Halloween @ Your Library

Strange things happen here on Halloween. Don’t be surprised to see Librarians transformed into ghouls or patrons turned into pumpkins. Do you dare come to the Library today? It is a haunted place….Elizabeth Anne Leach was a librarian at the Dover Public Library from 1945 to 1959. During a trustees meeting she complained of not feeling well but refused to desert her post. She lay down on the ancient leather "fainting couch" and never woke again.

There are often mysterious noises in the library, particularly at closing, when the rooms are dark and silent. Sometimes strange things happen in the night. Books are moved, papers disappear or re-appear. When we hear the unexplained noises, the sound of leather shoes on wooden floors that are now covered by carpet, or the creak of a door opening in an empty room, we wish our gentle Miss Leach a good night and leave her to her library.

Reel Reads

While searching on Amazon I came across something I had never heard of before--book trailers. Book trailers are just like movie trailers except they are depicting the plot of a book--pretty cool. These book trailers were created by students at the New York Film Academy, for 3 young adult books: "Glass" by Ellen Hopkins, "Hacking Harvard" by Robin Wasserman, and "The Inner Circle" by Kate Brian. Follow this link to watch the videos, and if the trailers tempt you into wanting to read the books, "Glass" and "The Inner Circle" are currently available at the library, and "Hacking Harvard" will be in soon.

Book Sale Begins with a Rush!

The book sale got off to a great start. At 9am sharp bibliophiles charged up the staircase to search for treasures.

One clever patron even brought a little red wagon to load his finds into. It warms this librarian's heart to see people attending a book sale like it was a Filenes Bargain Basement extravaganza.

Don’t Forget the Book Sale Starts This Weekend!

Book sale starts Saturday, October 27, at 9am for Dover Public Library cardholders only. The general public is welcome Sunday, October 28 at 1pm.

Teen Corner Packed with Dozens of New Books

We have just received a HUGE delivery of new teen books, and they are now on display in the "Teen Corner" of the library. Here are a few of the titles that you can look forward to:

"Bec" by Darren Shan, this is part of the Demonata series
(perfect for Halloween)
"Extras" by Scott Westerfeld author of "Uglies" and "Pretties"
"Glass" by Ellen Hopkins author of the popular book "Crank"
"Nightrise" by Anthony Horowitz, book 3 of the Gatekeepers series
"What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know" by Sonya Sones for those of you who like her last novel in verse "What My Mother Doesn't Know"
"Wyvernhall" by Amelia Atwater-Rhode, volume 5 in The Kiesha’ra series

Book Sale Preparations Continue

Volunteers and staff members continue to unpack and organize scads of books. The Trustees Room has been dedicated to multimedia. It is full of audio books, music CDs and tapes, DVDs and videocassettes.

A table has been set up outside the Director's office to hold all the cookbooks.

This sale is so huge we simply don't have room for more books so we ask that you wait to bring any donations in until mid November. See you Saturday!

New Service for Book Groups!

Are you in a book club or discussion group? Are your members always hunting for multiple copies of a title so you can all read the same book? Would you rather not have to resort to purchasing your copy if an ‘early bird’ has already been checked out at the library?

Well, “Reads-to-Go” has all the solutions! We are pleased to join this consortium of NH librarians who are offering book groups the chance to borrow 15 paperback copies of a single title in a convenient travel bag. Our library has purchased “The Time Traveler’s Wife” book group kit which, besides the 15 copies, includes discussion questions, an author bio, and a handy-dandy sign-out sheet to help the group leader keep track of who has which copy!

The good news is that our kit can be borrowed by your book group (or loaned to a book group in another part of the state). The better news is that our participation in “Reads-to-Go” now gives your book group access to 30 more (and growing!) kits available through interlibrary loan. Each kit circulates for eight weeks before it must return to the loaning library.

