Rockland Public Library

Catching Up With The Classics is an online book group that meets monthly. We will now being meeting in person, in the Children’s Garden, while the weather is nice. The book for September is Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

We’ll follow that in October with Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and November’s read will be James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain. We’ll close out the year with Willa Cather’s My Antonia.

We’re always looking for new readers! Email pking@rocklandmaine.gov for more info, or call the Library, 207-594-0310, to request a book title.

Enjoy a themed musical storytime, with dancing, songs, rhymes, and 2 books. This program is great for toddlers – early elementary. We will be out on the Library lawn, bring a hat and a blanket! Masks are encouraged for those unvaccinated, but not required.

Enjoy your favorite picture books as Miss Katie reads them to you! We will be out on the Library lawn so bring a hat and a blanket! Masks are encouraged for those unvaccinated, but not required.

Let’s take a walk!

Wednesday Walkers is back! Join Patty or Jessie every Wednesday at 10:30 for a 45-60 minute stroll around town. Promoting healthy activity and social connections; all abilities are welcome- no walker is left behind! Meet promptly at 10:30 in the Library lobby (White St. entrance).

Broaden Your Literary Horizons with Contemporary Fiction Discussion Group!

Launched in 2020, the Contemporary Fiction Discussion Group (CFDG) enjoys lively and thought-provoking conversations about celebrated novels by prize-winning international authors. The group currently meets via Zoom at 3:00 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month and welcomes new members. The Library invites interested readers to contact: pking@ rocklandmaine.gov for more information.

Maureen Anne Jennings facilitates the CFDG. Maureen is an author and editor who lives in Rockland. Her fiction includes Bartender Wanted and One Too Many, as well as work published in various anthologies.

Fall starts with NBA winner Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu for September, and Milkman by Anna Burns for October.

The CFDG’s 2020 reading list covered novels that received or were finalists for major international literary prizes, such as the Pulitzer, Booker, National Book, Pen Faulkner, and Dublin International Literary awards. Selected titles included Sing, Unburied Sing; The Underground Railroad; Elsey Come Home; An American Marriage; The Friend; Fates and Furies; Exit West; Machines Like Me; Behold the Dreamers; and Clock Dance.

Sing and sway along with new and familiar nursery rhymes and songs. This storytime is for little ones and music lovers, with lots of songs and one short story at the end. We will be out on the Library lawn, so bring a hat and a blanket! Masks are encouraged for those unvaccinated, but not required.

Eleanor Phillips Brackbill

From her book, The Queen of Heartbreak Trail: The Life and Times of Harriet Smith Pullen, Pioneering Woman, in a fully illustrated talk, Brackbill tells the story of a Klondike Gold Rush pioneer who, despite landing broke and alone in Alaska in 1897, launched her career as the owner of Skagway’s famed Pullen House by single-handedly hauling prospectors’ provisions into the Yukon where gold beckoned. The Queen of Heartbreak Trail is the first comprehensive, documented assessment of her life.

The story begins with Harriet Smith’s adventurous formative years as a Dakota homesteader in a covered wagon and sod houses, challenged by grasshopper plagues, droughts, blizzards, prairie fires, and floods. She married a transplanted Mainer, Dan Pullen, in Washington Territory, where they built a mansion overlooking the Pacific. Harriet defended herself in grueling courtroom testimony against the false accusations of a spiteful employer and endured a lengthy land contest with the U.S. government. Reinventing herself in Alaska during the last great gold rush and homesteading for a third time, she held a claim jumper at gunpoint, and, in her father’s words, “turned out” her husband of twenty years, raising their four children alone. Independent and empowered, she became a raconteur heralded as “The Mother of the North.” Brackbill, Pullen’s great-granddaughter, retraced by foot, by car, by train, by plane, and by ferry, the Pullen and Smith families’ westward migrations and delved into official documents, unpublished material, and family stories to tell this remarkable American saga. Had she been a man, Pullen’s adventurous life story would be impressive. As a woman, it is nothing short of astounding.

Eleanor Phillips Brackbill is the author of The Queen of Heartbreak Trail: The Life and Times of Harriet Smith Pullen, Pioneering Woman, a 2017 WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Scholarly Nonfiction. Her earlier publications include An Uncommon Cape: Researching the Histories and Mysteries of a Property, which traced the 350-year history of a Mamaroneck property, and essays for When Modern Was Contemporary: The Roy R. Neuberger Collection. Eleanor was the director of education at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York. She graduated from Antioch College, earned an MA in art history at Boston University, completed a curatorial fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and studied in the art history doctoral program at City University of New York. Following twenty-five years as an educator, she embarked on a second career writing about history. In 2015, she relocated to Portland, Maine, where she lives with her husband.

This event will be held in person at the Rockland Public Library. For more information, email elewis@rocklandmaine.gov.

Enjoy a themed musical storytime, with dancing, songs, rhymes, and 2 books. This program is great for toddlers – early elementary. We will be out on the Library lawn, bring a hat and a blanket! Masks are encouraged for those unvaccinated, but not required.

Enjoy your favorite picture books as Miss Katie reads them to you! We will be out on the Library lawn so bring a hat and a blanket! Masks are encouraged for those unvaccinated, but not required.

Let’s take a walk!

Wednesday Walkers is back! Join Patty or Jessie every Wednesday at 10:30 for a 45-60 minute stroll around town. Promoting healthy activity and social connections; all abilities are welcome- no walker is left behind! Meet promptly at 10:30 in the Library lobby (White St. entrance).

Sing and sway along with new and familiar nursery rhymes and songs. This storytime is for little ones and music lovers, with lots of songs and one short story at the end. We will be out on the Library lawn, so bring a hat and a blanket! Masks are encouraged for those unvaccinated, but not required.

This program provides an overview of the work of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. The lecture covers a wide range of topics – from public perception of sharks to the role of sharks in our marine ecosystem. The ongoing white shark research taking place off the coast of Cape Cod is explained in detail, as well as how that research is connected to white shark conservation. The program wraps up with a discussion on how the presence of white sharks close to shore has specifically affected the Cape community. This program is recommended for adults; a Q&A period will follow the talk.

Since 2013, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy has worked in collaboration with shark science experts, community partners, public and government officials, researchers, donors, friends, and followers to augment scientific research, improve and influence factors that affect public safety, and educate both the local and broader community to inspire a greater understanding of white sharks and conservation of the species.

Kristen Kibblehouse works as the Community Engagement Manager for the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy and has been with the organization since 2016. Kristen always had a fascination with sharks since she was a child and decided to make that fascination her career. Kristen attended Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina, where she studied marine science and aided in her university’s shark research program. Kristen moved to Massachusetts in 2016 for an internship with Dr. Greg Skomal. Since then, she has been involved in education, outreach, and research related to the white shark research being conducted off of Cape Cod.

For a link to the Zoom event to watch from home, please email elewis@rocklandmaine.gov by 4 p.m. on September 30 and identify the event you are interested in attending in the subject line. There will be limited seating available to view the program via projector at the library.