Friends of the Kinderhook Memorial Library Annual Meeting
Monday, September 25 at 7:00 p.m.

Join the Friends of the Kinderhook Memorial Library (FOKML) as they celebrate their first successful year as an active membership organization! At 7:00 p.m. on Monday, September 25, the Friends will elect officers and plan programs and projects for the fall. FOKML is a volunteer organization dedicated to supporting the goals of the library. This past year, the Friends have provided the daily New York Times and the monthly take-home magazine Book Page for library users, provided T-shirts for the summer reading program, and organized three successful book sales. Anyone interested in the library is encouraged to attend this meeting.

Sunday Discoveries: Monarch Butterflies
Sunday, September 24 at 3:00 p.m.

Join an educator from the Columbia Land Conservancy for a hands-on program about butterflies. Outdoor educator Carol Morley will amaze participants with interesting butterfly facts as well as entertaining stories. Participants will also make their own great craft to take home.

Sunday Discoveries is a regular monthly program for children grades K-5 which meets on the last Sunday of each month. Participants will explore a variety of topics through stories, activities, and crafts. Participation is limited to fifteen children. Register at the library starting Tuesday, September 12.

Author Talk: Julia Pomeroy
Saturday, September 23 at 7:00 p.m.

We welcome author Julia Pomeroy to the library on Saturday, September 23 at 7:00 p.m. She will read from her debut novel The Dark End of Town (2006) and discuss her writing and local inspirations for character and setting.

Pomeroy spent her childhood in Libya and Somalia and her teens in Rome, Italy. After moving to New York City, she worked as an interpreter and an actor, then got her B.A. in Writing from Columbia University. She and her husband, John Gregory, moved to Columbia County in 1990 and in 1993 opened the Blue Plate Restaurant in Chatham.

The Dark End of Town takes place in a town very reminiscent of Chatham. Abby, the thirty-year-old protagonist, has abandoned a brief career as a model in New York City to return with her new husband to Bantam, the small upstate New York town where they both grew up. When her husband dies unexpectedly, Abby tries to cope by going back to her old job at the InnBetween, the town's busiest restaurant – minding her own business and avoiding everyone else's. But when someone starts taking her boss's minivan for unauthorized midnight jaunts, Abby reluctantly agrees to help find the culprit.

Against her will she becomes entangled in a growing puzzle – soon the plumber's bad girl daughter goes AWOL and a woman Abby just met is found shot to death. And to complicate matters, she is attracted to a man who seems to have secrets of his own. Trying to find answers while working nights at the restaurant and days transcribing for a temperamental screenwriter, she follows the trail. Unaware that another murder is about to take place, the young widow gets pulled into the dark side of her small town, where looking away is no longer an option.

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Good Luck to Our Battle of the Books Team!
Battle Takes Place on Saturday, September 16

Our Battle of the Books Team heads off to Wappingers Falls on Saturday, September 16 to compete in a regional trivia competition based on content from ten books for young adults. Five local teens from Kinderhook and Valatie will be accompanied by Alanna Almstead from the Kinderhook Library and Elizabeth Powhida from the Valatie Free Library.

If you're interested in attending the competition, please contact the library. Good luck, team members!!

Fall Backyard Book Sale!
Saturday, September 16 from 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.

Friends of the Kinderhook Memorial Library (FOKML) will host our fall book sale in the backyard this year on Saturday, September 16 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m! Join us under the tents as we offer you the very best in fiction and non-fiction, children's, and special interest books. Sale prices for most books will be $2.00 or less. Specialty, rare, and brand new books will be on sale inside the library at attractive prices.

If you thought that was all that's happening in Kinderhook on September 16, think again! Our book sale not only coincides with the village-wide yard sale but also with the OK Front Porch Arts Walk! Local artists will display and sell their art on front porches all around the village from 12:00-4:00 p.m. The event is free and is sponsored by the Kinderhook Business and Professional Association (KBPA). Maps for the Arts Walk will be available at the library and at Kinderhook businesses.

Foreign Film Series: L'Enfant (France)
Friday, September 15 at 7:00 p.m.

The last film in our Foreign Film Series this year will be shown on Friday, September 15 at 7:00 p.m. L'Enfant is a groundbreaking French drama from award-winning filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The film takes us deep into the life of Bruno (Jeremie Renier), a down-and-out petty thief who reaches rock bottom when he sells his newborn son on the black market. In a bid to redeem himself in the eyes of his girlfriend, Sonia, the baby's mother (Deborah Francois), Bruno goes against all odds to bring their baby home. Stunning audiences and winning the coveted Palme d'Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, L'Enfant is a gritty modern day fairy tale critics are calling "a masterpiece" that will grab hold of your heart.

This movie is in French with English subtitles and has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.

Teen Advisory Board Meeting
Thursdays, September 14 and 28 at 4:00 p.m.

The Library's Teen Advisory Board will meet on Thursdays, September 14 and 28 at 4:00 p.m. If you're a teen and are looking for something a bit out of the mainstream, join us! We'll be planning our next Teen Night, scheduled for Friday, October 6, and will also discuss what the library can do to foster the interests of local teens. Light snacks will be served. Be ready with your ideas!

Book Discussion Groups
Fiction or Non-Fiction, We've Got You Covered!

The Next Page Book Club will meet on Wednesday, September 13 at 7:30 p.m. to discuss the book The Peabody Sisters : Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall. This outstanding debut is a triple biography making clear that Margaret Fuller wasn't the only woman of substance in Transcendentalist circles in 19th-century Massachusetts. The Peabody sisters were bright, gifted, independent and influential; they knew a host of notables, from Abigail Adams to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Marshall has distilled 20 years of research into a book that brings the sisters to life, along with their extended family and friends, and the time in which they matured: a time, Marshall notes, that allowed women to be on a more equal footing than they would enjoy later in the century(from Publisher's Weekly).

The Non-Fiction Book Club will meet on Monday, September 18 at 7:00 p.m. at which time we will discuss the book The Island at the Center of the World: the Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan, the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America by Russell Shorto. When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records–recently declared a national treasure–are now being translated. Drawing on this remarkable archive, Russell Shorto has created a gripping narrative–a story of global sweep centered on a wilderness called Manhattan–that transforms our understanding of early America.

Anyone who has read the books are welcome to come to these book discussion groups.

Wanted: Talented Adults and Young Adults
Share Your Interests with Local Children

Are you an adult who still likes to play like a kid? The library is seeking teens and adults with special interests, talents or hobbies who would like to share their interests with local youth. Discover how rewarding it is to share your love of dance, music, astronomy, crafts or another special interest by inspiring others to learn more about it. The library hosts programs for children ranging in age from infants to teens.

If you are interested in being a special guest at one of our regularly scheduled programs please contact Alanna Almstead at am389952@albany.edu or by calling the library at 758-6192.

Saland Grants Columbia County Libraries Over $110,000
Kinderhook Will Receive $11,700

Senator Steve Saland recently announced that $110,800 in state funding for capital improvements and new technology would be made available to the libraries of Columbia County. The eleven public libraries were each granted $6,700 with additional funds added based on the population served by the library.

The Kinderhook Memorial Library is slated to receive $11,700. The library's board of trustees will begin discussing how to use the money in September. "The library needs more computers but we're also facing issues with water in the basement and a roof that needs attention," said Julie Johnson, director of the library. "Whatever we end up doing, we're very grateful to Senator Saland for seeing this through."