Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read
September 26−October 3, 2009
Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.
Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.
The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections. Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society.
Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.For more information on getting involved with Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read, please see Calendar of Events and Ideas and Resources. You can also contact the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 4220, or bbw@ala.org.
reposting from ALA website

Elise Barack Book Discussion

Discussion of "Out Stealing Horses" by Per Petterson will meet at 7:15 pm in the Children's Activity Room on Thursday, October 1.

Summary: After a meeting with his only neighbor, sixty-seven-year-old Trond is forced to reflect upon a long-ago incident that marks the beginning of a series of losses for Trond and his childhood friend, Jon.

The Parents We Mean to Be

Richard Weissbourd: The Parents We Mean To Be
Monday, September 287:00 - 8:30 PMGorton Community Center, Community Room400 East Illinois, Lake Forest“We are entirely capable of raising children who lead emotionally rich and responsible lives, lives of great integrity and commitment,” Richard Weissbourd notes. This Harvard psychologist, author, and parent will speak about the daily challenges we face in raising children and offer strategies to help navigate the “road map” of modern parenting.
Sponsored by LF Library.

Drop-in Craft

September 24, Thursday
10 AM-8PM
Storybook Character Puzzles

Drop by the Children's Circulation desk between 10 amd 8 to color your favorite book character. Then we will use our Ellison machine to cut your drawing into a jigsaw puzzle to take home!

Junior Readers Book Club

Mr. Granite is From Another Planet

by Dan Gutman

The Junior Readers Book Club, for readers in grades 2 and 3 and their parents, will meet from 7-8PM on Wednesday, September 23 in the Children's Activity Room.

Summary: New third grade teacher Mr. Granite has so many strange ideas about how to make Ella Mentary School environmentally friendly that the students are sure he must be an alien.

To Be or Not To Be? Readings from Hamlet

Tuesday, September 22

7:30 PM

Lake Bluff Library

The Lake Bluff and Lake Forest Libraries are working with Writers' Theatre to present a From Page to Stage program designed to enhance and enrich the understanding of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard's comedic twist on Shakespeare's great tragedy, Hamlet, directed by Jimmy McDermott. Actors from Writers' Theatre will perform select scenes from William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

LEAD program

Book Discussion: The Parents We Mean to Be

Monday, September 21

9:30-11:00 AM

Lake Forest Library, Activity Room

Join Parents and local social workers in this community book discussion. Weissbourd's book challenges parents to commit to help children to be moral people. The book highlights inspiring strategies for raising moral, happy children.

Friends of Lake Forest Library Book Sale

New Location at the Lake Forest Recreation Center

The Sale will have a record number of books this year! We have a tremendous supply of cookbooks this year and they are all reasonably priced. In the paper-back fiction category there are some new sections including vampires and horror, proofs and advance sale books, maritime and military adventure as well as signed paperbacks. Other sections that have a great many wonderful books this year are art and art collectors, the general collectors section, gardening, vintage children's, regular children's, music and poetry. The Chicago section has many wonderful books, many of which we have not had before at the Sale. The video/CD/Books on Tape sections are awesome! We have always had great books. Finally we can protect, showcase and sell them in a comfortable climate-controlled space.

Pre-Sale: Thursday, September 17, 9AM-8PM for members and volunteers (20% markup)

General Sale: Friday, September 18, 9AM-8PM, Saturday, September19, 9AM-5PM (teacher appreciation day 10% off), Sunday, September 20, 9AM-5PM (50% off)

Judy Levin Book Club

Judy Levin presents The space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar on Thursday, September 17 at 12:30 pm.

From Publishers WeeklyUmrigar's schematic novel (after Bombay Time) illustrates the intimacy, and the irreconcilable class divide, between two women in contemporary Bombay. Bhima, a 65-year-old slum dweller, has worked for Sera Dubash, a younger upper-middle-class Parsi woman, for years: cooking, cleaning and tending Sera after the beatings she endures from her abusive husband, Feroz. Sera, in turn, nurses Bhima back to health from typhoid fever and sends her granddaughter Maya to college. Sera recognizes their affinity: "They were alike in many ways, Bhima and she. Despite the different trajectories of their lives—circumstances... dictated by the accidents of their births—they had both known the pain of watching the bloom fade from their marriages." But Sera's affection for her servant wars with ingrained prejudice against lower castes. The younger generation—Maya; Sera's daughter, Dinaz, and son-in-law, Viraf—are also caged by the same strictures despite efforts to throw them off. In a final plot twist, class allegiance combined with gender inequality challenges personal connection, and Bhima may pay a bitter price for her loyalty to her employers. At times, Umrigar's writing achieves clarity, but a narrative that unfolds in retrospect saps the book's momentum. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Family Book Group

Readers grades 4, 5, 6, and parents are invited to the Family Book Group from 7:00 - 8:00 pm, September 16.

