LEGO-Palooza Summer Session
2024-06-27 13:00 - 17:00, 2024-07-11 13:00 - 17:00, 2024-07-18 13:00 - 17:00, 2024-07-25 13:00 - 17:00, 2024-08-01 13:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join us for these SPECIAL SUMMER SESSIONS of LEGO-Palooza every Thursday this summer from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm.
Come build something fun with the library’s LEGOs and get a chance to see them on display. FREE!

LEGO-palooza happens from 3:00 to 5:00 pm on the first Thursday of the month with occasional special sessions during school breaks and the summer.
For more information, call 802-254-5290 ext. 1210

Movie Night: "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar"
2024-06-28 20:30 - 22:30 | Parking Lot, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join us in the library parking lot for a Teens Only movie night to watch “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar”, Rated PG-13, runtime 1 hour 49 minutes. Snacks provided!

Elite New York drag queens Vida and Noxeema, have just won a trip to Hollywood and the national finals of a drag contest. They decide to take newcomer Chi-Chi along for the ride and set out across the country in a giant yellow Cadillac that’s all style and no horsepower. When the car dies, stranding them in the small town where they have to wait for the right parts to fix it, they find themselves entering the somewhat troubled lives of the townsfolk. With the Strawberry Festival coming up and an irate local sheriff on their heels, can they bring a bit of fabulous to this tired old town?

Hosted by the Teen Advisory Board.
“Teens Only” events are open to people in grades 7-12.

Brattleboro Great Books Group
2024-07-01 19:00 - 21:00, 2024-08-05 19:00 - 21:00, 2024-09-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Monthly discussion of “Great Books”

Game Cafe!
2024-07-03 18:00 - 20:45, 2024-07-10 18:00 - 20:45, 2024-07-17 18:00 - 20:45, 2024-07-24 18:00 - 20:45, 2024-07-31 18:00 - 20:45, 2024-08-07 18:00 - 20:45, 2024-08-14 18:00 - 20:45, 2024-08-21 18:00 - 20:45 and 2 more dates | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Come join game enthusiasts in playing Magic the Gathering in various formats (including Commander/EDH) as well as other fun and creative board & card games.
Bring your favorite games- All Ages Welcome!

Library Board of Trustees
2024-07-09 16:30 - 18:00, 2024-08-13 16:30 - 18:00, 2024-09-10 16:30 - 18:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Monthly meeting of the Brooks Memorial Library Board of Trustees. Citizen attendance and commentary welcome!
Board of Trustees

Teen Game Night
2024-07-12 19:00 - 22:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join us on Friday July 12th from 7pm-10pm to play games with the Teen Advisory Board!
We will have a selection of board and card games to play with as well as a Jack Box Party Pack set up. Feel free to bring your own games as well.
We’ll be on the 2nd floor and spread out between the rooms. We will also crank the AC! Pizza and snacks provided.
Hosted by the Teen Advisory Board. “Teens Only” events are open to people in grades 7-12.

July Sci-Fi Reading Group Meetup
2024-07-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The Sci-Fi Reading Group will meet Monday, July 15th, in the Quiet Reading Room from 7-8:30 pm to discuss Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
“Amelia dreams of Mars. The Mars of the movies and the imagination, an endless bastion of opportunities for a colonist with some guts. But she’s trapped in Mexico City, enduring the drudgery of an unkind metropolis, working as a rent-a-friend, selling her blood to old folks with money who hope to rejuvenate themselves with it, enacting a fractured love story. And yet there’s Mars, at the edge of the silver screen, of life. It awaits her.”
The Sci-Fi Reading Group meets the third Monday of every month and is open to curious minds of all ages, whether or not they’ve read this month’s selection.

Teen Movie Night: "The Breakfast Club"
2024-08-02 20:30 - 22:30 | Parking Lot, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join us in the library parking lot for a Teens Only movie night to watch “The Breakfast Club”, runtime 1hr 37min.

In this classic 80’s teen movie, five high school students from different walks of life endure a Saturday detention under a power-hungry principal. The disparate group includes rebel John, princess Claire, outcast Allison, brainy Brian, and Andrew the jock. Each has a chance to tell his or her story, making the others see them a little differently — and when the day ends, they question whether school will ever be the same.
BYO Seating, Snacks provided!

Hosted by the Teen Advisory Board.
“Teens Only” events are open to people in grades 7-12.

