What’s Happening at Cheshire Library in July

July 1, 2014July 1, 2014 / cheshirelib / Leave a comment

It’s summer, and you know what that means – Summer Reading is in full swing! There are lots of terrific programs on tap for July, here’s a preview:Fizz and Boom with Four O’Clocks

Tuesday Jul 1, 2014. 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Science and art promise to come together with Artsplace instructor Rebecca Rice’s help in this fun class. Students will use pastels and other materials to explore projects to explain the magic and beauty of Four O’Clock Flowers.
For ages 6 and up. Register on our website.

Magic Show with Ed Popielarcyk

Wednesday Jul 2, 2014. 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Come join Ed Popielarcyk with his amazing interactive magic show followed by balloon sculpting!
Register on our website.

Snakes and Amphibians with Eric Nelson

Two sessions Thursday Jul 3, 2014, at 2:00 PM and 3:15 PM Join Eric Nelson in a fun exploration of snakes and amphibians!Register on our website.

Kellogg Environmental Center presents: INTO THE WOODS

Thursday Jul 3, 2014, 2:00 – 3:00 Expand your naturalist skills by solving mysteries of natural finds like footprints, feathers, twig chewings and objects seen around the state. Children will listen to Into the Woods: Who’s Been There and explore mysterious finds from nature. Each child will make and take a nature journal of their own to help continue their exploration of outdoor signs and mysteries. Register on our website.

Lego Robots with the CHS MECHA RAMS

Thursday Jul 10, 2014, 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM
The robots have returned!
The summer G3 programs will offer a special 3-part event. Guest instructors and teen members of the Cheshire High School MECHA RAMS Robotics team will provide robotics demonstrations to our G3 kids. Kids will also get hands on experience with simple robotics using Lego robot kits and will receive instruction from their teen mentors, wrapping up with a friendly team competition on July 24th! Register on our website.

Fab Film Summer Movies: THE LEGO MOVIE

Wednesday Jul 16, 2014, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM The Lego Movie (2014). An ordinary Lego construction worker, thought to be the prophesied ‘Special’, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil tyrant from gluing the Lego universe into eternal stasis. Running Time 1 hour, 40 minutes. Rated PG.
NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED. Feel free to bring your own snacks!

Zoology for Kids with Animal Embassy

Thursday Jul 17, 2014, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM. Animal Embassy will uncover some of the mysteries of animal biology as we learn about classifications and habitats in the animal kingdom, as well as discover the life of an animal scientist. We will meet Animal Ambassadors such as giant White’s tree frogs, an Eclectus parrot or Spectacled owl, a Green tree python or Emerald Tree boa, Chinchillas, a Pink-toed tarantula, an Argentine Black & White Tegu and/or a Solomon Islands monkey-tailed skink! Register on our website.

BENDING GRAVITY with Eric Girardi

Monday Jul 21, 2014, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM Bending Gravity is an amazing show by performance artist Eric Girardi and includes a breathtaking mastery of object manipulation, juggling, yoyos, and more! For ages 4 and up. Registration begins on July 1st.

Sciencetellers present DRAGONS AND DREAMS

Monday Jul 28, 2014, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM Join us as we learn about the science of fire and ice through the tale of “Dragons & Dreams.” Wouldn’t dragon’s breath be an amazing sight to see?! Well, get ready to see it…feel it…smell it…maybe even taste it! This story features interactive science experiments with dry ice, flash paper, exploding bottles, and much more.
Enjoy this spectacular adventure and be swept away to a world where dragons are real and dreams come true — and where only the most daring of people will survive to tell the tale!
For ages 4 and up. Registration begins on July 1st.

Gregory McAdams with Team Magic

Wednesday Jul 30, 2014, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM The Greg & Axel show is a totally unique entertainment experience that provides magic, comedy, audience participation and one hilarious dog. Your audience will fall in love with Axel as he helps Greg the Magician amaze the audience…he might even cause a little bit of trouble!
Greg & Axel donate a percentage of every show to help rescue animals!
For all ages. Registration begins on July 1st.

