Families

A wave of wonderful new online tools, like the HeritageQuest database from ProQuest, makes doing your family history research much easier than it used to be! Here’s why:

The key to accessing your ancestors is accessing documents, the paper records they left behind as they went through life. You’ll need to look for your relatives in all kinds of documents, like birth, marriage, and death registers; cemetery rosters; and military service records. To locate all these records and get a complete picture of your heritage, you’ll have to visit lots of different libraries, archives, courthouses, and cemeteries.

This is where HeritageQuest becomes a real lifesaver for you because it provides easy at-home access to all kinds of documents, all in one place!

A few weeks ago a friend of mine told me about Awkward Family Photos. This is a collection of photos that I would probably have burned if I had some of these for my family.  However, these families bravely submitted them for the world to see.

Sometimes the reason for the awkward moment hits you in the face, but then there are others that you really have to look carefully at the picture and what is happening in the background to figure out what is funny about the photo. When I realized what is “special” about the photo I felt stupid for not noticing it right away.

Piper Reed, Navy Brat, by Kimberly Willis Holt, is a great beginning to a fun new series!   

I absolutely love Piper Reed! She is a spunky 10 year old with lots of personality.  Piper doesn’t let the fact that she doesn’t read as well as everyone else in her class (she is dyslexic) get her down.  And neither does moving--well, not for long, anyway.  Her Dad is in the Navy, and so they move a lot.  Sometimes it’s really exciting, like when they go someplace overseas, but now they are moving to Florida and Piper isn’t sure she really wants to.  She has a great group of friends in her “club,” but she decides she’ll just have to start a new club in Florida! 

Does your town have an elusive creature called an abaguchie roaming around and causing trouble? The abaguchie is the local legend in the town of Buckman, West Virginia. Ever since the Malloy girls moved across the street from the Hatford boys it has been a constant war of practical jokes and attempts at humiliating the other. The Hatford boys Jake, Josh, Wally and Peter just cannot stand Eddie, Beth and Caroline Malloy and want them to go back to Ohio. They scheme and plot in order to make the Malloy girls hate Buckman. However, the Malloy girls do not take this lying down and vow to get even.

The newest Hatford scheme is actually a town legend and that is the abaguchie. No one in Buckman has actually gotten a good look at the abaguchie but things mysteriously disappear when a townsperson has claimed to have seen it. The Hatford’s use the legend of the abaguchie to scare the Malloy girls and it is a running theme throughout the book.

Headquarters Theater, Friday, April 23, 4:15-5:00. 
Grades K-6.
Call 540-372-1144 to sign up now!  

Looking for a way to learn more about recycling and how to take care of Mother Earth?

Bring your family and enjoy skits, crafts, games, face painting, and activities sponsored by various local community groups at our Earth Day celebration! 
We are pleased to welcome the fun folks from Caledon Natural Area State Park, Friends of the Rappahannock, R-Board, Fredericksburg Parks and Recreation, Master Gardeners, Virginia Tech Extension Office. Thanks to the Virginia Cooperative Extension Office, each child will receive a free seedling!

Organized by CRRL’s own Teen Council!

Our libraries will be closed on Thanksgiving and the day after, so now's the time to pick up some reading to take you through the holiday. We have many cookbooks to help plan the feast, but of our other collections these three books tell stories especially true to life and true to the heart to help make your holiday a warm one.

It's time to stand in line and complain about the high cost of school supplies. Parents groan, whip out their pieces of plastic, gnash their teeth, and pay up. It's what we do every year. Even after checking for the best sales and rebates, the total is still hard to take. But this is what we have to do. And yet, have you ever considered that you are lucky to be able to do it at all?
Read on for ways you can help less fortunate kids get the supplies they need.