@ Your Library
April is National Poetry month! Come check out a book of poetry and give yourself the luxury of slowing down and pondering words, their meaning and the beauty of words together to create pictures. The new book Sing a Song of Seasons contains 366 nature poems – enough for every day of the year. The poems were selected by Fiona Waters with illustrations by Frann Preston-Gannon. Everyone is sure to find an old favorite and discover a new poem to appreciate and learn.
Max Ritvo was diagnosed with terminal cancer at sixteen and spend the last decade of his life pursuing poetry. His second collection The Final Voicemails was edited posthumously by Louise Gluck and contains hope, pain, vibrancy and more. And of course we have collections by several local and regional authors. Come take a look in the Minnesota room for local poets.
Did you know the library can automatically put your name on book request lists? If you have a favorite author and want to receive the latest books published by that author, come talk to us and get your name added to your author’s request list. And while you are requesting books by your favorite authors ask us to double check how you get notified when new books arrive for you, we can now notify you by text when a book is waiting at the library for you.
During the month of March we participated in the 21 day read aloud challenge as part of the Read Aloud 15 minutes campaign. Did you make an effort to read aloud each day to your children? Did you succeed? Whether or not you got in 21 days in the month of March, continue making the effort to read aloud each and every day to the young children in your home. And don’t stop the minute they can read on their own, research shows that young readers will advance their reading skills faster if they continue to be read aloud to as well as practicing their reading skills. So grab a book, any book and spend time together each day reading together. Books can be great conversation starters as well, so read aloud something important to you and use it to start a conversation about the topic with a loved one. I am aware of a couple of couples in the community who read aloud to one another as well. One is never too old to be read to. Share your favorites with those you love and discover new topics, new books together.
Storytime continues on Thursday mornings at 10:30am through the end of April. So if the weather was keeping you and your children home, come on out the next three weeks and enjoy thirty minutes of stories, rhymes and song followed by up to thirty minutes of free play with our early learning toys. We will take a break in May to allow staff preparation time for summer reading and begin back up on Thursdays at 10:30am beginning June 6.