Falls of Schuylkill serves the community of East Falls with a variety of programs for all ages. Some select samples of programs offered this winter includes:
Author talk: Anna Engels, A Fool for an Heir. Tuesday, December 10 at 5:30 pm.
Chair exercise with Megan DoNascimento. Fridays in December at 11:00 am.
Weekly Falls Writing Group: Tuesdays at 5:30 pm.
Library Playgroup: Thursdays at 2:30 pm
First Annual Pokemon Winter Tournament: Monday, December 9 at 4:30 pm.
Valuing your Valuables: Wednesday, December 4 at 2:00 pm. Sponsored by East Falls Village.
Join the Friends! If not a member, consider joining. If a member – do you need to renew?
Membership applications can be found at the Library and on the Friends’ website. Already a member, but need to renew? PayPal makes it easy. Our dues are little but the rewards of becoming a member of the Friends of the Falls of Schuylkill Library are great! Funds raised by the Friends cover programs, materials, activities, furnishings building upgrades and much more at our Falls branch.
This past week in East Falls saw a transition from mild, above-average temperatures with mostly sunny skies to cooler, cloudier conditions with a noticeable drop in temperature by the end of the week. To many, this signals that Fall is swiftly moving toward winter! And this moment serves to offer up a good theme to focus on for my first Message from the President; “transitions…
✍️From the Desk of: Falls of Schuylkill Librarian, Jenn Estepp✍️
From the reference desk…
Hello, Friends! Let me begin my first column for The Catfish Chronicle with enthusiastic thanks. You all have given me such a lovely, heartfelt welcome to the Falls of Schuylkill Library and I’ve so enjoyed getting to know so many of you. For those of you whom I’ve not yet met, I hope you will drop into the library soon and say hello!
Perhaps you can swing by on a Saturday, after a morning at the Farmer’s Market, now that we have Saturday hours! I was so pleased to be asked to pen a regular feature for the newsletter…
Thank you to the Friends who came out to volunteer at the Friends table at the East Falls Fest on Saturday, October 19. Though I have to say, being at the table, among friends, listening to music and getting to know some neighbors from East Falls and beyond is not a bad way to spend an hour or two on a Saturday. The Festival, in general, was a great success and very well organized. So, kudos to the East Falls Development Corporation, East Falls Business Association + East Falls Community Council for organizing the event, and to Michelle Feldman, in particular, for her high energy and connectivity skills.
To all who volunteered, know your presence at our table made our organization visible to the community. While it was a pleasant day, it was also productive and successful.
We have:
🙋 10 new Friends members (3 people expressed interest in working with the Community Outreach and Engagement committee;1 with fundraising, 3 with membership, 2 with technology).
🙋 5 people signed up to get the Newsletter;
🙋 4 signed the Volunteer sign-up sheet.
⭐ We will be following up on this (if we have not done so already).
A big thank you for representing the Friends at the Fall Fest, and in general for your spirit of volunteerism. Thank you to: Emily Branch, Elizabeth Corea, Marie Filipponi, Martha Fuller, Jessica Herring, Beth Hymel, Angie Levy, Piyanut “La” Sripanawongsa and Ann Wiley. The Friends were well-represented at the Fall Fest. And a super big shout out to Grace Foster, our Children’s Librarian at Falls of Schuylkill who was at the library’s table next to ours and interacted all day long with parents, children and community residents who were thrilled to hear about the library opening for Saturday hours as of October 19, 2024. Please note that Falls of Schuylkill is now open on Saturdays from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.
🍂Fall Book Sale🍂
The Fall Book Sale was a success thanks to our wonderful volunteers and customers. We thank the volunteers who brought in numerous book donations, sorted the books, staffed the book sale daily, purchased books, and boxed the leftover books. We also thank the many satisfied customers who purchased the books. The fall sale made a profit of over $5000, with a record of sales set by book dealers purchases on our opening day. We look forward to continuing support and enthusiasm in the Spring for our Book and Bake Sale.
Thank you to everyone who made this book sale a success! A special thanks to Wendy Moody and Martha Fuller for their guidance.
-Beth Hymel and Ann Wiley
🎄Holiday Tree Sale Announcement🎄
The board of the Friends of the Falls of Schuylkill library would like to let you know that we are pausing the holiday tree sale for 2024.
The last few years of the tree sale have been up and down:
⛄ 2020 – as we searched for reasons to be joyful in the beginning of the pandemic, our trees sold out in record time.
🐜 2021 – an infestation destroyed the trees from many tree farms including the farm we work with for our pre-ordered trees.
