COVID Spring Reading on Monday, 9/21 and more...

This event is sponsored by the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library. Mary Russell, Director of the Center for the Book, will give opening remarks, joined by Kirsty Walker, publisher of Hobblebush Books, and Alexandria Peary. Plus a possible surprise guest appearance! Our readers for the evening are Marie Harris, Mark Decarteret, Dianalee Velie, S. Stephanie, Amber Rose Crowtree, Ala Khaki, Katrina Grella, Marjorie Moorhead, Andrew Periale, Melanie Chicoine, John Lindberg, Jody Wells, and Carol Westberg. 

 This reading will be held on Zoom.  

Space is limited to 300 audience members. Save your spot early!

There are specific steps to follow to RSVP 

 The meeting link will be sent out to the first 300 people to RSVP.

    

Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched one of the most ambitious social experiments in modern American history—the so-called Free Town Project: a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a flyspeck town with only one paved road, buried in the woods of New Hampshire’s western fringe. When freedom-focused libertarians across the US—from as far as California to as near as Massachusetts—descended on Grafton, state and federal laws became meek suggestions. Soon the wilderness-thick town lost public funding for pretty much everything: fire department, the schoolhouse, library, and perhaps most importantly wildlife services. As the people were ignoring laws and regulations on hunting and food disposal, their newly formed off-the-grid tent city caught the attention of some unruly neighbors: the bears. Armed with a pen and journalist’s notebook, Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling—a seasoned journalist who has covered everything from Maine's stately Governor's Mansion to the mud hut of a witch doctor in Sierra Leone—was drawn to Grafton in hopes of uncovering the truth behind this fantastical tale of bear vs. libertarian. Hongoltz-Hetling details how this tiny town became a radical social experiment—until the bear attacks started. Along the way he meets a band of interesting characters: Jessica Soule, a Vietnam-era veteran who became an acolyte of the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon; Adam Franz, a poker-playing communist who dreamed of founding a survivalist community; John Connell, a Massachusetts factory worker on a mission from God; and, of course, John Babiarz, the firefighter libertarian who opened Grafton’s doors to the Free Town Project and then spent the next decade trying to explain it to his nonlibertarian neighbors. This book is a sometimes funny, sometimes frightening tale of what happens when a government disappears into the woods. Complete with gunplay, adventure, and backstabbing politicians, this is a quintessentially American story, a bearing of our national soul. -- Publisher's Blurb.

    

Beneficence by Meredith Hall (Boston.: David R. Godine Publisher, 2020).

NH author Meredith Hall returns with a novel centered around family, love and loss.

"When they meet in the 1930s, Doris and Tup’s love is immediate. They marry quickly and Doris commits to the only life Tup ever wanted: working the Senter family farm, where his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents are buried under the old pines. Their lives follow the calming rhythms of the land—chores in the cow barn, haying the fields, tending their gardens—and in this they find immeasurable joy.

Soon their first child, Sonny, is born and Doris and Tup understand they are blessed. More children arrive—precocious, large-hearted Dodie and quiet, devoted Beston—but Doris and Tup take nothing for granted. They are grateful every day for the grace of their deep bonds to each other, to their family, and to their bountiful land. As they hold fast to this contentment, Doris is uneasy, and confesses, “We can’t ever know what will come."

When an unimaginable tragedy turns the family of five into a family of four, everything the Senters held faith in is shattered. The family is consumed by a dark shadow of grief and guilt. Slowly, the surviving Senters must find their way to forgiveness—of themselves and of each other."-- Author's website

Join Meredith at an online book discussion hosted by Gibson's Bookstore on Monday, September 14th, 2020 at 7:15pm, via Zoom. Registration is required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/118221921951/

    

Fix That Clock by Kurt Cyrus (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2019)

Tock… Tick… Clunk! Time has not been kind to this old clock tower. But with heads full of math and hands full of tools, our hardworking crew will quickly set things straight.

About Kurt Cyrus

Kurt Cyrus has written and/or illustrated lots of books, including Hibernation Station and Tadpole Rex, both of which were past Ladybug Picture Book Award nominees. He lives in Oregon. His web site is https://kurtcyrus.com

Activities & Links

• Education World’s telling time lesson plans:  https://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson312.shtml
• Rhyme activities from Scholastic: https://www.scholastic.com/parents/books-and-reading/raise-a-reader-blog/3-best-rhyme-games-kids.html
• Make your own paper plate clock: https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/paper-plate-clock-craft-4164110
• All Kids Network has a variety of ideas for crafts focused on shapes: https://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/shapes/
• Compilation of famous clocks from around the world: https://pre-tend.com/the-most-famous-clocks-in-the-world/