SRP Registration DUE!
2022-06-30 13:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Alexander Findley Community Library
Please have your Summer Reading Registration forms turned in by today, so we can start to get things ready to go in July. Thank you!

Arts & Crafts for Adults
2022-07-14 14:00 - 15:00
Join us as we make some fun and easy frames out of mat board, then decorate the frame however you want. Bring a picture you’ve been wanting to have framed!

Saturday Storytime
2022-07-16 11:00 - 13:00, 2022-07-23 11:00 - 13:00, 2022-07-30 11:00 - 13:00, 2022-08-06 11:00 - 13:00, 2022-08-13 11:00 - 13:00, 2022-08-20 11:00 - 13:00, 2022-08-27 11:00 - 13:00
Every Saturday in July and August, we’ll have Storytime at 11am. Come for a story read by the fabulous Judy Hunt, stay for a craft and/or activity! Some of the Saturdays, there will be a StoryWalk on the Nature Trail behind the Mina Community Center where our library is located. On those days, we’ll have Storytime on the trail (weather permitting).

Book Club
2022-07-21 18:00 - 19:00
Join us for a discussion of this month’s book Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah.
Summary
After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises.
The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. With concerns about the child’s home situation, Jo reluctantly agrees to let her stay—just until she learns more about Ursa’s past.
Jo enlists the help of her reclusive neighbor, Gabriel Nash, to solve the mystery of the charming child. But the more time they spend together, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren’t Jo and Gabe checking the missing children’s website anymore?
Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made. As the summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth miracle, her dangerous past closes in. When it finally catches up to them, all of their painful secrets will be forced into the open, and their fates will be left to the stars. (via goodreads)

Final Collaborative Wednesday: Mood Jars!
2022-08-03 13:00 - 14:00
Today is our last Collaborative Wednesday with the Clymer-French Creek Free Library and the Clymer-Findley Lake Summer Recreation Program. We will be making mood jars!

Many thanks to everyone who participated this year! We learned a lot, and can’t wait to show off our crafts.

Arts & Crafts for Adults!
2022-08-11 15:00 - 17:00
Come on down and paint a decorative bird house! Don’t worry if you’re not crafty! We just want people to try something new and have some fun.

Book Club
2022-08-18 18:00 - 19:00
Join us for a discussion of this month’s book We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker.
Summary
Walk has never left the coastal California town where he grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released.
Duchess is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Her mother, Star, grew up with Walk and Vincent. Walk is in overdrive trying to protect them, but Vincent and Star seem bent on sliding deeper into self-destruction. Star always burned bright, but recently that light has dimmed, leaving Duchess to parent not only her mother but her five-year-old brother. At school the other kids make fun of Duchess―her clothes are torn, her hair a mess. But let them throw their sticks, because she’ll throw stones. Rules are for other people. She’s just trying to survive and keep her family together.
A fortysomething-year-old sheriff and a thirteen-year-old girl may not seem to have a lot in common. But they both have come to expect that people will disappoint you, loved ones will leave you, and if you open your heart it will be broken. So when trouble arrives with Vincent King, Walk and Duchess find they will be unable to do anything but usher it in, arms wide closed.
Chris Whitaker has written an extraordinary novel about people who deserve so much more than life serves them. At times devastating, with flashes of humor and hope throughout, it is ultimately an inspiring tale of how the human spirit prevails and how, in the end, love―in all its different guises―wins. (via goodreads)

Book Club
2023-07-20 18:00 - 19:00
Join us in the library at 6pm for a discussion of July’s book, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Head’s up: next month we will read the follow-up, Olive, Again.
Summary:
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition – its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life – sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. (via goodreads)

Summer Reading Storytime and Craft!
2023-07-22 11:00 - 12:00
Join us in the library on Saturday, July 22 at 11am for a Storytime, followed by a craft and other playtime activities!

Garden Club
2023-07-29 11:00 - 13:00

Summer Reading Storytime and Craft
2023-08-05 11:00 - 12:00
Coming soon!

Arts & Crafts for Adults
2023-08-10 15:00 - 17:00
Pots from our first go-round in May.
We’re going to découpage terra cotta pots again—but smaller ones this time. They’re going to be so cute! All supplies are provided, so come visit us, have some fun, make a bit of a mess!

Author Talk: Destiny Kinal
2023-08-17 17:00 - 18:00

Book Club
2023-08-17 18:00 - 19:00
Meet us in the library at 6pm for discussion of July’s book, Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout. As part of Summer Reading, this is the follow-up book to Olive Kitteridge that we read in June.
Summary:
Prickly, wry, resistant to change yet ruthlessly honest and deeply empathetic, Olive Kitteridge is “a compelling life force” (San Francisco Chronicle). The New Yorker has said that Elizabeth Strout “animates the ordinary with an astonishing force,” and she has never done so more clearly than in these pages, where the iconic Olive struggles to understand not only herself and her own life but the lives of those around her in the town of Crosby, Maine. Whether with a teenager coming to terms with the loss of her father, a young woman about to give birth during a hilariously inopportune moment, a nurse who confesses a secret high school crush, or a lawyer who struggles with an inheritance she does not want to accept, the unforgettable Olive will continue to startle us, to move us, and to inspire us—in Strout’s words—“to bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.” (via goodreads)

Summer Reading Storytime and Craft!
2023-08-19 11:00 - 12:00

Garden Club
2023-08-26 11:00 - 12:00
Show off your Nature Journal and check in on the garden!

Arts & Crafts for Grownups!
2024-07-11 15:00 - 17:00
Join us in the library for Paintapalooza! There will be different kinds of paint, and lots of things to paint (birdhouse, glass jar, terra cotta pot, etc.)!

Saturday Storytime: Bubbles!
2024-07-13 11:00 - 12:00

Bubble Painting
2024-07-17 10:00 - 11:00
Wednesdays with Summer Recreation Week 1
This week we’ll be trying our hand at bubble painting! This event is held for the kids attending Summer Recreation at the Mina Community Center, but all our patrons are welcome to join in on the fun!

Book Club
2024-07-18 18:00 - 19:00
Join us in the library for a discussion of July’s book, Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward.
Summary:
“‘Let us descend,’ the poet now began, ‘and enter this blind world.’” — Inferno, Dante Alighieri
Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages.” (via goodreads)

Saturday Storytime: Crocs!
2024-07-20 11:00 - 12:00

WILD Creatures Reptile Show!
2024-07-24 10:00 - 11:00
Wednesdays with Summer Recreation Week 2
Join us in the gymnasium for WILD Creatures as Chris Duckett shows off some of his incredible reptile friends. It’s sure to be an educational and entertaining time! This show is held for the kids attending the Summer Recreation at the Mina Community Center, but everyone is welcome to join us for the fun.

Saturday Storytime: Geodes!
2024-07-27 11:00 - 12:00
Join us in the library for a story and a snack. Then we’ll smash some geodes and see what we find inside!
Note: This activity is meant for older kids, but there will be an alternative for our youngest patrons.

Could You Be a Grape Farmer?
2024-07-31 10:00 - 11:00
Wednesdays with Summer Recreation Week 3
Josie Allen from the Cornell Cooperative Extension will be here to see if we have what it takes to be a grape farmer. This event is held for the kids attending the Summer Recreation at the Mina Community Center, but all our patrons are welcome to join in!
