Silver Donated to the Library

Barbara and Henry Wing were antiquing recently when they came across this old silver spoon with the Dover Public Library etched into the bowl. They kindly purchased it and donated it to the Library. None of the Librarians has heard anything about commemorative spoons being made of the Library. We are intrigued with this treasure. Does anyone else have a Library spoon?

Contest Winners Announced!

Our first Peeps Show Contest was very successful. We were pleased to receive 81 entries; many more than we dreamed of getting! We were astonished by the creativity and ability of the Peeps artists. It was extremely difficult to pick a winner for each division.

Winner of the Adult Division is Michele Albion with Peeps Fair.
Winner of the Teen Division is Jackie Mazzone with The Other Boleyn Peep.


Winner of the Kids Division is Mayson Smith with Sponge Bob's Easter Egg Hunt.

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all the artists who participated. We hope to see you again next year!

Peeps Show Contest Honorable Mentions

We had 69 entries in the Kids Division of the Peeps Show Contest.They were so impressive that just one winner was not sufficient. We felt that we needed to award Honorable Mentions to some outstanding Peeps dioramas. They are as follows:

Miracle on Ice by Garrett Swan.









Goodnight Moon by Zoe Albion.









Power to the Peeple by Mary Provencal-Fogarty.









King Arthur by Chloe Knierim.









Tennis Peeps by Noah Albion.

The President & the Queen Visiting the Library!

President Obama, the Queen, Lincoln, Uncle Sam, and other notable figures, are currently perched atop our magazine shelves in the addition of the library. This is part of the Dover High School art show currently on display at the library. The show includes drawings, paintings, sculpture, photography, jewelry and pottery. There are some amazing works to be seen, and you have until April 30th to come and take a look.

7th Annual Poetry Contest Deadline Fast Approaching

The deadline for the 7th Annual Poetry Contest is this coming Monday, April 13th--so get those poems in before it's too late! The contest is for kids in grades k-12. Visit our website at http://www.dover.lib.nh.us/ for more information. Here is last year's winner in the 3rd and 4th grade category.

Autumn Tree

A bold, beautiful eagle
finds a place to rest on a bare tree branch.
The orange evening sky surrounds her mossy trunk.
She only can dream of the warm days of summer.
No longer can she feel the sun beating down on her.
All she can feel is her branches
Swaying in the freezing wind.
Her colorful leaves are yet to be blown away.

Where Are the Teen Peeps?

We are starting to get some wonderful entries in the Adult Division of the Peeps Show contest but we are desperate for some Teen entries. So far only one Teen has an entry. I know you teens are really creative, I have seen the art display from the High School, so let's see what happens when you set your creativity loose upon the peeps! You still have two days to enter.

The Night Villa

The Night Villa by Carol Goodman
Classics professor Sophie Chase is drawn against her better judgment to the isle of Capri to participate in the excavation of the Night Villa, which was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius. She hopes to find a journal written by the young slave girl she wrote her thesis on who was embroiled in a fight for her freedom in the Roman Courts.

The sultry atmosphere of Capri was so beautiful described I felt I had escaped from New Hampshire’s harsh spring weather. I couldn’t wait to get back to the book to find out what new twist had developed amongst the devious crew of characters; the software millionaire, the brilliant, beautiful yet insecure student, the worldly professor who is Sophie’s former lover, and the ex-husband who had disappeared into the mysterious Pythagoras Cult. All this and secret pagan rites too. You will find this literary thriller difficult to put down.

We Need Some Adult Peeps!

You still have time to enter The Peeps Show Contest. The Kids division (through age 12) is getting good participation, but the Teen division (ages 13-17) and Adult division (age 18 and up) is extremely sparse. You could win a $25 gift Target card simply by creating a peeps diorama in a shoe box! How easy it that? You have through April 10th to get your entries in.

Keep on Truckin'

I just read in the New York Times that R. Crumb is coming out with a comic-strip retelling of the Book of Genesis. Whoa--this is the Keep on Truckin' guy! Should be interesting and strange. It is not coming out until October so I'm sorry to get you all excited months in advance.

