DIY Holiday Decorations in the Maker Space

Library ladies Marcia and Linda with Maker Space ornaments

Drop by the Library to fold some origami stars, make a wreath, and decorate some foam snowflakes. The Maker Space is at the back table. And while you're there, leave a message or create a poem with magnetic tiles (on the shelve ends), and help color in the community poster. This is the season to make, share, and read.

Origami snowflakes, books & more @ the library

Looking for winter activities? Drop by the library and make some snowflakes. There are activities for kids of all ages, from 9 to 90. For smaller hands, there are snowflakes ready to decorate and hang, as well as a holly wreath and coloring sheets. For those who like a challenge - take home an origami star kit. With a bit of folding you'll end up with a 3-D star perfect for hanging on a tree or tying to a package.

Check out some books for winter reading while you're there. 

No two alike, by Keith Baker features two red birds that create their own snowy day fun. They make a mound of tiny snowballs, use pine needles as cross-country skis, nibble dry leaves into snowflake shapes, and fly about, using a twig to knock the snow off fence posts. Meanwhile, they notice things around them, noting that each one is different from the others. Even the two birds themselves, who look so similar, are not alike.

Crinkleroot's book of animal tracking, by Jim Arnosky is a great introduction for kids who want to learn about animals in the winter landscape. Crinkleroot knows all about raccoons, deer, rabbits, foxes, otters, and other animals in the wild - and he's eager to share his secrets! Crinkleroot even knows how to find an owl in the daytime -- and he wants you to be able to find one, too.

His short introductions are accompanied by drawings that show the tracks of each animal or bird and includes information on each animal's habitats and behavior. 

Winter Trees by Carole Gerber

Trees that once had leaves are bare.
They're dressed instead in lacy white.
Snow dusts their trunks and coats their limbs
with flakes that outline them with light.

This book followa a boy and his dog as they use their senses of sight and touch to identify seven common trees in the snow covered forest. You;ll learn how to identify these trees even in the middle of winter, when only bare branches and bark offer clues to who they are.

What's Christmas without a tree? Patricia Polacco shares a story based on a childhood memory in The trees of the dancing goats . 

Trisha loves the eight days of Hanukkah, when her mother stays home from work, her Babushka makes delicious potatolatkes, and her Grampa carves wonderful animals out of wood as gifts for Trisha and her brother. In the middle of her family's preparation for the festival of lights, Trisha visits her closest neighbors, expecting to find them decorating their house for Christmas. Instead they are all bedridden with scarlet fever. 

Trisha's family is one of the few who has been spared from the epidemic. It is difficult for them to enjoy their Hanukkah feast when they know that their neighbors won't be able to celebrate their holiday. Then Grampa has an inspiration: they will cut down trees, decorate them, and secretly deliver them to the neighbors. "But what can we decorate them with?" Babushka asks. Although it is a sacrifice, Trisha realizes that Grampa's carved animals are the perfect answer. Soon her living room is filled with trees -- but that is only the first miracle of many during an incredible holiday season.

What’s all the Hoopla about?

Your library card is a passport to the world of books, movies, e-books, and music. Now you can use it to access free streaming movies, TV and music – through an app called HOOPLA.

If you live in Cayuga, Cortland, Seneca, Tioga, or Tompkins County, you can download the free hoopla digital mobile app on your Android or IOS device or visit hoopladigital.com  to begin enjoying thousands of titles – from major Hollywood studios, record companies and publishers – available to borrow 24/7, for instant streaming or temporary downloading to your smartphones, tablets and computers.

Check out what’s available over at hoopladigital.com  

Hoopla also offers eBooks, audiobooks and Comics – but check the library catalog first, because Finger Lakes Library system may already have the title available in Overdrive.

You can borrow up to three hoopla selections each month with your active library card. “Active” means that you’ve been using it within the past couple years and you don’t have any outstanding fines. Movies and television shows will be available on your device for 3 days after you check them out.  Music will be available for 7 days and audiobooks will remain available for 21 days.  All items are returned automatically, so you won’t accumulate any late fees.

What this means is that you can access materials through Hoopla 24/7 – and if you don’t get good internet at home, remember that Candor Free Library is a wi-fi hot spot 24 hours a day.

Halloween at the library

The library ladies are gearing up for Halloween and have lots of cool hands-on activities for patrons. Make an origami bat or bat finger puppet, decorate a spider with glitter and googly eyes, and color in a mask for Day of the Dead.

There’s also a poster-sized “community coloring page” and markers so everyone can add a bit of color, as well as individual coloring pages and color-it-yourself bookmarks.

