June 2023 News

A New Addition to the Library Landscape

Stop by and say hello to the latest addition to the Sturgis Library landscape -- a beautiful, tall red oak tree, generously donated to us by the Osterville Garden Club. On April 28th, 2023 -- Arbor Day -- members of the Club and staff gathered for a small dedication ceremony. Many thanks to all of the club members, as well as to Dave Scandura of Edible Landscapes, who valiantly battled old tree roots and other obstructions in order to plant the tree.

The tree is planted near our outdoor patio seating, and will provide shade in the coming years, as well as acorns for hungry squirrels, and brilliant fall color.

The Osterville Garden Club also donates monthly flower arrangements and plants to the Library, which beautify our entryway and give our staff and visitors a lot of pleasure.

Thanks again, Osterville Garden Club!

Start or end the day at Sturgis Library's gardens! Make sure to stop by Sturgis Library at 3090 Main Street on July 8th and 10th and visit our gardens. We have a rain garden, native planting gardens, and edible gardens, including our new “Culinary Corner.” In addition, we have a raised bed children’s garden featuring a selection of vegetables on the east side of the Library. There is no charge to visit the Library gardens. Make sure to stop inside and shop our Every Day Book Sale, open from 10-4 on Saturday the 8th and 10-5 on Monday the 10th.

Gardens on the Tour

45 Collie Lane, Cummaquid

Ann Skopek, M.D. and Richard Peterson

Perched atop the gently sloping back yard, overlooking two giant willows and a kettle pond which serves as home to herons, geese and other waterfowl, these extensive gardens provide a colorful and peaceful setting. A fringe tree, speedwell, lilies, Queen of the Prairie and flamingo fan are just some of the plants preserved from the gardens of Marilyn Kelley, one of the original owners of the property. The garden shed boasts a massive display of climbing lace-cap hydrangeas while the upper shade garden features glass accents. The wooden boat building and repair shop in the barn will be open for anyone interested in viewing this craft first-hand. –Park in the field to the left along Collie Lane or along the side of the driveway – follow parking attendant’s directions. Overflow parking will be along Mary Dunn Road -- be careful parking and walking along this busy road!

3517 Main Street, Barnstable Village

Deb and Ed Mareb

On the corner of King’s Highway and Cindy Lane sits the Captain James Otis House (1846),

which is on the National Register of historic places. The building is encircled by a wide range of

hydrangeas, but also notable are French and Korean lilacs, Roses-of-Sharon, peonies, white

roses and lilies. A Smoke Tree and big white Ash join a lovely Catalpa shading the brick

courtyard, while two unique trees were recently added to the front lawn: a Variegated

Dogwood and Red Bud Flamethrower. An herb garden plus an assortment of annuals and

perennial can be seen, but the focus is on the many species of hydrangea, including Blue and

White Mop Head, Lace Cap, Climbing Hydrangea and White Annabelle. – Park along the side of Cindy Lane where indicated.

1747 Hyannis Road /Phinney's Lane, Barnstable Village

Bob and Alex Frazee

Built c1844 by Allen Hinckley, this house, known to locals as Dr. Beam's, perches on hilly terrain which provides interesting opportunities to experiment with a wide variety of plant materials. With gardens begun by Dorinda Beam and subsequent owners, the home now offers a pleasant mix of trees and shrubs, perennials and annuals and fruit trees, as well as raised beds for vegetables and herbs. On the street is an elevated walled garden with creeping phlox that transitions to other perennials as the seasons progress, while farther south, against a cedar fence, a bank of blue hydrangeas should be in full bloom by early July. Moving deeper into the property, you'll find beds of hosta, day lilies, azaleas, rhododendrons, iris, other hydrangea varieties and roses, alongside hollies towards the back of the yard. One large bed is in transition from once-dense covering of English Ivy to New England Native Pollinator Plants. -–Park in the field across the street from the house. Wait for the parking attendant for assistance crossing this busy street.

