The American Flag Flies Proudly as the Town Recovers from Another Snow Storm

Photo and Caption lieslby Eric Anderson

Greetings to all our lovely Baker Free Library patrons/community! As a kid, I dreaded March. It was a month with no holidays, no school breaks, and was still not warm and sunny. Now as an adult, I appreciate a month with no interruptions to my routine!! With that being said, this would be a great time to make the library a part of your weekly/monthly (daily for the over-achievers of the community!!) routine. We have so many patrons that we see routinely as part of a routine family outing or individuals that have made us part of their weekly quest in self-care. I (and I’m sure I can speak for the rest of the staff) feel honored to be a part of these family or individual routines. Often adult patrons will come in and recall to us happy memories of routine family trips to the library. These happy memories develop into adult habits that bring a sense of peace, stability, belonging, and…Routine!!

As you take a look at your busy schedules and think about when you may want to pop into the library, let me point out a couple of highlights this month that I am excited about. We are hosting several adult programs: The Salem Witch Craft Trials and 'Moldy Bread': A Case Study in Fake News, Mary Baker Eddy: New Hampshire’s Most Important Religious Thinker, AND the ever-popular children’s program Wildlife Encounters: Live Animal Outreach! is back as well.

And…to end on theme…don’t forget our weekly/monthly programs! These are great opportunities to build the library into your community and build community into your routine!! A few to consider: family story times, after school art and STEM groups, and for the adults: book clubs, tech time (new!! Read on for more info!), adult craft club, and board game night!

Wishing you a lovely March. We hope to see you routinely (in whatever form that takes)!

Kaitlin Camidge, Library Director

Take Out a Book!

Stop by to check out our revival of a book display favorite!

Read the receipt, and find the one "for you" on our main book display!

Seasons of Reading

A Year-Long Reading Challenge for Teens and Adults!

Sign up at the library to receive your challenge, and work your way through a new set of reading prompts each season. Keep an eye on our Events & Programs Calendar throughout the year for meet-ups and events relating to the challenge. Learn more on our website!

100 Acres More or Less by David Bundy

Purchase today for $20!

Baker Free Library was established in 1914... but did you know that was almost 200 years after the Town of Bow was first founded?

Back in the 60s, David Bundy published a book titled '100 Acres More or Less' as a way to share the Town's rich history and backstory, and we are so excited to announce that this book is now available for purchase at Baker Free Library! All proceeds will directly benefit the Bow Heritage Commission, and support them in their mission of preserving Bow's past.

For more information, visit the library's circulation desk. Books are only available while supplies last.

Wildlife Encounters: Live Animal Outreach!

Saturday, March 29 | 10:30am

Wildlife Encounters returns to Bow! At this show, an Outreach Ambassador will visit the library with seven live animals from different habitats, allowing children and their families to learn about each unique critter. Animals may include reptiles like lizards and snakes, tortoises, parrots, hedgehogs, foxes and armadillos, among others! The presentation is expected to last 45-60 minutes, and is recommended for children aged 5 and up. Space is limited. Registration is required to reserve your space.

Registration is required.

After School Programs

Art • Lab

Every Other Wednesday | 3:30pm

A bi-weekly art program for artists and creators in Grades 3-6. Take part in sensory, process art, and engineering activities designed to inspire our creativity and expand our knowledge of celebrated artists and their techniques. Activities may include mixed media projects and painting, so come prepared to get messy. Recommended for students in Grades 3-6. Registration is required for each session you plan to attend.

Please register for each session.

Ready Readers

Every Other Monday | 3:00pm

This bi-weekly program is a "Big Kid" storytime, designed for storytime graduates and emerging or independent readers in Grades K-2. Explore new books with a specially chosen read-aloud at each meeting, followed by activities designed to spark creativity and build early literacy skills. Recommended for Grades K-2, in the company of a parent or caregiver. Please register for every session you plan to attend.

Please register for each session.

Little Makers

Every Other Thursday | 3:00pm

A bi-weekly program for our youngest messy makers! Take part in sensory and process art activities designed to inspire your little one's creativity and curiosity. Activities may include mixed media projects and painting, so come prepared to get messy. Recommended for children in Pre-K through Grade 2, in the company of a parent or caregiver. Registration is required to reserve your child's place. Please register for every session you wish to attend.

Please register for each session.

Storytimes

Preschool Storytime

Every Tuesday, starting March 11 | 10:30am

Encourage school readiness with a storytime for active bodies and minds! Explore interactive stories, songs, and activities that help to promote early literacy learning while addressing attention, coordination and motor development. Each storytime includes stories, songs and movement activities and ends with open play time, allowing children and their families to socialize. Recommended for Ages 3 - 5.

