Stonington Public Library

Music with Abby – a Pre-K program
2025-03-25 11:00 - 11:30, 2025-05-27 11:00 - 11:30 (America/New_York) | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Let’s get musical! Explore rhythm and music with island singer, songwriter, and musician Abby Litman on the fourth Tuesday of every month at 11am. Kids won’t be hushed for making noise in the library. In fact, they’ll be encouraged.

Build Your Own Board Game!
2025-03-29 12:00 - 14:00 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Do you have a knack for design, math, art, or Dungeons & Dragons? Then join Jordan in making your very own board game this winter. By the end of the workshop, you will have a game that you can take home and force your friends and family to play! All ages.
The workshop will meet on Saturday, February 15th and March 1st, 15th, and 29th from 12-2pm. It will be offered in person at SPL.
Jordan Ramsey is an active member of the board game community of Deer Isle. He volunteers at the Deer Isle-Stonington After School Program and leads board game afternoons at the Island Community Center on Sunday afternoons. He has also created a handful of his own games that he and his friends playtest once a month.

Read with Tenny – a Pre-K program
2025-04-08 11:00 - 11:30, 2025-05-13 11:00 - 11:30 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Visit and read with certified therapy dog, Tenny, on the second Tuesday of every month at 11am. His person, Jessica Shively, will bring him by SPL to meet some of our youngest patrons and their families. It’s a chance for kids to learn new ways of interacting with a dog and with each other in a (loosely) structured activity. Tenny is a 3 year old, 105 pound Great Pyrenees mix who grew up on the Maine coast. He loves love and sharing it with other people. His human, Jessica, moved to Stonington from Castine in the summer and spends her days beachcombing with Tenny and exploring new hiking trails.

Story Time
2025-04-12 10:00 - 11:00 | ME
Monthly story time with hands-on activity. Fun for kids of all ages!
SPL hosts story time on the second Saturday of every month from 10-11am. Check our website or social media (@stoningtonpublicllibrary) for details, because we often go offsite to various island locations for story time.

The Serviceberry - A Public Conversation
2025-04-16 18:00 - 19:30 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
We continue our public conversation series with a discussion of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s newest book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World,with the option to join in person or via Zoom. Co-hosted by SPL and Linda Nelson, Stonington economic and community development director. RSVP to email address below.

The Great Down-Easter Egg Celebration
2025-04-19 07:00 - 13:00 | Island Community Center, 10 Memorial Ln, Stonington, ME, 04681
Come enjoy a Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser from 7am to 10am at the Island Community Center and stay to pick up an Easter bucket for each child. Families can then parade down Pink St. toward downtown with stops at area businesses and Stonington Public Library. End the morning at the Opera House for a free movie showing.

Rosswords: Crossword Tournament Recap
2025-04-27 13:00 - 15:00 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Join Chris Ross for a recap of the 2025 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament followed by a group solve of one or more tournament puzzles. Nearly 900 competitors convened in Stamford, CT on Saturday and Sunday, April 5 and 6, to test their crosswor-thiness across 7 crosswords constructed by some of the best in the business. All welcome, no registration required.

Reader's Choice: American Born Chinese
2025-04-28 18:30 - 19:30 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Reader’s Choice: Pat Dobbs
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
MILS catalog record
“All Jin Wang wants is to fit in. When his family moves to a new neighborhood, he suddenly finds he’s the only Chinese-American student at his school. • Born to rule over all the monkeys in the world, the story of the Monkey King is one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables. But the Monkey King…wants to be hailed as a god. • Chin-Kee is the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, and he’s ruining his cousin Danny’s life. These three apparently unrelated tales come together with an unexpected twist, in a modern fable that is hilarious, poignant, and action-packed.” – From cover flap
About Pat
Hometown: New York City and Madison, NJ.
Current residence: Stonington, Maine.
Connection to the island: I came to the island for one week each summer for about 40 years until I moved here full time. My sister, Nancy Greene, is also on the island and part of what drew me here.
Why do you read? I love to learn, and I love to go to another place.
What genre do you hate to read? Hmm…probably science fiction and fantasy. But the truth is, it’s not that I hate them. Rather, I’ve never been drawn to them.
Last book you LOVED: I’m a Maisie Dobbs devotee. I loved the latest in the series, The Comfort of Ghosts.
Currently reading: The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. It’s really good.
Why did you choose American Born Chinese? The author beautifully talks about self acceptance and racism by weaving three separate stories together. You can just have fun with the stories, but you can also go deeper and learn about yourself from these stories.

