What's happening in central Vermont

One evening last winter, my wife and I took the all-to-rare step of getting a babysitter and planned a night on the town. We wanted to go out to dinner in Montpelier and then to a movie or to hear music. We discovered that it was very difficult to find out what was going on in town. The local papers carried some venues and not others. There are online calendar sites, but I found them difficult to navigate.

The staff at Kellogg-Hubbard have compiled a brief list of bookstores, movie theaters, clubs, etc. that we hope will make finding out what is going on easier. We're not going to maintain a calendar, only a link to other sites.

We do this for a simple reason: to increase the number of visitors to our blog and web site. This information can also be found as a page on our website and I've added a link on the right side of this page.

If you would like to suggest an addition or if you find a bad link, please leave a comment on this post. Note that venues must be located in our service area (Berlin until July 1, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex, Montpelier, or Worcester).

• Bookstores
• Bear Pond Books
• Book Garden
• Rivendell Books

• Nightlife
• Black Door
• Charlie-O’s (call 802-223-6820)
• Langdon Street Café
• Positive Pie

• Theater
• Lost Nation Theater
• Montpelier Theatre Guild
• Vermont Opera Theater

• Calendars
• City of Montpelier
• Montpelier Downtown Community Association (MDCA)
• Seven Days
• Times Argus
• Virtual Vermont

• Community Arts & Performance
• Adamant Music School
• Maple Corner Community Center
• Unadilla Theatre, Calais

• Galleries and Studios
• Afterimage Photography Studio & Gallery
• Artisans Hand
• Lazy Pear Gallery
• T.W. Wood Art Gallery

• Movies
• Capitol Theater
• Green Mountain Film Festival
• Savoy Theater

• Newspapers
• East Montpelier Signpost
• Middlesex Occasional
• Montpelier Bridge
• Times Argus
• Washington World
• Worcester Grapevine

• Other
• Farmers' Markets
  

New DVDs on Parenting in the Children's Library

DVD reviews from Claire, our Children's Librarian who catalogs all the materials in the Children's Library:

The Baby Human: Geniuses in Diapers
(JDVD PARENT 155.42 B)
This award winning DVD is educational and fun to
watch. From before a baby is born until the age of
about two the DVD covers the most up to date thoughts
on how babies learn to walk, to think and to talk.
Did you know for instance that a new born baby knows
to recognize his own parents' language and proves it
by becoming animated and sucking more on the pacifier
when hearing a recording of that language? Do you
know how important it is for a child to point to an
object before the child can learn to talk? These and
many more amazing experiments are demonstrated and
explained in 150 minutes.
The Glove and Mail said, "Darn entertaining and
often very funny-and you do learn quite a bit
about the little creatures."


Happiest Toddler on the Block by Harvey Karp, M.D.
(JDVD PARENT 649.12 K)
The subtitle on this DVD is "Eliminate up to 90% of
the tantrums in just days!" and "The new way to stop
tantrums and raise a happy, secure child." Dr. Karp
has a loyal following with parents of young children.
He emphasizes "Toddler-ese" a way to communicate with
young children. Again, this is a fun DVD to watch
with his common sense approach to interacting with
children. We watch as the parents in the DVD use Dr.
Karp's suggestions and are amazed and thrilled that
the suggestions work and eliminate the problems.
(Running time approximately 69 minutes.)

Laugh and Learn about Newborn Baby Care
(JDVD PARENT 649.12 A)
How does a newborn get a bath? What do you wash
first and what do you wash last? This DVD has the
very basics in new born care. Sheri Bayles, BSN, RN,
shows new parents how to change a diaper and dress or
undress a newborn, then how to do the same things for
a 3 month old child. (Running time approximately 40
minutes.)

Visit the Children's Library to check out these DVD's,
Monday through Friday, 10am to 5:30pm and Saturday 10am -1pm.

Kellogg-Hubbard and the Town of Berlin

Berlin voters declined to support Kellogg-Hubbard on town meeting day, and the Times Argus has an article today on the library board's decision to start charging Berlin residents for a library card. (It must be a slow news day. The article is on the front page above the fold.)

Another Book Group Selection

Ruth's book group is currently reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Ruth and I sit across from each other and often share our book titles. Both of our groups wait until books come out in paperback. My group meets on Sunday mornings. We share breakfast, then discuss the book. What is your book group reading and what are some of their practices?

Which Books are You Reading?

My book group just read, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan. This was not an easy read, but it was very good. It was amazing to read about the ecological destruction that occurred, dust blizzards that enveloped six states and eventually blew to New York, deaths of so many people due to dust pneumonia, eating tumbleweed...I learned so much from reading and listening to this book. Our book group agreed that this was a good book to read and discuss. We also agreed that if it were not a book group selection we would not have read it, excepting one member. The book that we are reading for this month is Barak Obama's Dreams From My Father. I've only read a few chapters at this point, but I'm impressed with "Barry's" early years. There are so many book groups in this area - tell us what you're reading!

May Gardening Galore Raffle Winner

 Andrea Gould is the winner of the KHL Gardening Galore Raffle. She won all of these great prizes:
$75 gift certificate from Boulevard Gardens
*Two Hours of Garden Consultation from Layne’s Garden Design
*$25 gift certificate from von Trapp Greenhouse
*Two Tickets to Goddard College Greatwood Gardens Tour and Tea
*Perennials for American Gardens by Ruth Rogers Clausen and Nicolas H. Ekstrom,donated by The Book Garden
*Gloves and knee pads from Gardener’s Supply
*Two 20-quart bags of manure compost and one 6-quart bag of Compost Plus from Vermont Compost
*$15 gift certificate from Highland Gardens (Vendor at Montpelier Farmers’ Market)
*Assorted seeds and Garden Frogs in Tub
We are grateful to the individuals and businesses who donated these items to the library for this raffle!

Lending to young adults

I just put in the mail a grant application to a small foundation to ask for funds to purchase books for young adults (12-16 year old). I included a chart that shows the increase in lending from Kellogg-Hubbard to young adults:



We have all grumbled a bit about the amount of noise and activity we see from young people after school at the library. But they are reading!

Founding of the Kellogg-Hubbard Library

I have never recovered from the financial strain of those years of bitter conflict, but I would not have back again one penny of that money, if I could get it, for as real men grow older they experience no joy comparable to that of founding institutions for uplifting generations which come after us, and besides, if I have anything to my credit in the bank above, I am sure that this constitutes a considerable part of it.

John W. Burgess, Reminiscences of an American Scholar, Columbia University Press, 1934, p. 277.

This is a quote from the concluding paragraph of chapter in a memoir by John Burgess, in which he tells the story of the stormy founding of the Kellogg-Hubbard Library. (Thank you Hilari for finding this wonderful work!) After reading the chapter, I’m inclined to think the library in Montpelier should be the Kellogg Library.

Follow this link for a brief history of Kellogg-Hubbard.

Fundraising report

This is the status of the Library's local fundraising:

Proud Mother

My daughter graduated from MassART on Friday! She will have an exhibit at the Library this summer. (Yes, she will be embarassed by this post)