Library Closed for Thanksgiving

- Stephanie Leave a comment

All three Davenport Public Library locations will be closed Thursday, November 28th and Friday, November 29th in observance of Thanksgiving. All three buildings will reopen with regular business hours on Saturday, November 30th: Main (321 Main Street) 9am to 5:30pm, Eastern (6000 Eastern Avenue) 9am to 5:30pm, and Fairmount (3000 N Fairmount St) 9am to 5:30pm.

Even though our physical locations will be closed, you can still access free digital content for all ages. Your Davenport Public Library card gives you access to free eBooks, digital audiobooks, magazines, movies, and music through Libby, Freegal, TumbleBooks, QC Beats, and Kanopy!

Have a safe and happy holiday!

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“everything we fear finds us eventually, so there’s no point trying to outrun it.”
― Stuart Turton, The Last Murder at the End of the World

Stuart Turton’s latest novel, The Last Murder at the End of the World, is a genre-bending murder mystery that contains elements of science fiction, crime thrillers, and dystopia.

An island in the middle of the ocean holds what is left of humanity. A fog swept the world, killing anyone and everything it touched. Thanks to the work of three scientists living on the island, a security system is in place keeping the fog at bay. 122 villagers live with the scientists, fishing and farming, supplying the island with what they need to survive.

Their idyllic lives are shattered when, upon waking one morning, they discover one of the scientists dead in a burning building. They quickly learn that the death triggered the security system to lower, bringing the fog closer and closer to the island. With only hours left before the fog destroys the island and kills them all, they must figure out what happened to the scientist. Obstacles repeatedly pop up during the investigation, leading the villagers chasing leads all over the island. The truth will be hard to figure out, but the clock is ticking. If they don’t solve this mystery, the fog will wipe their problems, and their lives, away.

This is a book that is hard to talk about without giving too much away. Let me start by saying that the beginning of this book gives off very much ‘hippie commune thrown for a loop by a crime’ vibes. I love that. The rest of the book is chock full of twists and turns as they try to solve the crime. This was a very quick read, but I found it to be difficult to follow at times in the audiobook as two of the characters’ accents were only *slightly* different. Overall, The Last Murder at the End of the World was intriguing and had me hooked to the very end.

Library Business Assistance

- Rachel Leave a comment

The Davenport Public Library is proud to announce that we have a new service. It is Library Business Assistance. This new service is available to anyone starting or operating a business. The Library is here to help!

Some of the services that we have to offer are:

  • Data Axle Reference Solutions
  • Gale Business Plan Builder
  • LinkedIn Learning
  • Candid: Foundation Directory
  • BrainFuse
  • Books on various business topics

We also offer one-on-one appointments with our librarians. They can help you with the various products and assist you with your business journey.

So, if you have questions about business, just ask us at the library! We are here for you.

For more information about Library Business Assistance, check out our website: https://www.davenportlibrary.com/services/business-services

A Full Life

- Bill Leave a comment

Firstly, this isn’t a new book at DPL.  President Carter penned this biography ten years ago at the whippersnapper age of 90.    There are a host of fascinating tidbits here about Smiling Jimmy.  For example, you wouldn’t think the first centenarian US president would be a guy who produced radioactive urine for six months after saving a damaged Canadian nuclear reactor.  As he tells it, science’s burgeoning cognizance of radiation in 1952 erroneously permitted human exposure levels 1000 times our modern understanding.  It worked out for Bruce Banner, right?

Carter’s roots were humble.  In fact, he was the first president to reside in public housing, undoubtedly igniting his passion for Habitat for Humanity.  Little Jimmy was a racial minority among his schoolmates, solidifying his stance as supporter of civil rights in the turbulent 60’s.  Where he was from, that platform cost him a few victories in his nascent political career.

Governor.  Presidency.  Ayatollah. Hostage Crisis. Energy Crisis. Reagan.   And then, it was right back to Plains, GA, the peanut farm, and the same home he’s owned for sixty years.  Did he ever stop teaching Sunday school?  He missed a few catechisms 1976-1980, yeah.

