Alexandra Allred - in her 'Jersey Couture' dress - signs books at the launch party in Texas. (Photo courtesy of Alexandra Allred)

Editor’s Note: Allred (and the dress) will be featured in the Season 2 premiere of ‘Jersey Couture’ on cable TV’s Oxygen – Channel 558. It debuts at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 7 and repeats later in the evening.

Karin Stanton | Hawaii 24/7 Editor

While Hawaii 24/7 dips occasionally into reviewing books about the Big Island or by local authors, the only real link here is that the author was a 7th-grade classmate of mine.

So I can only ask readers to indulge me as I shamelessly plug an old friend’s new book — ‘White Trash’ by Alexandra Allred — and her appearance on the season premiere of ‘Jersey Couture.’

After a couple years in pre-Glasnost Soviet era Moscow, our families moved on and we lost touch. It was three decades before we reconnected and discovered our lives had some parallels.

We’re both writers and enjoy telling stories, no matter the audience. We’re both still into sports and women’s issues. And we both love our animals.

While I am content with community journalism, random pet-sitting gigs and a couple faded ribbons from coaching youth soccer teams, Allred’s life trajectory bounced her from the U.S. women’s bobsled team to the Austin Rage – the women’s NFL team. She’s a horsewoman and a expert dog trainer on a Dog Whisperer level. Oh, and she’s authored nearly two dozen books.

The biggest difference between us is that she has three awesome children and I have three defective cats.

Anyway, when she sent out a mass invite late last year to her book launch party, I hopped on a plane and headed to Texas. Partly because she threatened to wear a dress – for the first time since her wedding day – and I kinda wanted to see that.

I had only read about 80 pages of “White Trash” and was just getting into the story. I planned to use the red-eye flight to finish the 470-page novel, but my seat mate on the LAX-DFW leg had other ideas.

So I didn’t exactly finish before I got to the party. Good thing my old skateboarding buddy was pleased to see me and my failure never came up.

They like to say you can’t go home, but …

However, hanging out in the Allred living room that week really was like a homecoming. And I found the small town setting, characters and story in ‘White Trash’ were not so very different from my Big Island hometown.

When Thia Franks returns to her hometown of Granby, she rediscovers all that it best and worst about small towns. Lots of things haven’t changed – Chester Kennedy’s goats are still running rampant, Officer Tina Wolfe’s mouthy attitude looks likely to land her in sensitivity classes, a gun-wielding neighbor wages war with a squirrel, and the local newspaper owner unilaterally decides what residents should know.

But when a popular, ambitious black man is murdered, things do change.

Everyone is being judged and the gossip ratchets up to ear-splitting levels. As the small police department works the biggest case in Granby history, the town’s dark secrets are revealed – domestic abuse, gunrunning, drugs, illicit sex and child molestation.

Allred has a super focus on small town people and the things that make those people chatter about themselves and their neighbors. She has an excellent ear for dialogue and gives her characters great wit.

She also treats her characters with dignity, creating the most ridiculous situations in such a matter-of-fact way that you’ll sympathize with them as you are laughing at them. Especially when the goats pop up.

While it seems every resident of Granby makes a cameo appearance in the book, the main characters are well defined and are the people you’d probably want to be friends with, if you lived in Granby.

Chances are you will recognize someone in these pages, as similar characters seem to walk the streets of all small towns, from the pages of ‘White Trash’ in rural Texas to the Big Island.

To quote Hawaii 24/7 student reporter and book reviewer Finn
Gallagher: ‘You need to get this book!’

— ‘White Trash,’ as well as its sequel ‘White Tree: The Girls Are
Back!’ and other titles by Alexandra Allred, can be found at:

www.amazon.com/White-T…

MEDIA RELEASE

Two enormous ancestral history eBooks have just become available from Millisecond Publishing Company, Inc. (MPC). They are almost certainly the largest digital books in the fields of both genealogy and history, and probably the largest digital books in any field.

Each of these PDF titles is larger than a 50-volume work of 500 pages each.

