Brooks Memorial Library

Friends of Brooks Memorial Library

On this page you’ll find events supported or sponsored by the Friends. There are many other events at the library, so you may want to check the library calendar as well.

A flyer for the 2022-2023 First Wednesdays season is available here.

If you have any questions about this page, please email us.

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August 2021

BookPage is back …

August 15, 2021 @ 8:00 am - 5:00 pm

Get the scoop on the best new books across all genres. The Friends have renewed the library's subscription to BookPage, an editorially-independent monthly magazine featuring only books it highly recommends.

Find out more »

Garden Party

August 28, 2021 @ 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

The Friends invite you to a garden party fundraiser in West Brattleboro on Saturday, August 28th, 2-5pm; rain date: Sunday, August 29th. Enjoy homemade treats in a splendid wooded garden setting at 744 Meadowbrook Rd., West Brattleboro. Tickets are $20 in advance (call the library at 802-254-5290 to RSVP and get directions). Tickets are $25 on the day.

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September 2021

Fundraising News

September 2, 2021 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Our late-summer fundraisers - Garden Party and Ice Cream Social - were a great success, together raising close to $5,000 to help support the library. Many thanks to Sharon Myers for hosting the Garden Party and to the Brattleboro Food Coop and Circus Minimus for their contributions to the Ice Cream Social!

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October 2021

Daisy Turner’s Kin

October 6, 2021 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Presenter: Jane Beck, founder of the Vermont Folklife Center
Time: October 6th, 7pm, via Zoom

Folklorist Jane Beck shares the story of the Turner family, a saga that spans four generations and two centuries. This rare account of the Black experience in New England covers the capture in Africa, the middle passage, two generations of enslavement, escape from bondage, and eventually a family farm on a Vermont hilltop. Jane Beck is the author of Daisy Turner's Kin, an African American Family Saga, based on sixty interviews with Turner, the daughter of enslaved people.

To register for this online talk, visit https://www.vermonthumanities.org/event/digital-daisy-turners-kin/

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November 2021

Philanthropy and Civil Society in Challenging Times

November 3, 2021 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Presenter: Stuart Comstock-Gay, former president of the Vermont Community Foundation
Time: November 3, 7:00pm, via Zoom

The pandemic year of 2020 challenged every aspect of modern community, including our visions of equality, civility, health, and democracy. Stuart Comstock-Gay, who has spent his career addressing issues of community, democracy and civil rights, discusses how civic engagement can help us rebuild our communities and reclaim our dreams.

To register for this online talk, visit https://www.vermonthumanities.org/event/digital-philanthropy-and-civil-society-in-challenging-times/

Find out more »

Book Sale, cont.

November 18, 2021 - November 20, 2021
Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St.
Brattleboro, VT 05301 United States
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Last chance:  if you missed the Book Sale in November, you can still shop for remainders, on sale during regular library hours until January 8th. In addition to books, you'll find CDs, DVDs, and puzzles - all in good condition and sale priced!

Find out more »

December 2021

Learning Hidden History with Picture Books and Graphic Novels

December 1, 2021 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Presenter: Laura Jiménez
Time: December 1st, 7:00pm, via Zoom

Dr. Laura Jiménez, Department Chair for Language and Literacy Education at Boston University, studies literature and literacy through a social justice lens. The current renaissance of picture books and graphic novels written by and about marginalized communities provides new ways to engage with history. Jiménez describes how contemporary authors and illustrators use visual literature to center narratives previously unseen in mainstream publishing.

To register for this online talk, visit

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January 2022

Atlantic is a Sea of Bones

January 5, 2022 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Presenter: Jarvis Green
Time: January 5, 7:00pm
Place: Brooks Memorial Library (in person)

Jarvis Green, founder of the Black theater company JAG Productions, invites us to reflect individually and collectively on the afterlives and the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade. Green will explore how Black queer and feminist artists have created ways to honor this history and heal ancestral trauma.

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February 2022

Boneyarn: New York Slavery Poems

February 2, 2022 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Presenter: David Mills
Time: February 2, 7:00pm, online

The oldest and largest slave cemetery in the United States is located in the shadow of Wall Street. Actor and poet David Mills reads from and discusses his award-winning poetry collection, Boneyarn, featuring groundbreaking poems about slavery in New York City, a topic rarely addressed.

David Mills holds MFAs from both New York University and Warren Wilson College and is a cum laude graduate of Yale University. He has published two full-length poetry collections in addition to Boneyarn: The Dream Detective and The Sudden Country.

To register for this online talk, visit https://www.vermonthumanities.org/event/digital-boneyarn-new-york-slavery-poems/

Find out more »

April 2022

The Poetics of Girlhood and Womanhood in America

April 6, 2022 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Presenters: Diana Whitney, Shanta Lee Gander, Christal Brown
Time: April 6, 7:00pm
Place: Brooks Memorial Library (in person)

Poets and writers Diana Whitney and Shanta Lee Gander join Christal Brown, associate professor of Dance at Middlebury College, in a conversation that explores how girlhood and womanhood in America are manifested across the boundaries of poetry, dance, and lived experience.

Diana Whitney’s edited work "You Don’t Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves" ranges across intersectional, intergenerational, and gender-fluid voices.

In "GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues" Shanta Lee Gander navigates between formal and vernacular styles to examine butterflies and female sexuality, vulnerability, classical Greek myths, and more.

Christal Brown’s original dance piece “The Opulence of Integrity” was inspired by the public life and inner searching of Muhammad Ali, boxing’s outspoken superstar.

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Our Mission

The mission of the Friends is to support the Brooks Library through advocacy, public relations, and fundraising in order to provide the highest quality library services to the community.

All material on this website © 2015-2017 to the Friends of the Brooks Memorial Library or to its respective creators with rights reserved.

Friends of Brooks Memorial Library

224 Main Street
Brattleboro, VT  05301