Time Capsule to Mars!
Thursday Jul 31, 2014, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Join Dr. Daniel Burkey, Associate Dean of the UConn School of Engineering, at the Cheshire Public Library on Thursday, July 31 at 6:30 p.m. to learn about the Time Capsule to Mars™ (TC2M) Project. Participants will compose and record a group message at the library, to be uploaded to the Time Capsule and sent the 35 million miles from Earth to Mars. This program is for all ages, but is especially geared towards students entering grades K-12. Register on our website.

Summer Saturday Hours : 9:30am – 1:00pm
The Cheshire Library is now open Saturdays in the summer!
From July 12th – August 23rd, the library will be open from 9:30am – 1:00pm. Stop by to beat the heat and catch up on some great summer reads.

Summer Reading: Enjoy A Little History

June 29, 2014June 17, 2014 / Linda / Leave a comment

Summer doesn’t have to be all about lazy days. It’s a great time to stimulate your mind and try your hand at learning something new, or learn something new about a topic that interests you. Here are a few titles you might enjoy.

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, The NSA, and the US Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald – In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security and information privacy. As the arguments rage on and the government considers various proposals for reform, it is clear that we have yet to see the full impact of Snowden’s disclosures.

Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and The Battle To Control The Sky by Lawrence Goldstone -The feud between this nation’s great air pioneers, the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss, was a collision of unyielding and profoundly American personalities. On one side, a pair of tenacious siblings who together had solved the centuries-old riddle of powered, heavier-than-air flight. On the other, an audacious motorcycle racer whose innovative aircraft became synonymous in the public mind with death-defying stunts. For more than a decade, they battled each other in court, at air shows, and in the newspapers. The outcome of this contest of wills would shape the course of aviation history—and take a fearsome toll on the men involved.

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan – At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, and consumed more electricity than New York City, yet it was shrouded in such secrecy that it did not appear on any map. Thousands of civilians, many of them young women from small towns across the U.S., were recruited to this secret city, enticed by the promise of solid wages and war-ending work. What were they actually doing there? Very few knew. The purpose of this mysterious government project was kept a secret from the outside world and from the majority of the residents themselves. Some wondered why, despite the constant work and round-the-clock activity in this makeshift town, did no tangible product of any kind ever seem to leave its guarded gates? The women who kept this town running would find out at the end of the war, when Oak Ridge’s secret was revealed and changed the world forever.

Hard Choices by Hilary Rodham Clinton – Hillary Rodham Clinton’s inside account of the crises, choices, and challenges she faced during her four years as America’s 67th Secretary of State, and how those experiences drive her view of the future.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo – A bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport.

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortuneby Bill Dedman – A complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms.

Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises by Timothy Geithner – As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then as President Barack Obama’s secretary of the Treasury, Timothy F. Geithner helped the United States navigate the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, from boom to bust to rescue to recovery. In a candid, riveting, and historically illuminating memoir, he takes readers behind the scenes of the crisis, explaining the hard choices and politically unpalatable decisions he made to repair a broken financial system and prevent the collapse of the Main Street economy. This is the inside story of how a small group of policy makers—in a thick fog of uncertainty, with unimaginably high stakes—helped avoid a second depression but lost the American people doing it.

Missing Microbes: how the overuse of antibiotics is fueling our modern plagues by Martin J. Blaser, MD – Tracing one scientist’s journey toward understanding the crucial importance of the microbiome, this revolutionary book will take readers to the forefront of trail-blazing research while revealing the damage that overuse of antibiotics is doing to our health: contributing to the rise of obesity, asthma, diabetes, and certain forms of cancer.

June is Audiobook Appreciation Month! Did You Know Audiobooks Raise Reading Scores?

June 28, 2014June 3, 2014 / Louise / Leave a comment

Some people consider audiobooks “cheating” or “not really reading”. But did you know including audiobooks in your child’s reading can improve their overall reading abilities? Not to mention, they are lots of fun! Cheshire Library has hundreds of audiobook titles for children and teens, in both CD and digital formats.

