Library Events for January 2011

Thanks to the Friends of the Hancock Town Library, the library now owns a Nook e-Reader. Beginning in mid-January you will be able to tell us what book you’d like downloaded onto the Nook and then check it out for two weeks at a time. eBooks are available for free from the same website where you get free audiobooks: http://nh.lib.overdrive.com.

There will be no First Tuesday Book Club in January. However, copies of February’s book, Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas and Micah Sparks will be available beginning January 8th.

Thursday January 13th from 2:00-4:00 pm
Shakespeare for Snowy Days with Tibby Tobey

Shakespeare for Snowy Days has space for new members so if you’ve been thinking that you’d like to enjoy some Shakespeare, now is your chance! How about Shakespeare and Love? Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra. Check your bookshelves. If you need a title, please order the Folger edition from the Toadstool. Please sign up for this class with the library (525-4411) and don’t be shy – join us!

Thursday January 13th at 7:00 pm
The Rebirth of Cambodian Dance with Eleanor Briggs

After almost all dancers were killed during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, classical Cambodian dance and the Royal Dance Troupe were reborn through the efforts of surviving dancers. Hancock photographer, Eleanor Briggs, tells this inspiring story and illustrates it with her photographs of the International Ramayana Dance Festival at Angkor Wat in 1995. Ms. Briggs has been working with conservation organizations in Southeast Asia and South America for the past 20 years. She spends months in the field with scientists and local people photographing staff at work, habitat and sometimes wildlife. Her studio is in the Cheshire Mill Complex in Harrisville where she also has a small gallery showing her latest work. Free and open to all. For more information call the library at 525-4411.

Mondays beginning January 17th from 2:00-4:00
Great Decisions Discussion Group

A Great Decisions Discussion Group is composed of interested individuals who want an opportunity to learn and participate in the foreign policy decision-making process. Join leader Jane Richards-Jones for this 8-week program at the library. Topics this year include Rebuilding Haiti, US National Security, Horn of Africa, Responding to the Financial Crisis, and more. You can read about the topics at http://www.fpa.org/pubs_inventory2416/pubs_inventory_show.htm?doc_id=1367796. Please contact Jane at 525-4485 if you are interested in joining the group.

Saturday January 29th, 10:00 – 4:00
Christine Destrempes’ River of Words Project

Water is the channel through which the earth communicates, bringing the skies in touch with seas and sustaining all of us along the way. Art for Water’s current project, River of Words, asks the question: If the earth uses water to communicate and we use words, how are words like water? Following Destrempes’ widely acclaimed 13,699, Art for Water’s current community art installation, River of Words, uses the power of many voices to speak for the millions struggling to live without clean, safe water. The project gives each of us the opportunity to contribute – by making art – to extend compassion and raise awareness in a stunning, massive, and unique way.

Everyone who comes to Hancock is invited to be a part of this project. Here’s what you’ll do: take a fragment of beautiful paper (generously donated by Monadnock Paper Mills, Neenah Paper, Inc., and Mohawk Fine Papers), and on it write whatever you would like about water ––thoughts, feelings, experience, knowledge, quotes, or poetry. Your serpentine fragment of paper – carrying your words – is then attached to hundreds of others to create a giant river. That’s the River of Words. River of Words will be installed at the Sharon Arts Exhibition Gallery in Peterborough beginning March 4, 2011, and run through May 1st. Selected contributions will be compiled into a documentary video. Special celebrations will be held March 22, 2011 – World Water Day, as well as throughout the exhibit.

In the Monadnock Region, we enjoy bountiful lakes, rivers, streams and an abundant water supply. Too often, we take water for granted, largely unaware of the effects of climate change and pollution on the scarcity of clean water throughout the world. Did you know that five million people die every year from preventable, water-related diseases because they do not have access to clean water? Art for Water’s River of Words raises awareness, by raising voices, about the importance, and the dwindling availability, of clean water. Art for Water works through the creativity and dialogue of public participation art.

River of Words’ goal is to get as many people as possible to write their thoughts and create the River. Students at Franklin Pierce University and Antioch are at work already. Outside our Region, Pingree School and King’s Chapel are participants. Destrempes’ hope is to engage schools, congregations, towns, and conservation organizations - all raising awareness of the importance of our water resources by writing their wordsChristine Destrempes, principal of Art for Water, will make a presentation about River of Words at the Hancock Library on January 29 at 11:00 and again at 2:00. Please stop by anytime between 10am and 4pm to make your voice heard. It can take as little as 5 minutes or as long as you’d like. Light refreshments will be provided. We look forward to seeing you. For more information or if you’d like to volunteer for River of Words, please call Christine at 827-3744.

From the Children’s Room…

Tuesdays at 10:30
Children's Storytime

Join Britton in the Children's Room for some favorite stories and a simple art project.

Tuesday, January 4th from 3:15 - 4:00
Lego Club for Elementary School Students

Drop by and build something! A snack is provided.

Saturday January 8th from 10:00-11:30 am
Second Saturday Arts with Melody Zahn Russell

Come and enjoy a creative morning of watercolor painting! For ages 5-12. All classes are $15 with materials provided. Please register today at the library or by calling us at 525-4411.

Coming in February...Back by popular demand!

Tuesday, February 15th from 3:15 - 4:00
Sugar Cube Castles for Elementary School Students

Build your own castle out of sugar cubes! All materials and a snack are provided. Space is limited, so please call the library to sign up. 525-4411