MAINE AUTHOR VALERIE REID – SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1 @ 2:00 PM

We hope you will join us for our first Author Talk of 2025. Local favorite, Valerie Reid, will be here at Graves Library on Saturday, February 1 @ 2:00 pm to read from her memoir, One Stop West of Hinsdale: Love Derailed in a Sixties Suburb. This debut memoir covers the years 1960 to 1974, Valerie’s ages seven through twenty, in her hometown of Clarendon Hills, Illinois, bringing the era and her own family mystery to vibrant life.

Valerie Kuhn Reid arrived in the Kennebunks back in 1976 when—fresh from the University of Minnesota—she came looking for a teaching job and a home by the sea. She began her teaching career as the librarian at Park Street School, then taught second grade at Consolidated, and when her own three children reached school-age, she returned to teaching, this time at Kennebunk High School where she spent twenty years as the KHS Theater teacher and play director with 41 productions to her credit. Writing has been Valerie’s life-long passion, and at the age of 63 she earned a masters in Writing and the Teaching of Writing through UMaine, Orono and the Maine Writing Project. While her short story “Moving On” appeared in Woman’s World Magazine, and two others received honorable mentions in Writer’s Digest Annual Competitions, One Stop West of Hinsdale is Valerie’s first published book.

Light refreshments will be provided by the Graves Library Snack Team. Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing. Doors open at 1:30 pm

MAINE AUTHOR – CHRIS VAN DUSEN AT THE MAINE CLASSIC CAR MUSEUM – SOLD OUT

THIS EVENT IS FULL

We are so excited to join forces with the Maine Classic Car Museum to invite Maine Author/Illustrator Chris Van Dusen back to visit with us at the Museum on Saturday, August 10. Chris will be hanging out among the cool cars at the Museum from 10:00 to 12:00 and to read from one of his many books. There is no charge for children. Adult admission is $12 per person. Registration is required. Please call the Library (967-2778) to add your name to the list.

The Maine Classic Car Museum is located at 2564 Portland Road, Arundel. Copies of Van Dusen’s books will be available for sale in the Museum store. This program includes a craft to go and treat!

More About Chris Van Dusen:

Chris lives in a little town on the Coast of Maine with his wife Lori and a dog named Opal. As a child, he spent hours drawing pictures. Dr. Seuss and Robert McCloskey were his heroes. After high school, he studied fine art at The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and graduated with a BFA. For more than ten years he worked as a freelance illustrator specializing in art for kids. His first book, Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee was published in 2000.

Since then, Chris has written several books including The Circus Ship, If I Built a House, Randy Riley’s Really Big Hit, A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee, Big Truck, Little Island, and so many more! He also illustrated the Mercy Watson series written by Kate DiCamillo.

More About the Car Museum:

The Maine Classic Car Museum is New England’s friendliest visitor destination, with dozens of classic cars on display and an array of vintage automobilia and cultural curiosities. Come take a tour of the 2024 exhibits. Explore the Museum store with unique gifts for that car person in your life. Every car has a story, and they can’t wait to share them with you!

CANADIAN/MAINE AUTHOR SUSAN D. HANNAFORD – JUNE 26 @ 6:00 PM

We are so excited to welcome back Susan Doherty Hannaford for the launch of her third book, Monday Rent Boy. Susan will be here at the Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library, 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport on Wednesday, June 26 at 6:00 pm. This event is free and open to the public. A reception with light refreshments will follow.

Susan has a Bachelor of Science from Concordia University and studied journalism at Ryerson University where she was recommended for a job at Macleans Magazine. After Macleans, she worked in Paris, France for a digital publishing company, Atex France, freelancing for The International Herald Tribune, La Tribune de Genève, La Suisse, and the Independent in London UK. Back in Canada, she started her own company, On Location Productions, and for 18 years worked in advertising. During that time, she studied creative writing at the University of Toronto, and Concordia University. Susan has numerous volunteer affiliations: the YMCA and the Douglas Institute and was a long-serving board member of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. She was a board member of the Quebec Writers’ Federation (QWF) in Montreal, and Nazareth Community, serving men and women with addictions and mental illness. As a committed volunteer, she works with patients suffering from psychosis through Montreal’s Douglas Institute and has done significant research in the area of bipolar illness and paranoid schizophrenia. In Toronto, she created an annual event for the Royal Conservatory of Music, in a sustained effort to raise their endowment to allow all Canadian would-be professional musicians to study on full bursary.

