News, events, and opinions from the staff of the Dover Public Library in New Hampshire.
There is still time to read another book or two on the 2009-10 Great Stone Face Book Award Nominees list before voting for your favorite.
Our beautiful Star Magnolias are blooming again on the Library lawn. Make sure to take a walk by the trees before the blooms fall. The delicate fragrance will lift your spirits.
Join us this Saturday, April 10th @ 2:00pm for a FREE screening of Planet 51--rated PG. When Chuck the astronaut lands on a distant planet filled with little green people, he is surprised to discover that we are not alone in the galaxy. But he gets the shock of his life when the residents of Planet 51 mistakenly believe that his presence is the start of an alien invasion of the human kind! Luckily, an alien teenager named Lem quickly realized that Chuck is friendly and the two blast off on an adventure to try and return Chuck safely to his space ship! 
I can't wait to see what will arrive next.
Today the Library is offering free tattoos of your library card barcode. No more fumbling for your card, just show us your tattoo! We recommend placing the tattoo on your arm, neck, or forehead. No tramp stamps please.
Remember, this special service will be offered today, APRIL 1ST, only.
Its time to start thinking about participating in the 2nd annual Peeps Show contest which starts April 5th at the Library. What you do is build a diorama using peeps of any color in a standard size shoe box. The theme is up to you; you can recreate a favorite scene from a movie or book, use your peeps for social commentary, or re-enact a current or historic event. On the back of your shoe box, please include your name, address, phone, age, and title of your Peeps Show. There are four divisions of competition this year. The winner of each division will be awarded a $25.00 Target gift card.
Kids Division 4 - 7
Youth Division 8 - 12
Teens Division 13 - 18
Adult Division 19 and up
The Peeps displays can be dropped off at the Dover Public Library beginning Monday, April 5th, through Saturday, April 10th during operating hours. Peeps will be displayed during National Library Week, April 12th through April 17th. Peeps should be picked up Tuesday, April 20th. All Peeps not picked up by the deadline will be discarded or eaten.
Prizes will be awarded Friday, April 16.
Flower & Garden shows, plants sales, seed catalogs, snowdrops in the front yard, tis the season. The beautiful weather we have had recently has me dreaming of my garden. I have already planted my peas--too early you say--pishaw! Anyhow, we have some lovely new gardening books here at the library, and here is a sampling of a few:
I just finished Dark Mirror: A Brock and Kolla Mystery by Barry Maitland. I haven't read any other books in the series, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It takes place in modern times, but has an old-fashioned feel to it, complete with arsenic laced lunches. The main characters are students and Professors, and so much of the action takes place in reading rooms of the major London libraries (yes, action at the library). So far so good, but my one major complaint is that the librarians in this book are always bending over backwards to give out information about borrower records--what books they checked out or looked at, and for how long. Around these parts that is CONFIDENTIAL information! We would never dream of telling someone who checked a book out before them, or what books your neighbor has out, etc. I mean think about it, do you really want anyone knowing that you checked out a book about foot fungus or about how to fix your crumbling marriage? I think not. I tried to ignore these parts, and just enjoy a good mystery.
The Peeps are beginning to show up in local stores so now is the time to go out and capture some so you can enter our Peeps Show Contest. What you do is build a diorama using peeps of any color in a standard size shoe box. The theme is up to you; recreate a favorite scene from a movie or book, use your peeps as social commentary, or re-enact a current or historic event. 
Thanks to the generosity of Jason and Kerry Wood, owners of Noggin Factory at 330 Central Avenue in Dover, NH, the Children's Room has a new train set--table and all!
The Iditarod Trail Invitational just wrapped up--this is the bike and run version of the famous sled dog race. The race is billed as "The World's Longest Winter Ultra Race Across Frozen Alaska." Racers can choose the measley 350 mile version or the insane 1100 mile version. Here is the link in case anyone wants to sign up for next year! Above you will find a photo of the Takotna Library in Takotna, Alaska being utilized by the racers. This photo kind of warms my heart.:)
The Ladybug Picture Book Award, a project of the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library, is designed to promote early literacy and honor the best in recent children's picture books. This year's committee (children's librarians from around New Hampshire) has selected the 10 nominees for 2010. During Children's Book Week in November, New Hampshire children from preschoolers to those in third grade will vote to select the award winner.
