Friday, January 29, 2010

February New Books


Flirt by Laurell Hamilton 2/2

When Anita Blake meets with prospective client Tony Bennington, who is desperate to have her reanimate his recently deceased wife, she is full of sympathy for his loss. Anita knows something about love, and she knows everything there is to know about loss. But what she also knows, though Tony Bennington seems unwilling to be convinced, is that the thing she can do as a necromancer isn't the miracle he thinks he needs. The creature that Anita could coerce to step out of the late Mrs. Bennington's grave would not be the lovely Mrs. Bennington. Not really. And not for long.





Matthew's Story by Tim LaHayne 2/18
Levi was studying to be a priest, but when an unspeakable tragedy befalls his family, he turns his back on his faith and decides to pursue riches and luxury instead. He becomes a tax collector, disappointing his family and reviled by Jews and Romans alike. And although he is a success, his chosen trade does not bring him contentment. When he hears about Jesus, the man who some are saying is the prophesied Messiah, he begins a quest that leads him to question his very existence. As he follows Jesus and records His words and deeds, Levi is shaken to the core and transformed. Renamed "Matthew" by Jesus-literally "gift from God"-he is called to give up his work and his worldly possessions and claims Jesus as his Lord.


Split Image by Robert Parker 2/23
The body in the trunk was just the beginning.

Turns out the stiff was a foot soldier for local tough guy Reggie Galen, now enjoying a comfortable "retirement" with his beauti­ful wife, Rebecca, in the nicest part of Paradise. Living next door are Knocko Moynihan and his wife, Robbie, who also happens to be Rebecca's twin. But what initially appears to be a low-level mob hit takes on new meaning when a high-ranking crime figure is found dead on Paradise Beach.

Stressed by the case, his failed relationship with his ex-wife, and his ongoing battle with the bottle, Jesse needs something to keep him from spinning out of control. When private investigator Sunny Randall comes into town on a case, she asks for Jesse's help. As their professional and personal relationships become intertwined, both Jesse and Sunny realize that they have much in common with both their victims and their suspects-and with each other.



Worst Case by James Patterson 2/1
Best case: survival:

The son of one of New York's wealthiest families is snatched off the street and held hostage. His parents can't save him, because this kidnapper isn't demanding money. Instead, he quizzes his prisoner on the price others pay for his life of luxury. In this exam, wrong answers are fatal.

Worst case: death:

Detective Michael Bennett leads the investigation. With ten kids of his own, he can't begin to understand what could lead someone to target anyone's children. As another student disappears, one powerful family after another uses their leverage and connections to turn the heat up on the mayor, the press--anyone who will listen--to stop this killer. Their reach extends all the way to the FBI, who send their top Abduction Specialist, Agent Emily Parker. Bennett's life--and love life--suddenly get even more complicated.




Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb 2/23
Bart Minnock, founder of the computer-gaming giant U-Play, enters his private playroom, and eagerly can't wait to lose himself in an imaginary world, to play the role of a sword-wielding warrior king, in his company's latest top-secret project, Fantastical.

The next morning, he is found in the same locked room, in a pool of blood, his head separated from his body. It is the most puzzling case Eve Dallas has ever faced, and it is not a game. . . .

NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas is having as much trouble figuring out how Bart Minnock was murdered as who did the murdering. The victim's girlfriend seems sincerely grief-stricken, and his quirky-but-brilliant partners at U-Play appear equally shocked. No one seemed to have a prob­lem with the enthusiastic, high-spirited millionaire. Of course, success can attract jealousy, and gaming, like any business, has its fierce rivalries and dirty tricks-as Eve's husband, Roarke, one of U- Play's competitors, knows well. But Minnock was not naive, and quite capable of fighting back in the real world as well as the virtual one.



Big Girl by Danielle Steel 2/23
A chubby little girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and ordinary looks, Victoria Dawson has always felt out of place in her family, especially in body-conscious L.A. Her father, Jim, is tall and slender, and her mother, Christina, is a fine-boned, dark-haired beauty. Both are self-centered, outspoken, and disappointed by their daughter’s looks. When Victoria is six, she sees a photograph of Queen Victoria, and her father has always said she looks just like her. After the birth of Victoria’s perfect younger sister, Gracie, her father liked to refer to his firstborn as “our tester cake.” With Gracie, everyone agreed that Jim and Christina got it right.

