Museum Passes at CPL – CT State Parks and Forests Pass

April 10, 2014July 25, 2014 / cheshirelib / Leave a comment

Cheshire Library has a collection of museum & state park passes that are available on a first come, first served basis for Cheshire residents to check out. CPL Staff member Lisa continues our series about the museum passes we offer, along with related reading material. This month, CT State Parks and Forests Pass!

Featured Museum Pass: CT State Parks & Forests Pass

This month’s featured museum pass is for the CT State Parks & Forests. This pass can be used to cover the cost of parking at state parks and forests where there is an established parking charge. Parking fees are charged at all four state park beaches on Long Island Sound as well as several inland parks. The pass can also be used to cover the admission fee for two adults and four children at state historical sites and exhibit centers at Dinosaur, Fort Trumbull and Gillette Castle State Parks. It is not valid for groups or vehicles carrying more than 12 passengers. All museum passes are available to Cheshire Residents on a first-come, first-served basis and must be returned by the close of business the next day.

The State Park Pass is part of the No Child Left Inside program established by the CT DEEP. The Connecticut Library Consortium and the CT DEEP have partnered to provide Connecticut State Park Day Passes to public libraries across the state. Launched in 2006, No Child Left Inside^® is a promise to introduce children to the wonder of nature – for their own health and well-being, for the future of environmental conservation, and for the preservation of the beauty, character and communities of the great State of Connecticut. For more information on No Child Left Inside, check out their website at: http://www.ct.gov/ncli/site/default.asp

To celebrate the past, present and future of Connecticut State Parks, the Connecticut State Parks Division, in partnership with the Friends of Connecticut State Parks (FCSP) and the Connecticut Forest and Park Association (CFPA), is planning a year-long Centennial Celebration. Connecticut State Parks have much to offer: hiking, fishing, swimming, camping and picnicking are just some of the things that you can do at the various parks. To locate a park, find out what amenities are offered or learn more about the Centennial Celebration check out the CT DEEP website at http://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2716&q=325086&deepNav_GID=1650

For a list of state parks and forests and information on parking fees, check out: http://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2716&q=325082&deepNav_GID=1650

To find out more about camping at Connecticut State Parks and Forests, including fees, amenities, site availability and to reserve a site go to www.reserveamerica.com

If you are interested in visiting Connecticut State Parks, you might be interested in:

Hidden in Plain Sight: A Deep Traveler Explores Connecticut by David K. Leff. In the course of the mundane routines of life, we encounter a variety of landscapes and objects, either ignoring them or looking without interest at what appears to be just a tree, stone, anonymous building, or dirt road. But the “deep traveler,” according to Hartford Courant essayist David K. Leff, doesn’t make this mistake. Instead, the commonplace elements become the most important. By learning to see the magic in the mundane, we not only enrich daily life with a sense of place, we are more likely to protect and make those places better. Over his many years working at the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and writing about the state’s landscape, Leff gained unparalleled intimacy while traveling its byways and back roads. In Hidden in Plain Sight, Leff’s essays and photographs take us on a point-by-point journey, revealing the rich stories behind many of Connecticut’s overlooked landmarks.

Wacky Weather Picture Books to Share

April 8, 2014June 12, 2014 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

Even without the snow filled and freezing cold winter we have just had weather is always an interesting topic to discuss with your children. From snow storms and the school free days they often bring to sunny days at the beach weather is always with us and affects our daily lives and activities. Here are some picturebooks about wacky weather than can make children of all ages laugh and start a discussion about nature and weather in your house.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett; drawn by Ron Barrett. Life is delicious in the town of Chewandswallow where it rains soup and juice, snows mashed potatoes, and blows storms of hamburgers–until the weather takes a turn for the worse.

Hello, Sun! by Dayle Ann Dodds; pictures by Sachiko Yoshikawa. A young girl and her cat must change clothes many times as the weather goes from sunny to cloudy to rainy to snowy.

Aunt Minnie and the Twister by Mary Skillings Prigger; illustrated by Betsy Lewin. After a tornado rearranges their Kansas house, Aunt Minnie and the nine nieces and nephews living with her add on a much-needed new room.

Un-brella by Scott E. Franson. In this wordless book, a little girl uses her magic umbrella to give her the weather she wants, regardless of what the conditions really are outside.

Bartholomew and the Oobleck written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss. The King, tired of rain, snow, sun and fog, commands his magicians to make something else come down from the sky, but when oobleck falls, in sticky greenish droplets, Bartholomew Cubbins shames the King and saves the kingdom.

As usual, there are too many great books to limit myself to the size allotted here, so I will offer a few more and invite you to offer more suggestions in the comments. My other suggestions include; Sector 7 by David Wiesner, Miss Mingo Weathers the Storm by Jamie Harper, Sun, Snow, Stars, Sky by Catherine and Laurence Anholt, Mouse & Mole and the All-Weather Train Ride by Doug Cushman, and The Magic School Bus Kicks up a Storm adaptation by Nancy White and illustrated by Art Ruiz.