The Family Forest Descendants of King Duncan I of Scotland details an extensive network of assembled lineage generation-by-generation from a well-known King of Scotland a millennium ago, to present day. King Duncan may be an ancestor of more than one billion people alive today.

The Family Forest Descendants of Baron Anslech Turstain of Briquebec details an extensive network of assembled lineage generation-by-generation from the founder of Briquebec Castle in France a millennium ago, to present day. The Baron may be an ancestor of at least one of every seven people alive today.

If you have any European ancestry within the last 500 years, you probably have a number of your own ancestors in each one of of these two ancestral history eBooks.

— Find out more:
Family Forest: www.familyforest.com

MEDIA RELEASE

“It’s Book Time with Ronald McDonald!”at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25 the Kailua-Kona Public Library.

This educational program is designed to motivate students to read more often by making reading fun. Through the use of music, magic, puppets, storytelling, and of course, lots of reading and fun with their favorite clown, Ronald McDonald, students will discover a new outlook on Book Time.

This program is free to the public and intended for children ages 5 to 10.

For further information, call Denise at the library, 327-4327.

MEDIA RELEASE

The Friends of the Library, Kona hosts its annual meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24 on the lanai of the Kailua Kona Library followed by a short reception with refreshments.

Current FOLK members are encouraged to attend as well as those interested in becoming members.

Following the reception, the Kona Library Book Club will meet at approximately 11:30 a.m. This meeting date is a change from the usual third Tuesday of the month due to the library closure for Martin Luther King Day.

The book for this month is “Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin, an account of the year she spent test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier. She shares her insights to help you create your own happiness project.

New members are welcome.

February’s selection will be “What the Dog Saw” by Malcolm Gladwell.

Pahala Public and School Library. Hawaii 24/7 File Photo

MEDIA RELEASE

Pahala Public and School Library (Big Island) will close temporarily from Monday, January 23 through February 23 due to a staffing shortage. The book drop will be closed beginning at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, January 20. The Library and book drop are scheduled to reopen on Friday, February 24.

While the Library is closed, patrons may visit the Naalehu Public Library (95-5669 Mamalahoa Highway; telephone: 939-2442). Please contact this library for its current public service hours. Call Naalehu Public Library to arrange for the pickup of requested items.

Patrons may also log-on to the HSPLS website: www.librarieshawaii.or… to:

• Browse the HSPLS Catalog for book titles, eBooks, digital audio books, and our wide variety of online databases which provide access to full-text materials from thousands of magazines, newspapers, journals, and other publications.
• Get answers to brief informational reference questions by using the “Ask-A-Librarian” E-Reference service: select the “Information” tab, click on “E-Reference” and follow the simple instructions. A library card is not required to use this service.

MEDIA RELEASE

Outskirts Press, Inc. has published “Lost Twain: A Novel of Hawaii” by Kate H. Winter.

The Kailua-Kona author’s most recent book to date is a paperback in the historical fiction category and is available worldwide on book retailer websites such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Kate Winter

The book also is featured at: www.outskirtspress.com…

In 1866, Samuel L. Clemens was “lost” on the island of Maui. The journalist who would become Mark Twain suddenly ceased sending his dispatches back to California. His “Letters” resumed six weeks later without explanation.

What was he doing on Maui? And why did he want it kept secret?

Emily Witt, an English professor from Buffalo, N.Y. is handed the lost notebook Clemens kept during that escapade by the mysterious Hawaiian who also introduces her to the exotic and erotic realities of Hawaii today.

Before her summer research trip ends, the professor has to negotiate a future that satisfies her newly awakened self. In alternating narratives of Emily’s journey and Clemens’s missing weeks, this novel explores the lure of “going native” and our “civilized” resistance to it, with glimpses of how Hawaiians embrace outsiders or don’t.

How can Emily protect the Hawaiian family whose history is entwined with Clemens and still publish the find of her career? Is it exposure or exploitation? And how does love bind Witt and Twain to Hawaii and its people?

Kate “Kealani” H. Winter wrote the award-winning biography of America’s female Mark Twain, Marietta Holley, and the 2005 PBS documentary about her. Her second book, The Woman in the Mountain, explored the lives of Adirondack Mountain women.

