The White Plains Library Staff have assembled their picks for the year, featuring cookbooks, DVDs, music, audiobooks, and plenty of plain old books. It's a wonderfully wide-ranging list, full of lots of surprises, and should help with your holiday shopping or just some entertainment for yourself. Enjoy!

To view the full list, visit our website here.

Brian Kenney
Library Director
bkenney@whiteplainslibrary.org

Stop by the lobby and contribute a sticky note to our community art project. Earlier this month, Ashley hosted a party in the Trove to celebrate the release of a new book in the popular Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey. #DoGood is the theme of Pilkey's book tour, so each child wrote a good deed on a banner during the party. We thought it would be great for our teens from the Do Gooders community service group to use the banner to share the good work they've done this year, with support from the Allstate Foundation. Adults can contribute to the project as an exercise in mindfulness during the holiday season, thinking of one good thing they'll do for themselves or others, to take themselves out of the rushed mindset of this time of year. We're excited to watch as the banner fills up with good deeds done in our community.

At the end of the month the Edge will host 4 mini-camps for teens in grades 6 and up. Topics will focus on the area of renewable energy. Registration is required; to register, click on the date below that you wish to register for. This program is made possible by a partnership between the White Plains Library Foundation and Con Ed.

Day 1 – December 23 from 9:30-12:30:
The first renewable energy workshop will introduce students to some basic ideas and popular forms of renewable energy. Teens will design wind turbines and build a simple solar powered car.

Day 2 - December 26 from 9:30-12:30:
This workshop will introduce students to bio-fuels. Teens will make a fuel cell using natural materials, and learn about perpetual motion and energy.

Day - December 27 from 9:30-12:30:
Day 3 will show students how to create energy out of simple objects they already have.

Day 4 - December 30 from 9:30-12:30:
In the final workshop teens will get to build their own solar powered phone charger.

This new monthly drop-in session will help seniors with little or no experience with computers to feel more comfortable using a laptop. The first session will be held this Friday, December 13th, from 10:15 to 11:45 a.m.

While there are many 2019 "best of" lists out there, if you're not a library professional you might not be reading School Library Journal blogs. If you're not, you probably aren't reading Elizabeth Bird's fantastic blog, A Fuse #8 Production, which is currently featuring 31 Days of Lists covering everything from funny books, to math books, to Spanish and Bilingual books, to books with a great message, as well as many more thematic lists. Selected by Bird, who knows what she's talking about as the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library and after serving on the Newbery Award committee, these lists provide amazingly fantastic and superb recommendations for books you may not see on any other "best of 2019" lists.

Ever wondered if your business could sell to the federal government? Which federal agencies would be interested in what you sell? What does it take to become a federal contractor? Come to the SBA's workshop on Tuesday, December 17th at 1:30 p.m. to help answer these questions, highlight small business specific certifications and provide useful strategies on how to market in the federal contracting arena.

The 5 Best Cookbooks of 2019: Food guides you’ll want to read and, more importantly, cook from.

Time: The 10 Best Fiction Books of the 2010s.

LitHub: 26 Books From the Last Decade that More People Should Read.

Shipping delays frustrate indies’ holiday season.

Librarian Nancy Pearl shares 4 fantastic books for the end of 2019.