Library Lines ...

It is full steam ahead here at Rhoads Memorial Library as our Summer Reading Program progresses. Books are flying off the shelves (figuratively) as children are tasked with reading them (or being read to) in a quest for prizes. Entry into a drawing for grand prizes occurs when the child continues to read through July.

Among the grand prizes that will be awarded on July 31 are free passes to: Amarillo venues of Wonderland Amusement Park, Don Harrington Discovery Center; and a baseball game featuring the Amarillo Sod Poodles; also, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum and the Texas! Outdoor Musical, both in Canyon.

We will distribute coupons each week as an incentive to keep youngsters reading. ENMU (Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico) donated the Sod Poodles' passes and bookmarks that are good for a free Whataburger hamburger, plus some coloring sheets. The local Subway Restaurant donated coupons for free cookies, and we hope to acquire some snow cone coupons soon. We appreciate these generous businesses and the aforementioned donors.

Terrific Tuesdays, under the guidance of Felice Acker, local agent with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, has begun, too. While children will not be congregating in our meeting room, Mrs. Acker is providing fun "take and make" kits that follow our "Tails and Tales" reading program theme. This week's projects focus on birds, while next week will feature snakes.

For the adults in our lives, we have newly released books that are on the shelf awaiting checkout. They include:

"The Devil May Dance" (a novel) by Jake Tapper;

"The Final Twist" (a Colter Shaw novel) by Jeffery Deaver;

"The Venice Sketchbook" (a novel) by Rhys Bowen;

"21st Birthday" (Women's Murder Club) by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro;

"Animal Instinct (a K Team novel) by David Rosenfelt.

A recent release which came out in 2020 is "The Girls with No Names", a work of historical fiction by Serena Burdick. Despite growing up wealthy in New York City in the 1910s, Luella and Effie Tildon realize that their freedoms are limited. Luella becomes rebellious and disappears, and Effie realizes their father has committed her to the House of Mercy. Effie tries to free Luella by getting herself committed there, in what is a cautionary tale of struggle and survival.

"The Tattooist of Auschwitz" is based on a true story about Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, who is forcibly taken to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau in April, 1942. When his captors learn he is fluent in several languages, Lale is tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. One day in July, 1942, he comforts a terrified young woman named Gita while tattooing number 34902 into her arm. He vows to survive the camp and marry her. Written by Heather Morris, this book was released in late 2018 and is ready for checkout.

Please come in and check us out!