If you can rouse yourself out of that turkey leftovers stupor, come on down to the library. We have a new activity room set up in the previous book sale room. Don’t worry – we just moved the books for sale to a cart right outside the room.  Meanwhile through the month of December you can come sit for a quiet moment and help us put together a jigsaw puzzle.  We’ll have another activity in that room in January, all free of charge and open to anyone when the library doors are open.

Ragweed is a dog who lives on a farm and in his book Ragweed’s Farm Dog Handbook written and illustrated by Anne Vittur Kennedy, Ragweed will tell you all about how to be the best farm dog. The first lesson is that it is the rooster’s job to wake up the farmer, not the dog’s job.  But if you do happen to wake up the farmer you may just get a dog biscuit to go away.  And it’s the pig’s job to lie in the mud, but if you lie in the mud you’ll just get a bath.  But after the bath is a biscuit!  Don’t try to roost with the hens, but if you do just pretend you’re chasing off a fox and (can you guess?) you’ll get a biscuit!  It may be pretty obvious that underlying all these farm activities is one goal: the real job of a farm dog is to get biscuits! In this cute picture book Ragweed is drawn as a medium sized black and white fuzzy mutt with a hilarious narrator’s voice. Any kid on a farm or who visits a relative’s farm is sure to relate to Ragweed, and families with dogs are sure to understand the constant job of getting biscuits into the dog’s mouth!

You can get more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone this upcoming Thursday!  I hope you are making plans for some tasty turkey.  I know I can’t wait for some pecan pie myself. We’ll be closed Thursday, November 26th and 27th for the holiday, and reopen on Saturday, November 28th for our regular hours.

Ask a little kid and they’ll tell you lots of things monsters love, such as the dark, scaring people, and maybe even the undersides of beds.  But did you know that monsters also absolutely love Hanes and Fruit of the Loom?  Claire Freedman and illustrator Ben Cort are here to tell you so in their new book Monsters Love Underpants. This children’s picture book certainly starts out with big, hairy monsters creeping down a dark street, scaring a little orange cat, but the gang all shows up to show off their colorful underwear by page two. All sorts of monsters are in this book, which means all sorts of underwear is shown off, from squeaky armor pants, frozen underwear for yetis, to slimy swamp monster pants that slide right off!  The end of the book reminds kids that lost pairs of underwear under the bed may get a new owner. 

And if the concept of this book sounds just a little familiar it is because the writer and illustrator also wrote Dinosaurs Love Underpants too.  Your young kids are sure to have a giggly fun time picking out these colorfully painted monsters on each page, and this may even be a good book to introduce the idea of fun underwear to that potty training toddler.

You can get more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.

Next Thursday night in the Shafer Room will be the second in our classic movie series.  We’ll watch the 1936 movie My Man Godfrey and have free soda and popcorn.  Call the library by Tuesday to sign up and reserve your seat (and popcorn!)  

Blark!” may be a nonsense word to the real world, but in the picture book Little Bird’s Bad Word by Jacob Grant it has a very definite place as a cuss word. Little Bird and Dad are flying along with Little Bird under wing and Dad holding a worm.  Lunch is extra wiggly that day, and Dad drops the worm.  He inadvertently says, “blark!” and Little Bird, at an age when he is learning lots of new words, picks this one up right away.  Even though Dad says this is not a word for little birds, his young one thinks he can be a big bird by using his newfound term with his friends. So off Little Bird flies and startles frog, renders moose speechless, and upsets fish and ladybug.  But Little Bird’s best friend Turtle is scared and hides away in his shell. It is then Little Bird finally realizes maybe the new word is bad.  Dad is there to explain to Little Bird that words can be hurtful and the two go around apologizing to everyone. Many parents out there are probably remembering a time in their lives with children when unwanted new words were learned. A final page in the story puts a humorous (to parents) touch on the story, and this can be a great starting point for a discussion with your kids on what real life words can be harmful.  The illustrations are done softly, but in bright colors with colored charcoal and the book’s length is short enough to keep the attention of even younger listeners.

You can get more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.  

This week the library will be closed on Wednesday, November 11th for Veteran’s Day.  We’ll reopen on Thursday at our regular time.

This week’s review is of a book that is a little out of the ordinary.  Take the traditional knights and dragons story, but add modern science, a villain that isn’t so evil, a virtuous if naïve knight, and a young lady who isn’t quite as she seems and wrap it up in comic and graphic novel format and you have Nimona by Noelle Stevenson.  Starting as a web coming in 2012 Nimona is a story about the titular character, Nimona and her adventures as the sidekick to supervillain Ballister Blackheart.  Nimona shows up on Blackheart’s doorstep and declares herself the new sidekick without so much as an interview or a demonstration of her villainous attributes.  But Nimona does have secrets, mainly that she is an indestructible shapeshifter, normally in the form of a young teenage girl.  Blackheart’s virtuous counterpart is a knight of the realm named Ambrosius Goldenloin. The two had been pals when they were training as knights, but an accident made Goldenloin cut off Blackheart’s arm, and the two have been enemies ever since.  However, the real enemy in the kingdom may just be the Institution for Law Enforcement and Heroics where Goldenloin works.  All the webcomics have been collected here in a 250 page volume and can be read in a couple of hours.  The print of the dialogue in each panel is a little small so you may want good lighting to read this.  After spending time on the new Young Adult shelves, this title will be shelved with our other comics and graphic novels, now in their own section near the magazines.

You can get more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.  

Happy (belated) Halloween everyone!  I hope all my listeners had something fun planned, whether it’s your costume, candy, or just a nice night in.

If you do trick-or-treating early and want another fun family activity in the evening, be sure to come by the library today and look for all the Halloween themed picture books in the library’s collection. They’ll have orange pumpkin stickers on the spine.  If you want a new book to read, try It’s Raining Bats & Frogs by Rebecca Colby, illustrated by Steven Henry. Delia the young witch is excited to be in this Halloween’s witch parade.  But while flying there on her broomstick she notices dark clouds gathering and, sure enough, but the time the parade is ready to start it’s raining quite heavily. All the witches are wet and miserable, so in a flash of brilliance Delia whips out a rhyming spell and turns the rain into cats and dogs.  Things progress nicely… for a while. Then the cats and dogs start fighting, so Delia tries hats and clogs. Shoes and hats to dress up in!  The witches are thrilled.  However, there’s a hitch. Everyone gets jealous of one another’s snazzy new outfits.  So, it’s on to bats and frogs, but that doesn’t last for long either.  The illustrations in pencil, pastel, and ink aren’t bright (it’s storming after all!) but they are colorful. In addition to a seasonally appropriate book, this story can lead to a short and hilarious lesson in rhyming words, or a discussion about local weather. To find out how this wacky witch parade ends, come on down to the library for this sugar free family treat and more Halloween themed reads.
 
You can get more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.