Brooks Memorial Library - Brattleboro VT

Rhyme Time
2025-09-24 10:30 - 11:00, 2025-10-01 10:30 - 11:00, 2025-10-08 10:30 - 11:00, 2025-10-15 10:30 - 11:00 (America/New_York) | 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.

Ira Allen: A Biography - Conversation with Author, J. Kevin Graffagnino
2025-09-24 19:00 - 20:30 | VT
Vermont historian J. Kevin Graffagnino will give a special presentation as part of our local America 250 events in commemoration of America’s Semiquincentennial next year.
Based on his new book “Ira Allen: A Biography,” Graffagnino’s lively talk evaluates Allen’s checkered career and makes the case for including him in the picture of Vermont’s formative decades. According to the author’s press release, “Land speculator, revolutionary, pamphleteer, politician, and empire-builder, Ira Allen was a key figure on the late eighteenth-century Green Mountain frontier.”
The author will be bringing signed copies of his book for purchase.
Based in Essex, Vermont, Graffagnino is the author or editor of more than a dozen books on Vermont history. Over the years, he has served as the executive director of the state historical societies in Vermont and Kentucky, and as director of the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan.
This talk is brought to our community through a joint effort of the Brattleboro Literary Festival, Brattleboro Historical Society, Brooks Memorial Library, and ‘Examining American Identity and Leadership in a Changing World’, a collaborative initiative working to support America 250 events in this region. The event is free and open to the public, with light refreshments to be served.

Sing & Dance With Robin
2025-09-25 10:30 - 11:30, 2025-10-02 10:30 - 11:30, 2025-10-09 10:30 - 11:30, 2025-10-16 10:30 - 11:30 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Designed for ages under 6- all ages welcome! Free and open to the public.
This lovely class is an enriching musical experience for toddlers and preschoolers, designed to support healthy cognitive, physical, and social development. Children will sing, clap, stomp, dance, and play along with the curriculum of traditional and modern folk songs. Parents will be encouraged to fully sing and participate with their child in the class.
Sponsored by the Friends of Brooks Memorial Library.

Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation - with Bhante
2025-09-26 16:00 - 18:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
This offering will be lead 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.

50 Years of Herbal Lessons in 60 Minutes – with Paul Schulick
2025-09-27 10:30 - 12:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
In an era in our country where millions face increasing stress, from economic and climactic uncertainty to political divides, a particularly vulnerable impact could manifest in our personal health. To make matters even more precarious, it is quite possible that millions of people will also be left uninsured and at the mercy of a widely recognized broken health care system. These vulnerabilities challenge the very fabric not only of our well-being but our country as well. Many scientifically validated alternatives or complementary options to modern pharmaceuticals can buoy an individual’s resilience through these challenging times ahead.
From Paul’s fifty years of serving many thousands of people and professionals in healthcare, he will propose his favorite simple and common-sense herbal and holistic solutions.
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About the presenter: Paul Schulick is best known for founding New Chapter, a leading national nutritional supplement company right here in Brattleboro. Being a student, formulator, and professional in the field of natural medicine for more than 50 years, Paul’s passion brought numerous innovations and influence to the marketplace.
Paul’s principal innovations were the advancement of whole food and daily herbal supplementation as an alternative to USP purified vitamins and minerals as well as helping to bring the European technology of herbal supercritical extraction to the United States. He also wrote and co-authored several books on natural healing, helping found and create a biodynamic and organic ginger farm in Costa Rica and developing partnerships with major U.S. universities including MD Anderson Cancer Center, Cleveland Clinic, Cornell University, Columbia University, and the University of Tennessee to further the acceptance and value of herbal medicine.
In 2012, P&G chose New Chapter to be their standard bearer in the nutritional supplement field. Paul and his co-founder wife Barbi stayed with the company for six more years until 2018 after which they decided to sow new opportunities and Paul continued his formulating, writing, and teaching.

Brattleboro in Stitches
2025-09-27 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-10-04 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-10-11 13:00 - 16:00 | 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.

