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Author Valerie Tripp Delights Audience

American Girls (Big and Small)

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Valerie Tripp, author of many of the American Girl books, visited the Cherrydale Branch Library on Thursday, April 4.

Tripp discussed where specific story ideas came from, research and the creative process, and the joys of writing. Adults and children of all ages were delighted to see manuscripts, hear stories from their favorite books, and of course, meet the dolls.

Valerie Tripp is the author of many historical fiction books in the American Girls Collection, including those about Felicity, Elizabeth, Josefina, Samantha, Nellie, Kit, Ruthie, Molly, and Emily. Tripp graduated with honors from the first coeducational class at Yale University in 1973 and received a Masters of Education from Harvard in 1981.

 

Learn more about the American Girl Lending Program at the Arlington Public Library.

 

 

Arlington Reads 2013: Full House for Dinaw Mengestu

Now With Video!

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Recorded by Arlington TV.

 

Central Library hosted a full house when Dinaw Mengestu sat down with Library Director Diane Kresh on April 9, 2013.

Mengestu was the first author to join us for Arlington Reads 2013.

Arlington Reads Mengestu

 

The following morning, students from Arlington’s New Directions high school program spent a unique hour in class with Mengestu, and gained new insight into the process of writing from personal experience.

New Directions talking with Mengestu

 

Arlington Reads continues! Don’t miss Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz, April 29.

 

What Does it Feel Like to Live with Autism?

Raise Your Autism Awareness This Year

These stories – by people with autism, and by authors who write from the perspective of characters with autism – provide a window into the unique experience of living with autism:

 

Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports From My Life with Autism
by Temple Grandin

Nonfiction: Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who has designed one third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She also lectures widely on autism—because Temple Grandin is autistic. Writing from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person, she tells us how the country of autism is experienced by its inhabitants, and how she managed to breach its boundaries to function in the outside world.

 

I Am Intelligent: From Heartbreak to Healing – A Mother and Daughter’s Journey Through Autism
by Peyton and Dianne Goddard

Nonfiction: A look into the lives of a mother obsessed with curing her child of autism and a daughter who retains full awareness of her situation and who finds her voice through Facilitated Communication.

 

 

London Eye Mystery

by Siobhan Dowd

Fiction: When Ted and Kat’s cousin Salim disappears from the London Eye ferris wheel, the two siblings must work together–Ted with his brain that is “wired differently” and impatient Kat–to try to solve the mystery of what happened to Salim.

 

Episodes: My Life as I See It
by Blaze Ginsberg

Nonfiction: Autistic teen Blaze Ginsberg creates titles and categories for the different periods and moments in his life, resulting in a list of episodes that exist in various stages of production as his life progresses and the days of his existence roll on.

 

 

Livvie Owen Lived Here
by Sarah Dooley

Fiction: Fourteen-year-old Livvie Owen has autism, and her family have been forced to move frequently because of her outbursts. When they face eviction again, Livvie is convinced she has a way to get back to a house where they were all happy.

 

 

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
by Mark Haddon

Fiction: Despite his overhwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic fifteen-year-old boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor’s dog and uncovers secret information about his mother.

 

 

Colin Fischer
by Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz

Fiction: A boy with autism teams up with the high school bully to get to the bottom of a cafeteria crime.

 

 

 

Autism: The Musical
DVD [2008}

Nonfiction: This documentary profiles five children with autism, their parents, and acting coach Elaine Hill as they take on the enterprise of a full-length stage production.

 

 

Anything But Typical
by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Fiction: Jason, a twelve-year-old autistic boy who wants to become a writer, relates what his life is like as he tries to make sense of his world.

 

 

 

Scholars with Autism: Achieving Dreams
edited by Lars Perner

Nonfiction: There’s a common myth that having autism implies severe disability, failure or worse: institutionalization. This anthology challenges those notions with autobiographical stories about living on the autism spectrum and refusing to let a diagnosis identify them.

 

 

Marcelo in the Real World
by Francisco X. Stork

Fiction: Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces new challenges, including romance and injustice, when he goes to work for his father in the mailroom of a corporate law firm.

 

 

Find out more about autism and Autism Awareness Month from the Autism Society, or  research autism using one of our online premium sites.

 

Gwen Toops, Westover Volunteer

Filling Hold Lists and Finding Great Books to Read

Gwen ToopsGwen has been a volunteer at the Westover Branch Library since October 2012. She loved working in her school library during college and although her career has taken her in a different direction, she says, “I truly feel I have found “my people” in libraries, and I just enjoy spending time there, whether as a volunteer or as a patron.”

We asked her to tell us a little bit about herself, and why she enjoys spending her free time at the Library:

What’s your favorite thing about the library?

As a paging volunteer, my responsibilities take me through all the library sections: new books, fiction, non-fiction, audiovisual media…and each Saturday, I always end up with a pile of interesting materials I couldn’t resist picking up while in the stacks! Retrieving materials is a fantastic way to learn the true depths of a library’s collection. I’m impressed by the range of events hosted by the Arlington library system, especially films, theatre conversations, and technology workshops. I haven’t yet made it to one, but I especially love the idea of Shirlington’s monthly Book Dating event. What a fun, creative way to meet new people.