Alewife Story Time
2025-05-10 10:00 - 11:00 | ME
Change of plans: tomorrow’s story time, Sat 5/10, will be at SPL at 10am. Mike Thalhauser from MCCF will still be joining us and will read-aloud an alewife picture book. Then he’ll lead a fish print activity, and participants can take home their own fish print t-shirts. Bring a t-shirt, if you got one to use. We’ll have a small number of t-shirts on hand.
SPL hosts story time on the second Saturday of every month from 10-11am. Check our website or social media (@stoningtonpublicllibrary) for details, because we often go offsite to various island locations for story time.

Downeast Restorative Justice Community Info Session
2025-05-14 17:00 - 19:00 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Are you curious to know more about Restorative Practices? Looking for a volunteer opportunity to help support youth in your community? Interested in becoming a trained facilitator?
Downeast Restorative Justice is a local non-profit working in communities and schools to help bring people together and promote social healing. Join us for this community info-session to learn more about what Restorative Practices are, about what our community programs are, and about the different ways you can be involved.
Our info sessions are always followed by an opportunity to take part in training, whether this is to work with us as a volunteer, or for yourself, to bring restorative practices into your work, school, or personal community.
Hybrid options on Zoom are available by pre-registration at, all@downeastrestorativejustice.org

Story Time Aboard the Otter
2025-05-17 11:00 - 12:00 | Isle au Haut Boat Company, 37 Seabreeze Avenue, Stonington, Maine, 04681
Come aboard the Otter, an Isle au Haut mailboat, for a spin around Stonington Harbor and a read-aloud picture book chosen and read by Captain Garret Aldrich. It’s become an annual tradition for Captain Aldrich to lead this trip for Stonington Public Library. Contact SPL at phone or email below to register.
Wings, Waves & Woods Festival will take place May 14-18, 2025. The full schedule of events will be announced in March on the Island Heritage Trust website.

Carol Walsh Exhibit Reception
2025-05-31 14:00 - 16:00 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Carol Walsh, a Stonington resident and avid photographer, is hosting a reception on Saturday, May 31, from 2-4pm for her photography exhibits at Stonington Public Library. Light refreshments and beverages will be served, and live music will be performed by Rugosa Rose.
The first exhibit, Look Up, is a series depicting New England church spires. Her photographs are taken with little to no context, encouraging the viewer to study the architecture and inspiring you to find your own spires. Look Up is on exhibit during library hours through Saturday, June 7.
The second exhibit, Photographs of Indigenous Basketry, are baskets from the Southwest, California, and Northwest from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University, where Carol studied indigenous textiles in the 1970s. This exhibit will be on display from Tuesday, June 10 to Saturday, July 12.
Follow Carol’s adventures through photography on Instagram.

Rosswords: Sunday Solve
2025-06-01 13:00 - 14:00, 2025-07-06 13:00 - 14:00 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Grab your pencils and sharpen your minds! Join Chris Ross for a group crossword solve on the first Sunday of every month. All welcome.

Reader's Choice: The Berry Pickers
2025-06-02 18:30 - 19:30 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Reader’s Choice: Morgan Witham
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
MILS catalog record
“July 1962. Following in the tradition of Indigenous workers from Nova Scotia, a Mi’kmaq family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.” – From publisher website
About Morgan
Hometown: Little Deer Isle, Maine.
Current residence and connection to the island: While I am a direct descendant of Jonathan Torrey, one of the island’s first settlers, my branch of the family migrated to Winter Harbor in the 1800s, didn’t move back to the island until I was the ripe old age of 18 months in 1981—when my uncle was hired to teach art at DI-S High School. So I grew up here, and attended the schools, though eventually transferred to the Maine School of Science and Mathematics after my sophomore year. My family moved off island in ‘05, and I never expected to return to live here. Plot twist: I got a job on Isle au Haut and spent almost five years there, which was my back door into returning to the Deer Isle-Stonington community. I bought my house in 2012, and have been living here year-round ever since, primarily working in the schools.
Why do you read? In my late 20s I moved from being a fiction addict to a non-fiction glutton. I am a sucker for biography, memoir, health/well being, Eastern European history, the history of science, religion, philosophy, sexuality, math, the social sciences, American history…I love learning how people have spent their lives as a means of figuring out how to invest mine. For escapism I read murder mysteries/police procedurals…usually British.
What genre do you hate to read? Anything having to do with organized crime, unless it happened to be a part of a political regime (in which case it becomes a genre I am more likely to read about than not).
Last book you LOVED: The Sandman audiobook series by Neil Gaiman.
Currently reading: The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times by Wolfram Eilenberger.
Why did you choose The Berry Pickers? Because I needed to pick fiction [for the book club prompt] I surveyed family and friends, and this was on the recommendation of my mother—she’s a pretty clever person, and I always want more windows into understanding the dynamics of this region we call home.