While her parents and sister can eat anything and not gain an ounce, Victoria must watch everything she eats, as well as endure her father’s belittling comments about her body and see her academic achievements go unacknowledged. Ice cream and oversized helpings of all the wrong foods give her comfort, but only briefly. The one thing she knows is that she has to get away from home, and after college in Chicago, she moves to New York City.

Landing her dream job as a high school teacher, Victoria loves working with her students and wages war on her weight at the gym. Despite tension with her parents, Victoria remains close to her sister. And though they couldn’t be more different in looks, they love each other unconditionally. But regardless of her accomplishments, Victoria’s parents know just what to say to bring her down. She will always be her father’s “big girl,” and her mother’s constant disapproval is equally unkind.




Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani 2/2
As Brava, Valentine begins, snow falls like glitter over Tuscany at the wedding of her grandmother, Teodora, and longtime love, Dominic. Valentine's dreams are dashed when Gram announces that Alfred, "the prince," Valentine's only brother and nemesis, has been named her partner at Angelini Shoes. Devastated, Valentine falls into the arms of Gianluca, a sexy Tuscan tanner who made his romantic intentions known on the Isle of Capri. Despite their passion for one another and Gianluca's heartfelt letters, a long-distance relationship seems impossible.


As Valentine turns away from romance and devotes herself to her work, mentor and pattern cutter June Lawton guides her through her power struggle with Alfred, while best friend and confidante Gabriel Biondi moves into 166 Perry Street, transforming her home and point of view. Savvy financier Bret Fitzpatrick, Valentine's first love and former fiancÉe who still carries a torch for her, encourages Valentine to exploit her full potential as a designer and a business woman with a plan that will bring her singular creations to the world.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Author Julie Kramer





The Kasson Library Hot Reads Program was honored to feature, for a second year in a row, regional area Author Julie Kramer. Julie is a very accomplished author and investigative news journalist and in the course of her news career came across interesting stories that stuck with her for many years. She felt she had good stories in her and studied other authors and how they created a breakout book that sold well.
When asked by audience what was her style of writing and did it come easy. She stated it was very hard work and some days you just have to drag the words out.
Julie Kramer's latest novel, MISSING MARK, deals with a jilted bride whose groom disappeared the eve of their wedding. She's unsure whether he got cold feet or is a cold case.

The author is a career television news producer who used to run the I Team at WCCO TV and now works freelance for the NBC and CBS networks.Her debut, STALKING SUSAN, featured a serial killer targeting women named Susan and won the Minnesota Book Award and The Romantic Times Award for Best First Mystery. It was also a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award.
Kramer grew up on a family farm along the Minnesota-Iowa State Line. "The bookmobile was very important to me when I was growing up," she said. "I'm always happy to talk about how libraries create authors. Libraries are so important to communities."Her third book, SILENCING SAM, will be released June 22. "I'm just glad it wasn't called MURDERING MARY," said her sister, Mary Kramer, a Kasson librarian.To learn more, visit the author's website at: http://www.juliekramerbooks.com/

Additional picture may be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kassonlibrary/

Friend of the Library Chair Patterson introduces regional Minnesota author Julie Kramer









Kasson Library Staff with Julie. (l-r) Ingvild, Mary, Julie, and Bonnie.




Julie holds her Minnesota Book Award statue for general fiction that she won last year for her book Stalking Susan.





Large audience to hear Julie talk about how she comes up with ideas for her books through her experience as a news journalist. The audience was very interested in the writing and publishing business. .


Julie signing copies of her book.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Teddy Bear Storytime Week of January 26th

Children's Librarian Ingvild chose the theme of Teddy's Bear for this week's storytime. She brought her rather large and fuzzy bear to help her read today's teddy bear stories. The children worked on coloring their teddy bear pictures and then made them fuzzy with cotton balls. All the children enjoyed taking home their special teddy bear picture. Additonal pictures may be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kassonlibrary/

Wednesday, January 27th

Children loved the teddy bear stories.





Working on their fuzzy teddy bears.

Finished bears!



Children's Librarian Ingvild reads to the children.







Tuesday, January 26th


Working on our bear.


Finished making her bear fuzzy!







