Brooks Memorial Library - Brattleboro VT

Town Arts Committee
2025-05-27 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | 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!

Rhyme Time
2025-05-28 10:30 - 11:00, 2025-06-04 10:30 - 11:00, 2025-06-11 10:30 - 11:00, 2025-06-18 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.

Brattleboro 250 Planning Sessions
2025-05-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Come and connect with others who are interested in working on plans to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States in 2026.
This monthly meeting space on the 4th Wednesdays is dedicated for those who would like the opportunity to connect, collaborate, and work on projects that align with Vermont’s 250th Anniversary Commission’s mission to “…inspire all Vermonters to learn from the history, legacy, and context of the past to build strong Vermont communities for the future.”
The space is being hosted by Brooks Memorial Library, Vermont Independent Media (The Commons) and Windham World Affairs Council, with support from the Vermont Humanities Council. We are already working together on a collaboration entitled, ‘Examining American Identity and Leadership in a Changing World – and have joined America 250, a national initiative asking communities to plan for how to commemorate the 250th year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Its mission is to provide opportunities for all Americans to pause and reflect on our nation’s past & present, honor the contributions of all Americans, and look to the future we want to create for the next generation and beyond.

Sing & Dance With Robin
2025-05-29 11:00 - 12:00 | 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.

Vermont Women and The Civil War - with Howard Coffin
2025-05-29 16:00 - 17:30 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
“Vermont women enlisted for the duration.” So said a Vermont historian assessing the war years 1861-1865. Vermont’s remarkable Civil War battlefield record is well documented, but little is known of how Vermont women sustained the home front. Historian Howard Coffin explains, with nearly 35,000 of the state’s able-bodied men at war, how women took on farming, worked in factories, served as nurses in the state’s military hospitals, and more. And at least one Vermont woman appears to have secretly enlisted and fought in a Vermont regiment! Drawing from letters and diaries, Coffin tells their story in their own words, describing life during the Civil War in the Green Mountain State. This is a Vermont Humanities event hosted by Brooks Memorial Library.
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A seventh-generation Vermonter, Howard Coffin is the author of four books on the Civil War: Something Abides: Discovering the Civil War in Today’s Vermont; Full Duty: Vermonters in the Civil War; Nine Months to Gettysburg; and The Battered Stars, as well as Guns Over the Champlain Valley, a book on military sites along the Champlain Corridor.

Brattleboro in Stitches
2025-05-31 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-06-07 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-06-14 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-06-21 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.

Multigenerational Civics Class
2025-06-02 10:15 - 11:30, 2025-06-09 10:15 - 11:30 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Who has power over us? What power do we have to create the world around us? The Vermont Village School welcomes villagers of all ages to participate in a people’s Civics class with us this spring at Brooks Memorial Library. We will be untangling the different institutions that exert power over us, past and present, official and unofficial, and brainstorming how we move forward together.

Join us Monday at 10:15am @ Brooks Memorial Library, Brattleboro. This will be the first of a series–we will plan future gatherings based on collective interest and energy.

Community Movie Screening - Counted Out: Math is Power
2025-06-02 18:00 - 20:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Counted Out investigates the biggest crises of our time through an unexpected lens: math.
In our current information economy, math is everywhere. The people we date, the news we see, the influence of our votes, the candidates who win elections, the education we have access to, the jobs we get—all of it is underwritten by an invisible layer of math that few of us understand, or even notice.
But whether we know it or not, our numeric literacy—whether we can speak the language of math—is a critical determinant of social and economic power.
Through a mosaic of personal stories, expert interviews, and scenes of math transformation in action, Counted Out shows what’s at risk if we keep the status quo. Do we want an America in which most of us don’t consider ourselves “math people”? Where math proficiency goes down as students grow up? Or do we want a country where everyone can understand the math that undergirds our society—and can help shape it.
This event is sponsored by WSESU and the Brooks Memorial Library; more information and registration can be found, here.

Brattleboro Great Books Group
2025-06-02 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
2025-06-03 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!

Moments in Time - Art Exhibit
2025-06-04 - 2025-06-24 | Main Reading Room
June is recognized by the Alzheimer’s Association as “Alzheimer’s and Brain Health Awareness Month” (ABAM) and the Brooks Memorial Library and the VT Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association are collaborating to raise awareness in Brattleboro. From June 4-24, Moments in Time, a collection of works by Vermonters with Dementia, will be on display in the library. The exhibit displays (23) pieces from (13) individual artists and two collages created from art submissions from Residences and Adult Day centers in Vermont. The collection includes a variety of visual art, a wood carving, quilts and a mobile, highlighting the diversity and creativity of Vermonters with dementia.
“Close to 13,000 Vermonters over the age of 65 are living with dementia,” said Meg Polyte, Policy Director at the Vermont Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association and Co-curator of the exhibit. “This show seeks to foster understanding, spark conversation, and bring attention to the far-reaching effects of dementia on patients and their loved ones.”

