Library Happenings

Visit NPL’s events page on Facebook for detailed instructions on how to participate in online events and programs! Questions? Visit the Library, email library@newtonplks.org, or call 316-283-2890.

Dungeons & Dragons: 2-6 p.m. Jan. Feb. 17. Roll With It presents a Dungeons & Dragons tabletop gaming session. Interested in joining the fun? Email Andrew, therealandydp@gmail.com, or stop by the library during a game. Beginning D&D players are welcome.

Love and Marriage in the 1800s: 7 p.m. Feb. 20. Genealogy expert Marty Flanagan will share personal love stories of folks who lived in the 1800s. She will cover how to find these stories and make them come to life for your family. This is a hybrid program: Attend in person, join via Zoom, or watch a livestream on the library’s Facebook page.

Teen Breakfast Book Club: 11 a.m. Feb. 24. Read and discuss “Himawari House,” by Harmony Becker, while enjoying breakfast goodies. Copies of the book are available for borrowing.

Movie Screening: “The Hunt for Red October”: 3 p.m. Feb. 24. Enjoy a free library screening, with popcorn provided.

Teen Screen: “National Treasure”: 3 p.m. Feb. 24. Youths ages 10-18, enjoy a free library screening of “National Treasure,” with drinks and treats provided.

Fourth Tuesday Photography Show & Tell: 7 p.m. Feb. 27. Photo club participants and members of the public are invited to take part in a social evening of “show and tell,” displaying digital slides of their photos and talking about them for 3-5 minutes. Those interested in giving a show-and-tell mini-talk should email Sam, sjack@newtonplks.org, or call the library. Cookies and beverages will be served.

KanCare/Medicaid Help: 9 a.m.-1 p.m. March 1. GraceMed’s Mayra Mauricio Rosales will be at the library to answer questions about Medicaid/KanCare, and to assist with enrollment, first Friday of each month from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Last Day Open in the Current Building: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. March 2. Newton Public Library’s last day serving the public in the current library building at 720 Oak Street will be Saturday, March 2. The library will be closed March 4-30. The anticipated opening day for the new library building is Monday, April 2. For more information on the library move, go to www.newtonplks.org/librarymove.

Teen GameZone & Crafts: Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:15 to 5 p.m. Youths ages 10-18, head to the library for video games, board games and crafts, Mondays and Wednesdays (except holidays) from 3:15 to 5 p.m.

1,000 Books Before Kindergarten. Families are invited to join the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program, a nationwide challenge that encourages parents and caregivers to regularly read aloud to their children. Contact the Library to register.

Legos at the Library. Every Friday from 3 to 5 p.m., head to the youth services level to play and create with a sizeable collection of Lego construction toys.

New Items Now Available:

Use the online catalog to get more info and place holds on these items, or contact the Library for assistance! The newest items are at the top of the list. This is just a selection of new items; more can be found at the library and under the “What’s Hot” tab in the online catalog.

Brooks, David. How to Know a Person. Drawing from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history and education, one of the nation’s leading writers and commentators helps us become more understanding considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. New Nonfiction

Denial. When Deborah Lipstadt speaks out against Holocaust denier David Irving over his falsification of history, she discovers that the stakes are higher than ever in the battle for historical truth. Starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Wilkinson. PG-13. DVD

Super Mario RPG. Team up with an oddball group of heroes to save Star Road and stop the troublemaking Smithy Gang. This colorful RPG has updated graphics and cinematics that add even more charm to the unexpected alliance between Mario, Bowser, Peach, and original characters Mallow and Geno. Nintendo Switch Game

Togashi, Yoshihiro. Hunter x Hunter. Gon might be a country boy, but he has high aspirations. Despite his Aunt Mito’s protests, Gon decides to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a legendary Hunter. The Hunter hopefuls begin their journey by storm-tossed ship, where Gon meets Leorio and Kurapika, the only other applicants who aren’t devastated by bouts of seasickness. Having survived the terrors of the high seas, Gon and his companions now have to prove their worth in a variety of tests in order to find the elusive Exam Hall. YA Manga Series

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fall of Númenor. Editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middle-earth, told substantially in the words of Tolkien from the various published texts, with new illustrations in watercolor and pencil by the doyen of Tolkien art, Alan Lee. New Fiction

Wolff, Michael. The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty. Meet the Murdochs and the disastrously dysfunctional family of Fox News. Until recently, they formed the most powerful media and political force in the land, for better or worse. Now their empire is cracking up and crashing down. New Nonfiction