"In the footsteps of the master… "
A voyage back 400 years to discover Galileo’s 1st recorded telescopic observations in 1609

A Lecture and Slide Show by
John S. Gianforte of the Blue Sky Observatory at UNH
in hononr of the International Year of Astronomy


Tuesday, April 14
7pm
Library Lecture Hall

Libraries to Start Lending Money

"In its latest bid to kick-start the nation’s ailing economy, the government has announced that public libraries will extend their current range of services to include the lending of money. From today, customers borrowing books will also be able to take out financial loans for a period of three weeks, though it may be possible to renew the terms of these agreements provided no other customer is waiting to borrow the cash."

Want to know more? Read this fantastic article by Newsbiscuit or else you may be "fixed with a chastening stare by the beady-eyed old lady on the checkout desk."

Oh, yes, happy April 1st.

Ladbybug Picture Book Award Nominees for 2009

The Ladybug Picture Book Award is designed to promote early literacy and honor the best in recent children's picture books. A committee of children's librarians from around New Hampshire selects 10 picture book titles early in the year. Then, during Children's Book Week in November, New Hampshire children from preschoolers to those in third grade vote to select the award winner. The award is a project of the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library.

Nominees for 2009 are:

A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker

Bedtime at the Swamp by Kristyn Crow (on order)

Tadpole Rex by Kurt Cyrus

Big Chickens Fly the Coop by Leslie Helakosk
Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies

Bear's Picture by Daniel Pinkwater
Those Darn Squirrels by Adam Rubin (on order)

Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle

Too Many Toys by David Shannon
Waking Beauty by Leah Wilcox (on order)

Check them out and let us know your favorite!

The Teen Corner Needs a New Name

The Teen Corner is the section of the library where we keep all the young adult materials: fiction, paperbacks, magazines, graphic novels, comic books, suggested reading bookmarks.... Recently we moved some books around to be able to give the Teen Corner more breathing room. This means that the Teen Corner is no longer a mere corner so we need your bright ideas for a new name. Please submit suggestions at the DPL by April 18th. The winning entrant will receive a $25 gift certificate to Target.

A Novel That Leaves No Regrets

Alan Brennert has returned with another superb historical novel about Hawaii, this one titled Honolulu. The novel begins in Korea where daughters are not appreciated, and are given names like Anger, Pity, Sorrow, and Regret. Regret becomes a picture bride who leaves a bleak future in Korea in the hopes of a better life in the paradise of Hawaii. She arrives in Hawaii in 1914 and is married to the man who paid for her. The struggle to build a life together on the pineapple plantation ends when he begins to beat her. Regret flees to Honolulu, changes her name to Jin, is taken in by a wise cracking prostitute, and learns how to make her way in the bustling island city. History provides an panoramic backdrop of racial intolerance, Spanish Flu, the Depression, and World War II.

I had a hard time putting this book down. The characters were all so beautifully developed that it felt like saying farewell to friends when the novel finished. Make sure to read this intriguing history of Honolulu, and the Hawaiians, Koreans, Japanese, and Americans who built it. You won't regret it.

Friends of the Library Membership Saves You $10 in Overdue Fines!

The Friends of the Dover Public Library will be recruiting new members for their organization during National Library Week, April 12-18. It’s just $10 annually to join and only $7.00 for seniors. Plus, an exciting new membership benefit has just been added. Anyone joining the Friends during the month of April 2009 will receive a Friends’ Coupon Book with ten coupons, each one good for $1.00 off your overdue library fines. So if you sometimes owe the library money, redeem these coupons (one per visit) and the cost of your Friends of the Library membership will turn out to be free!

The Friends of the Library help raise funds for library programs and equipment through their book and book-related merchandise sales and last year contributed nearly $15,000 to the library, purchasing such items as museum passes, window shades and drapes, youth contest prizes, carts and stools, computers, carpeting and lighting fixtures. The Friends also pay for all speakers’ fees for special library programs. The Dover Public Library is seeking a few dozen new Friends and, with the new coupon book, your membership could turn out to be cost-free! Please consider joining the Friends of the Library during their annual membership campaign this month. For more information please call the Dover Public Library 516-6050.

