“A library is a place vibrating with ideas.”

Nancy Kunhardt Lodge

We are planning our upcoming summer reading program.  The theme this year is:  “On Your Mark, Get Set, READ!”  It is designed to support and promote the passion for play – and reading is always an important part of imaginative play.  We’re thinking:  dance or yoga and games, hula hoops, movement of all kinds.  Maybe some music, gardening.  And of course – plenty of stories and books!

It looks like the annual Bird Walk will be back on the docket.  We are talking with our two lead birders, and once we come up with a definite date, we’ll let you know more.

Thank you to our wonderful tax gurus for once again helping so many of us in the surrounding community with our income tax paperwork!  Yet again we had quite a waiting list, and David found a way to fit in a few extra people here and there.  This is such a wonderful service offered to our citizens.

We (and by “we”, I mean mostly Alice and Marianne Archard and Jim Anderberg) are constructing a website for the library!  Lots of editing happening at this point, and there are always a few more things to add, but we are ready for you to take a look!   You can visit our site at drshawlibrary.org.  It is yet another way for you to connect with us.

With all of the emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) learning for young people, we have been looking at our collection lately, taking stock of our science-related resources for all ages.  What we look for in literature having to do with science for our youngest readers are topical books that also tell a good, engaging story through narrative, cool information, and – always – remarkable artwork.  Our picture book collection includes books that introduce physics (Darlene Stille’s Air Outside, Inside, and All Around; and Motion: Push and Pull, Fast and Slow); biology and nature (Stockland’s Sandy, Leaf, or Coral Reef: a Book About Animal Habitats; I Am Water, by Jean Marzolo); earth systems (Rosinsky’s Rocks: Hard, Soft, Smooth, and Rough); and applied science (The Day-Glo Brothers, by Chris Barton).  Top authors to keep in mind are Gail Gibbons, Jim Arnosky, and Joanna Cole (we have her Magic School Bus series of books, as well as videos).  There are so many more titles and authors that bear mentioning, but we’ll stop there for now.

The Juvenile 500s (science) collection covers chemistry, physics, magnetism and electricity, science experiments, water & earth, sea life, animals & insects.  Our go-to authors are Seymour Simon and Steve Jenkins – they give us great information and narrative coupled with gorgeous illustration.  The Eyewitness book series is always popular, no matter what topic.

Don’t forget to check our 500s in the adult nonfiction, too.  There’s plenty to pique your interest.  Besides a wide array of field guides, there is lots of fascinating narrative, creative writing by beloved authors like Rachel Carson, Dean Bennet (local nature writer), Diane Ackerman, and Stephen Hawking.

Meanwhile, to “depart the text”, we have a new Maine Poet Laureate, Stuart Kestenbaum.  Stuart came to do a reading at Vienna Union Hall last year, to quite an appreciative crowd.  We have three of his books in our collection.  This week, I lent out my own copy of Mary Oliver’s most recent book of poetry, Felicity, to a dear friend; and I’ve been paging through an old favorite book, Birch Stream and Other Poems by Maine poet Anna Boynton Averill.  All of it keeps me in mind of a phrase written by our young patrons who leave encouraging and thoughtful notes for us to find around the library.  They spoke, in a recent note, of living “deep, like a poet”.  This seems to be a wise and beautiful way to shape a life, don’t you think?  Something to aspire to.  What are you reading during the slow turning towards spring?