Message from Friends’ President Susan Pantages

After a brave fight our friend Helen Lin passed on Friday, August 5. Helen has been a dedicated volunteer of our bookstores, held many positions, and has been our invaluable  treasurer for many years.  She was always dedicated to working to make our Diamond Bar Library the best it can be. 

There are some who bring a light so great to the world that even after they have gone the light remains.  Rest in peace our Friend.

Four Seasons Book Group

Our Fall Four Seasons Book Group meeting will be on Saturday, October 1, 11 am at the Diamond Bar Library Windmill Room and we will be discussing Wild Bird by Wendelin Van Draanen, the annual selection for Read Together Diamond Bar. October 1 will be only our second meeting of this new book group sponsored by the Friends of the Diamond Bar Library. Everyone is encouraged to join us for a lively discussion and great camaraderie with fellow book lovers. Wild Bird is an Adult and Teen selection and can be read and discussed with all ages. The book is a remarkable portrait of Wren, a young girl who has hit rock bottom but begins a climb back to herself as a wilderness camp.

Valuable Thoughts On Libraries From California State Librarian Greg Lucas

(Continued from July e-newsletter)….So why isn’t there a literacy AmeriCorps or a Red Team for kids who aren’t reading to a third grade level?  If kids aren’t reading at a third grade level in third grade, a big stack of studies says their life trajectory is likely to angle sharply downward, particularly if they are kids of color or live in what is euphemistically called “under-served communities.” 

Clearly there needs to be better coordination between schools and other players in the reading and literacy world.  This is nothing but good that comes from investing in libraries and literacy.  In fact, studies say for every dollar invested, the return is $5 or more.  Libraries are what community centers wish they could be.  Libraries are certainly the happiest face a city or county can present.  On any given day. There are 100,000 different in-person programs being conducted in California’s libraries.  Everything from tax preparation to yoga to ukulele lessons to toddler story times to learning what all those darn apps are on the smartphone we totally ignore.

What I see in libraries makes me optimistic about the future, as I’m sure it does you.  It also makes me realize how much we can do to improve that future by meaningful and sustained investment by the State and Local government in libraries and libraries.

Gently Used Purse Sale

Perhaps you could go through your closets and see if you have any “gently used” purses that you would like to see going to a new home. There are receptacles in the Diamond Bar

Library waiting to receive them. They will be offered for sale at the Gently Used Purse Sale on Saturday, October 22 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Diamond Bar Library Windmill Room. Of course, all the proceeds from the sale go directly to the Diamond Bar Library for materials, programs, DVDs, etc. This is always a fun day checking out the purses, purchasing them and knowing that it all goes to help our community library.

 Friends of the Library Bookstore News

August 2022

Thank you for supporting the Friends of the Library Bookstore

Each book and item sold in the bookstore supports the Diamond Bar Library to enlarge our reading and media collections. Improving literacy in our community one book at a time. The Friends have purchased over 2,000 new books for the Diamond Bar Library collection in 2022.

The bookstore volunteers say thank you to all who have donated gently used books for others to enjoy. Donations assist us in keeping our inventory refreshed for the community to enjoy. Our August summer reading book sale is all Fiction Novels Authors with last names starting N through Z.

Hardbacks and Soft covers books $1.00 / Paperbacks 2 for a $1.00

We have a new sign above our door. We invite you to visit, see our new sign, and place your entry for the Summer Opportunity Basket. This is a free raffle, for each transaction, to thank our customers for their support of our bookstore. Friends’ board member, Mary Kay Nichols assembles these beautiful baskets. The next drawing will be Monday, August 15 and the winner will be notified by telephone.

“A true friend is like a good book; the inside is better than the cover”

….Anonymous

Bookstore hours are:

Monday        11 am - 5 pm

Tuesday         11 am – 5 pm

Wednesday   11 am – 5 pm

Thursday       11 am to 5 pm

Friday            11 am - 5 pm

Saturday         11 am – 5 pm

How A Book Changed My Life

Teen Essay Contest

This annual essay contest is offered in conjunction with Read Together Diamond and is open to students ages 13 to 18. It should be approximately 1,000 words and there will be prizes for the top three essays. The deadline for submissions is November 1 and the students will be notified by November 10. Look for more information on the essay contest applications in the coming months.

Read Together Diamond Bar Coming Soon! 

Read Together Diamond Bar is held each year in the Fall to celebrate reading and community. We are inviting everyone in the community to read the same book and then offer activities for every age.

The Bad Seed by Jory John and Pete Oswald is suggested for children to read. There is a bad seed. A baaaaaaaad seed. How bad? Do you really want to know? Can a bad seed change his baaaaaaaad? Read this book with your children and find out. 

The adult and teen selection, Wild Bird, is from the award-winning author of The Running Dream and Flipped comes a remarkable portrait of a girl who has hit rock bottom but begins a climb back to herself at a wilderness survival camp.

