What to Give, What to Get

A book is a gift that can be opened again and again.  And a book that is part of the Friends of the Parkland Community Library's Milestones Program honors the gift recipient and enriches the whole community.  Read more about this program on the Parkland Community Library's website.

If you want to give a book that will be treasured by just one person, check out Kidsreads.com's list of "What to Give, What to Get" book giving (and requesting) ideas.  While on this site, scroll down a bit and print out an entry form to win the first book in Ann M. Martin's (Baby-sitters' Club, The Doll People) new series, Main Street.  Martin's new series is about orphaned sisters who go to live with their grandmother and find a new community and a new home.

For those sometimes difficult to please teens, visit Teenreads.com for a separate "What to Give, What to Get" list designed just for this age group.  Teenreads is giving away a basket full of the best books written for teens, so take a few moments to enter that contest, too.

The Parkland Community Library's winter holiday picture books and music CDs are now on display on the counter above the Juvenile CD drawers.  Stop by often to renew your supply of seasonal stories and songs.

Harvest Stories and Crafts

Thanksgiving goes by too fast.  Join the Parkland Community Library Youth Services staff and volunteers for Harvest Stories and Crafts on Friday, November 27th, from 11 am to 12 noon.  Make a seasonal craft and listen to fall and winter stories.  Please make a reservation for this event by calling the Parkland Community library at 610-398-1361 or by coming into the Parkland Community Library at 4422 Walbert Avenue, next to the South Whitehall Township Building.

This event is for families with children of all ages.

The flu and you

Flu season is here. Storytime attendance is down. Children are home from school. The nightly news keeps everyone updated on vaccine availability. The Center for Disease Control has a Question and Answer site for all the things people want to know influenza, its symptons and what to do to avoid or lessen its effects.

It's a good idea to have plenty of good reading material and DVDs on hand for those days when the house is full of runny noses. A perennial favorite of children of all ages is Michael Bond's Paddington Bear. The marmalade loving bear from darkest Peru manages to get into and out of trouble with the greatest of ease. The books are great for 3rd and 4th grade readers and younger children will enjoy hearing Paddington's adventures read out loud.

Or, borrow The Little House on the Prairie, the book or DVD, for cozy feel-good reading or viewing.

The Parkland Community Library has many other options for passing the time for the ill or recuperating family. Place items on hold from your home computer and the library staff will pull those materials off the shelf and have them waiting for you. Please give the library staff time to retrieve materials before picking the items up.

Feel better soon!

Fun websites

Remember to bring your used children's books - in good condition, please -to donate to Literacy Outreach Belize. The Parkland Community Library will collect children's books for this charity throughout November. (New books are also appreciated!)

Here are some great websites I've run across. Some are book related, some are just for fun.

Historical Fiction for Independent Readers is a booklist put together by the people at Scholastic, Inc.
The folks at Scholastic also put together a booklist of Historical Fiction for Middle Schoolers. If your child is tired of fantasy and superheroes, get them interested in stories of bygone times.

Lehigh Valley Little Ones is a website dedicated to letting parents know about children's activities and resources in the Lehigh Valley. The Parkland Community Library will have a link on their website soon.

If you need a place where family members can share things, but don't feel ready for one of the larger social networking sites, take a look at Famundo.com. Parents can create calendars, post pictures and do just about everything that other social networks can do. One nice feature is the list feature. Your entire family can access the gorcery list, for instance, when they discover that your family is running low on catsup. Membership is free. Check out the demos first. Famundo offers tutorials to make using the site that much easier.

This last site is Just For Fun! Create a Cookie is a Better Homes and Garden website. Expect some ads when you visit. Ice a cookie and share it with your friends!

These sites will be posted on the Parkland Community Library's Links for Kids website as soon as I can get them on there.

Used book collection

The Parkland Community Library is collecting used children's books, not for the library or for the Friends Book Sale. During November, the library staff likes to remember how lucky we are to have a friendly library and our fine patrons and our jobs. So we collect used children's books to share with other libraries and families that are not so lucky.

This year, the best books we collect will go to Literacy Outreach Belize, an organization that collects books and ships them to school libraries in Belize. Literacy Outreach Belize also sends volunteers to that country to do workshops in poetry, story writing and storytelling.

The Parkland Community Library will partner with the Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild in this effort. During the winter, members of the Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild will put on a benefit performance to collect more books. The Parkland Community Library's own Teen Tellers will also perform in that concert. A date and venue are still in the works.

In the meantime, clear off your bookshelves and bring used children's books in good, nearly new condition to share with young readers, here and in other countries. Put them in the Turkey box and we will ship them off to Belize.