Media Library

Kids and teens can pick up a free pipe cleaner flower craft kit from the children's room at the Media-Upper Providence Free Library to take home and assemble.

Mr. David C Perry is a family entertainer who blends original children's songs, live drawing, and kid-friendly comedy into a single interactive performance.

Chair Yoga with Alexis Monday at 10am starting June 15th. Registration encouraged for all classes. If you cannot make one, please let us know. Walk-ins accepted until class limit is reached. Chair Yoga will concentrate on strengthening your core and improving your balance, as well as stretching and breathing exercises. This class is ideal for anyone who has ever hesitated to try yoga due to the challenge of getting down on the floor or doing mandatory standing poses. Class is not limited by weight, arthritis or other physical limitations. All abilities can manage this gentle weekly exercise program. Class will focus on increasing mobility, creating strength through body awareness, improving balance, deepening breathing, and inspiring tranquility. Students are encouraged to do what they can in a compassionate, judgement-free zone. Dress comfortably No yoga mat needed Wear easy on and off shoes, although you are not required to remove them

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles. Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile. Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats’ secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal. June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, but the diplomats are different. Without firing a single shot, they have brought the war directly to her. As clashing loyalties crack the Avallon’s polished veneer, June must calculate the true cost of luxury. You can find all our selections here: https://mediauplibrary.org/afternoon-book-club/ Please email [email protected] to join the book club.

Children ages 5 and up can register for a 10-minute session to read aloud to Rose, a trained PAWS for People therapy dog, at the Media-Upper Providence Free Library.

A special edition of Pre-Walker Baby Time at the Media-Upper Providence Free Library featuring guest expert Alyssa Hillman, a pediatric physical therapist from Ivy Rehab for Kids, for parents and caregivers of non-walking babies.

Chair Yoga with Alexis Monday at 10am starting June 15th. Registration encouraged for all classes. If you cannot make one, please let us know. Walk-ins accepted until class limit is reached. Chair Yoga will concentrate on strengthening your core and improving your balance, as well as stretching and breathing exercises. This class is ideal for anyone who has ever hesitated to try yoga due to the challenge of getting down on the floor or doing mandatory standing poses. Class is not limited by weight, arthritis or other physical limitations. All abilities can manage this gentle weekly exercise program. Class will focus on increasing mobility, creating strength through body awareness, improving balance, deepening breathing, and inspiring tranquility. Students are encouraged to do what they can in a compassionate, judgement-free zone. Dress comfortably No yoga mat needed Wear easy on and off shoes, although you are not required to remove them

Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen “The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he’d take him there after finishing an errand.” Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads—in pure Hiaasen-style—into the depths of Florida at its most a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption. Figgo, it turns out, is the only hate-monger ever to be kicked out of the Proud Boys for being too dumb and incompetent. On January 6, 2021 he thought he was defacing a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, but he wound up spreading feces all over a statue of James Zacharia George, a Civil War Confederate war leader. Figgo's already messy life is about to get more complicated, thanks to two formidable adversaries. Viva Morales is a newly transplanted Floridian, a clever woman recently taken to the cleaners by her ex-husband, now working at the Mink Foundation, a supposedly philanthropical organization, and renting a room in Figgo’s apartment because there’s no place else she can afford. Twilly Spree has an anger management problem, especially when it comes to those who deface the environment, and way too many inherited millions of dollars. He's living alone a year after his dog died, two years after he sank a city councilman’s party barge, and three years after his divorce. Viva and Twilly are plunged into a mystery—involving dark money and darker motives—they are determined to solve, and become entangled in a world populated by some of Hiaasen’s most outrageous Claude and Eletra Mink—billionaire philanthropists with way too much plastic surgery and a secret right-wing agenda—and Congressman Clure Boyette—who dreams of being Florida’s (and maybe America’s) most important politician. The only things standing in his way are his love for hookers and young girls, and his total lack of intelligence. We meet Noel Kristianson—a Scandinavian agnostic injured when Figgo thinks he’s aJewish threat to humanity and runs him over with his car; Jonus Onus—Figgo’s partner in white power idiocy; and many, many more. Hiaasen ties them all together and delivers them to their appropriate fates, in his wildest and most entertaining novel to date. You can find all our selections here: https://mediauplibrary.org/afternoon-book-club/ Please email [email protected] to join the book club.

