TAG: tweens

Gifts of experience for less stress and more joy this holiday season

Posted in Explore and Discover on December 11, 2018 at 6:00 am

By Abra Cole The holiday season is here again! I love the smells of goodies baking in the oven, the peacefulness of the fluffy snow falling outside, and the excited sounds of kids clamoring to get the best spot by the Christmas tree and all the gifts. Usually at our house, that last one is […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cozy up to slow reading this winter

Posted in Explore and Discover on November 27, 2018 at 6:00 am

By Melissa Rhoades One specific morning in fourth grade still stands out in my memory. I arrived early to class, sat at my desk, and opened a novel I was midway through. I don’t remember now what book it was, but I do remember becoming completely engrossed, sinking into the world on the page. Which […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Great digital reads for the whole family

Posted in Explore and Discover, kids, Parents and Teachers, Teens on November 6, 2018 at 6:00 am

BY SHERI BOGGS November marks the time of year when families start drawing close together for the holidays and you know what that means—lots and lots of family time! The Library District has got you covered with several themed booklists available on our popular OverDrive digital platform. FOR KIDS We Are Family is a handpicked […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Banning books silences stories: Reading a banned book celebrates your intellectual freedom

Posted in Explore and Discover, Parents and Teachers on September 18, 2018 at 6:00 am

by Melissa Rhoades Banned Books Week is September 23–29 this year. Did you know that at least 23 of the 100 books on PBS’s 2018 Great American Read book list have been banned or threatened with a ban in the United States? That means almost one-fourth of America’s “most loved” novels (as determined by popular […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to Identify a Dragon

Posted in Explore and Discover, kids, Parents and Teachers, Teens on August 21, 2018 at 6:00 am

by Caitlin Wheeler When I was young, I loved C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. I especially loved The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a book that, in my eight-year-old estimation, had everything a book ought to: quests, nightmares, magic spells, enchanted islands, warrior mermaids, anthropomorphized stars, and of course, dragons. Eustace Claren […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The art of saving seeds

Posted in Explore and Discover on July 31, 2018 at 6:00 am

by Abra Cole In a remote vault located halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, nearly one million seed varieties are stored. The purpose of this immense storage facility is to ensure the genetic future of these seed varieties, should any of the gene banks located around the world suffer catastrophic disaster. One hundred […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Microadventure: Day trip to Stonerose for fossils

Posted in Explore and Discover, kids, Parents and Teachers on July 24, 2018 at 6:00 am

By Rachel Edmondson Even though I’ve lived in the Spokane area for over 15 years now, every once in a while I find out about something and wonder how I’ve never heard about it before. This past fall I learned about the Stonerose Interpretive Center. While it’s a bit of a drive from Spokane (about […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bicentennial of a Monster’s Birth

Posted in Explore and Discover on April 17, 2018 at 6:00 am

By Melissa Rhoades On January 1, 1818, the debut novel of a 20-year-old woman was anonymously published in London. Within five years, a second edition was released and a play based on the book premiered. The novel and its spin-offs remained a hit, and in 1910, Edison Studios created the first movie based on Mary […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s Time for Research Papers & Science Fair Projects!

Posted in News on March 1, 2018 at 6:00 am

Get the knowledge and help you need online. Our digital resources help students with research, science projects, and studying for tests. We have the digital resources to help you succeed! RESEARCH PAPERS Biography in Context: Discover over 600,000 biographies of contemporary and historical figures. CultureGrams: Explore the cultures of people throu […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Anticipation and inspiration: Getting ready for spring gardening

Posted in Explore and Discover on February 27, 2018 at 6:00 am

by Abra Cole It’s nearly Go Time, my gardening friends! We’ve almost made it through the winter, through the snow and the ice, through the below-freezing temperatures. We have watched last summer’s plants freeze and die back, disappear under a blanket of snow, and get stomped on (along with other indecencies) by neighborhood cats. We […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,