The Summer Reading Program ends tomorrow with our annual Old Fashioned Ice Cream Social. When else will you ever have the chance to throw Sploosh balls at me? We will give away free ice cream to anyone who comes, host ice cream and watermelon eating contests and have outdoor contests, such as wheelbarrow races and a tug-o-war. If you haven’t attended one of our socials (this is the fourth, I believe) then you have missed out on a lot of fun. We start at 11:00, but won’t get the games and things begun until 11:30, most likely… except throwing Sploosh balls at me, which always seems to go on all day!

Next week, however, our hours will change. Starting Wednesday, August 1, we will be open Tuesday through Thursday from 10 am to 8 pm, Friday from 10 am to 6 pm, and Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm. We will be closed on Sundays and Mondays. If you need to get in touch with us on Mondays, please email us, call us, or click on Meebo. We will be in the building working on internal projects to make the Library a better place.

A wonderful new book has just come out.  Stormy weather, a novel by Paulette Jiles has been added to our collection.

 ·                                 Like Little Women, Stormy Weather is a novel about a family of strong women trying to make their way in tough times. –Patricia Sanders, Towson, MD  

·                                 From the Publisher

From Paulette Jiles, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Enemy Women, comes a poignant and unforgettable story of hardship, sacrifice, and strength in a tragic time—and of a desperate dream born of an undying faith in the arrival of a better dayOil is king of East Texas during the darkest years of the Great Depression. The Stoddard girls—responsible Mayme, whip-smart tomboy Jeanine, and bookish Bea—know no life but an itinerant one, trailing their father from town to town as he searches for work on the pipelines and derricks; that is, when he’s not spending his meager earnings at gambling joints, race tracks, and dance halls. And in every small town in which the windblown family settles, mother Elizabeth does her level best to make each sparse, temporary house they inhabit a home.But the fall of 1937 ushers in a year of devastating drought and dust storms, and the family’s fortunes sink further than they ever anticipated when a questionable “accident” leaves Elizabeth and her girls alone to confront the cruelest hardships of these hardest of times. With no choice left to them, they return to the abandoned family farm.It is Jeanine, proud and stubborn, who single-mindedly devotes herself to rebuilding the farm and their lives. But hard work and good intentions won’t make ends meet or pay the back taxes they owe on their land. In desperation, the Stoddard women place their last hopes for salvation in a wildcat oil well that eats up what little they have left . . . and on the back of late patriarch Jack’s one true legacy, a dangerous racehorse named Smoky Joe. And Jeanine, the fatherless”daddy’s girl,” must decide if she will gamble it all . . . on love. 

Sounds like you might need to have a box of tissues handy when you read this book .

Talk about being busy! We have had some super-fantastic programs this summer already (and yes, the photo slideshow for weeks 2 and 3 are below) and we have seen lots of children and teens. We will offer a puppet show tomorrow morning (Tuesday) at 10:30, and DDR for teens from noon until about 6 pm. Karla Terry will teach the folk art of paper cutting, or scherenschnitte, for those of us lucky enough to have been taught it by Mrs. Virginia Lee Courter. On Thursday, Stevens Puppets will be performing their marionette show “The Wizard of Oz.” All fun stuff for Amelia area children.

Our short story competition is winding down again, with submissions due by Friday the thirteenth. We have some really great prizes this year, from a copy of the new Harry Potter book to flash drives and gift certificates. We’ll also announce the names of the lucky winners on this blog, so be sure to check back.