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Places To Go

Lee Gurga leading haiku lecture and workshop

[SEPT. 21, 2002]  Lee Gurga will present a haiku lecture and workshop at the Japan House, 2000 S. Lincoln Ave. in Urbana, on Wednesday, Oct. 9, from 7 to 9 p.m.

Dr. Gurga, a Lincoln dentist, is past president of the Haiku Society of America and editor of the journal entitled Modern Haiku. In 1998 the Illinois Arts Council awarded him a poetry fellowship for his work in haiku. Two of his books have won first prize in the Haiku Society of America’s annual book awards.

Workshop participants will be given a brief introduction to the art of Japanese haiku. Participants will also have a chance to write their own haiku and share insights with others. Haiku is a social art as well as a literary art, and sharing is an important part of the haiku tradition. This sharing allows both the writer and the listener to grow.

The registration deadline is Oct. 4. For more information call Japan House at (217) 244-9934.

[News release]


Mid-Illinois Book Center offers online book club

[SEPT. 24, 2002]  So many good books, so little time. The Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center has been offering free audio book selections to members and is now launching a new free service: an online book club that delivers books electronically.

If you like audio books, you can listen to them in your e-mail by signing up for the audio book club. This is a great way to discover great books if you are too busy to visit the library or cannot visit the library because of a disability.

 Each day, Monday through Friday, the library e-mails subscribers a book portion that takes about five minutes to read, and subscribers can read three chapters during a week.

Each week the club features new books, and with seven book clubs to choose from, there is something for everyone. Patrons can read fiction, nonfiction, romance, business, good news and teen books. Soon there will be a mystery book club.

 

The Talking Books online book club is delivered to you through a service provided by http://www.chapteraday.com.

Chapter-A-Day founder and CEO Suzanne Beecher said, "It’s an honor to welcome Talking Books to our e-mail online book clubs. Talking Books helped me through a difficult time in my life. I have an eye disorder, and for a while I walked with a red and white cane and spent many afternoons on a sofa in my sunroom listening to Talking Books. They were my lifeline to a better quality of life for me at the time."

 

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Readers can sign up for the service at http://www.chapteraday.com/library/mitbc/.

 For more information on the program or for an application, call 1 (800) 426-0709 or 1 (800) 537-1274 toll-free. 

The Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center provides free library service including books and magazines on tape and playback equipment to individuals unable to read regular print because of a visual or physical disability.

The Talking Book Center is funded by the Illinois State Library, a division of the Office of Secretary of State.

[News release]


‘Tree Castle Island’

[SEPT. 18, 2002]  "Tree Castle Island." Jean Craighead George. HarperCollins, 2002. 242 pages. Grades 4-7.

Jack Hawkins, age 14, is staying with his Uncle Hamp while his mom and dad are on a trip to Europe. Uncle Hamp’s farm is on the St. Mary’s River in Georgia and within canoeing distance of the Okefenokee Swamp.

 

The canoe Jack is paddling on a hot August day is not just any canoe. He made it himself and named it L’tle Possum. "She floated, she sped, and she was unreal!" He was on his way to Paradise Island.

George’s descriptions of nature in the Okefenokee Swamp and surrounding areas are so real that the reader can hear and see as if in the canoe with Jack.

"Bugs swarmed like paparazzi — pesky, noisy, and in my face… The water was clear and still as glass… A fish jumped out of the water, twisted, and landed in the bow of the canoe."

Jack is so amazed by the atmosphere and mystery of the swamp that he’d like to camp there forever.

He and L’tle Possum make it through a Georgia storm, but an angry mama alligator bites a hole in the canoe. The wish for an extended camping trip is coming true!

Jack had learned some survival skills from Uncle Hamp that help him build a safe shelter and find food until he can fix L’tle Possum. As days go by, repairing the canoe takes longer than he planned. As he searches for edible plants, suitable wood for building his shelter and terpene to fix the canoe, he encounters some unusual mysteries.

First, he keeps hearing an eerie sound, "LEERI OOOBUM WYRRRRRRRRRR LEERI."

 

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Then he finds an abandoned raft, a basket and a porcelain plate. At first he thinks the eerie sound is some kind of swamp monster, but the found items had been left recently. Could there be someone else on his island?

The appearance of a dog that looks exactly like his dog, Dizzy, and answers to the same name have him even more confused. When Jack gets back to the campsite and sees someone who looks exactly like him, his focus changes from survival to finding out why there is someone who is a mirror image of him.

The other boy is named Jake, and the dog, whose name really is Dizzy, is his. The boys soon discover that they not only look alike, but they also think alike. Jake knows he was adopted, but Jack is positive he was not.

Jake and Jack both have personal issues to work out, and Jean Craighead George does not disappoint the reader. This adventure story has wonderful details of the boys’ self-sufficiency while living off the land and finding solutions to their personal problems.

The fast-paced action combined with just enough mystery will keep the attention of both boys and girls ages 10 to 14.

George is also the author of the Newbery Medal-winning "Julie of the Wolves"AND she really went canoeing in the enchanted Okefenokee Swamp.

[Pat Schlough, Lincoln Public Library District]




Movie classics

Logan County Arts Association upcoming films

All upcoming monthly features in the Logan County Arts Association series of classic films will start at 7 p.m. at the Lincoln Cinemas, 215 S. Kickapoo.

Thursday, Oct. 10

Horror/sci-fi double feature

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1931)

Frederic March, Miriam Hopkins

Based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson. Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men: a good and an evil side. He faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run wild with a potion that changes him into the animalistic Mr. Hyde.

 

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"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951)

Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe

An alien (Klaatu) with his mighty robot (Gort) lands their spacecraft on cold-war Earth just after the end of World War II. He tells the people of Earth that we must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets.

Tickets will be available at Serendipity Stitches, 129 S. Kickapoo; the Lincoln Public Library Annex; at the door; or by calling (217) 732-4298. Ticket prices are $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $2.50 for children 13 and under. These features are one show only, with limited seating.

[Logan County Arts Association ]


Lincoln Community Theatre information

Lincoln Community Theatre’s box office, phone 735-2614,  is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday for the summer season. The office is located in the lobby of the Johnston Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Lincoln College.

Performances of "Dearly Departed" are scheduled for July 12-20, and "The King and I" will be presented Aug. 2-10. Show times are 2 p.m. on Sundays and 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

The LCT mailing address is Lincoln Community Theatre, P.O. Box 374, Lincoln, IL  62656; e-mail: lincolncommunitytheatre@yahoo.com.

Visit the LDC website at www.geocities.com/lincolncommunitytheatre/index.html. Pictures from past productions are included.

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