Upcoming programs and events
Bird Walk with Dave Brown
Come see who’s singing in the treetops in East Craftsbury this spring! Dave Brown will guide us on a walk down Whetstone Brook Road, to look and listen for springtime birds. We’ll meet up to start at the library. We’ve got two pairs of binoculars available for checkout, or bring your own.
French conversation hour
This is an informal space to practice and hear French, build community, and be okay with making mistakes. All levels welcome! Facilitated by Marie Turmel.
Spanish conversation hour and potluck
Conversation hour is open to anyone who is looking for a space to practice or hear Spanish and build community. This is an informal space for us to create relationships and be okay with making mistakes. All levels are welcome and bringing food is not necessary for participation! Conversation hour will be every other Sunday from 1 - 2pm. Supported by a Spark Connecting Community grant from the Vermont Community Foundation.
Bilingual (Spanish-English) early literacy playgroup
This playgroup happens every week on Sundays from 2-3pm and is open to any littles accompanied by their adults who want to engage with Spanish and English through play and hands-on learning. There is no commitment needed for this and anyone is welcome to show up as they are. Intended for children 4-9 years old.
Fiber crafternoon
Whether you are knitting or sewing, sketching or rug-hooking, bring your project to this informal gathering and visit with other makers. This group meets every other week.
French conversation hour
This is an informal space to practice and hear French, build community, and be okay with making mistakes. All levels welcome! Facilitated by Marie Turmel.
French conversation hour
This is an informal space to practice and hear French, build community, and be okay with making mistakes. All levels welcome! Facilitated by Marie Turmel.
Spanish conversation hour and potluck
Conversation hour is open to anyone who is looking for a space to practice or hear Spanish and build community. This is an informal space for us to create relationships and be okay with making mistakes. All levels are welcome and bringing food is not necessary for participation! Conversation hour will be every other Sunday from 1 - 2pm. Supported by a Spark Connecting Community grant from the Vermont Community Foundation.
Travel adventure book group
The book this month is Without Reservations: Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach.
About the book (from Good Reads):
"In many ways, I was an independent woman," writes Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Alice Steinbach. “For years I’d made my own choices, paid my own bills, shoveled my own snow.” But somehow she had become dependent in quite another way. “I had fallen into the habit of defining myself in terms of who I was to other people and what they expected of me.” But who was she away from the people and things that defined her? In this exquisite book, Steinbach searches for the answer to this question in some of the most beautiful and exciting places in the world: Paris, where she finds a soul mate; Oxford, where she takes a course on the English village; Milan, where she befriends a young woman about to be married. Beautifully illustrated with postcards from Steinbach’s journeys, this revealing and witty book transports you into a fascinating inner and outer journey, an unforgettable voyage of discovery.
Fiber crafternoon
Whether you are knitting or sewing, sketching or rug-hooking, bring your project to this informal gathering and visit with other makers. This group meets every other week.
Monster Lab: A writing workshop with GennaRose Nethercott
What defines a monster? Dreadful deeds, claws and teeth, supernatural strangeness? Are monsters villains to be vanquished, or simply misunderstood outsiders? Join author and folklorist GennaRose Nethercott as we examine what makes a paranormal creature tick—and then, we'll use those tools to invent new monsters of our own. This workshop is free, but space is limited- register early by emailing jwsimpsonmemorial@gmail.com, or call 802-586-9692.
Author visit: GennaRose Nethercott
Join Vermont author GennaRose Nethercott for a reading from her new book of short stories, Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart. The reading will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. Note: this program will take place at the East Craftsbury Presbyterian Church.
Bilingual (Spanish-English) early literacy playgroup
This playgroup happens every week on Sundays from 2-3pm and is open to any littles accompanied by their adults who want to engage with Spanish and English through play and hands-on learning. There is no commitment needed for this and anyone is welcome to show up as they are. Intended for children 4-9 years old.
French conversation hour
This is an informal space to practice and hear French, build community, and be okay with making mistakes. All levels welcome! Facilitated by Marie Turmel.
Fiber crafternoons: trollen wheels
Join us for this informal gathering to make things, every other week. All creative projects welcome, from knitting to sketching to rug hooking. This week, Carson Bailey will show us how to make a braided cord using a wooden trollen wheel. Everyone will go home with their own trollen wheel, while supplies last!
