Luang Prabang Library

Laos

The Luang Prabang Library is part of the National Library system of Laos.  
Luang Prabang is a colonial town sitting on the edge of a peninsula at the merging point of the Mekong river and a lesser watercourse. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site, where one can visit beautiful temples and see the strong French influence in the architecture and local culture.

The library offers programs for local children and supports reading in the rural villages in the Luang Prabang province, where many of the children have limited access to books. Two library boats deliver books to 75 different villages along the Mekong. Each boat carries 1,000 books, and stays overnight at the villages, with staff organizing active learning games during the day.

In addition, the library operates the Tuk-Tuk bookmobile, which visits schools in the villages surrounding Luang Prabang with books for children ages 3 to 18. When the Tuk-Tuk goes to a village school, librarians and volunteers go with it and spend the day with the children playing fun reading and singing games. If time allows, writing skills will be worked on, with story and poetry competitions. By involving local teachers in these activities as well, they train them for the future. Before the Tuk Tuk leaves, the children are given either a health bag containing soap, toothbrush, and other personal items or a learning bag with exercise books and pencils.

Visit here to register for the Puppetry Workshop.

Please visit here to register.

Or visit here to register for this program.

Documentary Film - Stewart Udall: The Politics of Beauty
with director John De Graaf
Sunday, October 8, 3:00 p.m.

Please join us to welcome award-winning film director John de Graaf, who will introduce his film Stewart Udall: The Politics of Beauty, followed by Q&A and discussion. Stewart Udall left a profound legacy of conservation and environmental justice as Secretary of the Interior during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. This full-length video biography tells the inspring story of the most effective Interior Secretary in U.S. history and reveals in depth that period during the sixties and seventies when the environmental movement in America came of age, showcasing the victories and defeats with which Udall was intimately connected. Please visit here to find out more and to register for this program.

Books & Boots: Indigenous Peoples Day
Monday, October 9, 9:00 a.m.
Dennis Hill State Park

Please join us for a Books & Boots hike in recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day. Meet at the pavilion at Dennis Hill State Park at 9:00 a.m. to read together several pre-selected poems by Indigenous poets and then walk the Dennis Hill Gazebo loop as we meditate on the readings. Just under two miles, the Gazebo Loop is a low impact hike perfect for hikers of all abilities. Please dress appropriately for the weather. This Norfolk Library program is in partnership with the Norfolk Land Trust and the Norfolk Church of Christ. Registration is appreciated. Please visit here to register.

This Weekend !

The annual Haystack Book Festival, a program of the Norfolk Foundation, brings together writers and thinkers to explore new ideas in literature and the arts. It will take place at the Library on the weekend of Friday, September 29, to Sunday, October 1. See below for the exciting lineup of speakers.

Writing Lives with Ada Calhoun, Priscilla Gilman, & Courtney Maum
Friday, September 29, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Ada Calhoun, author of Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father and Me, and Priscilla Gilman, author of The Critics Daughter: A Memoir, will be in conversation with novelist and memoirist Courtney Maum. Please visit here to register.

The Brendan Gill Lecture: Susanna Moore
Friday, September 29, 6:00 p.m.

Susanna Moore is the author of several novels, including In the Cut, Sleeping Beauties, and The Whiteness of Bones, and four books of nonfiction. Her most recent book, The Lost Wife: A Novel, is an immersive, brilliantly subversive historical novel, inspired by a true story.

In the summer of 1855, Sarah Brinton abandons her husband and child to make the long and difficult journey from Rhode Island to Minnesota Territory, where she plans to reunite with a childhood friend. When she arrives at a small frontier post on the edge of the prairie without family or friends and with no prospect of work or money, she quickly remarries and has two children. Anticipating unease and hardship at the Indian Agency, where her husband Dr. John Brinton is the new resident physician, Sarah instead finds acceptance and kinship among the Sioux women at a nearby reservation. The Sioux tribes, however, are wary of the white settlers and resent the rampant theft of their land. Promised payments by the federal government are never made, and starvation and disease soon begin to decimate their community. Tragically and inevitably, this leads to the Sioux Uprising of 1862. Intimate and raw, The Lost Wife is a searing tale of a seminal and shameful moment in America’s conquest of the West.

Please visit here to register.

On the Use and Abuse of Religion for Life
Saturday, September 30, 10:30 a.m.

Elizabeth Bucar, author of Stealing My Religion: Not Just Any Cultural Appropriation, will appear in conversation with Bob Smietana, author of Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why it Matters. Please visit here to register.

Inspired by the Legacy of Anne Garrels, A Conversation about Covering Conflict
Saturday, September 30, 1:00 p.m.

George Packer, author of The Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal, will appear in conversation with Elizabeth Becker, author of You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War. Please visit here to register.

Liberalism and Resentment - Political Ideas and Emotions
Saturday, September 30, 3:00 p.m.

Samuel Moyn, author of Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times, will appear in conversation with Robert Schneider, author of The Return of Resentment: The Rise and Decline and Rise Again of a Political Emotion. Please visit here to register.

A Look at Contemporary America by Traveling Through History
Sunday, October 1, 11:00 a.m.

Neil King, Jr., author of American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal, will appear in conversation with Rinker Buck, author of The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey and Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure. Please visit here to register.

Carl Safina: How the Changing Landscape Touches Us All - Humans and Non-Humans Alike
Sunday, October 1, 1:30 p.m.

Carl Safina is the author of Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe. When Safina and his wife, Patricia, took in a near-death baby owl, they expected that, like other wild orphans they’d rescued, she’d be a temporary presence. But Alfie’s feathers were not growing correctly, requiring prolonged care. And soon Carl and Patricia began to realize that the healing was mutual. Alfie & Me is the story of the remarkable impact this little owl would have on their lives. The continuing bond of trust following her freedom—and her raising of her own wild brood—drew Carl and Patricia across the boundary into Alfie’s world, allowing them a view of existence from Alfie’s perspective.

Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work fuses scientific understanding, emotional connection, and a moral call to action. His writing has won a MacArthur “genius” prize; Pew, Guggenheim, and National Science Foundation Fellowships; book awards from Lannan, Orion, and the National Academies; and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. Safina is now the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center.

Please visit here to register.

Click Here to view the The Norfolk Library Night Owl - September 29, 2023