Library kicks off summer reading program

The Delaware County Dis­trict Library’s Sum­mer Read­ing Club offi­cially kicks off today and tomor­row at all library loca­tions. The kick-off par­ties fea­ture jug­glers and magi­cians, as well as give­aways, refresh­ments and pro­gram­ming information.

At the Ostran­der and Orange branches, the par­ties will be at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. today, respec­tively and fea­ture musi­cian Jim Gill; at Pow­ell and Delaware Branches, the par­ties will be at 2 p.m. tomor­row and fea­ture jug­glers Matt Jer­gens and David Kaplan.

Out­stand­ing pro­grams for chil­dren of all ages con­tinue through­out the sum­mer, with reg­u­larly sched­uled Baby Times, Tod­dler Times and Preschool Story Times at all loca­tions. For the some­what older school-aged crowd, spe­cial pro­grams are offered as well. A list of the pro­grams with detailed infor­ma­tion on each can be found on the library’s web­site at delawarelibrary.org or in the lat­est edi­tion of our newslet­ter, “Check It Out!”

We don’t want the teenagers in our com­mu­nity to feel left out, either. The Delaware Branch will have a “Mus­tache Bash” at 3 p.m. June 12, the Pow­ell Branch is prepar­ing a pup­pet show and has rehearsals through­out June with the per­for­mance on Sat­ur­day, June 23. Teens at the Orange Branch are invited at 2 p.m. June 12 to “Stamp­ing 101,” and in Ostran­der, there’s a fon­due party with cheese and choco­late at 7 p.m. June 21.

There are lots of enter­tain­ing, edu­ca­tional, inspi­ra­tional and fun pro­grams this sum­mer as we invite you and your fam­ily to “Dream Big: Read!”

What is pooktre?

I started search­ing in World Book Ency­clo­pe­dia for a def­i­n­i­tion since I had no idea what pook­tre is. Sim­ply speak­ing, pook­tre is tree shap­ing, also known as arborsculp­ture and tree train­ing, the prac­tice of train­ing liv­ing trees and other woody plants into artis­tic shapes and use­ful struc­tures. There are a few dif­fer­ent meth­ods of achiev­ing a shaped tree, which share a com­mon her­itage with other artis­tic hor­ti­cul­tural and agri­cul­tural prac­tices, such as pleach­ing, bon­sai, espalier and top­i­ary, and employ­ing some sim­i­lar tech­niques. Most artists use graft­ing to delib­er­ately induce the union of liv­ing trunks, branches and roots into artis­tic designs or func­tional structures.

Why don’t spi­ders get caught in their own webs?

Accord­ing to Smith­son­ian Mag­a­zine, spi­der webs have non-sticky lines (the spokes) con­nect­ing to the sticky lines that link the spokes. When build­ing their webs, spi­ders take care to touch the sticky lines with only parts of their legs that have a chem­i­cal coat­ing and branch­ing hairs that reduce adhe­sion. After­ward, they avoid the sticky lines as much as possible.

Can Queen Eliz­a­beth “retire” from being queen or does she have to die for suc­ces­sion to happen?

The Queen can­not retire from being queen. She will remain the queen until her death, unless she abdi­cates the throne. Abdi­ca­tion is dif­fer­ent than retire­ment because not only would she lose the throne, but her descen­dants would also lose eli­gi­bil­ity. Such a sce­nario occurred in 1936 when King Edward VIII abdi­cated the throne in order to marry Wal­lis Simp­son. His Majesty’s Dec­la­ra­tion of Abdi­ca­tion Act 1936 allowed King Edward to abdi­cate the throne and suc­ces­sion was passed to his brother Prince Albert. As a con­se­quence, Edward’s descen­dants are excluded from the suc­ces­sion. Ref­er­ence librar­ian Andrew Mayer found this infor­ma­tion on the offi­cial British monar­chy web­site, royal.gov.uk.

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 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delaware library.org . No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!

Posted by Mary Santos on Jun 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.