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

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you have a peaceful and joyous celebration planned. The library is closed today for Christmas Day and will be closed this Saturday for New Year's Eve, plus a week from today for New Year's Day observed.  We’ll reopen at our regular hours for the new year next week on Tuesday.

If you still have some of the holiday spirit you’d like to indulge after December 25th, I have a shorter novel you can fit in to your busy end-of-year schedule. This one starts off as a tearjerker, designed to end on a happy note with a Christmas flair. Abby, Belinda, Louisa, Cassidy, and Grace are members of a tight-knit book club that has been meeting for over 15 years. Right before Thanksgiving though, the unthinkable happens.  Abby passes away from a brain aneurysm. The other ladies are crushed.  Abby was the cheerful and empathetic glue that held most of the group together.  However, before she died Abby had just finished Christmas presents for each of her friends – delicate homemade angels, customized for her friends.  In an effort to move through their grief the book club becomes an angel club, dedicated to helping in their community like Abby did for their small circle of friends. Belinda owns a thrift shop, Louisa is a semi-retired artist, Grace an over-busy interior decorator, and Cassidy a veterinarian’s assistant. In the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas each woman learns what it truly means to be an angel in their own community and among their little angel club.
 
​You can get the book reviewed here, which was The Christmas Angel Project  by Melody Carlson, 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!”

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

The library will be closed this Saturday for Christmas Eve, but the book drop will be available for returns.

Rachel Renee Russell is the author of the popular Dork Diaries series about middle school student Nicki Maxwell and all the crazy fun adventures she gets into just trying to navigate school and life.  After thirteen books in that series she has finally started another series, this time with a boy in the main character spot: Max Crumbly.  The first in the series is The Misadventures of Max Crumbly, Locker Hero. 

Max’s books are written in the style of a journal with lined pages, a handwriting style typeface, and sketches included, making this somewhat thick book read rather quickly. We are introduced to Max as he is writing what he is sure is his last will and testament from inside his locker, after the local bully stuffed him there at the beginning of the school day. He describes his middle school life in short chapters, from borrowing the collectible superhero comic book from his Dad, missing the bus, getting stuffed in his locker, and then on to why he’s so into superheroes. Max has already tried to put together a superhero outfit with little success thanks to a bossy older sister and a little brother trying to copy everything Max does. Meanwhile, will Max ever get out of his locker?  It takes nearly half the book to find out, but after busting out Max’s crazy day isn’t over yet!

​You can get the book reviewed here, which was The Misadvetures of Max Crumbly, Locker Hero  by Rachel Renee Russell, 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!”

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

Coming up on Thursday, December 15th the library will have another Classic Movie Night in the Schafer Room from 6-8 pm.  Popcorn and soda are provided.  If you picked up a brochure with the full season of movie listings, we’ll be having a second try at showing Ruggles of Red Gap, instead of the listed title.

How many of my listeners out there know at least the basic plot of Romeo and Juliet?  This Shakespeare play has been remade in movies, books, and plays many times over the years but if you were as frustrated at the idiotic decisions of the characters and the unavoidably tragic ending as I was, then this book should satisfy any unrest you may have with the classic story.  Written in a modern vernacular and definitely for teens or the young adult audience, Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan North is a choose your own adventure based on Romeo and Juliet.  Author North has managed to combine fairly accurate plot points from the play and a few actual lines (to mostly humorous effect) with exaggerated character traits, even from minor players all with a choose-your-own adventure format.   There are over 100 endings plus illustrations scattered throughout. It may take you ten minutes to reach an ending, or much longer.  You can take the plot path originally described in the play, or like me, choose a different ending that fulfills your secret wishes for these classic star-crossed lovers, including making them not fall in love at all! This book will be shelved in the young adult section.

​You can get the book reviewed here, which was Romeo and/or Juliet  by Ryan North, 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!”

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

If you’re looking for a new book to read in nearly every sense, The Gilded Cage by Lucinda Gray should be right up your alley. This is a book published under a pseudonym, so not much on the author can be found.  Amazon credits two other Spanish language books to her, but The Gilded Cage seems to be the first English language book.  It is targeted at young adult readers, but the setting and genres in can be classified into are usually seen in classic novels read by adults.

Katherine Randolph is the nearly grown daughter of a farming family in 1820s Virginia, when the death of an unknown grandfather in England calls her and her brother George back to Walthingham Hall to inherit an estate and titles.  But when her brother is mysteriously killed in a winter hunting accident Katherine’s world is once again turned on edge. A poacher prowls the estate, searching for a rumored wild animal on the grounds while Katherine hangs on to the last shreds of her sanity, searching for her brother’s killer.  Can she trust her newly found cousin?  How about the young, brooding estate lawyer? Parts historical novel, thriller, murder mystery, and gothic this fast paced book will keep you reading right up to the climax in the last few pages of the book.  And because it’s a young adult novel the length isn’t too long nor are there any truly gory or steamy scenes.

​You can get the book reviewed here, which was The Gilded Cage  by Lucinda Gray, 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!”