Author Talk with Mary Cerullo

Sharks at Your Service

Thursday, August 5 at 5:00pm via Zoom

This virtual event is presented by Tumbleocity. Find more information about the event and the book and register for the event.

Sharks are at the very top of the list of animals that fascinate children and adults alike, but they are usually depicted as ferocious and destructive hunters. These negative portrayals miss the point that these top predators play an essential role in maintaining the health of the world’s oceans. Sharks at Your Service highlights the positive side of sharks—as the ultimate service providers in the sea!

Join author Mary Cerullo as she explores many of the different kinds of sharks and rays and the roles that they perform in the sea — some of which even resemble jobs that humans do on land. She will use exciting video, whimsical illustrations, and dramatic photographs by the award-winning underwater photographer Jeff Rotman. Mary hopes you will see some of the things we have in common with these sea giants, and maybe it will make you want to work to protect sharks from their top predators: us!

Mary Cerullo teaches and writes about the ocean. She has written 23 books on ocean life for children, including City Fish, Country Fish (a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year), Octopus: Phantom of the Sea (a Junior Library Guild Selection), Giant Squid: Searching for a Sea Monster (an Outstanding Science Trade Book selection by the NSTA and the CBC), and The Truth About Great White Sharks (IRA Teacher’s Choice Award).

Author talk with Hilary Bartlett

The Thistle Inn: A Wee Bit of Scotland in Maine

Saturday, August 14 at 10:00am on the library lawn

Join us on the library lawn to hear author Hilary Bartlett discuss her new book.

Hilary E. Bartlett was born and raised in Liverpool, England, with belching chimneys, street gangs and perpetual damp. When the Beatles first played at the Cavern she was there, but that was as good as it got. Good grades were her means of escape. Hilary studied microbiology at University College London and received her doctorate. She came to Bigelow Laboratory in Midcoast Maine in her late twenties to determine a predictive index for toxic red-tides. Her intention was to return to London but Boothbay Harbor bewitched her. She took a full-time research position at Bigelow Lab and lived opposite the Thistle Inn during the 1970s. Hilary made lifelong friends at the back corner table in the pub, where Bigelow sisters first shared stories about feisty grandmothers. Those young women changed Hilary’s life. Yet she was the only one who stayed in Boothbay Harbor. Once she found her true home, she never wanted to leave.

Hilary changed careers after she became a mother and started a home-based art business. Her reputation as an artist is well established and her ink paintings have won awards. She received a writing fellowship from Waypoint Foundation to spend time at one of their Key Largo retreats. The Thistle Inn is her first book.

Book description:

Colorful tales of the Thistle Inn paint a vivid portrait of a Maine fishing village during the 1960s and ‘70s. When shrimp boats filled the harbor, martinis were less than two dollars and famous actors, musicians and ballplayers dropped by. Photos and vintage menus spice up the pages, plus the secret ingredient for the Thistle’s Downeast steak is finally revealed.

“Boothbay locals that frequented The Thistle Inn during the Leonie/T’Donald years who read this highly entertaining book of tales – those that could be printed, anyway – will smile, laugh, and remember when. The rest of us will read it, smile, laugh . . . and wish to God we remembered it too!”

Lisa Kristoff, Boothbay Register

“My wife and I wrote weekly travel columns for 7 years, and loved Boothbay Harbor, but I had no idea of the fascinating history of the Thistle Inn until I read this book. And you will love all the interesting stories of the inn’s owners and guests, especially the patrons in the bar.”

George Smith, award-winning journalist and Maine author

Follow the clues in this online search to find the culprit behind this fictional caper. All the clues are online so you can search from the coziness of your own abode. Figure out the answer to this whodunit and you are entered into a prize drawing!

Official Quest Briefing:

We’ve received tips from throughout the state of Maine that bees are missing this summer. None have been spotted anywhere. This is a disaster!  Bees are necessary to pollinate our plants, and pollination is what makes more and more plants! So, you see, without our bees, our food supply will quickly dwindle. The bees were just here in the spring, so we suspect someone may have stolen them all.

We’ve narrowed it down to 10 suspects, but we simply don’t have the staff available to run down all our leads. This is where you come in. Can you help us explore all our leads and figure out which of our suspects has the bees?

Curious to learn more about your roots? Use your library card to access Ancestry.com at home and fill out your own family tree.

Use this free resource to explore billions of archival records like census data, military records and immigration records. Plus, download helpful charts and forms to help track your research.

This digital research tool is available through Digital Maine Library. Visit our Digital Resources page to find more information about Digital Maine Library and our other online resources.

*Please note: this resource is available at home until December 31, 2021. After that date, continue to use Ancestry resources in the library.

Author talk with Colin Woodard

Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood

Friday, July 16 at 6:00pm on the library lawn

Come hear bestselling author Colin Woodard discuss his new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood. Plus, you’ll be able to buy a copy of your own and get it signed by the author.

Colin Woodard is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He is the author of six books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently State and National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, where he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2016. He is a contributing editor at POLITICO and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.

A native of Maine, he has reported from more than 50 countries and seven continents and lived for more than four years in Eastern Europe during the collapse of the Soviet empire and the transition that followed. A graduate of Tufts University and the University of Chicago he is past Pew Fellow in International Journalism at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a recipient of the Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Excellence in Public Advocacy.

