Port Library, Beloit KS
1718 N. Hersey
PO Box 427
Beloit, Kansas 67420
785-738-3936
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Here by Richard McGuire

8/31/2015

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Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  

Story Port starts 2 weeks from Monday. Story Port is the library’s after school reading and activity time for kids ages 5 through 5th grade on Monday afternoons from 3:45 to 4:15 pm. Call or stop by to sign your kids up. Sign ups also continue throughout the fall.

Although the library is filled with books of varying lengths and reading levels, some of the most fascinating books have hardly any words at all. If you’d like to stretch your brain in a different type of novel, try Here by Richard McGuire. In a series of pictures only very occasionally punctuated with captions, Here tells the story of one static place through most of known time.  

Each page or box within a page has a date in the upper left corner, letting the reader know what time period to expect.  The title page starts with a very simple scene in very simple drawings and muted colors, showing a living room with a sofa, window, and fireplace in the year 2014. Turning the page shows that a partially filled bookcase has been added, indicating someone is moving in. But the next page is a completely different, a living room from 1957 with busy wallpaper and a crib in the middle. Later on the scene changes to the outdoors in 1623, on the same spot with an overlaid box into the same location in 1957 within the same page. The book continues in this way, overlapping stories from different times on the same page. 

In order to follow each storyline, the reader may need to concentrate on one time period at a time and read through the book several times. This is a book meant in length and some content for teenagers and adults.

You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.  This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”


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Hungry Coyote by Cheryl Blackford and Laurie Caple

8/24/2015

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Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit. This is the last week I’ll be reviewing some new picture books in the library’s children’s section for a little while. These are great bedtime books, quiet time books, or anytime books for parents, grandparents, older siblings, or other loved ones to enjoy with younger kids, or on their own! Next week starts sign-ups for our fall semester of after-school reading and activity time, Story Port, on Mondays from 3:45 – 4:15 pm.  The program starts September 14th.

Coyotes are not strange animals to most people in rural Kansas. However, with suburban sprawl, even near-city dwellers are coming in contact with coyotes. Cheryl Blackford and illustrator Laurie Caple tell the story of a year in the life of an urban coyote in Hungry Coyote. This grey and brown dog-like creature lives at the edge of a lake in a large park surrounded by the city. Starting in winter, we see coyote scrounge for food and slink away from people as he hunts to feed his young family, hidden among boulders. In spring mice, frogs, and other vermin are food, while in summer sausages from an untended picnic make for a fine feast for half-grown pups. In fall the nearly grown coyote family feeds on a goose just a bit too slow, and then it is winter again. Lovely watercolor, colored pencil, and pencil illustrations in a realistic style bring the reader to the coyote’s small spot of wildlife in the city. 

You can get the book reviewed here plus more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.  This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”

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The First Slodge by Jeanne Willis and Jenni Desmond

8/17/2015

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Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  For the next two weeks I’ll be reviewing some new picture books in the library’s children’s section. These are great bedtime books, quiet time books, or anytime books for parents, grandparents, older siblings, or other loved ones to enjoy with younger kids, or on their own! Next Friday all the students return to school, and the Port Library would like to wish everyone a good start to the school year.

What is a slodge?  While reading this week’s Port Pick will give you a picture of this creature, rest assured a slodge is entirely fictional, though sort of cute in a green blobby kind of way. Author Jeanne Willis and illustrator Jenni Desmond introduce us to the very first slodge ever in The First Slodge. She crawls out of the green muck of a pond and begins to experience the first sunrise, the first sunset, stars, moon, etc. greeting all of it by saying, “my day, my night,” and “my star, my moon,” and so on. The first slodge is experiencing all of creation, including the first ripe fruit. After the first bite she takes a nap only to find someone else had taken a bite of her fruit. It is another slodge! Each thought they were the only one! A fight ensues, but after nearly losing the fruit to a snawk (in the water) the two slodges realize that it is better to have made the first friend and call things “ours.” This storybook is a great introduction for toddlers to the idea that an item can belong to someone else, or to the group as a whole.

You can get the book reviewed here plus more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit. This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”

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Sheep Go to Sleep by Nancy Shaw and Margot Apple

8/10/2015

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Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  
For the next three weeks I’ll be reviewing some new picture books in the library’s children’s section. These are great bedtime books, quiet time books, or anytime books for parents, grandparents, older siblings, or other loved ones to enjoy with younger kids, or on their own!

Author Nancy Shaw and illustrator Margot Apple are back with an eighth story in their sheep series.  The first, Sheep in a Jeep, tells the story of 5 white fluffy lambs who decide to take over the farmer’s jeep to drive to town one day. The library has a few other titles in this series, and now the latest, Sheep Go to Sleep, is ready for check out. In this story, simple rhyming phrases tell the story of the five sheep bedding down for the night in their shed. First, each lamb brings straw to make a comfy bed. But as they settle down, noises in the night keep them awake and nervous. Just then the farm’s friendly border collie wanders by and decides to help each sheep in turn. One gets a hug, while another asks for water. Sound familiar? By the time all five sheep have been attended to and tucked in most of the bedtime stalling tricks have been revealed, but everyone eventually falls asleep, dreaming of what else, but sheep? This is a sweet, soft story illustrated in colored pencils, sure to help lull your little one just a little closer to dreamland.

You can get the book reviewed here more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.  This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”

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By Mouse and Frog by Deborah Freedman

8/3/2015

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Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.   For the next four weeks I’ll be reviewing some new picture books in the library’s children’s section. These are great bedtime books, quiet time books, or anytime books for parents, grandparents, older siblings, or other loved ones to enjoy with younger kids, or on their own!

How many of my listeners remember a story with a little boy named Harold and his purple crayon? In that book and in today’s picture book the book characters draw the rest of the story as it comes to life in the pages. Instead of a little boy though two friends, Mouse and Frog, learn how to play together and make compromises as they build their world in By Mouse and Frog by Deborah Freedman. In pencil drawings, watercolor, pastels, and more the colorful story plays out, though on the first page we see only Mouse and his pencil.  Mouse starts by drawing a table, complete with a tea set. Then Frog comes bouncing in and knocks over the teapot, suddenly spilling real tea out of the line-drawn pot. Mouse would like to have a calm story, but Frog soon takes over, bouncing all over the page and mixing up every story at once. Frog’s creations take over the story and soon Mouse is yelling, “STOP!” The colors and the story blend together in quite literally a mess on the page as the two friends start the story over again, this time working together to make a world both of them can play in.  Any young reader who also likes to draw will love this story and may even want to draw their own when finished.

You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit. This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”

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