Check out the story of the man who is more famous for what he did AFTER being POTUS while there isn’t a holds list.  If heaven ever claims the objectively kindest human to occupy the oval office, there might be demand for this story.  Of course, we’ve been saying that a while.  Jimmy may rival “Silent Cal” Coolidge for the least sensational commander-in-chief, but his century on Earth is undeniably grounded in public service.

The Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

- Stephanie Leave a comment

My latest read is a continuation of my favorite young adult series of all time. The Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes is the first in a new series of the same name. This series takes place in the world of the Inheritance Games series written by the same author. If you want to avoid spoilers, make sure to read the Inheritance Games series first – at least through book 3, The Final Gambit, where the Grandest Game competition is announced. (Confused? Scroll to the bottom of this blog for a list of both series!) Let’s get into the book.

Ok! It’s time for the Grandest Game! This annual competition was started by billionaire heiress Avery Grambs and the four Hawthorne brothers. Why are they doing this? Well Avery inherited the Hawthorne family fortune out of nowhere and honestly it doesn’t feel right to her to keep it all. As a way to give anyone and everyone a shot at winning fame and fortune, they have designed the Grandest Game! The competition this year requires participants to claim one of seven golden tickets – some people find the tickets, while others are hand-chosen by Avery. What do you get when you win? Millions of dollars (and maybe something else).

All seven players have different motivations for competing and are committed to doing whatever it takes to win. What they don’t know is that Avery and the Hawthorne brothers aren’t going to make this easy. Where’s the fun in that? The challenges they have concocted are designed to push each player to their limits. The players may have secrets, but Avery and the Hawthorne brothers know all and aren’t afraid to use that to their advantage. The longer the games advance though, the more it becomes apparent that someone is cheating and working outside the prescribed rules. With their lives on the line, each player must ask themselves if they are willing to risk it all.

This title is also available in large print.

Inheritance Games series

  1. The Inheritance Games (2020)
  2. The Hawthorne Legacy (2021)
  3. The Final Gambit (2022)
  4. The Brothers Hawthorne (2023)
  5. Games Untold (2024)

Grandest Game series

  1. The Grandest Game (2024)
  2. Glorious Rivals (2025)

Social Work Spotlight: Safe Families for Children (SFFC) Quad Cities

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Safe Families for Children (SFFC) Quad Cities: A Lifeline for Families in Crisis

This month, we are turning our attention to an organization that is making a profound difference in the lives of families facing crisis in the Quad Cities region. Safe Families for Children (SFFC) Quad Cities. Since 2005, Safe Families for Children has provided a compassionate safety net for families in Iowa and Illinois, helping parents navigate hardships like homelessness, unemployment, medical emergencies, Incarceration, and other personal challenges.

At the heart of Safe Families for Children is a mission of family preservation. The organization aims to keep children safe while empowering parents to stabilize their lives. By creating a Circle of Support, SFFC connects children with screened and trained Host Families who provide temporary, loving homes. This allows parents to address their personal challenges without fear of losing custody of their children. This support is crucial, offering a lifeline enabling families to remain intact while they get back on their feet.

Established in 2003 in Chicago, Safe Families for Children is part of a national movement dedicated to keeping children out of the foster care system and changing how families in crisis are supported. Instead of promoting separation, SFFC focuses on preserving families, aiming to decrease the number of children entering foster care. Safe Families offers temporary, voluntary care, establishing a community-driven support system to empower families during challenging periods.

One of Safe Families’ key distinctions is that hosting is 100% voluntary. Parents retain full custody of their children throughout the process and can request their return anytime. Depending on the family’s needs, hosting can last as briefly as a few hours or as long as several months upon volunteer availability. During this time, parents can focus on overcoming their crisis, knowing that their children are in safe and caring hands.

Volunteers serve as Host Families and act as an extended family, providing children with a nurturing, stable environment. Communication between parents and Host Families is a cornerstone of the program, ensuring parents stay connected with their children throughout the process.

Safe Families’ success lies in its volunteer-driven approach. Volunteers are background-checked and well-trained, serving in several key roles:

  • Host Families: These families open their homes to children needing temporary care, providing a safe, nurturing environment.
  • Family Friends: These volunteers support parents and Host Families through friendship, encouragement, transportation, meals, and practical help during challenging times.
  • Resource Friends: These individuals donate essential items like groceries, household goods, clothing, and other necessities to help families meet their basic needs.
  • Family Coaches: These volunteers walk alongside parents, helping them set goals and offering guidance as they work towards regaining stability.

