All Posts

Microadventure: Day trip to Stonerose for fossils

Posted in Explore and Discover, kids, Parents and Teachers on July 24, 2018 at 6:00 am

By Rachel Edmondson Even though I’ve lived in the Spokane area for over 15 years now, every once in a while I find out about something and wonder how I’ve never heard about it before. This past fall I learned about the Stonerose Interpretive Center. While it’s a bit of a drive from Spokane (about […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy birthday! A reading list of authors with July birthdays

Posted in Explore and Discover on July 17, 2018 at 6:00 am

By Nathaniel Youmans This one’s for all you with summer birthdays out there. Remember in grade school when the end of the year drew close and teachers, even more burnt out than their students, had to find some reason (summon the willpower) to celebrate students with summer birthdays? At my elementary school, this took the […]

Tags: , , , , , ,

Perfect pairings: Recipes to devour while binge watching

Posted in Explore and Discover on July 10, 2018 at 6:00 am

By Susan Goertz I’m a summer person. Long summer days swimming around the lake and baking dry on the shore, hiking through the woods, picking berries, tending to my ever expanding garden—it doesn’t get much better. After a long, sun-drenched day, I want to grill up something yummy and then collapse on the couch for […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Road trip! The quintessential American vacation

Posted in Explore and Discover on July 3, 2018 at 6:00 am

by Melissa Rhoades Have you heard of Horatio Nelson Jackson? This under-celebrated trailblazer was the first person to drive an automobile across the U.S. In 1903, ten years before Ford Motor Company began mass producing cars, Jackson left San Francisco in a two-cylinder Winton with a mechanic as his travel companion and a $50 bet […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Rock summer reading: Music pairings for The Great American Read

Posted in Explore and Discover on June 28, 2018 at 6:00 am

by David Wyatt I grew up out in the country and my school days were defined by early mornings and long bus rides. These long rides were filled with listening to music on the most skip-resistant portable CD player my allowance could buy while working on homework assignments at the last minute, and when I […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Adult reads for Pride Month

Posted in Explore and Discover on June 21, 2018 at 6:00 am

by Caitlin Wheeler June is LGBT Pride Month in the U.S. and the time to spotlight LGBTQ artists and thinkers who might otherwise remain hidden in library stacks. As you may know, the library is an advocate for equitable access and for fundamental values that include equity, diversity, and inclusion and the protection of intellectual […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Preschoolers get ready for school with STEM kits from the library

Posted in News, Parents and Teachers on June 20, 2018 at 6:00 am

By Mary Ellen Braks Keep your preschoolers busy this summer with hands-on activities that encourage playful learning while exploring STEM concepts and reading. Preschoolers will find lots to discover with their parents and caregivers, using our new Ready for School with STEM kits. Spokane County Library District in partnership with the Inland North […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The dog days of summer

Posted in kids, Parents and Teachers on June 19, 2018 at 6:00 am

By Sheri Boggs The hot, sticky afternoons of late July through August are typically called “the dog days of summer.” It’s that time when the only thing that sounds good for dinner is gazpacho, and even grownups without kids consider a visit to the neighborhood swimming pool. To the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, the dog […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Pounce-worthy feline books

Posted in Explore and Discover on June 13, 2018 at 6:00 am

by Dana Mannino Need a great book for a cat lover? You might naturally gravitate towards heartwarming nonfiction works like Dewey and Strays, or others that include fictional cats. But have you considered a picture book? The cat lover in your life may have aged out of the target demographic for picture books years ago, […]

Tags: , , , , , ,

Young adult booklist for Pride Month

Posted in Parents and Teachers, Teens on June 11, 2018 at 6:00 am

by Caitlin Wheeler As I wrote about in a previous blog that spotlighted children’s books, June is LGBTQ Pride Month. You can learn more about Pride Month and LGBTQ representation in that post. For adult titles, check out my Pride Month blog on that as well. Here, I’m recommending some great young adult (YA) literature […]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,