June 2025

Upcoming Events

See what's happening this month.

Click on the Events Calendar to see a detailed listing of programs and events happening at SCPL.

After reading "The Stationary Shop" by Marjan Kamali, this past winter, Kim, one of our Rockport Book Club members, invited the book club members to her home for an authentic Persian meal. Kim, who took cooking lessons from her Iranian brother-in-law, discovered that she loved cooking these cultural dishes. Surrounded by delicious food and good company, the evening was a truly enriching experience that connected literature, history, cultural identity, and tradition in the most enjoyable way!

June 6th at 1:00 PM at Rockport in the Small Meeting Room

Discussing The Sunshine Girls by Molly Fader

1967 Iowa. Nursing school roommates BettyKay and Kitty don’t have much in common. BettyKay has risked her family’s disapproval to pursue her dreams away from her small town. Cosmopolitan Kitty has always relied on her beauty and smarts to get by and to hide a painful secret. Yet the two share a determination to prove themselves in a changing world, forging an unlikely bond on a campus unkind to women.

Before their first year is up, tragedy strikes, and the women’s paths are forced apart. But against all odds, a decades-long friendship forms, persevering through love, marriage, failure, and death, from the jungles of Vietnam to the glamorous circles of Hollywood. Until one snowy night leads their relationship to the ultimate crossroads.

Fifty years later, two estranged sisters are shocked when a famous movie star shows up at their mother's funeral. Over one tumultuous weekend, the women must reckon with a dazzling truth about their family that will alter their lives forever...



-Excerpt from Amazon

July 11th at Rockport in the Small Meeting Room

Discussing Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts

Hollywood, 1938: As soon as she learns that M-G-M is adapting her late husband’s masterpiece for the screen, Maud Gage Baum, now in her seventies, sets about trying to finagle her way onto the set. Nineteen years after Frank’s passing, Maud is the only person who can help the producers stay true to the spirit of the book—she’s the only one left who knows its secrets.

But the moment she hears Judy Garland rehearsing the first notes of “Over the Rainbow,” Maud recognizes the yearning that defined her own life story, from her youth as a suffragist’s daughter to her hardscrabble prairie years with Frank, which inspired The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Judy reminds Maud of a young girl she cared for in South Dakota, a dreamer who never got a happy ending. Now, with the young girl under pressure from the studio as well as from her ambitious stage mother, Maud resolves to protect Judy—the way she tried so hard to protect the real Dorothy.



-Excerpt from Amazon

June 9th at 1:30 PM at Richland

Discussing The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

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.

-Excerpt from Amazon

July 14th at 1:30 PM at Richland

Discussing The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman’s daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?



-Excerpt from Amazon

June 11th at 3:00 PM at Hatfield Branch



Discussing The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin

Four freshmen arrive at college from completely different worlds: Lainey, a California party girl with a flair for drama; Tyson, a brilliant scholar and aspiring lawyer from Washington, D.C.; Summer, an ambitious, recruited athlete from the Midwest; and Hannah, a mild-mannered southerner who is content to quietly round out the circle of big personalities. Soon after arriving on campus, they strike up a conversation in their shared dorm, and the seeds of friendship are planted.

As their college years fly by, their bond intensifies and the four become inseparable. But as graduation nears, their lives are forever changed after a desperate act leads to tragic consequences. Stunned and heartbroken, they make a pact, promising to always be there for one another, no matter how separated they may become by circumstances or distance.

Ten years later, Hannah is anticipating what should be one of the happiest moments of her life when everything is suddenly turned upside down. Calling on her closest friends, it soon becomes clear that they are all facing their own crossroads. True to their promise, they agree to take a time out from lives headed in wrong directions and embark on a shared journey of self-discovery, forgiveness, and acceptance.

In this tender portrayal of grief, love, and hope, Emily Giffin asks: When things fall apart, who will be at our sides, helping us pick up the pieces?

-Excerpt from Amazon

July 9th at 3:00 PM at Hatfield Branch



Discussing Beach Vibes by Susan Mallery

While Beth is proud of her Malibu beach shop, Surf Sandwiches, she's even prouder of her charismatic brother Rick, who rose from foster care through surgical residency. She makes subs, he saves lives. Life takes a turn for the happy after she finds out Rick is dating her new best friend, Jana. Then Jana’s handsome brother adds even more sparkle to Beth’s days...and nights.

But when she catches Rick with another woman—like, with-with—her visions of an idyllic family future disappear in one awful instant. Either she betrays her brother, or she keeps his secret and risks losing the man she loves and her best friend.



-Excerpt from Amazon

Looking for a fun and free family activity this summer? Visit the StoryWalk® at Hatfield, where reading and the outdoors come together! Perfect for families, caregivers, and early readers — it’s a great way to keep little minds and bodies active.

Take your library with you wherever you go! Whether you're lounging on the beach or flying to your next adventure, the Libby app lets you borrow eBooks, audiobooks, and magazines from SCPL—completely free. All you need is a library card and your phone or tablet. Download your favorite titles ahead of time to read or listen offline, no Wi-Fi required. It's the perfect travel companion for book lovers on the move.

Check out the SCPL Sourdough Group page on Facebook! This group allows members to share tips, tricks, and recipes. Join today!