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National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week – November 10-18
The federal government’s official poverty threshold for a family of four is about $25,100.00. In 2016, 40.6 million people lived in Poverty in the USA. That means the poverty rate for 2016 was 12.7%! In 2016, 21.2% of all children (15.3 million kids) lived in Poverty in the USA—that’s almost 1 in every 5 children. $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America– Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer Edin and Shaefer chronicle the unintended consequences of the 1996 welfare reforms meant to encourage employment and reduce reliance on government cash payments. The reforms have been modestly successful for poor people who are employed. However, for those…
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October is National Bullying Prevention Month
A 2016- 2017 CDC survey showed New Hampshire had the 8th highest rate of cyber bullying in the country for High School aged students. An April 2018 study found that 59% of students admitted to experiencing cyber bullying in the last year. Check out some of the library’s offerings on bullying and let’s work to reduce these numbers. At LeakyCon, a young lady asked me how I dealt with bullying. I wasn’t able to give her a very good answer, which troubles me. Well, there were lots of shouts of “It gets better” and “Stay strong” and “We love you”. But when I put myself back in time to when…
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Spring has sprung!
Spring has sprung! Check out the library’s expanding collection of gardening, sports, and cookbooks! Succulents- Robin Stockwell “Succulents are the ultimate easy-care plant: versatile, effortless to grow both indoors and outdoors, and drought tolerant. From Aloe and Agaves, to Senecio and Taciveria, this handbook by leading garden expert Robin Stockwell highlights 200 of the easiest, most useful, and gorgeous plants, and shares advice on care and cultivation. Readers will find inspiration for imaginative and exciting new ways to use succulents in striking garden designs, containers, vertical walls, and indoor arrangements, as well as step-by-step projects, such as living bouquets and terrarium ornaments.” (from the back cover) Carrots Love Tomatoes-…
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SPS welcomes Poet Safia Elhillo February 12th
On Monday, February 12th, Safia Elhillo will be giving a poetry workshop and reading at Ohrstrom Library – see our event listing for details. Safia is the author of The January Children and the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, The Conversation, Crescendo Literary, and The Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Incubator. In addition to appearing in several journals and anthologies, her work has been translated into Arabic, Japanese, Estonian, and Greek. With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me. She is currently a teaching artist with Split This Rock. Ohrstrom Library has Safia’s book, The January Children, available: The January Children- “Elhillo contemplates the meaning…
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New Year, New Books
Happy New Year! Escape the chilly weather and stay inside to curl up with some of our great new fiction titles! Stay With Me– By Ayobami Adebayo “Powerfully magnetic and heartbreaking…At once, a gothic parable about pride and betrayal; a thoroughly contemporary — and deeply moving — portrait of a marriage; and a novel, in the lineage of great works by Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie… Adebayo is an exceptional storyteller. She writes not just with extraordinary grace but with genuine wisdom about love and loss and the possibility of redemption.”- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times New People– By Danzy Senna “In “New People,” her captivating and…