Chair Yoga with Alexis Monday at 10am starting June 15th. Registration encouraged for all classes. If you cannot make one, please let us know. Walk-ins accepted until class limit is reached. Chair Yoga will concentrate on strengthening your core and improving your balance, as well as stretching and breathing exercises. This class is ideal for anyone who has ever hesitated to try yoga due to the challenge of getting down on the floor or doing mandatory standing poses. Class is not limited by weight, arthritis or other physical limitations. All abilities can manage this gentle weekly exercise program. Class will focus on increasing mobility, creating strength through body awareness, improving balance, deepening breathing, and inspiring tranquility. Students are encouraged to do what they can in a compassionate, judgement-free zone. Dress comfortably No yoga mat needed Wear easy on and off shoes, although you are not required to remove them

Children ages 5 and up can sign up to read aloud to Rose, a trained therapy dog from PAWS for People, in 10-minute sessions designed to build reading confidence.

Chair Yoga with Alexis Monday at 10am starting June 15th. Registration encouraged for all classes. If you cannot make one, please let us know. Walk-ins accepted until class limit is reached. Chair Yoga will concentrate on strengthening your core and improving your balance, as well as stretching and breathing exercises. This class is ideal for anyone who has ever hesitated to try yoga due to the challenge of getting down on the floor or doing mandatory standing poses. Class is not limited by weight, arthritis or other physical limitations. All abilities can manage this gentle weekly exercise program. Class will focus on increasing mobility, creating strength through body awareness, improving balance, deepening breathing, and inspiring tranquility. Students are encouraged to do what they can in a compassionate, judgement-free zone. Dress comfortably No yoga mat needed Wear easy on and off shoes, although you are not required to remove them

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times. As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage. This is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United States, in family rooms, on college campuses, on city streets; the consequences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the book for our time. You can find all our selections here: https://mediauplibrary.org/afternoon-book-club/ Please email [email protected] to join the book club.

The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Marta Molnar A gripping, inspiring novel based on the true story of Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law. When Hollywood auctioneer Emsley Wilson finds her famous grandmother's diary while cleaning out her New York brownstone, the pages are full of surprises. The first surprise is, the diary isn't her grandmother's. It belongs to Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law. Johanna inherited Vincent van Gogh's paintings. They were all she had, and they weren't worth anything. She was a 28 year old widow with a baby in the 1800s, without any means of supporting herself, living in Paris where she barely spoke the language. Yet she managed to introduce Vincent's legacy to the world. The inspiration couldn't come at a better time for Emsley. With her business failing, an unexpected love turning up in her life, and family secrets unraveling, can she find answers in the past? You can find all our selections here: https://mediauplibrary.org/afternoon-book-club/ Please email [email protected] to join the book club.

Media’s Merry Musicians Ensemble invites you to come join us! This joyful ensemble grew out of Amber Lee Casper’s private students’ desire to connect with other musicians here in Media. 2026 will be our third year, and we are excited to welcome even more of our neighbors to come play with us! Our repertoire is curated by Mrs. Casper and draws from classical, traditional folk, medieval, and American folk genres (requests welcome!). We meet at the Media-Upper Providence Free Library every other month on a Saturday from 11am-12:30pm. Over the course of the year, we will hold seven rehearsals and hope to perform at one or two community events in Media as opportunities arise. We are not a professional ensemble—rather, we are Media's Merry Musicians: your neighbors and friends who simply believe that playing music together as a community matters. We are graciously sponsored by the Media-Upper Providence Free Library, whose support allows us to expand our reach and welcome more participants from Media and the surrounding area. It’s completely free to join! Our ensemble is open to adults and youth (ages 12+) accompanied by a parent or guardian. We are especially looking for violin, viola, cello, bass, guitar, accordion, and harp—but all instruments are welcome! If you’re feeling unsure about the level, you're welcome to explore the repertoire examples listed here . We choose music that is beautiful, approachable, and enjoyable for a variety of players. If you’d simply like to drop in to say hello and observe a rehearsal, please feel free to email Amber at [email protected] It's normal to feel a little shy when trying something new--we all do! But don't let that stop you from meeting your community and sharing in the joy of making music. We are blessed to have such a warm community here in Media. Let us rejoice and make a "joyful noise" together! For more information and full list of dates visit https://www.violinviolamasterclass.com/medias-merry-musicians.html

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones This chilling historical novel is set in the nascent days of the state of Montana, following a Blackfeet Indian named Good Stab as he haunts the fields of the Blackfeet Nation looking for justice. It begins when a diary written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall in 2012. What is unveiled is a slow massacre, a nearly forgotten chain of events that goes back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow, told in the transcribed interviews with Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar and unnaturally long life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story, captured in the vivid voices of the time, by one of the new masters of literary horror, Stephen Graham Jones. You can find all our selections here: https://mediauplibrary.org/afternoon-book-club/ Please email [email protected] to join the book club.

