Library #20 Aurora Public Library

We braved the Black Friday crowds at an East Aurora landmark- Vidlers 5 & 10! This is a family tradition. We love it because the girls can do almost all of their Christmas shopping with their allowances! After a little shopping and eating ten-cent popcorn, it was time to relax at the Aurora Library. This cozy library sits right on Main Street in the village. We enjoyed the peace and quiet of the library, sitting in the children's section for a while before selecting a pile of DVDs from the very well organized video section. We had a nice chat with one of the librarians who recommended eating at the Riley Street Station, which we did, and we enjoyed it (it sits right next to the outdoor ice skating rink originally used for the Ice Bowl game). We enjoyed viewing the work of local artists on display in the library meeting room-many different subjects and mediums to see in the collection. It was a wintery day, and lots of fun.

Author Visit to Monkey See, Monkey Do... Children's Bookstore

We were recently invited to Monkey See, Monkey Do... Children's Bookstore on Main Street in Clarence by store proprietor, Kim Krug. She had read our story in The Buffalo News, contacted us, and invited the girls to meet an author visiting her store. Ms. Julie Berry, originally from Medina, now residing in New England, was in town to sign books and meet with any patrons interested in her craft and titles. Anna and MaryGrace were thrilled. They were able to ask many questions. Ms. Berry and Ms. Krug were gracious, and even presented the girls with a signed copy of The Amaranth Enchantment , one of Ms. Berry's works. What a great book store, and what a great time!

Library #19 Boston Free Library

The Boston Public Library is a really tiny and cute two story brick building that used to be the schoolhouse. We arrived just before it closed. We had a few minutes to check out some books, and then Marilyn was nice enough to stay late and show us around. She recognized us and was very excited to see us! She and the rest of the staff are very proud of their neat and homey library, and the fact that because they are small they have the time to know their patrons so well. She told us stories about some of them and their dogs, who are also welcome in the library! Lucky for Sookie, who was in the car! She had fun zipping around the stacks. Marilyn told us about a special resident of the library. They believe it is the ghost of Mr. Foley, who was the caretaker of the school. He gets upset when the library is messy and sends books flying off the shelves! When the library is decorated and tidy, he is relaxed and just a warm presence in the room. It is a very cool building with lots of neat details because it is so old .
On the way home we drove to Chestnut Ridge Park to see the Eternal Flame. It is really cool! We hiked down the ridge path off Seufert Road. The trail leads to a beautiful waterfall. Behind some of the rocks, in a little carved out spot, is a natural gas leak that burns a bright flame! It is neat to see fire and water together, and it gave a us a peaceful feeling. It was a tough hike, but with Sookie pulling us it wasn't so bad! And the day was perfect for hiking- sunny and cool and the leaves were colorful. What a great fall day!

The Buffalo News!

Charity Vogel came to our house to interview us in early October. It was fun! A really nice article was published today's edition of The Buffalo News. We are very excited. Here is a link to the article on line:
http://www.buffalonews.com/life/article220785.ece

Above is a picutre of Ms. Vogel and our family.

Library #18 Niagara Branch

The Niagara Branch is located on Porter Avenue near D'Youville College. We were greeted by Mr. Hoth, the branch manager, who loves his library. He gave us a tour of the library and told us about the many ways the library serves the community. There are many titles in Spanish, and ESL materials, too. The library hosts lots of tutoring, student groups, early childhood activities and fun community events.
We stopped here after going to Mayor Brown's Reading Challenge Celebration in the morning. Kids who read books and wrote reports on them over the summer are invited to the Convention Center to have breakfast with the Mayor! He gives away tons of really big prizes like bikes and laptop computers, and kids get to have their picture taken with him on stage. This year the girls won gift cards to Kohl's and WalMart. Yay! After a quick lunch at Elmwood Taco and Subs we were on our way home.

Library #17 Newstead Branch in Akron

On Wednesday we visited the Newstead Branch Library in the cute town of Akron. What a cool, contemporary building! We loved the wooden beams on the ceiling, the very high windows (the place was full of natural light), and it even had a walk out veranda with benches for reading in nice weather. The children's section had clouds suspended from the ceiling along with butterflies. This library had many small touches that gave it a community feel: a coupon exchange box, a puzzle and game table, with a puzzle of the United States partially assembled and some paintings displayed from local high school art students. We met the librarians, they were very nice and very proud of their library. We checked out some books on pumpkin carving, and some more fiction for the girls.
We also went to nearby Akron Falls Park, an Erie County Park--we hiked the slow moving stream with giant boulders, it was amazing! We took Sookie, our dog, and she loved it! At the end of the hike is the falls; worth the effort. What a great park, just on the outskirts of the Village of Akron. Great day!

Library #16 Frank E. Merriweather Branch

On Thursday we visited the Merriweather Branch of the library system, located near the Buffalo Museum of Science. What a beautiful library. Only a few years old, this branch is named for Frank E. Merriweather, the editor and publisher of The Criterion newspaper, the oldest minority newspaper in upstate New York. This library has a dome with different colored glass panes that really impressed us when we arrived in the library. This library is uniique in that it has circular rooms with the circulation desk at the center of the library.

This library also has a very impressive research library called the William A. Miles Center for African and African-American Studies,the largest research facilty of its kind in our area. It has display cases, many books, even microfilm and old reel to reel films on various subjects. This reasearch library is named after Mr. Miles, a Buffalo and Erie County Public Library System official for many years.

After checking out a bunch of books and getting a nice tour from the director, we headed to City Hall to drop off completed book reports for Mayor Brown's Summer Reading Program. A little ice cream at Anderson's on the way home capped off this adventure in a great way.