What do you do when you’re not volunteering?

I am an avid hiker, skier, and traveler, and to fund my adventures, I work for the federal government as a publications assistant/proofreader.

Are you a Metro DC native, or a transplant?

Although the DC area has long felt like home, I’m a “third-culture kid” transplant by way of St. Louis.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

In an imaginary world: mission support staff at a research base in Antarctica. In the real world: a publications manager for a travel or food magazine.

What is the best book you’ve read recently?

Fiction: Long May She Reign, Ellen Emerson White’s latest (2007) novel about the first female president’s daughter and the unique stresses her life presents. Also, the entire Maisie Dobbs series (Jacqueline Winspear): interwar England as seen through the eyes of a female private investigator.

Non-fiction: The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War (Peter Englund), which explores World War I from nontraditional perspectives, including an Australian female ambulance driver in Serbia, an American wife of a Polish aristocrat, and a Venezuelan officer in the Ottoman Army. Easily one of the best books I’ve read in years.

What’s the best movie you’ve seen recently?

I’m not really much of a movie person (television shows are more my style), but I wish the movie industry would create a film version of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. The novel is such an engrossing depiction of the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands, and I would love to see the book’s vibrant characters come to life on screen.

 

Interested in becoming a Library volunteer? Check out the Current Openings on our Volunteer Page.

 

Be a Poetry Superstar in April

Show Your Meter and Share Your Rhyme

It’s National Poetry Month, and we have three different ways you can celebrate!

 

Spine Poetry Contest Slider

Online

Enter our Book / DVD Spine Poetry Contest and you could win a cool prize.

 

Open MicOn Stage

Take part in Poetry Open Mic Night, with M.C. Geoff Koury, of the Shirlington Poetry Workshop.

 

 

 

Writing poemIn Person

Share Your Haiku on the Aurora Hills Branch Library Haiku Wall.

 

 

Learn more about Poetry Events at the Library.

 

Poetry Open Mic Night

“Poetry is truth in its Sunday Clothes.” – Joseph Roux

Share your love of poetry by reading aloud a favorite poem – or your own poetry – on Tuesday, April 30, 7:00 p.m. at the Aurora Hills Branch Library 

Open Mic

Not interested in speaking?  Feel free to come along and listen. Participants and audience members will also have a chance to cast ballots for their favorite poems in our Book / DVD Spine Poetry Contest.

Poetry Open Mic Guidelines:

  • Please keep speaking time to five minutes
  • All shared works should be family-friendly
  • Please call 703-228-5715 to register. 

For more information, please contact Sarah Daviau at 703-228-5715.

 

 

Earth Day Is On Its Way!

Celebrate Earthday Everyday: Read, Return and Repeat

Cherrydale Earthday Bookdrop

 

Earth Day isn’t until April 22, but why wait to practice recycling? 

Start today with a great book at the Library!

 

 

Check out more of the fun we have with our bookdrop at the Cherrydale Branch Library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Share Your Haiku at Aurora Hills

Feeling poetic?  Share your words!Writing

April is National Poetry Month and the Aurora Hills Branch Library is celebrating with a haiku wall – drop by and add your words of poetic wisdom.

Don’t have time to stop in?  Leave your haiku in the comments, and we’ll put it up for you!

Not sure how to write a Haiku? All you need is 3 lines, with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line, and 5 syllables in the 3rd line.

Library-Haiku to Inspire You

April showers bring
May flowers – and spring cleaning.
Home Ec: 640.
by Melody Condron

 

Libraries are fun;
come in and enjoy our books.
We are your neighbors.
by Elizabeth Dooling

 

And don’t miss our other cool events in celebration of National Poetry Month:

 

Columbia Pike Welcomes Cécile and Marie-Grace

Mardi Gras Masks and Sneak Reads

Over 75 children and caregivers attended the Welcome Party for Cécile and Marie-Grace at the Columbia Pike Branch Library on Tuesday, March 26.

marie grace and cecile display

The girls who attended filled out nametags that read “I’m an American Girl. My name is_______” at the door. Then Miss Desiree talked about Women’s History Month, and what Cécile and Marie-Grace go through in their stories (but she didn’t give away any spoilers).

Then Columbia Pike’s teen volunteers Lina and Kennya read the beginning pages of each doll’s book, and we had snack and made Mardi Gras masks. Several kids even got library cards!

Thanks so much to everyone who came – we had a great time too!

 

Learn more about the American Girl Lending Program at the Library.

 

Westover Welcomes Molly!

And Learns all about an American Girl’s Life during World War II

Seventy eight excited children and caregivers attended our Meet Molly program at the Westover Branch Library on Monday, March 25.

Molly with artifacts

Molly on display at Westover before the party, with everyday household items from the 1940s and stories about life in Arlington during World War II.

 

Westover Librarian Anne brought many objects to show the audience, including special money printed during WWII and ration cards, and shared stories of her parents’ experiences during the war:

Thanks so much to everyone who came – we had a great time too!

 

Learn more about the American Girl Lending Program at the Library.

 

 



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