Here are the kits currently available in NH to book groups: A Girl Named Zippy, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Bel Canto, Burning Marguerite, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Desert Queen, The Dogs of Babel, Ender's Game, The Ginger Tree, The Glass Castle, Kitchen Confidential, Last Days of Summer, The Lobster Chronicles, The Man Who Ate the 747, The Measure of a Man, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, The Memory of Running, My Sister's Keeper, Persepolis, The Red Tent, The Samurai's Garden, Shadow Divers, Sister of My Heart, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Under the Banner of Heaven, Water for Elephants, and Year of Wonders.

Be sure to let us know if you have additional book suggestions for “Reads-to-Go” kits and we’ll pass them along to the selection committee. Please speak to a librarian at the Adult Circulation desk if you’d like to borrow any of these 15-title kits for your own book group!

Should you care that Dumbledore is gay?

J.K. Rowling announced on Friday that Dumbledore is gay (for the very few of you that don't know who Dumbledore is, he is a character in the wildly popular Harry Potter series). My husband announced this news blip to me, and waited for my reaction--all I could think is... Dumbledore doesn't have time for um.. relations because he is too busy saving the wizarding world and fighting against the forces of evil. Harry Potter is a work of fantasy, and for me that means that I don't think of the characters as everyday people eating, sleeping, and whatever else. They have special powers--I mean how many people do you know that can save their memories in a stone pensieve--not many I would think. Many people disagree with my reaction, there has been both celebration and condemnation of the announcement, but for me Dumbledore is simply a wonderful character in a wonderful series gay or not. Agree or disagree? Let me know.

Get Ready for the Big Book Sale!

Volunteers and staff members have been hard at work all day lugging boxes of books to the Lecture Hall and organizing them. They have to finish by this Saturday when eager Library card holders will storm up the stairs to get first pick. Some of the treasures unpacked today include:
6th Target by James Patterson
Daddy's Girl by Lisa Scottoline
S is for Silence by Sue Grafton
and Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew.

A new "Resources for Adoptive Families" notebook is now available in the Children's Room thanks to the inspiration of two adoptive moms who "had the dream of seeing a wide range of adoption and fostering related materials available in our public library system". They have compiled materials and resources for getting started, for help along the way and for support after the adoption has been completed.

Included in this notebook is information on two groups, Coastal New Hampshire Adoptive Families and Adoptive Families Together, that support local adoptive families with information and monthly activities. Also included are recommended book lists, music, magazines, agencies and websites for adoptive families. (When visiting the Children's Room or our website, be sure to check out our "Good Books" lists of adoption related stories, Picture Books & A Selection of Fiction for Older Readers)

We want to thank Jody Kahn and Julie Burke for their inspiration, their hard work and for their generous donation to the Dover Public Library.

Learn about Antique Dover Sheet Music Wednesday at 7

The Friends of the Dover Public Library present Antique Dover Sheet Music this Wednesday, October 17, at 7pm in the Lecture Hall.

Culled from an enormous collection of old sheet music are the sounds of Dover. Take a look at the quality commercial artwork on the covers, the local shops that used their names to increase sales and listen to the music as performed by Meredith Linewebber. The Rochester Fair provided inspiration for many songs which are included in this interesting history of music that was stirring, romantic, had verses that rhymed and tunes that weren’t noise. Come and sing-along.

Meredith Linewebber is The Wand’ring Minstrel, an itinerant music teacher and performer. She started collecting music early in her life. The first large pile came her way from a neighbor in Swampscott, Ma where she grew up. That collection was mostly WWI and WWII sheet music. While in college, she was on her way home from a friend’s house and found a large collection of 1890’s music in a trash can. Along with serendipitous finds, people leave boxes on her deck, with or without a note. Assembling Dover sheet music from her extensive collection was a piece of cake! Meredith has donated a substantial portion of her collection to the Rochester Public Library, another famed Carnegie Library.

What Was That Title Again?

The subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list have compiled a very funny list of book titles that readers have garbled. If someone asked you for Oranges and Peaches would you know they wanted Origin of the Species? Can you guess what the patrons who asked for Fire Hydrant 415, I Left My Heart at Broken Arm, Salad at a Bad Café, and Satanic Nurses were looking for?

Surf's Up tomorrow!

Come to the Lecture Hall Saturday, October 13 at 2pm to see Surf's Up. This animated family comedy features a behind-the-scenes look at the annual Penguin World Surfing Championship, and its newest participant, up-and-comer Cody Maverick. Surf's Up is rated PG.

What Novel Are You?

Here’s a fun little quiz if you have a minute to kill, well, it really only takes a half a minute. Answer six quick questions to find your exact literary match out of 64 possible books! I was pleased to find that I am matched with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

Have You Downloaded an Audio Book Lately?

Have you looked at the downloadable audiobooks recently? New titles are constantly being added. These are some of the titles that were added in September:

Title	Author
Airborn	Oppel, Kenneth
Bridge of Sighs	Russo, Richard
The Choice	Sparks, Nicholas
The Dark Is Rising	Cooper, Susan
The Death Trust	Rollins, David
Eclipse	Meyer, Stephenie
Fire in the Blood	Nemirovsky, Irene
The House of Thunder	Koontz, Dean
Marley	Grogan, John
The Nine	Toobin, Jeffrey
Shoot Him If He Runs	Woods, Stuart
Cold Fire	Koontz, Dean
Getting Rid of Matthew	Fallon, Jane
Into the Wild	Krakauer, Jon
Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac	Zevin, Gabrielle
The 47th Samurai	Hunter, Stephen
To Tame a Highland Warrior	Moning, Karen Marie
The War	Ward, Geoffrey C.
Wheel of Darkness	Preston, Douglas
The Bad Place	Koontz, Dean
Blood Fever	Higson, Charlie
Devil May Cry	Kenyon, Sherrilyn
Dracula	Stoker, Bram
The Elves of Cintra	Brooks, Terry
"I" Is For Innocent	Grafton, Sue
The Odyssey of Homer	Rasovsky, Yuri
The Red Badge of Courage	Crane, Stephen
A Tale of Two Cities	Dickens, Charles
The Thomas Berryman Number	Patterson, James
Xenocide	Card, Orson Scott
You've Been Warned	Patterson, James
Back Spin	Coben, Harlan
Drop Shot	Coben, Harlan
Eye of the Beholder	Ellis, David
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace	Tram, Dang Thuy
Love, Stargirl	Spinelli, Jerry
Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports	Patterson, James
Power Play	Finder, Joseph
Sandworms of Dune	Herbert, Brian
Songs Without Words	Packer, Ann
The View From Mount Joy	Landvik, Lorna

The Library will be closed October 8th

The Library will be closed Monday, October 8 for the Columbus Day holiday.

I Read Banned Books

The Dead Zone by Stephen King was challenged, removed, and banned because of "filthy language".

I Read Banned Books

Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman has been banned for “inherent racism.” You can read the full text of the story online at http://www.aquinohotline.com/sambo.html

I Read Banned Books

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle has been challenged for offensive language, undermining religious beliefs, promoting witchcraft, crystal balls, and demons. It was challenged in the Anniston, Alabama schools in1990 due to the book's listing the name of Jesus Christ together with the names of great artists, philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders when referring to those who defend earth against evil.

I Read Banned Books

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut was challenged in many communities, and burned in Drake, North Dakota in 1973. Most complaints are for obscene language, sexual themes, and violence.

I Read Banned Books

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson

The most challenged book in 2006, is the true story of Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins at New York’s Central Park who raised an egg from a mixed-sex penguin couple. Protesters felt it promoted homosexuality, was anti-family, and unsuited to the age group.

I read Banned Books

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee consistently ranks near the top of the American Library Association's list of 100 most frequently banned books. Most complaints mention profanity and racial slurs, including the "N-word".