Trivia of the Month (Answer)....

This month’s question was what is the distinguishing feature of a Manx cat?  Manx cats have no tails.  This is believed to be the result of a spontaneous genetic mutation among the population of cats marooned on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea that became Manx cats.

The question (& answer) were found on p. 154-155 of Barron’s Encyclopedia of Cat Breeds by J. Anne Helgren.  The book was published in 1997 by Barron’s Educational Services, Inc.

Events for the Week of April 30….

Events going on at the library during the week include…

• Make it Monday features a Robot Workshop on Monday (5/1) at 4:00 – registration required
• Lectores meet on Tuesday (5/2) at 6:00
• Toddler Storytime on Wednesday (5/3) at 10:30
• STAR Reader on Wednesday at 3:00
• Baby Storytime on Thursday (5/4) at 10:30
• STAR Reader on Thursday at 3:00
• LA OIC Computer Bootcamp on Friday (5/5) at 1:00 – session en español
• Drop in Computer Lab on Friday at 3:30

You can always check the Branch Page (http://www.lapl.org/branches/arroyo-seco) on the LAPL website for upcoming events or check out the Master Calendar (http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/calendar) where you can search for something specific across multiple branches

Library Events in May…

(Mark your calendars accordingly)

The library has some interesting events planned in May.  As always, I thought I’d take a minute and give you a run down so you can plan ahead.  Let’s start with the non-repeating events:

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5/1 @ 4:00
Make it Monday: Robots
Join us for another robot workshop for kids.  Registration required.

5/2 @ 6:00
Club de Lectores
Hay café, pastel casero, ye conversación amena sobre el libro que estamos leyendo

5/5 From 1:00-4:00
LA OIC Computer Bootcamp
This program puts low cost computers in the hands of low income people.  This session is in Spanish. Call or drop by to sign up.

5/8 from 2:30-4:30
LA DOT Tap Card Information Session
Stop by with questions for the LA Department of Transportation.  Get your TAP card reloaded while you’re here.

5/8 @ 4:00
Make it Monday: Robots
Join us for another robot workshop for kids.  Registration required.

5/9 from 2:00-5:00
CA Telephone Access Program Info Table
Find out all about California's program to provide free, specialized telephones to individuals with problems hearing, seeing, speaking, moving, or remembering

5/9 @ 3:00
Teen Program
Join us for a teen themed program of one sort or another.

5/13 @ 3:00
Lummis Day Poetry Workshop
Join us for a workshop on “the sense of ending in poetry” put on by published poet Marsha de la O.

5/15 @ 4:00
Make it Monday: Building Block Challenge
Just what can you make? Come on down and show us.

5/16 @ 6:00
Club de Lectores
Hay café, pastel casero, ye conversación amena sobre el libro que estamos leyendo

5/20 @ 2:00
Bird Puppet Making Workshop
The Arroyo Arts Collective & Teatro Arroyo will be here conducting a bird puppet-making workshop.  These puppets, along with their makers, will then be invited to participate in the "Fish Gotta Swim, Birds Gotta Fly" Themed Parade during Lummis Day.

5/22 @ 4:00
Make it Monday: Asian-Pacific Heritage Storytime & Craft
Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with some stories and a related craft.

5/23 @ 3:00
Teen Program
Join us for a teen themed program of one sort or another.

5/27 @ 3:00
Arroyo Book Club
Join us for a spirited discussion of the book Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.

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Each month the library also has a number of ongoing classes & events.  They are:

Toddler Storytime - - - Wednesdays at 10:30 
Little Ones’ 3 and under & their grownups are invited to join us for stories, music, & games. 

Baby Storytime - - - Thursdays at 10:30 
Bounces, rhymes and songs for prewalkers (age 0-12 months) and their caregivers.

STAR Volunteer Readers - - - Available on Wednesdays at 3:00 and on Thursdays at 3:00 
STAR readers present the fun of storytelling and reading to children one-on-one or in small groups. Kids earn a free book to keep after 3 visits. 

Intermediate English Conversation - - -  Wednesdays from 2:00-3:30
Join us to practice your spoken English. Gain confidence and experience.

Drop in Computer Lab - - - Fridays at 3:30
Bring your questions about computers, tablets, eReaders, or other electronic devices.  We will do our best to help you figure out answers. 