Rapid Reviews - Adult Summer Reading Program Kick-Off
2025-06-04 18:30 - 20:00 | Main Reading Room
We are kicking off the Adult Summer Reading Program with Rapid Reviews of 50 books in 50 minutes! Experience a wide range of book recommendations from our well-read library staff to get ready for a spectacular summer of reading.
Ellen Martyn (Circulation), Jeanne Walsh (Information Services), Lindsay Bellville (Children’s Room), Anna Monders (Accounts), and Max Newirth (Teen Services) will review some of their all-time favorites.
Each reviewer will give 60-second reviews of each book and you will have the opportunity to check out these books right away! Cookies and milk will be served. All ages are welcome.
Check out the list of books reviewed here: Rapid Reviews – June 4, 2025.

LEGO-Palooza
2025-06-05 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!

Moments in Time - Opening Reception
2025-06-06 15:30 - 17:30 | Main Reading Room
All are invited to an opening reception for Moments in Time, a collection of works by Vermonters with Dementia, on display in the library from June 4th through June 24th. Featuring remarks will be presented by Jeremy Aldridge, a Brattleboro resident who has four pieces in the exhibit and Representative Mollie Burke, a former art teacher.

Community Conversations with State Legislators
2025-06-07 10:30 - 12:00 | Main Reading Room
All are welcome to these monthly conversations with our Brattleboro State Legislators. Topics change monthly. At present, June’s main discussion will center on any pending legislation and highlights from the session. There will also be time for Legislators to respond to any general questions or concerns about current happenings in the state house.

Library Board of Trustees
2025-06-10 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

What's Cooking at Brooks?
2025-06-12 18:00 - 20:00 | Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The Friends of Brooks Memorial Library invite you to join us for a special after hours spring party where guests will explore the Library of Things collection by experiencing live cooking demonstrations and enjoying a grand selection of sweet and savory treats and refreshments.
The Library of Things is a collection of non-traditional items which can be borrowed from the library, such as kitchen and gardening tools, technology and electronics, memory kits, and even a telescope!
Take home some seeds for the garden and vote on new items to purchase for the Library of Things!
Admission is by donation. Everyone is welcome.

Sci-Fi Reading Group
2025-06-16 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 in the Quiet Reading Room from 7:00pm – 8:30pm to discuss The Resisters by Gish Jen!
The time: not so long from now. The place: AutoAmerica, a country surveilled by one “Aunt Nettie,” a Big Brother that is part artificial intelligence, part internet, and oddly human—even funny. The people: divided. The “angelfair” Netted have jobs and, what with the country half under water, literally occupy the high ground. The Surplus live on swampland if they’re lucky, on water if they’re not.
The story: To a Surplus couple—he once a professor, she still a lawyer—is born a girl, Gwen, with a golden arm. Her teens find her happily playing in an underground baseball league, but when AutoAmerica faces ChinRussia in the Olympics, Gwen finds herself in dangerous territory, playing ball with the Netted even as her mother battles this apartheid-like society in court.
The Sci-Fi Reading Group meets the third Monday of every month and is open to curious minds, whether or not they’ve read this month’s selection.

Exploring the Afterlife: Learning from Experts and Personal Experiences
2025-06-17 18:00 - 19:15 | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Have you had a near-death experience or communicated with a deceased loved one through a medium? Have you contemplated the possibility of reincarnation or had an experience about a past life? Do you wonder what awaits us in the afterlife? Western culture tends to dismiss or even disparage paranormal phenomena. But evidence is available to answer many questions about the afterlife.
In this five-part evening series on Tuesdays from June 17th to July 15th, we will do three things: 1) read books by experts on near-death experiences, scientific instruments and experiments in paranormal research, out-of-body experiences, and the work of reputable mediums; 2) raise questions and concerns about the evening’s topic; and 3) share personal experiences of paranormal phenomena in a safe environment. Each participant will choose a book from a provided list to report on. Participants are strongly encouraged to attend all sessions.
The group will be led by hospice chaplain and former social worker Diane Southard and Valerie Abrahamsen, author of Paranormal: A New Testament Scholar Looks at the Afterlife (2015).
Participants are encouraged to contact Valerie at www.wisdomwordsppf.org/contact/ as soon as possible to obtain the book list and additional information. Adults over 18 are invited!

SEVT Audubon Society
2025-06-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join South Eastern Vermont’s Audubon Society on for a monthly program featuring nature and the environment.

Friends of the Library
2025-06-18 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

Healthy Living for Brain & Body: Tips from the Latest Research
2025-06-18 18:30 - 19:30 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
June is Brain Health History Month! Join us for a presentation on lifestyle choices and their impact on the aging process. learn the latest research in the areas of diet and nutrition, exercise, cognitive activity and social engagement to bolster brain health, stay connected, and age well.
This event is part of a collaborative program with the Vermont Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association and Brooks Memorial Library – and all are welcome.

LIBRARY CLOSED
2025-06-19 10:00 - 21:00 | Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The library will be closed on June 19th in observation of Juneteenth.
