Off to a good start in 2009!

Pictured: Winners at our December Teen Game Night! Left to Right: Tanner Custer, Brianne Hamilton, Lathan Buzzard, Brandon Greenawalt. Front: Zach Strauser

Eccles-Lesher Memorial Library Staff and Board of Trustees hopes everyone had a great Christmas and a safe and fun New Year!


On we trudge into that most beloved time of year: Tax Season! I know, the sarcasm is just rolling off that statement! But the library does in fact have it’s first shipment of tax forms in. We are still waiting on our instruction books and a few other miscellaneous forms, but stop in and see if we have what you need.


Storytime is new and improved! Nancy and Judy have revamped our Thursday afternoon Storytimes and for the month of January the topic is Snow! We’ll be reading stories on snow and doing a craft once a month, as well as learning how to tell dates, times, etc.! Bring the kids down for a fun afternoon every Thursday at 1 pm! Bet you can’t guess what February’s topic will be??!


Speaking of children’s programs, if you happen to see Nancy Shanafelt any time soon be sure to congratulate her on winning a Pennsylvania Library Association 2009 Best Practice Award!!! There were 70 applications sent in for early learning programs from across the state, and Eccles-Lesher Memorial Library was one of only 22 selected as winners! Nancy is receiving this award for her Headstart Science program in the category of Programs Showcasing Community Collaborations. Congratulations Nancy! Job well done!


Teen Book Discussion for January 2009 – This month’s novel is Cut by Patricia McCormick. According to Amazon.com’s Review: “Burdened with the pressure of believing she is responsible for her brother's illness, 15-year-old Callie begins a course of self-destruction that leads to her being admitted to Sea Pines, a psychiatric hospital the "guests" refer to as Sick Minds. Although initially she refuses to speak, her individual and group therapy sessions trigger memories and insights. Slowly, she begins emerging from her miserable silence, ultimately understanding the role her dysfunctional family played in her brother's health crisis. Patricia McCormick's first novel is authentic and deeply moving. Callie suffers from a less familiar teen problem--she cuts herself to relieve her inner frustrations and guilt. The hope and hard-won progress that comes at the conclusion of the novel is believable and heartening for any teen reader who feels alone in her (or his) angst. Along with Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak and E.L. Konigsburg's Silent to the Bone, McCormick's Cut expertly tackles an unusual response to harrowing adolescent trouble. --Emilie Coulter” Any teen interested in taking part in this book and our discussion at the library can stop in to pick up a copy of Cut and then come to the discussion here at the library on Monday, January 26th at 3:30 pm! Any questions call Sharon at 473-3800.


Teens don’t forget! Every Wednesday the library offers Guitar Hero 3 or Rockband 2 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. for pre-teens and teens ages 10-17. Thursdays are Halo 3 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. If you enjoy playing against other people in person come on down to the library community room where we project the game up on the wall. Bigger is better! Permission slips are required for these activities, so make sure to pick up a slip and get it signed by a parent or guardian!


Eccles-Lesher Memorial Library will be having a Pre-Teen Game Night!! Friday, January 30th from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Any kids ages 8-12 can come hang out in the library after hours and play computer games, xbox, cards, and more! Permission slips are required and can be picked up at the library circulation desk. They must be turned in by Wednesday, January 28th! If we don’t have enough kids sign up we’ll have to post pone it. If we are closed for bad weather it will be cancelled. Other than that we should have lots of fun! Any questions on this just call the library and ask for Sharon or Rachel, 473-3800.


February 2009 begins our Adult Book Discussions for this year! On February 3rd make plans to come to the library to watch the film version of our November Discussion novel, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Amazon.com reviews are a wonderful thing: “Like the bestselling book upon which it's based, The Kite Runner will haunt the viewer long after the film is over. A tale of childhood betrayal, innocence and harsh reality, and dreamy memory, The Kite Runner faces good and evil--and the path between them, though often blurry and sorrowfully relative. Director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland) presents a painterly vision of Afghanistan before the Soviet tanks, before the Taliban--lush, verdant, fertile--in its landscape and in its people and their history and hopes. The story follows two young boys' friendship, tested beyond endurance, and the haunting of their adult selves by what happened in their youth--and what horrors befall their country in the meantime. The performances of the two boys--Zekeria Ebrahimi (Amir) and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada (Hassan)--are the film's strongest, unforced and gently evocative. The penance paid by their adult selves is foreshadowed, but never predictable--and the metaphor of innocence lost, a common theme in Forster's work, keeps the film, like the title kites, truly aloft.--A.T. Hurley”
This film is sure to spark great discussion, just as the novel did. So come down to the library on Tuesday, February 3rd at 6:30 p.m. and join our lively bunch!


Also in February: Our Adult Book Discussion group will be meeting on Tuesday, February 24th at 7 p.m. to discuss our next book, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. “Jeannette Walls's father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. To call the elder Walls's childrearing style laissez faire would be putting it mildly. As Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family, from the embarrassing (wearing shoes held together with safety pins; using markers to color her skin in an effort to camouflage holes in her pants) to the horrific (being told, after a creepy uncle pleasured himself in close proximity, that sexual assault is a crime of perception; and being pimped by her father at a bar). Though Walls has well earned the right to complain, at no point does she play the victim. In fact, Walls' removed, nonjudgmental stance is initially startling, since many of the circumstances she describes could be categorized as abusive (and unquestioningly neglectful). But on the contrary, Walls respects her parents' knack for making hardships feel like adventures, and her love for them--despite their overwhelming self-absorption--resonates from cover to cover. --Brangien Davis”

This title is available at the library for a small donation of only $10. Our discussion will be lead by one of our board members, Karen Jordan, so come on down for some intriguing discussion!