Our annual Summer Reading Challenge is ON NOW!! We challenge every age to read outside of their ordinary for the chance to win some stellar prizes. Not only that, but we are hosting free events, activities and more for every age. Click HERE to learn more!
Local Author Book Signing
Tues, June 7, 11-1pm
Meet and chat with Tallahassee author, Bruce Ballister. Bruce is the author of four novels, his most recent a science fiction series – Dreamland Diaries.
Learn more about his work at BallisterBooks.com.
Beginner Flow Yoga
Wed, June 8, 9:45am
An intro yoga class that moves slowly through a simple vinyasa sequence while focusing on alignment and breath while working on strength, balance and flexibility.
Great for beginners to yoga. Sign-up for the free class HERE.
Spanish 101
Wed, June 8, 4:30pm
We get it, you don't know anything more than "tacos" & "margarita", or maybe you've taken a decade off. Either way, you are ready to change all that with Spanish 101. Perfect for those new to the language and wanting to learn the basics. Sign up and learn more HERE.
Friends of the Library Book Sale
Every Tuesday, 10-5pm
Check out the FOL's used book store, open every Tuesday.
All proceeds go toward programming and materials at all our branches. Books, DVDs, puzzles, children & young adult books, music and more!
GameTime
Mon, June 6, 2pm
Hang out with other teens and enjoy access to our treasure chest of games. We have: Nintendo Switch, XBox, online gaming, board games, card games and more. And because no gaming session is complete without it, we will also have snacks. Intended for ages 12-17.
Arts + Crafts (For Teens)
Wed, June 8, 10:30am
Get your creative on! Join us for an hour of crafting. Projects range from jewelry making to DIY soap to bullet journaling and more. All supplies provided by the library at no cost. This week, we will be making travel aquariums. Intended for ages 12-17. Find the full schedule HERE.
Movie in the Stacks
Fri, June 10, 11am
Take a break from the heat and chill out with a movie in the library. We will be showing the Disney-ride turned comedy, Jungle Cruise, complete with popcorn and drinks. Intended for ages 12-17. Click HERE to find the June movie schedule.
Gulf Specimen Mobile Marine Lab
Tues, June 7, 10-4pm
Join us and gain a better sense of what is really out in the Florida Gulf Coast. The Gulf Specimen Mobile Marine Lab is the travelling version of the Panacea Gulf Specimen Laboratory’s unique collection of the bizarre and the beautiful. It brings the Gulf to you! Click HERE to learn more.
Story Time: Toddlers + Tykes
Thurs, June 9, 10:30am
Join us in the Children's Department for an hour of stories and fun! This week, it is all about SHARKS. A fun art + craft activity follows after the story readings. Intended for ages 2-6 years old.
RECOMMENDED READS:
Books to help you complete our adult reading challenge
Ender's Shadow, by Orson Scott Card
-Science fiction, Written in the 1990s, + Part of a series
This is a “parallel novel” to Ender’s Game (which is one of my favorite books of all time). So what is a “parallel novel?” Just what it sounds like! In Ender’s Game, we meet many of Ender’s fellow students in Battle School. In this book, Ender’s Shadow, we follow the life of another student, Bean, who is one of Ender’s friends in the original book. We are briefly introduced to Bean’s life on Earth before he is called to Battle School, and the book ends in approximately the time/place as Ender’s Game… so is it the same story? No. Not at all.
Bean is a street urchin, small, malnourished and hanging on to life by focusing his extreme intellect on survival. Bean is a lost soul – until he comes up with a plan for civilizing life on the streets of Rotterdam, and is discovered by Sister Carlotta, a nun searching through the sometimes-feral and always-starving street urchins of the world in the hopes of finding a promising candidate for Battle School and raising him/her out of the mire. Bean agrees to go to Battle School – not because he has to, but because it is a matter of survival. A completely different perspective on the circumstances and developments that occur while both Bean and Ender are in Battle School.
The Library of Lost Things, by Laura Taylor Namey
-For young adults, With a blue cover, + Book about book-ish people
A contemporary YA gem of a book for book lovers. Teen-aged Darcy spends her life lost in books and words, shutting out the reality of living with a mother with a serious hoarding problem (their apartment is a jumble of "goat tunnels" through piles and piles of stuff). Darcy's one refuge is her room that she's turned into a library. When a former teen pilot, the swoony and complicated Asher, enters her bookish life, Darcy has a choice to make - either keep barricading the world out with a wall of books and stories, or start creating a story of her own. Lovely writing, charming details and with one of the most engaging, hilarious best friends you'll read in a long time - aspiring fashion designer Marisol (Marisol's warm & wonderful Cuban/Mexican family is another highlight of this book - and the luscious food descriptions...prepare to be hungry and googling Cuban/Mexican cuisine). An engaging, highly-enjoyable read.
Going to Meet the Man, by James Baldwin
-By a BIPOC author + A classic novel
"There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories, as told by James Baldwin, detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep their head above water. It may be the heroin that a down-and-out jazz pianist uses to face the terror of pouring his life into an inanimate instrument. It may be the brittle piety of a father who can never forgive his son for his illegitimacy. Or it may be the screen of bigotry that a redneck deputy has raised to blunt the awful childhood memory of the day his parents took him to watch a black man being murdered by a gleeful mob. By turns haunting, heartbreaking, and horrifying--and informed throughout by Baldwin's uncanny knowledge of the wounds racism has left in both its victims and its perpetrators--Going to Meet the Man is a major work by one of our most important writers.
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