Library Events

Description:

The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

Join us EVERY Wednesday at 10am at our Hattiesburg Branch for storytime fun!
Storytimes consists of songs, rhymes, reading books, and always a craft to follow!
The age range is children 5 years old or younger but all are welcome.
Additionally, our Petal branch has the same storytime at 10am every Thursday :) 

Join us EVERY Thursday at 10am at our Petal Branch for storytime fun!
Storytimes consists of songs, rhymes, reading books, and always a craft to follow!
The age range is children 5 years old or younger but all are welcome.
Additionally, our Hattiesburg branch has the same storytime at 10am every Wednesday :) 

Follow the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, Paul endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

Notice is hereby given that the regular business meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Library of Hattiesburg Petal & Forrest County is held on the last Monday of each month at 11:30 a.m. in the Library Boardroom, located at 329 Hardy Street, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

 

Meeting adjustment for 2024:

MAY 2024 MEETING -- will be held on Monday, May 20, 2024

 

The meetings of the Board of Trustees are open to the public, and the Board welcomes the interest of the community.  Anyone who needs to address the Board is invited to attend the meeting and make a public comment.  Each person is limited to three minutes.  If you would like to attend the meeting and address the Board of Trustees, please call 601.584.3162 to have your business placed on the agenda.

 

To contact the Board of Trustees directly, you may email trustees@hpfc.lib.ms.us or

send a letter to: 

Board of Trustees

The Library of Hattiesburg Petal & Forrest Co.

329 Hardy Street

Hattiesburg, MS 39401

Book Description:
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history Kentucky, 1850. Jarrett, an enslaved groom, and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. As the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name painting the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a 19th equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly drawn to one another through their shared interest in the horse - one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success. Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred, Lexington, who became America's greatest stud sire, Horse is a gripping, multi-layered reckoning with the legacy of enslavement and racism in America"-- Provided by publisher.

Join us EVERY Wednesday at 10am at our Hattiesburg Branch for storytime fun!
Storytimes consists of songs, rhymes, reading books, and always a craft to follow!
The age range is children 5 years old or younger but all are welcome.
Additionally, our Petal branch has the same storytime at 10am every Thursday :) 

Join us EVERY Thursday at 10am at our Petal Branch for storytime fun!
Storytimes consists of songs, rhymes, reading books, and always a craft to follow!
The age range is children 5 years old or younger but all are welcome.
Additionally, our Hattiesburg branch has the same storytime at 10am every Wednesday :) 

Tweens and Teens will create Taylor Swift-themed friendship bracelets to trade with friends and other fans!
**Because this program uses supplies that are unsuitable for small children (such as tiny beads), this event will be for those aged 11-18.  

"So make the friendship bracelets
Take the moment and taste it
You've got no reason to be afraid"

- "You're On Your Own, Kid," Taylor Swift

The Library is CLOSED in observance of the holiday.

Join us EVERY Wednesday at 10am at our Hattiesburg Branch for storytime fun!
Storytimes consists of songs, rhymes, reading books, and always a craft to follow!
The age range is children 5 years old or younger but all are welcome.


This special date has the Chick-Fil-A Cow joining us after storytime at our Hattiesburg branch only! 

The Wednesday Noon Book Club will read The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese for their May meeting. The meeting will take place in person at the Hattiesburg Library Meeting Room. Copies of this month's book are available at the Hattiesburg Library Circulation Desk. New members are always welcome and snacks are provided!

For any questions, please email group leader Brittany Tibbett: brittany@hpfc.lib.ms.us

About the book:

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret.

The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of the major word-of-mouth bestseller Cutting for Stone, which has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years.

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.
  Sponsored by Library of Hattiesburg.

Join us EVERY Thursday at 10am at our Petal Branch for storytime fun!
Storytimes consists of songs, rhymes, reading books, and always a craft to follow!
The age range is children 5 years old or younger but all are welcome.
Additionally, our Hattiesburg branch has the same storytime at 10am every Wednesday :) 

One of The New York Times 's 10 Best Books of 2023
New York Times Bestseller
Named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker , Time , NPR, Smithsonian Magazine , Boston , Chicago Public Library, Oprah Daily , and People

The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave.

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.

Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities. The tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities, and generated headlines around the country. Americans could not get enough of this charismatic young couple, who traveled another 1,000 miles criss-crossing New England, drawing thunderous applause as they spoke alongside some of the greatest abolitionist luminaries of the day--among them Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown.

But even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of an infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then yet another adventure began, as slave hunters came up from Georgia, forcing the Crafts to flee once again--this time from the United States, their lives and thousands more on the line and the stakes never higher.

With three epic journeys compressed into one monumental bid for freedom, Master Slave Husband Wife is an American love story--one that would challenge the nation's core precepts of life, liberty, and justice for all--one that challenges us even now.

Join us EVERY Wednesday at 10am at our Hattiesburg Branch for storytime fun!
Storytimes consists of songs, rhymes, reading books, and always a craft to follow!
The age range is children 5 years old or younger but all are welcome.
Additionally, our Petal branch has the same storytime at 10am every Thursday :) 

Join us EVERY Thursday at 10am at our Petal Branch for storytime fun!
Storytimes consists of songs, rhymes, reading books, and always a craft to follow!
The age range is children 5 years old or younger but all are welcome.
Additionally, our Hattiesburg branch has the same storytime at 10am every Wednesday :) 

Notice is hereby given that the regular business meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Library of Hattiesburg Petal & Forrest County is held on the last Monday of each month at 11:30 a.m. in the Library Boardroom, located at 329 Hardy Street, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

 

Meeting adjustment for 2024:

MAY 2024 MEETING -- will be held on Monday, May 20, 2024

 

The meetings of the Board of Trustees are open to the public, and the Board welcomes the interest of the community.  Anyone who needs to address the Board is invited to attend the meeting and make a public comment.  Each person is limited to three minutes.  If you would like to attend the meeting and address the Board of Trustees, please call 601.584.3162 to have your business placed on the agenda.

 

To contact the Board of Trustees directly, you may email trustees@hpfc.lib.ms.us or

send a letter to: 

Board of Trustees

The Library of Hattiesburg Petal & Forrest Co.

329 Hardy Street

Hattiesburg, MS 39401

Join us EVERY Thursday at 10am at our Petal Branch for storytime fun!
Storytimes consists of songs, rhymes, reading books, and always a craft to follow!
The age range is children 5 years old or younger but all are welcome.
Additionally, our Hattiesburg branch has the same storytime at 10am every Wednesday :) 

Join us EVERY Wednesday at 10am at our Hattiesburg Branch for storytime fun!
Storytimes consists of songs, rhymes, reading books, and always a craft to follow!
The age range is children 5 years old or younger but all are welcome.
Additionally, our Petal branch has the same storytime at 10am every Thursday :)