Revisiting The Hobbit

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the September 28, 2012 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin or listen to the podcast on SoundCloud. Podcasts are archived on the Voices from the Library page of the library website.

I’ve just found out that September 22 marks Hobbit Day each year. This date happens to be Bilbo and Frodo Baggins’ birthdays. Hobbit Day, in fact, is during the official Tolkien Week. This year, all of these celebrations precede December release of the Warner Bros. film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

This date happens to be Bilbo and Frodo Baggins’ birthdays. Hobbit Day, in fact, is during the official Tolkien Week. This year, all of these celebrations precede the release of the December release of the Warner Bros. film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

The Art of Journaling

Nancy Ling is an Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. She is also an author and a poet and loves working with adults, children and teens and teaching poetry.

When I was ten years old, my family took a trip to Nova Scotia. I decided to bring along my new diary. It had blue and orange stripes and the all-important lock on the outside. The pages were gold-tipped, and soon the sparkles were flaking onto me and the backseat of the car. When we stopped at a local restaurant to eat, my Mom spent the first part of the meal wiping the endless sparkles from my nose.

The thing that I treasured the most about my new diary was all the empty pages waiting to be filled. Do you know that feeling? With the right pen, the sky was the limit. Pages were awaiting my brilliant thoughts and recorded memories. For three days, that dream was a reality. I wrote about the beauty of the Cabot Trail, the Bay of Fundy, a nice retired couple I’d befriended, and the cozy inn where we stayed.

Over the Rainbow

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the September 14, 2012 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin or listen to the podcast on SoundCloud. Podcasts are archived on the Voices from the Library page of the library website.

Some time ago, not long after I became a serious iPod user, I began collecting versions of what might be called my favorite song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I’m not sure when I fell in love with the classic song written for the movie The Wizard of Oz in 1938 – it certainly wasn’t when I was young. I’m ashamed to admit I actually never liked Judy Garland, the movie or the song, when I was a girl. It wasn’t until I was older that I appreciated Judy Garland’s movie or the song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

What I’m not ashamed to admit, however, is that I purchased all the versions through iTunes – unless, of course, I first owned the music on compact disk and simply transferred it to my iPod. I believe in digital rights and I spent well over $100 over several years downloading many versions of the song. I think knowing that I’ve purchased them honorably and ethically adds to my love of my collection.

How to Talk to a Widower

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the September 6, 2012 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin or listen to the podcast on SoundCloud. Podcasts are archived on the Voices from the Library page of the library website.

More often than not, I tend to read in themes. If I’ve liked a book and I haven’t quite been ready for it to end, I’ll often find another to fill the gap. This spring I found myself reading fictionalized accounts of the journey of widowers through their grief and retrospectively their past marriages. They are tender, and often comic, stories of the passage from shock and heartache to the possibilities of second chances.