Be sure to check the shelves for tales about monsters, ghost stories, and scary legends. Here are a few of the books you’ll find at the library:

           

Heebie-Jeebie Jamboree by Mary Ann Fraser.

Daphne and her brother Sam attend the Heebie-Jeebie Jamboree which is held for one night only on Halloween, as they view warlocks riding brooms, visit the fun crypt, participate in a goblin pie contest, and see the Rolling Bones.

The monster's ring [sound recording]  by Bruce Coville.

A timid boy, eager to frighten the school bully on Halloween night, acquires a magic ring and the power to change himself into a hideous monster.

What a scare, Jesse Bear!  by Nancy White Carlstrom ; illustrated by Bruce Degen.

At Halloween Jesse Bear picks out a pumpkin, helps make a jack-o-lantern, works on a costume, and has fun trick-or-treating.

Bats at the library  by Brian Lies.

Bored with another normal, inky evening, bats discover an open library window and fly in to enjoy the photocopier, water fountain, and especially the books and stories found there.

 And the dolls are still on display - so drop by for some Halloween fun.

Dolls on Display

Every now and then Rose Bish fills the display cabinet with something new from her collection. Drop by this month to enjoy some seasonal dolls.

Some celebrate Halloween traditions, others celebrate fairy tales. Thank you, Rose, for sharing your wonderful dolls with the community.

Alzheimer's Program Tuesday Oct 11

Fall Book Sale & Art Open House

Books for EVERYONE!

If you like books and art, then the library is the place to be on October 6. That day is the first day of the book sale and the open house for the art exhibit.

Fall Book Sale runs Thursday through Saturday as part of the Candor Fall Festival -  and the shelves are overflowing with books. If you are looking to stock up on winter reading at basement-level prices, you won't want to miss it.There are histories and mysteries, romances and science fiction, books for kids and books for teens, fiction and nonfiction, books about cooking and books about hooking (both crochet and fishing). You'll find detective stories, hardcover novels, paperback classics, poetry, picture books, DVDs, CDs, maps, travel guides, political commentary and plenty more.

  Fall Book Sale hours are:

        Thursday, October 6 - from 10 am - 6 pm

        Friday, October 7 - from 10 am - 6 pm

        Saturday, October 10 - from 10 am - 4 pm

            Bag Sale Saturday, from 2-4 pm, $2/bag

There's a Bake Sale on Saturday starting at 10 am and ending when everything is gone. Come early because people line up for the pies.

Book smART Art Exhibition and Open House
Thursday, October 6, from 6 - 8 pm

Join us in celebrating Catherine Montgomery's beautiful illustrations in our library space. Catherine is an artist from Spencer who draws upon fables, folklore, and fairy tales for inspiration. The illustrations on display represent Sleeping Beauty, Yddgradsil (Norse mythology), Persephone (Greek), The Tiger and the Brahmin (India), The Frog Prince (African), Mulan (Chinese folk tale), Scheherazade (Arabian), and The Tailor who Sold his Soul (Mexican).

Refreshments will be served, and during the open house Catherine will talk about her art and answer questions about technique and how the artwork was created. She'll have a variety of art supplies and coloring sheets for adults and children to enjoy as they explore the world of storytelling and illustration. The project is made possible, in part, with public funds from NYSCA's Decentralization Program, administered regionally by the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes.

Story Hour Starts This Week!

Story Hour begins Tuesday - September 13.

For many children, Story Hour is a Tuesday morning tradition. They get to hang out at the library, listen to Miss Terry read stories, sing some songs, learn a fingerplay, get up and move, and play the parachute game. (no free falling involved)

At the end of it there's a snack and kids head upstairs to check out a book or one of the PreSchool backpacks filled with books and learning games.

On September 20 - a Special Guest is coming to story hour: kid's musician Johnny Only!  "He's fun," says Terry, the Story Hour lady. "He gets kids up and moving and singing. And he even sings a SHARK song!" You can find out more about him here. This program begins at 10 am.

While Story Hour is aimed at the preschool crowd, there are children of all ages up to five years. Some older homeschooling siblings have been known to tag along and help out, though the library is open for those who might want to do homework or look something up for a report.

You don't have to sign up for story hour - just drop in on Tuesday and check it out.

Got questions? Call the library.

Starting Sept 1 - Use Your Card at Any FLLS Library

You can already use your Candor library card to check out books and DVDs from any library in Tioga County. But starting this week - Thursday, September 1 - card-carrying patrons of Candor Free Library will be able to use their Candor card to borrow materials from any of the Finger Lakes Library System’s 33 member libraries. 