Audiobooks have been used in classrooms for decades because listening builds a another set of skills than visual reading. Oral language precedes written language developmentally, making listening an important component of language acquisition. Audiobooks are a proven resource for teaching reading, at all reading levels. Among the many benefits, listening builds critical vocabulary, comprehension, fluency and listening skills; in fact, adding a listening component to reading instruction has been shown to improve student achievement.

Among the many benefits, audiobooks:

reinforce literacy skills.
supplement reading instruction to develop a positive attitude towards literature.
develop understanding of content area material when decoding or other literacy skills are delayed.
model the appropriate use of oral vocabulary, fluent reading, and use of phonics.
bring literature from the classroom to home and back on a portable device.

Why not add some audiobooks to your reading list today? In addition to CD audiobooks in our library, audiobooks are also available to download via the library’s online OverDrive and OneClick Digital catalogs.

[sources: tales2go and School Library Journal]

Recent Award Winners in Children’s Books

June 26, 2014June 26, 2014 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

Winners of the Children’s and Teen Choice Book Awards were announced in May at the seventh Children’s Book Week Gala in New York. Rush Limbaugh won author of the year for Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans, while Grace Lee won illustrator of the year for Sofia the First: The Floating Palace. Former Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton was also awarded with the Impact Award for his efforts to instill “a lifelong love of reading in children.”

The winner of Book of the Year, kindergarten through second grade was The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers (also a nominee for the 2015 Nutmeg award).

Book of the Year winner for third through fourth grade was Bugs in My Hair! by David Shannon.

Book of the Year winner for fifth through sixth grade was National Geographic Kids Myths Busted! by Emily Krieger, illustrated by Tom Nick Cocotos.

Book of the Year winner for teens was Winner: Allegiant by Veronica Roth.

Children’s book author and illustrator Peter Brown is the recipient of the 2014 Bull-Bransom Award, announced the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Brown was selected for the award, given annually for excellence in children’s book illustration with a wildlife and nature focus, for his 2013 picture book Mr. Tiger Goes Wild.

The Nutmeg Steering Committee has also announced the 2014 Nutmeg Book Award Winners! Almost 20,000 students voted from across the state of Connecticut and here are the books that they voted for:

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper is the winner of the Intermediate Award (Grades 4-6)

Divergent by Veronica Roth is the winner of the Teen Award (Grades 7-8)

Paper Towns by John Green is the winner of the first ever High School (Grades 9-12)

Linda Reads: The Collector by Nora Roberts

June 24, 2014June 17, 2014 / Linda / Leave a comment

After being disappointed in Ms. Roberts’ last book Whiskey Beach (reviewed here), I wasn’t sure what to expect from her newest, The Collector. I’m happy to report I’m very pleased with this one. It’s a bit different – an intriguing mix of Ms. Roberts’ writing and J.D. Robb’s – making it an entertaining, edgy, romantic suspense thriller.

Lila Emerson is a quirky professional house-sitter and author of young adult werewolf books. She enjoys living in other people’s homes and she takes great pleasure in scoping out her surroundings. With the use of binoculars, she spies on the neighborhood and uses her vivid imagination to create stories about her neighbors. Unfortunately, one evening she witnesses a murder. The police conclude a boyfriend murdered his girlfriend and then took his own life. However the boyfriend’s brother, Ashton, is sure they are wrong and enlists Lila’s help in finding out the truth.

Ashton is a famous artist and comes from a close, loving, somewhat dysfunctional family of considerable wealth – so different from Lila’s life. Of course it’s predictable that they will fall in love, but that part of the story unfolds slowly, exquisitely, while the hunt for the truth leads to Faberge eggs, and murder. There is a great supporting cast – Ashton’s best friend and Lila’s best friend turn out to have a history together and a lovely romance blossoms there. The detectives working the case add some insight into the world of overworked cops with wit and humor. We get a peak into the world of the rich and into the world of evil. There are gruesome murders, ruthless assassins, touching love stories, great family interaction, art, antiques, cops, and humor all woven into an entertaining, engaging story.

It was fun to visit the life of a house-sitter, and an artist and learn about Faberge eggs. Having no interest in those particular subjects, Ms. Roberts was able to keep me entertained, interested and engaged in the characters and story line.