127 Mistic Drive, Marstons Mills

Nansea Taylor

As you enter Mistic Drive, you cannot miss this splendid garden. With a brand-new greenhouse--a long-awaited desire--where seedlings can now be started in early spring, these grounds stand out for their array of shapes and magnificent colors. In place for over 30 years, the gardens were created and have been maintained to this day by the owner, who has arranged a vibrant display of flowers against a deep shade background. There are clouds of iris amid myriad giant hibiscus of all hues, alongside five hydrangea and many ornamental grasses, all having been set in patterned plantings. These are interspersed with a rainbow of perennials, including hosta, gladioli, hollyhocks, foxgloves, gaura, Russian sage, and liatris. Stroll around and enjoy! --Park where indicated along the street.

Understanding Our History: A Lifelong Learner Series

Come to one of the remaining lectures in this five-part series to learn about little-known or often misunderstood areas of US history.

Participants can engage more fully with the lectures by reading the selected reading material ahead of time. Copies will be available at the Library's circulation desk at least one month prior to the session dates.

For more information or to register, email Gabrielle at [email protected]

Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 6:00pm

History Close to Home: Finding Your Connection to Boston's Black Freedom Movement with Sara-Ann Semedo, Academic Coordinator at Cape Cod Community College and host of Intentional Critical Conversations

June 27, 2023 at 6:00pm

Nation to Nation: Trade Commerce and Diplomacy Among Tribal Nations of New England with Hartman Deetz, enrolled member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and owner of Ockway Bay Wampum

History Close to Home: Finding Your Connection to Boston's Black Freedom Movement

Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 6:00pm

Join Sara-Ann P. Semedo, Academic Coordinator at Cape Cod Community College and host of "Intentional Critical Conversations", to learn about the leaders who pushed for extraordinary change in Boston during the civil rights era and beyond.

Ms. Semedo will give a broad historical overview of the Black experience in the United States and then focus on the experiences of those living in the city of Boston, a place colloquially referred to as the “Deep North” by many Black Bostonians during the 1960s and 70s. She will cover James Brown “saving” Boston, the establishment of Freedom Schools, the Boston busing crisis, and more.

Participants are encouraged to read chapters 1-6 of Kekla Maggoon’s Revolution In Our Time (available at the Library) to set the context for this discussion and to provide the backdrop for finding their personal connection to the Black Freedom and Black Power Movements in the City of Boston.

To register or receive a digital copy of the reading material email Gabrielle at [email protected].

Nation to Nation: Trade Commerce and Diplomacy Among Tribal Nations of New England

Month of June

Come to the Library during the month of June to see a display of handcrafted wampum jewelry and belts designed by native artist Hartman Deetz of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

Tuesday, June 27, 2023 at 6:00pm

Mr. Deetz will give a presentation on the historical and cultural significance of wampum. This discussion will explore the legal traditions of wampum belts as well as wampum as a means of economic exchange among the tribal nations of New England.

Finding Bigfoot with Ronny LeBlanc

Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 6:00pm

Join local author and Travel Channel’s Ronny LeBlanc of the hit reality Warner Bros Discovery Television series “Expedition Bigfoot” and “Paranormal Caught on Camera” for a presentation on Bigfoot in Massachusetts. Ronny will be available to sell and sign copies of his book, Monsterland: Encounters with UFOs, Bigfoot & Orange Orbs after the presentation.

Not appropriate for very young children; content could be scary for some.

Registration requested. Email Christy at [email protected]

Songbird Poets:

A Creative Share in Honor of Marion Homer Painter

Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 3:00pm-4:30pm

Writers and artists are invited to Sturgis Library to each share five minutes of original poetry, storytelling, visual art, or acoustic music. This gathering takes place on the first Thursday of the month. Tuning in via Zoom is an option as well.

Listeners welcome, too!

Registration is required prior to Tuesday, May 30th. Interested parties can contact Sue via email at [email protected]

Tea & Sketch

10:00am until 11:00am on:

June 3rd
July 1st
August 5th

Join us at Sturgis Library for this five-part series that combines tea and art. On the first Saturday of the month, artists of all ages and skill levels are invited to gather, sip tea, and sketch.

Different blends of tea represent different moods and evoke different feelings. The featured tea during the sketch session will be used as inspiration for the sketch prompt.

Basic materials will be provided by the library but participants are welcome to bring their own art supplies if they prefer.

Registration is not required. Space is ample but not limitless; first come first serve. Questions? email Christy at [email protected]

Spring into Yoga

Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 9:30am-10:30am

Join Yoga Neighborhood at Sturgis Library for Yoga.