🌲 2022 – like many businesses that sold trees, we had many trees left over and had a hard time donating and giving them away for free.
💲 2023 – we did sell out last year of the trees we had ordered and, in order to make trees financially accessible to people, we took a financial loss on selling the trees.
Please know that the Board is aware that the holiday tree sale is a meaningful experience for many people including those of us who volunteered for the sale.
There are two local and independent businesses we would like to mention as good places to purchase your holiday tree. As they are local, your money will stay in the area.
🛍️ Stanley’s Hardware in Roxborough has worked hand-in-hand with us over many years for the tree sale. In the years when we had extra trees left over that we could not sell, we reached out to Mark at Stanley’s and he bought them, at cost, from us. We did not lose money in those years because of Stanley’s Hardware.
We will revisit this next year to see whether it is feasible to do a holiday tree sale again in the future. As always, thank you for your support of the Friends.
🎵East Falls will host its annual Carol Sing in McMichael Park on Wednesday, December 18 at 7:00 p.m.🎵
It is always a lovely time singing Christmas carols by candlelight in the park followed by cookies and hot cider afterwards at the Presbyterian Church. And if we’re lucky again, a certain someone in a red suit may be driving by on a fire truck for the childrens’ pleasure.
This event is sponsored by the East Falls Community Council in collaboration with the Friends of the Falls of Schuylkill Library and the East Falls Presbyterian Church.
Anyone wishing to help by baking cookies or any hand-held baked item for the event can contact either member of the FFSL Hospitality team:
Wikipedia defines fiber art as “fine art whose material consist of natural or synthetic fiber and other components such as fabric or yarn.” We might quibble a bit with that definition. Because the focus is on the materials and on the manual labor by the person doing, it is thought to prioritize aesthetic value over utility. Those of us who knit, crochet, quilt, do embroidery, or needlepoint, and so on, value the utility of what we’re making along with the beauty and significance of each item.
Folks come to the Tuesday group for a variety of reasons – the camaraderie of the group, to sit for 2 hours with like-minded individuals, to ask questions if stuck on a problem, or to meet other like-minded Fiber Arts people.
For 2025, we are looking to expand some of what we do now that the Falls Branch is open on Saturdays from 10 am to 5 pm. When we have something planned, you’ll be able to read about it on the Friends social media feed on Instagram and Facebook, the Friends website, and the schedule of events for the Falls Branch on the Free Library web site.
This past Fall, 5 members of the Fiber Arts group knit and crocheted hats, mittens and scarves for the “Mittens for Ukraine” project. Donations were coordinated by a local knitter from the Liberty Bell Knitting Guild who collected items and mailed them to UuRAC, United Ukrainian American Relief Committee.
A member of the Fiber Arts Group donated a tote of crocheted baby blankets to Stenton Family Manor. Stenton provides social services and offers a homeless shelter to those in need of a place to stay.
There are many reasons to connect with a Fiber Arts group: camaraderie, creating beautiful objects, and making useful items, among others. We’d love to have you join us!
The Fiber Arts Group Meets EVERY Tuesday 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. (Main Room of the Library)
📚 Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time Series, Books 1-3 📚
Book Review by Patrick Hillanbrand
I purposefully avoided this series until I was in a good enough position to read it—especially since it contains a whopping fifteen entries. Waiting for the fifth Stormlight Archive book proved to be that point, as I’ve managed to knuckle down on the first three novels (The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn) of this titan of the fantasy genre.
For as far as I have read, Jordan’s strongest point is his worldbuilding, which is nearly on par to that of Tolkien. His magic system, while mysterious, is believable and rooted in lore that is easy to grasp. The Dark Lord Shai’tan, ripped straight from mythology and religions most familiar, poses a very real and visceral threat—one you can feel as you read from each character’s point of view. Every entry feels like a complete stopping point on its own, which I feel is a plus for most readers. Couple that with bits of info that fill in gaps in one’s memory and it becomes clear that Jordan caters to his audience loyally and with great care. We actively remember our heroes and we want to revel in their moments of glory at the end of each novel.
Jordan creates a myth all his own in his unnamed land under the guise of The Wheel of Time. Each book begins the same; spinning the yarn that the events described have happened before, are happening now, and may very well happen again as the wheel weaves it so. Rand al’Thor, a shepherd of the Two Rivers, begins our story on the cusp of a suspiciously cold spring and with the arrival of performers and traders for the festival of Bel Tine. He and his friends begin to suffer curious nightmares and hallucinations of a threatening rider in black, an ill omen according to the Aes Sedai and visiting sorceress Moiraine. As the story progresses, we learn of the rising of the long-sealed Dark One and his plot to return, the legend and rebirth of the Dragon—Lews Therin Telamon, and discover how Rand and his friends must embrace the will of the Light and the One Power to reshape and save the world.
