All Posts
November is National American Indian Heritage Month: Books that celebrate the diverse and distinct cultures, traditions, and histories
Posted in Explore and Discover on November 7, 2017 at 6:00 am
By Sheri Boggs November is National American Indian Heritage Month, first designated by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 and recognized as a time for celebrating the diverse and distinct cultures, traditions, and histories of the indigenous peoples of the United States. For libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions, this is a matter of […]
Tags: #NationalAmericanIndianHeritageMonth, American Indians, American Indians in Children's Literature, culture, cultures, diversity, heritage, histories, indigenous peoples, National American Indian Heritage Month, Since Time Immemorial, stereotypes, tradiction, traditions, United States
Dealing with Addiction: An OverDrive collection of eBooks & Audiobooks
Posted in News on November 2, 2017 at 6:00 am
OverDrive, the eBook and Audiobook service, has donated a curated collection of over 60 titles related to addiction, opioid use, and recovery to the Spokane County Library District’s digital collection. It is called “Dealing with Addiction,” and titles are free to check out with your library card. Just last week, President Trump declared the […]
Tags: addiction, adults, audiobooks, booklists, books, Dealing with Addiction, digital collection, digital library, eBooks, education, health, medicine, opioid addiction, opioid crisis, opioid epidemic, opioids, overdrive, painkillers, prescription medication addition, reading
Reading with children: Identity, voices, and shared memories
Posted in kids, Parents and Teachers on October 31, 2017 at 6:00 am
By Gwendolyn Haley I hear my grandfather’s voice when I read The Tale of Peter Rabbit. He did not read to me regularly. We lived very far away from him and only saw those grandparents once or twice a year. But when he read that story to me, it was magical. I have read the […]
Tags: authors, Beverly Cleary, books, Charlotte's Web, children's books, E. B. White, family, kids, Ludwig Bemelmans, parents, Peter Rabit, Ramona, reading, reading together, young learners
Ever louder bumps in the night: Scares for all ages
Posted in Explore and Discover on October 24, 2017 at 6:00 am
by Susan Goertz As a chill grips the autumn air and the chlorophyll leaches from the leaves, my mind turns toward the spooky. Nothing to get your heart racing and the cold sweat pouring on a crisp night like a good scary story. Horror is a very broad genre. There are a lot of options […]
Tags: adults, authors, booklists, books, digital library, family, Frankenstein, frightening, ghosts, Halloween, holidays, hoopla, horror, kids, monsters, movies, music, parents, reading, scary books, scarymovies, spooktacular, spooky, spooky stories, spooky tales, tweens, witches, YA, young learners
75th Anniversary & Anthology Release Party
Posted in News on October 16, 2017 at 6:00 am
We’re celebrating our 75th anniversary with a community anthology featuring writers of all ages from Spokane County and surrounding areas. NORTH SPOKANE LIBRARY Saturday, November 4, 6:30–8pm You’re invited to hear local writers read their work from Spokane Writes: A Poetry & Prose Anthology. Plus listen to live music from guitarist John […]
Tags: adults, anthology, authors, book launch, book release party, celebration, community, essays, fiction, friends, friends of the library, Friends of the Spokane County Library District, kids, music, nonfiction, poems, poetry, prose, reading, Spokane Writes, stories, teens, tweens, writing
1942: A 75-year retrospective on books
Posted in Explore and Discover on October 5, 2017 at 6:00 am
By Rachel Edmondson Spokane County Library District is commemorating its 75th anniversary this year. We’re celebrating this fall! We’ve collected stories and poems from local writers to create a community anthology, coming out in November. We have two musical celebrations at our libraries: in October, Unstrung featuring cellist Karen Hawkins an […]
Tags: 1942, adults, books, bookslist, kids, reading, teens, tweens, YA, young learners
Tidying up: Embracing the KonMari Method
Posted in Explore and Discover on September 28, 2017 at 6:00 am
By Stefani Miller Three years ago, organizing consultant Mari Kondo released her mega-best seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Many a home and closet were whipped into shape, but no one I knew had taken on Kondo’s challenge. Certainly not me, with my infamous bin full of winter clothes that may or may not […]
Tags: ARC of Spokane, authors, books, clutter, declutter, DIY, donating, downsize, downsizing, Dress for Success, KonMari Method, Mari Kondo, q&a, reading, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, tidy
Spine-tingling reads for an October night
Posted in kids on September 21, 2017 at 6:00 am
By Sheri Boggs My favorite childhood books were often the scariest. If it had a ghost or a witch or a cover with a wind-tossed old tree on it, I was IN. I loved The Ghost Belonged to Me, by Richard Peck, (in which a 13-year-old boy not only learns he can see ghosts but […]
Tags: booklists, books, ghost stories, ghosts, Halloween, haunted, kids, reading, scary, scary reads, spooky, spooky tales, tweens
Mixtape: The Vietnam War era
Posted in Explore and Discover on September 19, 2017 at 6:00 am
by David Wyatt Music is just as messy and various as life. There are few examples as poignant as the Vietnam War and Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary series about the war (airing now through September 28th on our local PBS station KSPS) to remind us there is no single truth to war, and […]
Tags: adults, Atticus Ross, Bob Dylan, Brad Keeler, documentary, Doug Bradley, events, hoopla, Ken Burns, KSPS, Linda Parman, Lynn Novick, movies, music, Nina Simone, PBS, soundtrack, The Animals, Trent Reznor, Vietnam War
Overabundance: What to do when the produce is piling up
Posted in Explore and Discover on September 7, 2017 at 6:00 am
By Susan Goertz This spring, I bought a house with a lovely little backyard. At the time, it was pretty hard to tell what was growing back there—just what looked like lots of promising looking twigs and buds. As spring warmed into summer, my vegetative bounty slowly revealed itself. Every new discovery was a delight […]
Tags: bounty, compost, composting, cookbooks, dehydrating, dehydrating produce, food preservation, garden, gardening, harvest, jerky, pickling, produce, recipe books, recipes, urban farming, vermicompost, vermiculture composting
