Park County Library System

Powell Branch Library is teaming up with the Wyoming Humanities Council to present the book discussion series Writing Wyoming. This series will consist of four books read over a period of four months as follows:

Rising from the Plains by John McPhee
Book Available: Tuesday, August 24th
Discussion Date: Tuesday, September 14th

What You See in Clear Water by Geoff O’Gara
Book Available: Tuesday, September 14th
Discussion Date: Tuesday, October 12th

Windmill: Essays from Four Mile Ranch by David Romtvedt
Book Available: Tuesday, October 12th
Discussion Date: Tuesday, November 9th

Where Rivers Change Direction by Mark Spragg
Book Available: Tuesday, November 9th
Discussion Date: Tuesday, December 7th

The discussion leader for this series is Michael Konsmo, an Instructor of English at Northwest College. All discussions will be held from 6:00-7:00 p.m. in the Fireside Room of the Powell Branch Library. Make sure to sign-up in advance at the library as space is limited to 20 participants!

Starting in August, Meeteetse Branch Library will host “Icons,” a reading and discussion series featuring biographies of American cultural icons. The discussion group meets at 2 p.m. August 25, September 22, October 27 and December 1 at the library and is free and open to the public. To learn more, please call the library at 868-2248 or just stop by!

Participants in “Icons” will read and discuss Cash by Johnny Cash, Muhammad Ali by Thomas Hauser, Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume 1, 1884-1933 by Blanche Wiesen Cook, and Jane Fonda’s War by Mary Hershberger. The series is designed to examine what we think know about iconic American figures, as well as study how they used the power of their iconography to promote social change. Laura Crossett will lead the discussions.

The program is offered by the Wyoming Humanities Council and is sponsored by the We the People initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information on the council’s programs, call 307-721-9243 or visit the council’s website at www.uwyo.edu/humanities.

Author Craig Johnson enjoys writing books and talking to Wyoming audiences.

Creator of the Sheriff Walt Longmire literary mysteries, he will be the guest of the Park County Library System August 21-22 in three free public programs.

Johnson begins his tour at the Park County Public Library in Cody at 12 noon on Saturday, August 21, following up at the Meeteetse Chocolatier at 7 p.m. the same day.

On Sunday, August 22 at 12 noon, Johnson goes to the Powell Branch Library for a pizza party.

Although not a native of the state, Johnson adopted Wyoming as home about 20 years ago. He settled in Ucross and eventually got serious about writing the Longmire stories, with the first book, The Cold Dish being published in 2005.

Junkyard Dogs, the latest in the series, came out in June this year. Continue Reading »

Showing on Thursday, August 19 at 3:00 p.m. is School of Rock starring Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White, and Sarah Silverman.

Jack Black plays a down-and-out rock star  in debit and desperate for money, becomes a substitute music teacher and the adventures begin. This movie is rated PG-13 and will be shown in the Fireside Room. Refreshments will be served.

Join us Wednesday, August 18 from 1-3 p.m. in the Fireside room at the Powell library. We will be making up recycled school supplies. We’ll be making notebooks, folders and organizers from common things, and maybe a few uncommon ones too.

Be sure to catch the Heart Mountain as Home exhibit in the Bistro this month at the Park County Library in Cody.  It is meant to honor the unique contribution of  the late Curly Bear Wagner to further cross-cultural understanding. Included in this exhibit are works by Jesse and Polly Frost, Dave Hagstrom, Rabbit Knows Gun, Allen Knows His Gun, Eddie Wadda, Robert Martinez, Harry Jackson, S. J. Lavold, Randi Slaughter, Jim Foster, and V. Blanchard Singingeagle.

If you would like to see some DVDs that Park County Library has added to its collection on American Indians, check out some titles in the nonfiction section of the Media area under the Dewey Number 970.00497. For example, see and hear a lecture by Mary Keller, of Cody, called Heart Mountain as Home. Another title is Sacred Lands, a presentation by the Curly Bear Wagner.

See a bigger list of titles added to the library in the past year:

American Indian Resources

The Cody Summer Reading Prize Picnic will be Friday, August 13 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the children’s outdoor area. Everyone who participated in the summer reading program will have a prize bag to pick up!

Drop by between 11:00 and 2:00 and bring your lunch. We will have cookies and drinks, free books, fun balloon animals -– plus your prizes! If you can’t make it that day, come to the library any time after that.

Attention summer readers!

Powell Branch Library will be hosting a Summer Reading Prize Party to celebrate the end of summer reading! Come to Plaza Diane on Wednesday, August 11 anytime between 1:00pm and 4:00 pm and join the celebration. We will have live entertainment, cookies and loads of fun. You will also be able to pick up any prizes that you won during summer reading. So, keep reading and don’t forget to turn in those tickets by Thursday, August 5th!

Attention summer readers in Meeteetse! The last day to turn in tickets for summer reading is Monday, August 2!

Our Summer Reading Party for kids will be Thursday, August 5 at 12 noon in the Meeteetse School Cafeteria. Lunch will be served (it’s free!), prizes will be awarded, and there will be FREE swimming at the Meeteetse Community Pool at 1 p.m. following the party!

Grown ups, note you can still turn in tickets through August 5. Stay turned for information about when you can pick up your prizes. Thanks again to all the community members and sponsors who help make our reading programs such a huge success!

Also, as a reminder, the Meeteetse Branch Library will be closed Friday, August 6 for annual cleaning.

Fiction
Snowbound by Blake Crouch — After his wife Rachel’s car is found with its window smashed in, Will Innis flees town with their daughter, fearing he’ll be blamed for Rachel’s mysterious disappearance. Five years later, an FBI agent tracks him down and tells him his wife isn’t the only one who disappeared — so did her sister. And she believes she knows who did it.

The Search by Nora Roberts — Fiona Bristow narrowly escaped a killer eight years ago. Now she leads a peaceful life training search and rescue dogs on a small island. Then the killer shows up again, and it’s up to Fiona — with the help of her dogs and Simon Doyle, a cabinetmaker who’s had his eye on her — to escape for good.

Kings of the Earth by John Clinch — Vernon, Audie, and Creed Proctor are three brothers who work their farm in rural upstate New York, largely cut off from the world but content. But when Vernon is found dead — possibly asphyxiated — suddenly the world comes to them, and their world starts to unravel. Continue Reading »