*Registration is required to reserve your child's space. The spring session will run from March 11 - April 22, 2025.

Register Here.

Family Storytime

Every Wednesday, starting March 12 | 10:30am

This multi-age storytime is perfect for families & siblings. Explore stories, songs, and activities that help to promote early literacy learning while addressing attention and motor development for both toddler and preschool aged children. Each storytime ends with open play time, allowing children and their families to meet and socialize. Recommended for Ages 2 - 5.

*Registration is required to reserve your child's space. The spring session will run from March 12 - April 23, 2025.

Register Here.

Toddler Storytime

Every Thursday, starting March 13 | 10:30am

Explore a new topic each week with stories, songs and rhymes designed to spark your child’s imagination and create the foundations for early literacy. Each storytime ends with open play time, allowing families to meet, play and socialize. Select sessions will include craft and/or sensory activities. Recommended for Ages 18 Months - 3 Years; siblings welcome.

*Registration is required to reserve your child's space. The spring session will run from March 13 - April 24, 2025.

Register Here.

Adult Programs

Tech Time with Liesl!

Starting Monday, March 3 | 4-6pm

Every Monday from 4-6pm, get help with: Libby/Overdrive, Hoopla, Kanopy, EBSCOhost, HeritageQuest, Ancestry.com, Kindle, email, Google Drive, Microsoft Office, using our library catalog, and more! 

Walk-ins are welcome but appointments are strongly encouraged!

To make an appointment please email liesl@bakerfreelib.org or give us a call!

Board Game Night

Wednesday, March 5 | 5:30pm

Join us on the first Wednesday of every month to celebrate the library’s new assortment of board games! Drop by for some snacks and socializing while exploring the library’s new collection. Feel free to bring your own favorites or check out one of ours!

Register here.

The Salem Witch Craft Trials and Moldy Bread:

A Case Study in Fake News

Wednesday, March 12 | 6pm

On April 2, 1976, Science Magazine published an article by Linnda R. Caporeal which posited that during the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials, the visions of specters and painful physical sensations described by the girls who claimed to be afflicted by witches could have been caused from eating bread made with flour tainted by ergot, a naturally occurring fungal hallucinogen that grows on rye grain under certain growing conditions. While experts immediately debunked this claim – the historical and medical data used to support the hypothesis was cherry-picked – the claim went viral in a pre-Internet age. More than four decades later, belief in this is still pervasive. This program will unpack how this explanation about a lurid chapter in American history was born and cemented in the public imagination. It is a case study in how mass media induces people to buy into “fake news." 

Margo Burns is the 10th-generation great-granddaughter of Rebecca Nurse, who was hanged in Salem in 1692 on the charge of witchcraft. She is the project manager and an associate editor of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, published in 2009 by Cambridge University Press. This work is the definitive collection of transcriptions of the legal records of the episode. 

This program is graciously made possible by New Hampshire Humanities To Go. Visit their website here.

Register here.

Mary Baker Eddy:

New Hampshire's Most Important Religious Thinker

Monday, March 17 | 6pm

Mary Baker Eddy was New Hampshire's most important and most innovative religious thinker. Mark Twain called Eddy "the most interesting woman that ever lived, and the most extraordinary." The church she founded, The Church of Christ, Scientist, profoundly affected both American ideologies of religion as well as public opinion of the role of women in society. This program discusses the ways in which Eddy's experience as a woman in Victorian-era America influenced her gendered understanding of God as well as the nature of humanity, the body, health, and the place of women in powerful organizations. In Eddy's theology, the divine was not punishing but welcoming and caring; not a domineering father but a loving father-mother -- a perspective that uplifted the feminine in both the divine realm and the human world. Although Eddy's perspectives on healing have always been controversial, her rejection of medicine stemmed from encounters with nineteenth-century physicians that she felt were demeaning and violating. Eddy instead advocated a patient-centered method of self-empowered healing, a perspective that has much in common with later views of positive psychology and the power of the mind over the body. 

Nicole J. Ruane teaches in the department of Classics, Humanities and Italian at the University of New Hampshire. Her research and teaching focuses on religion, gender, sacred texts, and religious violence. She holds the Ph.D. and M.A. from Union Theological Seminary in NYC and is the author of Sacrifice and Gender in Biblical Law (Cambridge University Press, 2013) as well as articles and book chapters.

