June at Worden Public Library

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature, by Joyce Sidman, with pictures by Beth Krommes, will be the featured book for our next children’s program, on Saturday, June 17, at 10:00 a.m. This book presents examples of spiral shapes from throughout the natural world, from the lowly snail to enormous spiral galaxies. Beth Krommes’ illustrations convey the intricacy and beauty of these natural designs. Children who attend the program will use a technique similar to quilling to twist strips of paper and make spirals that represent snails, waves, and galaxies.

While You Sleep is a children’s picture book that answers the question, “What do stuffed animal do at night?” In this book by Jennifer Maruno, a girl’s rabbit friends comb the grass, stuff the clouds, and re-stitch the sky to the land. In one of Miki Sato’s ingenious collage illustrations, yarn and paper are used to depict “the woven night of black and gray, embroidered with a Milky Way.” On the final page, the girl is encouraged “to love the world this special crew, tidied and polished just for you.”

In Remarkably Bright Creatures, bestselling new author Shelby Van Pelt explores the unlikely relationship between an elderly woman approaching retirement and an extremely intelligent octopus. Tovah cleans the Sowell Bay Aquarium in Washington state, a job she does partly because she enjoys it, and partly because it helps her deal with the unresolved loss of her teenage son many years ago. When she finds an aging octopus, Marcellus, out of his tank and entangled in some electric cords, she rescues him. This act of kindness will change her life. Marcellus, who hates what he calls his “captivity,” frequently escapes from his tank at night to find and devour some of the other animals at the aquarium. The author uses scientific information about octopuses (their ability to squeeze through small openings and their surprising intelligence) to create a story that imagines what would happen if a human and an octopus could communicate with each other. By the book’s end, Tovah has discovered the truth about her son, while Marcellus has found out that human beings, despite their faults, are, at least sometimes, “remarkably bright creatures.”