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WESTFORD — Assistant Library Director Kristina Leedberg has shared the most recent edition of “What’s Happening at the Library?” with WestfordCAT.
Unless otherwise noted, the following programs are made possible by the Friends of the Library.
Director’s Corner: Wishing everyone a safe, healthy and family-filled holiday season throughout December! The Library Holiday hours are:
- Closed Saturday, December 24 [Christmas Eve]
- Closed Sunday, December 25 [Christmas Day]
- Closed Monday, December 26 [Christmas Day observed]
- Open Saturday, December 31 from 10am – 5pm.
Look for our fun-filled holiday programs for the entire family!
6th Annual 9-Hole Mini Golf in the Library: Wednesday, December 28 from 11 to 2 p.m. It’s back – a nine hole (and a bonus hole) mini-golf course all over the library – here is something to do with the whole family during the holiday break. This free drop-in program is generously funded by the KDK Memorial Foundation (in honor of Kurt Kelly). Sign up for a convenient time slot from our Event calendar.
Math Club: Wednesday, 12/28 from 3:30-5:00 p.m. Join YA Librarian Jess and library volunteer Patrick for a meeting of mathematical minds. Each meeting we will learn theories, solve problems, and build upon your math knowledge with fun activities and games. For Grades 6-8. Register here.
Teen and Tweens – Improv with Little Spark Theater: Thursday, Dec. 29 at 1:30 p.m. We’re happy to welcome back Ali from Little Spark Theater on Thursday, December 29th. This program is perfect for the theater pro or newbie. We’ll explore the basics of improvisation and acting through high-energy games, so get ready for some antics, shenanigans, and a ridiculously fun time! This program is for grades 6-12. Register here.
Overdrive/Libby Update: As of January 4, 2023, you will need to enter your library PIN to access your OverDrive/Libby account for eBooks, eAudiobooks and other OverDrive resources. All MVLC libraries are implementing this change to improve security and to better protect patron privacy. The PIN is the same password that you use to sign into your account in the library catalog. If you don’t know your PIN or you have questions, please contact the Information Desk at 978-399-2304.
Looking for some last minute gift ideas? Check out the J. V. Fletcher Library’s Annual Staff Recommendations List for holiday gift-giving and/or reading for pleasure:
FICTION:
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. The teenage son of an Appalachian single mother who dies when he is eleven uses his good looks, wit, and instincts to survive foster care, child labor, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
Horse by Geraldine Brooks. “A scientist from Australia and a Nigerian-American art historian become connected by their shared interest in a nineteenth century race horse, one studying its remains, the other uncovering the history of the Black horsemen who were critical to its success.”
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. “Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with–of all things–her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.”
The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imani Messina. “When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the tsunami, she begins to mark the passage of time from that date onward: Everything is relative to March 11, 2011, the day the tsunami tore Japan apart, and when grief took hold of her life. Yui struggles to continue on, alone with her pain. Then, one day she hears about a man who has an old disused telephone booth in his garden. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief. As news of the phone booth spreads, people travel to it from miles around. Soon Yui makes her own pilgrimage to the phone booth, too. But once there she cannot bring herself to speak into the receiver. Instead she finds Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped talking in the wake of her mother’s death.”
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson. “Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dahkóta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn’t return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato–where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they’ve inherited. On a winter’s day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband’s farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron–women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools.”
NONFICTION:
Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris. “The best-selling author offers a new collection of satirical and humorous essays that chronicle his own life and ordinary moments that turn beautifully absurd, including how he coped with the pandemic, his thoughts on becoming an orphan in his seventh decade, and the battle-scared America he discovered when he resumed touring.”
Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age by Bruce Feiler. “Bruce Feiler has long been thinking and writing about the stories that give our lives meaning. Several years ago he began to notice a new pattern: the old stories about the major plot points of our lives were no longer holding true. Increasingly, he observed, the stories we all inherit to explain how our lives should unfold were clashing with reality and creating more anxiety than guidance. People felt they were living their lives out of the expected order and were beset by transitions at a faster and faster pace. Galvanized by a family crisis that spoke quite poignantly to this loss of meaning, Feiler set out on what became an epic journey to harvest American life stories and see what he could learn from them. Feiler draws on an extraordinary well of insight from his interviewees and offers powerful new tools for navigating the growing number of life transitions we all face.”
Remodelista in Maine: a design lover’s guide to inspired, down-to-earth style by Annie P. Quiggley.“With its elegant simplicity and rugged DIY sensibility, the Maine aesthetic is both evergreen and timely. In this one-of-a-kind book, the Remodelista team offers readers both a guide for the design-minded traveler and a master class in re-creating the Maine look in one’s own home. Author Annie Quigley takes readers into 10 exceptional homes, ranging from a renovated farmhouse to a sophisticated artists’ retreat, offering invaluable design lessons along the way.”
CHILDREN:
Bear Moves by Ben Bailey Smith. “Who’s that there? Is it Bear? And is he in his underwear?” Who can resist a dancing bear in underwear? Author Ben Bailey Smith is an actor, comedian and rapper. His rhyming skills shine through in this book.”
Lou by Breanna Carzoo. “ A humorous and heartwarming picture book about a fire hydrant who becomes an unlikely neighborhood hero. Lou is a small put upon character who discovers a sense of purpose.”
I will be FIERCE! by Bea Birdsong. “ It’s a Brand-new day and a young girl takes on the world like a brave explorer heading off on a quest. This story is a powerful declaration of courage, confidence, and kindness that are needed in everyday life.”
TWEENS AND TEENS:
Middle Grade: Across the Desert by Dusti Bowling. “While using a public library computer to find help for her mother who is addicted to pain medicine, twelve-year-old Jolene witnesses a friend’s livestreamed crash-landing in the Arizona desert and embarks on a journey to rescue her.”
Attack of the Black Rectangles by Amy Sarig King. “When sixth-grader Mac discovers several words of his classroom copy of Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic are blacked out he is outraged, so he, his friends, and his eccentric family set out to do something about the censorship imposed by one teacher and the school board.”
YA Fiction: All My Rage by Saaba Tahir. “Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding. Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah’s health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle’s liquor store while hiding the fact that she’s applying to college so she can escape him–and Juniper–forever. When Sal’s attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth–and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.”
If you have questions or need assistance, please call us at 978-399-2300 or send us an email at westfordlibrary@westfordma.gov.
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If you have questions or need assistance, please call us at 978-399-2300 or send us an email at westfordlibrary@westfordma.gov.
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