This program is graciously made possible by New Hampshire Humanities To Go. Visit their website here.

Register here.

Craft Club

Tuesday, March 18 | 6pm

Craft Club is back! Meetings will be held on the third Tuesday of every month in the Merrimack County Savings Bank Room. You must be registered ahead of time to attend, as space and supplies are limited. 

For this session, we will be making decorative book pages! Books and supplies will be provided, but feel free to bring your own!

Register here.

Tuesday, April 15 | 6pm

You must be registered ahead of time to attend, as space and supplies are limited.

Registration for this session will open on Wednesday, March 19th at 10am,

and will be available here.

The Square Inch Project

Wednesday, March 20 | 6pm

Julie May Daniels is a fine artist out of Hopkinton, New Hampshire. With a degree in Fine Art, she works in oil, cold wax, watercolor, gouache, graphite and of course, collage.

In this workshop we will be using only square inches of painted watercolor paper and glue. Julie recently created a series of collages that she entitled The Square Inch Project after working with a local jeweler who was using bits of her failed watercolor paintings in her jewelry. Unsure how to be compensated for her paintings, she settled on charging by the square inch. Suddenly, this sad pile of paintings had new life. So, she started mining her own work for sections of color or texture that spoke to her, and then she would play. Not unlike solving a puzzle, you need to move things around until they fit. The process is surprising and delightful every single time.

This workshop is appropriate for any skill level or ability. All supplies will be provided; just bring your imagination!

Register here.

Onboarding Medicare:

"I am still working, but I'm turning 65, should I join Medicare?"

Tuesday, March 25 | 6pm

Are you thinking about signing up for Medicare? No idea what you should do about health insurance as you get close to qualifying for Medicare? Never fear! The talented folks at Woodpecker Insurance are offering an Onboarding Medicare presentation to answer questions like:

• Do I have to sign up for Medicare?
• I have great coverage with my job's plan, will I have worse coverage by going with Medicare?
• My spouse is on my plan, will they lose coverage if I go with Medicare?
• What about my HSA, will I lose it if I go with Medicare? Can I still use it?
• I hear there are penalties for not signing up, is this true, and what are they?
• Basically, I just want to know if going with Medicare is the right decision for me. Can you help me?

*This is a Medicare Educational Event and no specific plan information will be discussed. This presentation is completely free and open to the public. 

About the Presenters

Christian and Larissa are independent licensed insurance agents. They are Bow residents with a large extended family who have resided in Bow and Dunbarton for over 20 years. They have opened Woodpecker Insurance with an office located at 30 S Main Street in Concord that is solely focused on Medicare Insurance plans. 

Christian and Larissa are both graduates of Providence College (Providence, RI)- where they met. They are both Medicare (AHIP) Certified for 2025 and are appointed by almost all of the major carriers for both Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement, and Prescription Drug Plans.

Register here.

Book Groups

Book Talk at BFL

Tuesday, March 11

12:30PM & 6:30PM

Book Talk is BFL's long-running monthly book club. If you love to read, enjoy talking about books, and are willing to read outside your comfort zone, join us! Two meetings are offered each month for your convenience.

March Selection:

TheBell Jar by

Slyvia Plath

White Rock Book Group

Tuesday, March 18

1:00PM

Enjoy great books and even better conversations with this extension of the Book Talk book club, offered each month at White Rock Senior Living Center. This group meets on the third Tuesday of each month at White Rock.

March Selection:

The Bell Jar by

Sylvia Plath



Whodunits

Tuesday, April 1

1:00PM



Love mysteries? Join the Whodunits to sleuth through a new one every month! This mystery-exclusive book club meets at White Rock Senior Living on the first Tuesday of every month. Members select the next book.

April Selection:

A Cold Day for Murder by

Dana Stabenow

Copies of Book Club books are available at the Circulation Desk at the Library.

For more information about joining one of the book groups, contact

Amy Bain at amy@bakerfreelib.org.

Book descriptions adapted from Goodreads.

A Navajo Ranger’s chilling and clear-eyed memoir of his investigations into bizarre cases of the paranormal and unexplained over the course of his illustrious career serving the Navajo Nation.

Stanley Milford, Jr., was raised with the inherent belief that the supernatural regularly touches our lives. Growing up between multiple worlds and cultures, as a Native American with parents and family of both Navajo and Cherokee descent, he was raised to respect his roots with a firm upbringing in traditions from both tribes.

