General

Join us this Saturday, June 3rd from 9:00 a.m. till noon for our combined Plant Sale, Silent Auction & Bake Sale! All proceeds will benefits the Library, which benefits the community. Please note updated location – Boothbay Harbor Fire Department, 11 Howard Street, Boothbay Harbor.

This year’s sale will feature all the perennial favorites, like day lilies, hostas, black-eyed Susans, tomato seedlings and herbs. As always, there will also be those special hard-to-find plants from local master gardeners.

You can also support the Library by bidding in our silent Auction. Dozens of generous businesses, nonprofits, and individuals have donated an amazing array of items. No bid is too high! The auction is live and will continue until June 7. Bid now!

Lastly, we will have delicious baked goods, and artisan breads available along with drinks. All purchases will benefit the Library!

Disclaimer: This event is not sponsored by the municipality of Boothbay Harbor, nor does it necessarily represent the values and opinions of the Board of Selectmen or the community at large.

Friday, May 26, 7 p.m. at Harbor Theater

The Harbor Theater and Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library have joined forces to bring your family together over a classic book adapted to the big screen after 50 controversial years on the
library shelves. On Friday, May 26, at 7 p.m., a family group of up to five can see “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” for one admission price of $20, or individuals at $8 per person The deal continues with free popcorn to everyone who shows their BHML Library Card. Before the movie begins, there will be a drawing for door prizes. The library has donated a copy of Judy Blume’s 1970 novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and a BHML T-shirt to be raffled off. The Harbor Theater is contributing a Free Pass to the raffle.

For over fifty years, Judy Blume's classic and groundbreaking novel Are You There God? It’s
Me, Margaret. has impacted generations with its timeless coming of age story, insightful
humor, and candid exploration of life’s biggest questions. In Lionsgate’s big-screen
adaptation, 11-year-old Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) is uprooted from her life in New
York City for the suburbs of New Jersey, going through the messy and tumultuous throes of
puberty with new friends in a new school. She relies on her mother, Barbara (Rachel
McAdams), who is also struggling to adjust to life outside the big city, and her adoring
grandmother, Sylvia (Kathy Bates), who isn't happy they moved away and likes to remind
them every chance she gets.

Blume was approached numerous times during the past fifty years to have her book adapted to film, but she had been reluctant until, now at age 85, she found what has turned out to be the ideal movie-making team for her book. Although in New York Times critic Melena Ryzik’s review ‘Beloved, Banned, Finally Adapted’ she points out that “Judy Blume’s 1970 novel hits the big screen at a difficult political moment for a story with themes of bodily autonomy and religious choice,” it hasn’t stopped many from celebrating what has to be considered a movie break-through moment in family films. The movie is also proving to be a hit especially with older women who grew up in the 1970s and 80s and their mothers who struggled through puberty with them. The critics have almost unanimously good things to say about this film.

“This wholesome, perfectly cast film does the source material justice, creating a timeless
coming-of-age-story that brings Judy Blume’s classic book to life.”

Louisa Moore, Screen Zealots

“The Judy Blume book receives the ageless treatment it deserves in a movie that captures the
1970 vibe (starting with the soundtrack) while completely transcending it.”

Brian Lowry, CNN.com

“As a critic, I hesitate to use the word “perfect”but it is the first adjective that comes to mind.”
Leonard Maltin, leonardmaltin.com

“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” opens Friday, May 26 at 7 p.m. and continues nightly on Saturday, May 27, 7 p.m., Monday, May 29, 7 p.m., Tuesday, May 30, 7 p.m., and Thursday, June 1, 7 p.m. There are two matinees: Sunday, May 28, 2 p.m. and Wednesday, May 31, 2 p.m.

Saturday, June 3, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Boothbay Harbor Fire Department

Mark your calendars for June 3, when the stalwart gardeners of the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library will offer a plant sale at Boothbay Harbor Fire Department, 11 Howard Street, Boothbay Harbor.  This year’s sale will feature all the perennial favorites, like day lilies, hostas, black-eyed Susans, tomato seedlings and herbs. As always, there will also be those special hard-to-find plants from local master gardeners.

This year’s sale will emphasize native plants. While people drool over those showy cultivars and plants from away, native plants are the workhorses that deliver. They offer essential habitat for the butterflies, pollinators, and birds we love. And they aren’t as needy as the PFAs. Native plants need less water, less tending and can better withstand our climate’s sometimes extreme weather.

Thursday, June 8, 2:00 p.m. on the Library lawn

About the Book:

Delvin Davis is an NFL coach on his way to the Hall of Fame when an egregious Super Bowl blunder costs him everything. Humiliated and running from haters, he’s exiled to a woebegone fishing town in Maine and relegated to coaching eight-man high school football with flimsy hopes of returning to the spotlight.

Battling rival teams, a new nemesis, and his ruined reputation, Davis decides to make a run for the local high school principal’s heart. As Davis tries to turn the Spring Harbor Warriors into a winning team on the shoulders of his star quarterback, a girl named Lefty, he discovers that football may be secondary to the love of his life.

About the author:

Charlie Britton grew up on Southport Island and attended local schools. His self-published debut novel, “Eight-Man Cowboy” (under the pen name C.W. Wells), has garnered strong reviews and been a consistent seller on Amazon. Britton was one of the country’s leading independent school educators and now serves as an educational consultant. He lives on Southport with his wife, Jen. Britton was offered a publishing contract for his next novel, LONESTAR, which debuted this spring.

During his talk, Britton will discuss the writing and publishing process.

Tuesday, June 20, 2023 on the Library lawn

About the book:

In this unique biography, Fred Kaplan emphasizes Thomas Jefferson’s genius with language and his ability to use the power of words to inspire and shape a nation. A man renowned for many talents, writing was one of the major activities of the statesman’s life, though much of his best, most influential writing—with the exception of the letters he wrote up to his death, numbering approximately 100,000—was done by 1789, when Jefferson was just forty-six. All of his works demonstrate his remarkable intelligence, prescient wisdom, and literary flair and reveal the man in all his complex and controversial brilliance.

In His Masterly Pen, readers will find a new appreciation of Jefferson as a whole, of his strengths and weaknesses, and particularly of the degree to which his writing skills—which James Madison admired as “the shining traces of his pen”—are key to his personality and public career. Though Jefferson could wield his pen with unrivaled power, he was also a master of using words to both reveal and conceal from others and himself the complications, the inconsistencies, and the contradictions between his principles and his policies, between his head and his heart, and between his optimistic view of human nature and the realities of his personal situation and the world he lived in.

About the author:

Fred Kaplan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of John Quincy Adams: American Visionary and Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, which was named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times and the Washington Post. His biography of Thomas Carlyle was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of biographies of Henry James, Charles, Dickens, Mark Twain, & Gore Vidal. His latest book, His Masterly Pen: A Biography of Jefferson the Writer, “closely examines the Founding Father’s written works to reveal his inspirations, resentments, and mythmaking” (Washington Post). Professor Kaplan is currently writing Difficult Friendships: Jefferson and the Adams Family. A former New Yorker, he lives in East Boothbay, Maine.

Last Wednesday of the month beginning May 31

Update: Learn Mah Jongg has reached capacity. 

Wednesdays in May starting May 10 from 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Learn how to play American-style Mah Jongg!  Join other newcomers in this informal four-week class led by seasoned players. Due to the style of play, space is limited to 8 players. Registration is required. All skill levels and ages are welcome.

Call the library to add your name to the wait list: 207-633-3112 or email Bethany at tech@bbhlibrary.org.

Friday, May 19, 2023 at 12:00 p.m.