Friends of the Diamond Bar Library October E-Newsletter

VALUABLE THOUGHTS ON LIBRARIES FROM CALIFORNIA STATE LIBRARIAN GREG LUCAS

(These thoughts are from a recent speech given by Greg Lucas at the Pomona Library Library Foundation Gala)

(Continued from September e-newsletter) …...It is important to remember that as awesome as California likes to think it is, a quarter of our population lives in poverty or on its edge. Many of those ten million people are children in single-parent households that are usually run by women. They are often part of the large chunk of Californians on the wrong side of the digital divide. This’s one reason there are lines of people waiting to use one of the 23,000 public computer terminals at California’s libraries or check out a laptop or hotspot or both.

Libraries are a lifeline to these Californians. They need those terminals, laptops, and hotspots to fill out job applications, to pay taxes, to get health care information, worker retraining, lifeline stuff.

Over the past eight years, the State Library has helped coordinate connecting 1,000 of our 1,130 libraries to the same broadband network as the University of California, the State University system, community colleges and public schools. The remaining 130 are the hardest for various reasons and we’re focused on those now. We provide a suite of online tools for learning new job skills, getting a certificate of competency, even getting a high school degree online. Every library in California gives you free access to courses with your library card.………thank you, State Librarian Greg Lucas, for these valuable insights into our California libraries.

GENTLY USED PURSE SALE

Mark your calendars for the amazing Gently Used Purse Sale on Saturday, October 22 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Diamond Bar Library Windmill Room.

Through the generosity of many library lovers, we will have an exceptional selection of gently used and new purses at great prices. With the holidays coming, you could find the perfect gifts for the special women in your life. There will also be a good selection of books available that day both at the Windmill Room and at our Friends’ all-volunteer bookstore located in the library.

Chair Susan Pantages promises  a fun shopping day with all proceeds from the sale going  directly to the Diamond Bar Library for materials, programs, DVDs, etc. Come, join the fun, and support the Diamond Bar Library at the same time. PLEASE SEE ATTACHED FLYER FOR MORE INFORMATION ON PURSE/BOOK SALE ON OCTOBER 22.

Friends of the Library Bookstore News

On October 22nd there will be books on sale in conjunction with our gently used purse sale. There will be a wide assortment of children’s books for sale. The bookstore will be open with additional items for sale.

Bookstore hours are:

Monday through Saturday 11 am to 5 pm

HOW A BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE

TEEN ESSAY CONTEST

This annual essay contest is offered in conjunction with Read Together Diamond and is open to students ages 13 to 18. It should be approximately 1,000 words and there will be prizes for the top three essays. The deadline for submissions is November 1 and the students will be notified by November 10. Check out the Diamond Bar Library website or visit our library for more information on programs. There are so many interesting, fun, and educational programs planned at the Diamond Bar Library to celebrate community reading and sharing through Read Together Diamond Bar 2022.

PLEASE SEE ATTACHED FLYER FOR MORE INFORMATION ON STUDENT ESSAY CONTEST.

Besides, Read Together Diamond Bar, look for the year-round programs offered for children, teens, and adults. Belonging to the Los Angeles County Library system means you have access to their huge  collection of books,  audiobooks, e-books, movies, TV shows all for free, 24/7. You can borrow a laptop from one of the libraries, borrow everything from power tools to bike repair kits to gardening equipment. Free courses are offered through the library on everything from learning a new language to homework help. PLEASE SEE ATTACHED FLYER FOR MORE INFORMATION OF RTDB ADULT PROGRAMS AND OCTOBER 2022 VIRTUAL PROGRAMS.

The Bad Seed by Jory John and Pete Oswald is suggested for children to read. There is a bad seed. A baaaaaaaad seed. How bad? Do you really want to know? Can a bad seed change his baaaaaaaad? Read this book with your children and find out.

The adult and teen selection, Wild Bird, is from the award-winning author of The Running Dream and Flipped comes a remarkable portrait of a girl who has hit rock bottom but begins a climb back to herself at a wilderness survival camp.

3:47 a.m. That’s when they come for Wren Clemmens. She’s hustled out of her house and into a waiting car, then a plane, and then taken on a forced march into the desert. This is what happens to kids who’ve gone so far off the rails, their parents don’t know what to do with them anymore. This is wilderness therapy camp. Eight weeks of survivalist camping in the desert. Eight weeks to turn your life around. Yeah, right.

The Wren who arrives in the Utah desert is angry and bitter, and blaming everyone but herself. But angry can’t put up a tent. And bitter won’t start a fire. Wren’s going to have to admit she needs help if she’s going to survive.

"I read Wild Bird in one long mesmerized gulp. Wren will break your heart—and then mend it." —Nancy Werlin, National Book Award finalist for The Rules of Survival

"Van Draanen’s Wren is real and relatable, and readers will root for her." —VOYA, starred review

Source: Publisher

The author, Wendelin Van Draanen was born on January 6, 1965, in Chicago, Illinois. She is the daughter of chemists who emigrated from Holland. She worked as a math teacher and then as a computer science teacher before becoming an author. Wendelin Van Draanen began her writing career with a screenplay and soon switched to adult novels and then children's books. She is best known for her Sammy Keyes series of novels, which she started writing in 1997, featuring a teenage detective named Samantha Keyes. Her popular Sammy Keyes series had been nominated four times for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Children's Mystery and won with "Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief". Her Shredderman series also yielded a Christopher Medal for Secret Identity. She has also authored several novels such as: How I Survived Being a Girl and Flipped.

DIAMOND BAR FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY
READ TOGETHER DIAMOND BAR FACT SHEET Fall 2022
One City—One Book

What is Read Together Diamond Bar?

