Note to Bay Area book-lovers: Litquake hits town October 1-9. Most events are in San Francisco, but Litquake on the Lake on October 6 brings authors Melanie Abrams, Elaine Beale, Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Jacqueline Luckett, Lisa Braver Moss and Kristin McCloy to the Lake Chalet on Lake Merritt. A $5-$10 donation to Litquake entitles you to order from the restaurant’s low-price happy hour menu all night long. Complete details on this and other events at litquake.org.
Posted in Just for Fun | Tags: Events, literary news
Detail from A Pirate's Night Before Christmas by Phillip Yates, illustrated by Sebastiá Serra
Argh! Sunday, September 19th be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Here are a few of our favorite pirate books available at the Montclair Library (and a few you can request from other branches, marked with a *):
Picture Books:
Chapter Books:
And of course there are classics featuring pirates, like Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie* and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
P.S. If you should find yourself in San Francisco and in need of pirate supplies, there’s no finer purveyor of peg legs, glass eyes and lard than 826 Valencia (despite what the scurvy dogs at Captain Rick’s would have you believe), and your purchases help support students ages 6-18 (and their teachers) with writing workshops, tutoring and more.
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Posted in Just for Fun | Tags: children
Mark your calendars: Our next book sale will be Saturday, October 16 from 10am-2pm. Stay tuned for details.
[Photos courtesy of: crunchcandy and Leo Reynolds via Flickr.]
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Posted in Events | Tags: Events, Fundraising, sales
Local bookstore and friend of the Friends A Great Good Place for Books is offering a Graphic Novel Writing Workshop for Young Readers and Writers this fall. This class is not sponsored by or affiliated with FOML or the OPL, but we thought you might be interested.
This six-week writing workshop, taught by a credentialed teacher, shows kids that reading and writing can be fun, easy, and totally awesome. Students will read and discuss their favorite graphic novels during the first part of each class, and the rest of the class will be devoted to building a strong story with good dialogue and narration. At the end of the workshop, students will produce their own comic using the Comic Life program.
The class will be Sundays from 5-6:30 p.m for kids ages 8 and up, beginning September 12th and ending October 24th. Registration ends September 8. For details, contact A Great Good Place for Books.
From Bookhunter - image (c) Jason Shiga
Did you know that former OPL employee Jason Shiga wrote a graphic novel set in (a fictionalized version of) the Oakland Main library? You can learn more about his book, Bookhunter, and even read it online here.
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Posted in Events | Tags: arts & crafts, children, graphic novels, teens
Do you use the Oakland Public Library Website (www.oaklandlibrary.org)? If so, they’d like your feedback to help improve the site. Take their short survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/oplwebsitesurvey
If you haven’t been to the OPL website in a while, take a look — not only can you search and request books, check the event calendar and manage your account, you can also check out downloads of ebooks and audiobooks through their new e-Port feature.
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Posted in News | Tags: library news
Photo: Tommaso Galli via Flickr
Stock up on your holiday weekend reading now — in addition to its regular Monday closure September 6th, the Montclair branch (and all Oakland Public Library branches) will be closed Sept 7, 9, 10 (but open Wednesday, Sept. 8) for a combination of Labor Day holiday, Admissions Day and budget cutbacks.
Today’s trivia: Admissions Day celebrates the day California became the the 31st state on September 9, 1850. Read all about it on the California State Parks website: http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23856
Photo: Thilo Folkerts via TreeHugger.com
As a book lover, what do you think of this art installation in Quebec? 40,000 discarded books, stacked into temporary garden walls and seeded with mushrooms.
Designed by a Berlin-based team of Canadian artist-designer Rodney LaTourelle and landscape architect Thilo Folkerts, the Jardin de la Conaissance (Garden of Knowledge) seeks to introduce the book as not only a structural garden element of wall, bench and bed, but also as a growing medium.
Read the full article here: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/08/mushroom-art-utopia-outdoor-library-garden-40000-books.php
Speaking of gardens, did you know that Hillside Gardeners of Montclair volunteers help maintain all the beautiful plants and flowers you see growing around the library? Next time you see someone tending the roses, don’t forget to give them a big “thank you.” There’s an interesting article on the club’s history and activities here.
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Posted in Just for Fun | Tags: literary news, volunteers
The Montclair branch’s final kids’ event of the summer will be this Tuesday, August 17th at 7pm when Puppet Art Theater presents “Three Billy Goats Gruff” (or possibly “Tommy’s Splashy Pirate Adventure,” depending whom you ask, but either way it should be good). For ages 3-10.
This production starts with the classic race of the Tortoise and the Hare. Hare, super speedy; Tortoise, slow and steady. Who will win? The conclusion of the race takes place on the “Troll Bridge” waking up the Grumpy Old Troll. Three Billy Goats must find a way to outwit the Troll and get across the bridge so they can enjoy the field of green, green grass. Little Billy, his older sister Brittany, and their father Bruno all try to trip-trap their way across the bridge. Will they make it?
Great column in today’s Chronicle (8/15/10) by Carl Nolte on the subject of books and libraries:
Print is not dead – libraries booming
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/15/MN1R1ETNGD.DTL
A boom in the city’s public library system has been going mostly unnoticed over the past year. While the media were announcing the death of print with the rise of e-books and other electronic wonders, the demand for books and other items in San Francisco’s public library was up 13 percent.
Posted in News | Tags: library news
Friends of Montclair Library 