Community Play and Learn
2025-06-06 10:00 - 11:30, 2025-06-13 10:00 - 11:30 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Caregivers and children 5 and under are welcome to join Community Play and Learn programs hosted by First 10 and Deer Isle Adult & Community Education! Enjoy music, movement, reading together, and snack time. Each Community Play and Learn program will highlight a different community resource for families. You don’t need to sign up, but if you have any questions, email First 10 community school outreach coordinator Melissa: mbayley@su76.org.
For the full schedule of Community Play and Learn events, visit the Deer Isle Adult & Community Education Facebook events page.

Read with Tenny – a Pre-K program
2025-06-10 11:00 - 11:30, 2025-07-08 11:00 - 11:30 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Visit and read with certified therapy dog, Tenny, on the second Tuesday of every month at 11am. His person, Jessica Shively, will bring him by SPL to meet some of our youngest patrons and their families. It’s a chance for kids to learn new ways of interacting with a dog and with each other in a (loosely) structured activity. Tenny is a 3 year old, 105 pound Great Pyrenees mix who grew up on the Maine coast. He loves love and sharing it with other people. His human, Jessica, moved to Stonington from Castine in the summer and spends her days beachcombing with Tenny and exploring new hiking trails. Follow Tenny and Jessica on Instagram.

Summer Art Story Time
2025-06-14 10:00 - 11:00, 2025-07-12 10:00 - 11:00 | Small Cove Park, 6 Atlantic Avenue, Stonington, ME, 04681
Island artists lead our summer story time series with read-aloud stories and art activities for kids and their families.We are heading outdoors to Small Cove Park, a few short steps from SPL at 6 Atlantic Avenue (right behind Camden National Bank), to take advantage of the fresh air and natural beauty. All ages welcome.
June 14: Jill Hoy
July 12: Jadyn LaDeau
August 9: Matthew Moncavage
The rain venue for all story time programs is SPL, 64 Main Street.
SPL hosts story time on the second Saturday of every month from 10-11am. Check our website or social media (@stoningtonpublicllibrary) for details, because we often go offsite to various island locations for story time.

Author Talk: On Harbor's Edge by Kate Hotchkiss
2025-06-16 16:00 - 18:00 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Meet Kate Hotchkiss, the author of On Harbor’s Edge, over light bites and beverages starting at 4pm and stick around for a reading and Q&A at 5pm. On Harbor’s Edge will be available to purchase from Blue Hill Books, and the author will sign books at the end of the program.
Acclaimed by bestselling historical novelist Bernard Cornwell, On Harbor’s Edge, Book Two: 1914–1930s is “a gripping standalone tale that transports readers into one of history’s most turbulent times.” With World War I and social upheavals impacting both the beloved and contentious figures of Hale Harbor, this captivating Maine island drama builds on the popular standalone story of book one.
Kate is author of On Harbor’s Edge, a series of generational layered tales from 1912 to the present, set against the backdrop of coastal imagery award-winning author Susan Conley describes as “so rich it is its own character.”
Kate’s United Nations, business, and government career spans Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. In addition to authoring the On Harbor’s Edge series and freelance writing for magazines and newspapers, she is an impact advisor working for a safer, healthier world. Kate is a member of Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.
Kate raised sensational sons and empty nests with her handsome husband and spirited grandpup. As a child, she discovered the magic of islands when discovering a pouch that protects a shark or skate embryo—a mermaid’s purse. Learn more about Kate on her website.

Puffin Story Time & Craft
2025-06-21 11:00 - 12:00 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Come for a special Puffin story time and craft at SPL to celebrate Puffin Pride & Passages. Martin Jenkins and Jenni Desmond’s Puffin lets young readers “discover the intriguing world of this charming bird.”
“Everyone recognizes the puffin, with its black and white feathers and brightly colored bill. But how does the puffin live? What happens down in its burrow? And how do the male and female share the task of feeding and caring for their young?” (Provided by the publisher)
Puffin Pride & Passages runs from June 18-22. Follow on Facebook for a schedule of events.

