Accounting for Dogs

Nancy Ling is an Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read the published version of Nancy Ling's column in the January 30, 2014 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

As with many children growing up in the seventies, I had a love of dogs that began with one television show—Lassie. Didn’t every kid long for heroic friend to push all the world’s bad guys into a well? While Lassie took less than 30 minutes to solve her weekly drama, I’d wait on the edge of my seat for the commercials to wrap up and a happy ending to occur.

The New England Connection: Authors We Love

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the January 23, 2014 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

It goes without saying that we live in a region of the country abundant in literary tradition.  For several centuries, much of the literature of our country had its roots in Massachusetts and the five other states in New England. No college American literature course is complete without a discussion of John Winthrop, William Bradford, Increase Mather and Roger Williams. And while many of us may have struggled to keep awake reading “The History of the Plymouth Plantation”, we only had a century or two to get through before we could indulge ourselves with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” and “House of Seven Gables”.

Broken Hearts - Grieving a Child

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the January 16, 2014 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

This column might be troublesome to read.  I know.  It was difficult to write.

The unthinkable has happened once again to our extended family, one that has been especially saddened by the loss of now four children.  That incomprehensible loss touched us again just days after Christmas when my husband Gerry's sister's son - and another extended family - lost their precious 2-year old child, Noah.

New Beginnings - Coming to America

Read Norma Logan's column in the January 9, 2014 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

New beginnings in life happen all the time, but the start of a New Year always signals a fresh start with New Year’s resolutions. Along the way to a new year, babies are born, marriages are celebrated, and people move and start new jobs. Some new beginnings are chosen, and others are not; some are happy, and some are sad.

The ultimate new beginning to me is experienced by the foreign born literacy students whom I meet and see every day in the Literacy Office at the Library. They are adults who are seeking our free tutoring service to help them learn to speak, read and write English better. They know that learning the English language is instrumental to having a better life in their new country.

Norwood Reads Following Atticus

Read Charlotte Canelli's column in the January 2, 2014 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

I met Atticus Finch in October 2011 in Burlington, Vermont.  No, not THAT Atticus Finch, the heroic attorney fictionalized by Harper Lee in the classic “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

The Atticus M. Finch I met on that lovely fall day in 2011 was a four-footed version.