Wallkill Public Library
Coming up at the library
Thrills, chills, and pumpkin contests mark Halloween
 Those looking for inspiration for the library's Oct. 24 Pumpkin Contest would do well to visit Croton-on-Hudson's
Great Jack O' Lantern Blaze. The site features thousands of individually carved, illuminated pumpkins arranged around an historic 18th-century riverside landscape. Get your tickets soon, though - the attraction sells out fast.
The library's Pumpkin Contest will start at 5 p.m. Wednesday the 24th. Bring in your carved or painted pumpkin - real or foam - and we'll provide the battery operated flicker candles to light them up. Judging, prizes, snacks, and fun will follow!
The entrees will then be put on display to help set the mood for The Haunted Library, which starts that evening at 6:30 p.m. Ages 7 and up are invited to take a ghostly tour of our very old building to see what goes on here after dark - it promises to be a spirited event!
The next day all ages are welcome for a Halloween Story Hour at 4 p.m., when we'll be featuring Chris Van Allsburg's The Widow's Broom as well as other bewitching tales. Registration's required.
Coming up this week at the library:
Monday: Mini Masterpieces features the work of Wassily Kandinsky. Ages 4 and up can practice cutting with scissors and gluing.
Tuesday: Book Buddies meets at 10:30 a.m. Those who knit, sew, crochet, or quilt are welcome to join Textile Tuesday in the community room of the Town Hall. Come between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. and work on your project with a group of like-minded crafters.
Wednesday: Mommy and Me meets at 10 a.m., followed by Toddler Story Time at 11 a.m. and Book Buddies at 1 p.m. The Studio will be open from 2-3:30 p.m. The Masterpiece Art Club meets at 4 p.m.
Thursday: Millie the Therapy Dog will be here at 4 p.m. so her friends ages 5 and up can read to her. Bring a short book or choose one from here at the library. Registration required.
 
Ongoing:
October is National Pizza Month! Show your library card at Rob's or Tosco's and get 10 percent off your pie any Friday during the month!

Looking Ahead:
The next Book Talk meeting will be Nov. 27 at 6:30 p.m. November's books will be Roald Dahl's The BFG and Jack and the Beanstalk.
 
Get your teen hooked on books this week
  This year, Teen Read Week runs from Oct. 14 through the 20th. 
Teen Read Week began in 1998 as an initiative by the Young Adult Library Services Association to encourage young people to read for pleasure (and to visit their libraries for material!).
You can turn your teen on to reading with some of the great suggestions off lists like NPR's 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels. There you can find oldies (The Outsiders and Something Wicked This Way Comes), newies (The Fault in Our Stars), and a lot of good stuff in between.  
Jedi training offered for ages 4 and up 

  Panniken Moonjumper, Master of Intergalactic Fun and Adventure, will train young warriors, princesses, and Darth Vaders in the ways of the Jedi on Saturday, Nov. 17.

Pirate School creator and veteran family entertainer David Engel will offer his Jedi Academy in the community room of the Town Hall from 3:30-4:30 p.m. that day. Little ones ages 4 and up are invited to participate in the physical challenges, magical mayhem, and light saber lessons that are all part of mastering the Force. Attendees can come dressed as their favorite Star Wars character. 

Sign-up sheets are now downstairs at the library.

Come see us Sunday at HiHo's fall event

  Gardiner's HiHo Home Market will be celebrating the autumn season with a Fall Friendzy Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Certified appraisers from River Valley Auction will be on hand at HiHo's first appraisal road show Saturday - bring your antiques!

Sunday, Wallkill Public Library's own Miss Carolyn and Miss Christine will be available from 1-4 p.m. at the Friendzy to do children's crafts.

The event will also feature:

  • Upholsterer Catherine Boyd from Timeless Elegance
  • Florist Elissa Cimino from Flowers by Elissa
  • Book Specialist David Friedman from Barner Books
  • Event planner/interior designer Karyn L'Ecuyer from Dynamic Interiors and Events
  • Live music and shopping

 

 HiHo is located at 132 Main St., Gardiner. For more information visit the HiHo Facebook page.

  

 

Nobel Prize goes to Chinese author

  The Chinese writer Mo Yan, whose

works combine "hallucinatory realism" with folk tales, history and contemporary life in China, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature Thursday.

Though he describes himself as nonpolitical, Mo's acceptance by his country's Communist Party has bred controversy, especially among dissident writers. His best known work in the west is Red Sorghum, which focused not only on the harsh lives of the rural Chinese, but on the Japanese occupation and violent bandit culture.
If you're curious about Mo's work, visit the library's catalog and check some of it out.
For a complete list of past Nobel in Lit winners, click here.
A different take on the poems of Dickinson 

  Catholic priest and Zen master Robert Kennedy quotes the poems of Emily Dickinson liberally in his book, Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit. While he never labels the poet as being a Buddhist, the pieces he quotes so succinctly illustrate some specific tenets of Zen that it's hard to believe their interpretation is being stretched for Kennedy's purposes.