We are pleased to announced the commencement of the Dover Public Library's 8th Annual Poetry Contest. Eight years--I can't believe it! The contest is for kids in grades k-12 that either have a Dover Public Library card or go to a Dover school (this includes private schools). Prizes will be awarded in 6 different grade categories. Pick up a contest rules sheet at the Dover Public Library, at your Dover School Library, or on our website. Deadline for submission is April 12.
It all started with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Graham-Smith. It seemed like a clever idea at the time, why not mix up classic literary novels with monsters. It was quickly followed by Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben Winters and spawned a whole new genre known as literary mashups. Now Mansfield Parks is mixed up with mummies, Anna Karenina has an android, and Mr. Darcy is a vampire. Enough already. I say to these authors create your own characters and settings; leave the classics alone.
The Children's Room hopes to re-open on Saturday for browsing. You will need to check out any materials upstairs. Currently we have book carts of children's books and DVDs across from the Circulation Desk so even though the Children's Room is closed kids can still find something to read. We also have reserved items from the Children's Room at the Circulation Desk so if you are notified that an item has come in for you, come upstairs to pick it up. 
The Teen Corner is open for business once again! The Children's Room is still closed, but will hopefully be open by weeks end. Come in and check out the new carpeting--we think it looks pretty good.
The small town I live in is still powerless. I am lucky enough to have a small generator which allows us to keep the fridge cool, light three rooms, and run water. One of the rooms has the TV, but cable is also out. The Library's resources have allowed my family to stay entertained. We check out DVDs to play and books to read, passing the night happily. When I get to the Library I have access to the Internet again allowing me to check out PSNH's twitter feed and news update page. I have access to the local papers to see what is going on. I was even able to charge up my cell phone! The Library has made being powerless a little easier.
Please bear with us once again as our library carpeting project continues. Due to manufacturing defects, the carpeting tiles installed in the Children's Room need to be replaced. The Children's Room will be closed March 1-5 while this work is being done.
If you like historical fiction and science fiction, boy, do I have a book for you! I am reading Blackout by Connie Willis. Historians from 2060 are time traveling back to London during World War II. Some are studying how civilians coped with the constant bombing known as the Blitz. Others travel to Dunkirk to watch the heroic efforts of everyday Englishmen who took to the seas in pleasure boats and fishing craft to rescue thousands of troops. They braved mines, attacks from submarines and airplanes. I am not a huge fan of WWII historical fiction and yet I could not keep my nose out of this book. The characters are so engaging you feel like you know them; the mischievous London evacuee children, the brave shop girls, and the Londoners who form impromptu families while they shelter underground from the bombs that dropped every night. It is slow and a little confusing at the beginning, but keep with it, once the historians reach England it becomes simply riveting.
Yesterday I was having a conversation with a woman when it came up that I worked at a library. She seemed surprised and asked "Is it busy? Do people still go to libraries?". I emphatically answered that yes, we were busy. As I look around me now--all of our Internet accessible computers are busy, there are several people using our WiFI, several people reading newspapers, and many general browsers in our book, DVD, and CD stacks, and this is all on a snowy Tuesday morning (not one of our busier times). The woman added "but the library in my town stinks!" (She meant that it had an odor, not that it was a poor quality library.) Another woman standing nearby said that she recently decided that it was ridiculous for her to be buying all of her own books and started using the library. She said she loved the smell of the library because it smelled of old books--a smell she could appreciate. She added that she could never use a hand held device, such as a Kindle, because she would miss that smell. What do you think--pleasantly fragrant or smelly?
The Mango language learning system uses audio, video, and interactive content to make learning a new language easy and fun. Mango uses real-life situations and actual conversations to more effectively teach a new language. By listening to, and repeating after, native speakers’ conversations, you'll not only learn the individual words and phrases, but also know how they're used in practical situations and conversations. A Virtual Tutor guides you through each lesson, so you know what to do each step of the way. You can hover your mouse over a foreign word to see a convenient phonetic spelling or learn how to pronounce words in your chosen language with recording of native speakers. Quizzes are strategically placed throughout the lesson to ensure maximum retention and recall of the material.
Next week is school vacation week in Dover--yahoo! Now what do you do to entertain the kids while not spending a fortune? Hmmm...well you could attend the free happenings at the Dover Public Library. Here is a line up of what we have to offer:All of our events are free and open to the public, and so we hope to see you there.
Poster created by the Skokie Public Library.
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