20-Something Title Swap!

Monday, February 4th at 7PM

  Meeting Room A on the Lower Level

With 20-Something Librarians

Jackie Ranaldo and Jessikah Chautin

Please join us as we discuss our favorite books! You tell us your favorites, we’ll tell you ours. Together we’ll compile a list and you’ll have great titles to read throughout the Winter!

This program is open to any 20-something/30-something looking for a great book discussion group. No registration is required and the program is free. Non-Syosset residents are welcome. Please call 516-921-7161 x 239 for details. Look forward to seeing you there!

Check out our Facebook page for upcoming events and great suggestions for your next read:

Syosset Public Library 20-Something Book Club

- posted by Jackie, Readers’ Services

Dandelion Wine

Do you have a summer ritual? Is it the first s’mores on the grill or flowers blooming in the garden or that day when the ocean water feels refreshing instead of bracing? Or is it making dandelion wine?

When I heard that Ray Bradbury died, I realized that I had been missing my ritual for the beginning of  summer. When I was young teenager, I had found a copy of his novel, Dandelion Wine, in my father’s bookcase.  I read it that summer and every summer for many years. It was my way to welcome summer.

If you only know Bradbury as a writer of science fiction and fantasy, this book will come as a delightful surprise. It is a coming-of age story. It is a nostalgic look at life in a small Midwest town in the early 20th century. It is a celebration of life.

No, I never made dandelion wine. But I just reread the book and found it as delightful as ever. You might enjoy it as you lounge on the beach, sit beneath a shady tree or even wait in the airport.

-posted by Brenda, Reference Services

Beach Reads Evening Title Swap

Join us for a special evening Title Swap on

Wednesday, July 11.  7 PM

Librarians and patrons will share favorite titles and you will leave with a great “Beach Reads” reading list. No registration is required.  Free.  Attend this event and receive an extra Summer Reading raffle ticket.  What is the raffle ticket for? It’s for a chance to win a prize from our  Adult Summer Reading Club.  If you have not joined yet just come to the Readers” Services Desk and sign up.

After you sign up you can submit titles of any book you read during the summer until  August 11.  For each title you submit, you will have a chance to win raffle prizes in our weekly drawing and at the

Summer Reading Wrap-Up Party on August 15.

• Patrons read books of their own choice: Adult & Young Adult books qualify; Children’s books do not
• Audio Books qualify
• Patrons who join the program and submit at least one title will be sent an invitation to the Wrap-Up Party on August 15 at 7 PM
• Open to Syosset School District Residents 18 years or older

20-Something Title Swap!

Monday, June 25th at 7PM  

Meeting Room A on the Lower Level

With 20-Something Librarians

Jackie Ranaldo and Jessikah Chautin

Please join us as we discuss our favorite books! You tell us your favorites, we’ll tell you ours. Together we’ll compile a list and you’ll have great titles to read throughout the Summer!

This program is open to any 20-something/30-something looking for a great book discussion group. No registration is required and the program is free. Non-Syosset residents are welcome. Please call 516-921-7161 x 239 for details. Look forward to seeing you there!

Check out our Facebook page for upcoming events and great suggestions for your next read:

Syosset Public Library 20-Something Book Club

- posted by Jackie, Readers’ Services

Author Visit: Susan Henderson

Long Island author Susan Henderson will join us on Monday June 4, 2012 at 7 PM to discuss her debut novel Up From the Blue and the writer’s life.  Susan Henderson is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets award.

“Tillie Harris’s life is in disarray- her husband is away on business, the boxes in her new home aren’t unpacked, and the telephone isn’t even connected yet. Though she’s not due for another month, sudden labor pains force Tillie to reach out to her estranged father for help, a choice that means facing the painful memories she’s been running from since she was a little girl. An extraordinary debut from a talented new voice, Up from the Blue untangles the year in Tillie’s life that changed everything: 1975, the year her mother disappeared.” (From the Publisher)

Currently in its 4th printing, Up From the Blue received a starred reviewed from Publishers Weekly, calling the novel  “an elegant debut.”  Library Journal notes “rapturous prose,” while Booklist claims it is “an affecting portrait.”

