Welcome to thanks For All the Gifts Week, a time to catch up on all the thank you notes and cards for birthdays, graduations, weddings, etc., that you forgot to send! Today is Bad Poetry Day, so you might want to compose some really rotten verse to include in those cards!
    Saturday is Be An Angel Day, a day to do "one small act of service for someone, to be a blessing in someone's life." Sunday is the anniversary of the First Man-Powered Flight in 1977. Bryan Allen pedaled the 70-pound "Gossamer Condor" for a mile at a minimal altitude of two pylons and won a 50,000 pound prize offered by British industrialist Henry Kremer.

WHAT'S HAPPENING?
    At Wednesday's 10:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. storytimes, youngsters can celebrate Roswell's 125th birthday with stories of the Southwest and by making a New Mexico poster with Pecos Valley Diamonds.  Saturday morning's 10:00 storytime features books about the rainforest and a make a crocodile craft.

BOOK TALK
    Librarian Loretta Clark provides this week's book information. Roswell's anniversary is a great time to think about some history. New Mexico has a long and proud heritage of defending her homeland. In fact, New Mexico has the oldest continuous militia in the United States, dating back to 1598.      In a more modern era, Dorothy Cave has written two books about fighting New Mexicans. "Four Trails to Valor" tells of four men whose destinies take them to World War II and back. Their backgrounds include the Pueblo Corn Meal Path, the Navajo Beautyway, the Spanish Way of the Cross, and the Yankee Trail of Destiny.  Three of these men were members of the New Mexico National Guard.
    Also about the National Guard is Cave's revised edition of "Beyond Courage: One Regiment Against Japan, 1941-1945." This second edition includes some fifteen thousand pages of wartime documents that were declassified after the printing of the original book. This is the story of one New Mexico National Guard regiment and the heroes of Bataan and Corregidor.
    "In Their Own Words: New Mexico Veterans of WWII" is a video of interviews with eleven veterans from New Mexico. These personal narratives provide a view of World War II from individuals who were there to defend their homeland.

DID YOU KNOW?
    According to Barbara Kiefer, an associate professor of reading and children's literature at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City, "The research shows that for approximately every 10 minutes a day that kids red outside of school, their test scores go up. Reading comprehension goes up, and that's for only 10 minutes a day. So you can see what a huge impact lots and lots of reading over the summer would have." This quote is from an article on summer reading at family.com. The article can be accessed at http://family.disney.com/Categories/Education/Features/family_1998_06/dony/dony68summerread/.
    Child psychologist Arnold Rincover, Ph.D., provides this advice on teaching children the value of commitment. When a child wants to quit an activity, figure out why. Kids naturally try activities on for size, then want to change them - but there comes a time when they need to learn the value of making a commitment. Children age six and under have short attention spans and usually have difficulty understanding and making commitments. Beginning at age seven, parents need to teach kids what commitment means.
    For example, it is not right to quit a team in the middle of the season and leave teammates in the urch. But parents must investigate whether other factors are involved, such as a coach who is unreasonably harsh or ridicule by other teammates. In such situations, the child should be allowed to quit.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "If you don't have all the things you want, be grateful for all of the things you don't have that you don't want." (unknown)

JUDY ARMSTRONG, 624-7276

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