After teaching 19th century fiction at a New York University, she spent three years teaching at the University of Hawaii. Winter now lives in Hawaii and upstate New York, with her back against mountains, and combining, as her characters do, the pleasures of living in two very different worlds.

BOOK RELEASE CELEBRATION

Please join us in celebrating the release of my new novel, Lost Twain: A Novel of Hawaii. Come and raise a glass to the publication of this seven-year project.

WHEN: Sunday, Jan. 22. As Twain himself might say, the doors open at 3 p.m. – the mischief will begin at 3:05 p.m.

WHERE: The Queen Emma Community Center, mauka of Christ Church Episcopal, Konawaena Road, Kealakekua

I will talk a bit about the genesis of the book and maybe read a tad to amuse you. If that doesn’t work, there will be champagne. Actually, there will be champagne anyway.

If you have completely escaped my agonizing endlessly over this book project, I’m attaching the sheet that the press sends out. Don’t believe a word of it. They lie like senators.

On the other hand, the reviews on Amazon are interesting and perhaps worth a look or a laugh.

Marjorie Erway insists she will be selling copies, and she’s quite reliable. I will have a pen to sign any book you want me to, especially if it is one I’ve written.

It should be a good time.

MEDIA RELEASE

Meet Danika Dinsmore, an award-winning writer and author of “Brigitta of the White Forest,” at the Keaau Public & School Library on Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. The free program will be conducted in the Humanities Room.

Dinsmore, winner of the Washington State Poets Association award for Performance Poetry and the Best Fresh Voice Screenwriting Award from the Female Eye Film Festival, will read selections from her book which Amazon.com hails as “A book for those who enjoy fantasy adventure” and “offers a new twist on the faerie tales so loved by young readers.” The one-hour program will include a book-signing session.

In addition to being a writer, Dinsmore is a spokenword artist and educator. She is the co-creator of Washington State’s first youth poetry slam and developed a curriculum guide for teaching poetry in the schools. Dinsmore also produced the Seattle Poetry Festival’s Emerging Voice spokenword program for teens.

Contact the Library as soon as possible if a sign language interpreter or other special accommodation is needed.

Keaau Public & School Library is located at 16-571 Keaau-Pahoa Road, on the campus of Keaau Middle School. For more information, please call the Library at (808) 982-4281.

MEDIA RELEASE

“Voyages of Malolo: Secret of the Rongo” (ISBN 0615531296), a historical novel by Robert Bonville, tells the story of Polynesian navigators and their journey across the Pacific on the great seagoing canoe, Malolo.

When young Aukai discovers a piece of driftwood from the east containing mysterious hieroglyphics, the “Rongo,” he and his people believe it is a message from the gods directing them to discover its meaning and the secret it contains.

The young adventurer and his crew of uniquely skilled men build a large, double-hulled deep sea sailing canoe and sail east across the Pacific to the coast of Ecuador, more than 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) from their island home.

Their nearly three-year voyage of exploration, which ranges up to Mexico and California before heading west to Hawaii, finds them facing many hardships and dangers before returning for a final surprising conflict at home.

“The tale is fiction, but it is based on archaeological and anthropological evidence and widely accepted theory,” Bonville said. “It is an epic adventure that speaks to the will of ancient man to discover, learn and survive in the face of the harshest of conditions.”

Bonville was inspired to write the story of the Malolo’s journey by his time living in Hawaii as a young man and his travels throughout the Pacific, as well as surprising historical evidence of the far-reaching travels of the ancient Polynesians.

Written to engage and entertain as well as educate, the book is intended to appeal to readers that enjoy a good fact-based historical adventure.

Bonville is a native of South Florida, lived some time in Hawaii as a young man, and is a United States Coast Guard veteran. He served as a radioman on deep sea weather cutters, Antarctic ice-breaking expeditions and serviced coastal navigation devices before attending college on the GI Bill. Upon graduation, Bonville worked in aerospace and defense-related projects associated with quality assurance, engineering and management, retiring after 37 years. Robert is married with four adult children and resides in Arizona with his wife, Linda.

