Before... ...And After, with Mayor Nenshi!

Ever wonder who is hiding underneath our Mascot, Curious the Chameleon?

Since Curious’ arrival, we’ve had a team of volunteers bring our mascot to Library and Community events all across the city. So it hasn’t just been one person, it’s been many wonderful volunteers willing to don the sometimes heavy and warm costume.

Chief among our volunteer team for Curious is Sherina. Sherina has been working with Curious since the very beginning, in fact she was the first volunteer to dress up as Curious at it’s debut during Saddletowne Library’s opening day in January 2012!

Staff and customers are always commenting about how much energy, fun, and enthusiasm she has for the character. She makes Curious come alive for Calgary's children and has made many a storytime and public event more lively through her charcterization.

“She was flexible, went with the flow, kept up high energy the whole time – playing with kids, getting the crowd excited, etc. She had a smile on her face the whole time and she really pulled the group together!”

Thank you, Sherina, for all that you put into your volunteer work!

If you are interested in volunteering as the Library’s Mascot or Mascot "Handler", click here for more information. Our Mascot Handlers support our Mascot, assisting them to meet and greet the public, looking after physical and safety needs and escorting them at all times.

Congratulations to Calgary Public Library for winning the CCVO’s Innovation Awards

To learn more, please read this article by Charity Village about the awards.

Thank you to all the library volunteers who helped be part of our ‘Welcome to the Library DVD’!

Congratulations Lisa O’Blenis!

Lisa has been selected to receive the Council of the Federation Award for her work as a Literacy volunteer in the Learning Advantage program at the Calgary Public Library.

The award recognizes outstanding achievement, innovative practices, and excellence in literacy and is awarded to one person in each province. We are so pleased that Lisa is representing the Calgary Public Library and Alberta!

Learning Advantage pairs volunteers with adult literacy learners to assist them in achieving their goals in reading, writing, and numeracy.

If you are interested in our Learning Advantage program, click here.

Also, September 8th is International Literacy Day! What better way to celebrate your skills than to donate your time to help others in their reading, writing, and numeracy!

This post is dedicated to a queer artist whom I love with all my heart - one Beric Manywounds, who continues to challenge my views about men, women, sex, gender, and love. May you revel in your sexuality; may you find a love that makes your heart sing!

The Calgary Public Library is proud to celebrate diversity in our community. Whether that diversity is ethnic, linguistic, cultural, or sexual, we have materials and programs that allow for various views and voices to be heard and understood. This September, like every other, we wish you a very happy PRIDE. Celebrate the fact that families come in a glorious variety of forms, and so do sexual preferences and practices.

Visit your library for books by and about gays, lesbians, transfolk, queers, and all of their many allies. Find materials that might help you come out - or dialogue with a child (or parent!) who just has. Borrow books about planning your gay wedding, or browse some of our gay audience magazines. If you’re writing a paper about sex, sexuality, gender, or gay issues, be sure to check out our e-library databases for academic and peer reviewed journals.

And if you’re free this Sunday, September 2, then head downtown to take part in Calgary’s PRIDE parade.

As for me, I don’t identify as gay. But I’ve got rainbow striped knee-high socks that have been waiting in fashion storage for nearly a year, and I’ll be wearing them with pride, in celebration of all the gays I’ve known and loved (and a few of the lesbians I’ve had crushes on, too).

From drag racing to drag queens, the Calgary Public Library has resources about everything you’re into!

Patient, kind, warm, calm. These are examples of words that have been used to describe Safina Sachedina, a volunteer with the Calgary Public Library’s ‘TD Read With Me’ program since 2009. Safina’s been working and reading with her young buddy, Shenise, for an hour a week at a library branch since October 2009. Shenise will graduate from the program later in Summer 2012, as she’s completed Gr. 6, and she credits Safina with helping her a lot over the almost three years they’ve worked together:

‘It’s been really, really good working with Safina. I feel really confident in my reading now. She’s really, really nice and doesn’t get frustrated if I don’t understand. I feel comfortable with Safina and she really understands when I have rough days…I don’t have to read then, we can play games instead. We’ve become friends.’

Michelle, Shenise’s mom, elaborates on the help that Safina has provided to her daughter through the program:

‘It’s been wonderful. We couldn’t have asked for a better fit than we got with Safina. She’s the most patient person I’ve ever met. She’s been able to break-down the barriers that Shenise puts up on bad days. They’re very in-tune with each other and have developed a real friendship. Safina has not only helped to develop Shenise’s reading skills but has also helped to raise her self-esteem and has been more like a mentor to her.’

According to Safina, the feeling goes both ways. ‘It’s been really good, working with Shenise and her family. I’ve really gotten to know her well and she’s a good girl and so fun. We’ve bonded really well and I’ve seen her grow a lot in confidence in general across the years. I see her going far in life. She’ll have to work hard (don’t we all! J) but she’ll get there!’

Thank you, Safina, for all your dedication to the program over the past 3 years! And best of luck to you, Shenise, in junior high in the fall!

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reading three books that vary tremendously in terms of subject and scope.

The Good: salads: beyond the bowl, by Mindy Fox. My only complaint is that there aren’t pictures provided for every recipe. But otherwise, this is a delicious book! Tonight, I’m having potatoes and green peas with pesto. YUM! Fox encourages readers to make gorgeous salads from all sorts of greens, of course, but also incorporates fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds, grains, eggs, meats and more. If you’re bored of arugula, or you’d like to be the most popular guest at the picnic, check this one out!

The Bad: Six Weeks to OMG: Get Skinnier than all Your Friends, by Venice A. Fulton

Did I say “bad”? I meant awful. If you need me to tell you why competing against your friends, skipping breakfast and bathing in cold water might not be entirely sustainable (or healthy) routines, then you’re in trouble. And so are the readers of this…wait for it: crap. There – I said it. Dear readers, in nearly 400 Slice of Calgary posts, I have never once written a scathing book review, but this one deserves it. Fulton – an “expert in nutrition and exercise physiology” doesn’t provide readers with his credentials – neither in this book, nor in his blog. An “expert”, eh? Kind of like how I’ve got 65 pairs of shoes and therefore am a podiatrist, right? Skip this fat-phobic trash and do what you already know you need to do: cut out the junk, get your body moving, and eat your veggies.

The Very, Very Ugly: People who Eat Darkness: Love, Grief and a Journey into Japan’s Shadows, by Richard Llyod Parry. I never read true crime, but was drawn to this book because of the review on its back cover: “Utterly compelling...comes with a cast-iron guarantee that you will read to the very end”. I wondered what was so compelling about it, so I read the first page. 224 pages later, it was midnight and time for me to go to bed, but I couldn’t stand not knowing what happened to Lucie Blackman – or what would happen next. This is a gruesome story, to be sure. But it’s not solely about the young British woman who moves to Japan and is abducted, killed, and dismembered. It’s about her family dynamics, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, misogyny in Japanese culture, and the way that we treat victims and survivors of crime. The journalism is exhaustive and the writing is fantastic!

Need a suggestion for your next read? Chat with your librarian, sign up for our monthly newsletters, or check out our other blogs!