Tag: puzzles

Library Resources for Thanksgiving day

- Beth Leave a comment

You may already know The Library has oodles of cookbooks covering appetizers to desserts and everything in between. But we also have some surprising resources to help you prepare for the perfect Thanksgiving Day.

The Bon Appétit Test Kitchen series “Making Perfect” is ad-free on the video streaming service Kanopy, available by using your Davenport Public Library card.

Our video streaming service Kanopy has two video series that cover cooking the big meal. First is the series “Making Perfect,” season 2. Over seven episodes, six members of the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen demonstrate recipes for turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, pie and other sides.

Among “Great Courses” available through the video streaming service Kanopy is “Cooking Basics: What Everyone Should Know” that includes an episode on Thanksgiving turkey.

Also available through Kanopy is the Great Courses series, including the class “Cooking Basics: What Everyone Should Know,” presented in partnership with The Culinary Institute of America. While only episode 15 (Cooking the Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey) specifically mentions Thanksgiving, the 50-minute program shows a stuffing and cranberry sauce recipe.

Both “Making Perfect” and the Great Courses series can be accessed by logging into Kanopy with your Davenport Public Library card.

Strike the right mood by accessing a Thanksgiving playlist from The Library’s music streaming service Freegal. Start the day with kid songs to help little ones get excited. By the time it’s time to sit down for the meal, an instrumental playlist will bring the whole family together.

Finally, if you’re looking for something to do with family besides eating, stop in any of the Davenport Public Library branches before Thanksgiving and check out a puzzle or board game. Puzzles range from 100 pieces to 2,000 pieces. Make new memories by playing a family game such as Pete the Cat: The Missing Cupcakes. Then send the kids to bed and adults can stay up and play a round of Wingspan.

 

Young Adult Reads: The Inheritance Games series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Jennifer Lynn Barnes is an acclaimed writer of more than a dozen young adult novels. She wrote her first novel when she was 19 and sold her first five novels when she was still in college. Jen holds advanced degrees in psychology, psychiatry, and cognitive science, as well as graduate degrees from Cambridge University. She was a Fulbright Scholar at Cambridge as well. Jen also received her PhD from Yale University in 2012. In case you aren’t impressed enough already, Jen has written multiple pilot scripts for television networks. She is also considered a leading expert on the psychology of fandom as well as the cognitive science of fiction and the imagination. In addition to her work as an author, Jen is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma where she teaches in both Psychology and Professional Writing.

Author photograph © Kim Haynes Photography

“Everything’s a game, Avery Grambs. The only thing we get to decide in this life is if we play to win.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Inheritance Games

The Inheritance Games is the first book in the series of the same name. This book was recommended to me by our teen librarian and oh, she was so right that I would enjoy this book! Let’s dive in.

Avery Grambs is brilliant. Her mind has helped her survive high school so far and if she’s lucky, she will hopefully win a scholarship and escape the crappy town where she lives. All of her plans change when she is called to the office to find a dapper young man telling her that her life is about to change.

Flying off to Texas with her older sister Libby, Avery finds herself ensconced in the lives of the mysterious Hawthorne family. Avery soon learns that billionaire Tobias Hawthorne has left Avery virtually his entire fortune – and his family almost nothing. Avery didn’t even know Tobias Hawthorne, so why would he leave his entire billion dollar fortune to her? Avery must live in Hawthorne House for a year in order to inherit, a rule that doesn’t seem like much at first, but the longer she stays, the more daunting it becomes.

Hawthorne House is massive – full of secret passages, as well as riddles, puzzles, and codes hidden everywhere. The entire Hawthorne family also lives in Hawthorne House and they are not pleased. They see Avery as an unnecessary interloper, but also as a sort of clue to the inner workings of Tobias Hawthorne’s last wishes. Avery frequently finds herself butting heads with the four Hawthorne grandsons: handsome, dangerous, magnetic, and brilliant boys who all thought they would inherit billions one day. They see her as a con-woman, a teenager who must have known their grandfather. Others see her as a puzzle to be solved. After all, Tobias Hawthorne’s deep love of puzzles, riddles, and codes permeated every part of his living life, so adding them to his will seems exactly like something he would do. Avery is thrust into a dangerous world of wealth of privilege where in order to survive, she will have to play Tobias’s game.

This book is also available in the following formats:

The Inheritance Games series

    1. The Inheritance Games (2020)
    2. The Hawthorne Legacy (2021)
    3. The Final Gambit (2022)

Disney Universe

- Stephanie Leave a comment

disney universeDisney Universe is a family-friendly video game that allows players to work together to solve the different puzzles and levels. There are six different worlds that you can choose to play in: Monsters, Inc., Wall-E, Aladdin, Lion King, Alice in Wonderland, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Each world has three different levels within it with the objective of each being to collect coins, solve puzzles, and defeat your enemies. One of the biggest draws of this game is the fact that players can cash in those coins to dress up as different characters, with a total of 40 different characters to choose from. Disney Universe also gives you objectives to complete within each level.

While other videogames may leave you to fend for yourself, this game instead offers pop-up hints to help you finish your objectives. The addition of hints allows younger players to play this on their own without help from older players. Each level also offers a mini-game that allows you to compete with the other players. One to four players can take a spin at this game and have the opportunity to pretend like they are their favorite Disney and Pixar characters.

Interested in playing this game, but you don’t have an XBox360? If that’s the case, the library also offers this game for the Wii and for PlayStation 3.

Let’s Play!

- Ann 2 Comments

November 16-22 is National Games and Puzzles Week.

Have you ever wanted to learn how to play chess?

Try The Art of Chess by Colleen Schafroth.

Have you ever needed help with a crossword clue?

Try the Merriam Webster’s Crossword Puzzle Dictionary.

Have you ever wanted to play a fast-paced video or computer game?

Try Kung Fu Panda or I SpyTreasure Hunt.

Have you ever wanted to see if you are Mensa material, i.e., the top 2% of the population in I.Q.?

Try The Mensa Genius ABC Quiz Book by Alan Stillson.

Have you ever wanted to put a jigsaw puzzle together but didn’t want to go out and buy one?

Try our collection at the Main Library. You can check out these 500-2000 piece puzzles just like a book! Where are they? You can find them the northeast corner of the first floor, behind the Reference section.