Upcoming Blue Hill Public Library Events

Blue Hill, Maine - The Blue Hill Public Library in Blue Hill, Maine has the following upcoming events.

Holiday Party at the Blue Hill Public Library

The public is invited to the annual Blue Hill Library Holiday Party on Saturday, December 20th, from 2:30 to 5:30 PM. This year’s event will offer something for everyone! The entertainment will kick off at 2:45 with songs and stories from Noel Paul Stookey, who has delighted our audiences as a member of Peter, Paul and Mary for a generation, including for the last several years at this annual event.  Noel will be followed at 3:15 by the talented jazz stylings of the GSA Period One Jazz Combo.

Next up at 4:00 PM, partygoers will have a choice of the always entertaining dramatic reading of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, or magician Peter Boie, who will blow your hair back with a stunning show. After these events, at 5:00 will be another tough choice: a special magic workshop with Peter Boie, singing carols with Holly Bartlett Weinberg, or an ornament making activity with Pat Horton. There will be the usual array of refreshments, cookies and more cookies, extra snacks or goodies are always welcome.

Partygoers are asked to consider bringing a wrapped gift for a child, labeled with age and gender
appropriateness. Gifts can be dropped off at the Library anytime through the day of the party. The gifts will be donated to the Tree of Life and The Emmaus Center where they will be distributed to families in need.


The party is sponsored by the Friends of the Library.  For more information call the Library on 374-5515.

Blue Hill Public Library Play Reading

The public is invited to participate in the Blue Hill Public Library Play Reading Group on Wednesday, December 17th from 6:30 to 9:00 PM at the Library, and every 3rd Wednesday of the month until next summer. This month the group will read An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley.

The play premiered in 1945 and takes place on one night in 1912, in a comfortable well-to-do neighborhood. A policeman questions the family of a young woman, who has apparently committed suicide, revealing their parts in her exploitation, abandonment and social ruin, leading to her killing herself.


The group welcomes inexperienced and experienced readers alike. The only criteria are the love of plays and the joy of reading them aloud among like-minded theater fans. For further information, contact the Blue Hill Library at 374-5515 or Michael Donahue at 374-5248 (or Donahue.mg@gmail.com).

Library Arts Series: Our Voice: Mine and Yours

Blue Hill Public Library’s monthly series of free Art Adventures for adults and interested teens continues on Thursday, December 18th at 7:00 PM with a program-- Our Voice: Mine and Yours with local singer and voice teacher Sarah Schneider.

In this hour-long program Sarah will sing a handful of songs, accompanied by pianist Jackie Pike. There will be a “sing-along” featuring simple songs and rounds, to celebrate the season, and a brief discussion of the power of song and singing on our lives as individuals and as communities.

Sarah Schneider has been living, singing and teaching singing in the Blue Hill area, for the past four years, having moved "back" here from Pennsylvania and before that, Portland, ME. She sings in groups, including Hospice Volunteers of Hancock County’s “Evensong” at the bedsides of those nearing the end of life, and has sung solo work in many styles - classical, Broadway, folk, and church music.

Sarah says she is pleased to live in such a “great area where there are so many ways to get together with so people who love music and singing.”  Sarah is a graduate of George Stevens Academy and has a Bachelor of Music Education from Acadia University in Nova Scotia.


The event is free and everyone is welcome.  For more call the Library at 374-5515.

Book Launch: Swimming Home

The public is invited to a book launch at the Blue Hill Public Library on Friday December 19th from 4:30 to 5:30 PM. Swimming Home, a new children’s book written by Susan Hand Shetterly and illustrated by Rebekah Raye has just been released! Susan will do a reading and Rebekah will demonstrate illustration techniques. All ages are welcome.

“The story follows a school of fish (river herring, or alewives) on a journey of hundreds of miles, escaping porpoises, seals, eagles, and herons. It is also the moving story of a boy and his father who see the fish stopped just short of their goal by a new road, and transport them across the last hundred feet.” The book is part of a series at Tilbury House that “brings the natural world to life for young readers without anthropomorphizing animals,” and aims for “the highest standards of scientific accuracy and storytelling magic.”

Susan has won two Maine Arts Commission fellowships, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and The Maine Literary Award for Best Nonfiction from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance in 2011. Her children’s books have been recognized as notable books in the fields of science and social studies by the Children’s Book Council, NSTA.

Rebekah is a well-known painter and sculptor of animal art. She is the author and illustrator of The Very Best Bed, which won a Maine Literary Award from the Maine Publishers Alliance and Bear-ly There, winner of the 2010 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award, and has illustrated other children’s books including the award-winning Secret Pool by Kim Ridley. A native of Tennessee, Rebekah lives in East Blue Hill, Maine, and interacts daily with animals domestic and wild, which provide inspiration for her art. She also teaches workshops for adults and children.


Books will be available for sale and signing.