February isn't just for Valentine's Day, romance, and couples. It's also for lovers of libraries. National Library Lovers Month (and National Library Lovers Day on Feb. 14) is a time to celebrate all things to do with our beloved libraries, the librarians and staff that care for them, and the patrons and community that love them.
Libraries not only provide their communities with a vast and diverse collection of reading materials but also a quiet place to study, career resources, WiFi hotspots, sensory toys, programs for all ages, and so much more.
Volunteer
Do you want to be more involved in your local library? In-person volunteering has resumed. Our volunteers are a diverse and active group of individuals who perform a variety of tasks that support library staff in providing excellent library services. Volunteer opportunities are available at most Library District locations. You may submit References and either an Adult Volunteer Interest Form or a Youth Volunteer Interest Form. The Volunteer Program Office will contact you with more information once the application has been processed.
Patrons can also volunteer with our wonderful Friends of the Library. You can either volunteer to work the book sales in April or October (each book sale lasts 5 days) or work year-round at the Friends of the Library Bookhouse.
Dear Library...
Tell us why you love the library! Send library appreciation stories from any time and place, your childhood or last week. Take a moment to thank a librarian and celebrate your library. Share your library love online or on social media with #NationalLibraryLoversMonth and tag @alachualibrary.
You can follow our social media pages. We're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, and LinkedIn.
Love: From Giraffes Can't Dance
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Join Gerald the Giraffe and friends for a sparkling celebration of LOVE!
From the creators of the bestselling Giraffes Can't Dance comes a brand-new rhyming story filled with joy and love... and all your favourite characters from the bestselling classic!
This magical moonlit rhyme is ideal for sharing and reading aloud with loved ones, and as a sturdy board book, it's perfect for even the littlest hands.
The perfect gift to say 'I love you' on Valentine's Day, or at any time of the year.
Pete the Cat's Groovy Guide to Love
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Spread the love, Pete style! Pete the Cat shares some groovy words from the heart in this fun collection of all his favorite famous quotes about self-love, pursuing your passions (or doing what makes you happy), and friendship.
This cool cat adds his heartfelt take on well-known classic quotes, from Vincent van Gogh to Virgil to Ovid to Charles Dickens. Everyone’s favorite blue cat reminds us that the key to loving life is to love yourself, love others, and love what you do.
Fans of the bestselling Pete the Cat series will delight in this fun take on popular quotes, which are accompanied by Pete's witty responses and illustrations by New York Times bestselling team Kimberly and James Dean.
Love
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From award-winning author Stacy McAnulty comes a sweet story about love and what it's really all about.
What is love? Can you only express it in fancy meals, greeting cards, and heart-shaped chocolates? Kids will find love everywhere in this delightful book. It can be found in everyday moments such as baking cookies with grandma, notes from Mom in your lunchbox, or a family singing together on a car trip, and it isn't always what you expect!
With delightful illustrations by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff and sweetly simple prose by award-winning author Stacy McAnulty, this is the perfect book to teach children what love means, why it's important, and how they can spread the love in their daily lives.
Love
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"In the beginning there is light
and two wide-eyed figures standing near the foot of your bed
and the sound of their voices is love.
...
A cab driver plays love softly on his radio
while you bounce in back with the bumps of the city
and everything smells new, and it smells like life."
In this heartfelt celebration of love, Matt de la Peña and illustrator Loren Long depict the many ways we experience this universal bond, which carries us from the day we are born throughout the years of our childhood and beyond. With a lyrical text that's soothing and inspiring, this tender tale is a needed comfort and a new classic that will resonate with readers of every age.
Gifts of the Spirit: Love
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This 32-page hardcover Berenstain Bears storybook, created by Mike Berenstain, son of Stan and Jan Berenstain, includes a soon-to-be classic story about the joy of loving your family, your friends and your neighbors alike! Boys and girls ages 3 to 7 will enjoy this sweet, faith-based story filled with fun, colorful illustrations--it's the perfect read-aloud for any day! A gentle way to introduce the topic of diversity to young readers, and a wonderful example of how to embrace new people, food, and experiences.
Love You Always
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A child is a treasured leaf on a family tree, surrounded by love from mom, dad, doting grandparents, aunts and uncles, and family friends too. This sweet, reassuring picture book from Eileen Spinelli acknowledges the whole "tree'' the many who are invested in a child's life with expressions of unconditional love from each. Heartwarming verse and charming artwork will make this book a must-buy for baby showers, birthdays, and other occasions.
Love, Z
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From the creator of Not Quite Narwhal comes the story of a young robot trying to find the meaning of “love.”
When a small robot named Z discovers a message in a bottle signed “Love, Beatrice ,” they decide to find out what “love” means. Unable to get an answer from the other robots, they leave to embark on an adventure that will lead them to Beatrice—and back home again, where love was hiding all along.
Twelfth Grade Night
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The course of true love never did run smooth . . . and neither does high school in this new graphic novel series for fans of Heartstopper and The Prince and the Dressmaker.
Vi came to Arden High for a fresh start and a chance to wear beanies and button-ups instead of uniform skirts. And though doing it without her twin feels like being split in half, Vi finds her stride when she stumbles (literally!) into broody and beautiful poet-slash-influencer, Orsino. Soon Vi gets roped into helping plan the school’s Twelfth Grade Night dance, and she can’t stop dreaming about slow dancing with Orsino under the fairy lights in the gym.
The problem? All Vi’s new friends assume she’s not even into guys. And before Vi can ask Orsino to the dance, he recruits Vi to help woo his crush, Olivia. Who has a crush of her own . . . on Vi.
Star-crossed love abounds in this hilarious and romantic story of self-discovery, mistaken identities, and the magic that happens when we open our hearts to something new.
Hex Americana
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A boy-meets-ghoul story at 100 miles-per-hour!
Ken Takamoto is a wannabe racer stuck at home for the summer, with only his mother for company. Dante Willow is a ghost stuck in the car he crashed while racing his rival twenty years ago.
When they meet by chance, Ken has the answer to both their enter the local racing league Hex Americana and win the annual Grand Prix. If they win, Dante can pass on to the afterlife and Ken can keep Dante's fixed-up car to go anywhere he wants. What starts as a simple plan becomes a wild summer full of witches, gnomes, feelings, magical chickens, and more as they prepare for the big race.
Will Ken and Dante finish first? Can they even make it to the finish line? And more importantly, what happens when this racing duo blooms into something more?
Bursting to the brim with crazy monsters, blazing automotive action, deep-rooted mysteries, and small-town secrets, HEX AMERICANA is the race everyone’s dying to win!
Book Lovers
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One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming...
Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.
Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.
If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.