Whiting Library

Story Time!
2022-06-10 11:00 - 12:00, 2022-06-03 11:00 - 12:00, 2022-05-27 11:00 - 12:00, 2022-05-20 11:00 - 12:00, 2022-05-13 11:00 - 12:00, 2022-05-06 11:00 - 12:00, 2022-04-29 11:00 - 12:00, 2022-04-22 11:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York) and 5 more dates
Come join us at the library every Friday at 11am for Story Time!! Youth Services Librarian Carrie King will read awesome books, crafts ideas will be shared, and booties will be shaken. All children who enjoy picture books will love this time together. It is aimed at kids 3-5 years old, but all are welcome.
We encourage parents of little ones who may not be quite ready to sit through Story Time to come at 10:30am to socialize with other parents of children in the 0-3 age range. Carrie will share some books, other resources, and give everyone time to connect!
Everyone, please wear a mask and practice social distancing to keep our young patrons safe and healthy! We will sit outside if weather permits, or spread out in the community room.

Whiting Library Book Club
2022-06-08 18:00 - 19:00
“This is a Nazi resistance story like none you’ve ever heard or read, a story with two unlikely heroines who risked their lives in their subversive—and often wildly creative—struggle to face down evil. Paper Bullets prompts us to explore the boundaries of art, love, gender, and politics—and to question the true meaning of courage.”

The Whiting Library Book Club is holding our monthly book discussion at the library in the community room (masks required!) and simultaneously live on Zoom. The book for June is Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis by Jeffrey H. Jackson. Copies are available at the library right now! All are welcome to attend whether this is your first book club ever or you were born at a book club. We love to talk books!
If you have any questions or would like to get on the email list for the Book Club, please contact Deirdre at the library. You can email whitinglibrary1@gmail.com or call 875-2277.

More about the book:
Paper Bullets is the first book to tell the history of an audacious anti-Nazi campaign undertaken by an unlikely pair: two French women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, who drew on their skills as Parisian avant-garde artists to write and distribute “paper bullets”—wicked insults against Hitler, calls to rebel, and subversive fictional dialogues designed to demoralize Nazi troops occupying their adopted home on the British Channel Island of Jersey. Devising their own PSYOPS campaign, they slipped their notes into soldier’s pockets or tucked them inside newsstand magazines.
Hunted by the secret field police, Lucy and Suzanne were finally betrayed in 1944, when the Germans imprisoned them, and tried them in a court martial, sentencing them to death for their actions. Ultimately they survived, but even in jail, they continued to fight the Nazis by reaching out to other prisoners and spreading a message of hope.
Better remembered today by their artist names, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, the couple’s actions were even more courageous because of who they were: lesbian partners known for cross-dressing and creating the kind of gender-bending work that the Nazis would come to call “degenerate art.” In addition, Lucy was half Jewish, and they had communist affiliations in Paris, where they attended political rallies with Surrealists and socialized with artists like Gertrude Stein.
Paper Bullets is a compelling World War II story that has not been told before, about the galvanizing power of art, and of resistance.
From Amazon

Summer Reading Challenge Event: Exploring Oceans of Possibilities!
2022-06-04 11:00 - 12:00
Ahoy, Mates! Set sail with Whiting Library to explore a big wide ocean of new possibilities! We’re celebrating creative imagination, pretend play and make believe all summer long! At this special weekend family event, the audience is encouraged to feel like royalty and dress up in their favorite make believe costume for this inventive and theatrical story hour. Book Readers will captivate audience members of all ages as they share stories focused on individuality, creativity, self-expression, and self-responsibility. In addition to singing songs and reading books, visit Whiting Library’s very own magical Face Painting Fairy to try some fresh body art plus there will be supplies on hand for everyone to create their own paper crown! Every child has a little royal highness in them, and this story time will help keep their little heads held high!
This simple pretend play dress up party will make dreams come true for children of all ages. Everyone is invited to transform into their favorite real superstar or book character for this outrageously fun dress-up party. Capture the imagination and play of the magic of childhood while serving kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly fabulous role models. In story hours like this, kids are able to imagine people who defy rigid social restrictions and make believe in a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.
It’s Library Shelfie Day! Pose for a shelfie at your library to celebrate! Don’t forget to tag us! Having fun isn’t hard when you have a library card! Don’t have a library card? Stop in today to get one. Sign up for Whiting Library’s Summer Reading Challenge, too!
Contact Carrie King, Youth Librarian, for more details about this unique, fun family program at whitinglibrary3@gmail.com or call 802.875.2277.