Book description:

Union tells the story of the struggle to create a national myth for the United States, one that could hold its rival regional cultures together and forge an American nationhood. On one hand, a small group of individuals—historians, political leaders, and novelists—fashioned and promoted the idea of America as nation that had a God-given mission to lead humanity toward freedom, equality, and self-government. But this emerging narrative was swiftly contested by another set of intellectuals and firebrands who argued that the United States was instead the homeland of the allegedly superior “Anglo-Saxon” race, upon whom divine and Darwinian favor shined.

Colin Woodard tells the story of the genesis and epic confrontations between these visions of our nation’s path and purpose through the lives of the key figures who created them, a cast of characters whose personal quirks and virtues, gifts and demons shaped the destiny of millions.

“Woodard traces a gradual, emerging consensus of American unity. It’s a dark tale. This country purchased its sense of itself as a unified whole at a high price, he writes: that of racial equality. . . . In Woodard’s hands, [history] leaps to life. He shows just how powerful a form popular nonfiction can be in the hands of a disciplined writer who won’t tolerate generality or abstraction. . . . The writing is relentlessly accessible. . . . This is that rare history that tells what influential thinkers failed to think, what famous writers left unwritten. . . . Woodard demonstrates that something more complicated than reason is always afoot, some swirl of politics, events, and wordless popular sentiment that sweeps the hapless thinker in its wake.”

Jill Leovy, The American Scholar

“Compelling. . . . George Bancroft’s portrait is only one of many utterly gripping depictions scattered throughout Union. . . . The stakes are nothing short of determining how a nation thinks about itself, how it teaches posterity about itself. In Union, that battle sprawls out of the narrow confines of academia and embroils the entire country – and the fight is ongoing.”

The Christian Science Monitor

Visit the library on Thursdays this summer for fun on the library lawn!

Thursdays from July 1-August 12 (weather permitting).

10:30am: Storytime
Join our Children’s Coordinator, Jen, on the library lawn for Storytime! She will read a special book each week and will be on site to help you learn more about the book and author.

Our Friday, July 2 film has been cancelled due to, well…unfair weather. We don’t have rescheduling plans as of yet, but stay tuned for more information about our August 6th film.

Shout it from the rooftops…Fair Weather Films return this summer!

Join us on the library lawn this summer for a socially-distanced big-screen special—weather dependent, of course.

Friday, July 2 at 8:00 pm. We’ll be watching The Goonies!

Friday, August 6 at 8:00 pm: Film TBD

Bring your own blankets, comfy lawn chairs and snacks.

Grow with Google: Learn the Basics of Google Ads

Tuesday, July 27, 12:00 pm-1:00 pm online via virtual webinar

In this workshop, you will learn how to reach more customers and grow your business with Google Ads. Learn tips on writing great ads, refining keywords, and including ad extensions. You’ll also learn how to measure success of an advertising campaign.

Join our presenter, Sixcia Devine, in learning how to how to create an account and set up an ad campaign. Don’t forget to install the free GoToWebinar app if you plan to attend via a mobile device.

RSVP for this FREE workshop

BHML is partnering with Grow with Google to offer free community programs so you can learn how to make the most popular search engine in the world work for you!

Grow with Google: Get Your Business on Google Search and Maps

Tuesday, July 6, 12:00 pm-1:00 pm online via virtual webinar

Showing up when customers are searching online is more important than ever. Ensure customers can find accurate, updated information about your local business on Google Search and Google Maps, no matter which device they use.

Join our presenter, Sixcia Devine, in learning how to how to create and manage a Google business profile from start to finish. Don’t forget to install the free GoToWebinar app if you plan to attend via a mobile device.

RSVP for this FREE workshop

BHML is a Grow with Google partner so you can learn how to make the most popular search engine in the world work for you!

Summer Reading Kick-Off 2021

Tuesday, June 29, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm on the library lawn.

Featuring Chewonki @ 11:00am!

Get ready to explore the world through reading! Join us on the library lawn for a day of learning and fun and hopefully sun. Everyone is welcome and we’ll have activities for the whole family.

Summer Reading Passports for Kids

Say ‘Cheese!’ Get your picture taken for your Summer Reading Passport. We will have a special station where you can show off your pearly whites for your passport photo. After your passport is issued, you can start reading and earning prize ticket and special treats!

Adult Summer Reading Bingo

Adults can join in on the summer reading frenzy, too. Grab a Summer Reading Bingo card, then head to the library to start scoping out your reads for the summer.

11:00am-12:00pm—Chewonki: Fins & Flippers

Come learn and explore! Join our friends from Chewonki for a special program called Fins & Flippers. We’ll learn about all sorts of marine mammals and get to see real whale bones…how cool! Please arrive for this event early as we will have a check-in table for contact tracing and special social-distanced seating on the lawn.

Bubbles and Chalk

Help us decorate the Children’s Garden driveway with sidewalk chalk art. We’ll also have the bubble machine blowin’ bubbles all day! Plus, we’ll have Bubbles and Chalk as a recurring event all summer long on Thursdays from 11:00am-12:00pm 🙂

Windjammer Wee Mateys events

Ahoy Wee Mateys! As many of you already know, BHML Summer Reading Kick-Off coincides with Windjammer Days. Check out some of their fun events planned for the same day and throughout the rest of the week.

Please note: although CDC restrictions have been constantly changing throughout the country, we understand that not all of our Summer Reading participants are able to be vaccinated for Covid-19, particularly our Wee-est of Maytees. In order for all attendees to feel comfortable and safe, masks will be required at this event. Thank you for your understanding and your continuing compassion for the health and safety of others.

Chewonki Rain date:  Friday, July 2, 10:00am