Avoid the summer slide

Summertime is such an exciting time at the Wallkill Public Library. We start seeing patrons again who have not visited us for months due to school and work commitments. It's a time of beach reading, book lists, relaxation, and vacations. Our popular summer reading program invites you to "Be Creative @ Your Library" and kicks back into action at 6 p.m. June 29, with an event sure to please all, featuring "America's Got Talent" performer David Smith, the "One-Man Sideshow" (see www.onemansideshow.com). We'll have a family picnic on our front lawn with tasty treats, a book sale, and information about all we have to offer you and your family this summer.

Usually reserved for just kids, we have branched out this year to include programming for 'tweens, teens, and adults, as well! This includes reading contests, our award-winning scavenger hunt, incentives, and prizes for all age groups. Our program runs from June 29 through Aug. 7. Our brochure listing dates and times of all programs and events is available now at the library and online at our brand new Web site: www.wallkillpubliclibrary.org.

We encourage all of our families to read and learn together this summer. Take advantage of the numerous, free, fun summer programs we offer, play the contests together, and just have a good time. In fact, what you are doing is very valuable. There is a phenomenon that happens to many children over July and August called the "summer slide." With no particular schedule to follow or homework to complete, children don't stay mentally active and are in danger of losing up to 25 percent of what they learned during the previous school year, according to a U.S. Department of Education study.

According to some of our Ostrander Elementary School teachers, it's common for them to spend at least a month re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer. That month of re-teaching eliminates a month that could have been spent on teaching new information and skills. Perhaps explaining that to our children with help them understand the importance as well. Who wants to relearn old material?

This phenomenon also seems to widen the achievement gaps between students of lower and higher socioeconomic levels, as well. Research shows that during the school year, kids at different socioeconomic levels perform basically at similar rates, but lower income children experience cumulative summer learning losses throughout their elementary school years (Karl Alexander and Doris Entwisle, sociologists). Teachers have told us over and over how impactful the summer reading program is to the children once they return to school - those who continued to read and learn had not lost those valuable skills they worked so hard all year to develop.

In 2008, 290 area children registered for the Wallkill Public Library summer reading program. More than ever before. We offered 57 free summer programs with an attendance of 1,242 over the six-week period. This summer we hope to break our records for attendance and registration!

So join in on the fun. Learn something new. Read together. Be Creative @ the Wallkill Public Library!

-           Mary Lou Carolan, Wallkill Public Library Director

Summer program activities for children:

·         July 1 - Comedy Magic Show with Terry Parrett (for ages 5 and up) - 1 p.m.

·         July 9 - Very Very Eric Carle with Kathy LaRocca (for ages 7 and up) - 6:30 p.m.

·         July 22 - The Art of Animal Tracks with George Steele (for ages 7 and up) - 4:30 p.m.

·         July 29 - Special presentation by local artist Iza Trapani (for ages 7 and up) - 6:30 p.m.

·         July 30 - Zing! Game night with Miss Marla (for ages 7 and up) - 6:30 p.m.

·         June 29 - Aug. 7 - Storytimes  with Miss Marla, every Wednesday - 10:30 a.m. for ages 2-3; 11:45 a.m. for ages 2-6; and 1 p.m. for ages 4-6

·         June 29 - Aug. 7 - Knitting with Clair Miller (for ages 8 through adult) - 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Tuesdays

Summer program activities for teens:

·         July 1 - Advanced balloon sculpting with Terry Parrett (for ages 11 and up) - 3 p.m.

·         July 2 - Make a beaded bracelet or anklet with Julie Moussot (for ages 11 and up) - 6:30 p.m.

·         July 16 - Anime workshop with Josh elder (for ages 11 and up) - 6:30 p.m.

·         July 20 - "Back 2 Roots" self-esteem and leadership development with Maxwell Kofi Donkor (for ages 10-13) - 4 p.m.

Summer program activities for adults:

·         June 29 - Aug. 7 - Master the Art of Reading, a summer reading program for adults

·         July 1 & 8 - Jewelry with Julie - silver picture frame and collage pendant - 6:30 p.m.

·         July 7 - Lovely lavender and other useful herbs with Barbara Wexler, a Cooperative Extension Master Gardener program - 6:30 p.m.

·         July 25 - Attracting butterflies and other useful insects with Samantha Geiler, a Cooperative Extension Master Gardener program - 10:30 a.m.

·         July 15 - Renewable energy seminar with Paul Morini - 6:30 p.m.

·         July 24 - "Potpourrie Pie" craft with Joan Schaffner - 10:30 a.m.

 Thank you to our new Friends!