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan 2014 : At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife's birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, 'A Corona for Vivien'. Much wine is drunk as the guests listen, and a delicious meal consumed. Little does anyone gathered around the candlelit table know that for generations to come people will speculate about the message of this poem, a copy of which has never been found, and which remains an enduring mystery. 2119 : Just over one hundred years in the future, much of the western world has been submerged by rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. In the water-logged south of what used to be England, Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early twenty-first century as he chases the ghost of one poem, 'A Corona for Vivian'. How wild and full of risk their lives were, thinks Thomas, as he pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the elusive poem's discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well. What We Can Know is a masterpiece, a fictional tour de force, a love story about both people and the words they leave behind, a literary detective story which reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost. -- Provided by publisher. You can find all our selections here: https://mediauplibrary.org/afternoon-book-club/ Please email [email protected] to join the book club.

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. The hardest thing in the world is to live only once… One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing—formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness—are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance. You can find all our selections here: https://mediauplibrary.org/afternoon-book-club/ Please email [email protected] to join the book club.

Media’s Merry Musicians Ensemble invites you to come join us! This joyful ensemble grew out of Amber Lee Casper’s private students’ desire to connect with other musicians here in Media. 2026 will be our third year, and we are excited to welcome even more of our neighbors to come play with us! Our repertoire is curated by Mrs. Casper and draws from classical, traditional folk, medieval, and American folk genres (requests welcome!). We meet at the Media-Upper Providence Free Library every other month on a Saturday from 11am-12:30pm. Over the course of the year, we will hold seven rehearsals and hope to perform at one or two community events in Media as opportunities arise. We are not a professional ensemble—rather, we are Media's Merry Musicians: your neighbors and friends who simply believe that playing music together as a community matters. We are graciously sponsored by the Media-Upper Providence Free Library, whose support allows us to expand our reach and welcome more participants from Media and the surrounding area. It’s completely free to join! Our ensemble is open to adults and youth (ages 12+) accompanied by a parent or guardian. We are especially looking for violin, viola, cello, bass, guitar, accordion, and harp—but all instruments are welcome! If you’re feeling unsure about the level, you're welcome to explore the repertoire examples listed here . We choose music that is beautiful, approachable, and enjoyable for a variety of players. If you’d simply like to drop in to say hello and observe a rehearsal, please feel free to email Amber at [email protected] It's normal to feel a little shy when trying something new--we all do! But don't let that stop you from meeting your community and sharing in the joy of making music. We are blessed to have such a warm community here in Media. Let us rejoice and make a "joyful noise" together! For more information and full list of dates visit https://www.violinviolamasterclass.com/medias-merry-musicians.html

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives nearby in a house next to the sea. Together, Lucy and Bob talk about their lives, their hopes and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, befriends one of Crosby’s longest inhabitants, Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known – “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them – reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning. Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.” You can find all our selections here: https://mediauplibrary.org/afternoon-book-club/ Please email [email protected] to join the book club.

Media’s Merry Musicians Ensemble invites you to come join us! This joyful ensemble grew out of Amber Lee Casper’s private students’ desire to connect with other musicians here in Media. 2026 will be our third year, and we are excited to welcome even more of our neighbors to come play with us! Our repertoire is curated by Mrs. Casper and draws from classical, traditional folk, medieval, and American folk genres (requests welcome!). We meet at the Media-Upper Providence Free Library every other month on a Saturday from 11am-12:30pm. Over the course of the year, we will hold seven rehearsals and hope to perform at one or two community events in Media as opportunities arise. We are not a professional ensemble—rather, we are Media's Merry Musicians: your neighbors and friends who simply believe that playing music together as a community matters. We are graciously sponsored by the Media-Upper Providence Free Library, whose support allows us to expand our reach and welcome more participants from Media and the surrounding area. It’s completely free to join! Our ensemble is open to adults and youth (ages 12+) accompanied by a parent or guardian. We are especially looking for violin, viola, cello, bass, guitar, accordion, and harp—but all instruments are welcome! If you’re feeling unsure about the level, you're welcome to explore the repertoire examples listed here . We choose music that is beautiful, approachable, and enjoyable for a variety of players. If you’d simply like to drop in to say hello and observe a rehearsal, please feel free to email Amber at [email protected] It's normal to feel a little shy when trying something new--we all do! But don't let that stop you from meeting your community and sharing in the joy of making music. We are blessed to have such a warm community here in Media. Let us rejoice and make a "joyful noise" together! For more information and full list of dates visit https://www.violinviolamasterclass.com/medias-merry-musicians.html

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own. Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie. Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day. You can find all our selections here: https://mediauplibrary.org/afternoon-book-club/ Please email [email protected] to join the book club.

My Friends by Fredrik Backman Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art. You can find all our selections here: https://mediauplibrary.org/afternoon-book-club/ Please email [email protected] to join the book club.