40 years of Fun and Learning!

40 years later and children are still asking "will you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?" Today is the 40th birthday of the popular children's educational show. Designed to teach children beginning social and academic concepts, the show has flourished and reached many people over the past four decades. A delight for children and a blessing for teachers, librarians, and parents who recognized it as an important learning tool, I'm sure many of us can say the show played a role in our early years. I know I have many fond memories watching the show on the CBC when I was a preschooler. My favorite characters were the Count and Bert. Who were yours?

Also, just so you know, different volumes of Elmo's World, a popular spinoff show featuring arguably the most popular Sesame Street character, are available on DVD at Takoma Park Library. We also have films featuring other characters. Check the shelf, ask a librarian, or browse the catalog to find a film, book, or CD to celebrate this milestone birthday for a great children's program.

Hours Change

As of October 5th, all neighborhood libraries will be closed on Sundays. We apologize for this extreme inconvenience. Due to the fiscal situation for this coming year we are unable to keep our Sunday hours in effect. If you have comments or questions please contact one of the librarians at Takoma Park Neighborhood Library. Also, remember you can "visit" the library all day and all night every single day by checking our website at http://www.dclibrary.org/. You can browse the catalog, read feature articles, get library news and updates all with the click of a mouse!

The Library Rocks

We will be having guitar hero today for teens at 2:00. It seems only fitting to have a guitar hero event this weekend in honor of guitar legend and genius inventor Les Paul's passing. Les Paul, one of the quintessential influences in the guitar world, is known not only as an early innovator of the solid body guitar and the world famous Les Paul model of Gibson guitars, but also because he was just a freaking awesome good guitar player. To read a tribute article, go over to Guitar World magazine.

If you are interested in guitars, guitar playing, and some awesome rock and roll, feel free to come into the library or check the online catalog. We have guitar instruction books, a huge assortment of CDs, from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, AC DC to ZZ Top. We not only have classic rock, but also a good selection of new rock as well. No matter what, we want to get the community to not only read, but to rock.

Scary As You Like It

I just wanted to share the news that I am collaborating with another coworker on a different type of blog. Nick Hirsch, from Watha T. Daniel Library, started a blog dedicated to fun and freaky books that walk on the dark side. I will be co-authoring the blog with him, and perhaps others in the future.

Spooky Books For Strange Children is dedicated to all things strange. It is for "the strange at heart, children and adults, who share a love of books bizarre, scary, terrifying, odd and, well, spooky!" We will post reviews for children and teens in different genres, with our main focus being on horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. It is our intention to create a blog that looks at scary and odd books from picture books, to easy readers, to chapter books and everything in between. We will compile subject and age-specific reading lists, post book reviews, and we look forward to discussion.

Go check it out today and start following our posts. Stay Scary!