Story time at Delaware County District Library

As you prob­a­bly know, the Delaware County Dis­trict Library offers story times for infants, tod­dlers and preschool­ers at all of our loca­tions. In fact, among the Main, Orange, Pow­ell and Ostran­der branches, you can choose from 17 dif­fer­ent story times, pre­sented by nine dif­fer­ent librar­i­ans, mak­ing it easy to find the per­fect pro­gram for your lit­tle one. The library also offers pro­grams for older kids as well as adults. At the Delaware (Main) Library, fam­i­lies of all vari­eties are invited to “Right on the Money,” part of the “Mak­ing Cents” finan­cial lit­er­acy pro­grams, 6:30 p.m. Tues­day, Sept. 27. Also at 7 p.m. Sept. 27, the Orange Branch staff will offer the fam­ily pro­gram “Super­hero Train­ing Camp.”

The Orange Branch has two Teen Pro­grams sched­uled in the upcom­ing weeks, too. At 7 p.m. Thurs­day, Sept. 29, the “Teen Soap Mak­ing Work­shop” will be held. (Please note: Pre­reg­is­tra­tion is required to attend this pro­gram. Call the branch at 740–549-2665.) “Stress Less for Teens,” to be at 7 p.m. Mon­day, Oct. 3, is a pro­gram to intro­duce teens to basic yoga. If your child has an inter­est in learn­ing how to cook, she should plan to attend the “Kids Cook­ing Club” at the Ostran­der Branch at 7 p.m. Thurs­day, Sept. 29. French cook­ing will be the focus of this program.

Finally, the Adult Book Dis­cus­sion groups con­tinue to meet to talk about some won­der­ful books. The Delaware (Main) Library group will tackle The Brief Won­drous Life of Oscar Woo by Junot Diaz at 7:30 p.m. Wednes­day, Sept. 28. Out­liers by Mal­colm Glad­well will be the book up for dis­cus­sion at the Pow­ell Branch on Sept. 27; Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue is the fea­tured book at the Orange Branch on Sept. 28; and the Ostran­der book dis­cus­sion will focus on Swamp­lan­dia by Karen Rus­sell, also on Sept. 27. These three dis­cus­sions begin at 7 p.m. Check out the library’s quar­terly newslet­ter, or visit delawarelibrary.org for more infor­ma­tion on these programs.

What is the dif­fer­ence between a hog and a pig?

World Book Ency­clo­pe­dia explains that a hog is a farm ani­mal raised through­out the world. These ani­mals pro­vide pork to eat, and the fat, skin, hair, glands and other parts of hogs are used to make a vari­ety of prod­uct, such as lard, leather, brushes, soap, fer­til­izer, glue and med­i­cines. There is no dif­fer­ence between a hog and a pig; both young and adult hogs are also called pigs or swine, and young hogs are almost always called pigs.

Where did the term “bumper crop” come from?

These are my favorite types of ques­tions! The Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary offers this def­i­n­i­tion: The orig­i­nal bumper was a large cup, filled to the brim with wine, and used for toast­ing. Why it is called a bumper is a bit uncer­tain, but could be from the idea of knock­ing such glasses together dur­ing a toast. Bumper even­tu­ally came to refer to any­thing large or abundant.

What is a “fight-or-flight” response?

Adren­a­line or epi­neph­rine is a hor­mone and neu­ro­trans­mit­ter pro­duced by the adrenal glands that par­tic­i­pates in the ner­vous system’s “fight-or-flight response” to sit­u­a­tions that are high-stress, dan­ger­ous and/or phys­i­cally exhil­a­rat­ing. This release is an evo­lu­tion­ary adap­ta­tion that allows us to bet­ter cope with these sit­u­a­tions. Accord­ing to The Ency­clo­pe­dia of the Human Body, upon its release into the body, adren­a­line binds to a vari­ety of adren­er­gic recep­tors and causes sev­eral meta­bolic changes, like inhi­bi­tion of insulin secre­tion and pro­mo­tion of glucagon secre­tion by the pan­creas. These changes and oth­ers together lead to increased blood glu­cose and fatty acids in the body and more energy pro­duc­tion within the body’s cells. The release of adren­a­line fur­ther results in an increased heart rate, con­tracted blood ves­sels and dilated air pas­sages. Ulti­mately, these changes allow more blood to get to the mus­cles and get more oxy­gen to the lungs quickly — so your phys­i­cal per­for­mance improves and you’re primed to either flee from dan­ger or defend yourself.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing the library’s web site at delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked.