Holiday Films & Storytime & Bake Sale!!! Read on!

This month's independent film selection is technically a Christmas movie, but with a few twists. First, it's set in Australia, so you can throw away your white Christmas expectations. And the primary drama involves a mother with terminal cancer saying her goodbyes to her daughters—also not the normal bubbly stuff of Christmas movies. But it is a truly beautiful film—and life affirming. The film proves that when you embrace loss you can appreciate what you have.



So come see this free screening of Little Sparrows at 6:30pm, Thursday, December 8th. The film is in English so there will be no subtitles. Run time 88 minutes. Please note: These Independent films are not rated by the MPAA and should be considered for mature audiences. The Pollard Library Independent Film night occurs on the 2nd Thursday of every month. The events are free and open to the public. Made possible by the Friends of the Library.

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If you're looking for a more traditional Christmas movie, we've got you covered on that as well. In anticipation for the 2012 Dickens in Lowell celebration, and with a nod to the new Muppet Movie in theaters we're going to be showing The Muppet Christmas Carol on Saturday, December 10th at 1pm.



This showing will be part of a larger Holiday celebration from 11:30am-3pm, which includes a Bake Sale hosted by the Friends of the library (11:30-1pm) and a Holiday Storytime (11:30am-12:30pm). All free, thanks to the good work of the Pollard Library Friends group and our Youth Services Department.

Delayed opening this Thursday, December 1st

Just a quick reminder that this Thursday is the first Thursday of the new month which means two things:

1) The library has a delayed opening to accommodate a staff meeting. The library will be open 11am-9pm.

2) The Non-Fiction book club will meet at 6:30pm in the Ground Floor meeting room to discuss another truth seeking monograph. This month, while we wait for snow to arrive in the Merrimack Valley, we'll discuss Carlos Eire's Waiting for Snow in Havana. We'll also be voting for future titles at this meeting so don't miss it...or contact Sean Thibodeau if you want an absentee ballot.

This Just In...Library closing at 3pm tomorrow (Wednesday November 23rd)

We just got word the library will be closing tomorrow, Wednesday, November 23rd at 3pm in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday. We are currently scheduled to be open normal hours (9am-5pm) on Friday and Saturday after the holiday.

We would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Library Closed for Thanksgiving - Open Friday & Saturday

In observance of Thanksgiving, the Pollard will be closed Thursday, November 24th. We will, however, be open from 9am-5pm, Friday and Saturday, November 25th & 26th.

So stop by on Saturday on your way to the grand City of Lights Parade and Holiday Art Stroll festivities!

Puleo Talk Tomorrow, Old English Cemetery Tour Sunday

Here are a few local events you might find interesting this weekend:

Tomorrow, at 10am, Stephen Puleo, author of Dark Tide, the June selection for the Pollard's non-ficiton book club is reading from his latest book: A City So Grand: The Rise of an American Metropolis, Boston 1850-1900 at the Georgetown Peabody Library. Cost of Admission $12.00. For reservations contact: Mary Paganelli 978 352-2587 Friends of the Library, Mary Ann Walsh 978 535 5680 AAUW


Sunday, November 20, at Noon. Meet at the main gate of Old English Cemetery (1099 Gorham St. Lowell 01852) for a free tour of this rarely seen relic from the days of Lowell’s first founding. Tour led by local cemetery enthusiast Kim Zunino. After the tour, interested parties can proceed on their own to Middlesex Community College Federal Building, 50 Kearney Sq, to hear programs on various aspects of Gravestone Studies. The programs are free and open to the public. Events sponsored by the Lowell Historical Society, the Lowell Historic Board, Middlesex Community College & the Association for Gravestone Studies.

Parker Lecture - R.P. Hale - The 2012 Fraud: Misreading the Maya and Their Calendars - Thursday November 17th @ 7pm

Join us for what's sure to be an illuminating Parker Lecture this Thursday, November 17th for R.P. Hale's debunking of the myth of the Mayan calendar in a lecture entitled: The 2012 Fraud: Misreading the Maya and Their Calendars. We will explore the history of the Apocalypse, mankind’s second oldest story, along with what the Mayan calendars are and how they work. R.P. Hale is of Aztec heritage, an astronomer, musician, calligrapher, and chemist. In 1999, the Smithsonian Institution recognized R.P. Hale as one of the top musical instrument makers in the United States.

Non-Fiction Book Club - Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire - Thursday, December 1st - 6:30pm

The Pollard's Non-Fiction book club marks it's first anniversary with a sparkling memoir of exile and redemption. Join us at 6:30pm on Thursday, December 1st for a discussion of Carlo's Eire's 2003 National Book award winner, Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy. Here's some of what Publisher's Weekly had to say about it:

As imaginatively wrought as the finest piece of fiction, the book abounds with magical interpretations of ordinary boyhood events...Eire looks beyond the literal to see the mythological themes inherent in the epic struggle for identity that each of our lives represents.

Into this fantastic idyll comes Castro—"Beelzebub, Herod, and the Seven-Headed Beast of the Apocalypse rolled into one"—overthrowing the Batista regime at the very end of 1958 and sweeping away everything that the author holds dear. A world that had been bursting with complicated, colorful meaning is replaced with the monotony of Castro's rhetoric and terrorizing "reform." ...The final cataclysm comes when Eire and his brother, still young boys, are shipped off to the United States to seek safety and a better life (another paradise, perhaps). They never see their father again.

As painful as Eire's journey has been, his ability to see tragedy and suffering as a constant source of redemption is what makes this book so powerful. Where his father believed that we live many lives in different bodies, Eire sees his own life as a series of deaths within the same body. "Dying can be beautiful," he writes, "And waking up is even more beautiful. Even when the world has changed."

In January, the book club will be discussing The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli but we've not decided on the titles beyond then. So, we will be voting for two more at our December meeting. If you would like more information or a ballot please contact Sean Thibodeau, Community Planning Librarian at sthibodeau@mvlc.org.