The Summer Experiment & Cathie Pelletier

Today we had a field trip to Conway Public Library to hear Cathie Pelletier speak about her new children's book, The Summer Experiment. Set in her hometown of Allagash, Maine, the book, written for middle grades, tells the story of rural small town life, UFOs and a summer science fair competition. A successful author of books for adults, this is Cathie's first book for young people. She talked about her writing process, why she decided to write a book for children, and about an incident known as the Allagash Abductions in which four college students claimed to have been abducted by aliens when camping in 1976, an event which inspired the plot of The Summer Experiment. She read the first chapter of the book, took questions from the audience, and then signed copies. Brianna Desharnais gave her a letter she had written to her which described her appreciation for the book and the ways in which it moved her. The author plans to add the letter to her Facebook page and a photo of the two of them together. Fun time! Come borrow The Summer Experiment from the library!

Another fun Kindergarten visit January 9, 2014

The Freedom Elementary School kindergarteners sure love books. They found ones they were interested in right away and just poured over them.  I'm so glad they come visit the library every three weeks. What great kids!

Our first visit from 2nd and 3rd grades

Oh what fun to have the classes coming to the library! We were happy to have the 2nd and 3rd graders visit this afternoon.

2nd graders with their teacher Mrs. Briggs

3rd graders with their teacher Miss Brooks

Thursdays at the Library is Where it's at for Freedom Teens

Twenty teens came to Teen Night this past week to make duct tape beach bags and see the awesome movie "Pitch Perfect." Many thanks to Tammy Majowicz who is helping with teen nights this year! Couldn't do it without you, Tammy!

After School FUN

It was a raucous afternoon downstairs at the library yesterday with both the Wii and the new Karaoke system fired up. Fun and more fun!

The girls were singing their hearts out!

Wii boys plus cheerleaders

It was Pig Day at the library and the children got to make their pigs all muddy. Even the babies could do this craft!

Scenes from after-school, pre-pizza & movie Library mayhem!

17 kids came to the library directly after school on Friday and more came as time went on... Lots of Wii action, a bit of UNO, Twister, Left/Center/Right and running around acting silly!  There were 43 to watch "Wreck-It Ralph."  Great day at the library! (Pictures taken by kids in attendance.)

 

High Interest!

The new Pokémon book, Pokémon Made Simple!, that we just added to our collection was a good purchase, at least according to a group of 2nd grade boys who visited the library yesterday. They were deep in conversation about the characteristics of various Pokemon characters. The little girl next to them was engrossed in another new Pokémon title, Pokemon Visual Guide.

RRRRROAR!

I guess a tiger in a pink dress is really not very scary.

Kindergarteners all have new library cards!

We had a fun visit from this year's kindergarten class today!  My camera was acting up so this isn't the greatest picture in the world, but here's the best of the bunch. Looking forward to seeing them again next month. Click image for larger size.

Thank goodness for umbrellas

Areas suffering from drought should invite these students to visit their library.... Their first visit in Fall of 2011 was a rainy day too. I'm glad a little rain doesn't scare them away!  Here are this year's 3rd graders with their teacher Miss Brooks and the school nurse, Phyllis Fortier.

A Crowd of Second Graders Visits the Library!

Mrs. Briggs brought this year's batch of 2nd graders to the library today for their first class visit of the school year. Great group of kids! (Click picture for a larger size)

Storytime FUN

Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes!

Rhythm Sticks!

Sarah's Monster

Emelie and Aaron show off their monsters

Chase & Dean's monsters

School's Out Party!

More than 35 students came to the library today to celebrate the end of school and beginning of summer! Magician Norman Ng, who performed at the Freedom Elementary School on Friday, returned to Freedom to lead a magic workshop. Disappearing and reappearing coins, paper clips that magically clip themselves together, and a magic string that, when cut, stays whole are the three tricks the kids learned today. Legos and popcorn followed the workshop and great fun was had with the library's 15 new cameras purchased with a grant from the Pequawket Foundation! We haven't had a chance to go through the many photos taken but hope to pull some special shots from them. Here are some taken by Joel Rhymer who caught the day's highlights...

The wonderful Norman Ng

Jack & Patrick get directions from Norman

Callie & Hannah photograph the photographer

Sofie studies her shot

Abbie & Sofie show off their Lego creation

Danny gets his picture taken by Missy

Hannah takes a picture of Caroline's eye (?!)

Elizabeth explains some features of the new cameras