st. To sample & judge, join us between 5-7 PM during First Friday at the library to purchase tasting tickets & cast your vote!

Blinkist.com defines nonfiction as “anything that has a basis in fact.  That means reports, textbooks, manuals, self-help, memoirs, history, guidebooks, and so on, all come under the umbrella of this almost-too-broad term.  Its very breadth, however, lends it a richness that has allowed it to dominate a large part of the global book market.  In recent years, sales of nonfiction have been outpacing fiction year-to-year.  Where fiction can help people understand the feeling of the moment, nonfiction helps people understand the hard facts of it. And in a world that finds its news sources increasingly unreliable, a widespread hunger for truth is reflected in rising sales of nonfiction books.”  Fortunately, the Marcellus Township Wood Memorial Library has a diverse collection of nonfiction books.  This week, we're highlighting two such books currently available in the library.

Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health by Anupam B. Jena, MD., Ph D. & Christopher Worsham, MD.  Anupam Jena is a University of Chicago-trained economist, a Harvard medical school professor, and physician.  Christopher Worsham is a critical care doctor at Massachusetts General and a health care policy researcher.  In this groundbreaking book, these authors reveal the hidden side of medicine and how unexpected but predictable events can profoundly affect our health.  They delve into questions such as whether timing, circumstance or luck impacts our health care, if there is a good time to have a heart attack, why kids born in the summer get diagnosed more often with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and if marathons are harmful to our health even when we're not running.  In their singular work of science and medicine, Jena and Worsham show us in an animated and enlightening way how medicine really works and its effect on all of us.  They rely on ingeniously devised natural experiments--random events that unknowingly turn us into experimental subjects and help us see the way our health is shaped by forces invisible to the untrained eye.  Should you choose the veteran doctor or the newbie?  Do you really need the surgery that your doctor has recommended?  These are significant questions and their answers can be life changing.  By reading this book, you'll be empowered to see past the white coat and find out what really makes medicine work-and how it could work better.

The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America by Monica Potts. Fast friends and gifted, Monica and Darci grew up working-class poor in the town of Clinton, Arkansas. The girls bonded over their shared love of reading and learning, even as they navigated the challenges of their declining town and dysfunctional family lives--broken marriages, alcohol abuse, and shuttered stores and factories. They pored over a giant map in their middle school classroom, tracing their fingers over the world that awaited them, vowing to escape. Monica did leave Clinton for college and fulfilled her dreams, but Darci, as well as many of their friends, did not. Years later, when Monica was working as a journalist covering poverty, her research confirmed what she already knew about the women of Arkansas: their life expectancy had steeply declined the sharpest fall in a century.  Monica returned to Clinton to report the story, trying to comprehend the societal factors driving the disturbing trends in the rural south.  When she reconnects with Darci, Monica finds that once talented and ambitious Darci is now a statistic: a single mother of two, addicted to methamphetamine and prescription drugs, jobless and nearly homeless. Painfully aware that Darci's fate could have been hers. Monica retraces the moments of decision and chance in each of their lives that led similar women toward two very different destinies.

Upcoming events:

Biggest Book Sale of the Year, runs through August 26th! Name your price - you choose how much to donate to the library during our biggest book sale of the year! 

Support Group for Parents of Challenging Kids.  Wednesdays at 9:00 AM. If you are feeling overwhelmed, join others to gain valuable support, coping strategies, and information about community resources.

August Crafternoons, Wednesdays, drop in from 12 NOON-2 PM to make crafty creations! All ages are encouraged to attend. A different project will be featured each Wednesday.

Preschool Story Hour, Wednesdays 10:15 AM starting September 13th! Stories, music & movement for ages 0-5 and their parents/caregivers. 

Nutrition and Medical Classes by Dr. Larry Jackson, MD, and Debbie Jackson, MS, RD. Third Wednesday of the Month at 6 PM. Next class will be on September 20th at 6 PM:  How to Lower Cholesterol Through Diet. 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, September 7, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others

Growing Edible Flowers & Herbs, Thursday, Sept 14 at 6 PM. Farmer & chef, Austin Kane from Huss Project/CINO will be here every other Thursday through October 26th to present on nature, gardening and cooking. 

Nature and Gardening Series for Middle School! Thursday, Sept 21 at 4 PM. Abby David from Huss Project/CINO will bring unique nature and gardening activities for students in 5-8 grades every other Thursday through November 2nd. Snacks will be provided! 

Home Arts Club First Friday Bake Off, September 1 from 5-7 PM. This year’s bake-off features the best cookies in town! To enter, bring a minimum of 60 small cookies to the library with a list of ingredients by 2 PM on September 1st. To sample & judge, join us between 5-7 PM during First Friday at the library to purchase tasting tickets & cast your vote!

