June 25th
Summer Reading Starts!

Friday, June 28^th at 10 am
Professional Story Teller Diane Edgecomb

September 17 @ 7 pm
Chef/author Joanne Chang

June 12 @ 10AM:
Story Time: Father's Day

June 14 @ 10AM:
Story Time: Father's Day

June 19 @ 10AM:
Story Time: End of School and Summer

June 21 @ 10AM:
Story Time: End of School and Summer

June 21 @ 3-5PM
Art for All: Dinosaurs!

June 25 @ 6:30PM:
Bed Time Stories With Anne Marie David
(Kids can come in PJs!)

June 25
Summer Reading Starts!!!

June 26 @ 10AM:
Story Time: Digging for Dinosaurs

June 28 @ 10AM:
Summer Reading Kick Off with Diane Edgecomb

June 28  
Summer Reading Kick-off Diane Edgecomb, Storyteller, presents  “ Digging Dinosaurs” (all ages welcome)

July 3     
Stacey Peasley Sings!

July 9  @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

July 9 @ 2:30-3:30 PM
Native American Games of Skill and Survival Outdoor
(Please call to register!)

July 11 @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

July 10 & 12  @ 10:00 AM
I Dig Gardening

July 16 & 18 @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

July 17  @ 10:00 AM
I Dig Big Machines

July 17 @ 3-5PM
Art for All Puppetmaking Workshop

July 19  @ 10:00 AM
I Dig Big Machines

July 23 @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

July 24 @ 3:30 PM
7th Annual Teddy Bears’ Picnic
(Please call to register!)

July 25 @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

July 26 @ 10:00 AM
Nicola McEldowney, Puppeteer

July 30 @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

July 31 & Aug. 2  @ 10:00 AM
I Dig Hidden Treasure

August 1 @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

August 6 & 8 @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

August 7 & 9  @ 10:00 AM
I Dig Burrowing Animals

August 13 & 15 @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

August 14 @ 10:00 AM  
I Dig the Beach

August 15 @ 2:30-3:30 and 3:30-4:30
Wampanoag Daily Life Indoor program
Please call to register!

August 16 @ 10:00 AM  
I Dig the Beach

August 20 & 22 @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

August 21 & 23   @ 10:00 AM
I Dig Dinosaurs

August 23 @ 3-5PM
Art for All: Collage with Joan Onofrey

August 26 @ 10:00 AM 
Dog Days:Meeting New Dogs with Sue Webb & “Two Bad Mice” & Mazi the Bloodhound

August 27 & 29 @ 10:30 –11 AM
Baby and Toddler Times with Charl

SIGN UP FOR BACON FREE LIBRARY KIDS SUMMER READING PROGRAM “DIG INTO READING”, featuring our popular annual Family Literacy Bingo game, will begin on Tuesday, June 25^th. Calendars listing events in the summer reading program will be available at sign up.

Kickoff event for kids summer reading program will be a visit from storyteller Diane Edgecomb on Friday, June 28^th at 10 am, when she will present: Digging Dinosaurs, a storytelling jam-packed with fun and family entertainment. The program features two original stories: Pattysaurus, selfish little Patty has the wildest collection of dinosaur things you’ve ever seen, but she refuses to share; and Egg Mountain, paleontologists Clara and George enlist the audience help and solve “The Mystery of the Missing Duckbill Dinosaur Eggs.”

Readers of all ages will explore all things underground this summer as Bacon Free Library presents “Dig Into Reading” for children; “Beneath the Surface” for teens; and “Groundbreaking Reads” for adults, during their summer library program. For more information, call Bacon Free Library at 508 653 6730. All programs are free of charge.

Images are copyrighted. Contact the CSLP at 1-866-657-8556 or info@cslpreads.org for more info

Summer Reading is sponsored by Bacon Free Library, the Massachusetts Library System, the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and The Boston Bruins. 

Father's Day Concert on the lawn of Bacon Free Library with Cathie Ryan Band presented by The Trustees of Bacon Free Library. Third photo is singer Cathie with former President of Bacon Free Library Trustees, Jack Newton.

September 17, 2013 at 7 pm

Chef/author Joanne Chang will visit the Bacon Free Library!  She will sign and sell copies of both of her books: Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe written with collaborator Christie Matheson; and the brand new Flour, Too: Indispensable Recipes for the Cafe's Most Loved Sweets & Savories written with Michael Harlan Turkell. Joanne will bring along a few snacks for guests to try.

After graduating from Harvard with honors in Applied Mathematics and Economics, and embarking on a management career, Joanne followed her passion instead. She became a professional cook and baker.  She worked at Boston's renowned Biba Restaurant; then as a pastry cook at Bentonwood Bakery in Newton; and later, at Rialto Restaurant in Cambridge.

