Unreadable Podcast Transcript - Summer 2026

In this episode, Ross speaks with Sarah Brubaker, Programming Manager at FCPL, about this year's Summer Reading Challenge: Unearth a Story. The Summer Reading Challenge will run from May 22 to August 5 and will feature a variety of awesome programs and grand prizes. Make sure to check out all the activities going on across the branches on our website or in the printed Summer 2026 Magazine available at all branches.

Post Road Petpalooza

The Post Road Petpalooza has wrapped up and that can only mean one thing: we have a winner! After hundreds of patron votes and some intense competition, a winner has been announced. We ended the bracket with the age-old debate: cats versus dogs. This year the dogs took the crown. We are happy to announce that this year’s winner is Ruthie, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi!

Ruthie, the winner of this year’s Post Road Pet Palooza!

It is our imperative as librarians to recommend some pet-themed books, in honor of our winning pet. Animals are warm and cozy, so here are some cozy mysteries featuring animals that you may want to check out.

Ruthie can’t read, but if she could, she would recommend the Chatty Corgi Mysteries by Jennifer Hawkins. This series stars Emma Reed, a former woman in finance that wants to leave her busy life in London behind, and her talking corgi, Oliver. When they move to the countryside and attempt to win over the landlord that doesn’t like dogs, they quickly discover the woman dead in her own home. Emma and Oliver must work together and figure out who killed her…

Next are Donna Andrews’s bird-themed Meg Langslow Mysteries. Our protagonist is a successful decorative blacksmith that also happens to be great at sleuthing. Every book involves the titular bird of the book, and includes gems of titles like Lord of the Wings and Gone Gull. She even includes different holidays in her series, so there is a Meg Langslow book to read at any time of the year!

Combining two things every librarian loves: books and cats, we have to include the Bookmobile Cat Mysteries by Laurie Cass! Librarian Minnie Hamilton is the driver of a bookmobile in the resort town of Chilson, Michigan, and her cat Eddie comes along with her on the journey to deliver books to its residents and vacationers. Unfortunately, things are not as simple as they seem around town and murder mysteries must be solved.

Mrs. Murphy the cat, her human companion Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen, and Welsh Corgi Tucker are the stars of the Mrs. Murphy Mysteries, which posits that our animal companions are just as smart as we are. Harry often starts to investigate what exactly happened to the murder victims around her. The good news is that Mrs. Murphy and Tucker are usually one step ahead of her and already sleuthing. The bad news is that they have to figure out how to communicate with their owner to tell her what they know. Can they do it? You’ll have to read the books to find out!

This was a fierce competition and some tough choices were made, but everyone had fun seeing which pets got to move on in the bracket. Thank you to everyone who voted in this year’s Post Road Petpalooza!

We hope you enjoyed today’s post, and let us know in the comments if you have any favorite animal-themed books to recommend!

Sarah Spiller

Information Specialist

Post Road Library

Lions and Tigers and Haikus - Oh my!

April is National Poetry Month, and this year Katie, a Collection Support Aide at the Hampton Park Library, created an endcap in our Juvenile section about animal haikus.

 

A haiku is a style of poetry created in Japan. These short poems consist of three lines, and each line has a required amount of syllables. Typically, the poem is a line with 5 syllables, a line with 7 syllables, and a line with 5 syllables. For example,

Hampton Park, the place
of creativity and
written word wonders.

-Kayla

Katie’s endcap encouraged visitors to take a moment and write a haiku about an animal. We were so delighted by everyone’s haikus that we wanted to share some of our favorites with all of you. 

I love to pet my 

Small furry cute puppy dog

As she snuggles close

The turtle is slow

But it always wins the race

Go, go turtle go

Dragons are [fierce] and powerful

And thats all I have to 

Say

Love Evelyn

Giraffes are the best

Their long necks make them super

Gentle giant friends

-Reagan C.

[Kitty] in the sun

Sleeping, playing, having fun

Fuzzy little one

-Emma

Duck haiku

Ducks are [fantastic].

They like to waddle and bathe

But can’t live in a cave.

-Maggie

The python slithers

Through the forest gleefully

It’s looking for food

We appreciate everyone who wrote a poem or stopped to read a poem from a fellow library patron. We hope it brought a little bit of joy to your day!