Premise of Monday Rent Boy:

At eight years of age, Arthur Barnes and Ernie Castlefrank find themselves on the same altar boy at St. Nick’s, a situation that readies an unlikely friendship. Father Zipernowski— a pastor referred to as The Zipper, has given both boys a sterling crucifix that marks them as children conditioned to provide sexual favors for clergy members in the counties of Somerset and Avon. As Ernie and Arthur slip into lives of petty degeneracy; dope-smoking thieves who steal from the collection plate, local shops, parked cars, and department stores in nearby Bristol, they laugh off their inner humiliation without ever speaking publicly, or privately about what has been happening in the vestry. Arthur’s book-thieving leads to an unlikely partnership with Marina Phillips, the owner of the town bookshop. He has the chance to reinvent himself as a young book critic with eyes to becoming an English major, a professor, and a scholar. Ernie’s leg-up comes in the form of a pawnshop owner, a man with a desire to profit from the exploitation of children in The Pint Room, a website on the Internet.

For more information, please call 967-2778 or visit our website: www.graveslibrary.org

NEW ENGLAND AUTHOR – EMILY FRANKLIN – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 @ 2:00 PM

We are extremely excited that Emily Franklin has accepted our invitation to visit us at Graves Library on Sunday, September 17 at 2:00 p.m. in the Community Room.

Ms. Franklin is the author of more than twenty novels and a poetry collection, Tell Me How You Got Here. Her award-winning work has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Guernica, JAMA, and numerous literary magazines as well as long-listed for the London Sunday Times Short Story Award, featured and read aloud on NPR and named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries. The Lioness of Boston (June 2023) is her latest novel.

A lifelong visitor to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Emily lives outside of Boston with her family including two dogs large enough to be lions.

“Franklin offers a vivid narrative of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s evolution into a pioneering art collector and museum founder. New Yorker Isabella marries wealthy Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner in 1860 at age 19. The straitlaced Jack appreciates his unpredictable wife’s intellect and creativity, though she gets a cold reception from Boston’s well-heeled matrons.

A year later, Isabella considers the “sad magic to being female, a disappearing of the self,” and hopes that motherhood will win her social acceptance and help provide the sense of purpose she craves.

Instead, her only child dies of pneumonia before he turns two, and a subsequent miscarriage leaves her unable to conceive again. During a lengthy stay in Europe, Jack hopes to ease her paralyzing grief. There, she meets Henry James, Oscar Wilde, and other luminaries who encourage her love of learning and passion for the arts. Isabella’s confidence deepens—and her reputation for eccentricity grows—as she begins to acquire artworks for the museum she opens in 1903.

The novel brims with pitch-perfect period details, such as Isabella’s ability to shock New England society merely by wearing blue shoes, and Franklin cannily captures Gardner’s ambition, independence, and quirks. Fans of strong female protagonists and Gilded Age historicals will enjoy this.” [Publishers Weekly]

We are grateful to our Graves Library Snack Team for providing treats for our program. Doors open at 1:30. Parking is available at the Village Fire Station (North Street) and Consolidated School (School Street). Copies of the Lioness of Boston will be for sale and signing after the program. Please call the Library for more information 967-2778.

NY TIMES BEST SELLING AUTHOR – JENNIFER ACKERMAN – AUGUST 6 @ 2:00 PM

We are delighted to have New York Times Best Selling Author Jennifer Ackerman visit with us on Sunday, August 6 at 2:00 pm for a special lecture.

Jennifer Ackerman has been writing about science, nature, and health for more than three decades. Her work aims to explain and interpret science for a lay audience and to explore the riddles of the natural world, blending scientific knowledge with strong storytelling. She has won numerous awards and fellowships, including a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a Silver Medal Award for Nature Writing from the International Regional Magazine Association, and fellowships at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College (now the Radcliffe Institute), Brown College at the University of Virginia, and the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University.

Jennifer’s most recent book is What an Owl Knows: The new science of the world’s most enigmatic birds. In pre-publication reviews, Publisher’s Weekly called the book “a masterful survey,” and Kirkus, “fascinating food for thought for owl seekers.” Jennifer also recorded the audiobook for What an Owl Knows. Her previous book, The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think (Penguin Press, 2020; paperback, 2021), was a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and was nominated for numerous other awards. It’s published in more than a dozen languages. Her New York Times bestseller, The Genius of Birds (Penguin Press, 2016; paperback 2017), has been translated into close to 30 languages. The book was named one of the 10 best nonfiction books of 2016 by The Wall Street Journal, a Best Science Book of 2016 by National Public Radio’s “Science Friday”, a Best Book of the Year by The Spectator and the National Post, and a Nature Book of the Year by the London Sunday Times. It was a finalist for the 2017 National Academies Communication Book Award and for the 2017 Smart Book Award in Poland.

