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Weekly Events

KIDS    TEENS    ADULTS    ALL AGES

Craft Circle by the Hearthside
SUNDAYS AT 2-3PM

Digital Advice
MONDAYS: APPOINTMENTS AT 11AM and 11:30AM & DROP-IN FROM 12-1PM         

Registration is required for the 2 appointments at 11 and 11:30AM. Click Here to register. 

Dungeons and Dragons
ALTERNATING TUESDAYS 3:30-5PM

For Ages 11-18. Most Tuesday and registration is required. Click Here for more details and to register. 

Tai Chi Class
WEDNESDAYS AT 9:45-10:45AM

Safety Registration Form must be completed before 1st session. Fill out the form here. 

Shut Up and Write!
WEDNESDAYS AT 10:30 AM-12PM

Virtual over Zoom and registration is required. Email c.maile.black@gmail.com for the zoom link.

Stories & Songs in the Children's Room
WEDNESDAYS 10:30-11AM

For our youngest patrons and thier caregivers, ages birth-6. Registration is required and space is limited. Click Here to register.

Mindfulness Meditation
EVERY OTHER THURSDAY BEGINNING FEBRUARY 2 AT 11AM-12PM

Alida Bryant is a Dharma Leader and meditation instructor under the guidance of Anam Thubten Rinpoche. She has been meditating for over 30 years (still very much a beginner!) and studying and practicing with lineage holders in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

Meditation, fundamentally, is about getting to know ourselves better. The mind is a powerful thing, and often leads us on a merry chase that does not always serve us. So we practice becoming familiar with it, coaxing it into the present moment, where it finds rest and ease… and then we do, too. We will learn that thoughts are not a problem in meditation – they are very much a part of our experience, but usually we don’t notice them. We’ll explore the meaning of the saying “You don’t have to believe everything you think!” (I have the bumper sticker to prove it!)

Beginners and experienced meditators are welcome. There will be guided meditation, some silence, and discussion. 

Registration is encouraged but not required. Click Here to register or for more info. 

Friendship Bracelet Making with June
FOUR WEEK SESSION BEGINS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16 AT 3:30-4:30PM

Create friendship bracelets with youth expert June B.! June has been making bracelets for years, and sharing the craft with family and friends is one of her favorite activities! After teaching her 8-year-old brother how to make bracelets last summer, then attending a fall craft night at the Manchester-by-the-Sea library, she thought it would be fun to offer this class to the youth community. The library will supply the materials and snacks so bring yourself and some friends. Registration is required. Sessions build upon each other but you can register for whatever technique(s) interests you. 

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All virtual events require registration. Click on the events to register.

The Challenges of Being a Debut Author featuring Chelsea Banning
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6 AT 7-8PM

Debut author (and librarian) Chelsea Banning was very excited to publish her first book, "Of Crown and Legends". And then came the book signing where only 2 people showed up and the Twitter storm of support when Chelsea posted about the experience. Now, we speak with Chelsea in conversation with debut authors Laura Gao, Brian D. Kennedy, Jean Louise, and XiXi Tian to chat about the challenges and joys of getting your first book out in the world. This event will interest Teens and Adults.

If you have not seen Chelsea's Tweet storm, you should check it out! Responses from some of the biggest names in publishing, sharing their stories of book signings gone awry. It's must read.

Abolition's Foot Soldiers: Female Anti-Slavery Societies in Antebellum MA 
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15 AT 7-8PM

For at least the past three decades, scholars have argued that slavery's abolition would not have happened without interracial collaboration between politically-minded women. From 1830-1865, an interracial and transnational group of women insisted that the struggles for women's liberation and abolition were linked. They rooted their activism in their shared passion for religion, writing, reading, and teaching. They defended their activism from those who called their actions unbecoming for women by saying that their efforts were part of their duty as women and mothers. The abolitionist mother did not want her child to bear witness to the atrocities of slavery and therefore would do what she could to end it. In this talk, Dr. Jaimie Crumley will show that the efforts of the anti-slavery women in Massachusetts demonstrate the distinctively feminist contours of antebellum abolitionism. Further, she will assert that learning from the successes and failures of antebellum female anti-slavery societies can inform contemporary feminist organizing.

Bio: Jaimie D. Crumley, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of Utah. She is the 2022-2023 Research Fellow at Old North Illuminated in Boston, MA. Jaimie studies race, gender, and religion in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century Northeastern United States. Her dissertation, "Tried as by Fire: Free African American Women's Abolitionist Theologies," situates eighteenth and nineteenth-century Black women as proto-Black feminist abolitionists who rooted their politics in Biblical theology. Jaimie has received research fellowships from the Center for the Study of Women at UCLA, the Institute for Citizen's and Scholars, the Boston Athenaeum, and the American Congregational Library. 

This program is made possible by a partnership with the Reading Public Library and the Reckonings Project.

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