Brooks Memorial Library - Brattleboro VT

Brattleboro in Stitches
2025-12-20 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-12-27 13:00 - 16:00, 2026-01-03 13:00 - 16:00, 2026-01-10 13:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Bring a work in progress to sew, knit, crochet, embroider, or mend. Sewing machines, irons, and companionship will be provided.

Green Carnation Reading Group
2025-12-22 19:00 - 20:30 | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Discussions of books by and for queer people. For more information, please visit the Green Carnation Reading Group Facebook page.

Town Arts Committee
2025-12-23 17:00 - 19:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The monthly meeting of the Town Arts Committee members invites guests and the public to discuss town arts!

NO RHYME TIME
2025-12-24 10:30 - 23:30
There will be NO Rhyme Time on Wednesday, December 24, 2025.

EARLY CLOSING
2025-12-24 13:00 - 21:00 | Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The library will close at 1:00 p.m. on December 24th in observance of Christmas Eve.

LIBRARY CLOSED
2025-12-25 10:00 - 21:00 | Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The library will be closed on December 25th in observation of Christmas Day.

Introduction to Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation
2025-12-26 16:00 - 17:30
This offering will be led by Bhante Rathana, a Buddhist monk originally from Sri Lanka and currently residing at Serenity Central of New England in Jacksonville, Vermont. He has been dedicated to the path of Dhamma since the age of 13, and his journey includes over two decades of monastic training, study, and teaching in Sri Lanka and the United States.
At these sessions, Bhante will be offering practical guidance in breathing meditation (ānāpānasati), loving-kindness meditation (mettā bhāvanā), and walking meditation, rooted in the original teachings of the Buddha as preserved in the Pāli Canon. His approach draws directly from early Buddhist texts, focusing on mindfulness, compassion, and inner peace.
With gentle, step-by-step instruction, Bhante aims to help participants develop calm, clarity, and deeper awareness—whether you are new to meditation or wish to strengthen your practice.

LEGO-Palooza Winter Session!
2025-12-30 10:00 - 17:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join us on Tuesday, December 30th from 10-5pm for an extra-long session of LEGO-Palooza!
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!

Rhyme Time
2025-12-31 10:30 - 11:00, 2026-01-07 10:30 - 11:00, 2026-01-14 10:30 - 11:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join us on Wednesday mornings @ 10:30 am for 30 minutes of stories, songs, and fun!
Rhyme Time is for kids 5 & under and their caregivers.
Free and open to the public.

EARLY CLOSING
2025-12-31 18:00 - 21:00 | Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The library will close at 6:00 p.m. on December 31st in observance of New Year’s Eve.

LIBRARY CLOSED
2026-01-01 10:00 - 18:00 | Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The library will be closed on January 1st in observation of New Year’s Day.

Special Pop-Up Maker event! Flower Pot Saucer Gardens, for Fairy Folk or other tiny beings
2026-01-02 13:00 - 16:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Motivated by all the miniatures in town? Create a habitat for your favorite minis in a flowerpot saucer. Open to all ages. Materials will be provided, but feel free to bring your own additions. Participants will take their creations home.

Brattleboro Great Books Group
2026-01-05 19:00 - 21:00 | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Monthly discussion of “Great Books”: the reading and discussion for Monday, January 5th will be SONS and LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence.
For Monday, February 2nd, the group will be reading and discussing The DAEMONS* by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. (warning: *”The DEVILS” a.k.a. several other names, is 800+ pp. so get an early start). Participants meet from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. in the Mezzanine Quiet Reading Room of the Brooks Memorial Library, usually on the first Monday night of the month. If the meeting is cancelled due to inclement weather, reading is pushed back to the following month.

For those with any visual challenges or limitations, there is an audiobook version of Sons and Lovers, available gratis (and without commercials!) on YouTube, read by actor Tony Foster (in a Yorkshire accent!). It comes highly highly recommended.

Read to a Dog
2026-01-06 15:30 - 16:30, 2026-01-13 15:30 - 16:30 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Come start a new year of reading by reading to a dog! Read out loud to two sweet dogs, Kelso and Gussy! Both dogs are specially trained to read with kids and LOVE to be petted and cuddled!
Come to the Children’s Room to Read to a Dog–available on a first come first serve basis. Bring your own books or come early to pick some of ours! All Ages Welcome.

Mineralogical Society
2026-01-06 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!