In a tragic loss to the fantasy world, Robert Jordan died on September 16, 2007, leaving his life’s work unfinished. Fortunately, Brandon Sanderson picked up the reins and finished the series, extending it an additional three books and concluding with A Memory of Light in 2013. I am looking forward to reading his entries, but at around one thousand-pages per novel from the fourth book onward, I recommend this series to those with patience and time above all else. If you find yourself re-reading Tolkien and desire deep lore, may you find this series and dance with Jak o’ the Shadows as I have.
Self intro:
Patrick Hillanbrand comes from a history at the Roxborough and Springfield Township libraries and has a deep interest in writing all things weird and wonderful. He is currently working on his own novel for publication and enjoys balancing his reading habits somewhere between graphic novels, Charles Bukowski, and Brandon Sanderson.
📚 Alka Joshi’s, The Jaipur Trilogy 📚
Book Review by Lisa Meyers
The series begins with The Henna Artist. Set in post-colonial India in the 1950s, it follows the life of Lakshmi, a woman who leaves an abusive marriage, establishes a successful henna and herbal medicine business with a street-smart assistant and a sister she never knew she had at her side. Her clientele are the most influential families in the city of Jaipur. As the characters of the story are introduced and developed, the reader gets a sense of how traditional and conservative Indian thinking clashed with Westernized modern thinking.
There is an understanding of how the caste system defines and determines a person’s life, and above all how shrewd and clever one must be to forge alliances and be “admitted” into the social circles of the gossiping elite only to be betrayed and lose everything.
The second book, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, continues the story of Lakshmi, her assistant Malik and her sister Radha into the next decade. Recovering from their setbacks and loss in the previous book, opportunities are presented to the three main characters to “begin again” …. along with more secrets to be kept, bargains to be made and lies to be exposed, grudges to hold and forgiveness to be given.
The final book in the series, The Perfumist of Paris is the story of Radha, Lakshmi’s sister and her life in Paris in the 1970s. She regrets a mistake she made as a young woman but has done her best to move on. She has become acclimated into French culture while trying to maintain her Indian heritage. She too experiences betrayal in her profession. Sometimes people are not what they seem to be, and Radha learns this the hard way and is eventually forced to confront the secret she tried so hard to hide.
Resilience- this is what our 3 main characters show to the reader throughout the series. Can these books be read as stand-alone novels? I suppose they could but not without sacrificing a complete understanding and appreciation of their individual stories. All three books are rich in detail about Indian life, customs, food and language. The author even includes a dictionary of Indian words and expressions, and recipes of Indian foods. I hope to see these books in our library soon and our patrons reading them!
Self intro:
Lisa Myers has been on staff at Falls since April 2023. She is an avid backpacker and naturalist with interests in mycology and geology. Her work experience includes education, retail and electronics. She is looking forward to retirement and traveling to all the national parks.
⛄Winter 2025 Calendar of Events⛄
The library has multiple free programs this winter with programs for all ages.
Latvian-born author Anna Engels will discuss her book, A Fool for an Heir. This fictionalized biography chronicles the rise of the first Russian autocrat, Ivan III through the eyes of his son, the boy whose life inspired the legend of “Ivan Tsarevich,” the brave, compassionate, and dangerously naïve hero of Russian fairy tales. Join us, as the author leads us though a journey into the dark and brutal 15th century.
Engels, who teaches at Villanova University, will read a brief excerpt and discuss her process as a writer. This will be followed by an audience Q&A. For those interested in buying the book, copies of her book will be on hand for the author to sign. All proceeds from her book go to United Help Ukraine!
Downstairs meeting room. Please use the Midvale Avenue entrance. Light refreshments will be served.
✍️Author Event
Ken Kalfus
2 A.M. in Little America
Sat., January 18
3:00 PM
Kalfus is a local author and journalist. Three of his books have been named New York Times Notable Books of the Year.
Brimming with mystery, suspense, and distinctive comic irony, 2 A.M. in Little America poses several questions vital to the current moment: What happens when privilege is reversed? Who is watching and why? How do tribalized politics disrupt our ability to distinguish what is true and what is not? This is a story for our time—gripping, unsettling, prescient.
Join us in the downstairs Meeting Room for an event which is sure to prompt food for thought and lively discussion! Light refreshments will be served.