Monday, January 25, 2010

HOT READS FOR COLD NIGHTS AUTHOR

The Friends of the Kasson Public Library invite one and all to attend
A Hot Reads for Cold Nights Program

Julie Kramer an award-wining mystery novelist will appear at the Kasson Library on Thursday, January 28 at 7 pm.

Julie Kramer's latest novel, MISSING MARK, deals with a jilted bride whose groom disappeared the eve of their wedding. She's unsure whether he got cold feet or is a cold case.

The author is a career television news producer who used to run the I Team at WCCO TV and now works freelance for the NBC and CBS networks.

Her debut, STALKING SUSAN, featured a serial killer targeting women named Susan and won the Minnesota Book Award and The Romantic Times Award for Best First Mystery. It was also a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award.

Kramer grew up on a family farm along the Minnesota-Iowa State Line. "The bookmobile was very important to me when I was growing up," she said. "I'm always happy to talk about how libraries create authors. Libraries are so important to communities."

Her third book, SILENCING SAM, will be released June 22. "I'm just glad it wasn't called MURDERING MARY," said her sister, Mary Kramer, a Kasson librarian.

To learn more, visit the author's website at: http://www.juliekramerbooks.com/

Friday, January 22, 2010

BOOKS! BOOKS! and MORE BOOKS!!!!

January of each year the library staff meets with books sellers to order the bulk of children's and young adult materials we feel will be essential to the operation of our programs.

It is always exciting talking to the book sellers and find out what the new hot books or series the children are reading. It is also a time we decide the theme for the summer reading program and books that will supplement the summer program.
We just received our first shipment of books and already have 63 new books for toddlers, children, and young adults. The staff all agrees it is especially fun to read the picture books and share with the families. The staff worked hard this week to process the books and get them into the hands of the patrons as quickly as possible. Special thanks to Mary and Donna.

"We try to take into account the different interests and reading levels of the kids in the Kasson-Mantorville area", says Children's Librarian Ingvild Herfindahl. "That means dinosaurs, princesses, and Star Wars, as well as books on counting, measuring, and the alphabet."

Kasson Library Director Bonnie Adams said "The sad thing for me is that for every new item that comes into the library others have to be withdrawn because of our tight space constraints." But with our 4300 patrons that use us annually many items are constantly in circulation to help with the space concerns.


Kasson Public Library also offers current and classic adult books, audio books, and movies. Through a partnering with SELCO, the regional library system, the library is also able to obtain books, movies, and other items for their patrons from libraries in the area and throughout Minnesota. The library also offers public computers, WiFi access, outreach programs for seniors and daycares, weekly storytimes for young children, and a very popular summer reading program. All of these services are available at no charge by simply obtaining a library card. Come in to the Kasson Public Library and check out their newest selections. More information about the library is on their website at: http://www.kasson.lib.mn.us/.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Diversity Storytime Week of January 19th

Children's Librarian Ingvild talked about Diversity, Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday was Monday, with the children. They enjoyed the maze pictures. Additional pictures made be found on http://www.flickr.com/photos/kassonlibrary/


Wednesday, January 20th


Tuesday, January 19th

Monday, January 18, 2010

Martin Luther King Day



The Library will be
closed on
Martin Luther King Day
January 18th

Friday, January 15, 2010

Ditch Productivity For A Day: 12 Great Sites To Kill Time & Have Fun

Dumb Little Man has some very interesting blogs. I saw this awhile back and decided to save it for another day when I was exhausted and needed mine less entertainment. Some of the site are really funny. ENJOY!!

Sometime back, Leo Babauta from Zen Habits talked about how doing less and being less productive could benefit your work and life. He talks about spending less time doing quality work and have more time for fun.Taking inspiration from Leo, I thought it'd be nice to take a break from productivity here at DLM and focus on some ways to kill time and have fun. That means another list of cool sites, but this time, it's not a list of productivity tools. Instead, it's a list of some great sites that will help you unwind and have fun.The list includes some prominent social networks, video and humor sites, games and some unusual sites you might not have heard of. Check them out.

Yearbook Yourself I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't love this site. Yearbook Yourself lets you upload your photos and give it the old retro look from 1950s and 60s. It has different looks for different decades. It's fun to see yourself in a black and white picture with some weird wig on your head. You can also edit the pictures and download them to your computer.

