Library Corner
Will you be downtown on Thursday for the Mayor’s Christmas Tree Lighting?
The Friends of the Library will have hot chocolate with all the fixings for you to drink while you view our Festival of (Mini) Trees. Several businesses have donated trees and the Friends of the Library donated two beautiful wreaths, all to be sold through silent auction, with the proceeds going toward new audio books on CD.
Coming in December, we have a special evening holiday story time with a craft project starting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 18, along with library programming assistant Carolyn Courtney’s popular weekly Monday morning story time.
I invite teens to destroy books with me at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. You heard right, we will alter discarded books to make something unique, creative and fun out of them. On the event horizon, we have the Adult Winter Reading program coming in January.
The Friends of the Library recently gave the library a grant to purchase nine Playaway digital audio books. These self-contained audio books have a built-in player, like a small MP3 player. We have titles by Jodi Picoult, Dennis Lahane, Louise Rennison, and David Pelzer, to name just a few. Search for ‘playaway’ in the online catalog to get a list of titles in this new collection.
According to a new study conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts on reading patterns in the United States, Americans are not only reading less, but also not as well. “To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence” looked at more than 40 studies on the reading habits and skills of children, teens and adults, revealing “declines in voluntary reading and test scores alike.” The report also found that “frequency of reading for pleasure correlates strongly with better test scores in reading and writing.”
Although libraries were not mentioned in the report, we are here to offer everyone in the community books, both fact and fiction, to fill the important need for pleasurable reading material.
The Tonganoxie Public Library is at 303 S. Bury. For additional information, pick up our December calendar, visit the Library’s Web site at www.tonganoxielibrary.org or call us at (913) 845-3281.
Sharon Moreland
Tonganoxie Library Director