The Wallkill Public Library is grateful to its new Friends Group members:

-          Gail Swalm

-          Kathleen Goulden

-          Helena White

-          Angela Strobach

-          Mary Lou Carolan

The Friends Group is the non-profit fundraising arm of the Wallkill Public Library. For more information about opportunities to get involved, please check out our Web site at www.wallkillpubliclibrary.org.

Book of the Month

Happens Every Day, by Isabel Gillies

This book made last month's newsletter after Cosmopolitan's John Searles raved about it on NBC's Weekend Today.

In the book, Gillies and the husband she's madly in love with move to Ohio after he lands a teaching job at a college there. Very soon after arriving, Gillies meets Sylvia, a pretty, petite colleague of her husband's. Very soon after that, she begins to suspect the two are having an affair.

Searles said one of the things about the book that kept him riveted was Gillies' inability to positively confirm her suspicions. Which is a coincidence of sorts, because that's what I found annoying about the book. Gillies' friendly naiveté is probably meant to be endearing, but it's the opposite - the reader wants to climb inside the book, take her by the shoulders, and give her a good shake. Once Gillies' marriage is disintegrating before her eyes, her stubborn refusal to accept the fact that her husband wants out coupled with her tearful phone calls to moneyed friends and family who refer to her by ridiculously childish monikers, succeeds in drumming up not sympathy but mild contempt.

As does her stint as an instructor to an acting class. Gillies, whose career peaked with a minor role on Law and Order: SVU, feels the need to regal the reader with her insights into the craft, and you wonder what kind of student serious about becoming an actor would attend Oberlin, never mind take a class with an unqualified professor's wife who fancies herself the next Konstantin Stanislavski.

Believe it or not, the book was still readable. I looked forward to picking it up again, if only to find out what kind of soap operatic state of humiliation Gillies was next going to subject herself (the topper was when her dishwasher malfunctioned and she left her two small children home alone to run down to the college in the pouring rain and wrest her husband out of an English department dinner). If I had it to do over again, though, I wouldn't have bought it. I would've been more patient and ordered it through the library. 

New in June

The following are either on the shelves or coming soon to the Wallkill Public Library:

Fiction

·         Year That Follows, by Scott Lasser

·         My Father's Tears and Other Stories, by John Updike

·         Bride Will Keep her Name, by Jan Goldstein

·         Finger Lickin' Fifteen, by Janet Evanovich

·         Wedding Girl, by Madeleine Wickham

·         Swimsuit, by James Patterson

·         Summer House, by Nancy Thayer

·         Heartless, by Diana Palmer

·         Matters of the Heart, by Danielle Steel

·         Killer Summer, by Ridley Pearson

·         Below Zero, by C.J. Box

·         Knockout: An FBI Thriller, by Catherine Coulter

·         Any Minute, by Joyce Meyer

·         Memory Collector, by Meg Gardiner

·         Rude Awakening of a Jane Austen Addict, by Laurie Viera Rigler

·         Relentless, by Dean R. Koontz

·         Neighbor, by Lisa Gardner

·         Purses and Poison, by Dorothy Howell

·         Scoop, by Fern Michaels

·         Cheater, by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

·         Lovers, by John Connolly

·         Short History of Women, by Kate Walbert

·         Actor and the Housewife, by Shannon Hale

·         Dropped Dead Stitch, by Maggie Sefton

Graphic Novels

·         Prebind Wonder Woman: Love and Murder, by Jodi Picoult

Nonfiction

·         Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression Without Drugs, by Stephen S. Hardi

Audiobooks

·         Intent to Kill, by James Grippando

·         Traffickers: A Badge of Honor Novel, by W.E.B. Griffin

·         Matters of the Heart, by Danielle Steel

·         Relentless, by Dean R. Koontz

·         Under the Radar, by Fern Michaels

·         Cheater, by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

DVDs

·         Marley & Me

·         Paul Blart: Mall Cop

·         Wrestler

·         Yes Man

The New York Times Bestsellers

Hardcover Fiction

1.       The Scarecrow, by Michael Connelly

2.       Gone tomorrow, by Lee Child

3.       Wicked Prey, by John Sandford

4.       shanghai girls, by Lisa See

5.       The 8^th Confession, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Hardcover Nonfiction

1.       Liberty and Tyranny, by Mark R. Levin

2.       Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

3.       Horse Soldiers, by Doug Stanton

4.       Resilience, by Elizabeth Edwards

5.       The girls From Ames, by Jeffrey Zaslow

                          

                        Wallkill Public Library

P.O. Box C

7 Bona Ventura Ave.

Wallkill, NY 12589

(845)-895-3707

http://www.wallkillpubliclibrary.org/

E-mail: wak@rcls.org