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Chilling Tales: A Halloween Story Time for Grown-Ups
@Claremont
Tuesday October 27
6:30pm - 8:00pm
@North
Wednesday October 28, 6:30pm - 8:00pm

Since nothing says Halloween like scary stories, we  bring you TWO chances to get chilled to your bones in October! Gather around our fireplace and listen to some bone-chilling tales for grown-ups! We will have an assortment of tales to chill you (and cocoa to warm you back up), read by your otherwise friendly librarians!


Papel Picado @Claremont
Friday, October 30
4:00-5:00pm
Teens Make Some Thing: Dia de los Muertos Edition--It's almost here! Let's make traditional Mexican papel picado garlands and paper flowers!

Heritage: Ohlone Indian Culture in Berkeley @West
Wednesday November 18
6:00pm-7:30pm
A talk by Heyday Books founder Malcolm Margolin and Ohlone cultural activist Vincent Medina.
Malcolm Margolin, author and publisher, will evoke vivid images of Indian life in Berkeley from the arrival of the earliest people at the end of the last Ice Age (more than 12,000 years ago) to the coming of Europeans. Vincent Median discusses the revival of Ohlone language and cultural practice, and how re-emergence of these customs and rights reshape our understanding of what it means to live in Berkeley.

Part-Time Indian Book Club @North
Wednesday, November 18
3:30pm - 4:30pm
Join us for a lively discussion of Sherman Alexie's celebrated novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian! Junior is a budding cartoonist living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. His school isn't the greatest, so when he gets the opportunity to attend an all-white school off the res -- one where the only Indian is the basketball team's mascot -- Junior leaps at the chance to get a better education.

But what will he be leaving behind? How will his choice effect his friendship with his best friend Rowdy? A hilarious provocative book about Indian culture, reservation life, and the universal struggle for identity, Part-Time Indian is an essential read. Copies will be available at the North Branch, and anyone who has read the book is welcome to come.

A handful of haunting horror reads. Find more by checking out the entire list here -- if you dare!

Anna Dressed in Blood
by Kendare Blake
Cas Lockwood is in the family business, but it's not like other families. He hunts and kills ghosts, just as his father did before being brutally murdered by one of the ghosts he hunted. Now he travels with his mother who is a witch and their cat that senses spirits as they seek out dangerous ghosts that need vanquishing. But when he finds Anna Dressed in Blood, the ghost of a young girl murdered brutally in the 50s, she is not like other kills. She is a brutal, rage-filled ghost who has killed every person to enter the Victorian home she haunts. But angry as she is, and with the curses on her, she doesn't kill Cas. This intensely creepy ghost story is followed by a sequel Girl of Nightmares.

The Diviners
by Libbay Bray
1920s New York has never been as dark as in this book. Evie O'Neill is excited to be moving to the big city if only she didn't have to live with her Uncle Will who is obsessed with the occult. But she's not worried for the reasons most kids would be, she's worried he will discover her supernatural powers. In the big city there are lots of opportunities for a girl with special gifts to be useful, such as when she joins the police in searching for a serial killer who brands his victims. This case leads to others. Soon it is clear that the city is filled with dark stories and Evie is the one who can help discover the mystical horror, ghosts and demons hiding under the surface of the glittering city. The second book, Lair of Dreams, came out earlier this year.


Nightschool
by Svetlana Chmakova
Nightschool is where vampires, werewolves and witches learn. Alex, a young witch has always been homeschooled but it looks like that is all going to change. As dark forces gather, she is drawn to the nightschool where she will learn how to cast spells and how to fight the evil forces in the world. This is the first in a series of four suspenseful English-language manga.


Locke & Key
by Joe Hill
Most horror is about a particular character - either a hero or an anti-hero working with or against the forces of evil. But in this series of 6 comics, the main character is a New England mansion called Keyhouse that changes anyone who walks through its doors. This mansion also houses a brutal, angry monster on a quest to unleash even greater horrors. Prepare for menace and suspense.


Hold Me Closer, Necromancer
by Lish McBride
Dropping out of college and working fast food is not a glamorous life, but Sam definitely prefers that to what he discovers is his real future: work raising the dead. Sam's powers are not obvious and it is only when another necromancer, Douglas, takes note of Sam and decides he wants to work together that he has to confront the world of satyrs, werewolves and other fantastic and horrifying beings that will help him figure out what he's going to do. Violent and clever, this book is followed by Necromancing the Stone.


Monstrumologist
by Rick Yancey
Some monsters have been around a while as is evident in this series set in 1888 New England. Will Henry apprentices for Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, a monster-hunter. Together they discover an Anthropophagus, an extinct monster that feeds on humans. Or is it extinct? Will and Dr. Warthrop pursue these monsters in an effort to eradicate them from the earth in what is a gory hunt. This book is filled with detail and ornate language which is a nice contrast to all the mayhem in the story. If you like this combination look for the rest of the series which continues with The Curse of the Wendigo.