Stone Village Poetry Experience Workshop
2022-05-19 19:00 - 21:00, 2022-04-28 19:00 - 21:00, 2022-03-31 19:00 - 21:00
It’s time to pull out your poetry notebook. Or, better yet, start a poetry notebook. You’ll want to be ready to take part in or just enjoy the Thursday-evening Stone Village Poetry Experience in March, April and May. Or just to come listen—it’s a lot of fun!
Co-sponsored by Chester’s Whiting Library and the First Universalist Parish of Chester, the Poetry Experience will offer monthly poetry slams and poetry-writing workshops that are open to all.
The slams will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, March 17, April 14 and May 5. The workshops will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, March 31, April 28 and May 19.
Poetry slams are light-heartedly competitive events in which judges made up of audience members rate the quality of each poet’s reading. Green Mountain Union High and Emerson College graduate Tuck Wunderle will serve as slam master. The slams will take place at the UU Church, at 211 North St., in Chester’s Stone Village.
The poetry-writing workshops will be led by Wunderle and Nick Boke. These published poets will facilitate discussions of the poems brought to the workshop by would-be or highly experienced poets, including but not limited to those who want to practice their slam presentations.
The workshops will take place in the Whiting Library, 117 Main St. in Chester. Slam poets who participate in all three Thursdays can compete for $25, $50 and $100 prizes. For more about slams, click here.
For more information about the Stone Village Poetry Experience, contact Tuck Wunderle at tuckerman@terrigenous.com, Nick Boke at nickboke@gmail.com or Whiting Director Deirdre Doran at whitinglibrary1@gmail.com.

Whiting Library Book Club
2022-05-11 15:00 - 16:00
The Whiting Library Book Club is holding our monthly book discussion at the library in the community room (masks required!) and simultaneously live on Zoom. The book for May is Anxious People by Fredrick Backman. Copies are available at the library right now! All are welcome to attend whether this is your first book club ever or you were born at a book club. We love to talk books!
If you have any questions or would like to get on the email list for the Book Club, please contact Deirdre at the library. You can email whitinglibrary1@gmail.com or call 875-2277.
Here is a description of this month’s book:
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove comes a charming, poignant novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.
Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom, and you’ve got the worst group of hostages in the world.
Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.

Foster Care Month Story Hour/Book Club!
2022-05-10 15:00 - 16:00
Whiting Library celebrates National Foster Care Month with a special family story hour. This event combines the library’s usual monthly kid’s book clubs to focus on learning about foster care, adoption, and family differences. Youth Services Librarian, Carrie King, will do a read aloud of fun pictures books that engage kids and get them learning about foster care. The library will have a collection of relevant books available for check out about foster care and adoption. Books help children better understand different families, so that children in foster care aren’t left out or secluded for their differences or traumas.
Special guest Michelle Springer-Blake, a Recruitment and Retention Specialist for the Department for Children and Families, will join the group to discuss how attendees can support foster care in Vermont. Springer-Blake encourages all families in the community to come and learn about foster care at the library, “I think if we can collaborate and share the love of reading, children, and families, together we can make a difference in our world a little at a time!” Everyone who loves story time will enjoy this event, and Springer-Blake will be on hand to answer questions for those who want to know more about becoming involved in foster care.

Board of Trustees Meeting
2022-05-10 08:30 - 09:30, 2022-04-12 08:30 - 09:30 | Zoom Online
The public is welcome to attend Whiting Library Board of Trustees Meetings. They are held on the second Tuesday of each month at 8:30am. The meeting takes place on Zoom.
Here is the Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82751139946?pwd=[REDACTED]

Green Up Day!
2022-05-07 10:00 - 14:00
On May 7th, 2022, Whiting Library is throwing our 3rd annual Green Up Day celebration on the front lawn of the library at 117 Main St. from 10am-2pm. This fun event is for all ages and one of the venues in Chester where you can pick up your special green trash bag for the 52nd annual Vermont Green Up Day. Join us and get involved with this much-loved, spring clean-up tradition that activates thousands of Vermonters to take care of their communities by picking up roadside litter. Keeping our environment clean is good for our health, good for businesses, and good for our property values. Together we build pride in our cities and towns and teach our youth about powerful civic engagement that affects climate change.
This event will also feature a hands on seed planting demonstration and activity area for anyone who wants to plant some seeds to bring home. The Seed Library, a free seed exchange, sponsored by the Mountain Valley Climate Action group will be all stocked up and ready for your gardening adventures. Come get seeds or bring seeds that you have. It’s an exchange either way!
During this outdoor event, we will bring out as many books from the basement book sale as we can carry in order to do a little spring cleaning. The book sale will be by donation and all proceeds from the sale will go towards buying materials and supplies for the library. Come with a reusable bag to load up with great reads from out book sale, including fiction and non-fiction for both adults and children.
Let’s celebrate Green Up Day together!

Stone Village Poetry Experience Slam
2022-05-05 19:00 - 21:00
Last Chance to Enjoy the Slam Poets!
Mark your calendars: the final Stone Village Poetry Experience Slam will be held at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 5.
Join the authors who’ve been reading and the poetry lovers who’ve been enjoying the readings at the First Universalist Parish of Chester (211 North St). But, this being the final of the slams, there’ll be more: poets who have read and been judged during all three events will be awarded first, second and third prizes by the judges who will be—as they always are—picked from the audience.
And, as always, the event will begin and end with non-competitive poets reading from their works.
By all accounts, the evenings have been a great success. Poets have ranged in age from high-school students to retirees, and poems have ranged in topics from lust, love and loss to hopes and homelessness.
The events have been sponsored by the First Universalist Parish and Chester’s Whiting Library. Some of the poems have been refined at the Poetry Workshops that have been held as part of the Stone Village Poetry Experience. The final workshop will be held at the library (177 Main St) at 7 p.m. on May 19.
For more information, contact slam-master Tuck Wunderle at Tuckerman@terrigenous.com or Deirdre Doran at whitinglibrary1@gmail.com