This “One Card, Many Libraries” service will provide local patrons with easier access to other libraries in the system. Currently, the libraries within the Finger Lakes Library System offer reciprocal borrowing privileges, but patrons often had to have a library card from each of the libraries they visited.

What this means: beginning September 1 you no longer have to carry a bunch of library cards in your wallet. Now, if you want to drop by Tompkins County Public Library during a day in Ithaca, you can use your Candor card to borrow materials. 

Sarah Glogowski, executive director of the Finger Lakes Library System, said the change represents the commitment of member libraries to provide access and ease of use for library patrons. "By allowing patrons to access each of our libraries with one card, we are making our libraries more welcoming and convenient," Glogowski said. "If you have several cards from different FLLS libraries, libraries will be happy to consolidate them into one easy card."

 

Kids need Nature

Scott Sampson, author of "How to Raise a Wild Child" was interviewed for the "On Point" radio show last year - a program that was re-aired on our local public radio station recently. (You can listen to the show here)

Some people know Sampson as a dinosaur paleontologist; more know him as the host of "Dinosaur Train". He grew up playing outside and realized that, over the years, we we have come to a point where our children spend only a few minutes a day playing outdoors.

And yet research shows that being outside is essential for healthy growth. Regular exposure to nature, he said, can help relieve stress, depression, and attention deficits, reduce bullying, combat illness, and boost academic scores.

You can get a copy of his book by reserving it through the FLLS interlibrary loan.

And if you're looking for things to do outdoors, check out the 5-minute field trips posted every Wednesday at Archimedes Notebook. Or check out a field guide and camera from the library and head off on an adventure.

Kid's Book Sale!

Just in time for summer reading!

Reading with a Summer Theme

Summer officially begins June 20, but you don't have to wait to read summery books. Here's a bunch of fiction and nonfiction for all ages - all available on our shelves. Short reviews from the catalog.

The lost summer of Louisa May Alcott, by Kelly O'Connor McNees.

Deftly mixing fact and fiction, Kelly O'Connor McNees imagines a love affair that would threaten Louisa's writing career-and inspire the story of Jo and Laurie in Little Women. Stuck in small-town New Hampshire in 1855, Louisa finds herself torn between a love that takes her by surprise and her dream of independence as a writer in Boston. The choice she must make comes with a steep price that she will pay for the rest of her life.

If you're more interested in zombies, then check out the graphic novel, Secret of the summer school zombies, by Scott Nickel ; illustrated by Matt Luxich.

Trevor thought nothing could be worse than spending the entire summer in school, until his teachers turned into homework-crazed creatures. Now Trevor and his friend, Filbert, must find a way to stop the zombies, or they'll be trapped inside the classroom of doom forever. 

The illustrator, Matt Luxich started drawing when he was three years old. Although his parents didn't enjoy cleaning their son's cartoons off the walls, they supported his talent. Years later, Luxich attended the Kubert School of Illustration and Animation in Dover, New Jersey and now he is a freelance illustrator. You never know just where drawing on the walls will take you...

Cam Jansen and the summer camp mysteries, by David A. Adler ; illustrated by Joy Allen.  (easy reader)

On the first day of camp, Cam already has a mystery on her hands: who set up a fake lockbox to steal campers' snack money? The second book in this three-book compendium follows Cam and her bunk mates as they try to find out who wreaked havoc in their cabin. The third story is about stolen sports equipment. As usual, the girl detective relies on her photographic memory and deductive reasoning to crack each case. 

The summer solstice, by Ellen Jackson ; illustrated by Jan Davey Ellis. 

This book looks like a picture book, but is aimed at children in the 2nd - 4th grades. It shows customs and lore surrounding the longest day of the year. The author includes information about the summer solstice from many (mainly Western) cultures and locales, from the Chumash and Anasazi Indians to the ancient Egyptians, from Swaziland to Sweden. she offers a brief explanation of the earth's tilt, presents a solstice story adapted from a Hawaiian chant, and adds a few pages of solstice activities. 

The girls of summer : the U.S. women's soccer team and how it changed the world, by Jere Longman. 

Even if you don't follow soccer, you've heard stories of the final game of the 1999 Women's World Cup in the Rose Bowl - the game where the United States beat China on penalty kicks after two scoreless hours. The author, New York Times sportswriter Jere Longman, ventures off the field to discuss such topics as the rise of women's sports and women's soccer in Muslim countries. He highlights stars, such as Mia Hamm, Michelle Akers, and goalkeeper Brianna Scurry as well as less-heralded players, such as Christine Lilly, Carla Overbeck, and Sun Wen for China. The book captures the excitement of soccer and the extreme competitive nature of these women players. Game descriptions are so vivid that readers will feel they are watching the game on video.