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You may now submit photos until August 31st! Residents of every age and background will be vying for a chance to have their photographs be the "Now" representations of six Redmond scenes.  Grand Prize Winners will receive $100.
Submit your photos in an electronic format by email to thenandnow@kcls.org or in person at the Redmond Library.  Photo captions must accompany all submissions, along with your name, email address and telephone number.  Captions should include the subject of the image, the location the image was taken, and the name and age of the photographer(s).

Photographers can try to recreate the scene from the historical photograph as accurately as possible or use your creative sense to capture the scene from the historical photograph in a pleasing artful way.  Awards will be given in a Youth and Adult Category.

Submit your photos by August 31, 2012. Winners will be announced September 15.   See the complete rules at: http://blogs.kcls.org/redmond/2012/05/photo-contest-rules-terms-and.html or by inquiring at the Information Desk of the Redmond Library. Sponsored by The Friends of Redmond Library.

Stay tuned to the Redmond Library blog for details about our summer program!

Did you know that the City of Redmond is celebrating its centennial.  Check out this website for more information.

I appreciate the role that publishers play in helping me make sense of the yearly flood of new books. I especially appreciate the small, independent presses. Whenever I see a new book from a favorite publisher I stop and take notice. Because many publishers have specialty niches, niche-minded readers are able to keep up with what's new. So, if you're interested in fly-fishing; or feminism; or flash fiction ...well, there is probably a publisher for you!  The determining factor in my choice of favorite publishers has as much to do with the authors they choose to publish as much as anything else. Here are some of my favorites:

For fiction: Anansi Press & Groundwood Books & Algonquin Books  & LSU Press

For nonfiction: Copper Canyon Press & Storey Publishing & August House

Publisher websites will always have links to their newest releases, as well as a way to surf titles by topic and author. It's also a great way to find out what's new before it appears in the KCLS catalog. The library always appreciates purchase suggestions. Do you have a favorite publisher?
 

When I think back to my early memories of reading, I have vivid memories of two beginning reader books that continue to influence my reading habits. To this day I am drawn to mysteries and adventure books and I think these titles have something to do with that.

I was tickled pink when I was looking at a cart of books and saw both of them were still in print and circulating!

Titanic : the disaster that shocked the world and Tut's Mummy : Lost and Found.

Based on the publication dates I think these must have come home with my younger brother who has always been a nonfiction fan. He's the kid that started reading the encyclopedia for fun at age five and was immune to my older sister eye rolling. Since my family was incapable of doing anything without reading- and this included eating breakfast, walking to the bus stop or brushing our teeth, I must have found them laying around the house in one of the many book piles.

Both books were so interesting to me that the number of Titanic and King Tut books I have read since then are numerous. Did you know about Violet Jessop? She was a serving girl who survived both the sinking of the Titanic and its sister ship the Britannic! She grabbed her tooth brush when the second ship went down because one of the things she missed most was brushing her teeth while waiting to get back to port.

Truth is often stranger then fiction, and a well written nonfiction book can be riveting! So while my younger brother often pushed my buttons, I have to thank him for picking these two books out and leaving them out so I could find them.

I have never been describe as "sporty". Being the offspring of bookish parents I never understood why they kept trying to find a sport I was good at. It was not baseball (only girl on the team), soccer, tennis or volleyball. Though I did play a mean game of inter-mural badminton...Eventually, my parents came to grips with the fact I was more of a clarinet playing-drama queen-reading kind of girl and everyone was much happier.

Last year some friends invited us to a Seattle Sounders invitational soccer game and much to my surprise I liked it! My long ago youth soccer experience gave me just enough knowledge to understand what was going on, and I had a fond flashback to being on the bus reading a book from my local KCLS library explaining the rules of soccer. I had this odd idea that if I read up on a sport I might be better at it. Sadly, that turned out to not be true, but I still have my monogrammed "Hurricanes" sweatshirt for bumming around in on the weekends. And whatever I don't remember, other Sounders fans are friendly enough to explain what is going on. Now I have rain gear, fleece lined rubber boots and a Sounders scarf.

So regardless if you're bookish, sporty, or somewhere in between, the library is a great place for books about sports. I am especially fond of the children's non-fiction with lots of picture!

As the summer continues, you might be trying to think of ways to keep your children entertained.  Don't forget the many areas in the non-fiction collection here at the library that might help you out.  Do your kids like to draw? -- take a look at the titles by Lee J. Ames, like Draw 50 Creepy Crawlies.  Want to make paper airplanes? -- try Mr. Magorium's Paper Airplane Designs.  How about taking time for some baking --  Cool Cakes and Cupcakes:  Easy Recipes for Kids to Bake by Pam Price is a fun place to start.  Learn more about hiking and camping with Follow the Trail:  A Young Person's  Guide to the Great Outdoors by Jessica Loy.  Paper clip art anyone?  Try
Wow! New York City by Puck with art by Rey David Rojas.       Or how about just one book with lots of ideas:  The Really Big Book of Amazing Things To Make & Do:  Model-Making, T-Shirt Decoration, Face and Body Painting, Beading, Friendship Bracelets, Fabulous Hairstyles, Juggling, Balloon Animals, Magic and Sneaky Tricks! by Lucy Painter!

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A few weeks ago we decided to take our one year old collie on a hike. She does not travel well in the car so we didn't want to drive too far. We did a quick internet search for hikes with dogs and decided to head out to Twin Falls in the Snoqualmie Pass/North Bend Area. 

Summer Reading gets revved up today with prizes now available!  Make sure you claim your finisher prize by August 31st to be entered into the drawing. 

The fun continues Friday afternoon with the Going Global Comedy Show.  Though no more tickets are available for the Redmond branch, you can still catch Alex Zerbes high energy comedy at these nearby libraries:

The Carnation Library

Friday, July 22nd, 10:30am

The Woodinville Library

Friday, July 22nd, 2:30pm

The Kingsgate Library

Tuesday, July 26th, 2pm

The Bothel Library

Tuesday, July 26th, 7pm

 

Free tickets for our next program, Take a Musical Mystery Tour, will become available starting Sunday, July 17th.

If you still haven't registered for Summer Reading, you can register online or at any King County library.

If you are traveling the globe or exploring the world through Summer Reading and would like to learn a new language, the library has the resources you need.  Our online language learning databases are fun for kids (Little Pim) and adults (byki and Mango Languages) alike, and are accessible from computers or mobile devices.  If books or audiobooks are more your style, try a subject search in our catalog for the language name followed by the word language (see this example for Chinese).  You can always limit your results to a specific format (i.e., book, book on CD, etc.) as well.  Have fun learning!