Downloadable Audio Books Become More Apple Friendly

The NH Downloadable Audiobooks Consortium has released this exciting news:

"We are happy to announce that the NH Downloadable Audiobooks Consortium is now able to purchase MP3 audiobooks! MP3 audiobooks contain no DRM (Digital Rights Management) and are compatible with any music player, including iPods and Mac computers.
Up until this point, our current collection of digital audiobooks contains approximately 2400 unique titles in WMA (Windows Media Audio) format. These titles cannot be played on iPods or Mac computers. Only soon-to-be-purchased MP3 titles will be compatible with iPods and Macs.
Mac users will need to download a Mac-compatible version of the OverDrive Media Console prior to using the service and will only be able to checkout MP3 audiobook titles.
At this point of time, not all publishers provide their content in MP3 format. The Consortium will still purchase much of its content in WMA format, but if there is a choice between the two formats for any given title, the MP3 format will be purchased."

OverDrive Media Console For Macs

View more presentations from bibliotecaria.

You can download audiobooks using your home computer and your library card. Go the Library’s homepage and click on Download Audio Books. You can also click here to see a list of compatible devices.

Listen Up!

Have you looked at the downloadable audiobooks recently? More titles were added this month.

Title	Author
A Darker Place	Higgins, Jack
A Feast for Crows	Martin, George R.R.
A Lion Called Christian	Bourke, Anthony
A Storm of Swords	Martin, George R.R.
Among the Mad	Winspear, Jacqueline
An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England	Clarke, Brock
Beyond the Gap	Turtledove, Harry
Blood and Ice	Masello, Robert
Corsair	Cussler, Clive
Dark of Night	Brockmann, Suzanne
Don't Look Twice	Gross, Andrew
Envy	Godbersen, Anna
Fault Line	Eisler, Barry
First Comes Marriage	Balogh, Mary
Happy for No Reason	Shimoff, Marci
How We Decide	Lehrer, Jonah
Jesus, Interrupted	Ehrman, Bart D.
Locked Inside	Werlin, Nancy
Mary, Mary	Patterson, James
Never Give Up	Bruschi, Tedy
Night and Day	Parker, Robert B.
Promises in Death	Robb, J.D.
Rumors	Godbersen, Anna
Safer	Doolittle, Sean
Suite Scarlett	Johnson, Maureen
Swine Not?	Buffett, Jimmy
Terminal Freeze	Child, Lincoln
The Ascent of Money	Ferguson, Niall
The Breath of God	Turtledove, Harry
The Butcher's Boy	Perry, Thomas
The Interpretation of Murder	Rubenfeld, Jed
The Last Stand of Fox Company	Drury, Bob
The Lost City of Z	Grann, David
The Luxe	Godbersen, Anna
The Sign of the Beaver	Speare, Elizabeth George
The Survivors Club	Sherwood, Ben
The Underneath	Appelt, Kathi
Wait Till Helen Comes	Hahn, Mary Downing
While My Sister Sleeps	Delinsky, Barbara
Whisper to the Blood	Stabenow, Dana

Come Read to Goldie

Dover Public Library will be offering Paws For Reading again in the Children's Room. Children ages 6 - 10 can read to Goldie, a Certified Therapy Dog, for a fifteen minute session.

Paws For Reading is designed to allow kids the chance to read to a non-judgmental listener who will accept the story exactly as they read it. This gives kids a chance to experience stress free reading. Children find themselves relaxing and having fun while reading! They come to think of themselves as good readers, which helps their self esteem and makes them eager to read. And eager readers practice their reading more often, leading to improved reading skill.

If you would like to come read to Goldie, she will be here:
Saturday, April 4 (10:30-11:30)
Tuesday, April 21 (6:30-7:30)
Saturday, May 2 (10:30-12:00)
Tuesday, May 19 (6:30-7:30)

Make sure to sign up in advance in the Children's Room. Goldie is a very popular visitor!

Crafty Toddlers

You may be stopped in your tracks by the outlines of children in the downstairs hallway. Fear not, it is not part of a CSI: Dover episode.

The artwork is part of the "Wonderful Me" storytime for toddlers which also offers songs, rhymes, and fingerplays. Both parents and kids were able to participate in this storytime craft. Parents traced the outline of their child, and the children got to decorate their portraits. Some of the life-size drawings are hanging in the hallway by the Children's Room.
Make sure to stop and admire the artwork, it will bring a smile to your face.

Paws for Reading

Paws for Reading was a smashing success with every session full. Everyone enjoyed reading Goldie a good book and Goldie loved hearing the stories. We have plans to have Goldie visit us again so watch here for news of her return.