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Please do not hesitate to call the library at 323-255-0537 if you have any questions or would like more information.  Remember that you can always check the Branch Page (http://www.lapl.org/branches/arroyo-seco) on the LAPL website for upcoming events or check out the Master Calendar (http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/calendar) where you can search for something specific across multiple branches.

Bird Puppet Making Workshop…

You don’t need to be a kid to have fun making puppets.  So join us no matter what your age for a puppet making workshop on Saturday, May 20th at 2:00.  The Arroyo Arts Collective & Teatro Arroyo will be here conducting the workshop which will focus, this year, on making bird puppets.

These puppets, along with their makers, will then be invited to participate in the "Fish Gotta Swim, Birds Gotta Fly" Themed Parade during Lummis Day.  The parade will go from the Lummis House to Sycamore Grove Park on June 4 and will start at 11:00am.

So join us and create as elaborate, crazy, baroque, outright beautiful puppet as you can.  Everyone is welcome.

The Arroyo Book Club’s May Pick…

May is Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month.  The Arroyo Book Club is celebrating that fact by picking Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng for our May book.  The publisher describes the book with:

"Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet. So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue-in Marilyn's case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James's case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party. When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart. James, consumed by guilt, sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to find a responsible party, no matter what the cost. Lydia's older brother, Nathan, is certain that the neighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it's the youngest of the family-Hannah-who observes far more than anyone realizes and who may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened. A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another."

Stop by the library for a copy of the book and join us for discussion on May 27 at 3:00.

Events for the Week of April 23….

Events going on at the library during the week include…

• Color Zentangle on Sunday (4/23) at 3:00
• Make it Monday features Aztec Stories with Michael Heralda on Monday (4/24) at 4:00
• Cinco de Mayo Craft on Tuesday (4/25) at 4:00
• Toddler Storytime on Wednesday (4/26) at 10:30
• STAR Reader on Wednesday at 3:00
• Baby Storytime on Thursday (4/27) at 10:30
• STAR Reader on Thursday at 3:00
• Drop in Computer Lab on Friday (4/28) at 3:30
• April Birthday Party on Saturday (4/29) at 12:00

You can always check the Branch Page (http://www.lapl.org/branches/arroyo-seco) on the LAPL website for upcoming events or check out the Master Calendar (http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/calendar) where you can search for something specific across multiple branches

Poetry Workshop…

Our annual Lummis Day Poetry Event will be on Saturday, May 13th at 3:00.  This year we will be featuring a Poetry Workshop led by published poet Marsha de la O.  The workshop, titled The Sense of Ending in Poetry, will engage with the challenge of ending a poem: how to provide closure with a turn, a contraction, or an expansion.  Any of these should open large imaginative spaces.

Marsha de la O’s latest book, Antidote for Night, won the 2015 Isabella Gardner Award and was published by BOA Editions.  Her first book, Black Hope, was awarded the New Issues Press Poetry Prize and a Small Press Editors’ Choice Award. Her work is anthologized in Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Pacific Coast Poetry Series), as well as Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals (Ballantine), Saying What Needs to Be Said (Solo Press), Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics from California (Greenhouse Review Press), and the poetry workshop handbook One for the Money: The Sentence as Poetic Form (Lynx House Press). She was the recipient of the 2014 Morton Marcus Poetry Prize. De La O lives in Ventura, California, with her husband, poet and editor Phil Taggart. Together, they produce poetry readings and events in Ventura County and are also the editors and publishers of the literary journal Askew.

The Immortals

In The Immortals Jordanna Max Brodsky introduces us to Selena DiSilva as she finds the body of a young woman gruesomely killed.  Selena is not your ordinary woman, however, she is actually the Greek goddess Artemis dwindled down with the passage of time and the loss of worshipers to a state of almost powerlessness.  Artemis has always been a protector of innocents though so she begins to investigate the murder with an eye to exacting revenge.  More bodies turn up and it seems the killer or killers might not be all that human.

This is an interesting book that I couldn’t put down even though it had some serious logic flaws in its depiction of which Greed gods were dwindling away and which weren’t and why.  [SLIGHT SPOILER] I also had difficulty believing that a goddess devoted to chastity for thousands of years would fall in love with an obnoxious & annoying human man.  

All that aside this is a book I would heartily recommend.

Events for the Week of April 16….