“Voyages of Malolo: Secret of the Rongo” is available at www.Amazon.com

MEDIA RELEASE

The Hawaii State Public Library System’s patron database will undergo a purge of inactive accounts Dec. 20.

Removing these accounts will provide an updated, more accurate database for our business and management uses.

Inactive accounts are accounts with expired library cards and:
* No borrowed library material in the past three years
* No outstanding items, charges or fees
* Whose card holders are former residents who have relocated from Hawaii

The record of a patron who has not borrowed library material in the past three years or more may be purged.

Patrons who visit their local library, present their library card, and discover that their record has been purged can reactivate their card, free-of-charge, by completing a new library card application form and presenting it with their card and valid identification.

The database clean-up procedure will not affect currently active library patrons.

Internet computer users who do not borrow materials and only use their library card to access the library system’s Internet stations or subscription databases remotely, may notice that their accounts have been purged.

These patrons can reactivate their accounts, free-of-charge, by completing a new application form and presenting it with their card and valid identification at any HSPLS library.

HSPLS Requests Feedback from its Online Database Users

State Librarian Richard Burns would like to know what patrons think about the Hawaii State Public Library System’s online resources.

Patrons are being asked to fill out a brief customer satisfaction survey at their local library.

Survey results will be used to complete a report about the Federal grant which funds these online resource subscriptions and internet access.

The survey should be fairly easy to do and take just a few minutes to complete.

MEDIA RELEASE

Topics and titles that will capture the imagination of middle school students – and hopefully nurture a love of reading – will be among the featured books offered during a Scholastic Book Fair at Waimea Middle Public Conversion Charter School Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 21-22, 2011.

The Book Fair is timed to coincide with Waimea Middle School’s annual student-led family-teacher conferences so that the hours of the book sale will run parallel with family conference: Noon to 6 p.m., Mon., Nov. 21, and then from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., Tues., Nov. 22, 2011.

Everyone in the community is invited to check out the Book Fair, which will provide a good opportunity to secure books suited to middle school interests and reading skills, and that are also reasonably priced and make perfect holiday gifts.

The sale is being sponsored by the WMS English Department. Funds raised from the Book Fair will help the school expand its classroom libraries and novel sets to provide enticing and enriching reading options for students.

For the Book Fair, the school can accept cash, checks and four major credit cards.

For more information, email Leesa_Robertson@notes…., Barbara_Haight@notes.k…, or go to

bookfairs.scholastic.c…

Karin Stanton | Hawaii 24/7 Editor

When Megan Chapman is not teaching jazz and ballet classes at West Hawaii Dance Academy, she’s usually focused on a much more personal quest.

Chapman was a casual writer until a family tragedy turned a fun project into a memorial for a young cousin.

Her first novel ‘Lion Heart & Alessio’ was born as a gift to her family, which extended from Hawaii to Boston to Greece.

The plan was to share the first book at a Boston family reunion in the summer of 2008. However, her 12-year-old nephew — one of the heroes of the book — was struck by a car and killed the day before he was to leave Greece to meet his extended family in Boston.

That reunion became a time of mourning and was the catalyst for Chapman to turn her tale into a supportive story for anyone who has suffered pain or loss.

Chapman now envisions ‘Lion Heart & Alessio’ as a five-book series of adventures about faith, family, and the struggles we must overcome live a victorious life.

Here’s the book jacket version:

“Jed and Makarios (aka Mak) have big dreams of becoming pro skateboarders, traveling the world to compete against the best. Jed’s stoked because he’s finally old enough to enter the Victory Ride skateboarding competition with his older cousin Mak.

But when he finds out that Mak and his family are moving across the world— to Greece!—Jed’s dreams take a sketchy turn. After a mysterious encounter, Jed and Mak receive an ancient treasure that comes with supernatural powers.

Transformed into warriors named Lion Heart & Alessio, Jed and Mak are sent on an epic adventure and the ride of their lives!”

The book is available at Kona Bay Books in Kailu-Kona. It is also available at www.amazon.com, www.barnes&noble.com, www.christianbook.com and meganjoychapman.com

Chapman will appear 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5 at Logos bookstore on Oahu.

