“Ben wished the world was organized by the Dewey decimal system. That way you’d be able to find whatever you were looking for.” – Brian Selznick, from Wonderstruck

We are starting our annual CAN DUE program (forgiveness regarding overdues combined with canned goods collection) this month. Remember that if you bring in some items for us to donate to the Mt. Vernon Food Bank, all of your guilt about overdue library materials this past year will magically disappear. Bring us some canned or boxed goods (large cans of soup are great – winter’s coming!) or personal care items. We’ll get them to the Food Bank.

Most of our picture books about apples have been out constantly since early September. Now we are displaying some of our pumpkin, Halloween, and autumn books on the table in the children’s room. I’m sure they will prove to be as
popular as the apple books!

Also among the picture books, we have a nice collection from Raising Readers, a project of the Libra Foundation here in Maine. Each book is a collection of stories to share with your young children, from many different Maine authors (Chris Van Dusen and Robert McCloskey, for example). You might have seen some of these at your pediatrician’s office, too, since the member organizations of this project want to get these into the hands of all Maine youngsters and are distributing them far and wide. Our books are shelved together, with the spine label marked PB RAI. Keep these in mind for family reading time this winter.

Some websites we’ve been looking at lately, which you might find helpful, or just plain fun: www.familysearch.org is a site that lets you search for family & geneology information, but also lets you create your own family tree or chart, and add photos, to share with others.

http://www.mpbn.net Their education resources are varied & extensive. Along the top tab bar, hover over the “Education” tab, and then click on PBS Learning Media/STEM Resource Bank; Adults; Parents and Families; Educators: or Kids.

http://www.zooniverse.org A website of scientific discovery where the public can participate in research and information sharing in various sciences (astronomy, zoology, biology, wildlife & habitat, etc).
http://www.yummy-books.com Cara Nicoletti’s blog about making the recipes she finds in literature (from Roald Dahl to Jane Austen to Anthony Doerr). Light-hearted, with some book-talk, and great (sometimes amusing) recipes. She has a book out now, too, called Voracious.

In the past few months I’ve been enjoying a lot of fiction set in small towns. Many of our patrons have, too, and we’ve been swapping titles back and forth. We like these stories