August Sci-Fi Reading Group Meetup
2024-08-19 19:00 - 20:30 | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The Sci-Fi Reading Group will meet Monday, August 19th, in the Quiet Reading Room from 7-8:30 pm to discuss Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo.
“What does it mean to “be-in-kind” with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s case, to be in-kind with one of the last remaining wild wolves? Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject’s perception through her own mind, Sean intends to chase both her scientific curiosity and her secret, lifelong desire to experience the intimacy and freedom of wolfishness. To see the world through animal eyes; smell the forest, thick with olfactory messages; even taste the blood and viscera of a fresh kill. And, above all, to feel the belonging of the pack.
Sean’s tireless research gives her a chance to fulfill that dream, but pursuing it has a terrible cost. Her obsession with work endangers her fraying relationship with her wife. Her research methods threaten her mind and body. And the attention of her VC funders could destroy her subject, the beautiful wild wolf whose mental world she’s invading.”
The Sci-Fi Reading Group meets the third Monday of every month and is open to curious minds of all ages, whether or not they’ve read this month’s selection.

We Had Fun and Nobody Died: Author Talk with Amy Waldman
2024-08-22 16:00 - 17:30 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Promoter Bio Lifts Curtain on Music Industry
This summer, a new biography from the Wisconsin Historical Society Press shines a light on the career of music promoter and club owner Peter Jest. The funny, irreverent, nostalgia-inducing We Had Fun and Nobody Died: Adventures of a Milwaukee Music Promoter (pub date: June 25, 2024) details how, from a young age, Jest brought national acts to the UW–Milwaukee campus, booked thousands of concerts across Wisconsin and the Midwest, and opened Shank Hall, the beloved Milwaukee venue named after a club in the cult film This Is Spinal Tap.
Author Amy T. Waldman’s compelling narrative follows Jest as he attempts to manage a turbulent band on the road, negotiates with agents, deals with fires (both real and metaphorical), and takes pleasure in presenting music of all kinds—from world-famous acts to up-and-coming local bands. The book also features stories of the lasting friendships Jest established over the years with the likes of John Prine, Arlo Guthrie, the Violent Femmes, and others.
This rollicking ride through Jest’s career is brought to life with dozens of photos, concert posters, tickets, backstage passes, and other memorabilia documenting decades of rock, folk, and alternative shows that helped put Milwaukee on the live music map. As the industry becomes increasingly dominated by profit-driven corporations, We Had Fun and Nobody Died chronicles a one-of-a-kind, fiercely independent promoter whose love of music and dedication to the artists have helped him keep it real in the music business for more than forty years.

About the Authors

Amy T. Waldman is an award-winning writer and editor who has written feature articles, reviews, profiles, and essays for a range of publications, including “Fresh Sounds,” a biweekly column of record reviews for the Marshfield News Herald. She currently works as a reference librarian at the Milwaukee Public Library.
Peter Jest has promoted music in Wisconsin and the Midwest for more than forty years and is the owner of the music venue Shank Hall in Milwaukee. This is his first book.

Advance Response to the Book

“Amy Waldman and Peter Jest weave a thrilling tale of fanhood gone pro. Dreams followed, dragons slain, and the roof of a venerable venue repeatedly blown sky-high. We’re proud to have provided the name [for Shank Hall]; it took men and women of sterner stuff to do the heavy lifting.”
—Michael McKean, actor and comedian, This Is Spinal Tap

“We Had Fun and Nobody Died is a fantastic journey of a Midwest boy, his love of music, and his excitement to be part of it all.”
—Kevn Kinney, lead singer and guitarist of Drivin N Cryin

“Peter Jest’s story is one that conveys a winning combination of friendship, determination, and entrepreneurial insights that led him to a lifelong career in support of the live music industry and the community that comes together in common appreciation of it.”
—Shana Morrison, singer-songwriter

Peter Jest was briefly the tour manager for the Milwaukee band Violent Femmes, pictured here in a 2015 performance in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Robb D. Cohen/Invision/AP)
Peter Jest, owner of Shank Hall, shares his best stories in a new memoir co-authored by Amy Waldman
Wisconsin Public Radio Interview by Lorin Cox, August 7, 2024

Mineralogical Society
2024-09-03 18:00 - 20:45 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join the Brattleboro Mineralogical Society to discuss Minerals and other Geological topics!

LEGO-Palooza
2024-09-05 15:00 - 17:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join us on Thursdays after school from 3-5pm to play with LEGOs!
We provide the LEGOs. You build. Do not bring your own LEGOs.
Children cannot keep LEGOs, but if there is enough room, we will display them in the window.
Free and open to the public!

Friends of the Library Ice Cream Social at Gallery Walk
2024-09-06 17:00 - 19:00 | Gallery Walk, Harmony Place, Brattleboro, Vermont, 05301, United States
The Friends of Brooks Memorial Library invite you to an old fashioned ice cream social at September’s Gallery Walk to celebrate Library Card Sign Up Month. Join us at the Harmony Lot on Friday, September 6 from 5-7pm or until the ice cream runs out! Ice cream is by donation.