3:47 a.m. That’s when they come for Wren Clemmens. She’s hustled out of her house and into a waiting car, then a plane, and then taken on a forced march into the desert. This is what happens to kids who’ve gone so far off the rails, their parents don’t know what to do with them anymore. This is wilderness therapy camp. Eight weeks of survivalist camping in the desert. Eight weeks to turn your life around. Yeah, right.

The Wren who arrives in the Utah desert is angry and bitter, and blaming everyone but herself. But angry can’t put up a tent. And bitter won’t start a fire. Wren’s going to have to admit she needs help if she’s going to survive.

"I read Wild Bird in one long mesmerized gulp. Wren will break your heart—and then mend it." —Nancy Werlin, National Book Award finalist for The Rules of Survival

"Van Draanen’s Wren is real and relatable, and readers will root for her." —VOYA, starred review

Source: Publisher

The author, Wendelin Van Draanen was born on January 6, 1965, in Chicago, Illinois. She is the daughter of chemists who emigrated from Holland. She worked as a math teacher and then as a computer science teacher before becoming an author. Wendelin Van Draanen began her writing career with a screenplay and soon switched to adult novels and then children's books. She is best known for her Sammy Keyes series of novels, which she started writing in 1997, featuring a teenage detective named Samantha Keyes. Her popular Sammy Keyes series had been nominated four times for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Children's Mystery and won with "Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief". Her Shredderman series also yielded a Christopher Medal for Secret Identity. She has also authored several novels such as: How I Survived Being a Girl and Flipped.

From The Book Nook

“WE LOSE OURSELVES IN BOOKS. WE SOMETIMES FIND OURSELVES THERE TOO.”

Do you have books that you are reading that you would like to share? We would love to hear from you for our upcoming e-newsletters. You can reply to this email with your selections.

¯ From Claremont Library Friends’ President Lanore Pearlman

Claremont Library Bookstore Midsummer

Half-Price Sale—August 1-31

You will find a full complement of summer reading selections with a month-long half-price sale. Everything on burgundy shelves or carts is up for grabs.

Classics are a specialty of the store:  a particularly good spot for students to stock up on prospective summer reading titles. Besides books, there are CDs, DVDs and audio books, as well as special video tapes and, yes, records. The library is open when the library is open so check their website for hours.

¯ From California State Librarian Greg Lucas

Currently Reading: SHADOWFIRE by Tanith Lee

Recently Read: WORLD WAR I AT HOME: READINGS ON AMERICAN LIFE, 1914-1920 by David Trask

Waiting to Read: A Walk on the Beach by Joan Anderson

¯ From Dana Cox

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

Throughout her blockbuster career, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult has seamlessly blended nuanced characters, riveting plots and rich prose. This book is unlike anything she has written before and, I think, it is the best book I have read this year.

¯ From Pui-Ching Ho, Community Library Manager

Bunny’s book club
by Bruce Annie Silvestro
Bunny loves reading so much that he begins sneaking into the library at night to borrow books, and soon his friends want to join him. Ages:  3-6

¯ From Janet Ramirez-Manchan, Teen Librarian
The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson

Alice Oglilvie is obsessed with the mystery ovels of Agatha Christie so when her x-boyfriend is accused of murdering his new girlfriend, the most popular girl in school, she teams up with her tutor, Iris Adams, to prove his innocence by finding the real murderer. Along the way the pair stumble onto unexpected mysteries in their small town. This Agatha Christie inspired mystery is witty and full of twists and turns.

From Bill McCarthy: 

We Are the Mutants:  Resistance and Reaction in American Film from ROSEMARY’S BABY to LETHEL WEAPON  by Kelly Roberts

 (Kelly is the son of one of our wonderful Friends’ Bookstore volunteers, Sandi Roberts)

If you enjoy movies, don’t miss reading this new newly published book. It is an offbeat odyssey through the most daring and disruptive phase of American cinema since the advent of sound—during the most transformative and  tumultuous period of American history since the Civil War.

¯ From Kathleen Newe: 

I enjoyed  Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka very much. It is  a best seller in Japan and now there is a first-run movie with Brad Pitt coming out this week. It is hard to imagine Brad Pitt as one of the characters, but I will reserve judgement until I see the film.

¯ From Barbara Johnson:

 I am enjoying Kathleen/Catherine, Detective Donas’ Cold Case for two reasons:  first it is a particularly good story and second because the author, Ellen M. Foss is my sister. Kathleen/Catherine is a twenty-three-old unsolved mystery. The story has infinite amounts of intriguing mystery, love and undying loyalty, as well as an ending with all the heartbreak that one can expect from any hidden truth.

¯ From Karen Gerloff and the Reading Between the Lines Book Group:  A lively discussion was had for The Maid by Nita Prose.  We are looking forward to our August 29 meeting to discuss Never Forsaken by Cindy Scott.  The author will join us that evening recounting her mother’s true story of being a young woman in the Philippines as World War II begins. She flees to the hills among the Moros, then is  captured and becomes a Japanese POW, escapes and hides in the mountains and rain forests.  This is a story of faith, courage and survival.

¯ Do not forget to check out all the great programs available through the Los Angeles County Library and at the Diamond Bar Library. Summer Reading Programs for children, teens and adults.