Linda Reads: Do or Die (Reluctant Heroes) by Suzanne Brockmann

April 6, 2014August 28, 2014 / Linda / Leave a comment

Do or Die (new series, Reluctant Heroes) by Suzanne Brockmann is a heart pounding, non-stop action, suspenseful, character driven, romantic, passionate, emotional, wonderfully written story that, despite it’s long length, you won’t be able to put down.

It is a spin-off of Ms Brockmann’s very popular Troubleshooters series and I must say, she takes this book to a whole new level.

The story centers around a supposedly dishonored Navy SEAL, Ian Dunn, who is in prison under suspicious circumstances, and his feisty lawyer, Phoebe Kruger, who is determined to get him out. It’s a complicated story with multiple sub-plots, but told with clarity through Ms Brockmann’s exquisite writing and a cast of interesting, multi-dimensional characters. The FBI wants Ian to lead a covert operation to rescue some kidnapped children from their ruthless father, but Ian has family issues that cause him to refuse. Phoebe is determined to find out what Ian’s issues are so they can rescue the children. Characters from the Troubleshooters series cross over to add support to this story. There are great surprises when some of the characters’ full stories are finally revealed. There are multiple love stories, but the book is more suspenseful than romantic. It’s infused with humor and the characters are written with such delicious detail, you can imagine yourself inside their heads.

The book is quite lengthy and I was hoping to skip parts here and there, but it was so well written, so entertaining, I just had to read every word! Great characters were introduced in this book that are going to lead to an exciting series!

10 Books We’re Looking Forward to in April

April 5, 2014June 4, 2014 / Louise / Leave a comment

Another month, another list of new books to look forward to!

Every month, librarians from around the country pick the top ten new books they’d most like to share with readers. The results are published on LibraryReads.org. One of the goals of LibraryReads is to highlight the important role public libraries play in building buzz for new books and new authors. Click through to read more about what new and upcoming books librarians consider buzzworthy this month. The top ten titles for April are:

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Frog Music by Emma Donoghue
And the Dark Sacred Night by Julia Glass
Silence for the Dead by Simone St. James
By its Cover: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mysteryby Donna Leon
The Intern’s Handbook by Shane Kuhn
Love, Nina: A Nanny Writes Home by Nina Stibbe
The Axe Factor: A Jimm Juree Mysteryby Colin Cotterill
Family Lifeby Akhil Sharma
On the Rocksby Erin Duffy

Aliens in Your Back Yard – The Invasion of Non-Native Plants

April 3, 2014March 27, 2014 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

You’ve seen them around, maybe even in your yard. You may even think they look pretty. But they’re not. They are aliens, and they are taking over our world.

Oriental Bittersweet

The “aliens” in this case are non-native plants, and their invasion is costing us billions – yes, billions with a B – just on golf courses alone, trying to stop them from overtaking and wiping out our natural species. They can choke out the normal wild plants of an area, wiping out the food that birds and wildlife depend on. They can wrap around your electrical wires, pulling them down and causing power outages. They can invade your vegetable gardens, growing faster than you can weed. Most of these plants were introduced as an ornamental addition to gardens, but with no natural insect enemies or animals to eat them, they quickly grew!

Kudzu in action

From Alabama to Canada, Japanese Kudzu is a fast-growing vine that forms a thick blanket over grass, trees, wires, and buildings. It will grow over anything in its path, and it is voracious – growing up to a foot per day – the kind of thing bad science fiction movies are made of. In Cheshire, especially on the West side near Darcey School, you’ve no doubt seen Oriental Bittersweet growing thick up telephone poles, hanging in sheets from overhead wires, and growing up trees in thick ropes faster than poison ivy. It’s a woody vine that’s almost impossible to break with your hands, and will wrap itself around wire fences until it’s easier to remove the fence than the vine. Even pulling it up doesn’t seem to stall it much.

Purple Loosestrife

Purple Loosestrife may trick you into thinking it’s just a pretty flower ( I once thought so), and you’re rather happy it chose your yard. You don’t even have to water it, and it looks nice. Until it takes over every inch of your lawn, and the more you weed, the more there seems to be. It was brought over from Japan in 1876 as a garden interest, and then spread out of control.

Garlic Mustard

Garlic Mustard sounds tasty – and it is. It was brought over from Europe as a an herb in the 1860’s, and it quickly took off. Garlic mustard is so determined, it can even fertilize its own seeds, which is part of the problem. Deer won’t eat it, and thus will feast too much on other plants instead, endangering them from overgrazing. Garlic mustard is on the Most Wanted list in more than nine states.

Different plants can require different methods of eradication. On April 7, Cheshire Public Library will be hosting a program called Root Out Non-Native Invasive Plants, where you can learn more about how to identify and eradicate non-native infiltrators without the widespread application of pesticides.. Help support your native plants – and the animals who depend on them – by helping to wipe out these alien invaders. If you don’t already have one in your neighborhood or yard, you will soon.

You can read up further on invasive plants in Invasive Plants: a guide to identification and the impacts and control of common North American species, by Sylvan Ramsey Kaufman.