Veryfunnyads Veryfunnyads, as the name suggests, is a site which brings you some of the funniest video adverts of different products. There are different categories you can choose from, like animals, cars, gadgets, kids and more. You could also pick specific brands or watch ads by countries in which they appeared.

Google Image Labeler Google Image Labeler is a cool tool. In fact, it's a game within Google's Image Search that helps you suggest better labels for web images. It's very simple but can get addictive once you start playing it.You are randomly paired with an online partner and both of you label the image you see in the time allotted to you. When both of you type the same label it's a match and you proceed to the next image. A fun way to pass time.
AudienceSoundsAnother really interesting way to kill time.

AudienceSounds is a repository of sounds. Be it clapping, laughing, giggling, snoring or cute baby sounds, they've got all covered. There are different categories too, like crowd sounds, people sounds, sounds by gender and baby sounds.Listen to them online or download them to your computer/mobile phone to use them as your ringtone.

College Humor College Humor is a well known comedy site that has humor videos submitted by users along with pictures, articles and much more. Some of the videos are really innovative like this prank played on a guy in a basketball court. It's awesome.Along this same line is a site named Funny of Die. It was created by Will Ferrell and is pretty funny.

The Onion The Onion is another very well known source of laughter and entertainment on the web. It is a satirical news site and is also circulated in print in the U.S. It contains current event and news parodies, some of which are simply hilarious.

YouTube When there are million of videos watched everyday on a site, it just can't be ignored in this list. YouTube is probably the first site we visit when we think of taking a break from work. With videos from all over the world and on almost every topic you can imagine, this site never disappoints.

Twitter Want to kill time and not think about Twitter? Many would consider it a sin. Twitter, which continues to grow by leaps and bounds every month, is the simplest way to communicate with people around the world. While it has many advantages, it is without a doubt a great site to pass time.

Miniclip Miniclip is a popular site which hosts games of all kinds. From flash games to nifty puzzle games, car racing games to big multi-player games, there are a number of options for games addicts.

Unnecessary Knowledge Unnecessary Knowledge presents you facts which are weird, hilarious and could well be untrue. But that doesn't matter. The site is entertaining and the facts, true or not, give you the opportunity to have a good laugh. Just rate the facts and flip through them to keep enjoying.

Scribbls Scribbls lets you draw whatever you want to draw. You could also take random drawings from other users and apply your creativity to them. Also rate and comment on other pictures.
Facebook And lastly, we have our social network of choice - Facebook. Going by the news I browse through everyday, Facebook could well become the only meaningful social network ten years from now. Its growth is just insane. Obviously, people love spending time on it. I am guessing most of you love doing it too.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Reader's Hug

The Reader’s Hug. Barbara Joosse’s take on reading aloud to children:

Like adults, many children cocoon themselves from a world that's busy, confusing and sometimes scary. Even the conversation of a well-meaning adult is often received as so much blah blah blah. How, then, can we touch a child?

By its very nature, a picture book offers refreshing possibilities. Because it's often read many times, a picture book can be absorbed slowly, at a child's own pace. When it's read just before bed, at the delicious interval between sleep and awake, a child's book-companion can accompany her into her private dream world. Finally, when a picture book is read out loud, the reader and listener are often wrapped in a hug, the child's ear just at your heart, with the book you share the seal of the hug.

The world portrayed in a picture book can be gentle or harsh, familiar or new, internal or external, but it must, I believe, always be hopeful. If the universal adult emotion is longing, the universal child emotion is belonging. A picture book should portray a world in which a child-in fact, this particular listener child-belongs.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Pirate Storytime Week of 1/12

Pirate's "AARGH" is this week's storytime theme. The children throughly enjoyed the three unique books that talked about pirate and pirate lives. The especially like the scratch and feel book. Additional pictures made be found on http://www.flickr.com/photos/kassonlibrary/

Head Start Thursday, January 14th










Just Like Home Daycare Thursday, January 14th











Wednesday January 13th


Children's Librarian Ingvild reads to the children.






Children color their pirate sheets.


Chidlren leaving with their treats.









Tuesday, January 12th

Library Director Bonnie reads to the children and watches them and their mothers color a sheet about pirates.






Some are finished others finishing up.