Other books include Birds by the Shore: Observing the Natural Life of the Atlantic Coast (a 2019 reissue by Penguin Press of her first book, Notes from the Shore); Ah-Choo! The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold (Twelve, 2010), which was named a finalist for the Books for a Better Life Award’; and Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body (Houghton Mifflin, 2007; Mariner Paperbacks, 2008), which explores the biological events we experience over the course of a day. The latter was selected as a New York Times “Editor’s Choice” and was chosen as a main selection for the Scientific American Book Club. It has been published in 13 languages. Ackerman’s book Chance in the House of Fate: A Natural History of Heredity (Houghton Mifflin 2001; Mariner Paperbacks 2002) was named a New York Times “New and Noteworthy” paperback and was selected as a Library Journal Best Book of the Year in 2002. She is the editor of The Curious Naturalist and the co-author with Dr. Miriam Nelson of The Social Network Diet and The Strong Women’s Guide to Total Health.

Jennifer’s essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, Scientific American, National Geographic, Natural History, Parade, and many other publications. She has written on subjects ranging from the work of Chuck Close to the microbiome of the human body, the evolutionary origin of birds, the sexual habits of dragonflies, the neural nature of dyslexia, the biology of cranes, parasites as agents of evolutionary change, ocean circulation, the wildlife of Japan, and the work of Nobel laureate and developmental biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard. Her writing has been collected in several anthologies, among them, Flights of Imagination: Extraordinary Writings About Birds, ed. Richard Canning (Greystone, 2010), The Penguin Book of the Ocean, ed. James Bradley (Penguin Australia, 2010), Best American Science Writing, ed. Alan Lightman (Perennial, 2005), Shorewords (University of Virginia Press, 2003), Stories from Where We Live—the North Atlantic Coast, ed. Sara St. Antoine (Milkweed, 2001), The Beach Book, ed. Aleda Shirley (Sarabande Books, 2000), The Seacoast Reader, ed. John A. Murray (Lyons Press, 1999), From the Field, ed Charles McCarry (National Geographic, 1997), The Nature Reader, ed. Daniel Halpern and Dan Frank (Ecco Press, 1996), and Best Nature Writing (Sierra Club books, 1996).

We are grateful to our Graves Library Snack Team for providing treats for our program. We are also grateful to The 1802 House for sponsoring this event! Doors open at 1:30. Parking is available at the Village Fire Station (North Street) and Consolidated School (School Street). Please call the Library for more information (967-2778). Copies of the book will be for sale and signing after the program.

The Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport, Maine.

MAINE AUTHOR – CHRIS VAN DUSEN AT THE CLASSIC CAR MUSEUM – JULY 15, 2023

We are so excited to join forces with the Maine Classic Car Museum to invite Maine Author/Illustrator Chris Van Dusen to visit with us at the Museum on Saturday, July 15, 2023. Chris will be hanging out among the cool cars at the Museum from 10:00 to 12:00 and to read from one of his many books If I Built a Car! There is no charge for children. Adult admission is $12 per person. Registration is required. Please call the Library (967-2778) to add your name to the list. If you have questions, please email mlbgraves@gmail.com or karen@mainecarmuseum.com

The Maine Classic Car Museum is located at 2564 Portland Road, Arundel. Copies of Chris’ books will be available for sale in the Museum store. This program includes a craft to go and treat!

More About Chris Van Dusen:

Chris lives in a little town on the Coast of Maine with his wife Lori and a dog named Opal. As a child, he spent hours drawing pictures. Dr. Seuss and Robert McCloskey were his heroes. After high school, he studied fine art at The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and graduated with a BFA. For more than ten years he worked as a freelance illustrator specializing in art for kids. His first book, Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee was published in 2000.

Since then, Chris has written several books including The Circus Ship, If I Built a House, Randy Riley’s Really Big Hit, A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee, Big Truck, Little Island, and so many more! He also illustrated the Mercy Watson series written by Kate DiCamillo.

More About the Car Museum:

The Maine Classic Car Museum is New England’s friendliest visitor destination, with dozens of classic cars on display and an array of vintage automobilia and cultural curiosities. Come take a tour of the 2023 exhibits starring America’s holy grail of car collecting, a Tucker 48 #1028. Explore the Museum store with unique gifts for that car person in your life. Every car has a story, and they can’t wait to share them with you!

SACRED STONE, SACRED WATER – JULY 15 @ 6:30 PM

Please join us on Monday, July 15 at 6:30 pm for a presentation, reading, and book signing with local artist, Jennifer Comeau. Ms. Comeau’s poems are included in this anthology, Sacred Stone, Sacred Water : Women Writers and Artists Encounter Ireland. This incredible anthology is an elegant and intimate collection evoking Ireland’s wild beauty and deep soul through the work of fourteen American women writers and artists who journeyed to three renowned parts of Ireland. Beautifully woven in image and word, this cornucopia is surely a jewel in the crown of Tir Ghra (an ancient Irish phrase which means (“love of land”) literature.

book signings