Valentine Public Library

STEM Project (Grades 3 & Up): Build a Bird-Themed Pendulum
2025-12-02 15:45 - 16:45 (America/Chicago)
When it comes to STEM learning, there’s no need to wing it—this hands-on project has everything kids need to let their creativity take flight! Students in grades 3 and up are invited to build their own charming bird-themed pendulums using foam pieces, paper straws, baker’s twine, wood beads, and clothespins.
We’ll explore how pendulums work, share fun facts from our resource guide, and spark curiosity with questions that keep young scientists thinking and engaged. All supplies are provided—just bring your imagination and get ready to learn through motion and creativity!

Adult Book Club: The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
2025-12-02 19:00 - 20:00
Join us for this month’s Adult Book Club as we dive into The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters—an emotional, beautifully written novel about family, identity, loss, and belonging.
A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a family, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years
July 1962. Following in the tradition of Indigenous workers from Nova Scotia, a Mi’kmaq family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.
In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective.
Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.
For fans of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.