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids play outside as much as possible because outdoor play carries a number of benefits for them. Playing outside generally relates to more physical activity and that's great for children's overall health.  Outdoor activity can even help combat childhood obesity and cardiovascular disease.  Interestingly, research indicates that when children are free to choose their own outdoor fun, that's when the most physical activity is likely to happen. Outdoor play also benefits a child's cognitive development and learning. After recess, for example, kids are more focused and less fidgety, and contact with the natural elements can foster learning about science and nature. Playing outside and organizing their own games helps children develop socially and emotionally because they learn cooperation and perspective-taking by settling disagreements. Friendships they develop through outdoor play contribute to long-term happiness and overall well-being. With this in mind, this week, we’re focusing on two library books about children and playing. 

Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children by Angela J. Hanscom. The author, a pediatric occupational therapist, writes that today's children typically have sedentary lifestyles filled with television, video games, and computer screens, but she points out that many studies now show that children need rough and tumble' outdoor play in order to develop their sensory, motor, and executive functions. She contends that a lack of movement has been shown to lead to a number of health and cognitive issues such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), difficulties with emotion regulation and sensory processing, and aggressiveness during school recess breaks. Hanscom believes that nature is the ultimate sensory experience and that children's psychological and physical health improves for them when they spend time outside on a regular basis. Accordingly, in her book, she offers strategies to help kids thrive even if they live in an urban environment. Parents will discover little things that they can do anytime, anywhere to help their kids achieve the movement they need to be happy and healthy in mind, body, and spirit and grow into balanced and resilient adults.

Why Can't We Just Play?: What I Did When I Realized My Kids Were Way too Busy by Pam Lobley. With two boys ages ten and seven, the author describes facing an upcoming summer by sifting through sign-ups for swim team, rec camp, night camp, scout camp, and enrichment classes. Finding so many options overwhelming, she asked her boys what they wanted to do during their summer break, and they asked her why can't we just play? Tempted by a summer with no scheduled activities, she didn't know if this would be possible. It would be like going back to the 1950s!  Determined, she sets out to give her boys an old-fashioned summer.  She studies up on the myths and realities of the 1950s and with wit and candor reveals what we can learn from families living during that decade, why raising kids has changed so drastically since then, and how parents can stop time once in a while and just play.

Upcoming events:

Support Group for Parents of Challenging Kids.  Wednesdays at 9:00 AM. If you are feeling overwhelmed, join others to gain valuable support, coping strategies, and information about community resources.

August Crafternoons, Wednesdays, drop in from 12 NOON-2 PM to make crafty creations! All ages are encouraged to attend. A different project will be featured each Wednesday.

Nutrition and Medical Classes by Dr. Larry Jackson, MD, and Debbie Jackson, MS, RD. Third Wednesday of the Month at 6 PM. Next class will be on August 16th at 6 PM:  How to Unclog the Plumbing (Good Cholesterol vs Bad Cholesterol). 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, August 3. 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others

Biggest Book Sale of the Year, starts August 4th during First Friday! Name your price - you choose how much to donate to the library during our biggest book sale of the year! We are also happy to accept donations of clean, good quality books - no textbooks or vintage items, please! 

Tech Time @ the Library,  August 5, 12, and 19 from 10 AM to 1 PM.  Are you struggling with your phone? Do you have trouble navigating the internet?  Do you need help with mel.org, the Libby App or the Marcellus Library Catalog?  Drop in the library to ask Justin your I.T. related questions and learn to navigate your device or our computers!

Home Arts Club First Friday Bake Off, September 1 from 5-7 PM. This year’s bake-off features the best cookies in town! To enter, bring a minimum of 60 small cookies to the library with a list of ingredients by 2 PM on September 1st. To sample & judge, join us between 5-7 PM during First Friday at the library to purchase tasting tickets & cast your votes!

This week, two books which feature bookstores are going to be highlighted. Lewis Buzbee, an author, once commented:  “We are much more likely to be drawn to a messy bookstore than a neat one because the mess signifies vitality. We are not drawn to a bookstore because of tasteful, Finnish shelves in gunmetal gray mesh, each one displaying three carefully chosen, color-coordinated colors. Clutter, orderly clutter, if possible--is what we expect. Like a city. It's not quite a city unless there's more than enough." Imagine a cozy bookstore that you would most enjoy with its smell of musty older books, a chair in an alcove for perusing a find, the odor of coffee brewing, and the sound of soft music in the background. Now settle down with a great book about a bookstore!

The Little Village of Book Lovers: A Novel by Nina George. In a little town in the south of France in the 1960s, a dazzling encounter with Love itself changes the life of little Marie-Jeanne forever. As a girl, Marie-Jeanne realizes she can see the marks Love has left on the people around her— little glowing lights on the faces and hands that shimmer more brightly when the one meant for them is near. Before long, she is playing matchmaker, bringing true loves together in her little town. As she grows up, Marie-Jeanne helps her father begin a mobile book repository that travels all throughout the many small mountain towns in the region, and she finds herself bringing soul mates together every place they go. In fact, the only person that she can't seem to find a soul mate for is herself. She has no glow of her own although she waits and waits for it to appear. Everyone must have a soul mate, surely but will Marie-Jeanne be able to recognize hers when Love finally comes to her?