From School Library JournalStarred Review. Grade 3–6—Dave Packer's fifth-grade classmates are so boisterous and difficult to quiet down that the teachers have dubbed them "The Unshushables." Dave has just read about Mahatma Gandhi and learned that the man practiced silence one day a week to bring order to his mind. Though Dave likes to talk nonstop, he's determined to give the idea a try. An encounter with Lynsey, another chatterbox, sparks the boys and girls into challenging each other to a no-talking contest for 48 hours. They can answer direct questions from adults with three-word sentences but must otherwise remain silent. The teachers are bewildered at the extreme change in the kids until several of them figure out what's going on. Principal Hiatt demands that the quiet students return to their normal behavior. When the children continue with their silent ways, Dave finds himself at the center of the controversy. This is an interesting and thought-provoking book, similar to Clements's Frindle (S & S, 1996). The plot quickly draws readers in and keeps them turning pages. The author includes the viewpoints of both the students and the teachers, and the black-and-white pencil drawings add immediacy to the story. This lively offering would make a great book-group selection or classroom discussion starter.—Elaine Lesh Morgan, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Mango Languages

Learn a new Language using Mango Languages from your Lake Forest Library Databases. http://www.lakeforestlibrary.org/Electronic.html.


In today's world, it's more important than ever to be able to communicate in another language. To Help you reach your fluency goals, in addition to our traditional selection of books, audio, and CD-ROMS, we now offer Mango Languages from our menu of databases, to use in the library or from a home computer. This new product is so easy to use your'll have confidence in your ability to learn a language after one session. It also has a translation program - just type or paste some text, and you can see what you wrote in any of nine languages, including Mandarin Chinese.

Museum Adventure Pass

Visit your library and check out a museum with your Lake Forest Library card!

Visit http://www.museumadventure.org/ for information on participating museums and individual rules.

Participating museums and cultural institutions:
Arlington Heights Museum
Bronzeville Children's Museum
Brookfield zoo
Cantigny pary
Chicago Botanic Garden
Cuneo Museum and Gardens
Elgin History Museum
Eligin Public Museum
Graue Mill and Museum
Hellnic Museum
KidsWork Children's Museum
Kohl Children's Museum
Lake County Discovery Museum
Mitchell Museum of the American Indian
Morton Arboretum
Oriental Institute Museum
St. Charles Heritage Museum

Elise Barack Book Discussion

Elise Barack will lead the book discussion of Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

"The world of Olive Kitteridge, a retired school teacher in a small coastal town in Maine, is revealed in stories that explore her diverse roles in many lives, including a lounge singer haunted by a past love, her stoic husband, and her own resentful son."

Join us for this award winning author's book at 7:15 pm at the Children's Activity Room

Call 847-810-4610 for more information.

For Elise Barack's next discussion check out http://www.lakeforestlibrary.org/adultbkdisfall09.html

Online Book Clubs

Lake Froest Library offeres Online Book Clubs at www.lakeforestlibrary.org/lfl/html

Daily, Monday through Friday, you will receive by email an excerpt from a book. You can join Fiction, Non-Fiction, Romance, Business, Good News, Teens, or Mystery Book Clubs. You can also link to Audio Books from the book club email! (requires Real Player or players that play Real Media files)

By the end of the week, you will have read 2-3 chapters. Check with your library if you would like to read the whole book.

Volunteers needed for the 2009 book sale!

We will be inside at the LF Recreation Center-no rain, no bees and no straw on the floor! Expanded hours means more shifts to fill, so please consider helping out this year.

For more information please go to the library website http://www.lakeforestlibrary.org/ or email LFLibVolunteers@gmail.com. Volunteer sign up sheets are also available at the library.

Friends of Lake Forest Library Book Sale

Friends of Lake Forest Library 34th Annual Book Sale Moving Inside TheLake Forest Recreation Center (Map)400 Hastings Rd.Lake Forest Hours:Thursday, September 17,9am-8pmPreSale: Members Only20% Mark-Up:memberships available at the doorFriday, September 18, 9am-8pmSaturday, September 19, 9am-5pm10% off Teacher Appreciation DaySunday, September 20, 9am-5pmBargain Day! All Books Half Priced!

High School Book Club

Lake Forest Library's High School Book Club will meet at 7 pm to 8:30 pm on Wednesday, September 9. The first book choosen is Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. All reader in grades 9 through 12 are welcome.