Guest Post: Download FREE Audiobooks May Through August!

May 22, 2015May 29, 2015 / cheshirelib / 1 Comment

Children’s librarian Nicole is an avid audiobook listener. Today, she’s taking to the blog to pass along a great opportunity to listen to some free audiobooks this summer!

For its sixth year running, AudioFile is making free downloadable audiobooks available for children, teens and adults. The program is geared towards inspiring teens to discover new books and authors, but the books themselves have great crossover appeal for adults (and some children) as well. Starting in May, two free audiobooks are available each week for downloading. The audiobook pairings are “listen-alikes” – a classic and a popular contemporary titled paired by theme.

A detailed list of the free audiobooks (along with listening clips) is available online at http://www.audiobooksync.com/. If you want to make sure you don’t miss any of the titles, you can also choose to receive text prompts when new audiobooks are available by sending the text message “syncya” to 25827.

Whether you’re new to audiobooks, or you’re a long-time fan, this is definitely an annual event that you don’t want to miss out on! And if you’re new to downloading audiobooks, have no fear – staff members at Cheshire Public Library are available for personal one-on-one tutorial sessions to help you along the way. Call Cheshire Library at 203-272-2245 to make an appointment.

Check out the great titles that AudioFile is making available to the masses this season!

May 21-27

X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz & Kekla Magoon (read by Dion Graham)

Here in Harlem by Walter Dean Myers (read by Muhammad Cunningham, et al.)

May 28-June 3

The Ring and the Crown by Melissa de la Cruz (read by Jennifer Ikeda)

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan (read by Eloise Oxer & Paul English)

June 4-10

A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty (read by Fiona Hardingham et al.)

Dracula by Bram Stoker (read by David Horovitch and a full cast)

June 11-17

The Living by Matt de la Pena (read by Henry Leyva)

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger (read by Richard M. Davidson)

June 18-24

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (read by Sasha Pick)

Anne Frank Remembered by Miep Gies & Alison Leslie Gold (read by Barbara Rosenblat)

June 25-July 1

Monster by Walter Dean Myers (read by a full cast)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding (read by William Golding)

July 2-July 8

Echoes of an Angel by Aquanetta Gordon & Chris Macias (read by Robin Miles)

Buddha Boy by Kathe Koja (read by Spencer Murphy and a full cast)

July 9-15

The Explorers Club by Neil Benjamin (read by Carson Elrod et al.)

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (read by Michael Prichard)

July 16-22

Crows & Cards by Joseph Helgerson (read by MacLeod Andrews)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (read by Robin Field)

July 23-29

March by Geraldine Brooks (read by Richard Easton)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (read by Christina Ricci)

July 30-August 5

Courage Has No Color, The True Story of the Triple Nickles by Tanya Lee Stone (read by JD Jackson)

John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night by Matt Pelfrey (adapt.) (read by Ryan Vincent Anderson et al.)

August 6-12

Under a War-Torn Sky by L.M. Elliot (read by Elizabeth Wiley)

The Old Brown Suitcase by Lillian Boraks-Nemetz (read by Sofia Newman)

2016 Nutmeg Nominees Announced

May 8, 2015May 8, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

The Nutmeg Nominees for 2016 have been announced! The Nutmeg Children’s Book Award is the “Children’s Choice” Award for Connecticut. The goal of the committee is to encourage children in grades two through twelve to read quality literature.

Check out this long list of nominees! How many have you already read, and who do you think should win?

