Maine State Library Outreach Programming Packets

Braille Awareness | Bi-Folkal | Book Discussion

Early Braille Awareness

Perkins Panda kits are available for loan to libraries and other groups in Maine wishing to do Braille literacy and awareness sessions for young children. Each Perkins Panda kit includes a stuffed panda bear with portable four-track tape player and supporting board books and resource sets. A complete description of the Perkins Panda program is available on the Perkins web site.

To borrow one of these kits, please contact us at 1-800-762-7106. For more information contact Outreach Staff

Bi-Folkal Kits

These kits are multimedia packets that contain a "program-in-a-box"; they are useful as the basis for programming for all ages, but especially the elderly. They include slides, discussion ideas, program pamphlets, and visual/tactile props. The four kits at MSL Outreach are:

Remembering Farm Days
Remembering Pets
Remembering The Fifties
Remembering Train Rides

For complete description of these kits you may visit the Bi-Folkal web site. To borrow one, please contact us at 1-800-762-7106.

Book Discussion Packets

Outreach Services has set aside some sets of contemporary classics for use by library book discussion groups and libraries in Maine. Below are titles and, for some, descriptions of books currently available, along with the number of copies included in each set. A brief list of suggested discussion questions is included with each packet.

Book sets may be borrowed for up to three months. If you would like to borrow one, please contact us at 1-800-762-7106 to schedule.

Between Wind and Water, by Gerald Warner Brace (5 copies): Writings about "sixty years of living and cruising and sailing along the Maine coast."
A Man of His Time by Phyllis Bentley (6 copies): Henry Morcar is a successful cloth manufacturer who seeks to make sense of the changing world around him as he plans to hand down his legacy.
Stake in The Game by Evelyn Berkman (7 copies): Heather Milland has a nice, safe life--then suddenly she everything changes, and losses become opportunities for growth.
New Year by Pearl S. Buck (7 copies): Kim, the half-Korean twelve-year-old son of Christopher Winters, is brought to this country and taken in by Chris and his understanding wife. Chris, who is campaigning for the governorship of Pennsylvania, causes a public stir when he introduces his son at a New Year's Eve party.
To Remember Forever, by Gladys Hasty Carroll (6 copies): Life at Bates college between the two World Wars, as seen by a popular Maine author.
A Goodly Heritage, by Mary Ellen Chase (6 copies): An autobiographically-based account of New England coastal life, originally published in 1932.
Jonathan Fisher: Maine Parson, 1768-1847, by Mary Ellen Chase (5 copies): The biography of a Blue Hill minister.
Goodbye Kate by Billy Clark (6 copies): A gentle story about the relationship between a boy and an old mule in Kentucky, several decades ago. For grades 6-9.
Maine Memories, by Elizabeth Coatsworth (5 copies): Fifty-four vignettes of life in and around Damariscotta in the early 1900s.
Midnight Plus One by Lyall Gavin (7 copies): An adventure novel in which an Englishman accepts an assignment as a bodyguard for a millionaire who must travel from Britany to Liechtenstein against the wishes of the French police.
Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau (6 copies): William Howland married his African American housekeeper after his first wife died. But he didn't announce his marriage in his Southern town and sent his mixed-race children away to school. Now as Howland's legacy is revealed, his granddaughter faces society's wrath as his only surviving white heir. Pulitzer Prize.
Jeremiah Thunder by Harold Heifetz (8 copies)
Meeting for Burial by Janet Hitchman (6 copies)
Blue Water Men--And Women, by Fred Humiston (5 copies): A history of tall-ship seafaring Mainers.
Seven Arrows by Storm Hyemeyohsts (7 copies): The Cheyenne, a peaceful people, resist the advances of the white man and continue their pre-Christian Sun Dance religion.
Box 100 by Frank Leonard (7 copies): A personable man accepts a job answering complaints for New York City's Department of Investigation. On one of his first cases, he trails a woman who has allegedly cashed enormous welfare checks in collaboration with a shady caseworker.
Children's Party by Arthur H. Lewis (8 copies): An elusive daughter attends the funeral of her parents in Europe, raising the curiosity of a newspaperman who had seen her only once before, so he follows her to Paris and England.
Hawk is Humming by George Mendoza (7 copies): A troubled veteran who lives on the sea finds himself set ashore in a small fishing village in Maine. There, he finds redemption in the faith of a boy and the kindness of strangers.
Gervase by Ann Moray (8 copies): Set in 19th-century Maine, this is the story of an unusual girl who befriends an abandoned fawn.
All In the Family by Edwin O'Connor (7 copies): A novel about Jack Kinsella who narrates the story of his Irish-American family's involvement in Massachusetts politics, from his three cousins to their father, a wealthy magnate who talks robustly and at length in the slang of the twenties.
Oh! Where Are Bloody Mary's Earrings? by Robert Player (7 copies): Historical mystery that traces the ownership of diamond earrings once worn by Mary Tudor, queen of England. Fact and fantasy blend in this comic, backstairs view of royalty.
News From Thrush Green by Miss Read (6 copies): A sketch of English village life in Thrush Green, the year that a young woman and her son move into a long-vacant cottage. Her marital problems are soon revealed but friendly and romantic interests arise for her against the background of other villagers.
The House by the Sea, by May Sarton (6 copies): Reflections by a premier Maine author, based upon her experiences as a new island native.
Little Saint by Georges Simenon (7 copies): This semiautobiographical account of an impoverished boy who becomes a famous painter is set in a teeming Paris working-class street.
Stories and Prose Poems by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (6 copies): Novellas, short stories and prose poems by the Nobel laureate.
String Lug the Fox by David Stephen (8 copies): Dear Deadly Cara by Grace Zaring (8 copies)
Sanctuary by Frank Swinnterton (6 copies): The central characters of this novel are a group of old ladies who live in a home in an English town. When the two women who are in charge of them are temporarily absent, a crisis takes place but the more valiant of the women finds a way to handle it.
Plum Explosion by John Van Der Zee (7 copies)
In Love & Trouble by Alice Walker (7 copies): The stories of black women, differing from one another in age and class, but sharing the pains of despair, hatred, neurosis or insanity, and the experience of love.
Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris L. West (7 copies): A Ukrainian peasant who was a prisoner of the Russians for many years, is elected Pope. The secular and spiritual intersect as the new Pope attempts reforms at a time when the church is being forced to play a larger role in world affairs.
Over the Edge by David Westheimer (7 copies): While driving to his mountain home for a vacation, a man is stopped at gunpoint by a young man and a pretty girl. Within two days, he in involved in abduction, seduction, robbery, and murder.
Eye of the Storm by Patrick White (7 copies): Blessed with wealth, charm and spectacular beauty, Elizabeth Hunter, now 80, dons on her jewels and makeup to show her children she is still in command.
Brinkmanship of Galahad Threepwood by P.G. Wodehouse (6 copies): In this comedy by the author of the acclaimed Jeeves and Wooster series, Galahad Threepwood--once a great figure in the world of the stage, the racehorse, and the rowdier restaurant--is now in his early fifties, and is determined to bring two young Sundered Hearts together.
Lakeland Vet by Joyce Stranger (7 copies): Novel describes the devotion of an English veterinarian to the animals he tends. He helps a mare to foal during a flu epidemic and attends a brutally mistreated dog.