Yoga Neighborhood fosters health and wellness across the community through compassionate and empowering yoga that is available to all regardless of age or fitness level.

Registration is not required.

Suggested donation: $5.00

Questions? Email Christy at [email protected]

Barnstable Council on Aging:

Setting the Stage for Successful Caregiving

June 20, 2023 from 10:00am-11:00am

Join Stacey Cullen to review the vital parts of caregiving including an overview of dementia, communication tools, and the importance of caregiver self-care.

Questions? Contact Stacey Cullen at

[email protected]

or call 508-862-4765

Sturgis Library's Seed Library

Sturgis Library's Seed Library is fully stocked for the season! Come on in and help yourself to a HUGE variety of organic seeds!

We kindly request a limit of four packets per person/family.

Questions? Email Christy at

[email protected]

History & Society Book Group

Meets on the Third Thursday of the Month at 2:00pm

This book group looks at history, politics, and society through literature. Books are available for checkout at the library. No registration is required. For information, please contact Maria at [email protected]

Final book before Summer pause:

June 15th

American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis

by Adam Hochschild

Writers' Group

Meets every Tuesday at 6:00pm

Adults and young adults of all skill levels are invited to Sturgis Library to share their writing!

Writers will gather, share their writing, and be sent home with a writing prompt to work on to share at the next gathering.

Registration is requested. Please email Christy at [email protected]

Special Edition Garden Party Storytime

Wednesday, June 7, 2023 at 10:30am

Join us at Sturgis Library for this special edition Storytime being held during our weekly Storytime hour.

Kiddos will learn about gardening and help plant seeds in the library's children's garden. After the merriment, a little celebratory snack will be available for the sprout-sized gardeners to enjoy.

Registration is not required. Questions? Email Christy at [email protected]

Cryptid Creatures Summer Reading Program

Tuesday June 20, 2023 through Friday August 18, 2023

All ages are encouraged to read and earn button pins all Summer long! Earn a Cryptid Creature* button pin for each genre you read! (*Cryptid Creatures are animals that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, but are not recognized by science.)

When you complete a genre, come into the library, tell a librarian, and you will be granted the Cryptid Creature button pin that represents the completed genre! If there's a better way to decorate your backpack for the upcoming school year, we haven't heard of it!

Be sure to check out the Cryptid Creature-inspired programs happening all Summer long! Click the links for more information.

Finding Bigfoot with Ronny Le Blanc

Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 6:00pm

Click here for more info.

Cryptid Cookie Decorating

Friday, July 7, 2023 at 11:00am

Click here for more info.

Unicorn Jar Workshop

Friday, July 21, 2023 at 10:30am

Click here for more info.

Cryptid Comic Workshop

Friday, August 18, 2023 at 10:30am

Click here for more info.

Questions? Email Christy at [email protected]

YMCA Free Lunch Program at Sturgis Library

Every Wednesday at 11:00am-12:30pm

June 21, 2023 through August 30, 2023

The Y's Summer Food Program will provide nutritious meals and snacks to kids 18 years old and younger throughout the Summer at Sturgis Library.

No registration or identification necessary.

Weekly Storytime

Wednesdays at 10:30am

Swing by to read a story, illustrate a picture, talk with friends, and learn about nature at Sturgis Library's Storytime!

Geared to ages 2-4 but all are welcome to attend.

Registration is not required.

Questions? Email Christy at [email protected]

The Sprightly Bright Book Club

Held in-person on the first Wednesday of every month at 4:00pm

Are you between the ages of 8ish to 12ish years old? Do you love to read? If you answered yes to these questions, then The Sprightly Bright Book Club is the place for you.

Let's choose, read, and discuss books together.

The discussion will take place on the first Wednesday of every month at 4:00pm.

Registration is required.

For more information and to register, please email Christy at [email protected]

Adult Fiction to Check Out This Month

The Wind Knows My Name

by Isabel Allende

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht—the night his family loses everything. As her child’s safety becomes ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on a Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Díaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Durán, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother.

Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.

Click here to reserve

All the Sinners Bleed

by S.A. Cosby

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.

Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.

With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.

Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.

Click here to reserve

Loot

by Tania James

Loot is a spellbinding historical novel set in the eighteenth century: a hero's quest, a love story, the story of a young artist coming of age, and an exuberant heist adventure that traces the bloody legacy of colonialism across two continents and fifty years. A wildly inventive, irresistible feat of storytelling from a writer at the height of her powers.

