Thomaston Public Library, Thomaston Maine

The Thomaston Public Library is fortunate indeed to display, once again, the model trains of Neil Shively and Leroy Jones, with contributions from Henry Groth as well. This year's display has been embellished with little streetlights, lit train interiors, additional backdrop and photos, and much more. The display will be in place through December and January.

The Friends of the Thomaston Public Library's Friday Night Film Series this month will feature Holiday Treats, a quartet of holiday movies made in the 1930s and 1940s. Story Hour continues every Thursday of the month at 11 AM and on Wednesday, December 4th, Thomaston author Jen Blood will read from the latest book in her riveting Erin Solomon mystery series, Before the After, Book 4 in a planned pentalogy.

Scroll down for more information about these events and this month's Saltwater Film Society selection, A Christmas Carol. Please check the Catalog page for a list of our new materials and the Book Clubs page for the scoop on December's Intergenerational Book Club selection and the enticing list of IGBC books for 2014.

The Friends of the Thomaston Public Library's Hallway Bookshop features a selection of fine fiction and nonfiction on sale two-for-one through December. If you have a voracious reader on your holiday gift list, stop by and check out our offerings. And while you're here, pick something up for yourself. Snow's about to blow and you need to be prepared for those long afternoons of hot cocoa, simmering soup, and books! It may be brutal out there, but, with the right book in your hands, life doesn't get any better.

The Hallway Bookshop is located in the Thomaston Academy building at 60 Main Street. Items will be available for purchase during all open library hours.

Story Hour happens every Thursday morning at 11 in the Children's Department. Bring your pre-school child in to hear stories, do crafts, browse the shelves, and play! Stay tuned for special Story Hour events on Saturday mornings too.

Fresh from the Maine Student Book Award 2013 nominees' list is Earthling! by Mark Fearing. A book appropriate for kids ages 8 and up, this comic-book-style graphic novel is about a young boy named Bud who accidentally boards the wrong bus and finds himself transported out of this world to Cosmos Academy. At this intergalactic school, Bud soon learns that Earthlings are the most feared of all alien creatures. With the help of his new friend, Gort, Bud manages to keep his real identity a secret.

Concerned about his dad who is left behind on Earth, Bud, with Gort's help, tries to find a way to contact the highly-forbidden planet. In the meantime, the two are having a time mastering the popular game Zeroball while avoiding the suspicious looks of the school administration.

This Week: You Can't Take It with You

If December's Friends of the Thomaston Public Library film series doesn't put you in the holiday spirit, nothing will!

This fine set of films features a star-studded roster of actresses from Jean Arthur to Barbara Stanwyck (by way of Katharine Hepburn, alphabetically), and great actors from Lionel Barrymore to Jimmy Stewart (and that includes Cary Grant and Fred MacMurray).

This month's movies are fun -- and funny -- romantic, light-hearted, and often poignant. Why not forget all the bad news for a little while and relax with entertainment that warms the cockles of your Christmas-bound heart!

The Friday Night Films are open to the public and free, although donations are gratefully accepted. The location is Room 200 of the Academy Building and films start promptly at 6:30 PM. Light refreshments are served.

A Christmas Carol is, of course, the classic Christmas film based on Charles Dickens' classic story, but have you seen this 1951 production, widely considered to be the best adaptation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol? This version features excellent production values and a marvelous performance by Alastair Sim as Scrooge. Alastair Sim plays Scrooge so magnificently his performance has become the standard by which all other Scrooges are compared. No one has seen A Christmas Carol the way it was meant to be seen (as close to the text of the novella as it can be) unless they have seen this one.

It didn’t hurt Sim to be surrounded by so many fine actors (even Patrick MacNee as a young Jacob Marley). There is also a slam-bang musical score by Richard Addinsell, and Brian Desmond Hurst’s direction is topnotch. The entire feel of the movie is just right, taking us to that cold and dreary London of the 1830s where the poor kept getting poorer and dying, just as Tiny Tim (Glyn Dearman) most surely would have if not for the change in Scrooge’s heart.

For more info about the Saltwater Film Society, please see their website.

December's contra dance will take place in the gym of the Thomaston Academy building at 8 PM. Performers to be announced. Admission is only $8 and young children are free. Contra dances are open to everyone and families are welcome. No experience is necessary!

Unfinished Song is an uplifting film about the power music has to connect people to one another. Terence Stamp plays the cranky and taciturn Arthur, happy to be a fussbudget who doesn’t attempt to find ways to escape his rudimentary life. His life is turned upside down when his wife, wonderfully acted by Vanessa Redgrave, joins a local singing group.

Following her sudden death, he befriends the sweet singing instructor Elizabeth, played by Gemma Arterton, despite their differences in personality. Through music he is able to rekindle his relationship with his son and granddaughter in addition to many of the other things that matter most in life.

Saturday morning's QiGong sessions will be on temporary hold due to a new schedule conflict for the instructor. Stay tuned for further developments.

Members of the Thomaston Library now have the opportunity to check out sets of tickets to the Farnsworth Museum of Art in Rockland. Two sets of two tickets are available, allowing patrons full access to the museum, including the Wyeth Center, a center dedicated to the three generations of the Wyeth family, the Farnsworth homestead, a historic property and former home of the museum's original benefactor, and the Olson house, a separate building filled with the works of Andrew Wyeth, itself a subject of many of the artist's paintings. Through December, the museum is featuring an exhibition of N.C. Wyeth's illustrations, pieces from the Brandywine River Museum's collection in Pennsylvania.

Patrons must deposit $5 per ticket, which will be reimbursed upon return of the tickets. Tickets have a 3-day check-out window and are good for any time the museum is open. Remember, children 16 and under get into the Farnsworth for free.