To attend the Poetry Slam on Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89720546568?pwd=[REDACTED]
Enter the passcode: [REDACTED]

Whiting Library Book Club
2022-04-20 15:00 - 16:00
The Whiting Library Book Club is holding our monthly book discussion at the library in the community room (masks required!) and simultaneously live on Zoom. The book for April is The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Copies are available at the library right now! All are welcome to attend whether this is your first book club ever or you were born at a book club. We love to talk books!
If you have any questions or would like to get on the email list for the Book Club, please contact Deirdre at the library. You can email whitinglibrary1@gmail.com or call 875-2277.
Here is a description of this month’s book:
A tale of true love and high adventure, pirates, princesses, giants, miracles, fencing, and a frightening assortment of wild beasts—The Princess Bride is a modern storytelling classic.
As Florin and Guilder teeter on the verge of war, the reluctant Princess Buttercup is devastated by the loss of her true love, kidnapped by a mercenary and his henchman, rescued by a pirate, forced to marry Prince Humperdinck, and rescued once again by the very crew who absconded with her in the first place. In the course of this dazzling adventure, she’ll meet Vizzini—the criminal philosopher who’ll do anything for a bag of gold; Fezzik—the gentle giant; Inigo—the Spaniard whose steel thirsts for revenge; and Count Rugen—the evil mastermind behind it all. Foiling all their plans and jumping into their stories is Westley, Princess Buttercup’s one true love and a very good friend of a very dangerous pirate.

Stone Village Poetry Experience Slam
2022-04-14 19:00 - 21:00, 2022-03-17 19:00 - 21:00
It’s time to pull out your poetry notebook. Or, better yet, start a poetry notebook. You’ll want to be ready to take part in or just enjoy the Thursday-evening Stone Village Poetry Experience in March, April and May. Or just to come listen—it’s a lot of fun! You can also attend on Zoom (link below).
Co-sponsored by Chester’s Whiting Library and the First Universalist Parish of Chester, the Poetry Experience will offer monthly poetry slams and poetry-writing workshops that are open to all.
The slams will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, March 17, April 14 and May 5. The workshops will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, March 31, April 28 and May 19.
Poetry slams are light-heartedly competitive events in which judges made up of audience members rate the quality of each poet’s reading. Green Mountain Union High and Emerson College graduate Tuck Wunderle will serve as slam master. The slams will take place at the UU Church, at 211 North St., in Chester’s Stone Village.
The poetry-writing workshops will be led by Wunderle and Nick Boke. These published poets will facilitate discussions of the poems brought to the workshop by would-be or highly experienced poets, including but not limited to those who want to practice their slam presentations.
The workshops will take place in the Whiting Library, 117 Main St. in Chester. Slam poets who participate in all three Thursdays can compete for $25, $50 and $100 prizes. For more about slams, click here.
For more information about the Stone Village Poetry Experience, contact Tuck Wunderle at tuckerman@terrigenous.com, Nick Boke at nickboke@gmail.com or Whiting Director Deirdre Doran at whitinglibrary1@gmail.com.

To attend the Poetry Slam on Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89720546568?pwd=[REDACTED]
Enter the passcode: [REDACTED]

Golden Dome Book Club for Kids
2022-04-12 15:00 - 16:00
This book club is geared towards kids ages 9 and up. Book club members can read any of the books from the Golden Dome Book list. Come to the library and check one out! Then come talk about the book and decide to either recommend it or not to the group. The group could also decide to all read the same book and have a group discussion.
Here is a list of the 2021-2022 Golden Dome award nominees to choose from.
The Vermont Golden Dome Book Award (formerly the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award) was created to honor excellence in children’s literature. Each year since 1957, Vermont students in grades four through eight have selected their favorite book from a list of nominees. It is recommended that students read at least five of the year’s nominated titles before voting. Voting takes place in the spring, generally beginning in April.

Red Clover Book Club for Kids
2022-04-06 15:00 - 16:00
The Red Clover Kid’s Book Club meets once a monthly and is designed for children in kindergarten through fourth grade. Each year thousands of Vermont school children read these 10 Red Clover Book Award nominated picture books and vote for their favorite in the spring. Kids may join Carrie for this afterschool book club to explore these picture books and enjoy fun book club crafts and other engaging library activities.

Whiting Library Book Club
2022-03-16 15:00 - 16:00
The Whiting Library Book Club is holding our monthly book discussion at the library in the community room (masks required!) and simultaneously live on Zoom. The book for March is The Secret History of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger.
From Amazon:
The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics.
The term “home economics” may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople. And it has something to teach us today.
In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field’s history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women―and they were mostly women―became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education.
Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics’ women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages.
This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.

If you have any questions or would like to get on the email list for the Book Club, please contact Deirdre at the library. You can email whitinglibrary1@gmail.com or call 875-2277.
