The Fall Friends of the Library used book sale will be held on Saturday, October 21 from 10 am to 3 pm on the Library lawn. In case of rain, the sale will be held in the Takoma Park Community Center.
All proceeds from the Friends book sales are used to support Library services and programs – including Spanish Circle time, our Summer Quest summer reading program, books for ESL parents at the Books and Breakfast programs at Takoma Park Elementary School, reading incentives and refreshments for many Library programs, honorariums for speakers at our adult programs, lanyards for kids’ library Cards, and many other initiatives. This is a great time to become a member of the Friends, and lend your support to their efforts.
These sales continue to draw look lovers throughout the area. So come early for your choice of the best in children's books, adult fiction and nonfiction in great condition – and at bargain prices.
Tuesday evening – Newbery Medalist Katherine Applegate discusses her new kids’ novel, Wishtree (in the auditorium).
Note: in the spirit of the theme of "wishtree", participants are encouraged to bring donations of non-perishable food to the event. There will be collection bins outside the auditiorium for the Takoma Park Middle School's Difference Maker's Club Kokua Food Pantry, which serves families in local homeless shelters. Audience members also will be invited to write down their "wishes" for the world, their community or their family, and place them on the branches of the "wishtree" we've created for the event.
The Friends Book Group will read and discuss Austerlitz, a novel by the late German novelist W. G. Sebald, on September 27 at 7:30 in the Hydrangea Room of the Community Center.
In Austerlitz, a four-year old Jewish boy, Jacques Austerlitz, arrives in Wales at the start of World War II where he is adopted by a Welsh Methodist minister. He was brought to England on a Kinderstransport from his native Czechoslovakia.
Decades after the war, his memories of his life with his birth family return piecemeal, and he begins a quest to understand the circumstances that led to his being saved.
Austerlitz is unique in its integration of photographs with fiction, which blurs the genre. Sebald himself called his work "documentary fiction." Mark O’Connell, writing in The New Yorker, says Sebald’s "books occupy an unsettled, disputed territory on the border of fiction and fact, and this generic ambivalence is mirrored in the protean movements of his prose."
Copies of Austerlitz are currently available at the library. If you find that they are all checked out, please place a hold. 301-891-7259
Another Update: Illustrator Mike Curato will indeed be here Tuesday evening, but Margarita Engle is ill and cannot attend.
Update: Sept. 7 article about the book and author in the Washington Post.
Tuesday, September 12, 7 pm – Caldecott Honor winning llustrator Mike Curato, and Newbery Honor winning author Margarita Engle, with their new picture book, All the Way to Havana.
Publishers Weekly interview with the author
Podcast with the illustrator
Every time we close for a Monday holiday, we also close on Sunday. Here is the list for 2017.
Tuesday, Sept. 12, 7 p.m. – Author Margarita Engle and illustrator Mike Curato present their new picture book, All the Way to Havana.
Wednesday, Sept. 13, 7 p.m. – Caldecott Honor Illustrator Peter Brown talks about his newest book, Creepy Pair of Underwear.
Thursday, Sept. 14, 7:30 p.m. – Graphic novelist Alex Alice talks about his new book, Castle in the Stars: The Space Race of 1869.
Tuesday, Sept. 26, 7:30 p.m. (in the auditorium) – Newbery Medalist Katherine Applegate discusses her new kids’ novel, Wishtree.
Wednesday, Sept. 27 – 7:30 p.m. -- Graphic novelist Liniers presents his new book, Good Night, Planet.
Thursday, Oct. 12, 7:30 p.m. – Graphic novelist Nidhi Chanani presents her new book, Pashmina.
Monday, Oct. 16, 7 p.m. – Author Julie Segal-Walters and illustrator Brian Biggs spotlight their new picture book, This Is Not a Normal Animal Book..
update: Sorry. The author had to cancel. Wednesday, Oct. 18, 7:30 p.m. – Author Tracey Baptiste spotlights her new kids’ novel, Rise of the Jumbies.
Thursday, Oct. 19, 7:30 p.m. – Author Chris Grabenstein talks about his new kids’ novel, Mr. Lemoncello’s Great Library Race.
Wednesday, Nov. 8, 7 p.m. – Author Jeanne Walker Harvey presents her new picture book biography, Maya Lin, Artist-Architect of Light and Lines.
Tuesday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m. – Author Rob Buyea talks about his new kids’ novel, The Perfect Score.