Community ASL class and social hour
This is an ongoing class with Tiana Baca and Stuart Soboleski. The class is fully enrolled. Please contact us if you’d like to be on the mailing list for future ASL learning and conversation opportunities.
Active Listening: a workshop with Scott Noyes
As family members, child care providers, and teachers, Active Listening may be the most powerful interaction we have with children. Through reflection and acceptance, children begin to feel understood. Then true problem solving can begin. To be held at the East Craftsbury Presbyterian Church.
Bilingual (Spanish-English) playgroup
This playgroup happens every week on Sundays from 2-3pm and is open to any littles accompanied by their adults who want to engage with Spanish through play and hands-on learning. There is no commitment needed for this and anyone is welcome to show up as they are. Intended for children 4-9 years old.
Spanish conversation hour and potluck
Conversation hour is open to anyone who is looking for a space to practice or hear Spanish and build community. This is an informal space for us to create relationships and be okay with making mistakes. All levels are welcome and bringing food is not necessary for participation! Conversation hour will be every other Sunday from 1 - 2pm. Supported by a Spark Connecting Community grant from the Vermont Community Foundation.
French conversation hour
This is an informal space to practice and hear French, build community, and be okay with making mistakes. All levels welcome! Facilitated by Marie Turmel.
Kids Crafts in East Crafts: Trollen wheels
Learn how to braid using a wooden trollen wheel, to create colorful cords and bracelets. Everyone will go home with a trollen wheel of their own. At the Simpson Library in East Craftsbury. Free. For more info, call 802-586-9692 or email jwsimpsonmemorial@gmail.com
Community ASL class and social hour
This is an ongoing class with Tiana Baca and Stuart Soboleski. The class is fully enrolled. Please contact us if you’d like to be on the mailing list for future ASL learning and conversation opportunities.
Bilingual (Spanish-English) playgroup
This playgroup happens every week on Sundays from 3-4pm and is open to any littles accompanied by their adults who want to engage with Spanish through play and hands-on learning. There is no commitment needed for this and anyone is welcome to show up as they are. Intended for children 4-9 years old.
French conversation hour
This is an informal space to practice and hear French, build community, and be okay with making mistakes. All levels welcome! Facilitated by Marie Turmel.
Fiber Crafternoon
Join this group every other week in East Craftsbury for a time to knit, mend, sketch, write, hook, do needlework, chat and have tea together. All are welcome.
Community ASL class and social hour
This is an ongoing class with Tiana Baca and Stuart Soboleski. The class is fully enrolled. Please contact us if you’d like to be on the mailing list for future ASL learning and conversation opportunities.
Bilingual (Spanish-English) playgroup
This playgroup happens every week on Sundays from 3-4pm and is open to any littles accompanied by their adults who want to engage with Spanish through play and hands-on learning. There is no commitment needed for this and anyone is welcome to show up as they are. Intended for children 4-9 years old.
Spanish conversation hour and potluck
Conversation hour is open to anyone who is looking for a space to practice or hear Spanish and build community. This is an informal space for us to create relationships and be okay with making mistakes. All levels are welcome and bringing food is not necessary for participation! Conversation hour will be every other Sunday from 1 - 2pm. Supported by a Spark Connecting Community grant from the Vermont Community Foundation.
Community ASL class and social hour
This is an ongoing class with Tiana Baca and Stuart Soboleski. The class is fully enrolled. Please contact us if you’d like to be on the mailing list for future ASL learning and conversation opportunities.
Bilingual (Spanish-English) playgroup
This playgroup happens every week on Sundays from 3-4pm and is open to any littles accompanied by their adults who want to engage with Spanish through play and hands-on learning. There is no commitment needed for this and anyone is welcome to show up as they are. Intended for children 4-9 years old.
Fiber crafternoon
Join this group every other week in East Craftsbury for a time to knit, mend, sketch, write, hook, do needlework, chat and have tea together. All are welcome.
Travel adventure book group
This month, the travel adventure book group is reading The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe by Glynis Ridley
Books available at the library!
More about the book:
The year was 1765. Eminent botanist Philibert Commerson had just been appointed to a grand new the first French circumnavigation of the world. As the ships’ official naturalist, Commerson would seek out resources—medicines, spices, timber, food—that could give the French an edge in the ever-accelerating race for empire.
