Lanesville Elementary School read 2,380 books during the #WinterRead2022 – Feed Harrison County – Read for a Better World Challenge. Lanesville E.S. read the most books of all the schools in the county. As a thank you, Harrison County Public Library director Alisa Burch escorted Pete the Cat to Lanesville. Car and bus riders were greeted by Pete in the hallways and in the gym before school. Students and teachers were celebrating because more than $14,000 in donations was collected for the Lanesville Heart Challenge. As part of the Heart Challenge, P.E. teacher Karen Armstrong took 15 pies to the face as a special prize to students who raised over a certain goal. Pete was amazed at her bravery and gave her a standing ovation! Pete was asked to be included in a 4th grade photo, snuck into Ms. Dye’s class for a quick photo with her class and then made a special visit to each kindergarten class where Mrs. Burch read a Pete the Cat story.
During Together We Read from OverDrive, borrow The Five Wounds for free with no waitlists and no holds from February 7 through February 21!
Download Libby or visit OverDrive to borrow the eBook or audiobook from HCPL using your phone or tablet.
The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade
It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path.
Vivid, tender, funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn’t speaking to; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history. Each brings expectations that Amadeo, who often solves his problems with a beer in his hand, doesn’t think he can live up to.
Click to download the book discussion guide
Click to read a letter from the author
Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of The Five Wounds, which is currently shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, and is longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Her story collection, Night at the Fiestas, won the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a “5 Under 35” award from the National Book Foundation, and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and a best book of 2015 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the American Library Association. Kirstin is the recipient of the John Guare Writer’s Fund Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, and a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor at Princeton.
Harrison County Public Library is excited to announce that together as a community, 16,966 books were read this January during the #WinterRead2022 – Feed Harrison County – Read for a Better World Challenge. This far exceeded our goal of 9,400 books! Fantastic job Harrison County readers!
Because the goal was met, Tyson and Walmart will donate to Harrison County Community Services. Tyson will donate 100 cases of chicken and Walmart will donate a $75 gift card. Canned goods were collected at each library branch and have been donated as well. These donations will help feed over 600 families in need this winter. Thank you to all who participated in this challenge and donated food to help feed Harrison County.
Harrison County Public Library, The Floyd County Library, Jeffersonville Township Public Library, Jeffersonville Public Art Commission, and Community Action of Southern Indiana are partnering with the Arts Alliance of Southern Indiana for the SoIN Big Read to promote a regional community reading event around The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
Over 1,000 copies of the much-heralded novel, which was written in 1984, will be distributed at no cost throughout Southern Indiana. Harrison County Public Library will start distributing books on Monday, October 11 at each branch. The SoIN Big Read website notes that this book is best suited for high school students and adults, due to topics involving domestic and sexual violence.
“The House on Mango Street approaches the complexities of living life and growing through struggles of cultural, social, and gender challenges. It is a book for everyone,” said Brian Bell, Executive Director of the Arts Alliance of Southern Indiana. “We have chosen this title because of its broad spectrum of relatability to a diverse community. The sharing of stories that expose struggle and aspiration in everyday life connect us and strengthen community. This is our intent with our Big Read.”
On November 6 at 11:00 a.m., Harrison County Public Library will hold a SoIN Big Read Walking Book Discussion at Rice Island in Corydon (if inclement weather occurs, the walk will move to the YMCA in Corydon). Read The House on Mango Street and join in a book discussion while walking at the newly renovated Rice Island Park in downtown Corydon!
Two large community projects – “Hashtag Trees” and “Dream and Anchors Project” – are centered around this book will take place over the next few months. For more information about the SoIN Big Read, please visit www.soinbigread.com.
Register now to join a live conversation with the author and Professional Book Nerds on Tuesday, April 13 at 1:00pm.
If you share your thoughts on social media using #biglibraryread, you will be entered for a chance to win a tablet and a book signed by the author
The Art of Taking It Easy
From a psychologist and stand-up comedian comes a practical, yet laugh-out-loud guide to embracing humor to reduce stress and live a happier, fuller life.
Dr. Brian King got a degree in psychology before becoming a world-touring comic and the host of humor therapy seminars attended by more than ten thousand people each year. In this brilliant guide he presents hands-on techniques for managing stress by rewiring our brains to approach potentially difficult situations through a lens of positivity. To do so, Dr. King explores what stress is, where it comes from, and what it does to our bodies and brains. He delves deep into how to address everyday stress—as well as anxiety, insecurities, repression, and negativity—and gives insight into resulting ailments such as anxiety disorders, depression, hypertension, obesity, substance abuse disorders, and more. Dr. King’s techniques are chemical and cost free, and embrace humor, resilience, relaxation, optimism, gratitude, and acceptance. Instead of a dry medical approach to dealing with stress, this unique volume is filled with life-changing tips and instructions presented with humor and a wealth of memorable, smile-inducing anecdotes.
Tyson will donate 100 cases of chicken to Harrison County Community Services if Harrison County Public Library meets or exceeds the goal of reading 2,500 books. Please help HCPL reach that goal by reading at least 10 books during the month of January. If you wish to donate canned food to local families, collection boxes are available at all HCPL branches.
This program is open to all ages and will run from January 1 to January 31.
Log in using the Beanstack app, which is available in the App Store or Google Play, or access HCPL’s Beanstack site from your web browser. If you already have a Beanstack account, simply update your information and register for the Winter Read 2021 program. Please do not make a new account if you created one in the past; if you would like password assistance, please call your local branch and we will be happy to assist you.
If you would prefer that HCPL log the books that you have read for you, please pick up a bookmark reading log during your next library visit and return the completed log to a member of our staff.
Have a question about the program? Please call the HCPL Children’s Desk at 812-738-4110 extension 228.
Devour books, not brains! The Adult Fall Reading Program begins September 16 and will run through November 30, 2019.
As in this year’s summer reading program, all participants are encouraged to use Beanstack to track your reading and prizes; though, if you would prefer to use a paper log to keep track of the books that you’ve read, we’ve got you covered!
If you already created an account in Beanstack for the Adult Summer Reading Program, you will need only to log in with your existing credentials and enroll in the Get Wrapped Up in a Good Book challenge. If you’re new to Beanstack, it is easy to create an account! The Beanstack app is available to install on iOS and Android devices, or you can access HCPL’s Beanstack page online.
Prizes
Read 3 books, receive a coupon bookmark from KentJava
Read 6 books, claim your HCPL pocket notepad and pen
Read 9 books, pick your own prize!
Read 12 books, receive a certificate for a free book at The Book Box
Program guidelines
Each book logged will earn you a ticket for a drawing of your choice. You will receive prizes at the 3-book, 6-book, 9-book and 12-book levels. Each book read beyond the 12-books will continue to earn tickets for prize drawings.
For books to count they must be checked out from Harrison County Public Library and kept overnight. eBooks and eAudiobooks checked out from Axis360 and Overdrive will count for the program. Children’s books will not count toward the Adult Reading Program, adults must read at their own reading level.