"Loot held me spellbound from the first page. This is an expertly-plotted, deeply affecting novel about war, displacement, emigration, and an elusive mechanical tiger.” —Maggie O’Farrell, best-selling author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait

Click here to reserve

Adult Nonfiction to Check Out This Month

Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland's Elves Can Save the Earth by Nancy Marie Brown

Icelanders believe in elves. Why does that make you laugh?, asks Nancy Marie Brown in this wonderfully quirky exploration of our interaction with nature. Looking for answers in history, science, religion, and art-from ancient times to today-Brown finds that each discipline defines what is real and unreal, natural and supernatural, demonstrated and theoretical, alive and inert. Each has its own way of perceiving and valuing the world around us. And each discipline can be defined, in the Icelandic perception, by its own sort of elf.

Illuminated by her own encounters with Iceland's Otherworld-in ancient lava fields, on a holy mountain, beside a glacier or an erupting volcano, crossing the cold desert at the island's heart on horseback-Looking for the Hidden Folk offers an intimate conversation about how we look at and find value in nature. It reveals how the words we use and the stories we tell shape the world we see. It argues that our beliefs about the Earth will preserve-or destroy it.

Click here to reserve

Barkley: A Biography by Timothy Bella

The definitive biography of Charles Barkley, exploring his early childhood, his storied NBA career, and his enduring legacy as a provocative voice in American pop culture. He's one of the most interesting American athletes in the past fifty years. Passionate, candid, iconoclastic, and gifted both on and off the court, Charles Barkley has made a lasting impact on not only the world of basketball but pop culture at large.

Yet few people know the real Charles. Raised by his mother and grandmother in Leeds, Alabama, he struggled in his early years to fit in until he found a sense of community and purpose in basketball. In the NBA he went toe-to-toe with the biggest legends in the game, from Magic to Michael to Hakeem to Shaq. But in the years since, he has become a bold agitator for social change, unafraid to grapple, often brashly, with even the thorniest of cultural issues facing our nation today. Informed by over 370 original interviews and painstaking research, Timothy Bella's Barkley is the most comprehensive biography to date of one of the most talked-about icons in the world of sports.

Click here to reserve

The Van Conversion Bible by Charlie Low and Dale Comley

The Van Conversion Bible is the ultimate guide to planning, designing, and converting a campervan.

Let Charlie Low and Dale Comley (aka climbingvan) provide definitive answers to your questions (even the ones you haven't thought of yet!) and help you build the campervan of your dreams.

From detailed gas, water, and electrical system diagrams to a step-by-step build guide, you'll find everything you need to start your journey and hit the open road.

Whatever your skills and budget, learn how to build a van bespoke to your needs. Your very own home on wheels awaits.

Click here to reserve

PS: If you're interested in living the #vanlife, also check out Living the Vanlife: On the Road to Toward Sustainability, Community, and Joy, coming in July 2023!

Kids' Books to Check Out this Month

Unstoppable Us: How Humans Took Over the World

written by Yuval Noah Harari; illustrated by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz

This illustrated book for middle-grade readers looks at the early history of humankind. Even though we'll never outrun a hungry lion or outswim an angry shark, humans are pretty impressive--and we're the most dominant species on the planet. So how exactly did we become "unstoppable"? From learning to make fire and using the stars as guides to cooking meals in microwaves and landing on the moon, prepare to uncover the secrets and superpowers of how we evolved from our first appearances millions of years ago.

For everyone but especially for ages 10-14

Click here to reserve.

Corner written and illustrated by Zo-O

A quirky and relatable story about balancing creativity and connection

A crow finds itself in an empty corner and begins to make the space its own. First, it furnishes the corner with a bed, a bookshelf, a rug, even a potted plant. In the newly decorated space, the crow reads and eats, listens to music and waters the plant, but something's missing. What is it?

The crow decides to decorate more, drawing geometric patterns on the walls in yellow. The corner is filled with color and shapes, but something is still missing. The crow adds a window, and finally discovers what it needed all along--a way to connect with the world outside and to make a new friend.

For everyone, especially for ages 3-7

Click here to reserve.