Calling All 6th, 7th & 8th Graders!

Yankee Book Swap

Wednesday, March 26th from 4 to 5:30 pm

at the

Bedford Free Library

Bring a book you give away,

your sense of fun,

(you might not go home with

the book you expected!)

& your appetite.

Eat, Swap, Talk!

Registration is helpful but not required; the more the merrier!

The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher

By now you all know that I am new here. And new to being a YA librarian. So I guess you won't mind finding out that prior to taking this job I had never read a book by Chris Crutcher and I didn't know a thing about him. I didn't know, for instance, that he has the same birthday as me (July 17th) or that he is known for writing controversial books. Books that even wind up on the banned books list.

I decided to read The Sledding Hill because I liked the cover and because our library has lots of books by Chris Crutcher and it looked like a book that maybe a boy would want to read. I did not read any reviews before I started in on page one.

In fact, I read the entire book before I read a review. I was astounded to learn that people considered this book potentially controversial. I just thought it was a great story full of interesting ideas and pretty good writing to boot. Goes to show you what I know.

So I guess if you want to read a controversial book, this would be a great choice. And maybe that's a more attractive reason for a young person to read it than an adult like me telling you why I think it would be good for you.

I could post an excerpt or a review, but I'd really rather have you Read It For Yourself, the way I did, and then let me know what you think.

5th Grade Girls Book Group

This is my first book group here at the Bedford Free Library and I am very excited about it. The book we will be discussing is River Boy by Tim Bowler.

We will meet at the library on Thursday, February 14th at 7:00 p.m.

Books are being held at the children's circulation desk for you to pick up.

Come in or call (234-3570) to sign up now!

JANUARY

“… a hot bath is the best place for all of us in the miserable month of January. The excitement of Christmas is long past and school is soon beginning again and there is really nothing to look forward to except the cold weeks ahead. If I had my way I would remove January from the calendar altogether and have an extra July instead.

For the last twelve months we have been living in one year and now all of a sudden it is another. It is extraordinary how this tremendous change takes place in the space of a fraction of a second. As the clock approaches midnight on the thirty-first of December you are still in the old year, but then all at once, one millionth of a second after midnight, you are in the new. I have always found this sudden change from one year to another awfully hard to get used to, and all through the new January that follows I keep writing down the old year instead of the new one on letters and cheques and other bits of paper. The same sort of thing happens on your birth when you are nine years old one day and ten years old the next. It is lovely to be a year older, but it is the suddenness of it all that is so amazing.”

~ from My Year by Road Dahl