✍️Author Event
Amy Jane Cohen
Black History in the Philadelphia Landscape: Deep Roots, Continuing Legacy
Sat., February 22
3:00 PM
Amy Cohen is an educator, historian, and writer. After twenty years teaching social studies, she became Director of Education for History Making Productions and is a contributing writer for Hidden City Philadelphia.
Black Philadelphians have shaped Philadelphia history since colonial times. In Black History in the Philadelphia Landscape, Cohen recounts notable aspects of the Black experience in Philadelphia from the late 1600s to the 1960s and how this history is marked in the contemporary city.
Cohen charts Charles Blockson’s efforts to commemorate the Pennsylvania slave trade with a historical marker and highlights Richard Allen, who founded Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church. Cohen also profiles international celebrities Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson. Join us as we celebrate important cultural heritage.
This event is co-sponsored by The East Falls Historical Society (EFHS) and the Friends of Falls of Schuylkill Library (FFSL).The event will be held in the downstairs meeting room. Please use the Midvale Avenue entrance. Light refreshments will be served.
🎲 Community Game Night 🎲
Tues., December 17 at 5:30 p.m.
⭐NEW⭐ Board Game Cafe, Saturdays, January 11 & February 8 at 2:00 p.m.
Enjoy board games? Looking to socialize? Meet up with nieghbors?
We have many games on hand eg: Scrabble, Chess, Pictionary and Mah Jong, but feel free to bring your favorite game. Facilitated by co-hostesses Penny Scott and La Sripanawongsa.
Game events meet in the downstairs Meeting Room (use Midvale Ave entrance). Light refreshments provided, or feel free to bring your own snacks.
🙆Chair Exercise
Fridays, Dec. 6, 13, 20, & 27 at 11:00 a.m.🙆
Chair exercise allows you to work out while seated or using a chair for balance which offers the same benefits like boosting strength, flexibility and mental well-being. We will also work on stretching, balance and relaxation. Enjoy the calm, peace, and self-acceptance that exercise brings no matter what shape you are in. This class is taught by Megan Do Nascimento, who has taught extensively in the area. For adults of all ability and skill levels. Please dress comfortably (and bring water to hydrate). This program will be held downstairs in the meeting room. Please use the Midvale Avenue entrance.
✂️Fiber Arts Group Meets EVERY Tuesday
2:00-4:00 PM (Main Room)✂️
Looking to share your crafts project or project ideas with other creatives? Stop by the Library – bring a portable craft project that you are working on, or just come, watch and learn from others who are passionate about their projects. All are welcome.
🕵️Mystery, Murder and Mayhem!🕵️
A NEW Monthly Mystery Book Club
Mystery, Murder and Mayhem! ALL ARE WELCOME!
Mystery Book Club meetings are on the second Tuesdays of the month @ 4:00 pm.: December 10, January 14 and February 11.
Book picks for this winter are: 🔍Cemetery Roadby Greg Iles (Dec). 🔍Open Seasonby Archer Mayor (Jan).
Join the Falls Book Club – one of the Free Library’s longest running programs.
The group is open to all and new members are welcome. For more information, please reach out to Jenn Estepp, the Branch Manager. The book selections for the winter will be:
Our Book Club meets generally on the last Monday of the month, 5:30 pm. in the downstairs meeting room. Please use the Midvale entrance.
🏃Qigong – Fridays in January: 2, 9, 16, & 23 at 11:00 a.m.🏃
Start the new year – relaxed, stress-free and strong…with Qigong.
Experience a sense of well-being with the calming, nourishing practice of Qigong (chee-gong). With gentle movements, deep breathing, and self-massage, find yourself feeling less stressed and more energized. This meditative practice improves flexibility and balance, and is beneficial to your body, breath, and spirit.
The movements are easy to do, and beginners as well as those familiar with Qigong are welcome. No special equipment required—just dress comfortably. Qigong can be done standing or seated, your choice. Simply come prepared to dedicate this time to YOU! Held in the downstairs Meeting Room (please use Midvale Avenue entrance).
Qigong sessions are taught by Eileen Kelsall who has been practicing, studying, and teaching Qigong for the past ten years. She has led Qigong programs for MALT, on Zoom and in the area. She finds immense joy in sharing this special practice and inspiring others to make Qigong a way of life!
Friends of the Falls of Schuylkill Library
Officers
Jenna Musket, President
Neha Pancholi, Vice President
Ann Wiley, Treasurer
Mary Jean Cunningham, Recording Secretary
Jenn Estepp, Branch Librarian, ex-officio
Join the friends!
Ensure the library remains a vital center of lifelong learning for all the members of our East Falls community.