* Family Read Aloud Program
4:30-6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 11
* Kailua-Kona Public Library

The Friends of the Libraries, Kona is hosting their free family read-aloud program, “Books are Building Blocks,” for the new school year.

This program is usually offered on the first Tuesday of each month. This month it is being held on a special date due to a conflict with Ironman festivities.

Parents must attend the program with their children. Participation is limited to the first 75 people.

The program is designed to encourage family literacy. There will be separate reading groups: Kindergarten, grades 1 to 2, 3 to 4, 5 to 6, 7 +, and their parents.

Each group will have a person reading aloud to them, followed by a discussion of what was read.

Registration will take place from 4:30-5 p.m. in front of the library. Families will then separate into groups with a reader from 5- 6 p.m. Afterward, the families will meet on the lanai for free refreshments, prizes and books.

If you would like to sponsor a program, or for more information, contact Shirley David at 322-1783 or e-mail FOLK@folkhawaii.com.

— Find out more:
www.folkhawaii.com

MEDIA RELEASE

Library patrons with Kindle eBook readers can now access and download nearly 50,000 eBooks from the Hawaii State Public Library System’s (HSPLS) website, thanks to Amazon and OverDrive, the system’s primary provider of eBooks and digital audiobooks, State Librarian Richard Burns has announced.

Kindle, the popular eBook reader, is now compatible with the Library System’s outstanding eBook collection.

“With the recent launching of Amazon’s new Kindle Fire, the demand for eBooks is anticipated to increase, and we are expanding the size, depth and breadth of our collection to meet this demand,” Burns said.

Patrons with eBook readers can browse HSPLS’ eBook collection by visiting www.librarieshawaii.or…, clicking on “EBooks, Audio-books and Music,” and then accessing hawaii.lib.overdrive.c….

By clicking on the “Kindle Now Available” button, users can access eBook titles for all ages on a wide variety of topics including fiction, non-fiction, health, fitness, business, religion, cooking, self-improvement, and biographies.

EBooks are the fastest growing segment of HSPLS’ total circulation. With Kindle compatibility, circulation is expected to increase by more than 30 percent this year, to more than 100,000.

Through the convenience of remote access, library patrons with a valid library card may borrow up to ten eBooks free of charge for up to three weeks without traveling to the library or incurring overdue charges.

MEDIA RELEASE

Join local authors for the monthly “Words and Wine” event hosted by Kona Stories Book Shop. This event begins at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4 and is free to the public and offers a chance for you to meet and greet some of Kona’s favorite authors while you enjoy pupus and wine.

This month we are excited to host local authors: Nancy Bo Flood, Drew Womack and Rebecca Cantrell.

This event starts with an informal meet and greet merging into a more formal book presentation from each author and concluding around 9 p.m. after a Q&A session.

Through either work or research, Nancy Bo Flood has lived in Malawi, Africa, Hawaii, Japan, the western Pacific, and, most recently, the Navajo Nation Reservation. Legends and folklore are of particular interest to Bo, for they hold the magic and mystery of other people’s or generation’s beliefs.

In her book “Warriors in the Crossfire” we take a look at one boy’s experience of impending war, war fought by two nations, Japan and the U.S. on the Pacific island of Saipan. The island’s families are caught in the crossfire of invasion. In order to survive, Joseph, the main character, must find a new understanding of being a warrior. Paperback $17.95.

Drew Womack is a multi-media artist, singer, songwriter, who creates art out of wood, tile, glass, and paint. His thinking is so far out of the box, he even sees the box as a possible work of art. He is an incurable optimist who appreciates the potential beauty, and positive uses in almost everything.

Womack flies interisland in his own plane and is a long time sailor and water sportsman and has built his own homes from the ground up. He and his wife Carla have been married for 26 years and have two adult children, Kiara and Cheyene. He loves living in Hawaii, and feels enjoying life is his primary occupation. Womack’s book “Drew’s Journey to O” is his story about what makes life enjoyable to him. Paperback for $9.99.

