We went to "If you give a pig a pancake" pajama story time. My son, Stevie, and I had a blast. Coming to the library in our pajamas, getting to eat pancakes and drink orange juice, stories being read to the kids (and parents :-) ) and the pig from the story "If you give a pig a pancake" coming to visit. It was a fantastic time a really big hit!

Rebecca from the Amelia Branch

During the 50's my mother had read so many books that when she sent us to Milford Library (down by the river) that we just went to the desk. They held out books for her. All of her children, and my children are avid readers because of her love of books.


Anonymous

I received my first library card. It was in the 1st grade at Williamsburg (the old school) in 1954. Doris Wood was driving the old rounded bookmobile. I was very happy and in the following years I have always used the library and have read several thousand books.

Ed from the Owensville Branch

I came to the library when I was about 7 years of age. There was a bake sale at the time, and being only 7 I thought it was cool! I had a cupcake and it was the best cupcake I've ever had! Thanks! By the way, I'm 13.

Rachel from the Amelia Branch

How well do you remember Ramona and the rest of children's author Beverly Cleary's creations? Take this quiz and find out.

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Time Traveler's Wife was one of my favorite books the year it came out. I'm hoping that Her Fearful Symmetry is just as engaging.

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The 2009 National Book Award winners were announced today. The National Book Award is the nation's preeminent literary prize which recognizes books of exceptional merit written by Americans.

Young People's Literature:  Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

Nonfiction: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles

Fiction: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Poetry: Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy by Keith Waldrop

An article in the New York Times focuses on adults who admit to being fans of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Read more.

Andre Agassi's new autobiography is due out soon. Read an excerpt to whet your appetite.  Then reserve a copy.

It's that time of year - when the "Best of" lists start appearing. Publishers Weekly has announced their picks for the top books of  2009. The following are a few of their selections. The entire list is here.

Non-Fiction:

Cheever: A Life

Blake Bailey (Knopf)
Bailey, who was given access to the journals Cheever kept throughout his life, shines a new light on Cheever's literary output, making possible a fresh reappraisal of his achievement. In addition, Bailey offers up juicy, appalling, hilarious and moving anecdotes with verve, sensitivity and perfect timing.

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Await Your Reply
Dan Chaon (Ballantine)
Chaon was a National Book Award finalist for Among the Missing, and this gripping account of colliding fates, the shifty nature of identity in today's wired world and the limits of family is easily as good, if not better. It's a literary page-turner, a cunningly plotted and utterly unputdownable novel.

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Shop Class as Soulcraft
Matthew B. Crawford (Penguin Press)
Philosopher and motorcycle mechanic Crawford makes a brilliant case for the intellectual satisfactions of working with one's hands—and why white-collar work is the assembly line of the new millennium. Crawford is catholic in his tastes (references range from Aristophanes to Dilbert), unsentimental and irresistible as he extols the virtues of “knowing how to do one thing really well.”

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Fiction:

Dark Places
Gillian Flynn (Crown/Shaye Areheart)
Flynn tops her impressive debut, Sharp Objects, with a second crime thriller, centered on the slaying of a mother and two daughters in their Kansas farmhouse witnessed by the youngest, surviving daughter. It builds to a truth so twisted even the most astute readers won't see it coming.

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Ravens
George Dawes Green (Grand Central)
Two con men hold a family hostage in rural Georgia in order to get half of their $318 million lottery winnings in this masterful, often comic novel of psychological suspense, Green's first since 1995's The Juror.

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Drood

Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
Narrated by Wilkie Collins, this unsettling and complex thriller imagines a frightening sequence of events that prompts Collins's friend and fellow author, Charles Dickens, to write The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens's last, uncompleted novel.

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Can you identify which celebrity penned these poetic gems? Just keep in mind that what you have seen, you can never UNsee.