The Quad Cities chapter of SFFC has partnered with local churches, community agencies, and government organizations to build a robust network of support. Together, they provide a comprehensive system of care that ensures children are safe and families are kept together.

Safe Families for Children is more than just a temporary solution. It is a community-driven initiative rooted in kindness, compassion, and generosity. The Quad Cities Chapter of Safe Families offers reliable, unwavering assistance and support to families in crisis, ensuring children are safe and families remain together.

For more information about Safe Families for Children, to volunteer, or to seek help, contact the local office at 563-949-9803 or quadcities@safefamilies.net. Or visit their website at hpps://quadcities.safe-families.org

The Fiancee by Kate White

- Michelle Leave a comment

Summer is thrilled to be joining her extended family on their weeklong get together held at her in-law’s palatial summer estate in Kate White’s psychological thriller The Fiancée.  The gathering is an annual event where Summer, her husband, Gabe, her young stepson, Henry and all of Gabe’s siblings and their wives leisurely lounge around the pool and spend their days relaxing in nature.  But this year is slightly different when one of Gabe’s younger brothers, Nick, brings along his latest girlfriend, Hannah.  She charms everyone in attendance but Summer realizes that the two have met a year before at an audition for an off-Broadway theater production where Hannah ultimately won the role.  The funny thing is that Hannah acts as if she has never met Summer before and denies being at the audition, even though Summer knows it to be true.

During the week, Summer is convinced that something is not right with Nick’s new girlfriend when other odd instances occur.  She reaches out to a close friend who is also an actor and he agrees that Hannah was at the audition.  He is also aware of a scandal during the production that casts Hannah in a unfavorable light.  To complicate things, Nick has asked Hannah to marry him in front of the entire family.  More determined than ever to find out the truth and warn her brother in law, Summer confides in other family members who have a hard time believing her tall tales.   Gabe stands firm and tells Summer that she is letting her imagination run wild.  On the heels of her suspicions, an unexpected death shocks everyone.  Even though most signs point to natural circumstances, Summer is convinced that she knows the culprit and she hopes that she can expose the truth before another family member falls victim to a possible killer.

As usual, Kate White does not disappoint.  When I started reading psychological fiction more than a decade ago, Kate White was one of the first authors I discovered.  I began with her Bailey Wiggins mystery series and added the author to my must read list.  Over the last handful of years many of her thrillers have been stand alone titles and are just as complex and inventive as her earlier series.  If you are looking to add psychological thrillers to your reading list, I recommend any title by Kate White!

 

 

Men Have Called her Crazy

- Bill Leave a comment

Plain-spoken and raw, Anna Marie Tendler bears all in this vulnerable biography.   In short, it covers *most of* her male relationships from pre-teen to present.  They all shape her, the artist, as a single cumulative work – even the ones that are hurtful, traumatic or unfair.  If you’re tuning in like I did in hopes of salacious details on recent ex-husband John Mulaney, you will find nothing here.  Every other dude she crossed paths with, affirmative.  But not one iota about Baby J.  And that’s more than fine.  If the best revenge is “living well”, then this radio silence is a dish served ice-cold.

Confession:  Somehow I could handle the mental health breakdown, suicidal ideation, and the loss of will to live.  But I had to bail at the end of the book when her fur child, Petunia, crossed the rainbow bridge.  May you be stronger.  Incidentally, Petunia was her sole recorded reason to live during inpatient hospitalization.

As evidenced by her leaps and bounds, Tendler clearly draws from a deep well of multidisciplinary artistic talent. And, as it turns out, she’s great at audiobook narration.  However, she portrays her employment story arc as that of an itinerant chimney sweep of a creative.  One minute she’s a struggling art student, the next doing makeup and hair in Hollywood.  Then she’s setting records at art shows — the medium, photography.  The current (and lucrative) endeavor is custom-crafted Victorian lampshades.  Methinks she’s more humble than merely failing upwards.

 

Fall Festival Romance Reads

- Beth Leave a comment

Fall festivals are a popular way for communities to come together and celebrate the changing of the seasons with food, music, and fun. For the heroines of these romances, the festival in their small town also leads to love! Descriptions from the publishers.