A few years ago Rebecca Cantrell quit her job, sold her house, and moved to Hawaii to write a novel because, at seven, she decided that she would be a writer. Now she writes the Hannah Vogel mystery series set in Berlin in the 1930s, including “A Trace of Smoke and the “A Night of Long Knives.”

“A Trace of Smoke” was considered by major cable networks as a television series. In the third book in the series “A Game of Lies”, Hannah Vogel looks behind the friendly facade the Nazis put on for the Olympic Games and uncovers a secret that can change the outcome of the upcoming war. Hardcover $24.99

Kona Stories is located in the Keauhou Shopping Center. For more information call Brenda or Joy at 324-0350.

MEDIA RELEASE

In a move highly anticipated since its initial announcement in April, public libraries and schools in the U.S. can now lend eBooks for the Amazon® Kindle. OverDrive (www.overdrive.com) announced that it has begun adding Kindle compatibility to all of the U.S. public and school libraries in its network and expects to have all sites updated within days. This is a very significant step in a series of OverDrive WIN platform enhancements to streamline user experience and help libraries meet the increased demand for eBooks.

OverDrive, the leading multichannel digital distributor of eBooks, audiobooks and other digital content, supplies 15,000 public and school libraries worldwide and more than 11,000 in the U.S. To see if your local library is a member of the OverDrive network, visit OverDrive Search.

“Kindle compatibility will allow public and school libraries to serve millions of new readers and extend their valuable community role while providing an outstanding reading experience,” said Steve Potash, CEO of OverDrive. “This addition helps public libraries accelerate their drive to become the first online stop for eBooks, where visitors can browse, discover and sample new and popular titles and authors in virtually all subjects.”

The process for borrowing a public library or school eBook for Kindle is similar as for other devices. Most eBooks already in the library’s catalog supplied by OverDrive are compatible with Kindle, so users simply browse or search for “Kindle Book,” check out a title with a valid library card, and then click “Get for Kindle.” Access to the Kindle Book will occur at Amazon’s website after signing in and selecting delivery to the user’s Kindle device or any of the free Kindle reading apps. As with all eBooks and other digital content at OverDrive-powered libraries and schools, titles are available 24/7 and incur no late fees because they automatically expire at the end of the lending period. For more details on Kindle compatibility, including the availability of Amazon’s Whispersync technology, please visit OverDrive’s Digital Library Blog.

In addition to Kindle, OverDrive provides support for all major desktop and mobile devices, including Windows®, Mac®, iPod®, iPhone®, iPad®, Sony® Reader, NOOK™, Android™, BlackBerry® and Windows® Phone.

Visit the Hawaii State Public Library Digital Media site for more info at: http://hawaii.lib.overdrive.com

MEDIA RELEASE

Author S.P. Grogan of “Captain Cooked” fame returns for a couple book-signing stops.

In May, “Captain Cooked” received a Ka Palapala Pookela Award for “Excellence In Writing” from the Hawaii Book Publishers Association.

“Captain Cooked” tells the story of a young haole woman who comes to the islands to help film her father’s television cooking show, and winds up embroiled in ‘Romance, Revenge, and Recipes.’

While stumbling into island romances, she tries to solve the murder of a Hawaiian singing star.

Featured in the book are 25 recipes from top chefs and restaurants, as well as a travelogue tour of the Big Island.

A $5,000 contest using GPS is tied to the book, clues are unveiled within.

For tour updates, visit: www.CaptainCooked.com

Grogan is also promoting his latest work, an e-book serial docu-novel, an international political action thriller, “Retaliate: Beyond the Grave, bin Laden’s Final Attack on the U.S.”

Schedule Summary

* 6-10 p.m. Aug. 12 – Wyland Ocean Front Gallery, Kailua-Kona

* 11 a.m.-sunset, Aug. 13 – Mai Tai Festival, Royal Kona Resort

* 10 a.m.-noon, Aug. 14 – Kona Bay Books

WHEN: 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, July 19

This month’s selection is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Wolf Hall takes a slice of Tudor history and allows the reader to view it through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, who rose through life from his origins as the son of a blacksmith to become the chief minister of King Henry VIII. Henry VIII’s challenge to the church’s power with his desire to divorce his queen and marry Anne Boleyn set off a tidal wave of religious, political and social turmoil that reverberated throughout 16th-century Europe.