The Four Levels of Nutmeg:
Elementary Award: Grades 2-4 (15 nominees each year)
Bowling Alley Bandit by Laurie Keller
Dare the Wind: The Record-Breaking Voyage of Eleanor Prentiss and the
Flying Cloud by Tracey Fern
Digby O’Day: In the Fast Lane by Shirley Hughes
The Flying Beaver Brothers and the Evil Penguin Plan by Maxwell Eaton II
Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman
Gone Fishing: A Novel in Verse by Tamera Will Wissinger
Jedi Academy by Jeffrey Brown
King for a Day by Rukhsana Khan
Marty McGuire by Kate Messner
On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne
Pigsticks and Harold and the Incredible Journey by Alex Milway
Play Ball, Jackie! by Stephen Krensky
The Secret Chicken Society by Judy Cox
A Splash of Red by Jennifer Bryant
Waiting for the Magic by Patricia MacLachlan

Intermediate Award: Grades 4-6 (10 nominees each year)
The Blossoming Life of Violet Diamond by Brenda Woods
Elvis and the Underdogs by Jenny Lee and Kelly Light
Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage
The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson
The Illuminated Adventures of Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo & K.G. Campbell
Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
One Dog and His Boy by Eva Ibbotson
Pie by Sarah Weeks
Winterling by Sarah Prineas

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Teen Award: Grades 7-8 (10 nominees each year)
Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Counting by 7’s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Golden Boy by Tara Sullivan
I Have a Bad Feeling About This by Jeff Strand
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Reboot by Amy Tintera
The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
Shadow on the Mountain by Margi Preus
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

High School Award: Grades 9-12 (10 nominees each year)
Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick
If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay
This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
Winger by Andrew Smith

Who do you think should win?

The 2015 winners will be announced on May 15th!

Book Club Picks for Middle Grade Readers

April 17, 2015April 11, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

Book clubs are starting to pop up in libraries and schools for readers of all ages. While book clubs are a great way to encourage reading and picking up books outside a reader’s comfort zone, they are about much more than the books being read. Book clubs are about fostering a sense of community, creating or strengthening relationships, and shared experiences.

If your middle grade reader is interested in joining, or starting a club of their own (or perhaps a parent and child book club is more your speed) they might be at a loss as to what books the group will read next. It is a common issue with adult book groups, so I am sure it happens with younger readers as well. Here are some suggested titles to add to the list of possibilities. Some are tried and true titles that you might have enjoyed at their age, and others are newer books that are simply wonderful. your selections will bcpaperboy depend quite a bit on the interests and maturity of those in your group, but this can help get the selection process started.

Paperboy by Vince Vawter
Taking over a friend’s newspaper route in 1959 Memphis, an 11-year-old baseball enthusiast struggles with a speech disability while attempting to communicate with customers, a situation that turns dangerous when he has a confrontation with a thieving local junkma bcgrimm n.

A Tale Dark & Grimm (A Tale Dark & Grimm, #1) by Adam Gidwitz
Follows Hansel and Gretel as they walk out of their own story and into eight more tales, encountering witches, devils, warlocks, kindly strangers, and other helpful folk as they take charge of their own happily ever after.

Smile by Raina Telgemeier
Raina just wants to be a normal sixth grader. But one night after Girl Scouts she trips and falls, severely injuring her two front teeth, and what follows is a long and frustrating journey with on-again, off-again braces, surgery, embarrassing headgear, and even a retainer with fake teeth attached.

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein bclibrary

Twelve-year-old Kyle wins a coveted spot to be one of 12 children chosen to stay in the new town library–designed by his hero, the famous gamemaker Luigi Lemoncello–for an overnight of fun, food and games, but in the morning, the kids find all the doors still locked and must work together to solve secret puzzles in order to discover the hidden escape route.Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman
When a father runs out to buy milk for his children’s breakfast cereal, the last thing he expects is to be abducted by aliens, and he soon finds himself transported through time and space on an extraordinary adventure, where the fate of the universe depends on him and the milk–but will his children believe his wild story?