That would serve him well when he joined the fabled Navajo Rangers, who are equal parts police officers, archeological conservationists, and historians, responsible for overseeing the massive 27,000-square-mile Navajo Nation. When Milford first became a ranger, he handled mundane, everyday cases such as cattle inspections and domestic disputes, but that quickly gave way to utterly bizarre and shockingly frequent cases of mysterious livestock mutilations, skinwalker and cryptid sightings, unidentified aerial phenomena, and malicious hauntings.

Three couples. Three days. A family getaway to die for.

Every year, the illustrious Van Ness siblings—heirs to a copper fortune—gather at their luxury winery estate for a joint birthday celebration. It's a tradition they've followed nearly all their lives, and now they are back with their significant others for a much-needed weekend of rest and relaxation, away from the public spotlight.

With lavish comforts, gorgeous scenery, and indulgent drinking, the trip should be the perfect escape. But it soon becomes clear that even a remote idyllic getaway can’t keep out the problems simmering in each of their lives. As old tensions are reignited, the three couples are pushed to the edge. Will their secrets destroy them, or will they destroy each other first? And who’s been watching them from beyond the vineyard gates?

When a torrential rainstorm hits, plunging them into darkness, the answers prove all too deadly…

Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body.

Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force.

Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.

Point Connett Sunset by Julie Daniels

The 2025 Candidates Present Their Positions on the School and Town Issues

Photo and Caption by Eric Anderson.

Baker Free Library Room Reservations

BFL staff would like to remind patrons to keep an eye on the forecast and check the library’s website, social media pages, or WMUR for closings or delayed openings. Additionally, if you have reserved a meeting room outside of the library’s regular hours during winter weather advisories, please look for an email or phone call from the Library Director. In the event the library is going to be closed for the day, all room reservations will be cancelled, as the parking lot and sidewalks will not be safe for the public if we are not open. Your safety is our top priority!

Bow Rotary Club

Camperships application deadline extended to March 10

Bow Rotary has extended its campership application deadline to March 10. If you have a child or know a child who would like to attend camp but finances are tight, Bow and Dunbarton families can apply for assistance at bowrotary.org under the Scholarships/Grants menu. 

Rotary's Annual 4-Way Test Speech Contest Deadline Nears

Submissions for the Rotary Club of Bow’s annual public speaking contest for high school students are due by 3 p.m. Monday, March 10. The contest helps students develop their public-speaking skills and to explore how they make decisions that affect other people. The basis of the contest is Rotary’s “Four-Way Test,” a tool to encourage ethical decision making. Bow Rotary awards cash prizes to the top three speakers and sends the winner on to compete against winners from other clubs in our district, which includes much of southern New Hampshire and Vermont.

The contest will be held in person at Baker Free Library on March 19 at 6:30 p.m. Contest details and an application form can be found on the Rotary website.

2025 Bow Rotary Club Foundation Scholarship Program

The Rotary Club of Bow annual Foundation Scholarship Applications are now available. The Foundation will be awarding a total of $23,000 in post-secondary scholarships and $5,000 in camperships in 2025.

The scholarship program is for graduating high school seniors who either attended Bow High School or who are Bow or Dunbarton students who attended other area high schools. Bow High School tuition students must be from a town/city either without a Rotary club or with a Rotary club that doesn’t offer college scholarships.

There are three different types of scholarships available: Traditional for students who are currently a graduating high school or homeschooled senior or have been a student attending college within the last four years; vocational school or certificate program scholarships for students who wish to attend a technical/vocational school two-year program or wish to attend a certificate program; and and adult scholarship for older adults, who have not attended school in the last four or more years.

The applications are available in Fillable PDF format for download from the Bow Rotary website under the Scholarships/Grants menu. The deadline is 3 p.m. April 7.

Bow Young at Heart

Bring your own lunch at 11:30 with the club providing dessert. Presentations begin at 12:30. For more information about the club and joining us for our meetings or how to become a member contact Peter Cherici at (603) 774-7682 or email at fairfield_a@hotmail.com

March 26, 2025 | 11:30 am - 2:30 pm

Kay Herrick will provide the club with the second part of her visit to the covered bridges of New Hampshire. 

April 9, 2025 | 11:30 am - 2:30 pm

Alan Hoffman will discuss Lafayette’s Farwell Tour of the United States in 1824 and Lafayette’s role in the American Revolution impacted the United States and New Hampshire. 

Town Updates

The Town of Bow has worked diligently in providing up to the minute notification of all that is happening in the community. In order to stay informed, visit the website Town of Bow or follow on Facebook @bownewhampshire.

Baker Free Library

509 South Street

Bow, NH 03304

(603) 224-7113