Reader's Choice: Starter Villain
2025-06-23 18:30 - 19:30 | Zoom, Virtual
Reader’s Choice: Shannon Lindsay
Monthly SPL book club that meets on Zoom. Contact SPL at email below to join the book club mailing list.
Starter Villain by John Scalzi
MILS catalog record (SPL copy on order)
“Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place. Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn’t all giant laser death rays and lava pits.” – From publisher website
About Shannon
Hometown: I was born in Calgary, Alberta, but really consider Maine to be the place I come home to.
Current residence: Deer Isle, Maine.
Connection to the island: I came to the island in 2021 as a winter renter in Stonington without having ever been to the island. Everyone said it was beautiful here, but I literally gasped when I crossed the causeway. Now I’ll never leave.
Why do you read? I read to learn, to escape and to imagine the world differently.
What genre do you hate to read? Anything with too much fighting or cruelty. No escape there.
Last book you LOVED: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley.
Currently reading: You Only Call When You’re in Trouble by Stephen McCauley. (MEH.)
Why did you choose Starter Villain? My sister-in-law is a librarian, and recommended this book because it’s so funny and quirky and weird. (Also, CATS!) She knows my taste well.

Seaside Series: Jonathan Fisher House
2025-07-02 12:00 - 13:00 | Small Cove Park, 6 Atlantic Avenue, Stonington, ME, 04681
Traditional Door Joining Demonstration
Nevan Carling, a board member at the Jonathan Fisher House in Blue Hill, will present a demonstration of traditional door joining using historical tools and techniques.
How did one build a door from raw materials before power tools? Early white settlers in the region, such as Rev. Jonathan Fisher of Blue Hill, used hand tools to convert the natural materials around them into their homes. Nevan will demonstrate the techniques used back in the 18th and 19th centuries, which are still alive in traditional building today. Nevan Carling is a preservation timber framer specializing in the research and repair of historic buildings.
The Fisher House, located at 44 Mines Road in Blue Hill, is a plank-on-frame home built in 1814 by Rev. Jonathan Fisher, Blue Hill’s first settled minister. Today the house is preserved as a museum, and is open for tours Wednesday-Saturday from 1-4pm with no appointment needed, through the summer. Fisher, a polymath with many talents, designed and built much of the house himself, as well as the tools used to create it and the furnishings housed within. He was also a talented artist, writer, linguist, theologian, and scientist. Learn more about Jonathan Fisher and the Fisher House on their website and Instagram.
The rain venue for all Seaside Series programs is SPL, 64 Main Street.

Seaside Series: Christopher Scott Brumfield
2025-07-09 12:00 - 13:00 | Small Cove Park, 6 Atlantic Avenue, Stonington, ME, 04681
The Seaweed and the Clay
The artist will create slab built ceramic pots using seaweed for imprinted decoration. Basics of slab building and printing on clay will be covered.
Christopher Scott Brumfield is an artist, art teacher, and writer from South Louisiana. His favorite artistic medium is clay, but he works in whatever material he feels at the time. His work includes large-scale outdoor installations, rooftop installations of ceramic cities, gallery shows, ongoing photo projects around the world, and ephemeral work based in nature. Since finishing graduate school in 2001, Brumfield has had fourteen solo shows and many hundreds of group shows. He currently divides his time between Blue Hill, Maine and Baton Rouge, Louisiana and shares his life with his husband, three dogs, two cats and many house plants.
Brumfield can be found on his website at www.christophersblues.com or swimming in the nearest body of water.
The rain venue for all Seaside Series programs is SPL, 64 Main Street.

Writing Historical Fiction
2025-07-12 13:00 - 15:00 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
This is a three-day course focused on generating—rather than simply workshopping—historical fiction. Using writing prompts and exercises, assignments, readings, and self-directed research, participants will leave the course with the seeds for larger writing projects. We’ll discuss the purpose of and place for historical fiction today, and how stories can transcend time altogether.
The class meet from 1-3pm on Saturday and Sunday, July 12 and 13, and from 9-11am on Monday, July 14.
$225 – Email SPL to register. We will keep a short waitlist in case of any cancellations.
About the Instructor
Ben Shattuck’s most recent book, The History of Sound (Viking, 2024), was the winner of the Story Prize Spotlight Award and nominated for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. His first book, Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau (2022), was a New Yorker Best Book of 2022, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of Spring, a New York Times Best Book of Summer, a New England Indie Bestseller, and was nominated for the Massachusetts Book Award. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and winner of the PEN Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and a Pushcart Prize. He lives with his wife and daughter on the coast of Massachusetts, where he owns and runs the oldest general store in America, built in 1793. Read more about Ben on his website and Instagram.

Ben Shattuck Reading & Reception
2025-07-12 15:30 - 17:00 | Stonington Public Library, 64 Main Street, Stonington, ME, 04681
Join Ben Shattuck at SPL for a reading from The History of Sound and a reception with light bites and beverages. The History of Sound will be available to purchase from Blue Hill Books, and the author will sign books at the end of the program.
Read more about Ben on his website and Instagram.
