Enjoy these frightfully fun Halloween programs at Shreve Memorial Library
As Halloween quickly approaches, Shreve Memorial Library branches are getting into the spirit with frightfully fun programs for all ages. Little goblins and ghouls can enjoy fun storytime programs featuring smiling jack-olanterns, friendly ghosts, and cackling witches, while older teens and tweens can enjoy making spooktacular crafts and playing Halloween games. Plus, who does not love a good scary movie? Many Shreve Memorial Library branches will show screenings of Halloween-favorite films such as Hocus Pocus, Ghostbusters, and more.
Perhaps, the program that I am most excited about is Will Stuck’s “Not-So-Spooky Stories.” Professional speaker, storyteller and edu-tainer Will Stuck will visit Shreve Memorial Library branches Tuesday, October 24 through Friday, October 27, sharing stories of giggling ghosts, imaginary monsters and crazy creatures. The stories are tailored for the audience, so they are never too scary for those listening. The interactive show also encourages children to participate in the finale by creating a one-of-a-kind creature based off of audience suggestions. Will Stuck will be performing at select Shreve Memorial Library branches. Be sure to check out the Shreve Memorial Library website for complete program details and performance schedule.
If you are like me and you like to celebrate Halloween with a good scary movie, then you will definitely want to check out Shreve Memorial Library’s movie collection for the perfect movie night in. The library has hundreds of titles available on DVD and Blu-Ray that you can check out for free with your library card. A little secret – the binge boxes feature multiple titles in one checkout, so you can check out the entire Conjuring universe series or classic haunted house films at one time with one checkout. Binge boxes can be checked out for a period of two weeks, giving you plenty of time to watch the movies. And if scary movies are not your thing, there are also binge boxes of romantic comedies, thrillers, and feel-good movies for you to enjoy.
No matter your plans for the Halloween season, Shreve Memorial Library has something to keep you entertained and on the edge of your seats (in a good way). Be sure to visit www.shreve-lib.org for the latest information on Halloween programs and fun at the library. Until next time, con
tinue to dream, discover, do!
What’s New at the Library
A House for Alice by Diana Evans (fiction)
In the early hours of June 14, 2017, the world watches as flames leap up the sides of a residential high-rise in West London, consuming Grenfell Tower and many of the lives within it. Across town, an earlier spark has caught fire. A cigarette left burning in an ashtray. A table strewn with post-it reminders and old newspapers. And one Cornelius Winston Pitt – estranged husband, complicated dad, and Pitt family patriarch – takes his final breaths alone. These twin tragedies open Diana Evans’s A House for Alice, an aching portrait of a family of women shaken by loss and searching for closure. At the novel’s center is Alice herself, the Pitt matriarch who, after fifty years in England, now longs to live out her final years in her homeland of Nigeria. Her three daughters are torn on the issue of whether she stays or goes, and while youngest sibling Melissa also grapples with the embers of her own failed relationship, the Pitt family’s foundational pillars – of trust, love, and cultural identity – begin to crack. Intimately drawn and set against a fraught political backdrop, yet equally full of hope, humor, and humanity, A House for Alice traces the scars of grief and betrayal across generations and uncovers the secrets we keep from those closest to us.
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore (non-fiction)
The Curies’ newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War. Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” are the luckiest alive – until they begin to fall mysteriously ill. But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women’s cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America’s early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers’ rights that will echo for centuries to come. With meticulous research and a keen eye for detail, Kate Moore delves into the lives of these remarkable individuals, capturing their resilience, strength, and unwavering determination. Through their stories, she exposes the shocking negligence and corporate cover-ups that plagued the radium industry, ultimately sparking a revolution in workplace safety.
The Caretaker: A Novel by Ron Rash (fiction)
It’s 1951 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Blackburn Gant, his life irrevocably altered by a childhood case of polio, seems condemned to spend his life among the dead as the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery. It suits his withdrawn personality, and the inexplicable occurrences that happen from time to time rattle him less than interaction with the living. But when his best and only friend, the kind but impulsive Jacob Hampton, is conscripted to serve overseas, Blackburn is charged with caring for Jacob’s wife, Naomi, as well. Sixteen-year-old Naomi Clarke is an outcast in Blowing Rock, an outsider, poor and uneducated, who works as a seasonal maid in the town’s most elegant hotel. When Naomi eloped with Jacob a few months after her arrival, the marriage scandalized the community, most of all his wealthy parents who disinherited him. Shunned by the townsfolk for their differences and equally fearful that Jacob may never come home, Blackburn and Naomi grow closer and closer until a shattering development derails numerous lives. A tender examination of male friendship and rivalry as well as a riveting, page-turning novel of familial devotion, The Caretaker brilliantly depicts the human capacity for delusion and destruction all too often justified as acts of love.
About Shreve Memorial Library Shreve Memorial Library transforms Caddo Parish lives with resources, services and support to create a better world. Focusing on service priority areas of creating and maintaining young readers, stimulating imagination, providing lifelong learning, information fluency, and ready references, and informing citizens, Shreve Memorial Library’s 21-branch system is maintained by a parish-wide property tax millage to support the informational, educational and recreational needs of its constituents. For more information, visit www.shreve-lib.org , like on Facebook, and follow @shrevememorial on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Remember to dream, discover, do – Shreve Memorial Library and you!