Blacke, Olivia. Vinyl Resting Place. When Juni Jessup and her sisters Tansy and Maggie put all their beans in one basket to open Sip & Spin Records, a record-slash-coffee shop in Cedar River, Texas, they knew there could be some scratches on the track, but no one was expecting to find a body deader than disco in the supply closet. New Fiction

Freeman, Amanda and Lisa Dodson. Getting Me Cheap. Two sociologists explore how America traps millions of women and their children into lives of stunted opportunity and poverty in service of giving others of us the lives we seek. New Nonfiction

Hogwarts Legacy. An immersive, open-world RPG set in the world first introduced in the Harry Potter books. Your character is a student who holds the key to an ancient secret that threatens to tear the wizarding world apart. Nintendo Switch Game

Humes, Edward. The Forever Witness. After 30 years, Detective Jim Scharf arrested a teenage couple’s murderer. The groundbreaking method used to crack the case – genetic genealogy – brings up questions of consent and privacy. New Nonfiction

Wesley, Valerie Wilson. A Glimmer of Death. Odessa Jones’ psychic ability doesn’t warn her that she will soon be a widow, or that she is about to lose her home and the catering business she has worked so hard to build. The only things keeping her going are her love for baking and her sometimes-mellow cat, Juniper. Unfortunately, putting her life back together means taking a gig at a shady real estate firm whose owner, it turns out, is about to be brutally murdered. New Fiction

Yukimura, Makoto. Vinland Saga. After growing up listening to the tales of the great Leif Ericson, young Thorfinn is captured and raised to be a warrior by the raiders who killed his family, but he never gives up on his goal of getting revenge on the band’s leader, Askeladd. New Manga Series

Aldredge, Betsy. Eight Dates and Nights. New Yorker Hannah Levin is snowed in at her grandmother’s home in small-town Texas. Super lonely, she wanders into an old deli where she meets the only other Jewish teen around, Noah, who happens to be equal parts adorable and annoying. During the eight days of Hanukkah, he’s determined to share his festival spirit, one itchy sweater at a time. New Fiction

Borison, B.K. Lovelight Farms. A pasture of dead trees. A hostile takeover of the Santa barn by a family of raccoons. And shipments that have mysteriously gone missing. Lovelight Farms is not the magical winter wonderland of Stella Bloom’s dreams. Enter best friend Luka Peters. New Fiction

Clarren, Rebecca. The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance. An award-winning author investigates the entangled history of her Jewish ancestors’ land in South Dakota and the Lakota, who were forced off that land by the United States government. New Nonfiction

Guralnick, Margot and Fan Winston. Remodelista: The Low-Impact Home. Learn how to make planet-friendly choices at home with the design experts behind Remodelista.com. New Nonfiction

Olds, Sharon. Balladz. The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet’s new collection features a section of quarantine poems as well as what she calls “Amherst Balladz,” written in the style of Emily Dickinson. New Poetry Roberts, Lauren.

Powerless. In a kingdom divided by extraordinary powers and a strict caste system, Paedyn Gray, a young girl with no abilities, must hide her ordinary nature as she navigates a forbidden romance with a powerful prince and must participate in the perilous Purging Trials that could reveal her true identity. First in a new series. New YA Fiction

O’Neill, Cara. Everybody’s Guide to Small Claims Court. You don’t need a lawyer to win in small claims court if you know how to prepare and present your case. This book provides info, tips and strategies to sue someone successfully or put up a winning defense in any state. New Nonfiction

Reeves, Roger. Best Barbarian. The poems in this collection roam across the literary and social landscape, from Beowulf’s Grendel to the jazz musician Alice Coltrane, from the U.S.-Mexico border to the fraught beauty of the moon on a summer night after police have killed a Black man. New Poetry

Rozman, Levy. How to Win at Chess. The author, popularly known by his online streaming handle GothamChess, provides practical and easy-to-follow tips for improving your game, including over 500 gameplay illustrations to help you better visualize the board. New Nonfiction

Wels, Susan. An Assassin in Utopia. From 1848 to 1881, upstate New York’s Oneida Community was known for its embrace of open marriage and free love. In 1881, a one-time member of the community assassinated President James Garfield, a brutal crime that shook America to its core. This is the first book that weaves together these explosive stories. New Nonfiction

Winfrey, Kerry. Faking Christmas. When a tiny misunderstanding leads Laurel Grant’s boss to think that Laurel is the owner of a farm that actually belongs to her twin sister, Laurel must pretend to be married to her nemesis, Max, in order to keep the lie going for just one night – or so she thinks. New Fiction

