We will be playing "Nature Bingo" -- who will be the first to win? Fun Earth-themed prizes will be given to all participants (with extra special ones for the winners!) All ages are welcome to join us.

Tuesday, April 22nd, 4:30 pm

HAPPY EARTH DAY! We will be constructing fish kites out of tissue paper. Weather permitting, we'll take them outdoors for a run! Elementary (with a parent) and middle school-aged kids are welcome to join us.

Wednesday, April 23rd, 4:30 pm

Our 4:30 Club participants (grades 1-5) will create a "Grassy Head"! They'll also try their luck at weaving a comic page basket to take home.

Thursday, April 24th, 4:30 pm

Our weekly, all-ages STEM activity will test your child's knowledge at sorting materials that they might otherwise throw away. Where do you put a coat hanger - in the trash, the recycle bin, the scrap metal pile, or in the car to take to the dry cleaner's shop? Come test yourself while learning more about resource conservation!

Submitted by Karin Tome

Thirty-three Frederick County students battled to be the top speller March 15 at the 2014 Frederick County Spelling Bee. When the Bee finally ended in the 26th round, Stephen Hochschild walked away the winner of the county's seventh annual bee. Hochschild is an eighth grader at Mother Seton School and was also the winner of the 2012 Frederick County Spelling Bee. Pratulya Santharam, an eighth grader at Urbana Middle School, took second place in the event.

Only Santharam and Hochschild remained in the last twelve rounds of the competition. Santharam exited the Bee with the word 'acerbic'. Hochschild's winning word was 'incongruity'. Hochschild will now move on to represent Frederick County at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. May 25-31. Hochschild will join other students across the United States in competing in this prestigious national event. The event is not all work; area tours are available and participants are treated to a Memorial Day Barbecue, an awards banquet and a farewell party--all within the comfort of the Gaylord National Hotel and Resort Center, National Harbor, MD.

Hoshschild's Spelling Bee prize includes hotel accommodations and $1,000 to cover transportation and other expenses. Santharam won a $750 cash prize for his second place win. Also included in the event prizes is a Webster's Third New International Dictionary awarded to Hochschild and a Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition for the runner-up, Santharam. Both of these prizes were awarded by Merriam-Webster. Vineet Ravichandran, a 5th grader at Walkersville Elementary, won a $100 gift card for finishing third. Door prize drawings were held for spellers and the schools' alternates. Door prizes included two Google Nexus 7" tablets and gift cards to Dancing Bear Toys & Gifts, iTunes, and Target.

The Frederick County Spelling Bee is sponsored by The Frederick News-Post, Frederick County Bank, and Frederick County Public Libraries.

Congratulations to all of our spellers and especially to Stephen. We are excited to have you represent Frederick County at the Scripps National Spelling Bee and wish you the best of luck and hope that you have an exciting time at the event!

Submitted by Caroline O'Connell

Are you a Harry Potter fan? Are you looking for something challenging to do during Spring Break? Gather your team and try your hand at Quidditch! Each team will need a Keeper, Chaser, Beater and Seeker (Quaffle, Bludger and Snitches will be provided). All players will have a brief orientation and then teams will compete, round-robin style, until the World Cup champions are crowned! Register your team of four (4) before all the spots are gone! To register, click on the date below or visit the Thurmont Regional Library.

Thursday, April 17, 1 pm 

The Quidditch Word-Cup Tournament will be hosted by Professor B. McBeegall at the Hogwart's Northern Commuter Campus located within the Thurmont Library. The playing field will be held in the Community Room. Sadly, there will be no broomsticks flying but fun and sportsmanship will abound! Our version of Quidditch involves skills from several sports including soccer and basketball plus a healthy dose of imagination, teamwork and scavenger hunt skills!

Interested? Send any questions, comments or inquiries, via owl or the internet, to Professor B McBeegall at mbordner@frederickcountymd.gov.

Submitted by Marlene Bordner

Frederick County Public Libraries is excited to announce three new storytimes for preschoolers! Our librarians met with early childhood specialists at Frederick County Public Schools to discuss art experiences children should have before starting kindergarten and decided on themes of dance, visual arts, and music.

Librarians will incorporate age-appropriate books, finger plays, rhymes, felt boards, scarves, instruments, and art samples to engage and entertain preschoolers. See storytimes schedule or visit fcpl.org/programs/storytimes.

These new arts storytimes are made possible by a grant from the Frederick Arts Council.

Submitted by Marie Slaby

Are you searching for literature which affirms the highest values of the human spirit? Visit any of our library branches for a full booklist of "wholesome" literature that encourages strong character, sound morals and the love of reading. Here are a just a few books you will find at your library.

Easy Preschool Books - Grade 3

Oliver's Must- Do List by Susan Taylor Brown

The Song of Francis by Tomie De Paola

I Love You: a rebus poem by Jean Marzollo

Papa's Pastries by Charles Toscano

Juvenile Books for Grades 4 - 7

What is your favorite word? Ojibwe...I love to hear other people say it. Phonetically, it is so exciting!

What is your least favorite word? Appalachian...but, not because I'm a self-hater or anything (I'm a born and bred West Virginian). I think it's a great word, but it's so often mispronounced that it makes me cringe. If you're really from Appalachia, you make the third 'a' short and NOT long. It isn't Appalaychian.

What sound do you love? Giggles. Adult and children giggle in the same way and I love that. It always makes me happy to hear people giggling. How could it not?

What sound do you hate? The jaw harp (sometimes called a 'trump'). The twang/vibrate-y sound it makes just causes my skin to crawl. I'm pretty sure I heard it for the first time watching an old episode of The Dukes of Hazzard and I've never quite been able to stand it since.

What profession other than yours would you like to attempt? I think I probably should have gone to school for, like, marketing. I really love thinking about ways to market the library and, when I was searching for a job, ways to market myself. It's a really fascinating field because it's this strange combination of psychology and art and statistics.

What profession would you not like to do? For many summers, I answered phones at a car dealership and I would never want to do that again. People who call a car dealership are often angry because something is wrong with their car (or their car deal) and they are never, ever happy when that is going on!

What is your favorite book or who is your favorite author? It's always so hard to choose one favorite book! I was an English teacher for years and my students would always ask me this and I used to always tell them The Catcher in the Rye because, when I was their age, that was my favorite book. Now, though, I think it's more like The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. It's such an artwork and not like anything else. I read it for the first time when I was 16 and I have never forgotten how exciting it was to read something in English that was so different from everything else I'd ever read. As I've gotten older, I have continued to love it and each time I read it, I find something new to admire or some new detail that I'd never seen before.

What did you do before you became a librarian? Before I was a librarian, I was a high school English teacher. It wasn't an easy job and I sometimes felt very, very unhappy because kids would be ungrateful or unkind or just totally apathetic. Then, though, I'd have a day where everyone got excited about something or someone had a breakthrough about their writing or some student would stop by my office and say 'thank you' for something and it would be wonderful! I could ride the high of a single great introductory paragraph from a struggling writer for months!

Where would you love to visit? I have always wanted to see India. It's my dream to do one of those long, touring train rides through the country. Just to see the Taj Mahal would be incredible.

Is there anything else you would like us to know about you? I have a complete collection of the original Nancy Drew novels. I love her and the first one I ever read was The Mystery at Lilac Inn.

Submitted by Robin Goetz