"Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one." --Unknown "Are we going to be friends forever? Asked Piglet. Even longer, Pooh answered." --A. A. Milne Winnie the Pooh "Friends are the bacon bits in the salad bowl of life." --Unknown "I get by with a little help from my friends." --John Lennon The above "friendship" quotes are to remind you that it is time to renew your membership to the Friends of Library. If you’re not a member, we’d love to have you as a Friend. The Friends support the library in many ways. (In the cookies of life, Friends are the chocolate chips.) They raise money for us to purchase equipment, furniture, and library materials that the library budget cannot cover. The Friends provide volunteers for story hours, field trips, and special programs. They organize the annual book sale. The Friends like books. They like librarians. And they care about the Library. You can be one of our Friends. When you check a book out during April, we will include a membership form with your date due slip. If you would like to join, just fill in the form and make out a check for the membership dues. Individuals are $10. Families are $15. Business/Organizations are $25. The Friends of the Library is a non-profit organization and your gift is tax deductible. New on the shelf this week is "Nighttime is My Time," by best-selling author, Mary Higgins Clark. "The definition of an owl had always pleased him: a night bird of prey ... sharp talons and soft plumage which permits noiseless flight ... applied figuratively to a person of nocturnal habits. 'I am The Owl,' he would whisper to himself after he had selected his prey, 'and nighttime is my time.'" Jean Sheridan, a college dean and prominent historian, sets out to her hometown to attend the 20-year reunion of Stonecroft Academy alumni, where she is to be honored along with six other members of her class. There is something uneasy in the air: one woman in the group, Alison Kendall, a beautiful, high-powered Hollywood agent, drowned in her pool during an early-morning swim. Alison is the fifth woman in the class whose life has come to a sudden, mysterious end. Adding to Jean's sense of unease is a taunting, anonymous fax she received, referring to her daughter — a child she had given up for adoption 20 years ago. At the award dinner, Jean is introduced to Sam Deegan, a detective obsessed by the unsolved murder of a young woman who may hold the key to the identity of the Stonecroft killer. Jean does not suspect that among the distinguished people she is greeting is "The Owl," a murderer nearing the countdown on his mission of vengeance against the Stonecroft women who had mocked and humiliated him, with Jean as his final victim. Also new on the shelf is David Ellis‚ "Jury of One." Shelly Trotter, the daughter of the state's governor and a children's-rights advocate, is thrust into a world in which she's completely unschooled — the criminal court. The defendant is a 17-year-old former client who is accused of killing a cop. Shelly soon learns that this boy was caught in the middle of an undercover operation to trap corrupt officers. But what was his role in the sting? And what does the prosecution really have against him? Then comes the shocker: The boy says he is the son she gave up for adoption, kept hush-hush by her father, who had political ambitions beyond their small town. As the evidence mounts, Shelly finds that nothing — not legal ethics, not her father's reelection campaign, nothing will stop her from keeping her son off death row.