Please note that the library will remain closed on Sunday, April 16.  Events going on at the library during the remainder of the week include…

• Make it Monday features a robot building workshop on Monday (4/17) at 4:00 – registration required
• Día de los niños (Children’s Day) Craft on Tuesday (4/18) at 4:00
• Lectores meet on Tuesday at 6:00
• Toddler Storytime on Wednesday (4/19) at 10:30
• STAR Reader on Wednesday at 3:00
• Baby Storytime on Thursday (4/20) at 10:30
• STAR Reader on Thursday at 3:00
• Drop in Computer Lab on Friday (4/21) at 3:30
• Arroyo Book Club meeting on Satuday (4/22) at 3:00

You can always check the Branch Page (http://www.lapl.org/branches/arroyo-seco) on the LAPL website for upcoming events or check out the Master Calendar (http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/calendar) where you can search for something specific across multiple branches

Trivia of the Month....

This month’s question is what is the distinguishing feature of a Manx cat?  

Year of the Griffin

If you’re looking for an enjoyable book for teenagers featuring a magic school, griffins, jinxes, bumbling teachers, enthusiastic pupils, dragons, and more then you need look no further then Diana Wynne Jones’ Year of the Griffin.   Jones has a fascinating way with plot and a way of making you think about issues in the context of the story that is really quite exceptional. I’ve long been a fan of Jones, reading her when I was myself a teenager and revisiting her books from time to time as an adult and I would always recommend her to anyone with a taste for quirky fantasy books.

Events for the Week of April 9….

Events going on at the library this week include…

• LA DOT will be here to refresh TAP cards & answer transit questions Monday (4/10) at 2:30
• Make it Monday features a building block challenge on Monday at 4:00
• Teen program on Tuesday (4/11) at 3:00
• STAR Reader on Wednesday (4/12) at 3:00
• STAR Reader on Thursday (4/13) at 3:00
• Drop in Computer Lab on Friday (4/14) at 3:30

Bear in mind that the library will be closed on Sunday, April 16.

You can always check the Branch Page (http://www.lapl.org/branches/arroyo-seco) on the LAPL website for upcoming events or check out the Master Calendar (http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/calendar) where you can search for something specific across multiple branches

History of Highland Park

Find out about the origins of the Pasadena Freeway in this article by Charles Cooper.  The article, Mark 30th Anniversary of Freeway (http://dbase1.lapl.org/webpics/calindex/documents/10/520335.pdf), was published on 12/31/1970 to mark just that occasion and covers the original opening ceremony, the first survey, the freeway’s safety record, and its status as a landmark.  Check it out.

April’s eResource of the Month

The eResource of the month for April is Hoopla eBooks.  Hoopla is a digital streaming platform that provides access to ebooks for all ages.  You can check out up to 15 titles with your library card.  Hoopla has books in categories ranging from biographies to health and fitness to mysteries, romance, and self-help.  You can check the books out for a 3-week period and never worry about late fines as ebooks return themselves when they are due.

Start by finding the app you will need.  Hoopla digital mobile apps can be found in all the usual places.  Use the help link located at the lower right corner of their web page if you need specifics here.

You can access Hoopla eBooks via the library’s e-media page (http://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/e-media) --- scroll down to find it alphabetically.  You will need to have your library card handy.

Events for the Week of April 2….

Events going on at the library this week include…

• Make it Monday features a Robot program this week on Monday (4/3) at 4:00 (program requires advance registration)
• Teen program on Tuesday (4/4) at 3:00
• Lectores meets also on Tuesday at 6:00
• Toddler Storytime on Wednesday (4/5) at 10:30
• STAR Reader on Wednesday at 3:00
• Identity Theft Seminar also on Wednesday at 6:00
• Baby Storytime on Thursday (4/6) at 10:30
• STAR Reader on Thursday at 3:00
• LA OIC Computer Boot Camp on Friday (4/7) from 12:00-3:00
• Drop in Computer Lab on Friday at 3:30
• STAR Reader on Saturday (4/8) at 2:00
• Resume Workshop on Saturday at 2:00
• USC Thornton Woodstock Duo Music Performance on Saturday at 3:00

You can always check the Branch Page (http://www.lapl.org/branches/arroyo-seco) on the LAPL website for upcoming events or check out the Master Calendar (http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/calendar) where you can search for something specific across multiple branches