  Many Dickinson fans tend to admire the poet's simplicity. She's one of the "easy" poets studied in high school. Her stuff rhymes...it makes sense (Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me...), it doesn't always require a lot of thought to interpret. Were our English teachers keeping something from us?

Dean Sluyter writes about this in his Huffington Post piece, Emily Dickinson and the Buddha vs. the WWF. He admits that though Dickinson was a prolific author of almost 1800 poems, "most people encounter only three or four in English class," and that "her most interesting poems reflect....[an] enlightened reality espoused in Zen...."
He goes on to quote the poem, "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" and says that though the piece is most often seen as the poet's take on her own low-profile life, she could also be writing about the Buddhist notion of "not-self."
 Poetry fans and those interested in Eastern philosophy will both find the HuffPost piece of interest (and may want to revisit some Dickinson, as well).   
Latest Nesb� novel another crime favorite  
 
Phantom, by Jo Nesb�

 

Following from Jo Nesb�'s electrifying international best-sellers The Snowman and The Leopard, now comes Phantom, which plunges the brilliant, deeply troubled, now former police officer Harry Hole into a full-tilt investigation on which his own tenuous future will come to depend.
When Harry left Oslo again for Hong Kong - fleeing the traumas of life as a cop - he thought he was there for good. But then the unthinkable happened. The son of the woman he loved, lost, and still loves is arrested for murder: Oleg, the boy Harry helped raise but couldn't help deserting when he fled. Harry has come back to prove that Oleg is not a killer. Barred from rejoining the police force, he sets out on a solitary, increasingly dangerous investigation that takes him deep into the world of the most virulent drug to ever hit the streets of Oslo (and the careers of some of the city's highest officials), and into the maze of his own past, where he will find the wrenching truth that finally matters to Oleg, and to himself.  
Med site not just for hypochondriacs

  While the Internet is rife with medical and health-related websites, it can get tricky determining what's reliable and what's not.

Healthline  is a useful site that offers a wealth of health information in articles that are written for readers who don't necessarily have their own medical degrees. A board-certified physician reviews every original piece on the site that contains medical information for accuracy. In addition to looking up health topics alphabetically, users can browse through the magazine-like layout of the site's homepage for interesting tidbits on disease prevention, healthy living tips, medical advice, and more. It's a worthwhile reference site as well as an interesting one to glance over every so often for new information.

Library's valuable lessons fun ones, too 

   For so many years, the emphasis on testing our kids ad nauseum has had a drastic impact on their ability to get out and play and spend time wondering during the school day. With only six hours to work with, recess, like the arts and music, seem to be the first things to go. What is so worrisome is that it is often through play, art, movement, and music that our kids not only learn social skills, but the art of collaboration, negotiation, individual expression, friendship, creative thinking, and unstructured joy. Now, with the advent of the Common Core Standards, it seems the emphasis is back on incorporating play into instruction and educational environments and encouraging inquiry-based learning - focusing on the questions and the discovery process as well as on the answers.

 This is where the library comes in as a place for kids to go that provides an abundance of resources in a free, unstructured environment that fosters playfulness, the exploration of subjects through art, drama and storytelling, and encourages discussions of "what if," and "why do you think...." scenarios. We have recently revamped our biography and nonfiction collections to support the new standards and be able to provide more resources to explore with kids after school and through programming, the true nature of how things work, why certain things happen, how people live in other parts of the world, etc.

The addition of almost 50 new volumes of the "Who Was...?" biography series examines people through history and explores the qualities, character traits, and accomplishments of how their works have changed the world. If you would like to see more materials on a particular topic, please let me know at any time. This is your library and we want your interests reflected in the materials we choose. Take advantage of the programming we have to offer that is designed to foster creativity and curiosity - our Wednesday afternoon Art Club with Miss Christine explores the masters, color, textures, and appreciation of the design process. Miss Carolyn's story times and programs like the Goosebumps and Magic Tree House Book Clubs not only encourage a love of books, but help young readers with comprehension and creative thinking. The crafts and playtime that accompany these sessions go further to develop free thinking and those valuable social skills. 

In January, our new "Figure it out!" program begins, which allows for a child-driven series exploring science, math, the environment, and culture; and the ninth season of Books Alive! - our children's theater arts project - kicks into gear with a Mo Willems-themed performance. Encourage your children to stretch their comfort zone and try something new at your library this winter.

 

 Mary Lou Carolan

Director
 
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