Copies of the book will be sold by the Friends of the Library at the event.

For more information on Susan Henderson, visit the author’s official website.

- posted by Jackie, Readers’ Services

Title Swap With Librarians

Please join us on Monday, June 4th at 1:30 PM for a

Share tea, coffee and cookies, as well as your favorite titles with the Readers’ Services staff of the Syosset Public Library.  Join librarians Lisa Caputo, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Lisa Jones and Jackie Ranaldo for a fun hour of sharing the titles of our favorite books.

Looking for something particular?  Historical Fiction? Romance?  Your next book club pick?  Ask the group … we promise you’ll leave with a great summer reading list.  Not able to make the program?  No worries.  A list of the discussed titles will be left at each public service desk.  They will also be made available online on the Books and Reading section of our webpage.  We will be meeting on the 2nd floor right in front of our cozy fireplace.

We look forward to seeing you there!

This program is free and no registration is required. 

Non-Syosset residents are welcome.

- posted by Jackie, Readers’ Services

National Poetry Month 2012

April is here again — time for those April showers and for filing those tax returns. But did you know that April is also National Poetry Month?

National Poetry Month was established in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets to celebrate and bring attention to an art form that predates literacy.  Two of the most famous epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer (ca. 8^th century BC), were passed down orally for many years until being written down.  Another is the epic of Gilgamesh, dating from 4^th century Mesopotamia.  Since these early beginnings there have always been poets among us writing poetry.  Most of us can remember if not a whole poem, a fragment  of one, such as “I think that I shall never see , a poem lovely as a tree” or “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue”!

Today poetry can be found all around us if we slow down and take the time to notice.   Here are a few ways to do just that–

• Take a look at that anthology of poems or volume of Robert Frost or Walt Whitman (just to name two) that’s waiting to be opened, in your home or that of a friend or relative.
• If you come across a poem in a magazine that regularly features them such as the New Yorker, Reader’s Digest or even a local Pennysaver, stop and read it.
• Come into the Syosset Public Library and browse our varied collection of poetry.
• Visit the “30 Ways to Celebrate Poetry” page of the Academy of American Poets’ website to read about more ideas for incorporating poetry into our lives, such as signing up for the “Poem a Day” email.

However way you find it,

there is a poem that is waiting just for you.

- posted by Sonia, Readers’ Services

Summer Reading Club Wrap-up

The 2nd Annual Adult Summer Reading Club has come to a close.  We hope you enjoyed a summer of great books.  We would like to thank the 119 patrons who participated in the program and congratulate you on having read a grand total of 640 books.  We look forward to your participation again next summer!  Congratulations to those of you who won one of 80 prizes awarded throughout the summer and at the Wrap-Up Party.

We would also like to thank author Chris Grabenstein for speaking at the Wrap-Up Party held on Wednesday, August 17th.  Mr. Grabenstein shared his thoughts and insights on being a writer, as well as the inspiration behind many of his great characters, namely John Ceepak and Danny Boyle.  Mr. Grabenstein not only kept us entertained with his endless comic wit, but was also generous enough to donate his own personal signed copies of six of his books for our door prize raffles.  If you’re ever in need of a fun, beachy mystery try Chris Grabenstein’s John Ceepak series.  You’re sure to be entertained.

The Syosset Public Library would also like to thank the following local businesses for their generous gift certificate donations:

American Cleaners       Butera’s Restaurants

Cactus Salon                  CardSmart

China View Chinese Restaurant       Denny’s

Estilo Salon          Fingers Faces and Toes

Incredible Feets          Jerrie Shop

Lonny’s                   Max and Gino’s

Mixology                          Ms’Tique

One Small Step                          Optic’s Plus

Prima Dona Cosmetics           Shoprite

Woodbury Sports           Woodbury Wine Cellar

We would also like to thank Henry Holt and Company Publishers for their generous book donations!

_We look forward to next year’s 3rd Annual Adult Summer Reading Program … and we hope for another great summer of books!

- posted by Jackie, Readers’ Services