The Mayfair Bookshop: A Novel of Nancy Mitford and the Pursuit of Happiness by Eliza Knight. In 1938, Nance Mitford was one of six sparkling Mitford sisters, known for her stinging quips, stylish dress, and bright green eyes. But her sparking life is one of turmoil. She has a perpetually unfaithful and broke husband and two Nazi sympathizer sisters. Her hopes of motherhood are dashed forever. With war imminent, Nancy finds respite by taking a job at the Heywood Hill Bookshop in Mayfair, hoping to make ends meet, and discovers a new life.

Upcoming events:

Biggest Book Sale of the Year, runs through August 26th! Name your price - you choose how much to donate to the library during our biggest book sale of the year! We are also happy to accept donations of clean, good quality books - no textbooks or vinage items, please! 

Support Group for Parents of Challenging Kids.  Wednesdays at 9:00 AM. If you are feeling overwhelmed, join others to gain valuable support, coping strategies, and tinformation about community resources.

August Crafternoons, Wednesdays, drop in from 12 NOON-2 PM to make crafty creations! All ages are encouraged to attend. A different project will be featured each Wednesday.

Nutrition and Medical Classes by Dr. Larry Jackson, MD, and Debbie Jackson, MS, RD. Third Wednesday of the Month at 6 PM. Next class will be on August 16th at 6 PM:  How to Unclog the Plumbing (Good Cholesterol vs Bad Cholesterol). 

Game Night AND Movies & Popcorn, the last Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.  We'll have fresh popcorn and a movie during game night! All ages are welcome!

First Thursday Book Club 2023, September 7, 2023, 12 NOON-1 PM.  Join others to chat about what you have been reading or to get suggestions from others

Home Arts Club First Friday Bake Off, September 1 from 5-7 PM. This year’s bake-off features the best cookies in town! To enter, bring a minimum of 60 small cookies to the library with a list of ingredients by 2 PM on September 1st. To sample & judge, join us between 5-7 PM during First Friday at the library to purchase tasting tickets & cast your votes!

Tech Time @ the Library, August 12, and 19 from 10 AM to 1 PM.  Are you struggling with your phone? Do you have trouble navigating the internet?  Do you need help with mel.org, the Libby App or the Marcellus Library Catalog?  Drop in the library to ask Justin your I.T. related questions and learn to navigate your device or our computers!

Reading a variety of books is enjoyable and keeps the mind healthy and active.  Reading broadens our understanding of the world and exposes us to new ideas, cultures, and people. According to best selling Japanese author Haruki Murakami, “If you only read books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." Jeanette Winterson, a British author, wrote that "books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world." Variety makes life and reading interesting, and the books below are sure to appeal to many.

Accidental Kindness: A Doctor's Notes on Empathy by Michael Stein, MD. Stein, a primary care physician and behavioral scientist, examines the often conflicting goals of patients and their doctors and explores whether the patient's expectation of kindness within this relationship is realistic.

The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves by Alexandra Horowitz. The author explores what it is like to be a puppy by spending a year examining her own puppy's daily activities and researching the science of early dog development. She focuses on the puppy's point of view and notes similarities between her dog's first year and that of the growing child. New puppy owners will find this book essential to successfully navigating the exciting and challenging first year of their puppy's life.

My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy by Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin Hill. While preparing to sell his home, Clint Hill, a retired Secret Service agent now in his nineties, discovered a trunk filled with memorabilia and photos from his worldwide travels with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. He takes the reader on an incredible journey as he recounts the adventures he shared with one of the world's most beautiful and iconic women.

The Name She Gave Me by Betty Culley.  This young adult fiction book is a deeply emotional story about an adopted teenager exploring the meaning of family, friendship, and love in all of its many forms as she attempts to reconnect with her biological family.

As cold weather is upon us, you might be interested to check out these new fiction books that
focus on winter and Christmas. We find that a good book is the best antidote for cold, winter
weather!

One Last Gift by Emily Stone: When a young woman finds herself lost and at a crossroads, one last gift from her brother just might give her another chance at life and at love in this epic
holiday romance.

Winter Stroll by Elin Hilderbrand: The 2nd installment of the Winter Series finds Winter Street Inn owner Kelley Quinn reflecting on the past year as he writes a holiday letter to friends and family. With jealousy, passion, and eggnog consumption at an all-time high, it's going to take a whole lot more than a Christmas miracle to get the Quinns--and the inn--through the holidays intact.

All Is Bright by RaeAnne Thayne: The 8th book in the Hope’s Crossing Series is steeped in
holiday romance and overflows with family and wintry small-town appeal. (If you enjoy the
Hallmark channel this time of year, this book is for you.)

The Christmas Spirit by Debbie Macomber: Two lifelong friends, a bartender and a pastor,
decide to trade places the week before Christmas and end up finding love along the way in this delightful novel from the queen of holiday stories.

Hidden in Snow by Viveca Sten: For a much different approach to winter-themed reading, the splendor of the Swedish mountains becomes the backdrop for a bone-chilling crime. In this devious novel by the bestselling author of the Sandhamn Murders Series, discover what it will take to solve a case when the truth can be so easily hidden in the coming storm.