Mantel sets out to describe a tumultuous period in English history, not by focusing on the main event – Henry and Anne – but by showing the struggle faced by those more behind the scenes.

Join us for a lively discussion and light refreshments. New members are welcome.

There will be no meeting in August. The Book Club will resume in September to discuss The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

* May 31-July 1, Kealakekua Public Library

Kealakekua Public Library will be celebrating its Summer Reading Program with special free events lined up for June.

There will be Kids’ Craft Programs 2:30-3:30 p.m. each Friday for ages six and up: June 3 – Cork Float Toy, June 10 – Origami Kite, June 17 – Pin and Bead Bracelet, and June 24 – Brown Bag Note Card.

Additional craft programs are also offered:

* 4-5 p.m., Wednesday, June 1 – Temporary Tattoos with Allison Loando for ages 4 and up (with parent).

* 11 a.m.-noon, Saturday, June 4 – Teen and Adult Craft Program – Making a Glass Jar Art Candleholder. Participants need to bring their own clean small/medium sized glass jar (labels removed) that can hold a small tea candle.

* 5-6 p.m., Wednesday, June 8 – Teen and Adult Craft – Wire and Pearls Brooch.

* 5:30-6:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 15 – Origami for all ages with Michelle Strobehn.

* 5-6 p.m., Wednesday, June 22 – Belly Dancing demonstration, lecture and audience participation with Stephanie Bolton for teens and adults.

Other special entertainment programs for all ages are presented on:

* 11 a.m.-noon, Saturday, June 18 – Jazz with Olga Salvatore and Greg Shirley

* 11 a.m.-noon, Saturday, June 25 – The Magic of Arneleo with Arnie Rabin

* 5:30-6:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 29 – Irish Folktales with professional storyteller Niall de Burca

All patrons from toddlers to adults are welcome to visit Kealakekua Public Library and sign up to participate in the Summer Reading Program.

Get a book log to record what you read, read one book per week and visit the library weekly to receive a prize. Kids who read five books per week get additional prizes.

Kids can sign up to win a $20 Dairy Queen gift card and teens can enter a drawing to win either an iPod shuffle or iPod Touch.

For more information contact the Kealakekua Public Library at 323-7585 or visit Friends of the Libraries, Kona at www.folkhawaii.com

* 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, May 14

The Friends of the Libraries, Kona (FOLK) hosts the book sale on the lanai of the Kailua-Kona Library.

Proceeds from sales help support the needs of the Kona libraries, with funding that includes educational and entertainment programs, community summer reading programs, visiting authors, magazine subscriptions, CD’s, DVD’s and new book purchases.

Next sale is June 18, 2011. This is a special date due to the Kamehameha Day holiday falling on the usual Saturday.

Come and stock up and as always volunteers are welcome.

For further information or to volunteer, call 322-0077.

MEDIA RELEASE

Kindle users will be delighted to know that beginning later this year, they will be able to borrow eBooks from Hawaii State Public Library System (HSPLS) libraries, thanks to an agreement reached today between Amazon and OverDrive, the primary provider of eBook content to libraries nationwide.

The Kindle Library Lending program will be launched once Amazon and OverDrive work out details and integrate and consolidate compatible eBook technology.

“We are very excited that for the first time, our patrons with Kindle eBook readers will be able to access, download and enjoy our outstanding collection of OverDrive eBooks,” said State Librarian Richard Burns. “While eBooks still represent a small percentage of our total circulation, they comprise the fastest-growing segment.”

Over the past year, libraries have seen impressive increases in circulation as eBooks and e-readers have surged in popularity, and demand for library e-books has surged along with them. In 2010, OverDrive reported 200% more library eBook checkouts compared to 2009, and these figures are certain to climb even higher with the addition of Kindle, which is the world’s most popular eBook reading device.

In Hawaii, HSPLS’ circulation of eBooks has grown steadily, with more than 8,500 eBooks borrowed in March 2011, the highest one month total since the launch of the eBook collection in Hawaii’s public libraries in 2005.