Read Together Diamond Bar is an innovative month-long annual program to unite people of all ages and backgrounds and encourage reading at the same time. In the Fall of 2022, the Friends of the Diamond Bar Library are inviting all people in Diamond Bar and the surrounding areas to join together to read Wild Bird by Wendelin van Draanen and The Bad Seed by Jory John and Pete Oswalk.

What is Wild Bird about?

The Adult and Teen selection, Wild Bird, is from the award-winning author of The Running Dream and Flipped. This is a remarkable portrait of Wren, a young girl who has hit rock bottom but begins a climb back to herself at a wilderness survival camp. The Wren who arrives in the Utal desert is angry and better and blaming everyone but herself. But angry can’t put up a tent. And bitter won’t start a fire. Wren’s going to have to admit she needs help if she’ going to survive.

What book is available for younger readers?

The Bad Seed, a charming picture book, shares similar themes of the RTDB Adult/Teen selection. In The Bad Seed by Jory John and Pete Oswalt, a sunflower seed acts badly because others think it is bad, but realizes it is never too late to change its behavior even if others still judge it

What role can you play in RTDB 2022?

You can participate in many ways such as:

-  Check out both books from the Diamond Bar Library for free.

-  Attend the RTDB Four Seasons Book Group at the Diamond Bar Library on Saturday, October 1 at 11 a.m.

-  Read and discuss Wild Bird with your book group this Fall.

-  Read The Bad Seed to your young children, grandchildren and friends and as what they think about the book.

-  Read and discuss Wild Bird with family, friends, and your community groups.

-  Join in some or all of the Fall activities planned at the Diamond Bar Library

-  Encourage readers from ages 13 to 18 to enter the How a Book Changed my Life essay contest. Applications will be available in the Fall at the Library.

Have other cities done this?

Many cities, large and small, hold successful One City-One Book programs. Pasadena’s pick this year is In the Country of Women by Susan Straight and Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers and the Lives Caught in Between by Eric Nusbaum. Sierra Madre is year chose The Midnight Library by Matt Haig and Thousand Oaks’ pick is Crossing the Line by Kareen Rossen. Even though Diamond Bar is a small city, we too can have a literary event.

For more information or to be involved with this month-long literary project, please contact Rachel Kirk, Julia Gomez or Kathleen Newe at www.dblibraryfriends.org.

FROM THE BOOK NOOK

“WE LOSE OURSELVES IN BOOKS. WE SOMETIMES FIND OURSELVES THERE TOO.”

Do you have books that you are reading that you would like to share? We would love to hear from you for our upcoming e-newsletters. You can reply to this email with your selections.

 From Pui-Ching Ho, Community Library Manager

Charlie & Mouse
by Laurel Snyder
Two inventive young brothers share a series of wacky adventures involving conversations with lumps, a neighborhood party, a rock-selling venture and the creation of the "bedtime banana."

Rocket says look up! by Nathan Bryon. Ages: 6-9.

From Janet Ramirez-Manchan, Teen Librarian
The Final Gambit  

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Final Gambit is the third and final book in The Inheritance Games mystery trilogy. This conclusion sees Avery Kylie Grambs being weeks away from finishing the one-year term in Hawthorne house and being a teenage billionaire until she realizes that there is still another puzzle she must solve before she can be crowned the winner of the game.

From Friends’ board member Gordon Van de Water:  The Sewing Girls’ Tale by John Wood Sweet. It is the true story of a young woman who had the audacity of insisting on a trial in New York City against a young man who had raped her, a thing that just wasn't done in the 18th century. Importantly, she was found not guilty, another first.

The book is an easy read though there are about fifty-seven pages of scholarly notes or references, which can be referred to or not. It is well-researched by the author who is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina.

From Jan Simon, long time Soirée volunteer:

The Winemaker’s Daughter is a favorite of mine this month.
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times national correspondent Timothy Egan turns to fiction with The Winemaker's Daughter, a lyrical and gripping novel about the harsh realities and ecological challenges of turning water into wine. When Brunella Cartolano visits her father on the family vineyard in the basin of the Cascade Mountains, she's shocked by the devastation caused by a four-year drought.

 From our San Diego Friend Emma Rotella:  I am enjoying The Littlest Library by Poppy Alexander. It tells the story of Jess whose life is turned upside down when her beloved grandmother passes away and she loses her job at the local library. I read it in one night!

From Bookstore volunteer Pat Goulet:  The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan. I am reading this delightful book with my Landmark Book Club, “Lit & Latte.”

From Kathleen Newe: 

I am enjoying Read Together Diamond Bar 2022 pick,  Wild Bird by Wendelin Van Draanen and looking forward to hearing the author speak at the Diamond Bar Library Windmill Room on Saturday, November 19. I am also reading Unthinkable by Jamie Raskin, a very personal account of two unthinkable events in his life—one the death of his 26 year old son, Tommy, on December 31, 2020. Seven days later, on January 6, 2021, Mr. Raskin had a first person view of the unthinkable violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. This is a very well-written and researched personal account of that time.

From Dana Cox:  Black, White, and the Grey is my favorite book this month. This is a story about the trials and triumphs of two individuals with seemingly little in common—a Black chef from Queens and a White media entrepreneur from Staten Island—who partnered up, relocated to the South, and built a relationship and a restaurant that they hoped would get people talking about race, gender, class, and culture.

Do not forget to check out all the great programs available through the Los Angeles County Library and at the Diamond Bar Library.

to our library friends for their donations

for the support of the 2022 Library Programs.

https://dblibraryfriends.org/donate/

SPECIAL THANKS THIS MONTH TO THE DIAMOND BAR SENIOR CLUB FOR THEIR GENEROUS DONATION OF $2,000 THAT WILL GO TO DIRECTLY TO SUPPORT THE DIAMOND BAR LIBRARY COLLECTION AND PROGRAMS