Youth & Relationships Workshop - CANCELLED
2025-09-29 17:30 - 19:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED by organizer
WORKSHOP FOR YOUTH, CAREGIVERS & MENTORS – FREE YOUTH & RELATIONSHIPS WORKSHOP!
This training is for young people, parents/caregivers and mentors to better understand adolescent development, explore how experiences shape our perspectives, how relationships can support us to grow, and how to be supportive to our youth through difficult times. Facilitated by Matt Wolf from Vermont Afterschool and brought to you by Building a Positive Community, Brattleboro Area Youth Council, and Vermont Afterschool.
Light snacks and beverages will be provided. Registration is recommended: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfeeCNRZrH3v3RMwaQByhgA6SwTe8aMHExgtYl3JoZ0Ld2sHw/viewform

Design-A-Plate
2025-10-01 10:00 - 2025-10-15 20:00 | Children’s Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Our 44th annual Design-A-Plate workshop in a take-home format!
Beginning Wednesday, October 1, stop by the Children’s Room at Brooks Memorial Library to pick up a Design-A-Plate packet. Create your drawings at home then return the packet to the library by 8:00 pm on Wednesday October 15. Choose between an 8-inch melamine plate, a 10-inch melamine plate or 12-ounce melamine bowl. The price is $9.00 per item. Please include payment when the completed drawings are dropped off at the library. Cash and checks made out to Brooks Memorial Library are accepted.Plates and bowls will be ready for pickup in early December.
Design-A-Plate is great for all ages. For more information, please call the Children’s Room at 802-254-5290 x1210 or visit our website at brookslibraryvt.org/kids/DAP.

Vermont Pastel Society
2025-10-01 15:30 - 17:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Review business, critique artwork.

LEGO-Palooza
2025-10-02 15:00 - 17:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join us on the first Thursday of every month 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!

Introduction to Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation
2025-10-03 16:00 - 17:30, 2025-10-10 16:00 - 17:30, 2025-10-17 16:00 - 17:30 | VT
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.

Bringing Catamounts Home: Reimagining the Northeast’s Wild Future
2025-10-06 18:00 - 21:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Catamounts—also known as cougars, pumas, or mountain lions—once played a vital ecological role in the forests of the Northeast. For millennia, they helped shape Northeastern landscapes in a myriad of ways including regulating prey populations, supporting forest regeneration, and enhancing biodiversity. Today, they are considered extirpated from the region.
In this talk, Renee Seacor, Northeast Rewilding Director at Mighty Earth, explores the past, present, and possible future of catamounts in the Northeast. Through three powerful case studies, she traces the forces that led to their disappearance, examines the ecological and social factors affecting their return, and highlights stories of successful coexistence with mountain lions in other parts of the country.
The presentation concludes with an overview of the next steps needed to explore the feasibility and conservation value of bringing catamounts back to Vermont. The event will include time for questions and open dialogue—inviting participants to share ideas, ask questions, and be part of a growing conversation about the future of our shared landscapes.

Brattleboro Great Books Group
2025-10-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Monthly discussion of “Great Books”

Mineralogical Society
2025-10-07 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!

Author Event: Jessie Haas - Dearest Blood: A Romance of the Revolution
2025-10-07 18:30 - 20:00 | Main Reading Room
The community is invited to this author event with local writer, Jessie Haas, for the release of her latest book, Dearest Blood: A Romance of the Revolution. This novel is inspired by the true story of Fanny Montresor, a young woman with a secret identity whose love and loyalties crossed both sides of the American Revolution. Set in 1775, during the turmoil that led to the Westminster Massacre, and in 1783, as peace was returning. All are welcome.
About the author:
Jessie Haas grew up in Westminster, Vt, on a farm once owned by a Revolutionary War soldier. Her writing career has been dominated by a love of horses and history. She sold her first book, Keeping Barney, a month before graduating from Wellesley College. Forty-one books later, she has award-winning picture books, poetry, novels, and nonfiction to her credit, including four books about Westminster. She is the president of the Westminster Historical Society, and an expert on the Westminster Massacre. She owns two Morgan mares, and continues to farm, garden, and ride on the home place.

LIBRARY CLOSED
2025-10-13 10:00 - 21:00 | Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The library will be closed in observation of Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Library Board of Trustees
2025-10-14 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

Design-A-Plate Due Today!
2025-10-15 10:00 - 20:00 | VT
Today is the final day to drop off your Design-A-Plate designs! Drop off your template(s) and payment at the children’s room circulation desk by 8pm.

Friends of the Library
2025-10-15 16:30 - 18:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Monthly meeting of the Friends of the Library. Community attendance and commentary is welcome!
Friends of the Library

A Conversation with State Representative Ian Goodnow
2025-10-15 18:30 - 20:00 | VT
All are invited to this community dialogue organized by Brattleboro District 9 Chair, with featured guest State Rep. Ian Goodnow.
While there is no formal agenda for this meeting, one might say it is divided in three parts:
• What happened in the last legislative session?
• What can we expect in the session starting January 2026?
• What legislative issues are front of mind for you?