Yi, Esther. Y/N. When her K-pop idol, Moon, suddenly retires and vanishes from the public eye, a Korean American woman living in Berlin acts on her obsession and travels to Seoul to search for him. When she finds him at long last, art and real life converge. New Fiction

Berry, Wendell. The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Chosen by the author, these 100 poems written between 1957 and 1996 reflect the development of Berry’s poetic sensibility over four decades. Poetry

Casey, Susan. The Underworld. Drawing on interviews with marine geologists, marine biologists and oceanographers, Casey provides a fascinating history of deep-sea exploration and shows how urgent it is that we understand the ocean in a time of increasing threats from climate change. New Nonfiction

James, Tania. Loot. Set in 18th-century India, England and France, this sweeping novel follows gifted woodcarver Abbas who embarks on a perilous journey to retrieve the giant wooden tiger he created for Tipu Sultan from an estate in the English countryside, where it is displayed in a collection of plundered art. New Fiction

The Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom. Join Jack and his friends in an epic, post-apocalyptic quest to save our world from the Queen of the Slime Monsters. Nintendo Switch Game

Renner, James. Little, Crazy Children. Drawing on research culled from police files, court records, transcripts, uncollected evidence and new interviews, this gripping work of investigative journalism revisits the 1990 unsolved murder of 16-year-old Lisa Pruett in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, revealing the dark secrets teens tell – and keep. New Nonfiction

Russo, Richard. Somebody’s Fool. When a decomposing body is found in an abandoned hotel between North Bath and Schuyler Springs, police officers Charice Bond and her ex-lover Doug Raymer are drawn together again, while the town’s residents speculate on the identity of the victim and wonder who among their number could’ve disappeared unnoticed. New Fiction

Asteroid City. Junior Stargazers and Space Cadets from across the country assemble for the annual Asteroid Day celebration, but the scholarly competition is spectacularly upended by world-changing events. DVD & Blu-ray

Conklin, Tara. Community Board. A woman moves back into her parents’ empty home after her husband leaves her and spends her days on the town’s internet community board. New Fiction

Groff, Lauren. The Vaster Wilds. Escaping from a colonial settlement in the wilderness, a servant girl, with nothing but her wits, a few possessions and some faith, is tested beyond the limits of her imagination, forcing her to question her belief of everything her own civilization taught her. New Fiction

Leckie, Ann. Translation State. With a long-standing treaty between humans and the dangerous alien Presger on the line, three individuals – the Presger translator Qven, the reluctant diplomat Enae, and the starship mechanic Reet – make decisions that have ripple effects across the stars. New Fiction

Petri, Alexandra. Alexandra Petri’s US History. The Washington Post humor columnist’s “historical fan fiction” draws on real events and completely absurd fabrications to create an irreverent takedown of our nation’s complicated past. New Nonfiction

Stardust, Mercury. Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair. The TikTok “Handy Ma’am” explains how to tackle over 50 simple home maintenance projects, such as replacing showerheads or troubleshooting a faulty garbage disposal. New Nonfiction

Catton, Eleanor. Birnam Wood. The founder of a guerilla gardening group that plants crops on roadsides, parks and neglected yards fights an enigmatic billionaire over a parcel of land. New Fiction

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Still reeling from the loss of Gamora, Peter Quill must rally his team to defend the universe and protect one of their own. If the mission is not completely successful, it could possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them. DVD

Lacey, Catherine. Biography of X. X – an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter – falls dead in her office. X’s widow, CM, wild with grief and refusing everyone’s good advice, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified, opening a Pandora’s box of secrets, betrayals and destruction. New Fiction

McBride, James. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. Pottstown, Pennsylvania, 1972: a skeleton is found at the bottom of the well. The question of who it was and how it got there threatens secrets long-kept by residents of Chicken Hill, a dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans live side by side. New Fiction

Moreno-Garcia, Silvia. Silver Nitrate. When Montserrat and her best friend, Tristan, agree to help a cult horror director shoot the missing scene from a film he never finished, they start seeing strange things. They may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies. New Fiction

Vlahos, Hadley. The In-Between. A hospice nurse shows that end-of-life care can teach us just as much about how to live as it does about how we die, sharing moving stories of joy, wisdom and redemption from her patients’ final moments while offering wisdom and comfort for those dealing with loss. New Nonfiction