Vermont Pastel Society
2026-01-07 15:30 - 17:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
pastel painting

A Lifeline for Difficult Times: The Taking Solace Series
2026-01-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Starting this past November, Center for Solace (formerly Brattleboro Area Hospice) & Brooks Memorial Library
began an 8-month collaboration on the first Wednesday of each month, from 6-8 pm.
Come join us for a wide range of conversations
on tender topics, from Death Cafes, to film & discussion nights,
speaker panels, a climate-grief dialogue, and more.
Together we’ll explore some of the challenges of being alive in our time.
For instance, how might we navigate illness, caregiving, or loss?
Or beyond that, face a much broader anguish for our fragile planet itself?
Because we know that at least one form of solace
stems from staying connected.
To quote poet David Whyte, “Solace is not meant to be
an answer, but an invitation, through the door of pain and difficulty,
to the depth of suffering and simultaneous beauty in the world
that the strategic mind by itself cannot grasp or make sense of.”
Join us for the January gathering in this series when we will discuss
Climate & Ecological Grief: An Exploration
All are welcome as we create a space to slow down and share our feelings about the growing effects of climate change. Feelings such as grief, sadness, fear, guilt, despair, and helplessness can be held in community as we witness the ongoing destruction of our planetary home. This will not be a venue for problem solving; it’s a place to express and share our feelings about how the earth is rapidly changing.
And to find out about further topics, please follow
Center for Solace or Brooks Memorial Library on Facebook:
centerforsolace.org, or brookslibraryvt.org.

Game Cafe!
2026-01-07 18:00 - 20:45 | 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!

LEGO-Palooza Winter Session!
2026-01-08 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!

SilverCircus - by NECCA
2026-01-10 11:00 - 12:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Strengthen balance and build social connection, all while playing and connecting to your inner child with SilverCircus by the New England Center for Circus Arts (NECCA). These circus classes are designed for older adults and are welcome to all mobility and cognitive levels. We will work with each student where they are at, while fostering a supportive and playful group dynamic. Activities will challenge the brain and the body, and will be scaled up and down to be the perfect challenge for each participant.
It is not too late to join the circus! Join us at Brattleboro Memorial Library at 11am on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays in January through May (01/10, 01/24, 02/14, 02/28, 03/14, 03/28, 04/11, 04/25, 05/09, and 05/23).

10 Minute Play Auditions
2026-01-12 18:00 - 21:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
This is the annual 10 Minute Play Auditions for Actor’s Theatre Playhouse. We’ve been auditioning at the library for a few years now.

Library Board of Trustees
2026-01-13 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

Food, Ecosystems and Community: Lessons from Nature
2026-01-13 19:00 - 20:45 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join Edible Brattleboro for a winter workshop series exploring the living systems at the heart of a community food forest. Together, we’ll learn how to create regenerative, resilient landscapes-where soil, plants, and people work together in mutually supportive relationships.
The series features nationally recognized speakers Didi Pershouse and Dave Jacke. Didi is an author, educator, and policy strategist, whose work focuses on living soils, carbon cycles, and the role of soil health in resilient ecosystems and communities. Dave Jacke is co-author of Edible Food Forest Gardens and a leading voice in permaculture and ecological design. Jacke will present two talks exploring forest gardening as a model for home and community landscapes, and how ecosystem principles-such as diversity, cooperation, and interdependence-can inform resilient social structures. Together, these speakers bring deep ecological insight and practical wisdom rooted in nature based systems.
Whether you’re cultivating a backyard, tending a shared green space, or simply interested in how ecosystems sustain life, this series offers insight, inspiration, and actionable ideas for nurturing landscapes that grow, adapt, and nourish for generations.
Speaker Schedule:
– Tuesday, January 13 | 7:00 PM
Didi Pershouse — Author • Educator • Policy Strategist
Soil as a Living System: How Healthy Soil Supports Ecosystems and Communities
An exploration of soil biology and the critical role living soils play in climate resilience, food systems, and community health.
-Tuesday, February 10 | 7:00 PM
Dave Jacke — Co-author of Edible Forest Gardens
Gardening Like a Forest: Ecosystem Mimicry for Homes and Communities
Healthy forests maintain, fertilize, and renew themselves, naturally. Wouldn’t you like to grow an abundant food-producing ecosystem like this in your back yard or neighborhood? You can! Edible forest gardens mimic the structure and function of natural forests while growing food, fuel, fiber, fodder, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, and fun. We can meet our own needs and regenerate healthy landscapes, communities, and ecosystems at the same time. We will dive into the vision of forest gardening, a little history, some science, a few living examples, and a sampling of some useful perennial edibles you can use in your own gardens.
-Tuesday, March 10 | 7:00 PM
Dave Jacke
Ecosystem Social Structures
Functional social interactions between species lie at the core of healthy ecosystems. Understanding species and community niches, interspecies relationships, food webs, guilds, polycultures, and the principles that undergird these structures greatly improves our ability to design and manage healthy forest gardens—and healthy human societies!
-Tuesday, March 24th | 7:00 PM
Ricky Baruch and Deb Habib — Founders of Seeds of Solidarity in Orange MA, with over three decades of experience gardening, farming and teaching widely.
Grow Food Everywhere!
Celebrate spring with this engaging presentation and inspiration for abundant gardens to come. Appropriate for both beginning and experienced gardeners, you will gain ideas for building rich, living soil with local resources and regenerative no-till methods. Learn from presenter experience and interactive conversation as you gather practical ideas for low maintenance and climate resilient methods that grow healthy soil and nourishing food for home or community, and in all settings.