The Hollywood Jinx by Sariah Wilson

The small town of Patience needs a financial boost. Temporary librarian and aspiring film-score composer Jane Wagner’s plan? Invite movie star Nick Haddon to the town’s harvest festival and stand back for the tourist surge. No one thought he’d say yes — much less that he’d bring a documentary crew to stream his visit. Patience is the perfect stopover on Nick’s journey of self-improvement and his chance to put good karma out in the universe. Spending time with a lovely guide like Jane is a bonus. Jane is falling hard. But she can’t ignore the differences between them. He’s famous. She isn’t. He’s here for two weeks. This is her home. Where can it possibly lead? 

The Inn on Sweetbriar Lane by Jeannie Chin

June Wu’s family inn desperately needs guests, her mother’s medical debts are piling up, and the surly, if sexy, stranger next door is driving away the customers she has left! When he asks for June’s help, though, she can’t say no. After all, his new bar could be just what the upcoming Pumpkin Festival needs to bring in more tourists. Ex-soldier Clay Hawthorne is opening the bar in memory of his fallen friend. June soon becomes his biggest supporter, and while their partnership is supposed to be only temporary, for the first time Clay wants something permanent. Can two opposites really learn to meet each other in the middle? With the fierce attraction between them, will working together be playing with fire? 

The Nearness of You by Dorothy Garlock

Lily Denton dreams about the people and excitement of New York City. But ever since her mother died, her overprotective father won’t ease up on her. She spends her days working at the library and her nights hoping life doesn’t pass her by. At the Fall Festival, tourists fill the streets and the crisp autumn air sneaks in. Professional photographer Boone Tatum’s penchant for trouble is exactly what landed him in this small town in the first place. Yet the moment he meets beautiful Lily and snaps her photograph, everything changes. Lily and Boone’s dream of a life together is thrown into peril — unless Lily finds the courage to stand up for herself and a man she only just met.

CELEBRATE BLACK POETRY

- Jill Leave a comment

In 1970, folk musician Stanley A. Ransom proposed that October 17th each year be set aside as a national day to celebrate black literature and culture. He selected this day in commemoration of the birthday of Jupiter Hammon in 1711. Hammon is popularly known as the father of African American literature and was the first published black poet in the United States. Black Poetry Day, established in his honor, is a day to recognize the contributions to literature of past and present black poets and writers and to celebrate the black experience, particularly as expressed through poetry.

Jupiter Hammon was born into slavery in New York and served four generations of the Henry Lloyd estate owners during his lifetime, including during the Revolutionary War. He was never emancipated. Despite his circumstances, which he actually considered to give him “more advantages and privileges” [1] than most other slaves and “more than many white people have enjoyed” [1], he become a well-respected preacher and bookkeeper-clerk.  His work about slavery received wide circulation. His first poem “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries” was published in 1761. Hammon’s second published poem came about by his recognition of the need to support and encourage other black writers at a time when they did not receive the same kind of support as whites. “An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley”, was written by Hammon as an encouragement to Miss Wheatley in admiration of her work as the first published black female author. Hammon’s work drew heavily on Christian motifs and theology, serving as an encouragement to his fellow slaves to persevere.

Black poetry does not have to be about slavery, segregation, or the equal rights movement. However, it is often linked to the experiences of African Americans and their history in America which is tied inextricably to their race. Use these books as a jumping off point to explore, appreciate, and celebrate the contributions African-American poets have made (and continue to make) to the richness of American poetry.

The 100 best African American poems) edited by Nikki Giovanni
The Oxford anthology of African-American poetry edited by Arnold Rampersad
Poemhood, our black revival : history, folklore & the Black experience: a young adult poetry anthology edited by Amber McBride, Taylor Byas, and Erica Martin
Black liturgies : prayers, poems, and meditations for staying human by Cole Arthur Riley
This is the honey : an anthology of contemporary Black poets edited by Kwame Alexander

[1] BlackPast, B. (2012, March 15). (1787) Jupiter Hammon, “An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York”. BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1787-jupiter-hammon-address-negroes-state-new-york/

Bad Behavior has blocked 3036 access attempts in the last 7 days.