“The Power” by Naomi Alderman. Books are now available to borrow at Latham or Peabody Libraries. All are welcome.

Latham Library’s annual Holiday Book Sale happens on the same day as the Holiday Craft Fair at Thetford Academy.  Come shop our great selection of new, lightly used, and vintage books for adults and children, movies on DVD, music and audiobooks on CD, puzzles and games, and more!  Great prices at $1 for paperbacks and $2 for hardcovers and half price for children’s books (special items are priced higher).  From 1:00-3:00 there will be a bag sale: $5/bag for regularly priced books (does not include specially priced books, DVDs, and audiobooks).

Thetford author Dean Whitlock reads from his new young adult fantasy novel, The Arrow Rune!  Signed books will be for sale.
Ed Lewis is sick of being dragged to Medieval Faires, sick of helping his uncle make bows, of minding the store, of translating his mute mother’s sign language as she reads runes for the faire-goers. Only one thing makes him come this time, a chance to impress a certain young woman by winning the archery tournament. Then he discovers an ancient, rune-marked arrowhead tucked in his bedroll. Embarrassed by losing the tournament, he buries himself in making an arrow for his find. What he creates is a gate-key to another world locked in battle between his mother’s people and a Briton war chief and druid witch. It’s the world where his father was lost, where mad harpers pluck illusions from their tunes, and Beowulf’s saga is fresh and real. Facing magic and war, Ed finds that skill, wit, friendship, and a healthy dose of fear will solve riddles that reveal the true nature of life and death.

Come play one of our board games or bring your own!  All ages are welcome.  Pizza will be served.  If you would like pizza, please RSVP to librarians@thetfordlibrary.org.

Thetford author Maurice Crandall reads from his new book, These People Have Always Been a Republic: Indigenous Electorates in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1598-1912

Spanning three hundred years and the colonial regimes of Spain, Mexico, and the United States, Maurice S. Crandall’s sweeping history of Native American political rights in what is now New Mexico, Arizona, and Sonora demonstrates how Indigenous communities implemented, subverted, rejected, and indigenized colonial ideologies of democracy, both to accommodate and to oppose colonial power.

Focusing on four groups–Pueblos in New Mexico, Hopis in northern Arizona, and Tohono O’odhams and Yaquis in Arizona/Sonora–Crandall reveals the ways Indigenous peoples absorbed and adapted colonially imposed forms of politics to exercise sovereignty based on localized political, economic, and social needs. Using sources that include oral histories and multinational archives, this book allows us to compare Spanish, Mexican, and American conceptions of Indian citizenship, and adds to our understanding of the centuries-long struggle of Indigenous groups to assert their sovereignty in the face of settler colonial rule.

Maurice S. Crandall (Yavapai-Apache Nation) is assistant professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College.