Joanne moved to New York City in the late nineties to work in the cake department of the famed Payard Patisserie and Bistro. Returning to Boston a year later with dreams of opening her own pastry shop, she became pastry chef at Mistral.

In 2000, she opened Flour, a bakery and café, in Boston's South End. Flour features breakfast pastries, breads, cakes, cookies, and tarts as well as sandwiches, soups, and salads. Over the next ten years she opened a second Flour Bakery in the Fort Point Channel area and a third branch in Cambridge near MIT and Central Square. A fourth Flour Bakery opened in Back Bay just recently.

Flour has been featured in Gourmet, Food&Wine, Bon Appetit, and the New York Times.  She has received numerous Best of Boston awards.

The real acid test was when she went head to head with Bobby Flay on Food Network’s Throwdown. When the smoke cleared, it was her sticky buns that came out on top.  Joanne Chang’s sticky buns and sumptuous lamb sandwich are but two of Flour Bakery’s “Most Loved Sweets & Savories” as the book title suggests.  Those attending the Tuesday 7 pm September 17 book signing and tasting at Bacon Free Library in South Natick, MA are advised to arrive early for best seating choices.

A considerable amount of the non-salary costs of running Bacon Free Library have to be covered by limited Trustee funds. If you, your child or someone you know has benefited from library materials or services or programs at Bacon Free Library, please give a tax deductible donation right here by credit or debit card.

Donations

Bronze $25.00 USD Silver $50.00 USD Gold $100.00 USD Platinum $250.00 USD Platinum Plus $500.00 USD

Thank you to The Friends of Bacon Free Library for the recent purchase of a second Stickley Furniture reading chair.

The John Eliot Monument near Bacon Free Library is getting refurbished by Town Parks and Recreation division working with a stone restoration specialist from Rome, Italy, Mr. Dario Fiorentini.  Mr. Dario Fiorentini is seen here alongside the Eliot monument before beginning the restoration process.

Wear Your PJs: Join us for bedtime stories and songs for kids with local musician Anne Marie David on June 25th at 6:30 pm. Kids and parents of all ages are welcome.

The Bacon Free Library has museum passes.

They can be borrowed just like a library book and receive reduced admission for up to four people on a particular day.

The library pass to the Museum of Science in Boston gives admission to the museum’s Exhibit Halls at a reduced rate of $7 per person for up to four people. (Full price of admission as listed on the Museum of Science website is $22 each for adults, $19 each for children).
The library pass to the Boston Children’s Museum gives admission at HALF PRICE or $7 per person for up to four people. (Full price of admission as listed on the Boston Children’s Museum website is $14 for adults and $14 for children).

Call Bacon Free Library now and reserve your Museum of Science or Boston Children’s Museum pass for a particular day – 508 653 6730

The library’s museum passes are funded by the Friends of Bacon Free Library

BACON FREE LIBRARY 1881 AND 2013

Library Director John Brisbin's remarks at the June 16, 2013 Father's Day open house and Cathie Ryan Band lawn concert presented by the library trustees

Farmer and clerk of The Eliot Church Oliver Bacon wanted to do something to honor his wife, Sarah.  She helped establish the first “library society” in Natick – The Ladies Social Circle in 1841 and was its librarian from then until she died in 1870. For nearly all of that time, the library was right in the Bacons’ home on Badger St.

In his will, Oliver ordered a free library to be built in Sarah’s memory and specified that “no narrow view be taken of the requirements and necessities of readers and students.” He also ordered that a museum be maintained in the building’s lower level. And so it was done in 1881; and so it is in 2013. We readers and students are their children, this Natick couple who had no children of their own. We grow in wisdom and maturity. We are healed and renewed. Our imaginations soar because of what Oliver Bacon sought to impress upon us about Sarah’s lifetime of putting books in the hands of Natick children and adults.     

Every Father’s Day, the Trustees of Bacon Free Library come together to tell this story. The Trustees thank all of us readers and students of Bacon Free Library. In 2013 Bacon Free Library is making special efforts to get Natick pre-schoolers ready to read in its Wednesday and Friday 10 AM story hours. We thank Mutual One Bank Foundation for being a partner in this initiative of The American Library Association called ECRR, Every Child Ready to Read. In 2013 Bacon Free Library works closely with Natick school students and enjoys its special relationship with its neighbor, Riverbend School, today’s lead sponsor.  Bacon Free Library works with The Friends of Bacon Free Library who are the hospitality of its programs -- and the funders of so many of its children’s programs.

The Trustees also come together to thank the Town of Natick which has seen the library through tough, recessionary times. Town leaders have recently helped the Bacon Free Library move forward with more hours of operation, more staff, more funding for books and a more economical gas heating system for the wintertime.  All of us together make this a vibrant library. That’s the best expression of gratitude we can offer Sarah and Oliver Bacon.