By Dan Eells, deells@newtonplks.org Sunflower eLibrary, Hoopla, Cloud Library, and RB Digital are full of mystery ebooks and audiobooks you can borrow digitally. In The Case Files, I will break down some popular mystery sub-genres and give you some great recommendations to read. In part one, I’m highlighting historical mystery. What is historical mystery? Simply…
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By Sam Jack, sjack@newtonplks.org Today, National Geographic is best-known for photo features that transport readers to remote corners of the world. But the first issue of the magazine, published in October 1888, didn’t have any photos at all. “Nat Geo” began its history as a rather dry scholarly journal. The first National Geographic photo feature,…
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By Dan Eells, deells@newtonplks.org Dan here with another weekend list of must-watch movies and TV shows on Hoopla! This weekend, I’m highlighting movies based on books! (Hoopla is available free with your library card. Don’t have a library card? You can sign up via email or Facebook message.) Mr. Holmes (2015) (PG) From Hoopla: See the world’s…
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By Sharon Cepeda, scepeda@newtonplks.org Many middle-grade audio books are among the “bonus borrows” (they don’t count toward your monthly choices) available now on Hoopla. Hoopla is one of the digital resources provided free with a Newton Public Library card. Email the library if you need help getting started with Hoopla (library@newtonplks.org), or join Dan for video…
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By Dan Eells, deells@newtonplks.org Make this Friday night a movie night: I have gone through the Hoopla movie catalog and found some gems for you or your family to watch. (Hoopla is available free with your library card. Don’t have a library card? You can sign up via email or Facebook message.) Carrie (2002) (TV-14)…
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By Sam Jack, sjack@newtonplks.org NOTE TO READERS: This article first appeared in the April 2020 issue of East Wichita News and WestSide Story. To research it, I used a database of historic newspapers from the Kansas State Historical Society – readily accessible from home. Stay tuned for a video where I’ll explain how you can…
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By Sam Jack, sjack@newtonplks.org Each year, libraries, schools, and individual poetry-lovers celebrate April as National Poetry Month. That’s why Newton Public Library’s staff chose “Read a Book of Poetry” as the April challenge for NPL’s 2020 Reading Challenge. When we planned out the 2020 Reading Challenge, none of us knew that April would dawn as…
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Allyson Krehbiel contributed this patron book review. Thank you Allyson! When I saw March’s reading challenge to re-read a book that you read in school, I immediately knew what book I had to read again. In 6th grade, I was assigned to read Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. Initially, I remembered being hopeful.…
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By Dan Eells, deells@newtonplks.org Now through April 30, Hoopla is offering more than 1,000 “Bonus Borrows”—books, movies and music you can check out without using one of your four monthly borrows. In case you’re not familiar with Hoopla: Unlike the ebooks and e-audiobooks in the Sunflower eLibrary, titles on Hoopla are available on-demand, so you…
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Cathy Anderson contributed this patron book review. Thank you Cathy! I’m enjoying the mystery-adventure-historical fiction novels by Colin Cotterill. They are set in 1970s Laos, soon after Laotian communists come to power. The protagonist is Dr. Siri Paiboun, an aged French-trained surgeon unwillingly assigned to be the national (and only) coroner of Laos. He discovers…
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