Jeanne Baret, Commerson’s young mistress and collaborator, was desperate not to be left behind. She disguised herself as a teenage boy and signed on as his assistant. The journey made the twenty-six-year-old, known to her shipmates as “Jean” rather than “Jeanne,” the first woman to ever sail around the globe. Yet so little is known about this extraordinary woman, whose accomplishments were considered to be subversive, even impossible for someone of her sex and class.
When the ships made landfall and the secret lovers disembarked to explore, Baret carried heavy wooden field presses and bulky optical instruments over beaches and hills, impressing observers on the ships’ decks with her obvious strength and stamina. Less obvious were the strips of linen wound tight around her upper body and the months she had spent perfecting her masculine disguise in the streets and marketplaces of Paris.
Expedition commander Louis-Antoine de Bougainville recorded in his journal that curious Tahitian natives exposed Baret as a woman, eighteen months into the voyage. But the true story, it turns out, is more complicated.
In The Discovery of Jeanne Baret, Glynis Ridley unravels the conflicting accounts recorded by Baret’s crewmates to piece together the real how Baret’s identity was in fact widely suspected within just a couple of weeks of embarking, and the painful consequences of those suspicions; the newly discovered notebook, written in Baret’s own hand, that proves her scientific acumen; and the thousands of specimens she collected, most famously the showy vine bougainvillea.
Ridley also richly explores Baret’s awkward, sometimes dangerous interactions with the men on the ship, including Baret’s lover, the obsessive and sometimes prickly naturalist; a fashion-plate prince who, with his elaborate wigs and velvet garments, was often mistaken for a woman himself; the sour ship’s surgeon, who despised Baret and Commerson; even a Tahitian islander who joined the expedition and asked Baret to show him how to behave like a Frenchman.
But the central character of this true story is Jeanne Baret herself, a working-class woman whose scientific contributions were quietly dismissed and written out of history—until now. Anchored in impeccable original research and bursting with unforgettable characters and exotic settings, The Discovery of Jeanne Baret offers this forgotten heroine a chance to bloom at long last.
Bilingual playgroup (Spanish-English)
This playgroup will happen every week on Sundays from 3-4pm and is open to any littles accompanied by their adults who want to engage with Spanish through play and hands-on learning. There is no commitment needed for this and anyone is welcome to show up as they are. Intended for children 4-9 years old.
Fiber Crafternoon
Join this group every other week in East Craftsbury for a time to knit, mend, sketch, write, hook, do needlework, chat and have tea together. All are welcome.
Community ASL class and social hour
This is an ongoing class with Tiana Baca and Stuart Soboleski. The class is fully enrolled. Please contact us if you’d like to be on the mailing list for future ASL learning and conversation opportunities.
Bilingual playgroup (Spanish-English)
This playgroup will happen every week on Sundays from 3-4pm and is open to any littles accompanied by their adults who want to engage with Spanish through play and hands-on learning. There is no commitment needed for this and anyone is welcome to show up as they are. Intended for children 4-9 years old.
Spanish conversation hour and potluck
Conversation hour is open to anyone who is looking for a space to practice or hear Spanish and build community. This is an informal space for us to create relationships and be okay with making mistakes. All levels are welcome and bringing food is not necessary for participation! Conversation hour will be every other Sunday from 1 - 2pm. Supported by a Spark Connecting Community grant from the Vermont Community Foundation.
Fiber Crafternoon
Join this group every other week in East Craftsbury for a time to knit, mend, sketch, write, hook, do needlework, chat and have tea together. All are welcome.
Spanish conversation hour and potluck
Conversation hour is open to anyone who is looking for a space to practice or hear Spanish and build community. This is an informal space for us to create relationships and be okay with making mistakes. All levels are welcome and bringing food is not necessary for participation! Conversation hour will be every other Sunday from 1 - 2pm. Supported by a Spark Connecting Community grant from the Vermont Community Foundation.
Community ASL class and social hour
This is an ongoing class with Tiana Baca and Stuart Soboleski. The class is fully enrolled. Please contact us if you’d like to be on the mailing list for future ASL learning and conversation opportunities.