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Still looking for more ideas, or some great middle grade novels to read? Here are even more:The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood, Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai, Inkheart (Inkworld, #1) by Cornelia Funke, One For The Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Matilda by Roald Dahl, A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1) by Madeleine L’Engle, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1) by Roald Dahl, Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt, A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, The Giver by Lois Lowry, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall, Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin by Liesl Shurtliff, Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1) by L.M. Montgomery, Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper, The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1) by Philip Pullman, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli, Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff, The Mysterious Benedict Society (The Mysterious Benedict Society, #1) by Trenton Lee Stewart, Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton, My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath, Doll Bones by Holly Black, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick, The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate,Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee,The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald, The City of Ember (Book of Ember, #1) by Jeanne DuPrau, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1) by J.K. Rowling, One Crazy Summer (Gaither Sisters, #1) by Rita Williams-Garcia, and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.

Titanic Remembrance Day – April 15 2015

April 15, 2015March 17, 2015 / Linda / Leave a comment

At 11:40 PM the night of April 14, 1912 the ‘unsinkable’ RMS Titanic, while on its maiden voyage from Southhampton, England to New York City, hit an iceberg causing the ship to sink on April 15th at 2:20 AM 400 miles from the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. This tragic event has long captured the attention of millions of people, reaching a pinnacle with the discovery of the ship’s remains on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in 1985 by Dr. Robert Ballard. One thousand five hundred lives were lost, almost two-thirds of the people on board.

Some interesting facts:

Cost to build – $7,500,000
Number of passengers and crew on board that night – 2,223. There were 13 honeymoon couples.
Food on board – 2200 lbs of coffee, 1000 loaves of bread, 16,000 lemons, 40 tons of potatoes, 1000 lbs of grapes, 36000 lbs of apples, 2500 lbs of sausages, 75000 lbs fresh meat, 40,000 eggs, 1000 bottles of wine, and 8000 cigars.
First class accommodations cost $4,350 (today’s value $69,900).
Lifeboats – could accommodate 64, was designed for 48, only 20 actually built. These 20 could hold 1178 people total.
There were 6 ice warnings before collision.
The iceberg they hit was 100 feet tall and came from Greenland.
It took 160 minutes to sink.
It took 15 minutes for it to reach the bottom of the ocean.
There was a 60 minute delay between the collision and when the first lifeboat launched.
Musicians played for 2 hours and 5 minutes as the ship sank.
Two of nine dogs were rescued – a Pomeranian and a Pekinese.
Milton Hershey, founder of Hershey Chocolates, cancelled his reservation at the last minute due to business matters.
Only 306 bodies were found.

Every year in April, people take time to remember the sinking of The Titanic and the lives lost. To learn more about this tragedy, you can browse the library’s collection of materials here.

On Our Shelves: Great New Books for Children and Teens

April 10, 2015April 9, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

Every week I spend my off desk hours of work getting new books ready to go on our shelves in the children and teen areas of the library. Along the way I find ones I need to read, favorite authors I did not expect more from quite yet, and many great surprises. I know not everyone loves children’s or young adult literature, or has that same attachment to favorites (old and new) that I do, but for fellow fans and those looking to share recommendations with others I thought it was time to gather up another list of new books from this section of the library that I am excited about adding to our collection.

This is far from all of the great new selections, so feel free to come on in and browse our displays of new materials!

Children’s Fiction

Al istair Grim’s Odditorium by Gregory Funaro

The Courage of Cat Campbell by Natasha Lowe

Magic Tree House Super Edition #1: Danger in the Darkest Hour by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca

I Survived #11: I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871 by Lauren Tarshis

The Only Game by Mike Lupica

Young Adult Fiction

The Ruby Circle (Bloodlines) by Richelle Mead

Fairest: Levana’s Story (The Lunar Chronicles) by Marissa Meyer

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

When by Victoria Laurie

Embassy Row #1: All Fall Down by Ally Carter

Frostfire (The Kanin Chronicles) by Amanda Hocking

Woven by Michael Jensen and David Powers King

Firefight (The Reckoners) by Brandon Sanderson

Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff

As always, there are many more great books entering the collection every day. Swing by the children’s and teen areas and browse the displays of new materials for even more!